Artist: Elvis Herod
Title: Elvis Herod’s Pork Belly Rumble
Label: Chinstrap Music
Catalog No: Chin46
Release Date: April 9, 2013
I will be the first to admit that Elvis Herod’s Pork Belly Rumble may not be a release for everyone. It’s definitely in the more eccentric category than most of the releases I review. But, just because it is different doesn’t mean it isn’t good… Quite to the contrary, I haven’t had a release I’ve enjoyed like this for a long time, and I’ve missed them.
Pork Belly Rumble is a mixture of spoken word pieces, and music settings that pitch the familiar with the odd and offbeat. Like taking a drum-n-bass loop, and supplementing it with toy pianos, marimba and other odd instrumentation. You know from the beginning that this is a recording full of humor and frivolity.
Where Elvis succeeds in taking his music to the next level is in bringing us a major dose of slightly off-center humor. If you like a tint of surrealism and a dollop of the absurd in your lyrics, Elvis Herod is your person. You will be laughing at how absurd and funny these pieces are. They are the kind of pieces that might become the subjects of inside jokes between you and your friends. Then again, if your friends are listening to this, you probably have more interesting lives to have inside jokes about than this recording. Just kidding.
Take the example of Glitter Is The Devil’s Spice. After the narrator tells us about Miriam committing suicide, then goes on to examine the contents of her bag. It must have been a magic bag of holding for all of its contents, including “9000 pregnancy tests”. And, if that piece doesn’t do it for you, maybe the sharp-tongued skewering of several British celebrities (including Dame July Dench and James May) in Choke may be more to your liking, or not.
Honestly, it’s really hard to make a call with a recording like this. For some Elvis may be too eccentric and “out there” (as proved true with a few friends I had listen to a track from it). On the other hand, I have had friends that would be rolling on the floor, howling with laughter with this release, much as I am now listening to it again. One thing I can say for certain: Elvis Herod is a very adept and accomplished story-teller with a musical ear that defies categorization. Elvis Herod is welcome in my collection any time.
Elvis Herod: Pork Belly Rumble
Free
8.5
Nice pick!
Reminded me on Robert Ashley – Private Parts.
Though, that’s another planet.
Too bad it doesn’t come with sub titles.
LOL – subtitles might have helped with that long list in the second track… But for the most part I followed pretty well.