All Music Guide
Many odd, uncommercial rock albums were produced in the early 1970s, but G.F. FitzGerald's Mouseproof is an odd effort even in that company. It's not so much the music itself that's weird, though it's certainly far outside the rock and pop mainstream, drawing from jazz, classical, avantgarde, and electronic forms as well as more songoriented rock ones. It's the juxtaposition of different, almost stylistically unrelated songs that's the record's most unusual feature, even if most of them are not the weirdest things to come down the pike when judged individually. In tunes like "April Affair," FitzGerald can recall the more obtuse British folkrock singersongwriters, such as Roy Harper, the pleasing textures crossed with jazzy touches and a nottooeasytohum melody. Yet there are also rather comic artrockish pieces, somewhat along the lines of what Giles, Giles Fripp might have been had they become a more forceful rock band, but not quite evolved into the allout progrock of King Crimson. Th...ere's also droll countryrock ("Country Mouse"), a pretty folkjazzy number inspired by the 1970 shootings of Kent State students ("May Four," the most accessible track). Plus there's the bizarre "Ashes of the Empire/The End," which almost sounds like a Frank Zappaesque inner dialogue/struggle between the most hippydippy and bestial elements of the counterculture, a lewd Captain Beefheartian growl giving way to an angelic malefemale duet intoning "this is my land, this is my home, this is my country, and I want to make love to my lady." (The female voice in that section, incidentally, is original Fairport Convention member Judy Dyble.)The tracks get yet stranger after that. "Under and Over the Waterfall" again recalls the transition between Giles, Giles Fripp and King Crimson with its tense jazzy rock and flute interplay. "A Movement Lost in Twilight Stone" makes much use of the kind of eerie, echoing guitarpiano pinging heard in the most abstract passages of early Pink Floyd songs. "Political Machine" runs operatic satire through a repetitive, tapeloopy grinder. The lengthy, closing "Opal Pyramid Drifting Over Time" cools things out with a repetitive, meditative circular piano riff, over which gentle distorted electric guitar flutters and intermittent drums shuffle, eventually giving way to similar gentle, circular, but more disquieting tones and emissions, and then some ominous choral chanting. To say that this kind of record is not for everyone, even for some hardbitten psychedelic collectors, is an understatement, since the record never settles into a steady groove or flow, and few of its tracks are conventionally accessible. Still, FitzGerald's work here is skilled, daring, and eclectic, though the parts aren't particularly outstanding or memorable on their own. - Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide Read more Less
