Aqua Caligula EP: A Review

A review of Notorious Goose's (relatively) new EP, Aqua Caligula. Before you get into the usual nonsense body of the review, I should point out that I actually, genuinely, non-ironically liked this. I enjoyed listening to it, I really did.

Band website is www.maths.tcd.ie/~cblair/notoriousgoose.

Following the extended hiatus subsequent to the release of their first album, Notorious Goose have sent out a message to the musical world that they are quite definitively back and are preparing to, once more, take the unexpecting masses by storm and assure the permanency of their thoroughly deserved place at the pinnacle of Dublin’s Progressive-House-Metal-Turntablism-Korean-Spanish-Pop-Indie-Fusion scene. To this end, they have released a truly groundbreaking piece of work in their four-track EP Aqua Caligula.

To say that the Goose have, musically, moved away from their roots and into divergent territory is an understatement of catastrophic proportions. However, the core messages of the past still shine through strong in the EP’s opening – and title – track, Aqua Caligula. An unfamiliar beat crashes in like an earthquake, while deep tones and obscure incantations haunt the background like a spirit that shall not be laid to rest. Eventually this melts into a soaring crescendo of musical self-actualisation, the Goose breaking free of the limitations they had in the past and attaining a new level of existence. The question posed by this track is that since they have reached a higher plane through music, will you join them there?

The second track, Hans Beimler Komerad, is a stirring elegy, not for Hans Beimler, the Mexican Jew who wrote Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but for the German communist Hans Beimler who was incarcerated in Dachau for anti-Nazi campaigning, before being killed while fighting for the Republicans in Spain. The song is both an elegant paean for the human spirit and dignity embodied in Beimler’s tireless fight for his beliefs, and a mourning that such heroism is forgotten and ignored by a society obsessed with the bloodthirsty deeds of wicked men and ostentatious, two-dimensional “good guys”.

This theme of society’s consensual, subconscious repression of the side of the past that doesn’t suit their vision of things is continued in Jarama, the indistinct lyrics and powerful, stark chord strokes serving as a reminder of the obfuscation and distortion post-neo-revisionist historiography has placed upon events in our world. Bleak and low key, the song’s doomed struggle against this wave perfectly mirrors the desperate, heroic, but ultimately in vain efforts of the Spanish Republicans to hold off Franco’s numerically superior forces at the Battle of Jarama. These men fought for freedom, truth and what they believed in, and the Goose are doing much the same with this song, a timely reminder that we must question all that is presented to us in this world we inhabit.

Finally The Good Ship Moo Ship serves as a plea for a simpler age, evoking the wide-eyed fascination of childhood when presented with the wide ocean and a boat in which to navigate it. That sea, for us now, is knowledge, and for too long, we have been kept firmly on the shore by those who would rather we do not ever try to discover the truth about our existence. This song is simple in its message – set sail without fear and you will find yourself.

All in all, this is another stellar piece of work from Blair and Humphreys, and one only hopes that the second album can live up to the standard set by this EP, in terms of lyrics, music and message.

I am a Music Reviewer Person

The following is a review I wrote of a friend's band's album, mostly for the laugh. Check them out at www.bebo.com/notoriousgoose and download the album at www.maths.tcd.ie/~cblair/notoriousgoose although I think that is temporarily down for maintenance.

I'm tempted to make a habit out of this observation, but I won't, I'll just do this one last time - the review has a Gunning Fog Index of 21.04, which is officially bananas and precisely what I was aiming for.

The Best of Notorious Goose 2006-2007: A Retrospective

This is not so much the tale of an album, as the tale of two men, their music reflecting the dramatic voyage of self-discovery that they embarked on. Through this album, one can see the development occurring as two boys become two men, finding the true meaning and purpose of themselves, creating not just music and lyrics, but creating people, deconstructing and reconstructing the reality in which they inhabit through the power of song.

I am Sigur Rós acts as a curtain raiser, it’s soft, minor-key patter nudging on the genesis of awakening, a musical dawn breaking to the east, and a revolution, nay, an evolution, is about to erupt.

John Humphreys’ epic sweeping vocals then kick in on the ukulele driven Do the Banshee, contrasting with the frivolity of the beat, guiding and lending shape to innocence, with feedback created by guitarist Chris Blair providing an ominous reminder that something darker lurks behind innocence, and is only protected from it by external wisdom, as symbolised by the vocals.

DPRK Space Marines is the first sign of experimentation; it is representative of the voyage of discovery about to be undertaken. The fact that it is a far from perfect song only adds to the message – failure is the mother of invention, and the metaphysical brilliance of the piece, that one must accept failure if one hopes to succeed, is conveyed powerfully.

The awakening reached by this is engendered in Arise Ye Pixies and Fight Imperialism, a song that tells us of the political engendering of every being, and the power of those beings, regardless of their seeming significance, especially when they act as a collective. The jolly-but-dark music brings back memories of the heyday of Nobuo Uematsu, something many others have strived for but failed, but Notorious Goose pull it off almost effortlessly.

The next track, The End of Africa, sadly, had the powerful message of its lyrics lost somewhat in controversy over an intellectual copyright dispute, but with that behind the Goose, the song can now be seen for what it is, an exploration of Lovecraftian themes of loss, horror and fear of that which lies beyond the veil of our immediate perceptions, for we are, as the song says “trapped in a world”, loaded with sly references to the works of Umberto Eco. The spoken-word stylings of Humphreys’ delivery only serve to enhance the solemnity of the realisation of loss, the force that so rapidly can change a man.

The album’s midpoint reaches a frothing energy in the super-charged guitar riffs of Golden Axe, an intensely clever parody on the soulless, destructive modern culture, “the dragon”, that has been created by a world increasingly caught up in the alternate realities created by cinema and videogames, and the increasing commercialisation of every facet of human lives, from the weather to music to religion and politics – something the song reflects in its sudden switch from pounding guitar to soft, inoffensive ukulele at the finish, another triumph for meta-statement in music.

The next track, Liechtenstein, sadly sees the Goose overstretch themselves in an attempt to distil the essence of a nation into two minutes of music. While haunting and delicate in its construction, which is musically very fine, the tune brings more to mind the foothills and stone castles of Andorra than the snowy peaks and ski lifts of Liechtenstein. However, it is a brave attempt, and with refining, a method of songwriting that warrants further exploration.

It is now that we come to the second song that once had its brilliance masked by unfortunate controversy, Micronesia. Unlike the previous track, this is not meant to be a representation of a nation-state, but rather a state of being. This is one of the more vocally driven tracks on the album, that perfectly convey the basic feeling of the song, the awful power of love that is too strong to ever be expressed through words, only approximated. It’s the additional power of music that allows this expression to be fully realised, and it is achieved here in a most beautiful fashion.

The Spy Who Loved Me serves as a well-composed little interlude to break up the emotional rollercoaster that the album has provided so far, but again, has a meta-musical meaning that is easy to miss – a statement on the need of people in our commercial, capitalist world to have difficult things broken up and dumbed down so as not to offend their middle-class sensibilities.

Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Mystery snaps the listener back with the whip-like surety of a five-point seatbelt in a rapidly braking car. This song’s exploration of the twisted psyche of Michael Jackson, his decline and fall, goes further in probing the mysteries of his mind than any other musical tribute ever has, or probably ever will. The sparse use of lucidity in lyricism, and the understated yet powerful beat cast and image of a mindscape disconnected from reality that has utterly imploded into un-existence, a bizarre land of colourswirls and sounds. Anyone looking to comprehend why Jackson has fallen so far can find it hidden in this song.

If all of this has been the crescendo of understanding, Sweet Afton is that early evening comedown, it is smoking a roll-up over a pint of Guinness in a dingy old man pub with a few mates, the rhythmic, traditional sounds of the song clashing with and overcoming the distortion that represents the so-called societal progress outside. This is the soul of man at repose, lying in complete comfort and simply indulging itself in the way people were meant to do, in a way far too many people forget too quickly and too often. Life needs variation, and life needs escapes, and all of that is encapsulated beautifully in a track that takes its time to go a lot of places, musically, yet returns to the same comfort of the start – a superb metaphor for the human condition in its most pristine state.

The bonus track, a version of Do The Banshee, recorded during a live gig in The People’s Theatre in Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, East Berlin, simply serves as a reminder of the passion and vigour that this band brings to its live performances, even getting the repressed people to rise as one cheering mass during the track’s many rises and falls, and serves as a tribute the raw edge this band have, that in the eyes of some, makes Notorious Goose better out of the studio than in it.

However, the album is not without its flaws - it is fair to say that the failure to include Blair’s seminal epic The Toga Song and Humphreys’ magnificently wry My Name is John its biggest weakness. But this is a minor complaint. This is one of the most fantastic albums, in terms of both composition and message that I have ever encountered, and I advise all fans of good music and layered meaning to go out and track down a copy of this hidden gem.