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Friday Full-Length: Eggnogg, The Future of Humanity and What You Can Do About it, As Told by an Extraterrestrial Source

If you’re going to sit and wait for Eggnogg‘s cumbersomely titled fourth and apparently final album, The Future of Humanity and What You Can Do About it, As Told by an Extraterrestrial Source, to start making what you generally think of as sense, I hope you’re ready to be there for a while. At 16 songs and 66 minutes long, the 2018 self-release’s willful unmanageability extends even to the process of having to rename mp3s in the zip file from the free Bandcamp download in order to get them to be short enough for my laptop to handle. Recorded in no fewer than five different settings in New York and Pennsylvania with the trio lineup of drummer Jason Prushko (also various other percussion), alongside band founders guitarist Justin Karol (also piano, acoustic guitar, bass, keys, synth, percussion, vocals, theremin, etc.) and bassist/vocalist William O’Sullivan (also acoustic and electric guitar, trombone and didgeridoo) — the band for a time would also feature Corey Dozier on bass — the album is double-billed as an “entr’acte,” or a break between the two acts, and it is also the third in a series, following behind 2017’s single-song EP, Rituals in Transfigured Time: Prologue (discussed here) and 2017’s also-sprawling Rituals in Transfigured Time: Acts I & II (discussed here) as the course of Eggnogg‘s ambitions grew broader and more encompassing across multimedia narratives involving Karol‘s distinctive artwork, science-fiction themes, and a likewise bent sprawl of sounds.

Some of it traces its roots back to prior Eggnogg work. The swing in a song like “Hello Again, Old Friend” or even opener “Garden of Eden” or in the album’s crescendo “Slugworth” — the latter of which also appeared on 2015’s Sludgy Erna Bastard split with Borracho (review here) — and the more relatively straightforward approach they took on their debut, 2009’s The Three, 2011’s Moments in Vacuum (review here), and the subsequent 2012 EP, Louis EP (review here). That last short release would seem to have a hand here as well as “Louis’s Eulogy” appears early in the procession with its semi-electronic feel of keyboard line and synth hum intertwining as the guitar, bass and drums does soon enough in “Hello Again, Old Friend,” which follows. But as much as one might recognize Eggnogg being Eggnogg — and they always were that — to consider the spoken, almost Twilight Zone-style voiceover in “Garden of Eden” and closer “Pig with Glasses (End Credits),” the Looney Tunes acid test of “Really Big Pig” and the funk that follows in “Mr. Pig” and a bit later in “Quantum Arcana” after the on-its-own-wavelength maybe-sound-collage-set-to-groove in the six-minute “Amytis/E-G-G-M-A-N/Big Operator/Nebuchadnezzar II” (there’s that trombone), the potentially problematic cabaret zabba-dooba Louis Armstrong impression on “The Pink Daffy,” and the later Beatles-via-’90s “Red Robot” (more trombone) that works out to be a vocally-harmonized melodic highlight met immediately by the backwards wash and manipulated experimentalism of “Anti-Clockwise,” and the record is ambitious beyond EGGNOGG The Future of Humanity and What You Can Do About Iteven Rituals in Transfigured Time: Acts I & II. And that’s before you factor in the storyline Karol and O’Sullivan manifested in the artwork and on the former’s website, now gone, tapping elements of Kurt Vonnegut and Frank Kozik and populating its own world with strange characters, collar-up ne’er-do-wells and various other oddities, robots, and so on.

It’s probably fair to call The Future of Humanity and What You Can Do About it, As Told by an Extraterrestrial Source opaque. One might not think so listening to the drawl and bounce in the first minutes of “Bitter Insides” or how it opens to a righteously weighted post-grunge march, or the quiet acoustic moments in “Amanita (Albedo)” and the later “Amanita (Citrinitas)” — spaced throughout and, unlike second track “Amanita (Nigredo),” not giving over to harsh noise at their finish — but these are terrestrial stretches on a record that has its sights set on a seedy future (spoiler: things don’t look good for humanity), and the one-into-the-next turns that Eggnogg make throughout are purposefully jarring as varying styles and arrangements come and go. O’Sullivan‘s vocals are a uniting factor, even with their own changes of approach, and regular returns to heavy distortion in the guitar and bass provide landmarks throughout, but even as a double-LP, the structure refuses to follow the rules. This, of course, is perhaps the record’s greatest strength and the band’s crowning achievement.

I will not lie to you: I didn’t really understand the story as it worked out in Rituals in Transfigured Time: Acts I & II, and this ‘entr’acte’ is hardly geared toward explanations. Rather, it is the work of songwriters — Karol and O’Sullivan — who have found their own pocket dimension within heavy rock and roll and are completely dug in. There is nothing held back here. It’s all-go, all-gone. They knew at the time that this would be their last record, planned for it, and accordingly, these songs unlock a career’s worth of scope, as though Eggnogg were pushing themselves beyond the breaking point creatively in order to leave everything they had for their envisioned bleak future to figure out afterward. Or better yet, not figure it out at all, because those moments where you feel like you might have a grip on The Future of Humanity and What You Can Do About it, As Told by an Extraterrestrial Source, like by the end of “Bitter Insides,” well, that’s when they throw “Really Big Pig” at you. Or “Slugworth,” which is among the more memorable songs they ever wrote. Here it’s backed by “Pig With Glasses (End Credits),” which names K.W. Kogut as the album’s producer — someone I’m more than fairly certain does not actually exist.

The plays between what’s real and what’s not, what’s structured and what’s not, what’s heavy and what’s not, that take place across these tracks are nothing less than weirdo treasures. Eggnogg‘s early work came out through Palaver Records and I seem to recall there was some kind of falling out or dispute there, but by the time they were done, they were clearly done. Fair enough, but the vibrancy and the creative spirit and the sheer engrossing nature of this material remains staggering. Few records so readily dismiss the barriers of a comfort zone, and even without a full awareness of what’s happening, that’s more than worthy of appreciation.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

I was up a little before four this morning. I have an interview with Mat Bethancourt from Josiah at nine and I basically just forgot that The Pecan is off from school today because they incorporated the Easter holiday into his Spring Break next week. I suck at life. Hi. Nothing new.

Anyway, I’ll do that interview and that’s got catalog reissue streams to go with from Heavy Psych Sounds, so that’ll be fun. And I was going to review the Naxatras album at last but just got hit up for a Valley of the Sun video premiere on Monday, so I guess I just bumped that again. Maybe I should close out a week with that. Seems to be the way to go as regards that kind of thing. I’ll think about it. Doesn’t matter to anyone but me anyhow.

It’s after 6AM now and The Pecan is up to start the day early. The Patient Mrs. too. She’s going for a walk or some other I’m-a-responsible-human-taking-care-of-myself thing while I’m of course sitting on my laptop in my own lingering fart cloud — native habitat — but I’ll get the kid out of his room and get breakfast rolling, etc. He’s stoked for Easter, I think entirely because he knows it involves finding eggs and chocolate. Dude has invented chocolate appreciation. He’s the first.

Yesterday was a fucking great day though for the most part. Weather was beautiful for the most part. I got everything done I needed to get done, gave a podcast interview that’ll be out next week, managed to sneak in that The Sixth Chamber premiere that went up a bit ago, got lightly stoned, went to bed and found my missing wimpy pillows (two were stuffed in one pillowcase), and that would be enough. I did get kicked in the head by The Pecan, on purpose, which when I told him never to do that again and he looked me in the eye and did — he was standing on the back of the couch at the time, of course — earned him a break in his room, but even with that, it was a pretty good day. He told me I was a skunk and that I stink later, which from him to me is pretty much “I love you.”

Parenting, like everything, is a dopamine chase.

So, Valley of the Sun vid premiere on Monday. Tuesday, Ararat fully. Wednesday a video from Darsombra — they’re doing this whole 4/20 thing, it’s pretty magical and I won’t spoil it now — and a track premiere for Peth from Texas. Thursday Somali Yacht Club’s album streams and next Friday a track from Aptera on Ripple. It’s busy enough.

New Gimme show today, 5PM. Roadburn tribute. Thanks if you listen. I’m gonna keep doing fest lineups for a while. Bands are good and it gives me something to talk about. Not that I’m tired of new music, but having a focus helps.

Alright, I go. I hope you have a great and safe weekend. If you’re celebrating Easter or the arrival of Spring more generally, cheers. Hydrate. Watch your head. All that stuff. I should probably start putting posts up for the day now.

FRM.

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One Response to “Friday Full-Length: Eggnogg, The Future of Humanity and What You Can Do About it, As Told by an Extraterrestrial Source

  1. Craig Campbell says:

    Fart clouds aside, dopamine chasing as a parent is on the money!
    Looking forward to the Somali Yacht Club stream. The singles are very cool. Keep rolling, JJ.

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