We Are All Terrorists
Pumpkin Pie, 2019
8/10
Listen to We Are All Terrorists
A Canadian composer who gained a bit of fame for creating background music for MTV’s The Tom Green Show, Friendly Rich has been busy in recent years recording exclusively for his own record label, Pumpkin Pie Corporation, and touring worldwide.
This 13th record- a double album- gets started with the percussive strong and bizarre cabaret meets experimental-pop of “Union Meeting”, and “Terror Variation One” follows with 4 minutes of aberrant noises and background talking amid a spacey atmosphere.
Things only get more bizarre from here, including the electronic beeps and buried sound bites of “God Is Dead”, the chunky display and visceral energy of “Donkey Day, which brings in ominous vocals, and the vaudeville-esque “Little Dead Birds”.
Back half highlights include the calm spirit of “Low, Low, Low”, where whistling and avant-folk ideas invade the setting, while “Don’t Trust Nobody” relies on keys and brushed percussion for its old time feel. “We Are All Terrorists”, one of the album’s best, offers an adventurous display of darker textures that become quite abrasive in its forceful, innovative execution.
Definitely one of the most unusual records of 2019, Friendly Rich might be unclassifiable and aimed at zero mainstream accessibility, but his PhD candidacy in music ensures that you’ll be treated to calculated instrumentation in its raw, often perplexing intensity.
Travels well with: Frank Zappa- You Are What You Is; The Blood Brothers- Young Machetes