Meatraffle

A small handful of 2015 albums found their way into my collection during the second half of December, too late for me to make an impartial judgement vis-a-vis their inclusion in my year end round-up. One of those albums was 'HiFi Classics' by Meatraffle, which, given a little more time to absorb it, would've made my 2015 top 20 without question. For starters, how can you fail to love a band who's line-up includes among its membership; Fats McCourt, Tingle Lungfish, Zsa Zsa Sapien and Cloudy Truffles? The genre descriptors that the band give their music are equally inventive, if not especially helpful; Trapdoor Jazz anyone? Speed Waltz? Or perhaps a little Erroneous Funk?

To give you at least some idea of what we're actually dealing with here, a few of the reference points that came to mind as I began to immerse myself in 'HiFi Classics' were; 'The Return of the Giant Slits', 'Bon Chic Bon Genre' by Campag Velocet, 'Pigeonhole' by New Fast Automatic Daffodils and 'Accept the Signal' by Regular Fries. Chuck that lot into a blender and you'll be heading in the vague direction of the uniquely wonky, cock-eyed view of pop that is Meatraffle's.

'Aurora' and 'The Horseshoe' are currently on particularly heavy rotation round these parts. If you like these, I urge you to check out 'HiFi Classics' in full here. It's a blinder.