MFTJ is the latest collaboration of prog-rock hotshots to come out of Scott Schorr’s Australian-based Lazy Bones Recordings, dropping without warning on March 10, 2020.
Over the years, leading lights such as Tony Levin, Marco Minnemann, Jordan Rudess, Alan White and David Torn have signed up for Schorr’s productions under a label that churns out a consistently set of high quality records – just maybe because the roster is consistently high quality.
For MFTJ, Mike Keneally is paired with Schorr himself, who among other things can compose and play drums. So, like the uber-talented Keneally, he can do a lot, and you might already know that even if the whole of these two isn’t greater than the sum of its parts, it’s still a big frickin’ sum.
Also, a “duet” in this case does not mean a stripped-down arrangement. Far from it, Mike Keneally and Scott Schorr are deploying a wide array of instruments and dubbing them in to create a full combo effect. And a tight combo, at that.
In fact, Keneally’s slap bass in some kind of funked-up syncopation with Schorr’s drums is the most noticeable thing about “Liquid and Fumes,” not Keneally’s still-excellent guitar work. Here, though, you find his penchant for being able to walk the thin line between catchy pop phrases and edgy dissonance. And then Keneally uncorks a succinct and succulently evil guitar solo in the middle of it all, and in the span of less than four minutes you get a pretty good sampling of the immense talent both bring to the table.
That song sets the template for music that’s a stew of what they describe as “art-rock, hip-hop, hard rock and psychedelia,” but the one thing that’s you can always count on is that every track is propulsive; Keneally is the better-known name, but Schorr is an equal participant in this venture.
The fairly short running times of these songs leaves no time for aimless jamming, but they make good use of the time to set alien moods – and, sometimes, disrupt them. “You’re Not the Boss of Me” is even funkier than “Liquid and Fumes,” and video-game synth sounds and random guitar incursions surround the groove. “Call of the Corn” sounds relatively innocuous until about two-thirds in when Mike Keneally unleashes some nasty-assed bass fuzz.
Keneally tosses several guitars – acoustic and electric – on top of the vamp of “Prostate 911,” but other songs have structures with some real sophistication: Keneally takes a turn on piano for “Bitchy Hawk,” but this ain’t no piano ballad, and the melody takes some twisty turns with Schorr’s chugging rhythm remaining the only constant element. “Johnson Figleaf” rides on a Middle Eastern melody, as the two engage in intricate layering of instruments.
Other tracks are in the simple pursuit of making you move: “That Crawling Sensation” must be referring to that menacing drone that pervades most of the song, but when it finally recedes, it leaves Schorr’s head-nodding strut exposed like a lifting fog. “It Was Delicious” is more of that funky syncopation, so together it’s almost robotic. “Elevation Day” slows it down to a sinister swagger.
There’s a roomful of artistic capacity between just Mike Keneally and Scott Schorr. MFTJ puts it to good use.
Purchase a download of ‘MFTJ’ from Bandcamp.
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