Combining elements of avant-garde jazz, spoken word hip-hop, punk, post-rock, and funk comes Unknown Instructors and their debut The Way Things Work. This is one of those CD's that after a few listens you are left shaking your head saying "what was that all about?", yet, you are compelled to hit the replay button. I've honestly never heard anything like this. Imagine a head on collission between Captain Beefheart, Funkadelic, Miles Davis, MC5, and the Stooges...well, sort of. There's plenty of savage wah-wah laced guitar work from Joe Baiza that has elements of Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Hazel, and Mike Stern, to go along with groovy rhythm work and the spoken word rants & raps of Dan McGuire, who also adds some sax here and there. Just when you get lulled into a jazzy trance the band crashes back with some ferocious punk/rock/funk hybrid, yet the vibe overall is very free-form and avant-garde throughout. The weird thing is as much as I use the genres to describe the style of this band, it really doesn't do them justice, as they fit into none of those categories. Puzzling, I know.
Is the music of Unknown Instructors easy to digest? No. Is is easy to ignore? Again, no. This is not something that you can just pop into your CD player any old time. These guys have a lyrical message to get across, and an attitude that they want to convey musically as well. Think angry poetry with some venemous yet jazzy musical accompaniment. After about a half-dozen listens I'm still not sure about this CD, but damn if it doesn't keep intriguing me nontheless. If you are ready for something completely different, check this out.
Track Listing
1) I'll Show You Everything
2) Where You Find It
3) Punk (is Whatever We Made it to Be)
4) Something Eternal
5) Starving Artists
6) The New Bluesman
7) Punch Out *The Layoff* Gratuity
8) Walk With Me
9) Creature Comforts
10) An Evening in Hell
11) Scansion
12) Adam's Apple
13) Turf Songs
14) I Think
15) Lost and Found
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