Play 90 second soundbite of 'Sugar Girl' @ 'CD quality'
A bit like Zappa meets Stockhausen, 'Half Monster' is driven mainly by percussive onslaughts embellished with angular and often industrial sounding electronics and guitars. This is definitely one for the open-minded experimentalist out there; this takes 'alternative' to 'alternative' destinations!
'Half Monster' maybe pretty spiky and tangential but somehow Jad And Nao make it work with their zany assault on the senses - pushing at normality, pulling at convention, poking, prodding and pawing at compositional guidelines and pounding harmony and discord into one angular entity. Fascinating but testing, 'Half Monster' aint no sell-out to commerciality, far from it, 'Half Monster' takes risks, it bends rules, it casts itself firmly and squarely into 'cult' territory and sits there waiting for Mr.Strangely-Strange or Mr.Oddly-Normal to come along, discover its quite normal outer skin and sample its bizarrely weird inner delights.
Jad And Nao's conjoined and deformed brainchild, 'Half Monster', is as unusual as it gets and yet, somehow, it pulls you in - there's a winching device concealed within its 'hood' that hooks on and gently, unknowingly, starts to draw you into its heart. Not exactly infectious but certainly a work that begs to be re-visited, 'Half Monster' is very hard to describe, you have to experience it to really understand what's going on. Yes, it's an experience rather than just a musical interlude - 'Half Monster' can be as fulfilling as you want it to be but, it can also be as repellent and you let it be. Like the physical behaviour of two magnets but in reverse, you being one, 'Half Monster' the other - if the poles oppose you'll be repelled, if the poles concur, you'll be attracted, if the two poles remain flexible about an axis you'll remain undecided, one day you're in, the next you'll keep your distance.
'Half Monster' by Jad And Nao includes a few surprises in the form of unexpected 'covers' that you'll probably not even recognise the first time around - so obtuse are they!! On the whole, 'Half Monster' by Jad And Nao is a trip of discovery and adventure but, that trip may just turn out to be a bad one if you're not totally committed to the journey. Wild stuff this, not for everyone, not to be treated lightly, a weirdly adventurous work to separate the 'men' from the 'boys'! Not easy listening, not really commercial but somehow it works in the stark spotlight of musical experimentation and in the brazen, full-on alternative world.
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