The Story Teller

by Clutchy Hopkins

When you put on a new Clutchy Hopkins album, you know exactly what you're going to get: atmospheric, meditative tracks that are constructed using a variety of unusual instruments and electronic equipment.

There is the usual Hopkins nonsense in the liner notes - this time around it's a story about Clutchy being in jail in the desert, as the people at Ubiquity keep up with the game of fictionalizing Clutchy's identity in a way that reminds me of Madlib's Yesterday's New Quintet.

The music itself is very good.  This is a slightly prettier album than some of Clutchy's other work, and it seems like more care has been put into creating whimsical track titles ('Giraffe Crack', 'Drunk Socks').  At some point, one will not need any new Clutchy Hopkins, as it kind of all sounds the same, but I do love playing his stuff as background on a quiet day when I'm just lying on the couch reading.