Album Review: The Ooga Boogas - Ooga Boogas

It's been recognised for some time now that Mikey Young is one of the hardest-working men in Australia. Whilst initially noticed as inexhaustible guitarist of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, his efforts behind the recording and mixing desk have almost eclipsed these achievements, his fingerprints all over albums from the likes of Useless Children, Dick Diver, Boomgates and Apache Dropout. Yet Young doesn't stop there, with “side projects” Total Control, Lace Curtains and Ooga Boogas taking up the last skerrick of time he has left, and still his creative well seems far from dry.

It's the latter band that is his current preoccupation, and the self-titled second record (the debut, Romance & Adventure, came out five years ago) is an electric kaleidoscopic sojourn through the influences and confluences of Young's musical history. Also featuring members of The Onyas and The Sailors, Ooga Boogas mix together elements of kitchen-sink witticisms (Ecstasy, Archie & Me), Velvet Underground's art punk mannerisms (It's A Sign) and warped New Wave excesses (the ice-cool Sex In The Chillzone and Studio Of My Mind), and Ooga Boogas captures what on paper seems a jarring disparity of ideas into a mesmeric whole. Whilst Oogie Boogie II (The Hobo Hoedown) and ebullient closer, A Night To Remember, runs back to more familiar, garage punk terrain, and the lyrics are always amusing, it's the instrumentation that draws you in and refuses to let go. Flitting from such varied influences, especially when the synths come into play, the album never feels like schizophrenic genre-hopping, but the most natural melding of brilliant minds.

Ooga Boogas is an incredibly accomplished and interesting record that continues Young's high calibre of quality output.