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Leave it to J. Munly, the erstwhile second voice behind
Slim Cessna's Auto Club, the purveyor of such phantasmagorical
musical eloquences as Munly And The Lee Lewis Harlots and
now The Lupercalians, to bring the modern musical world
a dark, new world interpretation of Prokofiev's amazing
Peter And The Wolf. For those of us who were raised on
the Walt Disney animated version of Peter, this new translation
will have a few moments of touching familiarity, but for the most
part this record goes to very dark places and rarely strays into
the light.
The record begins with the overture, "Scarewulf", pre-telling
the story's arc in a short span and introducing some of the more
twisted themes found in this tale. "Petr" introduces
us to the grim subject of our story and tells us of his struggle
with his demented grandfather and his trials in becoming a man.
Munly's poetry here is at its finest, weaving imagery and words
in a darkened way that only he could do. The story is continued,
but reverses viewpoints in "Grandfater", finally revealing
Petr's dark obsession with the wolf that has been harrying the
people of the town. Up until this point the music has been very
dark and gypsy-tinged, backed by strings and balalaikas, recalling
the folk music of the Eastern European states, but "Bird"
introduces a lighter flavor to the record, sounding almost like
a late-era David Byrne tune. Here, the piccolo that so
many are familiar with from Prokofiev makes an appearance, as
the song moves from a lilting light introduction to a thick, vocal
heavy dirge. The mood returns to dark rather quickly again when
"Cat" begins to lurk about… but the music takes
a weirdly drunken, swaggering turn and veers back and forth from
a meandering lovely folk tune to a stomping, angry tune that shows
a bit of the madness embedded in the cat's psyche. "Duk"
is a weirdly carnival-esque tune that looms heavily, laden with
oboe and stomping rhythms. Munly pulls a quick one here and works
in some childhood games to keep the song interesting and fun,
keenly offsetting the righteous importance of the simple-minded
fellow.
"Three Wise hunters" takes the bad situation and turns
it worse as the three kings arrive in town to liberate the people
from the wolf, only to impose their own heavy-handed rule on the
town. Munly takes a brilliant idea and makes it larger than life
by naming the hunters after kings of old, imparting images already
sown by the mythos of Western civilization. Marcus Aurelius brings
his strength and devastation to the eerie tale, while Lucius brings
blessings from the Sea. The song turns sickly and pale as Jonas,
lord of the Underworld, joins in the charade, putting a weird
slow-down on the album that turns everything a bit sideways. Finally,
we arrive at "Wulf", the bluesy, keening tale from the
perspective of the forest hunter that is perhaps the most unsettling
song of all. All the former darkness pales in comparison to the
obscure madness and fierce interior struggles of the wolf. The
wolf's tale runs from self-loathing to empowerment to fear and
bitterness, the music moving between movements lithely, always
backed by a pounding drumbeat and a vicious acoustic guitar, throttling
home a desperate rhythm. The wolf is very obviously aware of the
fear he inspires and his meanderings among the town, and casually
- if madly - considers all his actions and plans his own ultimate
demise.
Munly's dark world interpretation of the classic story would
serve well as a soundtrack to Suzie Templeton's 2008 animated
re-telling of Peter And The Wolf. That film was dark and
twisted, not a tale for children, and J. Munly delivers exactly
the same sort of disturbing feeling with his weirdly irreverent
gypsy music throughout this record.
-Embo Blake
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Munly
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