A strange one, this, with Bowie's usually obsessive control seemingly relaxed enough to have allowed packaging that looks cheap and hurriedly slung-together. The content, though, is better—a straight documentary, punctuated with live and video clips, and interview snippets with Bowie, Iman, Iggy Pop, Trent Reznor and Moby. There's lots of rare early stuff but, for all his eloquence, the music does the talking best of all.
Born out of Williamsburg's vibrant underground scene in 2000—and sounding not unlike the soundtrack to a painfully hip party there, Vic Thrill's debut is a fizzing cocktail of world music polyrhythms, camp theatrics and techno wizardry. The influence of Ziggy is evident throughout, but there are also strains of the kitsch disco of Pizzicato 5, the murky pop of The Frogs and snatches of the Happy Mondays and Underworld. Incessant and uptempo for much of the time, it is unmistakably danceable. As if entirely worn out, the record closes with the Grandaddy-esque "Zero Odds".
More than three decades on and the Isle Of Wight enjoys a few fleeting flashbacks of brilliance from The Thrills, The Cooper Temple Clause, Iggy Pop and Hell Is For Heroes
