No Bleepin’ Way: How Sturgill Simpson Got Badass Sci Fi to Listen to Country Music and Watch Anime (at the same time)
That’s a good start. Sweet banner. Alright, let’s get to it.
SOUND & FURY (spelled properly using ALL CAPS) is Sturgill Simpson’s new album and accompanying anime featurette (a skosh over 41 minutes) currently available on Netflix.
Sturgill Simpson had always floated around in our periphery as a recognizable name, but no one we ever considered. Then we watched Jim Jarmusch’s underwhelming The Dead Don’t Die, which references and plays Simpson’s theme song, The Dead Don’t Die, repeatedly. Simpson also makes a brief appearance as ‘Guitar Zombie’.
Based on this, we thought Simpson was a Waylon Jennings or Willie Nelson type artist. What the hell do we know? There are no professional music or film reviewers currently on staff, no proofreaders either (But that’s another story. Help!). However, we weren’t far off in our ignorant assessment. Then came this–
SOUND & FURY blew us away! This is Badass Sci Fi. Now, you can’t really classify the music as country. In our expert opinion, it’s just cool shit; dirty, rude, and cynical. It’s Dirty Deeds meets Bad Company on the Dark Side of the Moon.
And it’s not entirely anime, but the coolest shit in it is. Admittedly, we drifted midway through. That said, the first 14 minutes (4 tracks) could easily be played on continuous loop, and the last seven-minute track is fucking epic.
We haven’t culled much meaning from the project other than it’s a sweet-ass revenge saga where an orphaned hyper-samurai battles two super-villains who are destroying the world through greed and gluttony.
Sorry, but you should know, one of Badass Sci Fi’s mottos is; There’s nothing more depressing than a moral.
And yes, there’s even a cute kitten. Notice that it’s smiling at this particular moment. Why? What’s about to happen? Shut up and watch the damn thing, repeatedly.
Until next time, don’t bother us. We’re experiencing developmental hell while suffering analysis paralysis and mentally masturbating a book. But it’s FUCKING AWESOME!
