(10.04.05) Messer Chups are a band of crazy Russians obsessed with Dick Dale,
Vincent Price, Betty Page and the monster kitsch of the 1950’s. Armed
with theremins, the “Sintiesator” and a love for C-grade horror flicks
that would make Rob Zombie proud, Messer Chups offer 16 homages to
classic Americana culture on Crazy Price.
Mad Scientist voices cackle with Transylvanian invective while
synthesizers squirt and bubble with the fog boiling off noisome
concoctions. South Pacific rhythms hum and dance in surreal
interludes between spy music chase themes and harp-driven dirges spun
through radioscopes and osciloscopes and elsewhere marimbas make
Romanian folk music for bizarre science experiments to dance to. A
saxophone wriggles through “Not Made in Japan” like the spirit of John
Zorn catching a North Pacific wave bearing down on the cold shores of
the Kamchatka Peninsula. Theremins and moaning matriarches compete
with clattering drums and undulating synth rhythms for “Dabolik
Boogie,” a “Klaatu Barata Nikto” number that comes down through the
old radio receivers like a transmission from outer space that has been
caught in the troposphere for too many decades. Back-masked voices
and church gongs sunder black atmospheres in “Anton La Vey 6.66fm,”
splitting the sky so that a drum kit can make waves for a static-laced
surf tune complete with shimmering guitar and tin horn chorus.
It would be easy to say that something has been “lost in the
translation” with Crazy Price but I think it is more accurate
to invert yourself so as to get inside the head of Messer Chups.
Weirdness abounds, but after a few listens, it starts to make sense.
Or your brain undergoes a rewiring process. Either way, Messer Chups
is broadcasting their psychotropic surf music across all wavelengths.
Tuning in is easy; finding your way out again is something else
entirely. Fall into their psychedelic maelstrom, but bring a circuit
board to shoot the tube and come out on the other side of reality.
Crazy Price is out now on Ipecac.
