Title: Do You Like My Tight Sweater
Artist: Moloko
Published by Chrysalis Music
Copyright: 1995 The Echo Label Limited.

"Try smelling Moloko CDs before and after use for a fuller sensual experience"
  1. Fun For Me : 05.07
  2. Tight Sweater : 00.15
  3. Day for Night : 05.23
  4. I Can't Help Myself : 05.44
  5. Circus : 00.19
  6. Lotus Eaters : 07.32
  7. On My Horsey : 00.34
  8. Dominoid : 04.11
  9. Party Weirdo : 07.01
  10. Tubeliar : 00.25
  11. Ho Humm : 05.38
  12. Butterfly 747 : 04.30
  13. Dirty Monkey : 00.23
  14. Killa Bunnies : 02.19
  15. Boo : 05.47
  16. Where Is The What If The What Is In Why? : 04.16
  17. Who Shot The Go Go Dancer? : 06.58

This album is drug-induced there's no two ways about it. The vocalist Roisin Murphy has admitted that drugs play a large part in their music. If you couldn't guess that from their name then the lyric : "All I see is alot of young people all mixed up. It's just not fair" followed closely by "Drugs and drugs and drugs and drugs" in the background from Party Weirdo should give you a hint.
OK how about the track Lotus Eaters, convinced yet?
No?
Then listen to the album!

My personal favourite aspect of this album is the combination of extreme weirdness of some of the tracks' lyrics along with their mind-opening insightfulness. I have also fallen in love with their sound which I will try to describe later; suffice to say it is like nothing you've ever heard.

Tracks like Killa Bunnies and Dirty Monkey are not what you would describe as insightful; they definitely fall into the almost frighteningly strange category. Then there are the slightly insightful but still very strange tracks like Party Weirdo, Who Shot the Go Go Dancer and I Can't Help Myself. The continuium goes on through Lotus Eaters and Fun For Me all the way to Where Is The What If The What Is In Why? which still, after four years, has the ability to make me think (What the hell were they on? ;-) ). It asks questions like "What is a thought, a phoney creation", "What if the point was re-incarnation", "What is a searcher with nothing to find", "Why climb the ladder if you can't reach the top" and that's just the first verse.

Now for their style, I hate to use the combinational approach to classifying genres (e.g. trancey hard deep funky old skool jungle house. What the hell does that mean ?) but I see no other way to describe this album.
So, first and foremost it's acid jazz; this is primarily because its so strange and any sufficiently strange music is indistinguishable from acid jazz. It manefestly draws on p-funk for many of its musical structures and in interviews they have discussed their respect for bands like Funkadelic. Certain of their tracks are quite rocky (i.e. Killa Bunnies) but that's not really enough for a sub-genre. Dance music is their, obvious, primary sub-genre but most of their tracks would require re-mixing to be danceable in a club setting. Electronica describes them reasonably. So what do we have : dancey funky eletronic acid jazz.

"The remarkable Hi-fi sounds on this Moloko Digital Audio Compact Disc, a format developed initially by Philips, have been scientifishly enhanced at Pondview for your listening pleasure. Enjoy time and again modern B.A.M. Virtual Quadraphonia (tm) in a domestic environment. Using any two conventional home stereo systems with each of the four speakers places facing centre somwhere in the room simultaniously insert two of the special 36 kHz Moloko Compact Discs and synchronise play. It's as simple as that. The incredible sounds you will hear are Virtual Quadraphonic* (tm) - and you'll want to hear them again. Should you experience any 'flange-ing' or noise 'distortion' you've obviously done it wrong."

*"scientists and young people studying hi-fidelity recording and reproduction techniques note Virtual Quadrophonia (tm) should not be confused with standard quadrophonic sound"


All text in quotes above is direcly from the album sleeve.