Flamingo Tower＜限定盤/Colored Vinyl＞

The surrealistic experimental pop made by Los Angeles collective Monde UFO is an anomaly. Not content to simply inject some psychedelic touches into more conventional rock songwriting, the group creates a woozy, unearthly sound that incorporates elements of space-age jazz, rhythmic skeletons informed by both the unrelenting machinery of the Silver Apples and the more humanistic freaking out of Can, and perhaps most excitingly a backdrop of loungy exotica that would sound more at home on the surface of Jupiter than some faraway tropical beach on any green planet. The group began as solo home-recording experiments by bandleader Ray Monde, and the lo-fi spirit of his earliest recordings isnt lost on the groups second album, Flamingo Tower, but expanded into stranger and more vivid sounds. The record begins (and eventually ends) with a snippet of church organ (the sound their earliest songs were centered around) before abruptly fading into the free-form percussion, saxophone burbling, and muttered vocal mantras of "Gambled House Were Wiping Fire (psalm 1)." Eventually, a groove takes hold, but even at its steadiest, the song threatens to fall into chaos at any moment. When it eventually does, its not the expected full-on assault of loud guitars and banging drums, but an even freer performance from the organic instruments and distant vocals that sound like a lovestruck hula dancer somewhere. "Sunset Entertainment 3" changes gears completely, with a sunny pop backbone akin to early Beck but weird ornamentation by way of no wave guitar skronk and more wild sax riffing. Theres some sinister orchestral pop energy a la Serge Gainsbourg on "No Sight Screening" and in the moody strings of "Samba 9," tape collage soundscaping with lounge undertones on "Ave Tascam (psalm 0)," layered drums and anxious choruses on "119," and slowly wandering upright bass grooves on the misty, wonderstruck coastal daydream "Solitaire." As Flamingo Tower plays out, Monde UFO recalls the more subdued small-band Sun Ra albums one moment, Future Days-era Can the next moment, and without batting an eye jumps from these laid-back moods into jittery, antagonistic guitar noise. Monde and his collaborators somehow make these quick shifts without upsetting the balance of the album or derailing its flow. Every weird sound has its place in the equation on Flamingo Tower, and its a wonderfully mystifying puzzle to try to solve. ~ Fred Thomas