Ween have a new record out. Now, normally, such a mundane record industry announcement would not be worthy of valuable blog space but the Friends EP is no ordinary event. The first release from Pennsylvania's surreal kings of musical mutation since 2003's critically dismissed Quebec, Friends was recorded with Reinhard Raith, aka DJ Voodoo, the German engineer behind 2006's ubiquitous and much-hated Crazy Frog phenomenon.
Completely without irony or any gimlet-eyed Zappa cruelty, Ween and Raith have created a perfect slice of dancefloor uplift from a critic-reviled music genre and a lyric that deals with vocalist Gene Ween's recovery from clinical depression. If released by the Pet Shop Boys or the Flaming Lips it would be hailed as a stroke of post-modern genius and a diamond-sharp encapsulation of the bleak core of EU-grey melancholy that lies at the heart of all the best/worst house music.
However, chances are, because it's Ween, it will merely be dismissed as another bong-brained
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