Hypnoprism

June 1, 2010 4:05 PM

Videosongs from the wonderful, but as yet unreleased Momus album, tentatively entitled Hypnoprism: Death Ruins Everything :: Beowulf :: Deliverance :: Adoration :: Strawberry Hill :: Building Songs :: Mr. Consistency :: The Orderly :: Bubble Music :: Evil Genius :: Monday :: The Charm Song :: Datapanik :: Bonus points for identifying the videosamples.
posted by puny human (12 comments total)

Thanks for that; since Momus gave up blogging, I've been out of the loop on his doings. (Twitter's a bit too much of a firehose to keep up with.) Anyway, it's sounding very promising.
posted by acb at 4:32 PM on June 1, 2010

This is pretty cool. What is the "album" going to be released as?
posted by grobstein at 4:58 PM on June 1, 2010

No word on that yet grobstein, but momus is updating Zuihitsu fairly frequently with new info.
posted by puny human at 7:03 PM on June 1, 2010

So this is totally obligatory for any mefi thread about momus, right?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:34 PM on June 1, 2010

I've always reckoned he was too consciously "clever" by about a factor of twelve, but the relatively low-key and subtle version of Josef K's "Adoration" is pretty fine.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 7:49 PM on June 1, 2010

Yes Dee, Momus's first group, The Happy Family (d-load here), consisted of him and 3 ex members of Joseph K.
posted by puny human at 8:51 PM on June 1, 2010

Just two members of Josef K, actually (and one of them for only part of the time.) I have the Happy Family's "The Man On Your Street" CD, but it's lackluster. The single which preceded the album is pretty decent, though. (It's on the CD.)
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:51 PM on June 1, 2010

Hmm, his CV claims three, but it was the '80s, so who knows.

I prefer his Innermost Thoughts demo, just preceding it.
posted by puny human at 10:03 PM on June 1, 2010

Ai first I wondered: Is Momus an acronym? But now I'm too over it.
posted by MNDZ at 12:27 PM on June 2, 2010

Here's what happened with the ex-members of Josef K:

When Momus began the Happy Family, Dave Weddell was a member. Malcolm Ross "helped out" early on, but was never an actual member of the band. Ross eventually drifted out of the scene. Later (and briefly), Ronnie Torrance joined. Shortly thereafter, the band dissolved. So technically, three Josef K members had associations with the band, but only one of them was a member the whole time, one never was a 'real' member, and a third was only there part of the time. It seems that at no point were all three hanging around together. But if I'd played with three members of Josef K, I'd probably spin it that way too! This does give short credit to other former members, including Ian Stoddart, later of the post-Fire Engines band, Win.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:48 PM on June 2, 2010

Hah, just like that scoundrel momus to pad his resume!
posted by puny human at 2:25 PM on June 2, 2010

In case the humor in that last comment didn't translate, that was of course meant as a joke. It is probably clear from my post that I adore momus, and thought that in his prime, he was the most consistently interesting, intelligent and engaging presence on the internet.

MNDZ, according to wiki, momus is the the "god of satire, mockery, censure, writers, poets; a spirit of evil-spirited blame and unfair criticism." But according to this google book, the Elements of Mythology, momus and comus were social divinities; comus was the god of low pleasure, transforming men into brutes, and momus was the god of gay conversation and wit.
posted by puny human at 8:11 PM on June 2, 2010 [1 favorite]