GROTON, MASS., USA - In the makeshift studio in back of Mo Digliani's old farmhouse, his "art rock" band The Primidonnatives have created some of the weirdest--and most interesting--music to be released in the past few years. At a time when the major labels are struggling with a disaffected, MP3-addicted audience--not to mention a striking lack of inspiration in their artistic quarters--small, independent labels are hiccuping up some truly innovative sounds, and "The Primidonnatives," the band's eponymous 5-song EP, is the latest in this musical line. Released on Uncle Bic's Vague Moon Records, this EP features Digliani's surrealistic lyrical stylings partnered with the seemingly Captain Beefheart-inspired sounds of his bandmates--Puffy O'Tuffy, Jimbo Diddly, and Bill Gill. "We got so tired of what was on the radio that we decided we'd better learn how to play instruments and play something weird and sort of meaningful," says Digliani. "We wanted to play something that made people remember they're alive," added O'Tuffy. "I don't know if we succeeded. But we broke a lot of equipment trying, so it'd better be worth something."

One of the EP's strongest points is its powerfully poetic, if occasionally somewhat inexplicable, lyrical sensibility. At the stranger end of the spectrum are lines such as "where's my insect flight muscle?" Such moments make for fun bouts of surrealism, but Digliani and his cohorts really hit home with existentially charged lines like, "In the center of a trillion accidents, on the outskirts near the edge of time, in a sudden moment are you here or there? It's a mighty thin line."

With their self-proclaimed "anti-fame" stance, the band is not very forthcoming about their own histories or identities, though they did admit that their older members have roots in the punk and new wave scene of the late seventies and early eighties. The youngest member, Puffy O'Tuffy, would only say that she was "old enough to drink in several countries," and counted the modern indie and emo movements among her influences. The punk influence is more obvious, but it would be hard to pin down The Primidonnatives' style with any such comparisons. They are truly a breath of strange, fresh air.

article copyright Richard Tapestry 2002. feel free to publish in complete or partial form.