- Music
- 13 Feb 03
The kitchen sink philosophy can be incredibly attractive to musicians. The theory goes something like this: take your average track, add some funky digital effects, scratchy, flavoursome samples and a million-piece orchestra and, as Bob is indeed your uncle, you must surely end up with a cracking tune. Well, that’s the thinking at any rate.
On their fourth album proper, Moloko have plumped for the kitchen sink approach. The digital effects box has been raided, the music layered, tweaked and stylised, and no less than 53 musicians have been pressed into service for the brass and strings instrumentation.
The excess ornamentation makes for a cluttered-sounding record that at times verges on irritating. Moloko never simply get a groove going and stick with it. Instead, they segue, seemingly interminably, through ever more unlikely permutations of the core arrangements, while using Roisin Murphy’s vocals to hold the whole mass together.