Tuxedomoon never really disbanded. After spending the
better part of the '80s and some of the following decade in Brussels, the
San Francisco–spawned avant-vaudeville ensemble's core members simply
dispersed to far-flung corners of the globe, reforming for collaborations
and the occasional tour or one-off. Thanks to regular, if casual, contact
and an enduring predilection for marrying acoustic and electronic
instrumentation in surreal, futuristic combinations, the interval between
1987's You and the new Cabin in the Sky comes off like a three-day
weekend.
The band's uncanny capacity for uniting disparate moods and genres rages
on undeterred. "Baron Brown" finds bassist Peter Principle typically
providing continuity and thrust over sparse, electroplasmic percussion,
acting as both foil and underpinning for dissonant piano flourishes and
subtly monomaniacal accordion; Steven Brown's noble saxophone and Blaine
Reininger's diabolical violin offer further opposition, as do the founding
duo's vocal trade-offs. Indulging thespian tendencies honed since the
band's inception in '77, Brown comes off like a youngish Eartha Kitt when
intoning lines such as "Make them all hear / About love / And that
terrible beauty that runs in our blood." Reininger—much of his old Bowie
vibe replaced by true grit—waxes contrastingly sleazy, especially on the
chorus's silliest quatrain: "It's old Count Dracula / Take you in the
backula / Of a feast we will partake / A meal of you I'll make." With yens
like these, the presence of pals DJ Hell and Tarwater seems mere frosting
on the band's perpetually fresh cake.—Rod Smith |