BMI
2008
Happiness
About This Album
The ghost of Morphine can't help but hang heavy over this Dana Colley-led group. As baritone saxophonist for that band, Colley was a large part of its jazzy, low-rock groove. He brought some of that to the post-Morphine Twinemen, which also featured Morphine drummer Billy Conway. But even by adding Laurie Sargent's sparse guitar to the Twinemen, the vibe was inherently different. Colley retains the female vocalist concept for A.K.A.C.O.D.'s debut (the C.O.D. stands for last names of Colley, vocalist/songwriter/bassist Monique Ortiz, and drummer Larry Dersch) but strips the lineup back to Morphine's core of fretless (occasionally two-string) bass, drums, and especially over-modulated, often electronically enhanced sax. The result is a more intense, less jazzy, harder attack led by Colley's eerie baritone work and Ortiz's ominous contributions. Her vocals are a ringer for those of Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano, and when she runs her voice through processing, it creates a heavy, dark, and often oppressive wall of sound that is not for the squeamish. Colley's saxes blast out like an entire horn section and clearly drive the sound, but Ortiz's sinister, throaty, somewhat detached voice and edgy lyrics keep this music reverberating in bleak shades of black and gray, not surprisingly the color scheme of the CD's photos and art.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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