Uncle Innocent, Non-Friction Society: The Hero's Journey

reviewed by Dave heaton

Uncle Innocent's debut release was one song on a split 12" released by After Hours. Where that concise bit of space-jazz-pop suggested a diverse number of other musical worlds, their debut full-length Non-Friction Society is the exploration of those worlds in more depth. Much more depth, as Uncle Innocent covers more musical genres than you could ever imagine; they skip from one to the other not just between songs but intrasong, blending them all together as they go.

Call them a funk-jazz-soul-reggae-rock band if you will, but that still doesn't cover everything. The foursome (with a member apiece from The Dylan Group and Mice Parade as part of the crew) base their sound mostly on the rhythm section--guitar, bass and drums are played here magnificently--but there's also flute, saxophone, all sorts of percussion, and perhaps more. While the title track that pretty much starts the album is a reggae groove that gets rocked/funked up along the way, they go from there through ambient mood pieces, almost classical-like interludes, and so much more.

There's "Tick Paranoia," a sort of art-folk-jazz-rock version of funk (sort of like the Allman Brothers meet Funkadelic). There's also some beautiful piano pieces, a la-la-la lullaby, a percussion jam that vanishes into space, a saxophone-lead upbeat jaunt, a straightforward bluesy punk song, and (almost at the album's end) a blissed-out, psychedelic funk number called "When 26 Meets 2000."

Most everything is instrumental, and when vocals are present they're not generally the most ear-catching part of the song. The album is meant as a Joseph Campbell-inspired musical embodiment of the Hero's Journey, but I haven't tried listening from that perspective yet because the grooves usually knock the analytical part of my brain to the side. Uncle Innocent is a jam band of sorts, but one far away from the usual touchpoints meant by that phrase (i.e. the Dead). They're a multi-purpose band who sound like they can be whatever they want to be. The beauty of that, of course, is that they don't have to conform to just one mode of playing. Non-Friction Society takes off in all sorts of directions at once, while still feeling like it's just going one way, to the future.

{self-released, go to www.uncleinnocent.com}

Issue 8, January 2002 | next article