Voodoo 5, The
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Following up their reworking of "Moon Over Marin", Voodoo Five returns with a single that should come as no surprise to followers of co-leader Skip Heller's Hollywood Film Noirchestra, whose faithful renderings of classic crimejazz brought that music to life. Rather than go back to the noir well, Voodoo Five travels the dark streets of Russ Meyer's exploitation film music via a blistering version of "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (complete with infamous opening monologue) that features co-leader Lena Marie Cardinale snarling out a vocal that owes as much to Ari Upp as it does to exotica. All placed lovingly on a bed of sped-up boogaloo and topped with a guitar-vs-pedal steel guitar grudge match between SH and pedalmaster John Mc Duffie. For the flip, we go Beyond The Valley of the Dolls for a groovy Latin soul reworking of the Carrie Nations' In The Long Run, which features one of Lena's most beautiful vocals to date. The sleeve features a rarely-seen photo of Tura Satana, provided by her estate, who has blessed the project. Whatever you think an exotica band should do next, Voodoo Five won't. "We're totally the product of Yma Sumac and Robert Drasnin", says Skip, "but we're also raised on Rod Serling, Russ Meyer, sixties Latin boogaloo, and cheap fifties paperbacks, so you're getting a wider view than just tikis and volcanos."