They Came From The Stars I Saw Them - We Are All In The Gutter...

by Jim Merrett

We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at a review of We Are All In The Gutter But Some Of Us Are Looking At

"Great art walks a fine line between taking the piss and getting away with it and inserting your head up your own arse, and this – largely by being so grin-inducingly lovable – rarely puts a foot wrong."

They say an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters could replicate the entire works of Shakespeare. Of course, it would need editing.

Five years ago, students from the University of Plymouth set out to test this hypothesis by placing a computer interface in an enclosure housing six primates at Paignton Zoo. But their findings were inconclusive. That is the transcript the monkeys produced was just the letter ‘s’ typed over and over again. That and they shat on the laptop.

What this suggests maybe is that great art is not just pressing buttons. And that students have too much time on their hands. Both of which neatly explain They Came From The Stars I Saw Them.

You could suppose that TCFTSIST is just an attempt to feed every recorded noise of the last 30 years into a machine in the hope that something coherent will come out the other end. It is this and so much more. Because beyond joining the dots, ‘We Are All In The Gutter…’ is evidence of actual human beings behind a pan-dimensional exercise in musical cut-and-paste. It is massively flawed – see the lengthy 2001: A Space Odyssey via the aforementioned bard sixth form Douglas Adams-aping skit descending into Shit Disco-like tomfoolery that is 'Monkey Typewriter'. And the mistakes are exactly the reason why this is so ace. Openers ‘The HOT Inc’ and ‘It’s Time’ alone are worthy of your hard-earned cash.

Great art walks a fine line between taking the piss and getting away with it and inserting your head up your own arse, and this – largely by being so grin-inducingly lovable – rarely puts a foot wrong. It is so unfocused, with scattershot influences from ska to electro to arty indie hurtling past like the billion ideas that hit a stoned mind too quickly to snatch more than a snapshot.

A whole smorgasbord of noise that is also a tasty lunch, too. We’ll have whatever they’re having.

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