THE BAND

The Strawberry Preserved is the worst music you’ve ever heard.

Wait; let me try that again.

The Strawberry Preserved is the best music you’ve ever heard.

To be fair, either one is probably going to give this review the same feeling; as a fan of the avant-garde, I have to tip my hat toward the first.

In the band’s own words, taken from its MySpace page: “Formed in June of 2008, The Strawberry Preserved is an [sic] sexualized explosion of noise and an intoxicating celebration of freedom. Composed of an ever-changing group of cosmic pirates, disciples of funk, and the bastard children of Tom Waits and Grace Slick, the jam band performs a variety of different styles with a variety of different instruments, none of which they are particularly familiar with.”

The Strawberry Preserved, headquartered as I am in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is a ten-piece jam band — or were they six pieces?  Seven?  For all I know, it might be one person that makes all the music.  It sounds just as likely to be a Polyphonic Spree-sized free-for-all as a Trent Reznor solo/collaborative/whatever exactly he does project.

The most confusing group I’ve ever come across, they’ve managed to put out an EP and an album with little to no structure at all.

Let me put it this way:  If I had a younger sister, she’d probably play guitar.  She would play it either because I coerced her into being musical, or just to spite the fact that I can’t carry a tune.  She would probably start forming bands when she was ten years old and play the most god-awful music I’d ever heard, and as her older brother, I would have to clap and tell her she did a good job.  At times, that’s what the Preserved, as they fondly call themselves, feels like:  I hate this, because it sounds like a ten year old’s idea of good music, but I have to love it.

At the same time, there’s an aura about the Preserved.  There’s something genuinely likable about them, even if no one knows what it is.  Maybe it’s the art-rock atmosphere; maybe it’s the hometown pride; maybe there’s something. . .good about it.

THE ALBUM

In the summer of 2008, The Strawberry Preserved put out an EP ( Drop’n Jam, recorded in the woods on a cassette player and full of instruments the band had no idea how to play beforehand ), which was both horrifying and catchy.  I wrote up a review for them to use in their publicity, and part of it read, “Let me tell you something about The Strawberry Preserved… They’re going to explode. … I mean that in the way that you can only mean when talking about a musical collective that’s so full of hallucinogenic drugs and jam band ideas that sooner or later they’re going to go into the forest with a can of gas and try to play it with a campfire.”

The final line of my review: “… I’ve got to give Drop’n Jam this: I’m looking forward to the next release.”

Look no further.  Earlier this year work was completed on the Preserved’s debut full-length, Fear and Loafing, which project puppetmaster Robert Fones has referred to as “a musical abortion.”

When you’re surprised to hear a guitar on a supposed rock album, it makes for an interesting ride.

The recording is once again incredibly lo-fi.  It sounds more polished than the cassette-player-in-the-woods method, but not by much.  It’s still rough, raw, speckled with interference, and true-to-form Preserved.  There was no warm-up for the vocalist, I’d assume.  The second track, Fuck You, Bangladesh, can be judged by its cover and opens with a cackle and a howl of the same: “Fuck yoooooooou, Baaaaaaaangladeeeeeeeesh!”  Someone is clearly just tapping a hi-hat throughout the track and calling it drumming.  Laughter that would have made Ken Kesey proud dances across the all-too-long minute and forty-seven seconds of the song.

And yet, there’s some bizarre merit in the work.  I mean that sincerely.  Sure, this six-ten-whatever-piece basement band probably got their instruments and put this album together in, tops, two days — but at times there’s something intriguing, something valuable.  In the song quoted above, the Preserved still sounds like it’s channeling my imaginary ten-year-old sister, but there are also hints of Jimi Hendrix, of real focus.

Listen: In 1971, Mort Garson took up the pseudonym Lucifer and released Black Mass, an LP chock-full of occult instrumentals and composed entirely on a Moog.  I have friends who spent a decent part of the ’70s dropping a whole lot of acid late at night, killing all the lights, and turning that album all the way up.  Sure it was terrifying, they said, but it was a thrill.

My love for Fear and Loafing is very similar to that, sans the tripping.  I’m not one for hallucinogenic drugs myself, but I still think this album is both one hell of a ride and absolutely terrifying.  Listening to it in public has turned heads, almost none of which were approving.  Playing parts of it on Hamline Radio has garnered sour looks from c0-hosts.  I would never put it in my CD player if I was trying to concentrate on anything.

But that’s the rub: I would put it in.

I’m not going to break this album down track-by-track.  That would be a waste of time.  And I’m not going to say you should rush out and fork over your money for a copy, because you shouldn’t ( besides, you have to get it from Robert Fones himself, and he’s hard to catch ).  If 200 people read this review, at least 197 of them will absolutely abhor The Strawberry Preserved, I guarantee it.  That’s the nature of this beast.

But for those last three people, this is really something.  It’s daring, it’s stimulating, and, thank god, it’s unique.

Cheers.

Album Preview: Fuck You, Bangladesh

Links: MySpace • Facebook • Drop’n Jam EP Download (free)