While there’s no shortage of a cappella ensembles, most of these, such as PENTATONIX, pander to a mass market tastes, and it’s quite rare that artists like Petra Haden come along to astound the audience with something like the voice-only take on “The Who Sell Out” which don’t even require additional vocalists. This is why all efforts by THE 180 Gs, a collective led by Detroiter David Minnick, feel so interesting – from 2018’s CARDIACS tribute “Singin’ To God” to the recently released “Trout Mask Replica Replica” whose title fully reflects the album’s gist.
Admired and loathed in equal measure, Captain Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica” remains a formidable opus 55 years after its release, so to try and intone the complex interplay of the fifteen musicians involved in that work without resorting to instrumental additions is no mean feat. No wonder it took Minnick and his cohorts five and a half years to record “Replica Replica” in the double-platter’s entirety – and no, AI wasn’t implemented here, as artificial-intelligence deconstruction of Don Van Vliet’s cuts emerged when this project had already been well underway – so the results of their toil seem truly overwhelming.
Trout Mask Replica Replica
1. Frownland
2. The Dust Blows Forward N The Dust Blows Back
3. Dachau Blues
4. Ella Guru
5. Hair Pie: Bake 1
6. Moonlight On Vermont
7. Pachuco Cadaver
8. Bill’s Corpse
9. Sweet Sweet Bulbs
10. Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish
11. China Pig
12. My Human Gets Me Blues
13. Dali’s Car
14. Hair Pie: Bake 2
15. Pena
16. Well
17. When Big Joan Sets Up
18. Fallin’ Ditch
19. Sugar ‘N Spikes
20. Ant Man Bee
21. Orange Claw Hammer
22. Wild Life
23. She’s Too Much For My Mirror
24. Hobo Chang Ba
25. The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)
26. Steal Softly Thru Snow
27. Old Fart At Play
28. Veteran’s Day Poppy
