Search - Wagon Christ :: Musipal

Lives up to high expectations

svf | 03/06/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Luke Vibert has had a string of impressive releases including "Stop the Panic" with BJ Cole and "Tally Ho!" as Wagon Christ. His second full length Wagon Christ album lives up to these high standards, maintaining the experimental yet playful spirit you've come to know and love from Mr. Vibert. This CD is at its best in tracks such as "The Premise", "Receiver", and "Chris Chana" where surprising layers of samples and rhythms cleverly unfold and overlap, creating a delicious feast for the ears. Bits of jazz, lounge, dance, R & B, spoken words, and orchestral music are intermingled freely to create coherent new creations. Some of the longer cuts evolve more slowly with less density and complexity, reminding me of material on Vibert's Plug release, "Drum & Bass for Papa." The final track, "Perkission," is an exciting hybrid of bossa, funk, and disco rhythms. Overall, while there are a few less inspired stretches, this CD will repeatedly delight you with the unexpected and varied sound that is Wagon Christ. Interesting and enjoyable!"

His best work under the "Wagon Christ" moniker

lunaticsoul | Las Vegas, nv United States | 08/05/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"While I think that his "drum n bass for papa" as Plug , and Stop the panic album with BJ cole take priorty over this album, This is certainly his best album under his more down tempo sample heavy monkier "Wagon Christ" If you own the other two albums alreayd this should be a no brainer next buy for you. All the tracks on this album are top notch, and the whole things flows better than "Tally Ho" even though "Tally Ho" is a great piece of music on its own. A couple tracks on this album stand out as some of lukes best work ever. Definite unmissable songs. Making this a must have for anybody into experamental down tempo electronic music. I also want to mention Ninja Tune doesn't tamper with the music thats being released. The reveiwer who said that is full of it. Luke had to scrap a couple songs after his samples where gonna be to much trouble to clear and thats about it."

Another giant leap for Wagon Christ

FlangeMechanism | 06/12/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Oh boy. What can you say about Luke Vibert, except that he's a genius? His work as Wagon Christ reminds me of Wreck-Gar, the junkyard-sifting leader of the Junkions from The Transformers: he yanks all sorts of screwball stuff from all sorts of unlikely places, bolts it together, and what results is zany and ecclectic yet positively gorgeous; despite their disparate origins, Vibert's samples invariably come across as though they've each found their true home.Overall, Musipal is a bigger and more technically accomplished album than Tally Ho! The melodies are smoother, the sound more lush, intense, and full-bodied. Moreover, Musipal is as solid an album as I've ever heard: out of thirteen tracks, there's not one throwaway, joke track, ambient snoozer, irritating experimental track, dull time-filler, or anything else that would send you diving for the remote control. Even the orgasmic "It Is Always Now, All of It Is Now," which starts out like the screechy "Juicy Luke Vibert," ends up too catchy not to be loved. I still consider Tally Ho! and Stop the Panic to be crown jewels in my CD collection, but Musipal has become more like the Hope Diamond.Compare "The Premise" to "Fly Swat," or even the jacket colors of the two albums, and either way you see the same thing: Tally Ho! is the CD to listen to on a lazy, muggy summer afternoon, while Musipal is the CD to pop in after the sun has gone down and the world has become a shadowy, fragrant, starry-skied wonderland. But, as with Tally Ho!, you can look at this as the musical equivalent of a See's sampler: everything's different, but it's all sugar-bomb delectable. Note the recycling of "Tally Ho!"'s cartoony samples in "The Premise," to creepy-nostalgic effect. The first five tracks range from haunted-house scary to crocodile-tears sad, but "Musipal" is cheery, clack-errific fun and sets the tone for the remainder of the album. The titillating "Receiver" is like the big chase theme from a chop-socky Hong Kong action flick; "Boney L" is at once fall-down funny, subtly disturbing and strangely moving; the jazzy-funky "Cris Chana" lies on some heady, previously unmapped border between triphop and deep house; "Tomorrow Acid" draws on a powerful synergy between samples from "My Organ in Your Face" and "Cheng Phooey"; "Perkission" is so groovaliciously uplifting, it must be heard to be believed. On Stop the Panic, Vibert let slip a few repetitive clunkers--"Dischordzilla" and "Nice Cave"--but this isn't just Vibert, this is Wagon Christ, and Wagon Christ doesn't DO repetitive. Unlike some better-known but less talented electronica figures I could name, Wagon Christ wouldn't besmirch himself with a song that falls into a rut and then can't muster the energy to get out of it. His tracks are always engaging, always pulling out some new trick or new twist in the story. If a groove exhausts itself after two minutes, then he allows it to end; but if he can keep it growing and evolving, then that's what he does. As a result, his short tracks are gems, his longer tracks epic sagas. Vibert still has the same go-for-broke, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mentality that made Tally Ho! such a buoyant treasure trove--theramin, organ, bells, chimes, jazz flute, koto--you name it, it's in there--yet on the whole Musipal is a grimmer, more ponderous epic. And yet it's all so energizing! I'm tempted to say that Vibert makes music for adults who are children at heart, but that doesn't quite capture it either. A lot of it seems cheeseball at first listen, and yet you just have to keep coming back to it, because, put simply, he gets it right. Childhood is about wonder and joy and whimsy, but it's also about confusion and trepidation and pain, and Vibert doesn't shy away from any facet.I realize that this review hasn't made much sense--but neither does Wagon Christ's music. "Ready to go out now? Ta-ta!" someone urges at the end of the final track, but all I can do is hit the play button and venture through it all again. Fireflies and bullfrogs, flashlights and streetlamps, sleeping bags and ghost stories and pilfered brownies. Musipal is good old-fashioned creepy-crawly saccharine-sweet fun.Oh, and if you like Musipal, you might want to pick up Om Records' Environments. It's not really the same type of music--Environments is more downtempo, and is considerably drier than Wagon Christ's frenetic abandon--but the two albums are spiritually very much akin. Check it out."