I’m not sure, writing this review, whether or not you’re going to think that I’m completely mental, but in all genuine honesty, I really like this record.  It’s fucking weird though.

This sounds a little bit like a balloon full of words has been released into the air and is whooshing about, divesting itself of its contents in a great big torrent until it finally collapses, a shrivelled shell of its former self, entirely spent.  It feels almost as if Ersing himself could collapse and dissipate into thin air at the end of this record; dam burst, thoughts poured out, deflated and exhausted.

Never mind the sheer pace, the delivery is bloody weird as well.  There are times when it’s so odd that you wonder how it ended up ever being committed to record as a form of music.  It feels more suited to the surreal environment of cartoons, with their exaggeration and charicature and bizarre internal logic.

Quite what the fuck he’s even on about half the time is far from obvious.  The relentless flow of words – often spoken, sometimes sort of sung – is so garbled and rushed that divining the actual lyrical content is a fairly insurmountable challenge, never mind sitting down to figure out what exactly he’s trying to say with it all.

However, like all clever weirdos serving up a gigantic portion of strange, Ersing does offer a little bit of relief.  After one of the craziest songs on the album he slips suddenly into a strange sort of piano ballad – one with muffled and rough production perhaps – but still something of an olive branch to the listener who, by that point, must surely be wondering what the fuck has hit them.

Past the vocals, the guitar playing is just as wrenched and spasmodic.  I suppose you could just barely characterise this as being a little like really early Hammell on Trial material being covered by the Animaniacs – it’s as close as I can get anyhow, despite it being something of a tenuous comparison.

It’s not entirely a great big ‘haha, fuck you, deal with this if you think you can’ to the audience however.  Songs like A Prior Instance of Teething, Under an Umbrella and Pause Fruit are genuinely lovely so, as I said, it’s not like he doesn’t know how to break the texture of a record this confrontational, to give people a way in.

And that’s how it works, I suppose.  I was fascinated with the sheer surprise of this album to begin with.  But then a couple of those songs got under my skin and before I knew it (and it took surprisingly little time, actually) even the strangest stuff seemed to have its place in the universe.  This might not work that well with individual preview songs, but when you listen to the entire album all the flights of fancy are actually very well anchored.  So listen past the initial ‘What the fuck??’ moments and give this one a bit of a chance.  You may well still hate it after that but I have really come to like it and I bet there’s quite a few of you out there who will do the same.

Mike Ersing – Pause Fruit

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Mike Ersing – Mood Dependant Retrieval

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MySpace (Buy the album here too – you’ll have to email the man himself, but it’s only three dollars.)