Music Review // The Claypool Lennon Delirium "The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy"
If you know anything about either Sean Ono Lennon or Les Claypool, you have an idea of what you're going to be in with this album. Neither of these musicians is really known for making traditional style music and they both seem to be on the "outsider art" perspective of things. As someone who is weird myself, I feel like it is fair to call them both weird but in the best possible way. The sound on "The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy" does showcase that, as you might feel like you're taken into a magical journey, something perhaps like The Flaming Lips would do but with both Ono Lennon and Claypool's own unique touches here.
The first full song on this album is called "WAP (What a Predicament)" and I like that it plays on the other song called "WAP" (which stands for something else), but also it just seems to discuss everything lyrically that we've been going through not only in the United States but in the world as well. There has perhaps never been more of a time when you can feel like you're watching a movie that you want to turn off, but it's just called real life. But it is toward the end of this song, when we are met with the "nah nah nah"'s that I feel like the true whimsy and spirit of this album unfolds.
Angelic voices come in to sing with these space lasers to start off the song "Meat Machines" and this is just unlike anything I have ever heard before and yet somehow collectively a little bit like everything I've ever heard all at once. "Troll Bait" has a nice way about it that makes me think about Willy Wonka but in a much more outlandish way. This album is very over the top, in the way that if you think it's going to be this grand display of experimental music because of who is involved in making it, you should realize that it's actually much more likely that it will be a lot bigger and bolder than you can possibly imagine.
"The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy" is an album which is not to be taken lightly. You'll likely know after hearing the first song whether or not you're going to like this one, but that's okay because it's not for a lot of people who have TikTok attention spans. This music covers two records- which are available to purchase- along with a 24 page comic book. But things are heavy in real life right now and this music really is the best abstract portrayal of that which I've heard. There is a line that says: "When you can't see the maze you're in / How can you escape it?" and I think that sums up so much of what's going on right now and how important this record will be not just to right now but years to come for history.
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