Aid or Invade

Rodney Anonymous vs. The World

by Rodney Anonymous

Artist: Hector Zazou and Swara

Album: In the House of Mirrors

Country of Origin: Uzbekistan

If musicians didn't want us to judge their records by their covers, then every CD would look like the goddamn White Album (which sucked mule privates, by the way). So, when trying to glean some idea of its contents from the cover of a CD, keep the following two things in mind:

1. When the artist implies that he or she or Michael Jackson will be taking you on a musical journey, the odds are roughly 7.8 out of 10 that the journey is going to be about as enjoyable as Ned Beatty's canoe trip in Deliverance.

2. Another thing to watch out for: hyphenated music genres such as afro-electric fusion, celtic-calypso throat-singing and nordic-hillbilly sea shanties. If sticking to one style of music was good enough for Edith Piaf and The Ramones, it should be good enough for everybody else.

Both of the above full-on tongue kisses of musical death can be found on the back cover of Hector Zazou & Swara's In the House of Mirrors (on the Craw 47 label); and yet not only does this CD not suck mule privates, it doesn't even attempt to slip some GHB into the mule's drink.

Basically, In the House of Mirrors is just a bunch of people from India and Uzbekistan picking up their instruments and jamming with each other. All the notes fall together so nicely that it's as if the musicians had developed some sort of creepy alien hive mind.

Verdict:

As long as Hector Zazou and Swara keep making music like this, they can cover their CDs with pictures of mule privates and we'll continue to buy them.

(r_anonymous@citypaper.net)

For more on mule privates, visit rodneyanonymous.com.