Team Brick - 'Breeds' (Self released album, 2006)

Matt still has his detractors but is well on his way to "local legend" status. 'Breeds' was one of his many early DIY releases. Intervening years have seen him arrange music for orchestra, forming noise-pop three piece Yoshy! and exploring Krautrock with Geoff Barrow and Billy Fuller in BEAK>.

Matt Williams, eh? He's anything but normal. With a rapidly expanding ouevre that takes in pretty much every genre you can think of, he seems to self-release a new collection of tracks every couple of weeks despite being barely out of his teens. In fact, 'Breeds' was only one of four new Team Brick CDs released on the night I bought it. A true British musical eccentric in the proud tradition of Robert Wyatt, Vivyan Stanshall and Richard D James, you're never at all sure what he's going to do next. 'Breeds' is a collection of twenty tracks. They're almost all exactly a minute long and are all named after different breeds of dog.

The word 'eclectic' doesn't really cover it. He just ignores genre boundaries altogether. On this CD alone, Williams tries his hand at shouty lo-fi rock, analogue noise, a cappella jewish folk, and, yes, throat singing which, incidentally, he does far more succesfully than any Bristolian has any natural right to do. At other times he invents a whole new genre for the sixty seconds required to make his point. For example, 'Border Collie' sounds like the the Knight Rider theme tune being ravaged by The Mothers of Invention and is absolutely fucking brilliant.

'Breeds' is so full of sudden changes of style and mood that it takes a bit of learning to live with. At one point during my first listen, I was reflectively enjoying a nice klezmer melody when suddenly I found myself running to the bathroom to check that my boiler wasn't exploding. However, those with short attention spans like mine will revel in the fact that Williams boils every loop of melody and nugget of distortion down to its essence rather than improvising it to death like so many other experimental artists we've had to endure. This is entirely consistent with his recent live performances, which have developed from thirty minutes of punishing noise to fascinating half hour trips around the world with a music-obsessed kid from Bristol as your tour guide.

Team Brick is an artist that polarises audiences. There are as many people who dismiss him as a self-indulgent oddball as there are those who relish his individuality and imagination. Personally, I have little doubt that one day he will, possibly by accident, make a record that will introduce him to a much wider audience. 'Breeds' isn't that album but, like everything in the Team Brick canon, it's well worth a fiver of anyone's money. Matt Williams, eh? He's bloody great, you know, but he's anything but normal.