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RA#1 Presenting … Mosquito The Originol Soundtrack …. A concept album by Mark Winter. Chime on into the mind of mosquito for its short and precious life cycle as Marky guides us through flight, landing, hatching, the sucking of blood, irritation, and beyond on this fun family friendly audio adventure. Rated PG for Pretty Groovy. If you’re more PG-13 smoke a joint and listen in headphones, it will blow your mind.
Our take: Several times over the past few years, I’ve wondered, “what happened to Mark Winter?” It seemed like he was everywhere for a few years. His project Coneheads was a certified underground phenomenon, but there was also Big Zit, C.C.T.V., D.L.I.M.C., and plenty more, and they were all very good to fucking great. Then the releases just stopped with no fanfare. Maybe he was still putting out tapes you could only order via carrier pigeon to keep them safe from poseurs like me, but if that’s the case I didn’t so much as hear about them. So, Mosquito: The Originol Soundtrack marks, for me, the return of Mark Winter, and it is fucking awesome and a complete left turn. The fifteen-minute album is all instrumental (there are a few passages with spoken vocals) and the music, according to the description, follows the life cycle of a mosquito. Not being an entomologist, I can’t speak to the accuracy with which Winter has evoked the mosquito’s biology, but I can say the music is wide-screen cinematic, evoking a range of different moods that all seem mosquito-like, but from different directions. The way Mosquito slides between different moods and textures reminds me of the 70s German band Faust, as do the often bass-driven arrangements and the loose, quasi-jammy structure of the different movements. The bass-driven, funky feel also makes me think of cult 70s film soundtracks, particularly Alain Goraguer’s brilliant soundtrack to the 1973 animated film La Planète Sauvage. While the genre differs from anything I’ve heard Winter do before, you can still tell it’s him… the tones and textures of the instruments sound a lot like Coneheads and D.L.I.M.C., and a few of the movements (especially the first and last ones) feature some of his trademark mutant Chuck Berry lead guitar playing. While the potential audience of people who love both Coneheads and the kinds of weird soundtracks and library records unearthed on labels like Finders Keepers might be small, I am 100% in that demographic, and I fucking love this. Now, pardon me while I research how to train carrier pigeons so I don’t miss another note of music this person makes.
Our take: Several times over the past few years, I’ve wondered, “what happened to Mark Winter?” It seemed like he was everywhere for a few years. His project Coneheads was a certified underground phenomenon, but there was also Big Zit, C.C.T.V., D.L.I.M.C., and plenty more, and they were all very good to fucking great. Then the releases just stopped with no fanfare. Maybe he was still putting out tapes you could only order via carrier pigeon to keep them safe from poseurs like me, but if that’s the case I didn’t so much as hear about them. So, Mosquito: The Originol Soundtrack marks, for me, the return of Mark Winter, and it is fucking awesome and a complete left turn. The fifteen-minute album is all instrumental (there are a few passages with spoken vocals) and the music, according to the description, follows the life cycle of a mosquito. Not being an entomologist, I can’t speak to the accuracy with which Winter has evoked the mosquito’s biology, but I can say the music is wide-screen cinematic, evoking a range of different moods that all seem mosquito-like, but from different directions. The way Mosquito slides between different moods and textures reminds me of the 70s German band Faust, as do the often bass-driven arrangements and the loose, quasi-jammy structure of the different movements. The bass-driven, funky feel also makes me think of cult 70s film soundtracks, particularly Alain Goraguer’s brilliant soundtrack to the 1973 animated film La Planète Sauvage. While the genre differs from anything I’ve heard Winter do before, you can still tell it’s him… the tones and textures of the instruments sound a lot like Coneheads and D.L.I.M.C., and a few of the movements (especially the first and last ones) feature some of his trademark mutant Chuck Berry lead guitar playing. While the potential audience of people who love both Coneheads and the kinds of weird soundtracks and library records unearthed on labels like Finders Keepers might be small, I am 100% in that demographic, and I fucking love this. Now, pardon me while I research how to train carrier pigeons so I don’t miss another note of music this person makes.