JAC

CKY writes:

I had never even seen a shooting star before.

25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky.

Flapjack & Bill Larson were hunched over their instruments. Bru slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Larson tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in the Flapjacks new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "24 Hour Coke Binge") Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Das Enough," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "24 Hour Coke Binge?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Flapjack and Bill Larson had the heavens on their side.

The experience and emotions tied to listening to Big Dog, Cat Dog are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet only an extended play. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that a few men created this, it's clear that Flapjack and Bill Larson must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

Thanks for the wonderful and honest review, sir.