Lakeshore Records
2003
Black Moustache
About This Album
Tied as it is to clunky characterizations like "outsider electronic music" and "post-post-electroclash" (or whatever), Black Moustache's self-titled debut flirts dangerously with hipster dismissal before the disc is even spun. There's no doubt that portions of it are worth dismissing (the interminable chintzy drum machine hum of opener "X-On X-Off", for X-ample). It's fortunate then that peach fuzz frontman and Black Moustache mastermind Spencer Product's particular preen has enough posing character to carry most of Moustache past novelty and into mild, fleeting enjoyment. The album's thumping, chilly dance beats; wizzy synths; and sleazy shards of punk guitar, coupled with Product's post-Fred Schneider honk on the mic, is as much cheap and silly fun as, say, singing along with the lyrics "Hot monkey/Hot a**/Cold beer/No class" while wrapping a favorite member of the opposite sex in cheesecloth. That's because "Hot Monkey, Hot A**!" is as much a joke as it is a rangy, stinging anthem. It fully admits its own fabulously short shelf life, and it's that same snarky honesty that saves Black Moustache from the deepest, darkest reaches of used-to-be-cool (at least for now).
Track List (try tracks 3,6,7 and 9)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.