What is it with musicians and madness? Why does rock lend itself so easily to the loons? Of course, as Ben Watson has pointed out in a recent Wire column, there's a big difference between the mentally insane and the popular image of the rocker who's come unhinged. It's the Velvet Goldmine syndrome-- you're offered a thrilling sense of transgression, but you're kept safe because it's all objectified in the form of some garishly-clad star on stage. Lady Stardust shows some leg; Jim Morrison thinks dark thoughts about his mum; you're fingering the ticket in your pocket and nodding along.

Somewhere in that haze of drugs, sex and glam lies Marmoset. Yes, they're from Indianapolis of all places, and yes, you will believe that in spite of it all when you hear this EP. "The Living Illusions" reflects on late-60s psych-rock with lazy chords (two or three at most!) and barebones drum backing. An organ hums as guitarist Dave Jablonski's tenor insists, "I'm not right in the head/ I truly believe I'm not connected upstairs." His other main number on the EP, "I'm Always Too Late," wanders as whimsically as any of Syd Barrett's spacy old tunes. The chorus begins in good nature but somehow, in only three minutes, the strums and sing-song repetition add up to something almost unsettlingly obsessive.

I focused more on Jorma Whittaker, Marmoset's bassist and other lead singer, in my review of their 2001 album Record in Red. A song by the same name appears here on the EP (though not on that album), and it's a distillation of their entire lo-fi ethic. Drummer Jason Cavan sets a swaggering downbeat to the buzzy garage-rock guitars, and Whittaker's suddenly insinuating himself onto your lap with lines like, "I came to see you/ Want to know who you are." The guy's always halfway between flirt and freakout, as on the title track. Mishawaka is apparently a small town near South Bend, Indiana, and in the song of the same name, Whittaker's driving alone towards it. "The truth is like a rattlesnake/ I hold it in my arms, satisfy the charms," he sings, letting each syllable slip off his tongue. And true to form, the guitar slithers playfully just on the edge of tension.

What we have here is another twenty minutes of vintage Marmoset, a taste that will appeal across lines from Brit-poppers to Nuggets collectors. The EP is rounded out by a cover of the Fourmost's 1963 hit "I'm in Love," penned for them by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Marmoset's take on Merseybeat is of course somewhat subdued, but if anything, it sounds even more genuine than the original. Then there's the instrumental "Soft Evenings," placed strangely as the first song. It's the longest, just three minutes of the bass pulsing quietly and Whittaker cooing strangely. He sounds both serene and yet vulnerable, and also quite mad.

"Soft Evenings" clearly rose from a jam, which sparks a thought: maybe that freeform mind-state that gets equated with insanity finds itself easily in music because of the immediacy of the connection. It's like painting, where you can slather oil directly on canvas, whereas other forms, like film, require preparation. Writing is an interesting middle ground, because you can definitely scratch down whatever comes to mind-- but in practice, I'd guess there are more Boredoms listeners than readers of Burroughs cut-ups. Still, you did read this review, didn't you?

-Christopher Dare, March 25th, 2002