It’s a safe bet that you’re bound for an unusual listening experience when the guitar playing on an album’s opening five seconds reminds you of The Shaggs. And like the strange, oddly constructed songs in The Shaggs’ repertoire, Alexis Gideon’s Welcome Song is a singularly eccentric and frequently unsettling experience that is either going to work for you or not. Gideon was one half of Princess, the sadly defunct Chicago mutant hip-hop outfit specializing in a bizarre, lo-fi rap/metal hybrid that really didn’t sound much like anything else. Characterized by insane changes in style and time signature that could occur several times throughout the course of a song, the music of Princess took a few spins to “get,” but the band’s humor and caustic wit were ultimately a much-welcomed payoff.
Gideon’s contributions to the duo must have been vast, because a great deal of Welcome Song parallels Princess’ material. But in this case, the concept is much more hyperpersonal, the tracks more off-kilter than any of Princess’ output. By turns frightening and hysterically funny, Gideon’s tracks sound like the product of a consciousness that is no longer grounded in any semblance of logic -- from the schizophrenic, free-form lyrics to the music -- which is a curious rap/no-wave/metal/calliope hybrid for which rhythm, meter, and adherence to traditional musical forms are often more of a guideline than a rule. To mentally follow the trajectory of these pieces, such as the brilliant “Where Will I Go,” is to witness an individual retreating headlong into a deep, dark place within himself. Gideon’s free-associative, classic word-salad vocal delivery, which is best comprehended with the use of the CD’s liner notes, dares the listener to follow its underlying train of thought.
In spite of the complex and multi-faceted nature of these pieces, they manage to gel into a cohesive whole, allowing the album to come across as vastly more than the sum of its parts, which, in this case, are many and varied. “Valentine’s Day” is an instrumental as bizarre as the fruits of Gideon’s abstruse lyrical flow. “Underwater Carousel,” the album’s other instrumental, sounds exactly as its title implies. But the track could also function as the soundtrack to a mind spinning off its axis and sinking slowly into the abyss. The album’s pièce de résistance is “Triumvirate,” a hilarious track featuring raps from three of Gideon’s hip-hop alter egos: Lazy Pants, Flames Bond, and Snuffleupagus Smooth (alternate personalities, perhaps?). A mocking, satirical ode to the ridiculous B-boy posturing that is the order of the day, the piece is an acerbic reaction to hip-hop and the predictable niches into which hip-hop artists pigeonhole themselves, as well as the cliché “personalities” these artists deliberately cultivate. In any case, it’s brilliantly conceived and executed, and is laugh-out-loud funny to boot.
The final track, “Sometimes,” is a faux country & Western number that recalls Beck’s tongue-in-cheek forays into the genre. And like Beck, Alexis Gideon is able to effortlessly slip in and out of a veritable cast of personas, in addition to being an exceptionally talented multi-instrumentalist. But with lyrics more twisted and music infinitely more idiosyncratic then any of Beck’s recordings, which sound like Top-40 pap by comparison, Welcome Song creates a kind of scary intimacy between itself and the listener that forces you to keep coming back for more.