Jabon

Digitally Yours,

Jabon

In celebration of Yule and the birth of our lord Zappa Christ, we release unto this world the first volume of “The Wheel of the Year” series.

The first act was Jabon, an elusive demon from the 20 dimensions whose only purpose it seems was to tell jokes and make everyone dance. Smoke began pouring out from the podium situated in front of the stage, while foreboding white noise blared from the astral plane produced by the array of electronic boxes on top of the podium. After a good minute or so of the looped noise, a masked and hooded character wearing black sneakers casually walked out and stood behind the podium. What followed was a soundtrack for a land of malfunctioning machinery with Jabon acting as a channeler for electronic ghosts.

With his uncomfortable swaying and random posturing (perhaps he was also channeling the spirit of Hulk Hogan), Jabon’s presence would have been memorable enough alone. Even better was that he is also a skilled electronic darkwave DJ. Throw in a touch of stand-up comedy for good measure and you have a one of a kind performance piece. Tonight, the comedy was the horrors of books on tape outtakes from cassette, as Jabon so adamantly pointed out. Stars such as Kirk Douglas and David Dukes (not the former KKK leader, the other one) messing up lines and having coughing fits while interspersed with laugh tracks were enough to make even the most jaded hipster crack a smile.

Which really is no surprise given Scott Colburn’s credentials. When he’s not creating electronic music from another dimension, Colburn moonlights as a renowned engineer/producer. His work with the Sun City Girls and Mudhoney attracted the attention of Animal Collective, who tracked him down to engineer their sixth and seventh albums, Feels and Strawberry Jam.

Full review is here