"I've got such tiny arms"

That's one of the strangest lyrics of the year, courtesy of Pittsburgh sample freaks Wise Blood. Singer Christopher Laufman may look like a T-Rex with those tiny arms, but his spooktastic new single Loud Mouths, is rather brilliant. Imagine Prince had died but was continuing his recording career via mediums and seances. This is what you'd get.

Loud Mouths starts out with a creepy backwards choir. It sounds like a chopped up sample of Queen's Somebody To Love - but if you reverse the track yourself, it turns out to be a choral recording of a hymn called Holy, Holy, Holy.

When the minimalist drums kick in, Laufman looms over the track with a demonic falsetto. He appears to be making a twisted proposal to some unattainable lady: "When I make some money, I'll buy you clothes". I have no idea why thinks boasting about his foreshortened limbs could be seductive. Maybe his paramour is a big fan of Cee-Lo Green?

Wise Blood - Loud Mouths


There's not much information about Wise Blood online, but I've been able to gather that they're a trio, that they're named after the Flannery O'Connell novel, that Christopher works in a cemetery, and he was once nearly killed by a Bison. So nothing too out of the ordinary, then.

Loud Mouths is getting some love on Radio One's specialist shows - but this YouTube playlist shows it's not a one-off. There are some really interesting presentations of what is, essentially, melodic pop music in Wise Blood's work. Maybe you'll find it a little pretentious, but this is the sort of thing that eventually filters down and influences what you hear on daytime radio.

Tweet