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Anyone following Progressive Rock newsgroups like rec.music.progressive,
or even some local Australian and New
Zealand newsgroups, will sooner or later come across a participant going by the name of Babymash. Babymash -- Glenn
Fletcher in offline life -- not only is a fan of Progressive Rock, but also an independent musician based in
Palmerston North, New Zealand, but this, as well as a certain idealistic humanism underlying the Babymash persona on
the Net, may easily be missed by readers unable to look beyond the ALL-CAPS and gratuitously scatological presence,
completely disconnected from conventional 'good taste', that Babymash usually displays. Babymash the band, centred
around Fletcher (who handles drums and vocals, as well as a variety of other instruments) and consisting of "an
unstable line-up" of other members, may be in danger of suffering from similar problems: listeners may find they
take their time to warm to the latest release Eat Your Mash!, but it's a rewarding experience after all.
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While Fletcher sings "don't take yourself too seriously" in "Scheme 1", this 72-minute CD does contain some
seriously good songs, with the band playing well throughout. In fact, most difficult to get used to may be
Fletcher's vocals themselves -- he generally sounds like a mix of Brian Eno in his Here Come the Warm Jets
phase and The Cure's Robert Smith on better drugs, with a little late-period Syd Barrett thrown in for good measure.
(Oddly enough, though, his performance on the grooving "Scheme 1" reminded me of Mick Jagger.) Somehow, however, the
combination works, and the weirdness of his slightly whiny, tormented delivery fits the haunting guitar drones of a
song like "Mother on Fire" or the almost punkish air of "Out of It". But the vocals aren't the central focus of
Babymash's music, anyway; in the mix, they often take a subordinate position to the instruments.
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Listening to the CD for the first time, the first thing that will strike you is the musical variety. This is by no
means a stylistically unified album -- like the liner notes say, "the band loves all styles" --, but it is still a
well-constructed one, though. While the first few songs lead us into the schizophrenic universe of Babymash,
covering everything from the driving drums and psychedelic slide guitar of "Consumer Boy" to the ethnic-sounding
"Fat Ude", in the second stage of the album a sequence of instrumentals like the hypnotic jam "Scrambled Heads" and
the modestly titled "We Had Some Spare Tape" embrace the listener and gradually calm the mood to a moment of almost
perfect trance at the end of "The Zone" -- which is then resolved expertly through the repetitive build-up of
"Blockage Site".
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In the last third of the CD, "Cheezie" returns briefly to the march-like rhythms of the CD's opener "Consumer Boy",
but the following pieces happily mix between the pained vocals of Fletcher and the band's obvious instrumental
abilities, and alternate between aggressive and introspective moods -- culminating in the meandering 7-minute song
"Young Blood", which closes the CD. So it is towards the end that the album truly comes together, but even here, the
listener is constantly kept on the edge: in Babymash's music, it is never possible to predict just what may happen
next.
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If you like your music to follow preset patterns, therefore, better keep your distance from this band -- if you
don't mind exploring new and potentially unstable ground, however, and if you're able to keep an open mind towards
an eclectic broth of genres, Eat Your Mash! may be worth a try. Some minor warnings, though: the production
quality isn't excellent, with some low-level humming on occasion (this is very much an independent release, after
all), and the cardboard packaging in lieu of a standard plastic case is commendable from an environmental point of
view, but the cardboard sleeve fits around the CD so tightly that the CD surface is bound to end up scratched very
soon -- there's some need for improvement here. And finally, if you do read rec.music.progressive, you might end up
having to rethink your perception of the unruly character that is Babymash -- but at least you'll have a voice to
put to his capital letters.
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Details
Eat Your Mash!, by Babymash.
Produced by Glenn Fletcher, Aaron Andis, and Teheke McKinnon.
Pivot Recordings, no catalogue number.
72 mins.
The CD is available directly from Glenn Fletcher
(babymash@manawatu.gen.nz), who also has a Website at
http://www.members.tripod.com/Babymash/.
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Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Axel Bruns. "Psychedelic Smorgasbord: 'Eat Your Mash!'." M/C Reviews 12 July 1999.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/sounds/mash.html>.
Chicago style:
Axel Bruns, "Psychedelic Smorgasbord: 'Eat Your Mash!'," M/C Reviews 12 July 1999,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/sounds/mash.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Axel Bruns. (1999) Psychedelic Smorgasbord: 'Eat Your Mash!'. M/C Reviews 12 July 1999.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/sounds/mash.html> ([your date of access]).
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![[image]](http://members.tripod.com/~Babymash/gf.jpg)