Part Chimp

Part Chimp “New Cross”                                                                                7.0

from Cup (Monitor)

hairy potters’ particulates  // Out May 22                                                          

This smashing UK beat combo is a chip off ye olde Siren, Pink Fairies,
Feedtime, early Ubu, Motorhead, all in a

post-blues-punk-metal-avant-garage dream, and that’s only the sweet

part of Part Chimp. Whatevah the other parts is, their combo-nation-nature
ha been deemed trustworthy enough to land them in the cockpit of a

rather alarming sound. True, upwards and downwards are proper
aspects of your normal onwards, but oh the full-bodied tilting in their
steady accelerando, the cheek of their inner smooveness: runaway
elevator music that must glide the blind, and slide the charred,  
‘til they spark again.

”Once more forever,” as PC say. A forever that’s never static, except
in the sense that you are what you eat, but their propeller carves
radio static like it does every other kind of noise, whips it into
Part Chimp shapes, crispy critter constellations stutter-blinking
new clues, inky as the myth of fingerprints, spit out very quickly.
Meanwhile, back in the Chalice, Alice and Dorothy and so on
can still make out clouds of pyrites and pirates, caught in billowing
cityscapes, parachutes of the Part Chimp crew: they’re all in place,
still useful, still on a mission.

“You can’t see it, you can’t breathe it, you can’t touch it, you can’t feel it,
I got the secret, you got the secret, it ain’t sacred no more no more,
bring back the sound, bring back the sound, bring back the sound.”
Every religion grows from this x of crossroads identity. (Paradox power
when it’s good, contradiction constriction when it’s been very, very bad.)

The inner flight requires the outer, the vision-quest seeks an eye-analogy,
full of glory, senses to burn and rise and fall again, in the flight,
to “crash the higher octave,” as Part Chimp also say.
(Crash it like a party, or plane? Both, of course.)
So the ceremony grows like hair on a Chimp Part, and gets thick

as the bricks of doctrine: “My body’s wasted, are you disgusted,
my body’s sacred, you gotta break it, I gotta see it, I gotta take it,
no more no more,

bring back the sound, bring back the sound.”

Born again, and testifying, “I can’t cheat, I can’t fold, “ but also,
“You sold my bike, you sold my love, I flunked the test,”
yet learned the lesson.

And continue to learn, even forthrightly declaring
rock’s mixed blessings, presents for lurkers, be they workers
and/or kneejerkers, delinquents good and bad:
“I been with you, been stickin’ around in town…in place….

tellin’ truth in sound…I’m messin’ with feel-good feelin’s.”

That’s from “Miser Chimp,” as in “Christmas! Bah Humbug!” As in kids,
and Part Chimp is for kids too. As with that flunked test,
and the price paid, but adults get the profit. Knowing this
is just another lesson, though, more fuel

for the flight. So “War Machine” (the one track that’s accessible
only via Quicktime video, which shows you all the kids,
and the green goop they get or showing up) is militant noise hijacked,
as you might hope,

but instead of good ol’ “War Pigs”-type denunciation as affirmation
of righteous rock roots, the whole lyric is,
“I was born in a witches’ cauldron with you.” Chanted over and over
(with new stuff that keeps happening around it, new toys

spinning from the propwash, as always), like in “30,000000000000 People,”
where the title ultimately sounds like it’s being sung by the concrete
and steel of the stadium, as well as all those people in there, up there.

But that won’t save you, kids learn that too. Like when there’s
an alarmingly garbled, pathetic, yet bossy message
from Dad on the answering machine.  
(Dad sounds like Keith Richards, only more so.) That’s the intro of

“And Hell Is Behind Me.” Pretty close behind, judging by what sounds
like Dad’s giant, frozen whiskers in close-up (talk about your clouds of pyrites
and pirates), rasping on baby ears. Which are yet to be guided by

fearsome beasties of the aforementioned “Once More Forever,”
and there’s a migraine Easter parade at some point, but the party never stops,
so, in our spotlight song, “New Cross,” Daddy or somebody’s back:
“He’s comin’ home, he’s bringin’ hell…I see his face, everyday,
shows on his shoes, everyway…he’ll come around, in the end. "
But meanwhile, as always, Part Chimp gives him (or Him?)
a run for the money, and a boot for the show.

(Although this is not one of the most awesome songs;
it comes midway, with some very hard acts to follow, and precede,
among Cup’s brew of

singles, alternate takes, and other raring rarities.)