On this evidence, anyone could blag their way through a ‘music’ career. Once again, brother and sister duo Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger have succeeded in committing some of the most frustratingly fragmented, downright odd and abstract sounds in living memory to record. Those who were put through an airing of last year's godawful Rehearing My Choir – a record which saw the duo recruit their 83-year-old grandmother on lead vocals – will already be running for the hills. Those spared such an ordeal should count their blessings.
By comparison, Bitter Tea couldn’t but be a more satisfying work. That said, those familiar with 2004’s typically whimsical Blueberry Boat will again be all too well aware that the Friedbergers have a penchant for allowing a musical gale blow through their loosely constructed oddities. Though that record saw spontaneous genre-hopping through folk, blues, punk, garage, electronica and techno, it was executed in a manner which at least afforded the songs a thread of cohesion.
Bitter Tea, however, is a disjointed mess. As Eleanor Friedberger’s voice whirls in tangents, Matthew sings backwards whilst shooting out blues and weird electronica, hoping at least something will stick. Often, such as on opener ‘In My Little Thatched Hut’, he intervenes with such annoying abandon it’s as if he’s afraid a song might in fact develop. And on ‘Waiting To Know You’ and a second ‘Benton Harbour Blues’, it nearly does. But that’s all too little and all too late. By the time the album peters out, the cheering begins. You’d be disappointed if you didn’t already know what to expect.