Soul-Junk – 1957

Description

1957 is an album by the American experimental and genre-hopping indie/hip-hop group Soul-Junk, released on Sounds Are Active ‎in 2002.

I consider Soul-Junk’s 1956 a watershed album of sorts, a delirious hip-hop masterpiece that wedded outright Christian ideology with a mad scientist’s mixture of jungle, drum n’ bass, pop, and a couple genres that may not even have names. Every listen to it was like a breath of fresh air, and was enough to make this skinny white boy to bob his head, pump his fist in the air, and rhyme along. Lyrically, Soul-Junk’s Glen Galaxy (a.k.a. Galaxalag) kept up with his musical madness step for step, delivering a one-two punch of worship songs and cleverly biting critiques of the Church and her failings.

And now comes 1957, and I find myself a bit torn. Although 1957 continues Soul-Junk’s love for unpredictable musical confectionery, it’s far more ambitious and experimental. «Jelly Wings» is a surreal downtempo experiment, complete with stream of consciousness rhymes and lethargic female background vocals. The orchestral hits of «Ungst Func Slag Collision» keep pushing the song along like so many hard-hitting beats, while the horn samples of «Innerspacemen» announce the song in high style.

Taking in 1957 is like listening to all of the schizophrenia of 1956 condensed into only half the time. And therein lies the problem. Along the way to a purer form of musical strangeness (think Half-Handed Cloud or a less-focused Avalanches), it feels like Soul-Junk lost their most potent weapon… their wit. Well maybe they didn’t. But it’s hard to tell because the element that I loved the most about 1956 (Galaxalag’s soothsaying) feels practically smothered by the layers of sounds, samples, and orchestrations. With time, it may be possible to peel back all of the layers, but on some songs, such as «Mercury» and its monotone robotic delivery, I wonder if it’ll be worth it.

It’s great to see Soul-Junk pushing the sonic boundaries of their music. I’ve always felt that Soul-Junk was one of Christendom’s hidden treasures, telling it like it is over crazed, wacked out sounds. Soul-Junk put it best themselves on 1956’s «3PO Soul»: “Just got kicked off the lectern at a worship song summit/ My hymns all plummet ’cause church ladies still won’t hum it”. And “1957”‘s musical oddities certainly won’t win them any more favor amongst those more set in their ways.

But I have to admit, after listening to 1957 a couple of times, I put in 1956 and there was a marked difference. Although tracks like «Ill-M-I» and «Pumpfake» might not be as out there, it was refreshing to see that Galaxalag’s lyrics had lost none of their potency or cleverness. It’s too bad that, while Soul-Junk was deepening and broadening their musical palette, some things were marginalized in the process. [Jason Morehead, The Phantom Tollbooth, 10/18/2002]

> iTunes (https://music.apple.com/us/album/1957/874911912)

CD tracklist:

01. Phalanx
02. Non-Linear
03. Jelly Wings
04. Gotham
05. Ungst Func Slag Collision
06. Innerspacemen
07. Droptop Floride
08. Horse Posing As Unicorn
09. Ruby Doomsday
10. Mercury
11. Jammy July Pike
12. Rap City Ark
13. Uqbar Orbis
14. Vesuvius

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://soul-junk.bandcamp.com/album/1957

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