Jealousy Party: "Hold'em Punca"

It’s a shame this record got released in April, because there isn’t a sound that exemplifies March madness better than the free-jazz of Tuscany’s Jealousy Party. Ah, free-jazz, you politely smile, fumbling in your brain for a taxi number. Well hold that panic, as the “free” in JP has genuine Wild West connotations: the bulk of the line-up is recruited like the James gang from whoever can keep up with the rhythms. “Good afternoon. Industrial Machinist? Any good with the drums? You’re in. We need a little jam time before we head into the studio, though. How are you fixed for the next, say…eleven years? What—a holiday?! Janice, call Security.”

You see, Mat Pogo and WJ Meatball have been playing since 1995, but only got round to releasing an actual record well into 2006 (by which point they’d clocked up about six million gigs and a handful of sound engineer suicides). Famed for their incendiary nights on stage where they demo electro voodoo-rock crossovers, it’s appropriate that their new album is a live one, recorded one night in Rome’s Punca club when all the bad parking had melted. Despite a new cycle of players, Mat Pogo still had the mic for stage favourite “Hold’em,” though singing might not be the best description of the aneurisms he spat at the crowd—it sounds more like he’s barking kung fu instructions with the Mardi Gras carnival on rewind. Seriously, if you’ve ever seen the Godfather of Soul take to stage after an eight-gram interlude, you’ve seen Jealousy Party on one of their trademark tangents. They bring you a mosquite sax line, prowling bass, a madman kicking big bins over; if only they’d let Salvador Dali shoot a Bacardi add, we could have had this instead of a shit Vinnie Jones. The downright absurdity of “Hold’em” played live is a fantastic machine loudly starting, with retrospect of course later teaching you that machines sound cool when they’re spluttering. Remember: it’s better to travel hopefully than to survive (arrive).