RETRO REVIEW 002 - Larry Wish - "World of Pictures" & "Spring Awakens a Ning Nong"

I absolutely adore these two albums! I remember having them on tape about a decade ago when they first came out. Before the Minnesota prog musician had his band "The Guys" (as in illustrious live band Larry Wish & the Guys) he was among my favorite bedroom musicians, programming and playing a more chamber pop version of his signature prog sound. Instead of the bombast of live drums, there is carefully delivered time signatures in pastiche driven drum machine patterns. Get ready for a LOT of parts! These albums are littered with brief yet clever instrumental interludes when not flowing with concise yet usually ludicrously weird lyrics. His vocals on "Abel and Cain/Stepdad" and "Quadrology: Sin Once Again" (definitely my favorite song by Larry in both the solo and live band version) are just awesome.

The main reason I've signed on board to so many Larry Wish records over the course of time is that Larry is a man that defines himself in his bizarre & theatrical take on rhythmic and harmonic structuring, eschewing what have become conventions in the progressive & art rock world. You can expect not to know what to expect from a Larry Wish album and these two records definitely take that idea very far without the structuralism of his later orchestrations. Is this a transition or a refrain or both? 

World of Pictures contains a beautiful homage to science fiction author Philip K. Dick titled "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said". "Krinket Pleasure 1" has Larry's baritone croaking "a hole is a hole/a mouth is a mouth/an eye for a pair of eyes that fit/a hole is a hole/a mouth is a mouth/an eye for a pair of jeans" over hammering piano and the groove of hand percussion. World of Pictures precipice is definitely the Quadrology suite towards the end of the record that goes a variety of places, painting a picture of a static home life in perhaps another galaxy. "Now to make a nice dinner.." says Larry in his most sinister voice! The sonic experimentations Larry takes opposite his progressive counterpoint is impressive to say the least!

Spring Awakens a Ning Nong is a brighter album with many more delicate ornamentation, a softer (almost pastel) sound palette, and a different brand of Wish's focused compositional style. "Marc Hammill Chapman" is a catchy progressive pop tune with savage brooding tom toms, country western keyboards, and Larry's voice tremoloed throughout! There are some really endearing melodic abstractions on this album. One of this albums cherries is Larry's cover of Fausts' "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl"! "King & Prince" deliver a beautiful finale with streaming synthesizer arpeggios in counterpoint with Larry Wish's voice.

These albums will sound great to you ((perhaps)) if you already like progressive rock but might be quite SHOCKING at first if you're unfamiliar with odd, linear time signatures, strange lyrical subject matter, and progressive melodic & composition styles (from a decade ago)!!


GET "WORLD OF PICTURES" HERE!!

&

GET "SPRING AWAKENS A NING NONG" HERE!!