STEROID MAXIMUS: Quilombo
Imagine Jim Foetus holding Harry Connick, Jr., hostage and forcing his orchestra to play for their lives on a hellbound safari and you’ll have a pretty close idea of this latest release from the prolific psuedonym enthusiast, as Steroid Maximus splay large-scale big music worthy of the densest, most chaotic Looney Tune or 70mm MGM musical. With the absence of vocals, Foetus/Thirlwell’s persona disappears on Quilombo in favor of the all-consuming abstract expressionist efforts of his collaborators-Voivod’s Away, Hahn Rowe (late of Hugo Largo), Raymond Watts and Lin Culbertson-who wield machetes in the guise of charging horns, rumbling drums, cracking whips, trembling piano and frenetic rhythms that bring to mind Cinemascopic, nightmarish chase scenes. It’s maybe too early in the year, but Quilombo’s cover art (Thirlwell signing himself The Pizz †) is going on our Best of `92 list right now. Welcome to the jungle: “No Joy In Pudville” “Fighteous,” “Life In The Greenhouse Effect” and the title cut.
CMJ New Music Report, Issue# 266 (10 Jan 1992), author unknown.
† Thirlwell and The Pizz are in fact two different people.