Following his 2016 outing as one-half of Soft Hair, a pink-glazed detour into seedy synth-funk with co-conspirator LA Priest, displaced Kiwi
Connan Mockasin returns to the bandleading business with
Jassbusters, an eight-song soundtrack to his homemade absurdist five-part melodrama film, Bostyn 'n Dobsyn. The film's premise centers around the relationship between a music teacher named Bostyn, his band, Jassbusters, and Bostyn's student, Dobsyn. While this may sound like a rather obtuse project to newcomers, followers of
Mockasin's career are likely to receive it with a knowing nod of recognition and perhaps appreciation. His last solo album, 2013's Caramel, offered a slightly more palatable version of his helium-voiced soft pysch 'soft pysch' soul with similar dips into conceptual fare (see "It's Your Body," Pts. 1-5). Performing here in character as the fictional Jassbusters band,
Mockasin and his real-life collaborators offer up a set of slinky jazz-rock ballads filled with lengthy guitar solos and oblique references to the film's narrative. The nearly nine-minute opener "Charlotte's Thong," a likely reference to previous
Mockasin collaborator
Charlotte Gainsbourg, burbles along pleasantly during its front half before descending into an extended section of indulgent but capable soloing. The wonky post-midnight sleaze-soul of tracks like "Last Night" and "Con Conn Was Impatient" follow in the same manner, with only the semi-sprightly "B'nD" offering even a midtempo groove, punctuated midsong by a conversation between Dobsyn and his school principal. Recorded live in the studio, Jassbusters (the band) have enough chops to pull off the kind of slick '70s MOR soft rock that seems to be their bailiwick and
Mockasin himself notches another strange chapter in his quirky career. ~ Timothy Monger