Family Fodder

Water Shed picks up precisely where the previous Family Fodder LP (1983's All Styles), left off, blithely resuming Alig Pearce and Dominique Levillain's obsession with playful genre-mixing as if the intervening 17 years had just been a quick nap. This lengthy album (most of the 11 songs clock in well in excess of five minutes) mixes heavy dub influences with the sort of cool, Gallic electronica -- first popularized by Stereolab and the likes of Air and Daft Punk (which Family Fodder, of course, was doing back in the early '80s) -- and the group's secret weapon: a quirky but unmistakable knack for pop hooks that turn up in the most unexpected places. "Would," for example, features a memorably yearning refrain in the midst of an ambient dub soundscape, and the playful "Women," with its Burundi-style drumming and chanted vocals, recalls the gimmicky bubblegum of early '80s groups like Total Coelo and the Belle Stars. In the grand Family Fodder tradition, each song is fundamentally different from the one preceding it, yet they all somehow sound part of something larger. Water Shed is one of the better reunion albums of the post-punk generation. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide