Jono El Grande — Neo Dada
Unfortunately, here the supposed humor in the music ends up clashing with the more serious elements of the compositions. Jono seems to be under the impression that a few cartoonish sing-song "la-la-la-la la la" vocalizations (percussively uttered in grunt-like 'comedic' voice) are all it takes to match the charm and wit of the compositions of John Zorn and Mike Patton, whose respective styles and absurdist presentation these tracks often seem to blatantly imitate. Vocals such as these almost completely ruin my enjoyment of the second track "Ballet Morbido". Perhaps the idea of musical genres shifting at random could in itself be 'funny', but in the case of Jono El Grande, everything feels much too academic and calculated for any such effect to be achieved.
Indeed, Jono reveals the stuffy prog rocker he is with a tasty moog solo in the last half of "Big Ben Dover". The rest of the track evokes 70's jazz fusion along the lines of Mahavishnu Orchestra and Chick Corea and is likely the highlight of the album. All such instrumental solos on the album are powerful, emotional, exciting and creative, played on instruments such ranging from classical instruments clarinet and bassoon to rock instruments such as a bluesy clean guitar and electric piano. These musicianship-focused moments are when "Neo Dada" manages to shine. When the academic nature of his music is self-aware
There is little to distinguish the dissonant, fully orchestral arrangement "Your Mother Eats Like A Platypus" from a piece of early 20th century 2nd Viennese School avant garde classical, and it is all the better for it. As it takes itself seriously, one can actually take the piece seriously. Too bad they had to give it another silly title. It's a deliciously tense, layered fabric of pained, atonal melodic fragments. "Ballet Morbido", the title track "Neo Dada", and most of the others also contain some nice purely orchestral bits.
The Patton/Zorn worship is most obvious in title track "Neo Dada", which sounds like something from Patton's Fantomas project. The integration of the orchestral component puts it closer to Ruins' "Symphonica", album, however. The moaned vocals do make the track feel a lot less serious and morbid, but don't ruin it. The track gets a tense film-score finish.
"Choko King" opens with a slow, brooding, grunge-meets-post-rock build up. Melancholy turns to a nightmarish feeling and the track turns into a spacy psychedelic, Ruins-esque groove, featuring a wandering xylophone part. Jono flirts with doom metal riffing, doubles his riffs with saxophone and subsequently adds swirling ambience. Another great track. Derivative, but not too much like any one group.
"Three Variations on a Mainstream Neurosis" is a decent progressive instrumental containing a fairly entertaining section in which the band plays a standard 12 bar blues progression to a progged-out, angular rhythm, as well as a great sax solo.
Jono occasionally falls back on incredibly cliched melodies or motifs throughout the album. Many of the main guitar themes consist of progressions of power chords reminiscent of the embarrassing "rockin'" chorus lines of 'guitar gods' like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. I find little emotion in these sections, which dominate parts of "Oslo City Suite". In general, the band has the same inability to really play out that plagues some of these 'virtuoso' musicians.
In conclusion, "Neo Dada" has significant value as "musician's music", as all of these songs are incredibly clever, diverse and emotional instrumental pieces. This value is marred by absolutely uninspired attempts at humor, but there is no denying the huge amount of talent and work required for the creation of an album like this. The musicians here play with energy and sincerity, although they don't seem to possess a fully formed idea of how they want to come across, or to know whether they want to be taken seriously