Pfeuti "Pigeon Post"

This is a great record!

This may be the easiest review for complex music that I've ever written. Why? Because Pigeon Post is music that is so unique and varied that it cannot be, hee-hee, pigeonholed, yet its sound is so simple, so basic, that any long-drawn explaination is really unnecessary. Music of contradiction? Of course not! Making a basic description is rather easy, because Pfeuti have one basic sorce of inspiration, apparent to anyone who listens: John Coltrane. But-wait!! Pfeuti aren't a jazz band! At least I don't really think that they're making jazz music. Maybe they think they are. I just don't see it, really. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about Pigeon Post, yet it's by far one of the most original records of 2002.

As this is primarily an all-instrumental record (save for a sampled voice--from M.A.S.H., perhaps?--saying "Hello, doctor"), I'm going to focus on one song. One really great song. Track #3. "Blind Man Plan B." Starts off simple enough, with a jazzy, lets-snap-our-fingers-because-we-are-HIP, sax riff. It's the music that you'd want playing if you were trying to meet a mysterious Beat girl. Then--well, let's just say that they win the prize for BEST tempo change, because that slinky jazz beat morphs into one raucious blast of...of....surf music!! Imagine if Trane had scored the soundtrack to Gidget. Just picture a group of mysterious Beat girls taking off their black clothes to reveal a black one-piece bathing suit and doing the Clam. It's enough to make Sylvia Plath come out of hiding. Just as soon as you're used to that beat, though, they return to the riff they started the song with. It's nice. Real nice. As is the following number, "Caravan Lowdown," which is, quite simply, the sound of Jazz Music meeting Jewish Music and taking a sail out over international waters.

Really, Pigeon Post is a great, fun record. It's rare that an instrumental record will cause unapologetic bursts of laughter, but this record is just that way. It's easily been a highlight of both this new year and last year as well. I'm certainly eager to hear what this Japanese group (did I not mention they weren't American? You certainly wouldn't know it by listening, that's for sure) will do next. You need a record like Pigeon Post in your life. Great fun for your next clambake, house party, poetry reading, or po-faced coffee drinking intellectual discussion.

P.S. In case I didn't make it clear, I'll say it again: this is a great record!

--Joseph Kyle