Quit Smoking Monday

Bobby Conn is weird, weird, weird. It is a testament to either his startling originality (or his aforementioned weirdness) that both his singing voice and his personality can only be described as a cross between a sex-crazed Elvis impersonator and a television evangelist. With Conn's penchant for sex and self-promotion, combined with his manic obsession with tempo, rhythm, and instrumentation shifts, even this four-song EP is a wild roller coaster ride through one man's self-indulgence. The opener, "Free Love," begins with a line of childish bells over a '50s surf riff; strange enough, but then the song morphs -- first into a James Brown-style funk fest, and then into a church-hall sermon with Conn howling "Reach out and touch each other!/Reach out and taste another!" all the while. Track two finds Conn softly crooning (in flawless French) over a squealing Moog for several minutes before his duet partner launches into a rap-funk monologue that abruptly segues into a distorted guitar lead. Throw in bizarre covers of Badfinger's "Without You" and Caetano Veloso's "Maria B" and you've got one unusual record. However, Conn's genius lies not in his fractured ideas or his dizzying genre-hopping, but in his replay value: When the album stops spinning all you want to do is hit "repeat" and ride it all over again. ~ Ari Wiznitzer, All Music Guide

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