Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice - Gypsy Freedom

Genre rock Publisher 5 Rue Christie External Links Official Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice Website Official 5 Rue Christie Website

Editor's Note: Assistant Music Editor Raymond Cummings fell ill with what he termed "some malignant avian bird flu voodoo jive" and was unable to complete his review of Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice's new album, Gypsy Freedom. Fortunately, Static was able to persuade American Idol judge and self-avowed "Satya Sai dawg for life" Randy Jackson to fill in at the last minute. What follows is Mr. Jackson's in-depth analysis in its entirety.

Yo, what's up? You feeling good? Look, okay, I'm liking this album a lot, I feel this. Y'all did your thing. The sleeve photo worries me though, dawgs - y'all look like the miserable management team of a bowling alley in Ohio or something. If you're gonna go nu-hippie, folks, go all out - love beads, headbands, long, long hair, bellbottoms, tye-dye everything, you know? Be proud of who you are. So look - I've been playing Gypsy Freedom for the gang some. Paula loved it - she changed into some vintage I Dream Of Jeannie arabic shit and was belly-dancing around the set. Seacrest just nodded and grinned like a baboon, as usual, so it's anyone's guess whether he was into y'all or not. Cowell ripped my Sony boombox out of the wall halfway through the CD and hurled it through a plate glass window without comment, not even a pithy "simply awful" - that's the most visceral reaction he's had to anything I've tried to turn him onto! I mean, the dude at least kind of enjoyed Modest Mouse and Merzbow. You never know with him.

This album felt real, or realer, than some of the other stuff I've heard by y'all - not quite so cluttered and splintered and meandering, everyone seriously playing up the jazz jones I could sense before but now it's out there, and I think this - alog with Buck Dharma, to some extent - is where you're beginning to come into your own as true artists instead of bumblers who never press the "Stop" button on the 4-track and release everything recorded like diaherria. Or maybe your dealers blew town and you haven't made a new connection.

"Friend, That Just Isn't So" is just radiant Sai and her shadow - a spritely, restless saxophone with excellent tone - flirting and flitting, feinting and thrusting. Girl, you worked it out! I was charmed, dudes, it was off the hook; then "Didn't It Rain" starts out with some of that detuned guitars with tamborines and flabby flutes stuff my main man Byron Coley loves so much. It wasn't great for me until you started piling on the flustered sax and other instruments and Sai started wailing the title. Then it was hot! "Sun Sets On Clarion" - a little aimless, even after the clutter thins and James Toth shows up to testify. "Dread Effigy" redeems things and rights the ship, just by virtue of being one of Toth's queasy folk songs where he's actually melodic singing, against an acoustic guitar with the same idea and all kinds of weird tonal stuff happening in the background but turned down so you can focus on the meat. The bomb! Really, really good stuff -- you're on your way up. Right, Dawg Pound?