Mutado Pintado
Album: 336 W 17th St
Label: Peasant Vitality
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pintadomulato

Mutado Pintado AKA Clams Baker, renowned vocalist in Paranoid London amongst other bands and collaborations, brings his first audio biography with this wonderfully diverse collection of insights into eleven years spent in and out of New York City's underbelly.....the accompanying publicity includes the quote 'Probably the most random album you'll hear all year', and fair to say, that is a given, and an understatement of monumental proportions!!!

A veritable cauldron of styles, fusions, and influences, help create a window on a divergent world out there....and in doing so has already attracted attention from Lauren Laverne and Tom Robinson no less....resulting in an abundance of airplay and general fervour....and rightly so!!!

It's rare an album can grab this listener's attention so instantly and keep it 100% focused for the entire duration....but the sheer contrast ensures that around each and every corner, at the peak of each high, and belly of each low, there's something new, something different and downright captivating!

Much of the vocal is spoken, or at least semi spoken, warm and intuitive yet at the same time cynical and assertive and there's no lull as whitisisms, wry observations, and musings unfold with each and every uber creative breath. Hip Hop beats, pop-punk frenzies, blues driven drone pop amongst the myriad of styles on offer here, all colliding, interluding and marrying to encapsulate something so very distinctive yet so easy to digest, accept and subsequently be in awe of!

There's so many other artists that spring to mind here, Eels, Arrested Development, PIL, Beck, Dreadzone amongst those that spring to mind.....easily these could have helped nurture this wonderful offering....an absolute delight from the very first note of opener 'King of the worker bees' to the hanging last of 'Sunday Morning'.....just go and buy this at the earliest opportunity, play it very loud and embrace the underdog! This is an absolute triumph of a record.....that is all!

James Cosgrove