StrangeJuice

Many songwriting masters will tell you that the great songs come together very quickly, all at once. You can sit down and craft something for months but there is something very pure about letting a song come to fruition quickly so as not to strangle the life out of it. This filterless process also means that every wacky, left-field idea will be on the table. No dismissing the absurd. This process has worked wonders for some artists. Ween undoubtedly comes about their songs in this manner, letting their most ludicrous ideas see the light of day. Some of the Beatles best material came from very quick sessions where preposterous ideas were left on the table, eventually becoming iconic songs.

Perth madman Mike Anderson's stream of consciousness project StrangeJuice is....difficult to explain. Quirky, stop-start beats are peppered with choppy guitars and vocals that employ a more than casual use of the vocoder. And then there are the lyrics ranging from surfing freezing oceans amidst cigar smoking penguins, to being surrounding by demons and dragons in the night to Big Jim Smoke's unsightly beard stubble. There's a Les Claypool kind of surrealism to his words and stories as well as a Tom Waits-style cast of characters.

Anderson conceived and created the entire 14 track album in roughly two weeks with additional help solely on background vocals. This would be a monumental task for any 3-chord 3-piece but to weave together the hodge-podge of noises, textures and melodies that he uses into an album that quickly is very impressive. And you know what? It sounds pretty damn good. At first, the alcohol-fuelled phantasmagorical tales seem completely insane...and they are but when you let yourself sink down StrangeJuice's rabbit hole, well the Wonderland you're faced with doesn't feel so odd. Maybe it's where you came from that has things upside down.