houndog

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If "Dose" is a velvet painting of an East LA fever dream, then houndog is an Etch-A-Sketch insomniac's companion. This group consists of David Hidalgo plus Mike Halby of Canned Heat and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Shame about the name, though - they should have called themselves something like "Tierra del Fuego" which, at the southernmost tip of Venezuela, is as about as low-down as you can get in the Western Hemisphere. Did I say low-down? I'm sorry - I meant to say slowed-down, because to these ears somebody notched the tape speed down for this swamp-back recording - even the vocals. Either this is the final frontier for post-modern blues deconstructionism, or we are witnessing artistic suicide as a debut career move. Either way, it's funky and fun. Halby's slurry, furry singing sounds as if he might be the guy to pitch a "Coricidin isn't just for breakfast anymore" ad campaign, and Hidalgo is everywhere else at once, deftly handling guitar, drums and electric violin a la "Sugarcane" Harris. It's as much about what's not being played on houndog as well - this isn't stripped-down blues; it's flattened. This is what the blues looks like after the steamroller.