The Ex "Catch My Shoe"

(Ex Records) (Guest Review by Jake Austen) The Roctober book that is coming out this fall was pretty much done like 2 years ago, but it was taking forever to get the book's forward from Steve Albini, and the publisher refused to edit anything or move production forward until they had all the text. So I would call Albini at Electrical (his studio) every few days and the crazy-assed thing is that he would take the call every time, even though he knew what I was going to ask and he knew he hadn't done it because he was so busy. Talk about a stand up fucking guy, I would never take a call of someone I owed something to, I would pretend I wasn't home and get people to lie for me or use caller i.d. like I was a fugitive. Anyhoo, just before he got it done (and it's a great forward, get the book in November) he was telling me that he would do it as soon as he finished recording X. Now I love all the old X albums, and I love John Doe in the George Strait movie and Exene is an awesome lady and I've seen Decline 78 times, but c'mon! No way is a 2010 X album going to be better than the Roctober book! Get your priorities straight! So finally I say to him, "Well is it at least Australian X rather than L.A. X?" And he says, "No it's The Ex." And I shut up. Then I said, "Oooh! My bad, take a-l-l the time in the world." Obviously, if the Ex have something to say, I'm happy to be the next after the Ex! Decades into their remarkable, bizarre, challenging career, the Dutch Crass (or the Interesting Chumbawumba) continue to not only be true to whatever radical politics, propaganda, and social mission they dedicated themselves to in 1980, but they also continue to challenge themselves, with this album using some weird takes on African music that should make David Byrne and Vampire Weekend feel chumpish. Ex-cellent!