When Hot Dogs Fly by Slipper featuring Andrea Black

From the opening seconds of the first song, both the music and the words were unusual and arresting, and before the second track had ended I was on the phone to Sam, fixing up a live session ahead of their next gig in London. On Thursday, Sam had organised for a Theremin to be added to the mix, and tonight he he played electric guitar while vocalist Andrea Black sang to the CD backing track.

It was only as they performed in front of me that I began to realise that their references and inspirations include the 'exotic' sounds of Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny and Les Baxter, early 1960s precursors of what is today called Lounge Music. Although I like Arthur Lyman's 'Taboo', I'm not a fan of the rest, much of which is dangerously close to kitsch. But these two manage to be simultaneously serious and good-humoured, a difficult trick to achieve. They would be perfect for Stranger Than Paradise, the once-a-month extravaganza organised by promoter Amanda Rogers at South London Pacific in Kennington. Meanwhile, Slipper's next confirmed booking is at the George 1V in Chiswick on June 16, more details in Alan Finkel's What's Going On at our website, www.soundoftheworld.

REVIEWS

THE WORD April 2005

SHIVAREE / SLIPPER

Fancy some dinner party-friendly moodiness? Try 'Who's Go Trouble' and ' When Hot Dogs Fly'

By Jude Rogers

It's been eleven years since Portishead's brilliant Dummy was released, bringing a touch of velveteen noir to even the least discerning dinner party table. The bands selling points - sombre strings, electronic pulses, an unhinged female singing about temptresses wielding bows and arrows- became instantly synonymous with sophistication. Goldfrapp have done similar stuff in recent years - adding their own lashings of whipcracking sexiness- and many a radio 2 rock diva has made use of the same methods to create mystery.

Shivaree and Slipper take up the moody challenge in 2005, Shivaree, led by an American woman who's taken food-combining to unnecessary lengths (her name at birth surely wasn't Ambrosia Parsley) are the more mainstream choice. Parsleys voice has the compulsory jazzy lilt, edged with a little mania. Sometimes it's not mad enough. The melancholy country of the title track and Someday are a little too sedate. Things pick up with the deliciously dirty swing of I Close My Eyes, a great cover of Brian Eno's The Fat Lady Of Limbourg and the doomy piano of Little Black Mess.

Slipper are more consistently crazy, and God bless them for it. When Hot Dogs Fly - a more pedestrian food choice for this bunch - begins with the scratchily seductive Life Is Hip. Andrea Black sings "will you take me to Devil's Island tonight?" so persuasively, only the most prudish gentleman would reject her advances. The key to Slipper's charm lies in their electronic experimentation, with which they engineer seduction very impressively. You're left feeling that a glass of wine with Shivaree would be a charming evening indeed, but a bottle with Slipper could take you anywhere.

Who's Got Trouble is on Zoe; When Hot Dogs Fly is on Elsewhen

Vanity Project.

A chance to slip back into the private movies of ones mind as the exotic Slipper wish you away to warmer climes and bewitch you once again with musical spells. A black and white dream world with splashes of colour, an open top car pulls up on a dusty road in front of a tumbledown shack, salsa beats fall from a crackly radio and the band jump from the car in purple velvet dinner jackets, instruments at the ready followed by a mysterious feline imbued lady. They take to the stage and gently glide into a string of divine tunes that cut through the darkness and the smoke to reveal psychedelic halos floating above their heads. The spirits flow from glasses and loosen the hips in a hazy out of focus dance while the singer weaves an incantation in that silky voice that mingles with the curling fronds of cigarette smoke and wind round every fibre of your body. Elastic bass sounds rub against jazz beats that glide over the crystal flow of electronica while the voice of a temptress works as a siren luring us to crash at their feet and they make it so easy for us to float in their direction. You sit at the bar and play your harmonica and realise they are gone in a cloud of dust and radio interference, their laughter floating off into the starry sky. Back to reality and you realise that Slipper have produced another classy album that really is quite unlike anything else out there at the moment. (Vanity Project review)

The Independent On Sunday

Slipper

When hot Dogs Fly

ELSEWHEN

Slipper are an augmented duo comprising a member of Loop Guru on 'electronic devices' and one Andrea Black. She sings in the Betty Boop-on-acid mode beloved of fey hipsters in lounges everywhere and writes songs with such titles as "Life is Hip". "Blooos" begins "I was leaving myself in the wind, like a chime". "Red Silhouette" commences "I've been looking at the lines of my hand/ keys to the future". So you'll gather that this is neither Wittgenstein nor Dr Feelgood. What it is is a "cool" lounge/jazz/electronica hybrid, with solipsistic lifestyle poetry slipped on top. some of the grooves are finger-clickingly attractive

The Word

SLIPPER FEATURING ANDREA BLACK: When Hot Dogs Fly (elsewhen.) Electronica enjoyed with a dry martini in a velvet room, oozing that seductive kind of strangeness normally served up by Goldfrapp and Portishead.

Future Music review

December 2004

Slipper

"When Hot Dogs Fly'

Elsewhen Records

Slipper's fourth album sees Sam Dodson (from Loop Guru) team up with Andrea Black for an album that's causing quite a stir within 'the industry'. Some are claiming it to be one of those word of mouth albums that could be major breakthrough in 2005. Well...it's good but not quite worth the hype as there are so many elements you will have heard before: bits of Portishead and Archive plus several new jazz inflections. It makes for a positive listen and quite a memorable one. If they could get one or two decent track placements on TV it could just do it for them. But then you could say that about any album...

Yorkshire Evening Post

SLIPPER

WHEN HOT DOGS FLY

****

Just what you need for Christmas, some new Slipper.

The lounge wizards have had a major line-up change that leaves little of the existing crew on board. This Slipper album is essentially the work of singer Andrea Black and Loop Guru's Sam Dodson, and jolly fine it is too.

Jazz chanteuse Black has made a brave and admirable decision not to go down the trad route (which would have bagged her a guest spot on Parky) to hook up instead with the purveyors of queesy listening. Dodson throws samples and sounds together in a wonderfully instinctive way,doing for lounge music what Fatboy Slim does for dance music ie. injecting some manic fun.

Don't expect much in the way of traditional verse chorus structure here, these loose 'songs' tend to ebb and flow. it's appropriate that the album opens with a skim through the airwaves as it frequently sounds as if your tuned in to two stations at once playing records that just happen to be in the same key.

there's dashes of theremin, double bass and harmonica and all manner of percussive and ambient samples drawn from the ends of the earth to enliven the latin rhythms of this skewed sonic trickery.

Highlights are the unstoppable scratching that dances around the opener 'Life is Hip' the bjorkisms of 'Mini' and the evocation of a jazz cafe in a far-off exotic place on 'One Light On'.

Black doesn't always sound entirely convincing in her kookyness, but there are more than enough magic moments on here to make up for that.

ELSEWHEN

Belfast Telegraph

'When Hot Dogs Fly' Elsewhen by Slipper featuring Andrea Black is pop dance with a few quirky bjorkish tendencies........

manchester music

album reviews

Thursday, 4th November 2004

Slipper featuring Andrea Black - When Hot Dogs Fly (Elsewhen)

Paul Taylor

A DREAMY little masterpiece here, with Andrea Black's fragile vocals floating on on ambient sound, mildly latin rhythms and a general air of jazziness.

This is much lighter of touch and richer, musically, than much of the many endeavours teetering on this cusp between jazz and electronica.

Particularly intriguing is the title track, a right little musical melodrama.

Sheffield

The Star

A suitably odd title for an album that is rarely ordinary and certainly not for easy labeling. Much of the off piste, sensual and at times plain odd direction of this electronica meets jazz experience lies with Andrea Black who's voice strays from velvet and gin to Bjork.

Featuring members of Loop Guru - Sam from that act runs the label - this collection issues the seductive, if edgy, curiosity you would expect of Goldfrapp but changes shape at such a rate as to make comparisons brief.

Hip hop elements underpin fresh water vocals on opener Life Is Hip, while the dulcets get breathy and the beats cloudy on Hands Against the Rain.

As the gears shift through jazzy shuffle to almost incongruous beat and voice combinations (Some New Day) it is clear continuity comes via the appetite to contrast. Slipper have turned in something playful,

Plymouth Evening News

BUY IT with Katie Tokus

ARTIST/DJ: Slipper featuring Andrea Black

TITLE: When Hot Dogs Fly

GENRE: Global dance fusion

LABEL: Elsewhen Records

RELEASED: Out now

Lovers of Loop Guru and loads of other global fusionists will dig this new release from this little known but exceptional label.

Loop Guru's Sam Dodson teams up with Andrea Black for some 1920s- inspired electronica, released on Aphex Twins label Rephlex.

This 13-track cd will soth your consciousness like a pair of comfy slippers - but the type with a hard sole, giving them a bit of an edge. Am I stretching the metaphor yet?

Personnel on this charismatic long-player include blues harpist Daniel Lazerus of The Nightfly, Percussionist Neil Sparkes Of Temple of Sound and theremin player John Woodley.

There's a visual angle, too: download the iFilm video by Alison Faust for the track Mini at www.elsewhen.org.uk.

LOGO MAG

Slipper "Hands Against The Rain"

Author: Fela Lewis Rating 4/5

Some music exists only to make money for someone in a suit, other music exists because it has to. Which do you prefer? Silly question; the quest for making music for it's own sake has given us the likes of Presley, The Beatles and Bob Dylan; music for money gave us One True Voice. Slipper create music for its own sake, which is the first good thing about them. The second good thing about them is that the music they create sounds like it could have sprung from any of several wells; Talking Heads in 1977, Chicks On Speed in 2003, Bjork in 2020. You'll get the impression that here lies something subtly different, and there's subtlety in every element: subtle Latino beats, a subtle wash of electro, a subtle, breathy sensuality, making this a subtle and insidious earworm that'll slide itís way into your pleasure centres and never leave.

DOTMUSIC

Slipper - Pizza At The Park, London

(Tuesday January 20, 2004 4:39 PM )

Gig played on 06/01/2004

The first glass of wine the waiter pours me has a small lump of cork in it. As you can imagine, the evening is ruined. dotmusic usually spends the year slumming it in pub back rooms clasping a plastic pint of lager-flavoured water, but in January the rules change. Be gone foul indie bands! Get thee hence dank broom cupboards! Tonight, in a tastefully darkened basement a heirloom's toss from Hyde Park, we shall sit mere feet from the stage and pay almost a tenner for a mushroom pizza. Ah, the glamour, the excitement.

We've braved the bitter winter night, the ghost of our New Year's hangover still with us, to see the first ever gig by Loop Guru offshoot Slipper, whose debut album on Aphex Twin's Rephlex label was a gloriously disturbing melange of twenties jazz, moody electronica and childhood nightmares. There've been a few personnel changes since then: out goes The Damned's Rat Scabies and spookily evocative singer Linda Finger, in comes jazz singer Andrea Black, Temple Of Sound percussionist Neil Sparkes and blues harpist/producer Daniel Lazarus - but the exotic, wildly imaginative vibe is still intact.

They play two sets (but of course, darlings!) while we chew garlic bread and rattle jewellery. The first sees Black (essentially the jazz PJ Harvey) and cellist Kathryn Williams and Nina Nastasia. This is exactly what you'd imagine from a night out at Pizza At The Park: tasteful, quietly emotional, defined by tradition. Slipper sneak on one by one like techno pixies, determined to unleash strangeness. Percussionist Jym Darling, resplendent in silver top hat and silver evening jacket, even appears to be playing an electronic potter's wheel. Later, a man in a white lab coat carrying a glass of red wine will wander on to play the theramin.

The second set, where they run through their forthcoming 'When Hot Dogs Fly' album, is the real deal. The reference points are uncommon but compelling: the theme music to 'Brazil', Edif Piaf, patters of slight drum'n'bass, fragments of fluid sound, like they're flipping through the cosmos on an old radio trying to find something genuinely new. At times, the songs come close to Bjork's work with Matmos - classical forms and modern technology pulling in slightly different directions, flowing onwards in the company of that startling voice - but mostly they're off on their own trajectory, chasing brilliance.

Slipper say their music comes from a parallel universe, one where Elvis and The Beatles never happened and electronica is always enjoyed with a dry martini in a velvet basement. Tonight that dream comes to startling fruition. They throw a champagne reception for one song while Andrea croons pointedly of ambition and celebrity; Jym wanders through the tables as the melodies clatter euphorically; ideas bleed into theatre and back again. Give them a slot on 'Later' and they'd work dark, rich magic. Which reminds me... Waiter, the desert menu, if you please.

by Ian Watson

ITALIAN REVIEW

sentireascoltare.com

Slipper - When Hot Dogs Fly (Elsewhen, ottobre 2004)

di Edoardo Bridda

Se nello scorso Earworms gli Slipper di Sam Dodson (ex Loop Guru) ci avevano presentato un funambolico cocktail in bilico tra suggestioni da soundtrack, jazzismi liquidi e sequenze strumentali dal sapore lounge e alieno (e persino riferimenti dada-trash surreali à la Residents), per When Hot Dogs Fly il sound dell'ensemble vira verso calde atmosfere da cocktail lounge e rivisitazioni dell'exotica dei '50, tra aperture cinematiche e soundtrack per sfilate di Armani. In questo nuovo lavoro troviamo una line up completamente stravolta rispetto al precedente trio: con la dipartita di Linda Finger (canto) e Rad Scabies (batteria) e l'ingresso dell'altra Guru, Andrea Black (più ospiti quali Neil Sparkes dei Temple Of Sound e John Woodley al theremin), non c'è più traccia delle asprezze e bizzarie del passato; in compenso c'è spazio per arrangiamenti decisamente esotici e relaxing che non si vergognano di tirare in ballo sezioni d'archi cinematiche à la Goldfrapp, cromature scure nello stile dei Portishead (i sample, gli scratch sempre in Life Is Hip, l'andamento sincopato della soffice Mini), vocalizzi in odor di Björk (ancora il brano Mini, When Hot Dogs Fly e Everybody's Jazz), e soprattutto le reminiscenze divesque sulla falsariga dei Propellerheads (Black in Life Is Hip e Some New Day), il tutto calato nel rodato cocktail trans-etnico al Cubase del famoso gruppo madre.

Il titolo When Hot Dogs Fly non deve dunque ingannare: ci troviamo di fronte a un album estivo, meridionale e al tempo post-moderno e demodè, dove sapori latini si mescolano delicatamente a fragranze e spezie esotiche: il martini cocktail da veranda Red Silhouette (interessante l'assolo di fisarmonica a bocca sul finale), il blues liquido in salsa jazzy à la Piero Umiliani della title track e nelle calli arabesche - tra basso Laswell-iano e persussioni Istanbul Oriental Ensemble - di One Light On.

Un album vario, che nonostante l'ottima performance della sua protagonista assoluta - la versatile primadonna Andrea Black - e una produzione dei più alti livelli (alcune tracce sono state registrate in Dolby Surround 5.1), rischia però di consumarsi inesorabilmente ascolto dopo ascolto. Se da una parte i vocalizzi tra Marylin Monroe, Bjork e Beth Gibbons sono mirabili e mirabolanti e gli arrangiamenti coloratissimi e scintillanti, forse vi è stato un po' troppo compiacimento nell'assemblare questo finissimo collage che alla fin fine ripercorre - e ripete - quello che probabilmente oggi, a più di dieci anni dallo sdoganamento della trans-etnica, è ormai un clichè.

In definitiva, un disco non indicato a chi è a caccia di sperimentazioni (come i vecchi fan degli Slipper prima maniera), che tuttavia non mancherà di suscitare interesse in chi è a digiuno di queste sonorità.

AND ON AND BEYOND - OR BEFORE! SOME SLIPPER HISTORICAL REVIEWS + a press release. - If you've got this far you could be bonkers! but hey - bonkers is ok! bonkers we like!

In another universe. John Lennon, having finally given up all hope of his unpopular beat combo breaking big, is now a retired postman living in Birkenhead. John Lydon, a child pop star who rose to fame on Opportunity Knocks, has been tipped as the next Secretary-General of the UMN (United Microsoft Nations). And 'acid house' is the name of a new type of Barrett Home. The Chief Executive of Barrett PLC, Syd, thinks it's a winner.

In this slippery parallel place, Slipper slip and slip and slip some more. Sam Dodson, who didn't play with The Transmitters or lead Loop Guru for almost 10 years, is Slipper's computer trickster. Linda Finger, who was also never a long-standing member of Loop Guru, sings. Liz Fletcher, who isn't a jazz chanteuse of considerable note, sings too. The line-up of the group is completed by two drummers, both called Rat Scabies. They both famously refused to join The Damned in 1976.

This lack of information was not penned by Push - who neglected to launch Muzik Magazine and only dreamt of writing for Melody Maker.

Reviews

UNCUT

****

ZOON SANDWICH

EARWORMS

Bizarre, lounge-tinged psycho jazz.

Every bit as weird, wonderful and wobbly as its predecesor, Slipper's second album, Zoon Sandwich, is a surreal blend of Gothic jazz, disjointed samples and torch siren vocals. What else would you expect form a band featruring Sam Dodson and Linda Finger (Loop Guru), Jym Darling (Psychic TV) and Rate Scabies (The Damned)?

Their mini album Earworms, an Italian import, is also composed of all-new material and is just as addictive.

BELFAST TELEGRAPH

One CD to watch out for in the next few weeks is Zoon Sandwich from Slipper, featuring ex-members of Loop Guru, Psychic TV and ex-Damned drummer Rat Scabies.

It's a mix of weird soundscapes, jazz, blues, deep beats, futuristic lounge core and clever samples, such as the Marilyn Monroe clip - on of the best tracks is the Moby-esque Da Force. The band has been described as Portishead with a sense of humour and this best sums up their style on Zoon Sandwich, their second album, out now on Elsewhen Records.

LA TIMES

Members of the English world-techno group Loop Guru and drummer Rat Scabies of The Damned have teamed up under the band name Slipper, with an album, "Zoon Sandwich". The album was recorded with the individual musicians never being in the same room at the same time. Each did his parts independently and sent them to others via email ...

MUSIC.OMH.COM

Slipper 'Zoon Sandwich'

Lounge tinged jazz, jazz tinged gospel... whichever piece of the press release you believe, 'Zoon Sandwich' sees Slipper doing with it what Moby did with gospel - sample it and stick it into original music.

The primary difference between what the bald vegetarian did and what Slipper do here is to be found after a few moments' listening. While Moby went for easy-tempo beats to get an over-weaned audience toe-tapping, Slipper take the samples into an atmospheric place of late-night parps, echoes and lyrical musings, with very little in the way of coherent rhythm to distract from the other-worldly atmosphere they create - save for one or two exceptions which prove the rule, like 'Blues & Lights'.

But in amongst the dramatic ride cymbals, the John Barry-esque string riffs, the lovely twang of a double bass and the tittle-tattling of the various drum sounds and effects, there's also a playfulness here, characterised by the album title, the sleeve and the choice of samples, which is quite at odds with the mildly disconcerting music.

The five-piece outfit have clearly taken on music and arrangement with the intention of creating something different, and hats off to them for that, for this they have achieved. Even if 'Feelin' Good' sounds like Massive Attack working without a killer riff, and 'Obsession' - despite the aid of a sampled Dennis Weaver - sounds like Lemon Jelly having a bad trip.

It's a record that endears itself to the listener after a few hearings rather than instantaneously. Unlike fellow sample-heads The Avalanches, Slipper don't even attempt to construct a tune from their material, but are instead happy to stick to soundtrack territory.

So the end result is something you can't whistle, can't dance to and wouldn't really bother with unless you'd drunk a bottle of wine and had smoked enough to avoid seeing where the walls stop and the carpet starts. And for all that, it's a musically interesting album. 'Zoon Sandwich' is, fundamentally, just some way clear of Moby-like "accessible", but it'll make for an interesting post-club experience.

- Michael Hubbard, Music OMH.com - October 2002

SLIPPER "Earworms"

Mechanism

Honestly, I couldn't image the stick of Chris Miller out from the contest where I loved them, that is on the drumskins of New Rose or Neat Neat Neat, to fill the tummies of those who had the privilege to see the Damned of the golden age in action.

So, having missing the appointment with the debut on the Aphex Twin label, I didn't know what espect from these Slipper which see, a part the "rantolanti stantuffi" of Rat Scabies, Linda Goldfinger (which is not Linda Lovelace, peace to her soul !!!) and Sam Dodson of Loop Guru, really busy in this game of stucks which haven't nothing to do with rock and roll. We are more in a territory of frontier, on an hypothetical strip of Gaza, which have lots of analogies with the Jazz for the free nature, fragmented and esotheric. "Hello", for example, seems Bjork lost through the meshes of Arkestra of Sun Ra, "Smokin", looks like a chinese shadow of Soul Coughing with that turn around of bass strings so epidermic. "Nuhoover" instead sound like a band of little town stricken by spasms, there where "Sheep" is instead the Naked City of Jhon Zorn which stops watching his 11th September., A seductive game, to be tried.

Francesco "Lys" Dimauro - Succo Acido, July 2002

MELODY MAKER

SLIPPER - INVISIBLE MOVIES

NIGHTMARES ON WAX

WHO THEY? Sam Dodson and Linda Finger from voodoo dance experimentalists Loop Gur. Liz Fletcher, the totally scariest be bop singer on the planet. And n ot forgetting - how could we ? Rat Scabies, the drummer from the Damned.

WHY BUY ? Slipper's album, "Invisible Music", is the sound of children's nightmares, jazz loops from the Fifties and weird freaky shit. " We've invented a new universe and written music to fit," frins Sam. "The Beatles and Stones never happened. Punk music never happened. Elvis was a B-movie actor. Frank Sinatra still rules."

TELL US MORE.... Sam and Rat live opposite each other in Brentford and pad between their respective abodes intheir slippers, hence the band's name. All four members have never actually been in the same room togheter. The Aphew Twin signed them to his Rephlex imprint declaring them to be "utterly original".

BEST LISTENED TO ? " In a basement decorated with velvet wallpapers" decides Sam, " A gin Martini in one hand, an olive, very green, in the others ".

IAN WATSON -

SELECT

THE DAMNED'S RAT SCABIES'ALBUM

Scabies spice

It's a long way from "Smash It Up", but "Invisible Movies", the ambient jazz-cut debut album from Slipper (On the Aphex Twin's Rephlex Label) has The Damned's Rat Scabies drumming on it. Assisted by vocalists Liz Fletcher, Rat and his partner Sam Dodson never make music inthe same room but collaborate with Dat's stuck through letterboxes "It's nice to be fresh without losing the billiousness," says Rat. With the presence of crying babies, hysterical laughter and a live dripping tap, is this a warts-and- all recording? "Oh yes," he chortles, "We like the warts. The warts are cool.

UNCUT

SLIPPER - INVISIBLE MOVIES

Warning : dislocated jazz noirtoupe featuring Rat Scabies

Slipper's music wabbies and dazes its way out of your speakers. Anotther in the recent spate of "soundtracks to films yet to be made" (see also Foehn, In The Nursery), Invisible Movies, Slipper's Debut rises above the rest by dint of its refusal to take itself too seriously.

Sam Dodson (The Transmitters, Loop Guru), Linfa Finger (Loop Guru), and Rat Scabies (The Damned - another Old Age Punksioner, Mark 'Sniffin' Glue" Perry, is namechecked on the sleeve) orbit some strange ultraworld where all the right refernces are mixed up the wrong way. And everyone has evergrowing pulsating brains.

Billie Holiday-esque vocals (courtesy of one Liz Fletcher), cool jazz drumming snatches of horn, scats and whispers and backwards samples - it all goes to create the feel of a Lynchian dream sequence. Portishead with a sense of humor.

PAUL JOHNSON - UNCUT

BIZZARRE

SLIPPER - INVISIBLE MOVIES

An album of deep, double bassism, theremingled and toying with operadelic vocals, Invisible Movies continues the Rephlex mission to release shit-kicking braindance grooves, be they electronic or otherwise. Mental samples combine with weiroid singing and an inherent groove to create an atmospheric shuffle-butt of a record. And Rat Scabies, ex The Damned, plays drums.

SLIPPER "Invisible Movies'

A convincing faux soundtrack for a neonoir movie not coming soon to a theatre sistant from you.

The imaginary-soundtrack trope has become so widespread it might as well have its own bin in record stores. The subgenre has obvious appeal for ambitious artists striving to conjure visuals with sounds, Barry Adamson's probably the best-known practitioner of this art, but several other aspiring John Barrys and Ennio Morricones have been angling for silver-screen time recently.

Britain's Slipper lay their cards on the table with their debut LP's title. With two members of the ethno-trance purveyors Loop Guru, a jazz diva and ex-Damned drummer Rat Scabies in their ranks, Slipper make for unlikely contenders in the fake-film-score stakes. But Invisible Movies indeed throws cinematic shapes; imagine a less hip -hop-inflected and less morose Portishead, and you get a grasp on Slipper's flick-shtick. As with Rephlew releases, one suspects the artists are " 'avin" a laff.". But, regardless of their intentions, Slipper have concocted a convincingf faux soundtracks for a neo-noir movie not coming soon to a theater sistant from you.

Dave Segal

SLIPPER Invisible Movies

Slipper's refreshing, hugely imaginative debut takes rught up where Mercury Rev's oft-overlookes number "Girlfren" and "Boys Peel Out" (from 1993's Boces) left off: bizarro ambient-art-jazz compositions that, yes, sound like stratospheric soundtracks for the greatest Kubrick-Sun Ra-Jack Kirby fifth-dimensional sexy spy surrealist epic you've never seen playing down at the Cineplex Odious. You know, something like Amon Tobin's stuff, but with plenty of live ensemble playing...music full of vibraphones, string washes, distant noises, crying babies, demented vocals, phased drums...stuff that can clear the dancefloor but fill the headphones. So, who made this ? Loop Guru vets Sam Dodson and Linda Finger are joined by jazz crooner Liz Fletcher and, oa all people , RAT SCABIES OF THE DAMNED on drums. Buy it if you can find it; make the films for it if you've got an extra half billion dollars in In ternet cash just sitting there.

Roger Mexico - Mean July-August 2000

XLR8R

SLIPPER INVISIBLE MOVIES

In this age of composition by formula and soul crushing homogeneity, good music can be defined much more easily by what it lacks than by what it contains. Take the mysterious Slipper's debut, a soundtrack accompanying a film that exists only in their twisted little heads. Invisible Movies lacks : gunshots, anything remotely anime a white guy trying to channel Miles, a late-night radio reverend men speaking to Earth from outer space, or samples from a Beat Takeshi film. So what does it have, one might ask ? Well, it's got Peter Lorre looking for shrunken heads, a kickin' upright bass, sarcasm and wit, stylistic coherence, even an underwater sequence, all while wisely borrowing liberally front the best of the '60's jazz canon.

Margaret Murray - XLR8 US Press 2000

GET MUSIC : SLIPPER "Invisible Movies"

SLIPPER The lounge-tinged electronica quartet Slipper features former Loop Guru members Sam Dodson (also a member of the Transmitters) and Linda Finger, the Damned's Rat Scabies, and jazz vocalist Liz Fletcher. They issued their debut album, Invisible Movies, in 2000 on Rephlex Records

Mental

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: SLIPPER "Invisible Movies"

The super-quirky and interesting 'Invisible Movies' by Slipper who are a fun little foursome that record for Rephlex Records. Two of the members, Sam Dodson (programming) and Linda Finger (vocals) are formerly of Loop Guru; Liz Fletcher is a wee bit of a jazz vocalist extraordinaire, and the crew is rounded out by none other than drummer Rat Scabies, ex of the Damned. The concept of creating soundtrack selections for films that do not exist may not be a new one, but Slipper's take on the matter at hand is super-fresh. Some might say weird. I say refreshing.

WWW.MP3.COM. albums

A supergroup formed by former members of Loop Guru, the Transmitters, and the Damned, Slipper's aptly named debut album Invisible Movies fuses lounge, jazz, and electronica elements into an eerie, evocative, and, yes, filmic sound. Chanteuse Liz Fletcher takes the spotlight on the spooky "Kwatzipetal" and the sultry yet quirky "Lalabye"; her voice is the star of Invisible Movies, making the album's most compelling tracks even more so. However, sample-heavy instrumentals such as the noir-ish "Spider Spy" and the sci-fi tiki of "Fascinating" and "Driving Me Sane" are nearly as enjoyable, creatively mixing kitsch and a sense of humor into a potent sonic brew similar to Sukia's Contacto Especial Con el Tercer Sexo. Though Slipper's frenetic creativity runs out of steam toward the end of Invisible Movies, the album is still a refreshing, impressive debut. If they could find a director in tune with their trippy, surrealistic vibe, the band would do an amazing job of scoring actual films as well as the twisted, invisible ones of their imaginations.

Heather Phares

SLIPPER "Invisible Movies"

Although you might not be familiar with the name SLIPPER, these people are certainly no strangers to the music business. SLIPPER is a solo project by London's SAM DODSON (a.k.a. SAM GITA) with a little help from his friends. LINDA FINGER (a.k.a. Nidhal Bulbull) and Liz Fletcher have both sung for LOOP GURU. And yes, RAT SCABIES, is that punk legend from the DAMNED and had already done Remixes for POP WILL EAT ITSELF, JEAN MICHELLE JARRE & MICKEY HART. SLIPPER first appearance was on the 'Art Of Ruins' appeared on DAVID TOOP'S 'Hot Pants Idol' album (Dutch Barooni). To date LOOP GURU have now sold over 100,000 records worldwide. These people know what they are doing and so do we! Braindance for the new millennium?

I-CRUNCH

Slipper: Invisible Movies album (Rephlex) Unhinged jazzy listening from Slipper, who feature none other than Rat Scabies of Damned fame. Not the kind of name you expect to see popping up on Aphex Twin's label, but Rephlex fans will probably find its sick sense of sonic humour quite familiar.

DIGITAL ARTIFACT

SLIPPER - Invisible Movies

Opening with some spooky banshee jazz-backed chants, we are drawn into the theremin-friendly world of Slipper.  About halfway though the first track, I come to the realization that the crooning vocals of the female resemble the dark chants of a drunken Mark E Smith, but from that moment on, clarity become me.  Slipper contains a few members, believe it  or not, of Loop Guru, most prominently Salmuud Gita (Sam) and frontress vocalist Linda Finger, in addition to the vocal talents of Liz Fletcher and hammering percussion sojourns courtesy of two sticksmen named Rat Scabies.  Invisible Movies is a direct voyage into cinematic oblivion where swirling vocals mix tenderly with jazzy backing music to vintage films never created for the Big Screen.  Finger and Fletcher share the hauntingly beautiful vocal duties that cast an eerie shadow over the experimentally-sound rhythms co-crated by Sam and Rat Scabies times two.  The vintage samples sewn strategically into the mix add perfect flavoring to the diversity of the music, which in some distant realm can be identified by Loop Guru fans, but not a first glance or listen.  This inexplicable fusion of jazz, banshees, hypnotic percussion driven rhythms and identifiable (donít tell anyone) samples makes this 12-track debut an undiscovered masterpiece. Prepare yourself for a new extension arm and genre offering from Loop Guruís mainman. Who knows what next in store for Slipper, but for sure they will by no means be dull, unimaginative, or uneventful. 

Average Customer Review: