PRIYA CARLBERG, vocalist with no-wave post-punk melange-stirrers Birthday Ass, has a vision deliciously at right angles with the world; jump in, but jump in sideways, with their new single “Blah”.
Blah. You heard right. Blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
Priya rounded up some of her fellow cohort from the jazz conservatory at which she studied for a tilt at the windmill of the world from out of the oblique, drawing them into her world of no-wave-jazz-punk-funk good times.
It does that perfect musical thing of being weird and pretty great and silly; thus sitting their collective birthday asses in a lineage stretching back through Stump and onto the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Priya very much wears the head of household trousers in Birthday Ass, leading her merry band of questors, Alex Quinn on trumpet, Raef Sengupta on saxophone, Andres Abenante on guitar, Dan Raney on bass, and Jonathan Starks on drums, wherever she shall siren-song them; using their collective chops to bring the wonk to the music, by turns punky, funky, way outside the pocket and deep in, bouncing, shrieking, cooing, thrashing, seducing.
She composes every part of these invigorating songs, each instrumental line and each lyric, maybe a little Don Van Vliet in the overarching vision stakes; and in doing so, creates unexpected and multifaceted songs.
Burbling and splattering through Head Of The Household, they’re never entirely in control, which is maybe as it should be. Especially on an album that features the marvellously named “Plubbage Bubbage”.
Mr, I’m getting all the zero-fucks delight of bands like the aforementioned Stump and the Bonzos, alongside The Slits and Dog-Faced Hermans.
Birthday Ass’s Head Of The Household will be released on April 23rd, digitally and on trad black and limited purple vinyl. Snare yourself a copy over at Bandcamp, here.
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