GIRAFFE RUNNING – Giraffe Running (Learn To Love/Red F)
Posted: October 4th, 2007, by CrayolaYum.
Giraffe Running – Great name for a band, great name for an album.
So that’s two out of two so far.
Giraffe Running are a duo of Greg Barrett on bass (formerly of Joan Of Arse) and Hag on drums.
Yes I know, that smacks of Lightning Bolt BUT (and it’s a big BUT), GR are an entirely different monster altogether.
Formed a few years ago in Dublin, GR create superb not-quite-danceable-not-quite-jazz splurges of instrumental tom foolery.
That’s in no way meant to be a put down – this is tom foolery in the same way Flann O’Brien’s writing is tom foolery. There’s some deeply enchanting and often very funny music in here, it’s simply wrapped up incredibly tightly with a mood of playful glee.
The bass slips and slides like an oiled eel around some ferociously syncopated drumming.
There are nods all over the place to the sinewy instrumentation of late period Beefheart, the mathematical workouts of Gastr Del Sol and even the jump-cuts of John Zorn.
Released as a double CD in staggeringly lovely packaging – handmade, embossed, colour printed grey card with a poster, inserts (the packaging in itself is a nod towards the aesthetic that GR are chasing – this artwork could easily be wrapping one of Steve Albini’s releases) – CD one is five ‘basic’ tracks recorded ‘live’ in the studio.
CD two is fifteen tracks long and is essentially a bunch of remixes and reworkings by various different artists – Mike Stevens, Bryn Cloke, Agata, Max Tundra to name but a few – and it gives a whole new dimension to GR’s music: This is what might be if the duo were a band.
It works with just a couple of exceptions. The guest musicians using GR’s original recordings and simply adding whatever they want.
If you want fun, interesting, intelligent music to lose yourself in and delight your friends you really should hunt down a copy of this.
As I said – YUM.
Crayola
Crayola's musical heritage stretches way back to having one of the most impressive record collections in Telford. Always on the outer limits of the most independent of independent music, he now co-runs Kabukikore Records and releases more records and CDRs than you can shake an obscure stick a t. And they have some nice packaging, too.