Menomena

"Evil Bee"

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Mar 27, 2007

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There's much to love about Menomena. Their name is fun to say repeatedly. Do it now, five times. They say they didn't, but you would swear they got it from the Muppets. Menomena make songs using a loop-based computer program designed by Brent Knopf, one of three of the group's deliciously nasal voices. Their dense, doomy, funk-punk rhythms and sinister saxophone honks are offset by wifty keyboard drones and light slips of melody. Tunes filled with that mix of mortar and cotton made I Am the Fun Blame Monster and deceptively simple new songs like the round robin-ish "Rotten Hell" lovely to behold. But then there's "Evil Bee." Within Menomena's brief weird canon, "Evil Bee" is their most claustrophobic song. Imagine Knopf's programming run amok and all instrumental roles reversed — its robotic beats echoing in triplicate, its manic bass humming a sweet tune, its baritone sax blaring to its own beat. Then add nonlinear lyrics ("I took a walk with an invisible friend/ And on that walk, I gave my hand/ O, to be a machine") that repeat and repeat until they're more paranoid than amiable. Suddenly Menomena doesn't sound so fun to say.

Menomena play Friday, March 30, with Field Music and Land Of Talk at Johnny Brenda's.

 

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