| Issue
#92
Dec. ‘06
Back in November of 2004 I reviewed the I’m Batman EP by The
Marble Tea. I called it: “Narcotic
Pop for the youthful soul of maturity.”
It then went on to take the “IndepenDisc
of
the Year” honors for that year. Now, 2 years later,
here comes the Fantastic Day EP.
Home recordist Knight Berman Jr.
has fashioned another Lo-Fi,
sing-along, infectious pop gem. Keeping with the same 5-song hard copy
EP coupled with a
5-song downloadable EP format Berman Jr.
has
created another solid CD of incredible musicianship. The
Marble Tea also provides him an outlet for
some of the most intelligently written lyrics in pop music today.
Lyrics that border on
the most profound, intense, off-the-wall, sincere, truthful,
embellished, double-entondre
laden, fun-filled, laugh-out-loud, nuggets of the slices of life that
go unnoticed by
most, until they are brought forth by an unseeming, slightly askew
documentarian.
Fantastic Day
opens with the title track
bouncing along on an acoustic strum and taking us for a ride in the car
“with the radio on / radio on /
radio on / signing loud
/ and off key / to that Tom Jones song.” And
we’re singing along, because it
is “a truly Fantastic
Day, today.” By the time the
toy piano is dancing us over the bridge we’re hooked, sold,
and we know we are in for
a joyful ride as we coast through the stories of The
Marble Tea.
Mercury
uses a bass lead that sucks us
into a neo-psychedelic trip. Complete with Mid-60s tripped-out vocals,
this is an acid
trip of a song
– listen to everything
that is going on in the background. Let the airy backing vocals bleed
into your soul
– by the time the distorted, disoriented guitar solo hits,
your peaking baby. This is
a blissful psychedelic trip in full glory. What’s it all
about? Not really sure, but
because of the music, it doesn’t really matter.
If you want a story line, give a good listen
to How Does It Feel.
Using the early British,
MerseyBeat sound of Gerry and The Pacemakers, this up-tempo,
hand-clapper relates the tale
of a girl who wants to be loved so much, that she is blind to the fact
that her lover is
just using her for sex. “But / what
does he
tell his friends / when he slips from your bedroom / baby?”
And, here is where Berman Jr. tests
our mental observations and
allows us to connect in the response of “You’re
Natalie Wood / and you died tonight.” Wow! What a
totally appropriate
correlation. For those who do not know the Natalie Wood saga,
let’s just say that,
her need to be loved so much ultimately lead to her death, and once she
was gone, she was
basically forgotten – very heady stuff The
Marble Tea lays on our plate.
There’s
A Girl I Know dives into electric keyboard
mimicking acoustic territory blown wide
open by amazing board work. The F/X here give the vocals a hollow,
hallowed echo with an
off-beat harmony swirling in a muted, distorted calliope which
entrances us to the point
where the song ends before we even realize it. Then while we are
pondering what we just
experienced Say
Goodbye strums it way into our consciousness. A
simple ballad chronicling a move
being explained to a cat so that he can prepare himself for the changes
he’s about to
experience, of which, he has no reasonable explanation for. Therefore, Berman Jr. lets him know that even though
things
are going to change, everything will be all right, because after all,
it is a Fantastic Day.
As Fantastic Day
shuffles off the player, be
sure to head over to the Special Download page (the URL is provided
within the Fantastic Day liner
notes) and get your FREE copy of
the Slave To The Tuna EP, that is
the 2nd part of this Marble Tea
extravaganza.
5 more psychedelic influenced, Eels style,
British invasion nicked, New Wave,
Power-pop, stripped down, top loaded, effervescent, smile inducing
tunage that will have
you wondering how all this musical diversity and lyrical genius could
come from one man.
Of which, I will quote the final 2 songs of
the collection. On, Any
Thing That
Makes A Memory, Knight
Berman Jr. (as The Marble Tea)
says more with one line (repeated
twice) in 37 seconds then some writers say in a whole novel –
“Anything that makes a memory / is
worth going through.”
Listen to the profound power of that and try not to smile while
contemplating the
universe.
Saving the best for last, Berman
Jr.
presents two different views to the exact same scenario and blows ours
minds to end this Fantastic Day / Slave To
The Tuna slice of bliss:
“I
dreamed / I was talking on the telephone
/ to Amy Poehler / as she ate her kung pow chicken / at four AM / but I
had to go /
‘cause my hand was catching fire again / like it always does.”
Then a short catchy horn riff to bridge us
to the 2nd verse.
“Could
she / dream she’s on the
telephone / with a stranger / as her chop sticks work like wooded
fingers / at four AM /
but he has to go / as he screams / Oh God, not this again / Oh God,
please God no.”
Take a moment and read that again, drink it
in.
Now on to the subliminal documentary tag
line “Who’s been in your
dreams / can you name them all?” Knight
Berman Jr.
can, and he does with The Marble Tea.
Fantastic Day
achieves this in such a bizarre
humoristic way that the only response to this second helping of
Narcotic Pop for the
youthful soul of maturity is:
“It’s
a truly fantastic day today /
Just a perfect fantastic day today.”
The Marble Tea
- Fantastic Day
is available now for: $5.98 + s/h*
$5.00 +s/h*
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