“You’re not there to play games, you’re not there to decide why he should die. Somebody already decided he’s gonna die.” So sets the scene for My Challenger, the new album from Brooklyn‘s Turbo World. Led by composer and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Cooper (Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Guerilla Toss) and singer/lyricist/multi-media wizard Caroline Bennett (Stice), Turbo World are rounded out as a full band with Stice’s Jake Lichter, Calvin Grad and Ryan Power in order to create what they are calling “a surreal, animated prog-opera entrenched in the world of organized crime.” A record which marries a playfully grandiose sound with the seedy grandeur of the criminal underworld, a combination which crystallised when Cooper fell into the internet’s mob rabbit hole and stumbled upon infamous figure Joey the Hitman. As the liner notes continue:
A burly man with a thick Brooklyn accent twirls idly in his swivel chair. He’s wearing a black executioner’s hood with a slit cut for his mouth to avoid muffling, but it makes for a duck-like profile. It’s 1973 and he’s sitting across from talk show pioneer David Susskind. He goes by Joey (though his real name is Max Kurschner) and he’s there to discuss his book Killer, an autobiography about his work as a mafia hitman. For the next hour, he casually regales the live studio audience with details of his 38 hits, among other crimes, all while his stodgy host repeatedly goads him to admit he feels guilt over his crimes.
If this sounds like quite the trip then wait until you step inside. Those familiar with Cloud Becomes Your Hand will know Cooper’s soundscapes to be full of left-field turns, and the Turbo World aesthetic is no less zany. A kaleidoscopic collage of sound loaded with both playful whimsy and ironic charm, one made all the more surreal by the subject matter at hand. Just take a peek at lead single ’20K’, perhaps the wackiest, funniest three minutes ever devoted to contract killing. It’s difficult to come up with comparisons for the result, but let’s try this on for size: Imagine Thomas Pynchon rewrote a James Ellroy novel as an opera special for Nickelodeon, and got Dear Nora to do the singing.
A guy come to me, for a hit, a customer, lets say
He says he cant pay his bookmaker, wants to blow him away
wants me to do it, and i kinda like this guy ok
So he says how much to hit em and i say 20k
20k?
20k
I say 20k
He says 20k?
Yeah thats how much it costs for some good foulplay
