Matador Records
1999
Xtra-Acme USA
About This Album
As its title implies, Xtra Acme USA is a collection of unused leftovers and remixes of selections culled from Acme's recording sessions. However, unlike 1995's Experimental Remixes EP, this is more than a visitation of older songs via celebrity remixes. Rather, Xtra Acme holds its own as a complete album of new material that tastes great and is very filling. There's no doubt about it: Jon Spencer's certainly got the flava he raves about. Xtra Acme is a furious storm of energy, a quality that characterizes the Blues Explosion's Extra Width and Orange, but one that doesn't readily rear its head on 1996's Now I Got Worry or 1998's Acme. Xtra Acme finds Spencer and company returning to a structureless pattern, mixing tempos and beats, using theremins and modulation boxes, and tossing humor up against lustful sexuality. Hip-hop beats and scratches and samples are part of the cocktail, but the record's strongest segments find Spencer, Judah Bauer, and Russell Simins digging for adrenaline, strutting across an imaginary stage with zesty blues-boogie riffs, and stopping for occasional pauses, thus allowing Spencer the time he needs to vent to the audience and scream instructions to his bandmates.
Track List (try tracks 2,5,7,11 and 12)

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