Our culture needs to shed about 137 pounds of pop. For too long, we've gorged ourselves on the empty carbohydrates of Blockbuster Video and "Entertainment Tonight." How many more Jurassic Parks or "Blonde Really Is Better" glossy-mag pullouts will it take to finally rupture our cultural gastric-intestinal plumbing and let escape the foulest odors unimaginable?

Conspiracy theorists already have it as an article of faith that U.S. culture (from the Olive Garden to Us magazine) is kept obese and obnoxious by the US military. Apparently, the strategy is to make the nation so unappealing to invaders that aggressors will look favorably on rolling their tank divisions into Greenland or some other place more worthy of domination. While I appreciate the sentiment of this theory, the fact that none of George W.'s arms-dealer chums would make any money off the tactic invalidates the theory.

However, those who profess the fetid culture strategy can now hold up the Noodles Foundation compilation, The Complete Death of Cool, as a first-level deployment in the suppuration of America. Founded by Zygmunt Janowski (rumored to be the artist behind a 1970 series of Hammond organ records), and aided by some of the daftest mongs in UK electro-techno, the Noodles Foundation exists to be utterly stupid and obnoxious, and to contribute to the bursting of our cultural guts.

The thirty-eight tracks of the compilation vary from goofy electro to the avant-garde. Leading the charge for the latter, the Hibiscus Geronimo III Players give us "Boiled Grease Fat," a brief piece for three belching freaks. On the opposite side of tastelessness, the normally crunky Neil Landstrumm envisages Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" as industrially dubbed by Adrian Sherwood and calls the oddity "Titos Block." Engaging in similar fusion, Cursor Miner thrills with "Curse of the Bannister," which imagines Beck fronting Gary Numan's Tubeway Army.

Elsewhere, Cabbage Head lives up to his moniker and chops up the not-so-ironically impeded voice of UK talk show host and light entertainer Jonathan Ross. The result of this chopping, "Future Today," is not terribly nutritious; it's sort of watery and chewy, like overcooked leaf vegetables. Drug-Free America racketeer Steve Dixon chops up the voice of Joanna Lumley's "Absolutely Fabulous" character to a similarly dishwater disappointment. Si Begg tries to elevate us out of the realm of freshman humor with some electro, but in contrast to his material for the Mosquito label, it's simply tossed off filler.

One of the few examples of The Complete Death of Cool actually getting beyond inside jokes comes with Sand's "Desperate." The track is a Quincy Jones-style bossa with some serious car-chase bass careening the track around tight bends, down sunlight-deprived alleyways, and through carefully positioned garbage cans. When the horns join in the pursuit, the song really delivers some engaging licks. Then, some plumy git opens his faux-beatnik mouth. "This book I bought is heavier in my pocket than the last/ An encumberment of popular trash," intones Plumy Git as though he's giving Ken Nordine's word-jazz a mighty wrestle. Discouragingly, if "Desperate" lacked this verbal wankery, I doubt it would have ever been included on this compilation.

The tragic thing about The Complete Death of Cool is that Si Begg, Neil Landstrumm, and some of the others are all capable of far more finessed humor than the whoopee cushions they've submitted for inclusion here. The title, on its own, is a clumsily ironic gesture-- by stating that this disc is the antithesis of cool, our postmodern sensitivities are alerted to what we're attuned to believe will be the existentially cool elements within. Leaving aside the conspiracy theory outlined above, very little here will persuade music buyers to aggressively attack, surround and capture this disc. Thus, Cool completely died for no reason. If we all Zen out on this transcendent notion for a moment, our culture will shed its first eight ounces.

-Paul Cooper