
Aliens come to rescue Earth with ‘Cosmic Twang’ – we remain in peril.
Musicians and Space right, it’s been a thing since popular music emerged from the primordial swamp. Familiar are the artists who situate themselves in the cosmic firmament to provide a frame or context for their music. Some claim close encounters of a third kind: Lennon’s gifted egg, Jagger’s Glastonbury UFO and Dave Davies’ “psychic alien impressions”. Perhaps it’s no surprise to hear 60s experiences of this type but there are more recent encounters from the likes of Noddy Holder, Kim Wilde and Robbie Williams.
Then there are those who are more steeped in the tropes and iconography of astronomical space as portrayed here on earth. Presenting themselves and their music in a (invisibility) cloak of sci-fi trappings. Where would George ‘Parliament-funkadelic’ Clinton, Janelle Monae, GWAR, Kiss or even Bowie be without their tin foil outfits, star-bound stage sets, cosmic stories and songs about life on other planets? It may be difficult to determine which of these have made a genuine home in this environment and which simply have a keen eye for the marketing advantage that may accrue from placing themselves in an intergalactic realm outside the mainstream.
Perhaps the most interesting of all though, the ones whose sincerity we should really have no doubts about, are those who have a much more complete story to tell. Sun Ra was adamant he came from Saturn, Karlheinz Stockhausen believed he was from Sirius (where he was presumably home-schooled with Lee Scratch Perry?) and Man-or-Astroman hail from some other indeterminate semi-distant world. These are artists who share a belief that they have been singled out by extra-terrestrial life forms to communicate their message through music for the benefit of earth and us earthlings.
All these artists claim circumstances that are way outside the norm. Ones that, through a claimed affiliation with alien civilisations, represent the classic outsider tropes, the escapism and even the naive hope of much great music. Situating themselves in these imaginary (or are they?!) realms enables them to assume dissident identities and ideas that can place them as some kind of ‘other and also put their music outside traditional genre boundaries.
Here’s where Ty Walker and the Humanoids come in. On this their second album ‘Home on the Strange’ they sustain and further refine their backstory, which like all good Sci-fi tales is fantastical, tentative, not entirely coherent and raises more than the odd arched eyebrow. In short it goes like this:
Sometime in in 1972 Ty Walker was abducted from his Roscoe Montana home by aliens. Specifically by Glarzak, a leader among the ‘Humanoid’ race from Glarphonia who had been tasked with ‘repairing’ the 6th universe of the multiverse by Zoeb. The Moosh, a deity that controls (or ‘is’) all 9 of the sparkling stardust and goo composed universes that make up multiverse, is concerned that the 6th universe is decaying. Glazark has determined that the reason for this is that Earth, which is situated in the 6th universe, is riven by ‘fractured frequencies’ due to the disharmony and bad vibes found there seeping into the rest of the universe. It remains somewhat unclear how, but between them these alien conspirators have determined that the only thing that can rescue the situation is in fact country music. An extra-terrestrial country band is formed but it is soon apparent that they are missing the essential authenticity of ‘real’ country music, hence Mr Walker’s abduction and his subsequent calling to front the Humanoids in their celestial rescue mission.
The story imposed on ‘Home on the Strange’ is intermittent and can be difficult to follow. Occasionally Walker and his Humanoids are clear about the disharmonies and bad vibes they want to heal, as on ‘All Hat, No Cattle’ for instance. A track that sees them railing against the influx of wealthy Tec bro “fugazi cowpokes” into Walker’s home state of Montana. These incomed’uns are “buying up hobby ranches” to the exclusion of generational locals. Walker is scathing in the song about their intrusion, introducing another one who has “Just closed the deal, man, Big dude ranch at the edge of town, Fat chance that he’ll be riding a steed” and later noting that “he’s got that Piss in his cup, Rents going up, He’s the head honcho of the Inflation Nation Organization”. Talking about the song he is even more adamant, offering some rhetoric that has vaguely worrying echoes of things we may have heard from elsewhere. He questions “Did ‘Paradise Valley’ become an extension of Silicon Valley while I was out there traversing the multiverse with the Humanoids?” and bemoaning that for generations Montana had remained “mostly untainted”. His final wish for these rich “out-of-staters” who have never even “stepped in a cowpie” is that they “dissolve in time, and what remains in the end is what we hope for—something pure, as it’s intended to be.” Now, these don’t necessarily seem like lyrics and sentiments designed to offer the restorative potential of music, and support the Humanoid’s quest to ‘heal Earth’s disharmonies and Bad Vibes’ through the medium of country music. Just saying…
Ok then, 600 plus words into our review, it may seem that we are giving too much attention, critical weight if you will, to this music-interstellar-alien-sci-fi conceit. But it is presented, by themselves, as fundamental to the existence of the band their music and this record in particular. Presumably we are meant to engage with it, if perhaps not take it too seriously. Either way it seems perfectly reasonable to assess the record through the lens we have been offered and offering such a conceit for your release does lead to raised expectations. If this record is intended to save Earth from its precipice of decay and ‘bad vibes’ through the medium of country music – applying the sonic remedy of either ‘galactic’ or ‘cosmic twang’ – then that’s a lot to live up to, right?
Sonically ‘Home on the Strange’ might be what you would expect from an alien produced country music record, albeit one with grandiose pretentions. It offers up a mix of sounds, some kind of cosmic unearthliness that might be considered an absurdist amalgamation of soul, psych, indie and country (alt and trad). Perhaps the nearest direct resemblance for much of the record is the kind of loping, folksy tinged 90s/00s indie as perpetrated by The Beta Band, Grandaddy, early Beck, Eels or, closest of all, the wickedly underrated Action Spectacular. It’s pretty hard to detect much out and out ‘twang’ – either classic or cosmic throughout most of the record.
The overriding impression is of an otherworldly atmosphere, created by traditional country instrumentation – resonant steel guitar traces, upfront banjo interventions, acoustic guitar strums, harmonica blasts and the occasional stinging electric guitar solo – melded with alternately raucous and unctuous synths, distorted and reverbed voices mumbling in the background and foggy vocal samples appearing out of the ether, or some long lost radio broadcast drifting across the cosmos. This is topped out by Walker’s vocals that can shift from playful and hopeful one minute to sombre and sentimental the next.
If it all sounds like a bit of a dogs dinner, it isn’t, quite. ‘Home on the Strange’ is interesting, in parts even engaging, perfectly listenable just never the exciting, surprising or challenging broadcast we are led to expect from the back story with which it is burdened. Despite this forced eccentricity and imposed lore, ‘Home on the Strange’ does manage to evoke an easy instinctive sound and this just about redeems the record – perhaps they are genuine after all?