First Listen: Pink And Brown - Shame Fantasy II

Pink And Brown - Puddles Of Acid Part 1 & 2


Inspired by The Decibel Tolls and his review of the new Animal Collective in real time, I thought I'd give that a whirl with the recently acquired Pink And Brown Shame Fantasy II LP. Basically, the idea is to do a live commentary on a record you've never listened to before. If this goes well, I might do it again in the future.

I have the vinyl version of Shame Fantasy II, which means it's only 5 songs. They were recorded after Pink And Brown officially broke up. The CD version contains every track they've ever put out (including these 5 new ones) but the vinyl is just the newest. OK... hitting play... now....

This isn't exactly what I was expecting from Pink And Brown. This is on Load Records, home of the Lightning Bolt monsters, and I'd heard P&B get lumped in with LB a lot. I guess I was expecting a little more LBness. The vocals are definitely in line with Chippendale's, ie low in the mix, garbled, and totally indecipherable. The music, however, is much more garage punk than noise punk.

It's high energy but not completely spastic. And, at least compared to the other kinds of music I listen to, this isn't very noisey. It's comparable to a psych rock band freakout jam, where they just go nuts for 10 minutes before returning the the chorus. Think more White Hills and less Wolf Eyes.

Side B starts out with "Puddles Of Acid Part 1 & 2" and the riff is just fucking nasty. I love it. It's like something from Melt Banana if they made a psych record (which is not totally out of the question, you know).

I like it when I get taken aback like this. I expected this to be something that I would never be able to listen to in the company of Elise but I'm pretty sure this would be (at the very least) tolerable to her. It's not as off the wall as I'd hoped it would be but it still a tight, albeit short, record. Makes me kinda want the CD version...