Psychefunkapus
Skin

THE REVIEW

The almost unpronounceable name didn't bring them much luck. Nevertheless, I consider "Skin" one of the best examples of Crossover from the '90s.

The PSYCHEFUNKAPUS, natives of San Francisco, started taking their first musical steps in the mid-eighties, thus giving rise, along with bands that unlike them would remain in history, to that Crossover movement that would destabilize the music scene of the late eighties and early nineties. PRIMUS, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, FISHBONE, FAITH NO MORE, JANE'S ADDICTION, LIVING COLOUR are just some names of bands that revolutionized the scene by offering a great variety of styles mixed together and transformed into songs that in some cases entered rock history. DARING was their watchword. But while some records from that period may now seem a bit old-fashioned in 2009, others like this one still feel fresh and innovative.

The Psychefunkapus had a crossover not just in music, but also in mentality and members from different ethnicities and nations, which could only benefit their compositions, all different in style and genre. Producing them was Jerry Harrison, then the "second brain" of those whizzes, the TALKING HEADS.

With the help of Bernie Worrell, a great composer from the Funkadelic and Parliament, two cornerstone bands of seventies funk and among the main influences of the Californian group, the picture is complete.

The album opens with "Evol Ving", a dark and psychedelic song with some progressive hints. The introduction immediately clarifies the group's total freedom of movement, which then transitions with "A New Beginning" to a very early Peppers-like funk rock.

The listening experience of the album is a continuous leap from one musical genre to another. BUT BEWARE, this doesn't mean that it is an incoherent album; on the contrary, it is an added value that has projected it into the future without a speck of dust on it.

The chosen single was "Surfin On Jupiter", a surf song that strongly recalls the Beach Boys and early Who. Featuring an old surf guitarist from the '60s, Dick Dale... "Autumn Leaves" is a melancholic song that, with its trumpets, seems to come out of a medieval castle and pairs with the country "Hillbilly Happy Smash", a very fun song that instead seems to come out of an old west saloon. There are also more intense and hard songs like "No Time", "SYria" or "Work like a horse/drink like a fish" leading up to the long and final "Banana Slut King", a song that wouldn't look out of place on a Faith No More album.

This second album by Psychefunkapus, released in 1991, was also their swan song. Since then, Jon Axtell, Atom B. Ellis, Mooshi Moo Moo, and Manny Martinez inexplicably disappeared. I found only a Myspace site dedicated to them, where you can find some tracks and a video, but not a hint of fresh news.