Pere Ubu - Lady from Shanghai

Released January 7, 2013

Lady from Shanghai is the fourteenth studio album by an underground band that is extremely experimental and hard to grasp. I have never listened to them before. Wish me luck.

The album opens with "Thanks." It opens with a strange electronic beat. Synthetic effects, an organ, and an extremely effected voice starts singing in something resembling a melody. The song is haunting, but not scary. I believe that if Pere Ubu live up to their rumors, this track is extremely controlled for them. I enjoyed the track. The vocals are reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel's distorted demo tapes, and the organ leaves a strong aftertaste of wonder.

It is followed by "Free White," a song starting with singing, and a minimalist drum beat. There is a sound of a metronome ticking which is extremely unappealing. I don't know if it's a real metronome or not. Anyway, the song sounds very dated in its production. When the song ended, it ended incomplete. The song was too short for its static nature and didn't go anywhere.

The next track is "Feuksley Ma'am, The Hearing." The song starts with a clap-like drum beat and samples and sound effects play through. Possibly record scratching involved? Anyway, the song drones in your mind and kind of just stays there. Things sound like they're happening, different things, but like the last song, it's really not going anywhere. Nothing becomes a melody in this song and ideas just kind of come and go. It's cool in its own way, because it sort of represents imagination as a whole, ideas come and go, sometimes coming back for a bit, only to escape us again. Musically, it's decent, but it only stays in one spot.

"Mandy" opens with some more synth. The singer's voice is extremely haunting. The song sounds like the music to a psychological thriller movie. Like it belongs in "Lost Highway." This song is the only one so far that represents a conventional song. And thus far, it's my favorite off of the album. It does this thing to you, where it sets you up with so little instrumentation and variation, that every bit of variation excites and intrigues you. Make sure you listen to this the next time you're driving at night, I'm sure it'll have some interesting effect. Jeez, his voice does something to you I can't even understand, it really has a bigger part in this song. Five minutes into the song, you're hit by those high synth noises and you're just bugging! The band does something that makes you high or something with their music. It's relaxing and intimidating, euphoric and confused all at once.

"And then Nothing Happened" starts off something like a basic alternative rock song. Everything is pretty normal until a little bit after a minute in, when the music suddenly goes out and a bunch of reverse and alarm noises come in. I guess it kind of forces you to wake up. I can't even pay attention writing this as I'm listening to it, it's maddening and I love it, I can't even read right now, what!? I guess that's why it's called "And then Nothing Happened." I think it's so strange why they would stop a whole song, one with potential to be complete, but they do a really good job in just "stopping" and creating this chaos.

The next track is "Musicians are Scum," which starts with some guitar chords, and some singing. I can't really get the lyrics. I believe that he's trying to say just as the title says. Musicians are scum. The song is dreamy, and it kind of ebbs and flows. The singer kind of sounds like something straight out of Rocky Horror, which is weird. But the whole song really resonates as a whole with you.

Next is "Another One (Oh Maybellene)." I'm not really sure what to say about it, it feels like it's building you up for some masterpiece, but it just really stays in one place, and is thus limited to slightly interesting but ultimately boring. The singer here should be showing a tad bit of range, or get louder, but he just mumbles at the lowest end of the volume spectrum.

The eighth track is "The Road Trip of Bipasha Ahmed." It sounds like haunted castle organ, with the only voice you can imagine singing in Transylvania (the same guy singing these other tracks!) This song does that rare thing (that the band failed to do in previous songs on this record) where it stays in one place, but it feels like it's been taking you everywhere. If you give it a listen, not much is really being altered over the course of the song. The song has great structure, making one big arc

Next is "Lampshade Man." This track enters with unusually conventional music chords, and keeps playing them in shifting time signatures. The guitar keeps playing these chords, but it plays them in a way so that they stay fresh. The sound effect/synth stuff here really enhances the overall track. The overall problem with this song is that it gets really boring. This song here becomes more boring than any other track so far. Too much of a good thing is still a bad thing.

"414 Seconds" is 414 seconds long. Anyway, the song starts with potential. The instruments play like they're building up, and so does the singer. It gets louder, and more synth effects come in, and they sound awesome here. The singer shows a change in tone! Oh what a subtle yet magnificent change! You hear anger! The song still fills you up; I'm waiting for it. And then yes, it peaks loudness, complexity, and intensity, as it fades back into another section. This is one of the best songs on the record, it really doesn't bore, I don't think it moves, but the amount of layers on top of it make up for it.

Finally, there's "The Carpenter Sun." This song is the most experimental off of the album within its first few seconds. It's a mix of effected vocals and electronic screeching building up. It reminds me of something off of an early Animal Collective album. There are a lot of ideas that come in, sounding like they want to be part of the song, but are instantly cut out from the power of this composition. The only thing that exists in the universe of this song is layers of chaos.The voice is truly something else in this song, just with a whisper he can say so much.

I know I was very wishy-washy on this album, but it's a lot to take in, and I wasn't really sure what I liked. The usual problem with these songs is that they're static and boring. Some songs of course excluded. But, his voice has the power to be extremely moving, but in some of the songs on here, he's monotonous and annoying. There's a lot going on in here, but not a lot at the same time.

RATING - 5.8/10