Ellery Eskelin with Andrea Parkins: Green Bermudas

If your idea of music is a squawking, screeching tenor paired with utterly dissimilar background keyboard samples, then Eskelin and Parkins are for you. These 12 selections are a tribute to cacophony. Need I say that they are all originals? Mercifully, a few numbers, “The Cocktail Hour,” “Scratch,” and “Sleight of Hand,” are brief, between one and two minutes. “The Cocktail Hour” sounds like the buzzing of a thousand demented insects. If the instrumental numbers don’t accelerate a descent into madness, the vocals on “Mary Jane’s Dilemma” and “Yummy Love” should do the trick. “Flamingo” is intended as a ballad, I think, while “Behind the Curtain” suggests the machinations of a deranged wizard-an appropriate metaphor for this release. The promotional buzz for Green Bermudas calls it a “testament to the ingenuity & weirdness of the human spirit” and instructs the listener to “dig it.” I don’t think so.

Originally Published May 1, 1997