Chris Joss Strikes Again With ‘Sticks’
Barely a month out of the gate at press time, the new Chris Joss album Sticks is hot, hot , hot. Joss is up to his usual multi-instrumentalist tricks here–sitar, flute, heavy funk-tastic bass and a host of other delicious textures. His love of the more exotic sounds of 60s and 70s film is front and center–and when it’s a Chris Joss record that’s never a bad thing.
His previous albums have sonic tributes to cinematic touchstones including Lalo Schifrin, Isaac Hayes, and John Barry. But Sticks sounds more influenced by phases in analog music history rather than specifc albums–the Maharishi-era Beatles, Get Carter-period Roy Budd, that specific year when women dancing in go-go cages really caught on, you get the picture.
All Music Guide’s Rick Anderson tries to take Chris Joss to task for evoking these atmospheres, saying they’re for people who like “around watching cheesy movies from the ’60s and cheerfully doing the swim while bell-bottomed boys with bowl haircuts play cheerfully wanky psychedelic music.” But in declaring Joss to be “not terribly original” Anderson reveals that he completely misses the point. You might as well dismiss Daft Punk for being repetitive and too reliant on synthesizers.
Standout tracks on Sticks include Danger Buds, the “Have some opium, then” Little Nature, and my current favorite, Night Scare. All I can say is for anyone who watches Get Carter for the soundtrack as much as Michael Caine’s “ten feet tall and bulletproof” antics, the purchase of new Chris Joss record is a foregone conclusion. Sticks is a lovely, swirling and smoky collection of grooves.
PS–Chris Joss is best experienced for the first time via his jukebox sampler at the official website. There is a LOT to discover there…
