I’m very pleased to have new Music for Dead Birds, our old friends in Ireland – although for this recording I suppose I should say “our old friend in Vietnam.” Singer/guitarist Jimmy Monaghan has been living in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a while – long enough that he wrote and recorded an album’s worth of material all on his own. The result – at least as evidenced by “Hot and High” – is a fine addition to the Music for Dead Birds oeuvre, although the drums do have a bit of that “the singer/guitarist overdubbed the drums” feel. This does not detract from the snarlingly ecstatic quiet/loud push/pull that Jimmy has dialed in so beautifully over the years, but I am excited to hear what Jimmy and Donal get up to when they’re back on the same hunk of land.
As a side note, there are some strange hallucinatory effects around the bass sound that keep me cocking my ears and shaking my head every time I hear this song on speakers – is it left? right? behind me? where am I? – perhaps further communicating the feeling of being “hot and high.”