Review Summary: How bout dat wierd.
Mugison is the atypical schizophrenic that indie needs, but seemingly not that it wants. The Dark Knight of the guitar, therefore, hasn't released much. An Icelandic fisherman turned songwriter, Mugison seems to put the turbulence of his day to day life into his music, coming through in conventional forms (2 Birds) and some of the strangest *** you'll hear on a record (Chicken Song) since Butthole Surfers. On some of the album, he's singing solo, sometimes in a duo with a female incognito, which begs the question - this whole record being so off the handle - if she's a girlfriend, a friend, peer, or slavegirl, and that's at the bottom of Mugison's pail of mystery.
All the ambiguity and open-ended convulsions of unconventional riffs and mad lyrics on Mugimama give it a personal but shelled first impression, which sticks through every listen. If Mugison is getting at something, it's unclear what, and it doesn't seem like he gives a *** whether we know, either. Mugison continues the Waitsean legacy of lyrical expressionism and musical oddity that, while mind boggling and indecipherable, is addicting and perches quite poignantly on the annals of the mind of every listener. Mugimama is like The Cabinet of Mr. Caligari, adapted for indie songwriting.
Enigmatic obscurity aside, however, Mugison reaches damn high lyrical and musical heights on Mugimama. Murr Murr and I Want You set the quasiconventional bar for musicianship and lyrical prowess on the record. Mugison, through expressional chemical imbalances, shows an astounding ability to couple eloquent and pregnant lyrics, where the Oberst joke comes in, with the intrapersonal incongruity of Waits, in an exceedingly successful album as far as musicianship is concerned, however missed the day when they went over how to get record sales up.
Music is, when it's at its best, an aesthetically pounding interpersonal exchange - artist to audience - and that exchange has, in significant magnitude, been the driving force behind the creation and enjoyment of so much of modern music. As good and odd as this album is, in its grotesqueness and seeming contrivity, leaves a piece missing. The expression and self in Mugimama are, in the end, its weak points, which keep it out of 'Classic' territory. Great record, though.
4.5/5
