Ukulele Loki
“Ukulele Loki and the Gadabout Orchestra have been roving about for half a decade, spreading the bizarre and celebrating the obscene and insane with their unique blend of 1920s-music hall meets 1980s-shoegazer, all with a dash of indie recklessness and a tweak of rustic folk. The new self-titled album has the maniacal craftsmanship of Queen’s “Killer Queen”and the off-the-wall lyrical punchiness of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Listening to it is like sneaking into the state fair after hours and taking a free ride on the carousel all by yourself. Fun, exciting, but with a distinct need to connect. The album’s highlight is the tune “Prague: 1998,” a catchy, yet honest song (in the vain of Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs To Me,”) about the mystery of attraction. ‘She loves with a vengeance like serving a sentence and settling a score…’ And there he is, the sad clown, lusting for companionship. The live show is a reflection of this type of gloom-turned-toward-the-sun. Sad and sexy, nostalgic and nouveau. Loki’s performance art might be actually more reminiscent of “The Little Tramp” than “The Greatest Show On Earth.”
—by Christina Eisert, for BUZZ
