Ugh. Cats on record covers is so 2010. To be honest, Stephen Keane and his rotating band of musicians (a trio featuring Sophie Brown and Gerry Burgess here) were probably unaware that cats had been featured on covers at all (Best Coast and Klaxons spring to mind), let alone be worried about what other people are doing. Slushy Guts exist on the periphery of even the alternative music world, and this new EP is further evidence. You will have noticed that it's called 'A Host Of Freakish Others Revolving In The Future', which is a bit of a mouthful, so it would be better condensed down to the initials 'WTF'. Naturally this set of songs is a lo-fi affair, but perhaps not in the regular sense. It's not sparingly produced, it's just kind of... recorded. So the "lo" bit doesn't really fit, which I guess would make this EP come under the new genre of "fi".
There's brief hope at the start of 'ALAS!' that proper songs might be on their way, but by the end of four minutes of half-spoken talking in some kind of tune (singing would be pushing it) and with what sounds like a kid they've dragged in off the street bashing about on some boxes with some sticks, that hope is pretty well totally diminished, only to be given a brief reprise when someone manages to get an electric guitar working. There's melody at the beginning of 'The Shape Of My Face Does Sometimes Change' but little else happens except for the vocals joining in and that kid with his boxes again; 'Just Drinking More Peaceful Then' is like a demo that was recorded on a child's tape player, possibly while drinking. Out of all the songs called 'Wolves In Space/Alturistic Therianthropes', Slushy Guts' version is probably my favourite, random collections of noises accompanying a song with absolutely no direction takes some skill. Hold up! 'WTF' does contain something akin to a song after all! It's called 'More-Days/Moretimes' and we've included it below. Confusingly (as if the rest of the EP wasn't anyway) we finish with another track called 'ALAS!', and this is downbeat and has the feel of a closing chapter. It also shows a worrying temptation to veer towards proper songs again though. Whatever the hell lot just was, we kinda liked it.
Slushy Guts' website
Stream or buy the EP
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