Need New Body

You'd be hard pressed to find a band more unnerving than Need New Body. The Philadelphia group, risen from the ruins of Bent Leg Fatima, is about as unpredictable as they come. They swirl organ, drums, sax, bass, pots and pans, banjos, good and evil spirits into a wicked hurdy gurdy. One gets the feeling that the band's music - in a way continuing Bent Leg's deconstruction of the Psychedelphia sound into fractious shards of out-jazz, funk, gibber gabber and derelict cabaret - is as much for the band's amusement as that of their listeners.

Keyboardist Dale Jimenez and vocalist/dancer/multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bradbury, have been playing music together for years. Drummer/Percussionist Chris Powell, who played in Bent Leg with Jiminez and Bradbury, summoned longtime friend, bassist Chris Reggiani, and the four began playing. With the addition of Jamie Robinson on piano and Jim Reggiani as an additional percussionist, the sextet mix and match syncopated dance with fang-baring monkey masks and gyspy marches through bewildered audiences.

Recorded in Chicago at Truckstop Studios by Blue Hawaii of Bablicon (whose members all play on it), Need New Body's Self-Titled (FT 41) documents the energy of the band's live escapades, albeit expanded through the studio format. An impromptu story of a thieving monkey is interspersed between oompa loompa funk, tape-spliced gibber babber, and some actual verse/chorus songs. Where other experimental outfits drown in the pretention of their recorded creations, Need New Body manage a certain purity and humor.