Released: 1999
Tracks: What are you doing; Click; I just got here; Naked horse; Blue jean baby; The knife & drum; Paprika; Nine; Sunset over the paprika festival; Juzz; Chew; Show yourself; Don’t hurt our paprika!; Clumpy clumpy o; Oh angel; The Boing-Ah steroid; On a glandular level; The blumpy hop; Draconian blump; Rake Bannuh’s men; Odon; I love it here; Drumsticks; Oprah talks to teens; Hum; Rake’s men hurt their back; Piezo clambake; Medic!; Hang tough; An understanding of my self as other; Self ‘n’ Other; O, stamp collector; Show more of yourself; Lights out, eyes open; What I have done
Best Tracks: Click, Hum and On a Glandular Level
Tracks to skip: Naked Horse, Show Yourself, Odon
Check out the review for
Nonkertalk – I recommend getting that if you’re interested in this album as it explains a lot of the concepts and discusses the songs for this album.
I really like this album, but boy it is difficult to actively listen to all the way through. It’s pretty sparse instrumentally, but the music is so dense and there are so many ideas here that to solely concentrate on it for 75 minutes is difficult. It takes a lot out of you. Then again, if you have it on in the background while you’re doing other stuff (browsing, driving, housework, whatever) I think it’s more successful. Listening to it in small chunks, or mixed in with other music also works too. 75 minutes of it is hard to get through, though.
This was Keneally’s first album for his new label, Exowax, and for it he decided to go all out and make the instrumental album he envisioned when he was 12. A couple of the songs have “vocals”, but there aren’t any lyrics here, just vocalizations. Other than that, yeah, it’s all instrumental and Mike played everything by himself. The album is beautifully recorded and features loads of cool playing. Nearly all of the compositions are interesting in some way or another. The only ones that I didn’t care for in a critical sense are the 3 listed as “skippers”. It’s not really a big deal, though. A nice chunk of these songs are played live by Keneally’s band and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the tracks that work best in a live setting are the best ones here too: Click and Hum. Both are very cool compositions and rank up there with some of the best stuff he’s composed. I also mentioned On a Glandular Level – it’s really short (half a minute), but the guitar part is exceptionally cool. Other individual stuff I love includes the guitar solo on Knife and Drum (very Satriani-esque), the great melodies on Paprika & Oh Angel, the bass work on Chew. I Love it Here is a cool track that starts off really funky before moving into a lot of different and really interesting areas.
Keneally performed a live version of this album with the Metropole Orchestra in Holland and I’ve heard a few of those tracks and it’s *excellent*. I hope he releases the full thing one day – maybe it could happen this year as it’s the 10th anniversary of this album? As I mentioned up there, Nonkertompf is difficult to listen to actively all at once. It’s a really good album, but it’s not an easy listen. Still, there’s a ton of great music here and if you already like Mike Keneally’s music then you should definitely get this. I’d recommend all of the other albums first, but that’s not to say you should leave this off your list. It was his first truly experimental work and definitely an important one in his catalog.
Rating: 84
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