After Steve and I reviewed Fiddlefoxx's Invasion a while back, I decided to delve deeper into their eclectic canon and came up with UFO, their 2007 offering. Overall, I liked Invasion better, but I liked some of the individual tracks on UFO more than their individual counterparts on Fiddlefoxx's later album.

It takes until about the third track, "Boston Freeze," for Fiddlefoxx to really warm up and hit their stride between tradition and innovation. This specific track reminds me a bit of Notorious's "Ice Storm" on their self-titled album, but there's a lot more layering in effect.

The titular track, "UFO," is slowed way down in comparison to its hyperactive predecessor, "Studio 54/Reverse Exploding Snowflake/Detached" and as such is almost ponderous. Its surreal, eerie fiddle stretches out over active beatboxing and combines both serene fiddle and excited rhythm until the very end of the track.

My favorite track on this album is "Ouzel Falls." It might be contra-able and is the most traditional-sounding track of the lot. The beatboxing here reminds me quite a bit of Appalachian clogging, and the fiddling here is really pretty. Similarly, I am fond of the track later on the album entitled "Mathieu."

"Mandofunk" is aptly named, as it seems to be equal parts mandolin (moonlighting here like a ukelele), fiddle, beatbox, and funk. This tune is also notable because it is actually square.

I couldn't do a review of this album without mentioning "Hippopotamus Giraffe Orangutan." If someone wants to go violate copyright law (unless they are members of Fiddlefoxx) and make a viral video, they should take this song, illustrate it with screenshots of the appropriate animals, and throw it up onto YouTube to join the ranks of "The Llama Song" and Weebl's "Kenya."  (WARNING: "Kenya"'s default setting is to loop!) "Hippopotamus Giraffe Orangutan" earworms like crazy. The vocals reminded me vividly enough  of They Might Be Giants' "Particle Man" that I actually had to double check to be sure I hadn't accidentally skipped to a TMBG album.

All in all, this is a rather diverse collection from the artists who put together the eclectic (though somewhat more polished) Invasion and show a rather cool collaboration between Tradition and beatboxing.

Fiddlefoxx is made up of Andy Reiner (who also plays in Firecloud and assorted other Tradition-based bands) and Steve Foxx. UFO is available for purchase as a CD or digital download at CDBaby and some of the tracks can be found on Fiddlefoxx's MySpace page.

When Andy Reiner came through Glen Echo as part of Firecloud earlier this month, we picked up his 2008 collaboration CD with beatboxer Steve Foxx, Invasion.

"Make sure you crank that one," Andy directed Ryan. So on our way down to Chattaboogie, Ryan was a good contra dancer and did as she was told.

As we went Googling to do some research on Invasion, we found that Fiddlefoxx classifies themselves as "psych-folk" and we suppose that's as good a label as any -- as we were listening to it, despite there only being half a dozen tracks, we actually lost count of how many different things this album reminded us of, but we will try to recall some of them as we go. 

The album opens with "Jambadalay," which mixes a 1960's sort of vibe (think Harry Belafonte) with folk fiddling and hip-hop rhythms. The eclectic mix of influences also reminds us of Blues Traveler, for those who are fans, with some really neat harmonies.

"Ewon" is the first song on this album that has a distinct beginning, middle, and end, with beatboxing framing the vocals and some stretching, wailing fiddle. It recalls the Yellow-Submarine-era Beatles (including some speculation as to precisely what sort of mushrooms are on this "lonely mushroom island" described the lyrics...'nuff said).

The next track, "Vocal Break," is aptly named; there are some really tight harmonies here and this track grows on you as I=you listen to the album a few times through. 

The penultimate track, "Bom Biddly Ee," picks some interesting spoken-word, sung harmony, and instrumental samples to loop; the end result is a quirky and very representative track of the album.

The last track, "The Remembered Visit," goes more toward the hip-hop end of the spectrum, with the folkie fiddle framing a cool, smooth rap groove that actually recalls "Epic Rap Battles of History" in a really oblique way and serves as a fare-thee-well conclusion for the audience.

The variety of influences on this particular project is rather fascinating and it's particularly interesting in light of hearing Andy (the fiddle in Fiddlefoxx) play as part of Firecloud with Julie Vallimont for a live mixed fiddletechno-influenced contra dance; we may have to go delve deeper to go find their previous album, UFO.

Listening to this album as contra dancers (and especially in the context of being introduced to Andy at an actual contra dance), we found ourselves at times expecting the music in this album to come out square. (That is, to find all of the phrasing to be in the normal 64-beat pattern of all traditional contra music.) Fiddlefoxx refuses to let itself become so compartmentalized, however. "Tripleslip" includes the occasional measure of 6/8 time that completely throws off any attempt to count out its rhythm. "Vocal Break" technically is square, however the constant stress on the backbeat throughout the piece would make it challenging for contra dancers to follow. 

At first, the idiosyncratic phrasing made it hard to categorize the music of this album -- it's way too quirky to listen to it as pop music, but it doesn't fit the forms of folk music either. However, that very lack of category fits Fiddlefoxx perfectly. They're not out there to follow in anyone else's footsteps. They are creating their own brand new sound, borrowing whatever they need to from other influences along the way.

Fiddlefoxx's Invasion is available for CD purchase and digital download on CDBaby and several of the tracks are available on Fiddlefoxx's Myspace page.

My first resolution for 2012 encompasses both my role in the contra blogosphere and my life outside of contra and this blog (yes, as hard as it may be to believe, that does in fact exist): I like finding new music and sharing it with people. So it seemed particularly opportune when Julie Vallimont (accordion and piano player extraordinaire and half of Double Apex) and fiddler Andy Reiner  made their world debut as Firecloud at Glen Echo last night. Their focus is a certain brand of "fiddle techno" that combines live, looped, and synthetic sounds, so I was eager to check them out.

My initial impression is that while at times I've heard "fiddle techno" before that has been really heavy on techno and somewhat light on fiddle, Firecloud, at least last night, seemed to more distinctly feature Julie's piano and Andy's fiddle. Despite this being the very first time they played together, the duo blended together really well and the background synth beats did a good job of framing their instrumental collaboration, rather than drowning it out. Part of this may be due to their common reference point being the tradition and their not having as much time to plan a heavier techno influence, but I thought it worked rather well as-is.

They will be touring the Eastern Seaboard in the place of Double Apex the first part of this week. Those of you in Virginia and North Carolina should make a point of going to see them.

Firecloud will be next playing in Greenwood, VA tonight (Monday, January 2). They will be in Winston-Salem, NC on Tuesday, January 3, and in Asheville, NC on Wednesday, January 4. On this latter date, Ed Howe of Perpetual e-Motion will join Julie and Andy to make the evening a really special event -- to those around Asheville who are able to go, please find some way to share on YouTube or similar; I am jealous! Also, apparently Ed Howe will be playing both with John Coté and with Julie Vallimont next weekend for Chattaboogie, at which Steve and I will also be dancing, January 6-8, in Chattanooga, TN.