Album Review: Peter Combe - Quirky Berserky (The Turkey From Turkey)

3 September 2012 | 2:55 pm | Tess Ingram

Whilst 78 minutes of hardcore Combe can make even the happiest of adults a bit batty, this album is perfect to share with a new generation of Combe fans or secretly dance to after a rough day. After all, there’s no rush to grow up.

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He's been working in the industry for 30 years and is set to tour an 'adults only' show. Pull your heads out of the gutter and slap a newspaper hat on, it's time for Peter Combe! You probably remember his tunes from decades ago, but while you've been busy growing up, Combe has continued spreading a mix of joy and nonsense across the country.

Quirky Berserky is an enormous 26-track album celebrating 30 years of Peter Combe's witty music for the young and young at heart. His songs are almost Monty Python-ish, explaining their appeal to parents and their lasting impact on the generation now attending his shows in states of drunken enthusiasm rather than nappies.

While some tracks on the album are questionable - two and a half minute tune Standing In The Shower is particularly concerning with its lyrics “It's nice to just get very, very wet… every time it feels so right” - most of the tracks are thoughtfully composed in the tradition of his beloved earlier tunes such as Wash Your Face In Orange Juice, Newspaper Mama and Toffee Apple. Not Zee may only be an alphabet song but the three versions on the album - Grandissimo performed by Combe, Stringissimo an instrumental version by the Zephyr String Quartet and Vocalissimo a brilliant and complex version performed by Sydney vocal trio The Idea of North - are definite highlights.

Whilst 78 minutes of hardcore Combe can make even the happiest of adults a bit batty, this album is perfect to share with a new generation of Combe fans or secretly dance to after a rough day. After all, there's no rush to grow up.

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