Slumped on a post-pub sofa at the turn of the twenty-first century, I flicked on the TV and promptly set about recovering my jaw from its new place of residence on the floor. I had tuned into the inaugural episode of Chris Morris’ Jam which, if you haven’t had the pleasure, is about as pitch black as humour can get without being a great hoovering void roaring right back into your face.
Before Jam, there was Blue Jam. A radio show of woozy electronics, surreal monologues, and cut-up snippets of sound designed to discombobulate as often as tickle. Around this time, Brighton-based spoonerism fans, Wevie Stonder, released their debut record. Eat Your Own Ears, gifting a name to a London promoter and blending jazzy instrumentals with chopped-up spoken word collages to hilarious effect.
Comparing Wevie Stonder to Chris Morris does them a little disservice. They’re far dafter and more chipper than he. Their approach is akin to that of Cassette Boy, Mr Scruff, or Matmos at their cheekiest. The five-piece claim the album has been ready for eleven of the fifteen years since their last outing, blaming the delay on an inability to select a title. They’ve gone with Sure Beats Living, which, alongside 11 Years Too Soon, Magic Boy’s Basic Bits, and Shape of a Finger, is one of the myriad options provided during the squelching plod of ‘Album Titles’.
Fingers seem important. ‘Vanja & Slavcho’ is a freak show of arpeggiating 70s synths, digits and holes, with fingers going in one orifice and appearing out of quite another. Opener, ‘That’s Magic’ relays a convoluted trick, formed from misdirection, lies, hoovers, and burning cards, ending with someone being given the finger.
An enduring musical comedy album is a notoriously tough creative endeavour. Repeated listens often result in diminishing returns as the vital element of surprise – pivoting left when expected to shift right, or what Stewart Lee refers to as ‘folding’ – vanishes with prior knowledge. But, in this era of disposable music, where the lifespan of a record rarely extends beyond its release week, perhaps the comedy album can shine?
Wevie Stonder certainly think so, reconfiguring ‘Push It’ into an instructional work-out anthem that’ll have you lifting decreasingly smaller weights. ‘Tiktaalik’ is a cheery tune about the missing link between fish and lizard, mapping the journey from sea to shore, with flapping fins becoming stomping legs before the responsibility for humanity’s excesses and exploits are placed at the four feet and gills of the luckless creature.
‘Ready’ finds the band ripping through a hot list of genres in eighty seconds until finally introducing their track ‘The Void’ as “middle of the road”. This finale gives lazy R&B pop stylings a kicking as an autotuned voice whines about the real difficulties of being a musician: i.e. plugging a lead into a bass guitar. They go on to provide their own bad review in the style of those late-night CD boxset adverts that, I presume, have disappeared into the past.
Referenced artists
Chris Morris
Low Culture 9: Chris Morris And The Legacy Of Blue Jam
But amongst eerie, ghostly whisps and wriggly bass, the sampled clippings of ‘Carpet Squares’ best highlights the band’s approach to collage. Quadrants of fuzzy flooring mimic the small musical parts meshing into a grander yet sillier whole.
Twenty-odd years on and the opportunities for stumbling across something shocking on TV seem non-existent but Wevie Stonder haven’t lost their knack for a surprise attack. They just needed to pull their finger out.
