Fantomas' last album is great, 30 tracks (one for each day in the month of April), 43 minutes! illustrated with a lovely calendar by japanese artist Yoshimoto Nara.
"Suspended Animation" (Fantômas)
According to the label (Ipecac):
Patton describes the new album as ânursery rhymes, cartoon sound effects and choppy arrangements.â â¨â¨As with all Ipecac releases, the artwork and packaging are just as integral to unfolding the full story as the piece of music, Suspended Animation is no different. Perhaps the most intricate packaging to date, the thirty page booklet/calendar is illustrated by Asian pop cartoonist Yoshimoto Nara. In a recent San Francisco Bay Guardian feature, Naraâs influential style was described as âcartoonlike images and sculptures of kids and puppies â sporting world-weary adult expressions, major attitude and salty vocabularies.â The paper went on to say that Naraâs pieces âare among the most cutting edge of Japanese exports in the contemporary art world.â
And I like the BBC's review:
Neural overload can result, but in the right frame of mind it's a cold shower for the brain. In fact, Fantomas' insertion of the maximum number of events into the minimum amount of time has the same disorientating effect on the listener's temporal awareness as the longest minimalist dronepiece. By the time Bugs Bunny picks his way through the smoking wreckage to have the last word in your shell-like, the dizzying accretion of events has pulled you through so many emotional states you might not even know what day it is. And that's no bad thing.