When announcing his first album in 2016, New Zealander Troy Kingi confirmed that it was the first in a project titled 10/10/10: ten albums in ten different genres in ten years, then retirement. Remarkably, he is still on track. Highlights include Shake your skinny ass to Zygertron (psychedelic soul), Holy Colony Burning Acres (Roots Reggae) and the brilliant Golden Ladder of the Black Sea (a hybrid folk singer-songwriter and author conceived with another Kiwi, Delaney Davidson).
The albums are soulful and blend together quite nicely – genre boundaries are not entirely respected – but album number eight, recorded at the legendary Rancho de la Luna Studio in Joshua Tree, stands out as a true labor of love.
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It is an album that reflects Kingi’s admiration for Queens Of The Stone Age. Songs for the deafwith ramped up fuzz and song titles like Cactus handshake And Dynamite yourselfAnd it works.
Ride the Rhino, Eye spots And Hot medicine are appropriately muddy, and the hectic Short-term decline in deflation whips like the tail of a trapped scorpion. Geronimo is a beautiful piece of upbeat Tex-Mex psychedelia, while the droning Silicone booby trap is a junior desert rock classic. Only Halfway to Mexicoa rag-tag freakout based on a riff somewhere near Foreigners Hot-bloodedcan’t convince. Otherwise, ignore the Mezcal.
Leatherman & The Mojave Green is available on Bandcamp.
