Jackson Jackson: The Fire Is on the Bird

Tom Waits’ seminal 1983 album, Swordfishtrombones kicks off with a song about a “world going on underground”. The song confirmed to anybody with doubts in their minds, that Waits was, in fact, very weird. Now if Tom Waits can record a single song about sub-surface civilization and be considered odd, imagine how much more unusual a concept album themed around the topic would be.

Jackson Jackson is the side project of Harry Angus, the co-frontman of Australia’s leading crappy ska band, the Cat Empire. He, along with film composer Jan Skubiszewski, has put together an album that combines hip-hop, Afrobeat, and blues. It discusses religion, consumerism, and the pending invasion of the people living underground. But the most surprising thing about this album is that, well, it isn’t half bad.

The small-scale level of the Australian record business means that even major labels are unwilling to spend large sums of money on unproven artists. And while The Fire Is on the Bird is technically a debut by Jackson Jackson, Angus’ affiliation with the platinum-selling (70,000 units in Australia) Cat Empire means that EMI were willing to open their wallets for this rather unusual side project. The luxuries of the varied arrangements obviously haven’t been taken for granted; each burst of brass and gospel chorus is delicately and cautiously placed, resulting in a tight and unbloated record. The arrangements on this album shine in comparison to Australian EMI’s last production-heavy release, the Sleepy Jackson’s disappointing sophomore effort.

But EMI seem determined not to see their money wasted. The label has already forked out for two video clips, neither of which accompany a single release. The move is audacious or foolish, considering that only two Australian hip-hop acts, the Cat Empire included, have shifted serious units. And despite the appealing grooves on The Fire Is on the Bird, it’s unlikely that the album will cover EMI’s expenses.

The opening track, “A Hole in the Garden”, begins as an interesting slice of Robert Johnson-style blues, tinny guitars, and Angus’ soulful voice, which goes unappreciated in the Cat Empire. Before too long, the song changes into a slab of funky hip-hop, tied together by the slightly raga-rock sounding gospel backing vocals, the lyrics breaking out into cynical commentary of the world we live in. Angus pulls off the line, “Ladies and gentleman you have to buy this new thing that you don’t have / And if you have it / Well actually the new better version of the thing that you have just came out” without sounding judgmental.

Lead single “Cats, Rats and Pigeons” is a jagged hip-hop number featuring a funky psychobilly guitar riff before fading into a jazzy horn fadeout, while “Eliza” is a Spanish guitar-driven song of heartbreak, with touches of dry humour. Few could get away with singing “She looked like a lesbian revolutionary / So tough and scary / I thought maybe I / Wouldn’t try”. Harry Angus does.

Controversy has been brewing about the song “Grab a Gun”, the video clip of which features a small boy shooting people with a revolver, scoring points for each victim, like in a computer game. More agreeable is the acoustic hidden track “The Lonely Ooh”, which while undistinguished, should have made the official cut.

But like most side-projects, there isn’t enough quality to maintain the album the whole way through. Save for a trumpet line that borrows more than a little from Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”, “The Flicker and the Spark” is lacklustre and slow-moving. And once you get past the line, “I’m a hairy man / In a waxed world”, the song “Waxed World” loses all its charm.

But while the album has its weaknesses, it is an impressive and original effort, especially for a side project. The good songs outnumber the bad songs, but all of them are worth listens for their lyrics, sometimes despondent, sometimes optimistic, but always entertaining. It is a world apart from Angus’ work with the Cat Empire, where the content of the songs varies between the sleazy and the pedestrian. The album represents some of the best of Australian hip-hop, witty, self-deprecating and open-minded, and reveals its development as an independently viable musical movement. If Harry Angus brought the sounds on The Fire Is on the Bird to the Cat Empire, the band would be a whole lot better.