{"id":40573,"date":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/shady-planet\/"},"modified":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","slug":"shady-planet","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/shady-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Shady Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

So.\u00a0 About Peter Dixon\u2019s Shady Planet<\/i>. <\/p>\n

You could say this: \u201c\u2026sounds like the dream sequence soundtrack of a child who has just been read Edgar Allen Poe bedtime stories\u2026 a seductive work of quarreling melodic and dissonant interplay that is mysterious and intriguing.\u201d* <\/p>\n

Or you could just say \u201cwhoooooa\u201d and move on, quickly, because this music is so genuinely eerie in its evocation of a sort of lounge-jazz netherworld that you\u2019ll be jumping at shadows inside of five minutes under its intoxicating spell. <\/p>\n

*(I realize that was cheating a bit, but the one-sheet Powderfinger Promotions<\/a> sent in with this disc was one of the best-written I\u2019ve ever received, so much so that it seems a waste to keep it to myself.) <\/p>\n

Before going solo, <\/city><\/place>Dixon was the\u00a0keyboard player and frequent composer for Combustible Edison, the band credited with coining the term \u201ccocktail nation” and a mainstay of the ’90s lounge music scene.\u00a0 The only lounge this music would be suited for, though, would be very red, and very hot. <\/p>\n

The title track opens things up in a shambolic limbo of off-kilter string-plucking (ukelele?) over haunted-house synth tones and thump-in-the-night percussion effects.\u00a0 The mid-song breakdown to whistly synth effects and spooky electronic blips only reinforces the macabre atmospherics — and yet, there is a definite melodic thread weaving through the entire tune. <\/p>\n

\u201cMoss Points\u201d is a more typical number — if such a thing exists on an album like this\u00a0— a two-and-a-half minute vignette that veers from Phantom<\/i>-ish opera organ to psychedelic lounge jazz, all the while bathing what feels suspiciously like a polka rhythm in melodic strangeness. <\/p>\n

When the random-mystery-lady-speaking-French-or-something-like-it makes a cameo appearance halfway through \u201c<\/place><\/placename>Sundra <\/placetype>Strait\u201d\u00a0— just before the honking bass clarinet solo that sounds vaguely like the player is being attacked by wasps\u00a0— you can be quite sure you\u2019re not in <\/state><\/place>Kansas any more.\u00a0 The fact that next cut \u201cMastic Shirley\u201d starts off with a jaunty little horn melody over funeral-parlor organ pretty much completes to process of complete musical disorientation. <\/p>\n

Shady Planet<\/i> is not date music, or barbecue in the backyard music, or driving music, or anything but fascinatingly different and unique music.\u00a0 That said, if Tim Burton hasn\u2019t heard this stuff yet, he needs to.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Happy Halloween\u2026! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8076],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40573","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-peter-dixon","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40573"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}