Momus : Ocky Milk
In Greek mythology, Momus was the god of Mockery and Ridicule, depicted as being jealous and critical of other gods, while never turning his criticism onto himself. This doesn’t seem to be an apt moniker for the musician responsible for Ocky Milk, Nick Currie. Currie has nothing to be jealous of. His own talents exhibited on Ocky Milk I’m sure are quite satisfactory. Currie’s confidence after about 20 years of recording lets him screw with some of the highly accessible pop tunes he orchestrates by doing just about anything. On the track “Hang Low,” there is some kind of riff irking below the surface of the liquid melody. It suddenly breaches through the melody like a whale rising and splashing loud and sharp through the pop melody, but it doesn’t interrupt. It’s part of the music itself, as the whale swims in harmony with the surface as it travels own, periodically blowing water above the surface out of its blowhole.
Currie’s greatest strength is his confidence in his own abilities, exhibited in the wide variance of tempos and genres that can be heard even within the small space of one song. “Permagasm” is a typical folk song, with the exception of the lyrics of which Currie is anything but typical, but subordinate rhythms are added continuously until the point where the song is teeming with too many tracks for it too remain stable. It explodes in itself, reaching an almost IDM frantic pace, but retains its structure, and the song continues changed, but certainly reminiscient of the song it was before.
With such grace with freedom, where does Nick Currie lie in relation to Momus? Perhaps it could be that he is ridiculing common music and over melodious pop tunes with his music, but that would seem to degrade him as a musician. In the role of mockery, he would be dependent upon another form of music’s deficiencies for his own proficiency, a parasite of sorts. Nick Currie has proven himself as someone who can stand on his own, and makes it seem like that is the only for him, his will to explore possibly being too much for others to keep up with. Maybe Currie’s mockery isn’t parasitic in nature, never attacking others, but defending, acting as a Cyrano de Bergerac by presenting others’ inferiority only as consequence of his greatness and his lack of care or need for others impressions of himself or his music. Currie brings more grace to the name Momus than mythology could do.
Similar Albums:
Jarvis Cocker – Jarvis
Anjali – World of Lady A
My Life Story – The Golden Mile
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