Like Beck on Viagra California’s Rafter Roberts, who is known simply as Rafter, is back with another slice of the sexiest blend of indie-music and R’n’B you will hear all year.
Animal Feelings, his latest album on Asthmatic Kitty, which is home to the far more serious Sufjan Stevens and Fiery Furnaces, finds Rafter with his tongue firmly in not only his cheek but in the cheeks of others as well.
Let’s not mince our words this is an album about sex. Funny in places and blush making in others its 11 tracks are an odd mix of indie, funk and R’n’B that bizarrely works.
Opener “No fucking around” sets the saucy scene well with profanity that is just about audible within vocoder-enhanced vocals.
‘A frame’ and ‘Timeless form, formless time’, which according to Asthmatic Kitty, “is an ode to taking your best girl out on the dance floor” follow and are pretty fine R’n’B tracks that retain a sense of indie-cool.
‘Fruit’, is the first single and where the album really comes alive. While still maintaining the sexiness it sounds like the decidedly unsexy new wave legends XTC with its quirky guitar riff. It’s also, we are told by Asthmatic Kitty, about his wife Lizeth Santos (who took the above photo) and “their courtship,” which gives it a genuine sense of being personal rather than glib.
‘Paper’ and ‘Animal Feelings’ are other standouts, but the album peters out a little towards the end and by the final track I found my mind wandering to thoughts of Prince and the lead singer in Cameo’s giant red jock strap.
While not all good, Animal Feelings is still a joyous ode to sauciness from a true musical oddity in the alternative music world. As Nigel Tufnall says in This Is Spinal Tap, “what’s wrong with being sexy, anyway?” Indeed. Long may Rafter continue his saucy musical mission.
6.5/10
by Joe Lepper, Apr 2010
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