Caught in the Carousel

Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra

The Rat King
Ebola Music Records

Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra

The Residents, Frank Zappa, Beefheart, Penguin Café Orchestra, Devo, Oingo Boingo, Tom Waits. Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra have descended from a rather fine lineage, and I am certain the image which emblazes this particular sect’s coat-of-arms is one that is sordid and psycho-sexual in nature. I am apt to judge Ego Plum’s music in the context of these deliciously swarthy and outright weird bands because I feel it is among their ranks that it wishes to ascend. Certainly the influences are in tote, but as Robyn Hitchcock once sagely said "you have to be more than just your record collection."

The aesthetic of weird is punctuated by two principle types; those who have something genuinely subversive or interesting to say, and those who merely affect the gestures and sounds of those who do--who shamelessly pillage and mimic the sounds and syllables of these strong, aberrant groups. Perhaps it’s a sad and tired bid to attain a level of coolness usually found amongst such acts, but make no mistake that their impostures and charlatanry are bound to be revealed.

I have great suspicions that Ego Plum is not serving well under the banner of the former. I make no claim that they lack talent, but that they lack a certain point of egress—a certain ineffable something—which would push them beyond the fray of mere emulation. The fact is that it is genuinely taxing to hear their music without summoning to taste the name of some other band, likely one of the many mentioned above. It seems too referential and impersonal to really have a distinct voice of its own. Try as it may, it simply cannot decamp nor escape the anxiety of influence, in every note that is struck some other (better) artist is brought firmly to mind.

As for the music itself, it isn’t unbearable in any sense. It is, at the very least, managing to escape the strong and intractable grasp of "cutesy-wutesyness" that has long enslaved most indie bands. However, the problem comes in that it strives too hard to impress, and I seem to detect an unshakeable air of self-importance ringing from the compact disc case itself (possibly because an incoherent, laughably lame "manifesto" is encased behind the disc tray). They are vying for weird, but it is only a very suburban kind of weird that they attain. Certain pieces such as "Idiot Child" consciously reference "Duty Now For the Future"-era Devo, whereas songs like "Chinese Carnival Show" reiterate the mangled circus beat that Tom Waits has competently conquered. Much of the music is also reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s film scores—I can’t really isolate one particular piece because they all sound so nauseatingly similar to me. At other times it’s kind of like Black Heart Procession’s Amore del Tropico if it were un-emotive, hollow and flanked by bullshit Beatle-isms.

The voice is rather pedestrian, too much so for this kind of music (which is elemental in hampering its claims for greatness—the vocals are simply too incongruous with the sounds surrounding it, causing a kind of disconnect). Lyrically, it has much more to atone for. I’m absolutely raven for good lyrics. A certain phrase set in a certain way around a certain piece of music is practically an aphrodisiac to me, so I’m always mussed by contrived or lackluster lyrics, finding it a near criminal offence. I’m not asking for Percy Bysshe Shelley, just something I can sing along to without fear of reprisal. Lyrics like "witness a snake giving birth in a cage and one day grow old but never return to the zoo" go far beyond Zappa’s intentionally and confrontationally stupid lyrics to just plain stupid.

Initially, I rather enjoyed this but upon returning to its sounds I was struck by how much I actively disliked it. On all grounds its influences are solid and should provide a firm brace for fresh and inventive music. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t. The Rat King is perfectly fine in the context of most contemporary music—at least it’s adventurous enough to put down the harmonium—but in the company of those it so ravenously wishes to evoke, it is nothing short of mediocre.

—Brandon DiSabatino