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Curated and produced by 808 State's resident nutcase Graham Massey, Toolshed set their stall our early with a rip roaring cover of Ennio Morriocone's Pazuzu. Of course, any student of the obscure can tell you it is a cover of a track off Morricone's wonderful Exorcist 2 soundtrack, which is then played in the style of a garage punk band.
It gets even more obscure with a cover of Sun Ra's trippy Satellites Are Spinning with Massey throwing in some inspired vibraphone and some sleazy Hammond organ. It also introduces the mighty lungs of female vocalist Seaming To (even the names become bizarre in this wacky project) who is possibly the find of the year. Manc bands tend not to have decent female vocalists and then Seaming To and Un-Cut's Jenna G come along like London buses. Makes a change from moody young men droning on.
John McLaughlin's Marble gets the Toolshed treatment and heavily feature their unique selling points, two drummers. Pat Illingworth and Dave Walsh do the honours driving this trace along as Massey gets all axe hero on us with a searing solo guitar god McLaughlin would have been proud of.
Nananananaaanaa is the first of their two original songs and is just a little scary with its distorted, angry vocals as Massey throws a horn section into what rapidly turns into an operatic mess. Divine.
Gobots is supposedly a tribute to goddess Yma Sumac and human sacrifices. Frankly, with its mad double drums (think The Grateful Dead on a very bad acid trip) and an instrument called, I kid you not, an Iguarqlaphon, it is very unsettling indeed.
Toolshed are not just Votel's aural wet dream, but are a band with both an impeccable record collection and genuine taste to try something odd and bizarre. They're a band that Frank Zappa would have been proud to front and there can be no greater compliment for genuine musical oddballs. |
Toolshed - Toolshed EP 