Record Review: Joker's Daughter

Joker's Daughter
The Last Laugh
[2009, Team Love]
2/5

The Last Laugh, the collaborative album between UK-based songwriter Helena Costas and Brooklyn-based Danger Mouse, immediately calls to mind Joanna Newsom’s 2006 masterpiece, Ys. The album paired an idiosyncratic songwriter known for very sparse arrangements with renowned producer and arranger Van Dyke Parks, as well as the legendary studio magicians Jim O’Rourke and Steve Albini. Through Newsom’s brilliant songwriting and Park’s lush arrangements, they crafted one of the decade’s finest albums (in my opinion, of course). In Joker’s Daughter, Helena Costas and Danger Mouse combine the former’s folk pop proclivities with the latter’s penchant for hip-hop and psychedelia, and the results are mostly awkward and cumbersome... FULL REVIEW HERE.
This album makes me physically uncomfortable, and embarrassed for some reason, even when I listen to it in headphones. Rolling Stone, Spin, NPR, Pitchfork... everybody seems to like this but me... informed comments would definitely be appreciated for this one.

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