I must confess that though I’ve heard Bobby Conn before – and seen some of his bizarre videos in the internet – I wasn’t aware of his back catalogue. So when I put on Rise Up! it wasn’t until I started to write this review that I realised it was actually a re-release from the mid-90s.
That’s because this is a remarkable album, fresh with wide-ranging ideas as well as top-notch songwriting, and predating all sorts of acts – Ariel Pink, the Animal Colective – who have presumably already heard and possibly been influenced by the Chicago cult legend.
Fron the wonky electronica of the intro via the sub-Bowie glam of the title track, through the punk polemic of ‘United Nations’, this is a wide-ranging collection of bizarre ideas that somehow, just, work. With some tripped-out hippy space dub on ‘Axis 67’, ‘California’s underground funk… I could go on, but I should really leave you to investigate Mr Conn’s work yourself. Or revisit it – this re-release has a bunch of bonus tracks on it. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.
