Lovage
Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By (75 Ark)
by Lex Marburger
It took a few seconds to figure out why this is important, but those seconds were between me picking up the CD and putting it into “play” mode. It looks as though Dan the Automator (of Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, half of Handsome Boy Modeling School) has popped out of the woodwork again where you’d least expect him, with Lovage‘s Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By. Nathaniel Merriweather is his alter ego (imagine, an alter ego of a nom de plume. You think this guy might have some identity issues? Yeah, probably) in HBMS. In it, he takes on the sexy, the sultry, the… well, the silly. Lounge-y hip hop beats with a too-slick feel, low-riding basses and shiny ’70s funk rhythm sections. The whole “concept” of the album is to throw it back to the days of a swinger’s pad, where you had the perfect “scoring” music, an album to put on right after you and your sexy mama have just smoked some killer grass, so you can get her in the mood, and ignore the weasely gold chains around your neck. But there is a problem…
Hands up, who thinks Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas) has a sexy voice? OK, you, in the back, who enjoys being vomited on? Put your hand down, you don’t count… Does Patton have an athletic voice? Yes. Does he have a distinctive voice? Yes. Does he have a voice that feels like someone is inserting sharpened pencils into your eardrums? YES. Patton has a certain delivery, half mocking, half ironic, that in no way indicates sexiness. Luckily, Mr. M. seems to have realized this, for he brings in one of the sexiest voices ever put on tape, Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields). She has a voice like a slow kiss, her consonants grind like a stripper’s hips, her vowels envelop like a warm hand… It’s hot, all right? She tends to temper the annoyance of Patton, but just to make sure, Dan brings in Afrika Bambaataa, Plug 3 from De La Soul, and lets Kid Koala spin the decks to get everything in just the right mix.
The future of lounge music? Hardly, but that’s not even the point. If you find a like-minded honey, you too can sup from the glass of carnal reward that comes from Lovage. And… call me.
(www.75ark.com)
