Black Cowboy

iTunes Review

Following a five-year hiatus from the recording scene, Eek-A-Mouse returned in 1996 with Black Cowboy. It's an album based on the titular character, whom Eek had invented while on tour. The exact meaning of the “Black Cowboy” is unclear, although the title song provides a backstory in which Eek runs with all the great mythic figures of the old West, including Jesse James and Billy the Kid. While his late-'80s/early-'90s albums were wildly ambitious collisions of musical and vocals styles, the musical and vocal components of Black Cowboy exist on separate rails. It’s as if Eek chose to simplify his rhythm tracks so he could completely expand his vocal performances. The songs are based on basic reggae rhythms, and the tracks on “Isn’t Life a Trip,” “Jay,” and “Zum Galli” are almost muted, at times even conservative. However, the vocal performances on these songs are among the strangest of Eek’s career and show him entering a zone of spoken-word performance art. As usual, Eek’s subject matter is some of the boldest in the genre; for proof, witness “Bi-Racial Baby.”