Neblung Price

Like listening to a Dutch band trying to imitate the White Album

Neblung Price are Jim Price and Rick Neblung. They’re from New Jersey. They’re undeniably strange. And of course perfectly normal. Which is to say neurotic; schizophenic; prone to sudden fits of laughter, crying, coughing.

Jim Price was a dj at WFMU 91.1 FM for many years...and a damned good one. He began there in 1976 and was an early champion of R. Stevie Moore, with whom he has collaborated and played drums for since 1978. Price played an electic, free form stew of fiercely original stuff, from cheesy psychedelia to noisecore; in both cases, this electicism had a positive impact on his own music.

Like any good post-post-post band (think Ween, Oneida) they romp in a garden of styles without ever getting academic about it. I sometimes get the feeling I’m listening to a Dutch band trying to imitate the White Albumwonderful! The familiar made strange.

Certainly some sublime music has been made by home-noodlers: EMMIT RHODES comes to mind. Neblung Price aren’t pop monsters like Rhodes, but they’re something just as unusual: poets. You'll get the beautiful unity of their music after a number of listens (usually a good signthere aren’t many masterpieces that reveal themselves quickly and dirtily). Now, don’t go getting yer gauge upI’m not claiming Forever Changes status for this monkey; the jury’s still out. The music is held together by a kind of dark (yet smart-assedly playful) sensibility not altogether dissimilar from its BIG STAR namesake. Fear and doubt seem to be the predominant emotions here, carried as much by the music as by the words. Or rather by some ineffable sum of music and words. Most of these songs begin with lovely acoustic-guitar fragments that keep on cycling, often drenched in long reverb and reminiscent of classic Brit-folk. A second, distorted guitar might enter, plus a simple Satie-like piano figure. The occasional drum (usually not a full kit) or percussion egg. There’s not a lot of ramatic “development”; more often a long A section, followed by a brief B section, then back to an A coda. The words tend to be Haiku-crisp and somewhat impressionistic, the delivery affectless. Phrases sometimes repeat at random, in the manner of Gertrude Stein. In general, the stuff breathes.