Albums

Alexis Gideon - Video Musics

Richard Wink 25/10/2009

Rating: 5/5

Alexis Gideon is a harmless hipster, that's not a criticism; evidently the filmmaker slash avant garde pop musician is a tad eccentric and maybe even a little pretentious, I mean who else would decide to write a hip hop video opera inspired by Hungarian Mythology, and create a character called the Liophant?

I'm not going to comment on the animation because feelings might well get hurt, so instead I shall quickly move on and politely offer an appraisal of the music…..

Lo-fi beats, deep bowel erupting grooves combine with the melted chocolate of Gideon's smooth deep rhymes, which remind me of Warren G fellating Kool Keith through a carbon monoxide haze. On paper it shouldn't work, in actual fact it probably doesn't work, but it is interesting. 'Rock Waves' dithers around in the ether, slicker than oil, 'Clement Mason' is a jazzy spaced out mooch, 'The Rabbit Shepherd' the great novocaine celebration.

Nothing makes sense, I know I'm talking shit, however I am disorientated, this music takes me some place, some fantastic place that I sure I have visited before, perhaps in my dreams, perhaps in reality whilst under a toxic cloud, 'Brimstone Blaine' encapsulates my Faustian fears.

I'm dragged down to ground level as the bass scrapes along the ocean floor in a slow crawl; this is the sound of 'Sock Hop' where Gideon's rhymes are unintelligible, beyond my comprehension, and then Bing Crosby after a few bourbons serenades me on 'Old and Gray World'.

Video Musics is a maddening experience. I'm scoring it five stars because it could be the work of a genius; this is a gamble because it could just so easily be worth nothing.