Having existed as a live entity for the past four years, Monsieur Pompier’s Travelling Freakshow has toured Europe extensively with their extremely unique live show which incorporates performance art, audience immersion, and a litany of bizarre and beguiling costumes and masks depicting the characters in the songs. All of this is underpinned by Monsieur Pompier’s manic music and storytelling approach to songwriting which echoes the work of bands such as Sparks, The Residents, and Devo. The group signed to Cleopatra Records in early 2021 and will release their debut album TEATIME TERRORS on July 16th on limited edition vinyl and digital download.
Inspired equally by TV shows like Tales of the Unexpected and 80s B-movie soundtracks as it was by eccentric acts like The Residents, Sparks and Devo, TEATIME TERRORS falls into a strange musical crevice between bizarro pop opera, a demented audiobook, and downright bonkers synth-punk chaos.
Across the ten tracks of TEATIME TERRORS, we are introduced to a different character on each song. The album opens with Banana Boy, a song about an unruly scamp who grows a banana in place of his fingers every time that he does something naughty. This is followed by The Crabbit, whose titular character, a half crab, half rabbit hybrid appears when a person succumbs to alcoholism. Subjects such as superstition and mythology are tackled on The Ear Fairy, a whirling waltz about a fantastical fairy who cleans our ears every night, taking the wax home to build lifelike sculptures of his victims. The high tempo organ-driven mania of The Hedgehog Swallower questions the perils of stardom and celebrity culture.
Doctor Moogle debates the dangers of googling potential ailments and trusting what one reads on the Internet whilst the synthesized chaos of Micky Mould is concerned with conspiracy theories and what happens when misinformation about a virus can spiral out of control. The album closes with Sally Shortcake, a woman crafted in cake, created by a lonely man who finds a mysterious recipe for his dream partner who he then bakes, touching on subjects such as Internet algorithms and online dating.
