Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I have come to the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with you if you have anything to do with Ipecac Records. That would include buying a disc with the Ipecac Records imprint, going to see a band that has ever recorded or currently records for Ipecac, listening to an Ipecac Records CD for more than five minutes, or recording for Ipecac. This stuff isn’t just twisted, there is a sick rot that rises off of the label from the top (Michael Patton, and his somewhat over the top fascinations with body waste elimination functions) on down. "Down" would include Qui, and Love's Miracle.

Qui is nothing fancy, guitar, drums, and vocals, deconstructing (almost) everything they play, sometimes uncomfortably so. Qui started off in 2000 as the duo of Paul Christensen on drums and vocals and Matt Cronk on vocals and guitar. They released their first CD in 2004, but reached their present state when David Yow (you know him from The Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid) joined in late 2006. Love's Miracle is Qui's second proper release, and the band has been touring in support for about a month now; looking over their itinerary, it makes me nervous that there are folks like Qui out there driving around from city to city. Think of the mobile home vampires of Near Dark, only worse. This begs the question: how do you audition for a band like this? Why would you? It reminds me of Groucho Marx’ adage about not belonging to any club that would have me as a member. Anyway, the cover of Love's Miracle has the boys standing over the naked body of a woman in a back yard (there is an inference elsewhere that she is dead); it kind of gives you a hint as to what goes on within the disc. Listening to it makes one…nervous. One never knows what will come next, The majority of the tracks have lyrics consisting of two to three sentences repeated over and over; those with more ambitious lyrical aspirations (Today, Gestation and Belt come to mind) will probably make you wish they hadn’t. There is a particularly aggressive cover of Frank Zappa’s Willie The Pimp followed by an even more aggressive track entitled Belt as in "I’m going to belt you" and an extremely unlikely take on Echoes, the Pink Floyd composition. Echoes is a fairly straight guitar and drums cover, with harmonies and everything, and is all the more chilling for it, in light of what has gone before. You sit and wait for all hell to break loose, or a gang of home invaders to come through the front door. Even after the track is over, you wait for the explosion.

For all of this, there is something oddly attractive about Love's Miracle. I can barely stand the thing but I keep listening to it over and over and over. It’s like a soundtrack to Ted Bundy’s head. I can’t imagine what a live performance of this band would be like. I can’t imagine what the crowd would look like. Nothing, I’m sure, like me. Recommended, with more reservations than your favorite restaurant on New Year’s Eve.