I can take warped, off the wall, experimental, unconventional, avant-garde: in fact, I positively lap it up, provided it's good. Of course, the more warped, off the wall, experimental, unconventional and avant-garde any art is - be it music, literature, interpretative dance, film or visual art - the more subjective what constitutes 'good' becomes.
Accessibility or listenability aren't really key factors, but then again, what I may consider accessible or listenable will be completely insufferable to many, but it cuts both ways.
So here I find myself pondering Perhaps Contraptions' 'Sludge and Tripe.' It's mental. That much isn't a matter of subjective opinion, it's a fact.
The band themselves promise 'a ferocious soup of tight, angular avant-rock, explosive free-jazz improvisations, soaring sound-scapes and twisted folk', while locating their music in a lineage that features Zappa, Captain Beefheart, The Mars Volta, Cardiacs, System of a Down, Mogwai, King Crimson, Hella, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Tortoise. Fair enough, I can see - and hear - some of those elements at work here, while also perhaps identifying common ground with some of Mike Patton's anti-commercial and utterly loopy and completely genre-defying output. The hyperactive schizophrenia of Mr Bungle makes for a reasonable reference point, as are the stop/start lurching improvs of Truman's Water (remember them?).
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But I still can't decide whether or not this is 'good'. Parts are dazzling - there are moments, for example, in 'Hard Cutlery' where the band completely freak out in big crazy rock mode, before veering off into semi-ambient and even cabaret and returning to screaming guitar noise (with additional flutes and whistles) and it's as wild as it is blinding. Elsewhere, however, things sound less inspired and more self-conscious, as on the opener, 'The Old Dispensary', on which references to a 'chemical chicken future' feel just that bit forced, too wilfully kooky to be convincingly crazed.
Ultimately, I think it's good in places and dreadful in others. That's ok: this album is so diverse I can't imagine that even all of the band members like all of the tracks. However, even the good bits are only good in small doses: more than a brief burst of this sort of thing is liable to induce a serious headache and leave you dizzy.
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