Joy Electric – We are the Music Makers – Review

Joy Electric

We are the Music Makers (Tooth & Nail)
by Nik Rainey

The cover’s black, the CD’s black, Count Ronald Martin (oh, pleeeze) looks like a serious fop and he plays cheesy synth-pop with nothing but a gaggle of old keyboards and his heliumated voice. So far, so good – styrofoam kitsch peanuts in Victorian/Goth bubblewrap. I can dig it. Since he’s pretty much the only guy on the disc, I was wondering who the “we” of the title was, that is, until I risked eyestrain to read the black-on-black liner notes… hey! He’s goin’ on about the Everlasting Music Maker (and I don’t think he means Neil Young)! Half the songs are based on Bible verses! This is messianic Moog music on a CD-shaped communion wafer! The truth is out – Tooth and Nail is an alterna-Christian label! Well, I never! (Okay, I did once, but that’s hardly germane to the subject at hand.) But you know something? I don’t mind. It didn’t bug me when I was blithely fizzing along with it at three o’clock in the morning after a night of heathen debauchery, then I don’t think it should bug me now. Besides, you have to admire the slyness with which the Count slips that dose of the deity into this bubbly beverage. It’s not like he’s trying to smite your secular skull with it; there’s no “Parental Advisory – Are You Saved?” sticker on the cover and it’s not like he named the band the Sects Pistols or anything. And check out the sleeve photo and imagine this guy turning up at a meeting of the Christian Coalition – Pat Robertson’d probably choke to death on his own tongue and then you’d know Count Ron’s doing the Lord’s work. So what the heaven, there’s nothing wrong with a little seraphic velveeta now and again. It’s good for the soul. I think I’ll go and renounce all worldly possessions now. Just one question: does my stereo count?