artist: Ginger Leigh and the Hallucinations title: format: CDr label: Ginger Leigh: www.gingerleigh.com/ review: J. Hamilton

I had no idea what to expect from this - maybe an 80's porn star turned singer? Despite the sound of the name, Ginger appears to be a burly, bearded guy from California. The confusion only increased on hearing the opening number 'al-Ironman', a giant, cavernous, sludgy mess, sounding like a Skullflower pisstake on the opening of the Sabbath classic, with Arabic flourishes (hence the title). The rest of the disc is all over the place, taking in minimal electronic droning, 60's garage psychedelia, Indian ragas, Bollywood pop music, Appalachian folk, bluegrass, noise, lounge sounds, Arabic folk, Persian classical music and Muslimgauze-esque percussion with and without heavy distortion, with much occuring simultaneously. This may sound like a recipe for disaster, but everything flows together fluidly and the pieces are very concise and quite infectiously catchy at times. There's an evident fixation on the mid-East and South Asia that ties all of these disparate elements together. What it all means is unclear - the titles don't give anything away (in fact, only 10 of the 17 tracks on the disc have titles at all). There's a rough-around-the-edges quality that gives this music a home-made feel, which ends up working very much in its favour. A baffling but highly entertaining listen.