THE MONKEY FARM

Truth be told, this description can easily encompass all of Doctor Nerve's live and studio albums, but then again the same summary also manages to emulate their diversity. But let us return to the review.

Nine years. That is the amount of time that took one of the most fascinating groups on the avant-garde scene to release its last album to date, the genuinely spectacular, The Monkey Farm. Recorded live at Roulette, a New York City venue renown for promoting contemporary innovative artists, The Monkey Farm, although possibly not the masterpiece its predecessor, Ereia, proved to be, still stands tall and proud, and very much unique among the albums Doctor Nerve have graced the world of music with.

For this 2001 Roulette gig, the mastermind behind Doctor Nerve, Nick Didkovsky, had conceptualised a musical setting for Charles O'Meara's comical, but sometimes rather sinister childhood recollections. As if wanting to continue in the tradition of Ereia which saw guests Sirius String Quartet honouring the audience with their presence and musical output, Didkovsky brought in theatre director Valeria Vasilevski to provide the narration for O'Meara's story. The outcome of this is a 36 track album which could have very well been a single mega piece as the episodes flow unaffectedly following the avant jazz rock sound Doctor Nerve has long acquainted its listeners with. Having the same line-up as on the previous album, the Doc lead by Nick Didkosvsky, precisely like in their prime with Out to Bomb Fresh Kings or Armed Observation, set to create an unbelievable amalgam of sounds which may seem to have no kinship with each other whatsoever, an acoustic anarchy which is simultaneously heading nowhere and all over the place, but which proves to be the perfect background for the equally twisted episodes about O'Meara's drunken father or the pleasures one finds as a child in harming animals. Furthermore, it is to be said that with the aid of a software which Nick himself helped develop, Vasilevski's voice is bent in real time so it would be in accordance with the instrumental parts.

All in all, after so many years of waiting, Doctor Nerve lives up to the expectations and manages to produce an album that is worthy of the band's name and legacy, an album that both has the sharp familiar sound and the right amount of twist which spells innovation in a time when the circumstances do not seem to facilitate it.

4 stars!