Even if I never heard a single note of this release I was destined to love a single entitled ‘Seven inches of a fucking elephant’, especially as the A side of this limited edition vinyl is named ‘I’m addicted to drugs and sex and I want you to choke me’ – it’s almost as if this record was made for people of my warped and twisted mindset and then sent out psychically: I wouldn’t have been terribly surprised if Mary Poppins herself, clad in funky leather and barbed wire, delivered this single to my door although, sadly, I have to confess that it was just the ordinary postman and while I’m sure he’s a thoroughly nice chap it’s still a touch disappointing. Anyhow, I digress, we’re here to look at A fucking Elephant (far better than looking at an elephant fucking) and, to cut to the chase so that you can all go home without trawling through my endless similes, it is fucking awesome (hell – best get our swearword quota into this review).
Still here? OK – then clearly you are a glutton for linguistic punishment and I shall be sure to make you pay for your tenacity. The A side of this single then (yep – the one about sex and choking) is an instrumental blast of feral punk/metal that defies easy classification and heads straight for the jugular with its stair-stepping guitar riff and jazz-infused drumming. The clearest natural relative may well be Fugazi’s brilliant ‘instrument’ soundtrack, although this is several shades heavier and laden with layers of speaker-destroying feedback the likes of which only Neil Young and Sonic Youth fanatics would ever enjoy. Happily I am a Neil Young and Sonic Youth fanatic and therefore the only possible conclusion is that this is awesome. Hell, I even played it once at the wrong speed and it became a whole new shade of awesome – so there you have it: a brilliant new way to extend your enjoyment of this far-too-short single whilst you wait for the album to appear (Matt, Greg? Hear that? Take the hint and get busy!) But wait, there’s also a B side – ‘a bunch of good looking roundeyes’ which takes the band’s brilliance to whole new levels. It’s like the first track but faster – notes falling over themselves like babies in a cement mixer (or something less offensive) – it’s like they took a shit-load of speed and acid, washed it all down with thirty cans of Red Bull and then decided to record the result – a sort of musical aneurysm as you listen, if you will.
A fucking elephant are awesome. They are not interested in commercial interest, mass sales or glossy marketing. They play and record what they feel and then press it to nauseatingly yellow vinyl and all I can think of are the long-gone days when I used to trawl (now vanished) local record shops in order to track down ultra-limited Sub Pop releases in order to swell my collection. They recall the heady days of early-90’s alternative before it turned introverted and buried itself in gloom and they resonate with the simple joy of making music because they can – no hype, no bullshit pressure and no unnatural digital gloss. This is rock music as it should be – raw, untamed and unrestrained and it quite simply is A fucking elephant.
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