Double Naught Spy Car + Stew – “Sweet Jackie’s Revenge” (audio) (Premiere)

Featuring Stew (The Negro Problem, Passing Strange), Paul Lacques (I See Hawks in L.A.), Joe Berardi (Fibonaccis, Stan Ridgway), Marc Doten (Shelby Lynne), Marcus Watkins (Nina Hagen), the eclectic collective Double Naught Spy Car + Stew took on a daunting chance with their new album, Panorama City. The group, comprised of the “spaghetti/jazz/prog/surf/twang” quartet Double Naught Spy Car and the singer/songwriter Stew, took to the studio with a clear directive: “create instant songs, no rehearsing, no second takes”. The result is an album of tunes that fit under the label “free jazz with a pop mold”. Below you can stream one of these inventive creations of this collaboration, “Sweet Jackie’s Revenge”, which marries prog rock guitar riffing and drum beats that sound like they were culled from a Charles Mingus album.

Lacques tells PopMatters about the song, “Like all the tracks from Panorama City, this was recorded under our Draconian self imposed rules: make it up, play it, no going back for second takes. The song lurches into gear, and Stew spins the tale of a mythical Jackie Jackson (from the Jackson 5) solo album that’s too avant-garde for Berry Gordy, who instructs that it be sent to Blue Note. Blue Note recommends that it be ‘buried in the moat’. Great art is often misunderstood.”

Panorama City is out on 14 April via 11 Foot Pole.