Irresistible Bliss

Soul Coughing’s second album finds them continuing to explore and develop their highly unusual fusion of funk, jazz, hip hop, and musique concrète. “Super Bon Bon,” the opening track, lays out their whole concept: Sebastian Steinberg’s acoustic bass grinds out a rumbling foundation onto which sampling keyboardist Mark Degli Antoni dumps layer upon layer of found-sound oddments, while drummer Yuval Gabay pushes everything along with what starts out as a meathead four/four rock beat and then, on the chorus, turns into a frenetically funky groove. And that chorus: the lyrics may constitute the perfect distillation of singer Mike Doughty’s by-now-established technique of treating words like tuned percussion instruments. Irresistible Bliss isn’t startling the way Ruby Vroom was – instead, it’s a guided tour of a musical world in which no one but Soul Coughing lived, but through which they could now lead you with casual confidence.