ue to the mind-bending nature of his stories, World Fantasy Award-winning writer Jeff VanderMeer has frequently been compared to legendary novelists like Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges. Musical experimentalist Robert Devereux is among those folks captivated by the author's peculiar prose, and when the opportunity arose to create a recording based upon Ambergris, the strange city-state that serves as the setting for many of VanderMeer's yarns, the composer crafted a suitably eccentric 12-track collection titled Fungicide.
The leadoff tune, "Albumuth Boulevard," provides a relaxed introduction to the project's eclectic, idiosyncratic air. Processed piano, percussion and guitar are blended with samples of guttural Tuvan throat singers, offering a quiet yet unquestionably queer feel. Subsequent numbers, such as "The Exchange," "Festival of the Squid" and "Flooded Streets," feature similar sonic manipulation, with the two-part "Dradin, in Love" guided by languorous, slightly dissonant notes and "The Cage" supplying alternately consoling and creepy sounds.
Along with the harmonious works, the album also presents a pair of spoken-word segments. "The Transformation of Martin Lake" features filmmaker Elizabeth Cromwell reciting an abridged version of VanderMeer's novella of the same name over a restrained melody, with the platter's closing cut showcasing the author reading his short story "The Exchange." Enclosed in a gatefold cardboard package, the disc is supplemented by a 20-page booklet that includes an excerpt from the writer's upcoming novel Shriek: An Afterward plus enlightening remarks from Devereux concerning various creative decisions.
A disappointing exercise
Though certainly surreal, VanderMeer's odd fables teem with convincing and charismatic characters. At the same time, the author's writing style and narrative viewpoint often vary, generating an off-kilter ambiance that's at once unsettling and exciting. Musically depicting that dynamic yet disquieting environment is a colossal challenge, and while Devereux now and again echoes the emotional essence of individual adventures, as a whole Fungicide is too chaotic and capricious to engender a consistently magical milieu.
Two distinct but related pieces, "Uzumaki I" and "Uzumaki II," form eerie atmospheres that are vivid but also rather vapid. The initial tune fashions an otherworldly aura via vaguely industrial effects, gradually drawing the listener into a hypnotic vortex, with the second song slowly accelerating a simple keyboard-driven melody. Despite a fairly imaginative conceptual foundation (both instrumental selections are inspired by whirlpools), neither work is especially effective in conjuring up fantastical imagery, nor are they—or, for that matter, most of the other tracks on the disc—particularly inventive as stand-alone compositions. As a matter of fact, the worst creation, "The Man Who Had No Eyes," is little more than an annoying exercise in assigning musical values to specific numerals.
There are admittedly a couple of decent works, most notably "Dradin, in Love, Part I," which features hauntingly distorted tones, but for the most part the recording is uninteresting and at times downright excruciating. While avant-garde music buffs and die-hard VanderMeer disciples might find Fungicide somewhat appealing, fans of coherent compositions can safely skip this otherwise exasperating endeavor.
