Leatherman & The Mojave Green
by Troy Kingi and the Cactus Handshake
In the TVNZ+ documentary series Troy Kingi’s Desert Hīkoi, about the making of this album – the eighth in his programme of 10 albums in 10 genres in 10 years – Kingi admitted he’d struggled with the past few.
The first ones came easily, he said, but he was feeling stale and needed a new environment to get past creative blockages.
And so to the famous, eccentric Rancho De La Luna studio in the Mojave Desert, where influential artists like Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age had recorded in that unique, dry and weirdly spiritual Joshua tree landscape of southeast California.
Kingi undertook ceremonies with Cahuilla people and local shamans, and afterwards – feeling more grounded and mentally expanded – the songs came in a rush.
A lot of songs: this double album – in a cover that refers to King Crimson’s classic prog-rock debut – immediately sounds like an injection of adrenalin and inspiration. It opens with an urgent spoken introduction then roars into life with the appropriately titled Ride the Rhino, a smash-up of hard rock and glam pop stomp.
Thereafter is a thrilling, desert rock journey: a mix of hard rock-cum-pop (Silicone Booby Trap, Tipping Point), stoner escapism (Cactus Handshake), punkish speed metal (Mezcal Eye Drops), tough reggae (Geronimo) and a campfire singalong hidden at the end (Praise the Sun). And damn if Dynamite Yourself doesn’t nod to Split Enz’s Dirty Creature.
Kingi’s mostly impenetrable and surreal lyrics, perhaps unlocked by the opening of chakras or the mushrooms given to him by the healers, may be better understood after seeing Desert Hīkoi.
Make what you will of this in Ocelli: “Clasper, makes entering abnormal. Fin fold, yet tigers stay informal. Blood bath, beyond the nasal curtain …” The short, spoken-word pieces by Rancho locals are bizarre, and after one hearing, surplus to requirements.
However, on the mainline of desert-inspired psychedelic rock from Meat Puppets (from Phoenix) and Giant Sand (Tucson) to influences from Rancho’s illustrious alumni, Kingi – with guitarist/singer Ezra Simmons, drummer Treye Liu and bassist Marika Hodgson – uncorks exciting, lyrically bewildering and enormously energetic rock.
If the last couple of Kingi’s went past you, come back for this. Loudly.
Aghori Mhori Mei
by Smashing Pumpkins
It’s likely more people could name the capital of Mongolia than the last Smashing Pumpkins album. It was Atum, a two hour-plus rock opera. A big ask in these attention-deficit days.
This quick follow-up is a more manageable and familiar Pumpkins, 10 mostly blast-force and melodramatic songs in just 45 minutes by the band’s three founding members: singer/guitarist Billy Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.
Corgan’s production emphasises quiet-loud dynamics and the songs – laden with arcane, mythological and some bonkers lyrics – labour under portentous titles like Pentagrams, Sighommi, Pentecost, Goeth the Fall and Murnau.
Loyalists will be relieved at the songs’ economy, the sonic heft of the Pumpkins’ attack and Corgan’s towering ambition. For others it’ll be another bombastic, sometimes pretentious Pumpkins’ album.
These albums are available digitally, on CD and vinyl.
