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’64–’95
(XL)
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If DJ Shadow, with his murderous beats and deliciously obscure hooks, is the dark lord of sampling, then Lemon Jelly are the court jesters. On their 2000 debut KY and 2002’s Lost Horizons, Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen whipped up sugar-sprinkled yet subversive music like so much colored air. Throughout the two discs here — one CD and one DVD — not only is their individual style of summery chill-out crammed with bits of twisted wit and charm, but so is the resplendent packaging. In short, this is a total audio/visual experience. For ’64–’95, Lemon Jelly have constructed a collection that is thick-limbed and propulsive, but they have not lost their nursery-rhyme innocence and their magnificent sense of drift. The title indicates the span of years that Deakin and Franglen have pillaged, and there are chunks here lifted from sources as diverse as Masters of Reality, Gallagher and Lyle, and, curiously, Captain James T. Kirk. But what matters is the way Lemon Jelly stitch them all together. "Come Down on Me" bursts out of the speakers in brilliant hues, the tick-tocky rhythm of "Only Time" is queasily trance-inducing, "Stay with You" is less lemon jelly than apple-crisp crunchy, and the distressed motifs of "Go" are King Crimson brutal. The DVD is a replay of the album, and all I can say is that the effulgent, abstract images that accompany the music stopped my five-month-old daughter’s crying cold. There’s no higher recommendation than that.
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