Brer Brian’s Springtime on Planet Love begins with a tribal chant, seemingly pulled from the furthest reaches of Africa, Australia, or whatever else would take an unsuspecting listener completely by surprise. The track, titled simply “Intro,” pointedly sets the tone for the rest of the record; it is evident from the first note that if there is anything Brian is not, it is predictable.
On Springtime, Brian emerges as a musical chameleon, bent, it would seem, on bewildering his audience and eluding classification. The styles, genres and formats Brian manages to pull off in 39 minutes are so diverse it’s actually jarring; “Newmaneums” is Prodigy-like trance-dance, “Yes, Yes” resembles the ethereal electronic soundscapes normally reserved nowadays for Radiohead, and finally, “These Are a Few of My Things” brings it way down low for smoky jazz guitar plucking in 3/4 time, which switches for a full minute to distorted hysteria and then back again. At this point the album seems poised to descend, like David Bowie’s “Low,” into spacey, lyricless experimentalism—which, of course, makes it the perfect time for a three-song interlude about a runaway house-pet, sung, apparently, by a barbershop quartet.
Admittedly, even to an open-minded listener, the unannounced insertion of a mini-concept album into the already unorthodox collection of tracks is frustrating; if Brian is the tour guide for a strange and magical musical journey, the effect of the interjection is a bit like finding oneself suddenly alone on the side of the highway. However, though the three tracks are perhaps the least immediately enjoyable part of the album, they are the best at explaining the overall point. Springtime is not so much an album as a project, better understood under the wider umbrella of “art” than simply as “music.” Those simply looking for a solid rock record, then, are bound to be turned off. But the patient ones in the crowd will know to take a deep breath, put the record on “shuffle” and appreciate each track individually, treating the fact that one man is responsible for them all as a coveted secret.
The best evidence of this disc’s masterful execution is that one can never really be sure if Brian is joking or not. For “Come With Me My Love,” Brian morphs into a latin desperado with just a dash of Stephin Merritt, but on “I’m Feelin’ Your Feel,” he is all Soft Cell. Taken at face value, Springtime on Planet Love could be a reverent homage to modern music’s diverse elements, or, just as easily, a biting satire to end all biting satires. For best results, I advise assuming that both are true, that Brian’s sense of humor really is this weird, this esoteric, this deft, this sublime.
