Jacob's Mouse
Wryly Smilers

Prologue

Year 2112. Reading, writing -but even simply coming up with a review- is a crime.

The squares of Devaron flicker with smoke-flared bursts fueled by musical media of all kinds, hard disks of online newspapers, frantic papers on obscure surf-snivian bands, and notes where scribes from every multiverse penned kind judgments and resentful invectives.

I

"Unleavened bread? High-drivability milk?? Repellent for brass bands???".

The clerk at the Trompe-market, the cubbyhole wedged between the Ocra neighborhood and the Vultanodrome like an irritated pustule on the buttocks of a Dug, is still staring at the note but is already shaking "no-no" with one of his three heads.

"This makes no sense"- he says. He doesn't know yet that the list is a fake.

"Now I'll tell you what doesn't make sense"- I say, "That no one here knows Jacob's Mouse"- I say, as I plug my belly-button jack into the drugstore's piped music.

"Everybody down"- one mouth of the clerk shouts- "He has a review! A review!!"- the other two scream.

II

The speakers broadcast the opening of "Good," stuck worse than a needle on a scratched vinyl. Jacob's has a certain "seventies" feel, especially in the third record of a career that lasted just under a decade ('91-'95), and the indie-rock mood seems to relax the patrons of the Trompe.

When the quirky rhythm of "Group of 7" bursts in and Sam Marsh's drums (later with the hard-corers Volunteers) shift to mid-tempo, the vibe becomes psychotropic. Three Ziltoidians start to dance. The clerk sways his heads in turn.

It's a fleeting atmosphere, because with the hysterical "Palace" a Boothby twin's distorter inflames, and the situation turns into punk-beast mode. A Ziltoidian spits a reddish blob in another's face. The clerk sticks a hand into his shoulder bag and starts to masturbate.

Luckily, the speaker is already sounding "Sag Bag" (and after all, the whole LP -with its scant half-hour- drifts away like a shooting star on Krull day). The rubbery bass, reminiscent of early Weezer, echoes circularly up to the fridge-counter.

The player is on track 7, "B12 Marmite," the true sum of the entire project. In the brief span of three minutes, it moves from raging guitars to the ultra-fuzz bass (Mudhoney oriented) of the other Boothby twin, only to plummet back into the '70s influence of the vocals and snugly nestle between psychedelic and noise.

Time for the last drum roll, and one of the clerk's heads explodes, vaporizing bluish blood on the market's ceilings. Good, everything is going according to plan- I think.

Epilogue

When the vocal sample of "Apathy" comes in, my navel is bleeding. The Ziltoidians are on the ground, sprawled in a pool of sludge. The clerk is curled up on the counter, in a coma, or simply in ecstasy. From a row of sun-dried tomatoes, a Kobaiano emerges and heads towards me. He wasn’t supposed to be here, this is a problem- I think. I hurriedly rewind the jack, but the guy is already under my snout.

With a hand crowded with fingers twisted like sharks' teeth, he grabs my wrist and twists it.

"Kobaia iss de Hundin"- he hisses, "Anteria Kommandoh". 

I don't know what it means, but it sounds damn promising.