BROKEN HEARTS & TROUBLED MINDS

The Azerbaijani alpaca from Walla-Walla, Washington is back for another impulsive foray into their somewhat oblique take on progressive rock, a potent concoction marinated in Zappa-esque zaniness, beyond northern California laid-back hippieness, experimental (forget it, just plain mental) 22nd Century schizoid jazz and a strong hectoring of well-founded norms. They take that old classic paper envelope and lick it dry as the deserted regions near Brewster, WA. Rick Whitehurst is an avid fan of progressive rock, way above being a multi-instrumentalist and thus, has a very broad-minded appreciation of contemporary music. I am sure his personal tastes can vary from ABC to Yello, within the narrow space of a heartbeat.

"I Live in the Country" shuttles the road towards Mount Rainier, and beyond, a landscape that titillates the eyes, veering up to Wenatchee and Lake Chelan (places I had visited), sprinkled with a cinematographic tumbleweed of sounds and effects, laden with twangy guitar strokes, metronome knocks and a distant vocal two steps from Stan Ridgway and his Wall of Voodoo style, a sinuous saxophone interfering with a near sopoforic keyboard dangle. It could have been a tune on the soundtrack for the original Andromeda Strain flick, missing only a hysterical newborn, a drunk and a couple of vultures. A stunning opener, hotdiggidydog! Ya want weirder? Okay. "I miss her Sisters Right Arm" is a sombre reptile of a track, a lizard bass outrage from Bill Noland that bullies its way through an entire spectrum of dinosaurs, the shrieking electrical guitar fizzing like phosphorous as it slices off a piece from the torso. Buzzard synths flutter above the carnage, as the voice evokes Mexican Radio.

Space or spaced out? "Chicks Dig Venus" is the time to indulge in a roomful of ladies who come from Venusian orb, but without the fly trap (that is so innuendo-laden, eh?), severely disapproving any attempt at listening to Eloy, Hawkwind or Gong (well, maybe not the Pot Head Pixies after all) while blasting off into the cosmos, and enjoying the various tasty sundries offered in onboard service, with cries of more coffee please!. All this ongoing talk about abortion, wood lodges, goddesses of love, radar and a captain who has lost his autopilot. Fun. A prophetic and prototypical commercial from Big Pharma, "You and Your Troubled Mind" lasts nearly 7 minutes, which should be about the time left for one to live after swallowing another one of their 'fool' proof wonder pills. Lovingly psychotic and flavoured with Hendrixian dollied daggers and watchtower visits (courtesy of Kalvin Foster) to take the edge off the 'broken hearts', perhaps the finest funeral dirge heard in the last decade, a song of analytical despondence and algorithmic doom. There's a fine 2025 prog title for you! Quoting Robert Calvert in Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters: cockpit check "Largactil 5mg, Haloperidol 5mg, Phenobarbitone 15mg, Valium 10mg, Disipel 5mg, glass of water" before take-off.

Having swallowed all this pill food, "Walkin' Around All Day" may just be the best cure until the effects wear off, disjointed herkie jerks stumbling from one tree to another, razor Foster guitars chopping way at the massive trunks, with Osibisa LPs stuck under the arms, yearning for relief. Insistent paranoia, muffled voices with more 'broken hearts', distorted fluctuations from the fretboard, boom-boom-tchak drum fills, searching for open- minded alpacas willing to shed some hair.

Enough with the doomsday stuff, "Warm Yellow Sun" carries some piano notes into the ranch, bells clanging on the fences, egging on a carefree, easy come easy go attitude of laissez faire, ennui and dénouement (the French lesson is free today). Take the shirt off, settle down, sit a spell, have swig. After all, later the moon will shine. Was it "Really Worth It?" is the hangover, wondering what hit you, lathered with oblique sounds painfully pounding the eardrums, pulling on the lobes out of sheer spite. And maybe a hint of self-loathing? Brass blasts that may eventually reach Tijuana. Only your hairdresser/barber knows for sure.

After Captain Lockheed, here comes Captain Cook, the intrepid British navigator who went were no white man had gone before, plunging into the vast oceans of the Pacific and the Atlantic, sort of finding an attachment to the southern Hemisphere, in particular. Perhaps unhappy back home in East End of London and had an aversion for Westend Girls or Pet Shop Boys, who knows for sure. History now fully disclosed, the composition is epic in scope, nearly 7 minutes long, with loads of harbour sounds and other nautical effects but in a semi-absurd electronic approach. Whistling synths splashing mightily, anchored in some harsh noise. Hey, looking for food all the time is no easy task, even for a ship's captain, just ask the lads on the Bounty (whose ancestors can be found on Pitcairn Islands). Sonic geography/history lesson.

"Venus" is an altered instrumental version of "Chicks Dig Venus" and is rebelliously space rock in its fundamentalism, with an assortment of commotions, dins and rackets that obscure the clouds. "Sisters Right Arm" is the instrumental version of the second track, dissected with surgical care, featuring Whitehurst's blistering guitar workout as well as synthesizing like a bubbling bottle of shaken not stirred Dom Perignon.

Intensely enjoyable, in a sort of sado-masochistic manner, it isn't pretty or pop but certainly obsessed and deranged, something to pester the unruly neighbours with when polite demeanor fails to get a result. This will definitely fracture their hearts and endanger their minds. 4.5 turntable peacocks