Monday, February 09, 2009

Wikipedia: cheap source of amusement

I can't remember where I saw this. Just found it amusing.

If you go to Wikipedia, you will see on the left side of the page a navigation link titled "Random article." Click the link and write down the name of each article you find. The first article is the name of your band, the second is the name of your first album, and the subsequent articles are the tracks of that album. (Deciding what kind of music your band plays is optional.)

So, without further ado, the musical stylings of Rhuis, ladies and gentlemen!
Album: Embassy of Finland in Ottawa.

Track listing:
1) Koliwada
2) Merlin German
3) Cellar Door
4) Kettering, Maryland
5) Ben Matulino
6) NX-OS
7) WNYF (SUNY Fredonia)
8) Champagne, France
9) Pac-Man
10) The Coral Sea
plus a hidden track: Visayan Spotted Deer

And now for an All Music Guide summary:
Rhuis alarmed and befuddled the critics with the release of its debut album, Embassy of Finland in Ottawa. No genre was safe from this fusion-confusion group hailing from Onwerkelijke University in the Neverlands.

The trance-inspired "Koliwada," punctuated by ritual chanting from three continents, gradually gives way to the epic instrumental rock poem "Merlin German," with its legendary two-minute space accordion solo by Zhaobaogou. "Cellar Door" is strongly reminiscent of early Oingo Boingo albums, with its bouncy and slightly menacing chorus of "Whatever you've been or done before/Just don't you open my cellar door..." "Kettering, Maryland," previously a fan favorite only performed live at concerts, is here recreated in the studio in all its bluegrass-banjo glory. The lo-fi "Ben Matulino," with distorted, repetitive vocals screamed by Jam Forskolin, is kept mercifully short. "NX-OS," by comparison, stretches well past the ten-minute mark, but keeps things interesting with its Art of Noise-inspired clanks and fweets, building in a great farrago of junkyard funk to a powerful and explosive conclusion. The experimental noise track that follows, "WNYF," is little more than the sound of a radio being tuned to random channels of music, talk radio and other random programming, though the juxtaposition of these disparate elements is sometimes inadvertently amusing. (Go to 2:45 on the track and you'll see what I mean.) "Champagne, France" sounds like a lost piece from a Jeunet & Caro film soundtrack, again allowing Zhaobaogou to display his remarkable accordion chops. Rhuis even shows it can rap with its old-school version of "Pac-Man," an updated cover of the early-'80s novelty hit "Pac-Man Fever." The band rounds out the listed tracks with "The Coral Sea," a muted saxophone-and-piano jazz number. Fans of They Might Be Giants should keep listening for the hidden track, which is bizarre yet catchy.
Hee. Fun! Want to play?

2 comments:

tlchang said...

Heh - that's funny. (Your band seems enamoured of place names for song titles.)

Soozcat said...

It is rather odd how that turned out.