Camoufleur (LP)

Released on LP and CD, Camoufleur had a prescient quality: like something that existed beyond such simple formats as LP and CD, or even the designations of 'record' and 'album'. It was the nascence era of the burnt CD, unmarked or attributed in any fashion.

Twenty-seven years later and well into the digital era, we've come to understand it, by and by: these things of music are far more than the sum of their parts, and duly exist in many forms beyond that of a simple physical platter. Further, the combination of divergent styles into one music is much more comprehensible in this era of the cloud, where music = data (and (IOHO) > "content", because, yeucchhh!). Gastr may have pointed at data; their clamor may have suggested tags such as post-, art- and experimental rock, but their expression of all and sundry was one of purest soul. Compelled by a similarly intense provocative love of the non-sequitur, they drafted in contributions from a diverse lineup (Markus Popp, Rob Mazurek, John McEntire, Julie Pomerleau, Steve Butters, Darin Gray, Jeb Bishop, Ken Vandermark, Jeremy Ronkin, Edith Frost and Stephen Prina) that flowed through the songs with an equal weight of improbability and appeal. This was a startling set of singalong tunes - or you could whistle along with the music, or keen along with the sound you couldn't identify, however you liked.