After a few years in the making, we bring you an exclusive listen to the world psych adventures of Dumbo Gets Mad from their just released full-length, Quantum Leap. The Italy by LA duo of mystery bring more than just a time machine to the equation, as they follow up 2011's Elephant At The Door with a Leap that hurdles you through time and place with a cosmos shattering sound that the two present as collected galactic fragments found the world over.
“Before Kiddo's Bath” sets the musical scene for something out of a late night Spanish variety television show from the 1960s. But the time, period and place displacement continues in the big, bright, sunny day that imagines lovers bonding over tikka masala in the ballad, “Indian Food”. The audio alluded eras blend together in a seamless stitch toward the modernist “American Days”, a vintage bottled stateside ode that sounds like a collection of anachronisms to be used later as hip-hop breaks in the 1990s. “South Africa (Crystal Balls on Roll)” continues the continent and era shift where woodwinds, harp strums, guitar tones held over from lost transistor signals tour through Johannesburg like rolling, mystical, crystal balls.
“Radical Leap” serves as the album's central nervous system, a control room of effects, consoles, time defying modules that can transport and transform on cue with a leading electric organ that goes as far as the mind warping guitars allow. Then with the conscious seizing and shoulders shrugging, “Future Sun”; stare into the burning star as a heavy guitar trip charges somewhere between lost Italo pop obscurities and North Americanized-Spanish guitar squeals. The safari continues with instructions to, “get your feet on the line” in the dense tropics of, “Tahiti Hungry Jungle” that turns into a wah-wah wonderland with guitar wails that communicate messages in electric code. “Bam Bam” presents 80s revisionism like a synthesizer candy store stocked with the richest tones and noises on display. On the global funk prowler “Cougar”, a rap spit flow over the riffs and bass bop about how, “she want to go to the fancy place”, smuggling in a joint by purse for the decadent occaision.
“Soft” is anything but, as the two mysterious lovers bring together every poly-rhythmic, poly-dimensional and multi-stylistic approach that moves to the multi-organ sway that could be the band's own theme music. After the interlude, croons about there being no justice and no opinion in “The House of Love” as Samba percussion blasts throughout and wah-wah effects melt everything they touch as you are invinted to “let your spirit freely overflow”. The love-in turns into a freakout, as the brief number “Maleducato” enjoys a moment by the Mediterranean shores, providing a pause to reflect on a misspent youth or bad education before the finale, “Punch & Tea” opens with further incitement to, “turn, me, on”. The outro moves like a closing farewell over sips of punch, tea while you gather your responses to the Quantum Leaps you have taken over the past 44 minutes. Keeping the farewells sleepy, sweet and restrained; the last minute is spent with the duo gifting you all the noises, toy pianos, yet more organs and flutes to send you off on your own quantum, radical leap forward.
The new Dumbo Gets Mad album Quantum Leap is available now via digital download and CD from Bad Panda Records.
