Uncle Skunk II is the culmination of nearly 6 years of experimentation in songwriting. While the EP itself was recorded in May of 2023, tracks like “Old Violence” and “Drone Song” were written between 2018 and 2019. Their most eclectic and volatile release to date, “II” jumps from off-kilter slacker rock, to metal to folk. This release marks the closing of one chapter and the beginning of the next as the band, now a solidified quintet, marches onwards as a signed act on Cropsey Records seeking to record their first LP. [personnel at end]
Words by Jason Lee. Cover photo by Andrew Merclean/Liz Sadkowski
The details may be besides the point but they involve a shabby motel room circa 2004 in one of the less glamorous districts of Salford (a satellite city of Manchester) famously home to the Salford Lads’ Club, with the motel in question located in the midst of an exhaust-choked motorway interchange with nary a pub in sight (an anomaly in the UK) but with an on-premises hash house and bar at least which fully lived up to its nation’s poor reputation in the culinary arts all of which drove this tourist and failed interviewee upstairs to lay in bed and seek solace thru some BBC on the telly…
…which is how your future musical correspondent first came to discover a little TV programme by the name of Monkey Dust which makes yours truly one of the minuscule handful of North Americans to even know the show exists, a 30-minute animated anthology-type show (think the old Spike & Mike Sick & Twisted animation festivals) that aired on BBC3 for three seasons from 2003 to 2005, thereafter by-and-large swept under the carpet by the grey suits over at the BBC…
…probably due to its being one of the most subversive shows ever to air on a major network and yeah it’s a cartoon, a very adult cartoon, both for its taboo–smashing disregard for propriety of any kind and for it’s smart, acidic wit depicted a society seemingly sliding into the abyss, plus it’s funny to boot, with charming recurring characters like Ivan Dobsky, a wrongly-convicted prison inmate known as the “Meat Safe Murderer” whose pre-pubescent voice, extra wide lapels, love of junk shop glam and “space hopper” companion betray a personality frozen in time circa 1973 whose latent sociopathic killer tendencies once released from jail betray a manchild’s desire to remain in the custody of the state forever…
…and then there’s Clive Pringle. a man whose slumped posture, expansive forehead, and shabby business suit make him appear utterly harmless as he preambles across a dark post-industrial hell-scape, set too the dreamy/desolate strains of Goldfrapp’s “Lovely Head” in route to a decaying high-rise apartment where his sullen chain-smoking wife waits bathed in shadow at the kitchen table and upon inquiring as to his recent whereabouts is treated to a fanciful tale lifted from an episode of the A-Team or The Lord of the Rings etc. etc. which his wife immediately identifies thus prompting Clive to bow his head in shame and admit he “lost a bet in a dockside bar and had to fellate a monkey” or was busy “being the anal gimp of German businessmen” or “volunteered to be the cum sponge in a Soho fetish club”….
…so you can why sitting in that grim, grimy hotel room, an episode of television has never felt so right to the time, place and mindset in which it was being taken in plus it had me LOLing throughout and how many shows can you say that about that feel deeply subversive at the same time (prod. by Harry Thompson, best known in the UK for Have I Got News for You) savagely raking contemporary British society over the coals while slyly encouraging viewers to empathize with its rouge’s gallery of oddballs, sad sacks, and psychopaths trying to make some sense of a senseless world however badly misguided and perverse their coping mechanisms may be, maybe the genre could be called “brutalist humanism” seeing as the animation style is certainly brutalist as well…
…with the songs heard between and sometimes as an integral part of the individual Monkey Dust segments going some ways to setting the brutal humanistic tone as well with songs culled from among the best of early-to-mid-aughts indie mostly of the highly emotive variety but equally emotionally intelligenct ranging from tracks from Goldfrapp’s moody first album Felt Mountain, to Black Box Recorder’s lullaby-like odes to England’s dissolution (“life is unfair / kill yourself or get over it”) then nevermind the Eels’ theme song “That’s Not Really Funny” (2002) and how they wed everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stylistic eclecticism with kitchen-sink-drama levels of existential dread…
…with the show’s assemblage of tunes serving as a perfect time-capsule compendium of musical trends circa the early-to-mid-2000s ranging from trip hop to neo-psychedelia (lest one forget, bands like Animal Collective and Broken Social Scene started in 1999/2000) to the wave of art-damaged vanguardist pop that also predominanted at the time fusing the organic and synthetic/electronic in exciting new ways from the likes of Air, Boards of Canada, Dot Allison, and Lambchop…
…and about now yr likely saying WHY IN BLUE BLUES IS THE “MUSIC” WRITER GOING ON LIKE THIS ABOUT SOME OLD CARTOON SHOW to which we say “slow your roll, cowboy” with the takeaway here being that each & every song on Uncle Skunk‘s new EP which is titled II in apparent tribute to a certain hobbit loving metal band sounds as if it belongs on the Monkey Dust soundtrack and clearly we intend this as a very nice compliment not to mention how the very name Uncle Skunk sounds a lot like Monkey Dust come to think of it, but either way the band’s music screams “brutalist humanism” as much or more than anything heard since let’s say around 2004…
…which just to be clear II is far from being some lazy throwback to the early aughts but rather sounds as if it’d be the perfect soundtrack to a substantially reworked and updated reboot of Monkey Dust (c’mon BBC3…we know you still got it in ya) what with its containing some of the best cutting-edge, highly-emotive, psych-infused, alternately upbeat, narcoticized, and terrifying indie pop-rock music infused with ample dollops of electronic manipulation that we’re heard in some time as in a blue moon or two at least that in just under 20 minutes takes the listener on a Cinemascopic journey from clam, pastoral guitar strumming of the Neil Young variety to sweating-it-out guitar shredding and pure unadulterated noise of the, um, Neil Young variety…
…with all manner of strange sounds percolating in the background throughout which we figure could be meant to signal a pleasant middle-of-day floating off into one’s own inner space reverie, to a cresting wave of suppressed anxiety that’ll eventually wake you up with start in the middle of the might in a fit of night terrors, all concluding in a nimbus cloud of hovering strings and is that a theremin towards the end of “On This Hill” plus some squawking chickens as the band nimbly break down any remaining barriers between rock and post-rock (“post-rawk”?) which if you play the record on repeat perfectly segues into the opening track intro of “My Sweet Wife” whose mutated sonic clatter quickly segues into a pleasantly laid-back groove were in not for the bask-masked droning tones heard in the background…
…which gets at one thing we quite like about this record in that it doesn’t provide too-easy signposts telling us what to think of what we’re hearing just like the cartoon addressed above dares you to laugh uproariously and shield your eyes in horror at the same time and figure it out on your own time with Uncle Skunk combining major key uplift with squalls of mangled sawtooth waves perfect for accompanying your imminent breakdown and what’s more—more in the realm of coincidence, but still—the first two songs appear to be custom made for Clive Pringle (“My Sweet Wife”) and Ivan Dobsky (“Old Violence”) judging by their titles alone but also by the music which’d fit seamlessly into scenes with either…
…followed by “December 18” which at a brisk 98 seconds is clearly meant to be the opening theme song to the Monkey Dust reboot, opening up in cinematic fashion with the sound of a lonely train whistle and chugging engine soon interrupted by thunderous chords and math-rocky twin lead guitars which soon pivots to a more post-hardcore sound with voices in the background wailing like a hellhound on your trail and a wailing guitar solo to match then back to the twin leads which come to think of it sound not unlike the guitar interjections in the Eels’ original theme song…
…with “Found A Way’ being the next track and and assumed breakout single with an opening riff that may be loosly based on Big Star’s “Thirteen” but where the acoustic rock classic’s dulcet-toned delicacy gets sucked into a Large Hadron Collider and then next track which is #5 is called “Drone Song” and we gotta say is the perhaps the piéce de resistance of the record, starting off with a spartan funk beat played with a dampened snare which gives off a bit of Sonic Youth’s “Bull in the Heather” especially once the maraca comes in as the song glides seamlessly from dream pop/shoegazey style verses to some even crazier sounding twin leads and what sounds like a swarm of bees before threatening structural collapse—the piston-driven rhythm section holding the whole contraption together as they do elsewhere—before riding out on the aforementioned “On The Hill”…
…and so we recommend checking out the songs on Uncle Skunk II whether you care about any of this Monkey Dust business or not anyway that is unless you have a pressing appointment with some German businessmen at a dockside bar in London’s Soho district…
HERE ARE SOME VIDEOS FROM UNCLE SKUNK’S PREVIOUS RECORD PLUS THE BIO FROM THEIR SPOT-I-FRIED PAGE…
Mysterious band formed in the Catacombs of Doom…
Infamous NYC rock band and Cropsey Records’ newest signee, Uncle Skunk announces their most anticipated record to date – II – a titanic six-song EP that aims to destroy the American recording industry and set the new standard for excellence in rock and roll. This “mammoth live act” (Look At My Records) took to the studio in the summer of 2023 with a fistful of dollars and a dastardly intent – to tarnish the ears of every last listener through the force of their melodious guitars, hypnotic synths, and vivacious rhythms.
And boy, have they succeeded! Fans exposed to these six songs have been rendered incapable of functioning normally in everyday life. You may see them everywhere, in a trance-like state, humming the infectious verses of ‘Old Violence’, shredding air guitar solos to ‘Found A Way’, and tapping the rhythms of ‘Drone Song’ on any surface in sight. In anticipation of mass hysteria, several U.S. states have already considered banning this record before it can hit the airwaves. Listen now! Before it’s too late….
******
II:
released June 17, 2024
Mixed by Matt LaBozza
Mastered by Greg Obis at Chicago Mastering Service
All songs by Uncle Skunk???
Otis Streeter: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Monkey Demon Electric Guitar, Cybertronic Children’s Choir Operator, Forlorn Noises, Drum Machines
Henry Peason: Gangster Electric Guitar, Piano, Synthetic Orchestra of Doom Conductor, Flaming Cigar Guitar
Sam Benezra: Acoustic Guitar, Prankster Electric Guitar, Banjo, Accursed Viola, Grindrillatron
Robert Kim: Robotron Bass
Teddy Sidiropolous: Drums, Mystic Percussion of Old
From Uncle Skunk: “A special thanks to the Log Hog Killers for their vocal contributions to “December 18”. And a most special thanks to all of those who have supported us along the way. You all know who you are and will remain anonymous for your own security.“
*****
This column is dedicated to Harry Thompson.