AWWWWW SHIT YES, SHIT YES, GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN AND BOOGIE YOUR FACE OFF YOU INDIE-ROCK MUTANTS!!!!! Whooo! Whoooooooo… Alright, I’m cool now but I might get amped up again because Mon Père Est Ma Mère is such a pleasure to get down with, so amped at all times to send its signal out to admittedly only a few people back when this was recorded in 2004. But here’s the consolation: Those of us that hear(d) it will genuinely FEEL every instrumental faceoff, every tossed-off post-Blood Brothers vocal, every locked in hootenanny bursting with verve and energy. Most groups that can survive without a singer, as Chocolat Billy do for long stretches, tend to overcomplicate their compositions. That’s not a problem here. While I wouldn’t call Choc-Bill a SIMPLE band, I would wager that a lot of acts out there could learn a thing or two about a thing or twaaa from their solemn worship of repetition-building-into-pendemonium. I want to imagine these dudes smiling ear to ear at each other as they created this, each element (guitar, bass, drums mostly) seeming to be propping up the exact-same percentage of post-rock tonnage. It reminds me of an old friend who now runs sound for bands in Spokane, Wash. (his name is Bobby) He used to talk about how his ultimate fantasy, which he’d seen in dreams, was a composite of he and a group of musicians, in their seventies, jamming happily as if no time had passed. What a profound yet soul-shaking vision, no? I can imagine members of Chocolat Billy being the same way. You just can’t teach their chops, which feed off chips of old Oneida, Black Eyes, Sleetmute Nightmute, Arab On Radar, Zs, that first Liars album, and several other acts I can’t rightly conjure at the moment. Not sure if CB plan to record another album (methinks I smell a one-off); they should, if that matters at this point. Props to Water Wing for stepping up and releasing this despite long odds of ever hearing from this ensemble, as it existed, again.
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