Perhaps Contraption  - Sludge and Tripe

A grotesque, unsettling oddity, London musical Collective Perhaps Contraption’s debut album ‘Sludge And Tripe’ is resolutely experimental and uncompromisingly varied, a twisted work of art that will send many screaming for cover and select others grinning like a Cheshire cat. It may not be one for mass consumption, but this dadaesque fever dream of an album has ‘potential cult hit’ daubed across its flanks in florescent orange paint, a collision of freeform jazz, progressive rock, funk, folk, country, alt rock and experimental poetry, brought together with playful abandon.

Characterised by a refusal to conform to expectations or notions of ‘good taste’, ‘Sludge & Tripe’ packs far more replay value per square inch than most recent records that you could care to name, an ‘Eraserhead’ of the musical world that morphs constantly, woozily squirming away from simple comprehension. Whether it’s possible to entirely ‘get it’ is as debatable as with the aforementioned Lynch masterwork/headfuck, the absurd narrative and manic tone of ‘Mumma’s Shoes’ running alongside the of progressive craziness of ‘Hard Cutlery’ (a comparison to a hypothetical collaboration between Frank Zappa and The Mars Volta might be useful for reference here) and ‘folk gone wrong’ styling of ‘Hydraulic legs’, not neglecting to flag up ‘Coffee Tea?’ a unique look at the comparative merits of Britain’s preferred warm beverages, but fully conceptualized or not it’s undeniably interesting. These sixteen tracks have been assembled with considerable thought, as scattershot as they might at first appear, explaining their lengthy gestation (‘Sludge & Tripe’ was four years in the making)... readers who enjoy exploring the frontiers of modern rock music owe it to their musical palates to go ahead and shove this in their ears. Perhaps Contraption are a beguiling machine, but one that is, on the whole, brilliantly effective.