Beatnik Filmstars – Astronaut House – Review

Beatnik Filmstars

Astronaut House (La-Di-Da America)
by Lex Marburger

You know those mini see-saws, just a log with a board on it? Ever try doing that? You wobble around, pitching left and right, your confident sense of equilibrium utterly humiliated as you fall flat on your ass. That’s what Beatnik Filmstars have done to me. On Astronaut House, they grab me by the lapels and start spinning; the G-forces lift my feet off the ground, and my life is sustained by the old and too-washed threads of my shirt front. And do they set me down nice and easy? Of course not. They throw me to the wall at the apex of my spiral flight. I don’t think they’re angry, just frustrated that the plans they made for hedonism have been devoured in a proxy war. Slumped down against the wainscotting, I see them, dancing madly with purifying sound, savage with tiny thorns bristling and poking the damp atmosphere, provoking and doing whatever they can to get some kind of reaction. Extended listening to this album will result in skewed musical tastes, and you’ll end up a hopeless deviant who will never watch MTV or listen to ‘FNX ever again. Good luck.