This album is the soundtrack to a film called A Little Trip to Heaven which unfortunately I haven’t seen. As such, I cannot even begin to guess if Mugison’s music suits the film or not. Without the movie to skew my opinion in any direction I can safely say that this release is pretty damn boring and a chore to listen to.
Little Trip is dripping with Americana or at least an Icelandic view of Americana. Pedal steel guitar and brass are used to excess throughout the CD. I found the whole thing cloying; it was like Radiohead doing country or something equally inappropriate. Maybe in the context of the film this music is a masterstroke but on its own it just sounds self indulgent and trite. “Go Blind” and “Little Trip to Heaven” are two pieces that appear early in the album (they are songs as opposed to the many miniature soundscapes on the album). Both are corny and highly annoying. The vocals are mawkish and false sounding; breathless exaggerations of words here intended to bring “feeling” to the lyrics instead bring out nausea in me.
I struggled to find any saving grace to Little Trip. Nearly every track is a new experience in tedium. It feels like Mugison wants to irritate me. The closest thing to good on the album is “Alone in a Hotel” which is a short piece that consists solely of trumpet and trombone. It lives up to its name, the brass sounds as lonesome as Hank Williams. It is followed by “Rush,” the only other piece that I could take. It is a simple repeating riff that speeds up and up as a screaming slide guitar howls through it. Apart from these, the rest of Little Trip is exceptionally bland.
Normally I’ve a lot of time for anything put out on Ipecac as generally Mike Patton will release something that may not be good but it will be at the very least interesting or unusual. Little Trip is anything but interesting or unusual. Instead Mugison have made an incredibly dull album that has put me off ever sitting down to watch the film for which it was composed for.
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