Album: Perry Farrell

Song Yet To Be Sung, Virgin

Amazing, although Perry Farrell has always seemed to be pursuing his own individual agenda, separate from his involvement in Jane's Addiction and Porno For Pyros, this is the first actual solo album from the man who gave the world (or America, which likes to think of itself that way) the Lollapalooza Festival. Perhaps understandably, the album builds on that foundation, Farrell sounding at times like a charismatic shaman/wizard attempting to establish for America a kind of cosmic tribal mentality, akin to that which inspires such Old World events as Glastonbury. The irony being, of course, that if the pioneer settlers had not done their best to wipe out the indigenous belief-systems, there would probably be no need at all for such desperately extrovert new-age indulgences as the Burning Man Festival, whose attitude could best be summed up by Farrell's "Say Something": "I like to dance in crowds/I like to make love out loud". Song Yet To be Sung thus features several celebrations of some unspecified Jubilee, set to either junglist drum-programmes or rumbling dub-funk grooves, with Farrell's helium squeak striking dramatic oral poses over the top of spacious bass drones. Elsewhere, nascent Mother Earth tendencies surface in his apparent delight at having found "a place to plant my seed". With Marius De Vries and The Mad Professor helping produce some tracks, the effect is rather likeSouth Park's Mr Hanky fronting Transglobal Underground, only not quite as entertaining.