So when I heard that Jill Sobule was prepping a new album, I got excited. When I heard that the album was a rock opera, I was ecstatic. Now that I've heard it, I'm back to excited.
The packaging is great. The cd booklet is a forty-page graphic novel that lays out the story line. The story itself is a bit jumbled and confused at times, but it has great potential. The protagonist is a young woman named Prozak. She has given herself this name.
After Prozak's mother committed suicide after a long battle with depression, her father uprooted the family and took them to Australia. He is working on studying the sleep patterns of everyone's favorite cloacal monotreme, the platypi. His hope is that by studying their patterns, he can figure out the chemical balance of the mind during REM sleep and develop an anti-depressant for people who have trouble dreaming. Prozak, distraught after her mother's suicide, thinks he's just doing it to ruin her life by dragging her away from the comforts of home. In rebellion, she runs away, names herself Prozak and fronts a punk band.
Meanwhile, Prozak forges an unlikely frienship with a talking platypus her dad is working with. With this friendship enters a fair amount of imagery drawn from aboriginal mythology. Prozak enters the platypus's mind and is then able to make peace with herself.
That is a pretty complex story line, and the album's 11 songs barely top the 32 minute mark combined. I really feel there was some more space available to further develop the album's complex themes. For what is there, the music is pretty good. It shows a good deal of variety. "Watch me Sleep" is the kind of singer-songwriteresque, guitar-piano-violin arrangement I'd expect, but from there its all over the map. "Talkin' Platy" is, sadly, not a talking blues, but is a fair stab at punk. "Skyhook" sounds like it could be an outtake from Ween's "The Mollusk." "Jitters and Creeps" features what sounds like some nice, alt-countryesque 12-string picking.
Somehow, I suspect the song "Empty Glass" is a tip of the hat to rock opera entrepeneur Pete Townsend, who used Empty Glass as the title for a solo album. (I also suspect the title "Deep Blue" is a reference to the George Harrison b-side of the same name, but I have no idea how to tie that to the concept of the rock opera.)
The lyrics were composed by Elise Thoron, which means I did miss out on Sobule unique brand of cynicism for much of the album, but I was pleased to discover her as a new talent.
The website for the album, http://www.prozakandtheplaypus.com/, offers up a script and direction for those willing to stage the musical in all its glory. Anyone got a platypus costume I can borrow?
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