Thursday, November 05, 2009

Noughties By Nature #19: Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi - Hear The Air

My downstairs neighbours aren't bad people - they were incredibly decent when the boiler flooded their kitchen, for example - but they do have the unfortunate habit of arguing very loudly on a regular basis, often late at night when I'm trying to sleep. Alas, unlike the bickering couple in Hear The Air their hollerings tend not to involve disgust at the other's habit of listening to Pavement; then again, if they were to involve gallons of semen I'd rather not know about it. I'd imagine that if their rowing was set to relentless guitars, occasionally bolstered with some pleasing keyboard noises and the odd dramatic silence, this would probably improve matters as well. And if only they'd realise that the rhythm is soothing we'd all get a lot more sleep.

It was all the more surprising that Hear The Air was so thoroughly ace, because Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi were deeply ordinary. I saw them a few times, usually as second band on in a Camden backroom, and was never exactly impressed. Perhaps it was the presence of guest vocalist/guitarist Rachel Tomsk (of whom I know precisely nothing, other than that I saw her play the song with the band once and that she was introduced as being in another band, and that she was quite cute) that raised them to a level they'd never come close to again, or maybe it was that anything more than insults and rollicking guitars was beyond them. Still, one great single is more than [insert name of the terrible yet inexplicably successful band of your choice here] ever managed, so good for them.
Matt Sullivan

[YouTube]
[Album: Vague Us]

1 comment:

heartbeeps said...

Their album was a classic. One of my all-time faves.