This is a review of "I Knew You'd Know I'd Know You Know" recorded by The Bilderberg Group. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2001.

The Bonzo Dog Band meet Martin Newell in experimental party spirits. This is Da Da puckishness at its merriest. The Bilderberg Group are completely bonkers and they're proud of it. "It's yer thumbs wot makes you clever" they chant. So clever, in fact that the entire lyric for "Jus d'Orange" at track 6 consists of "drinking orange juice from a blue cup in a yellow house with blue doors in my green coat with orange bits." (repeat till fade)

Truly wonderful stuff. You'll be familiar with "I know a song that'll get on yer nerves ."?. The Bilderberg Group probably wrote it. They then went on to write eleven more and put them on this fantastic CD.

Every track experiments with something or other. Mostly it's the listeners brain that gets the mad professor treatment. Spoken percussion, fart noise pretend trombone, real trombone, beautiful tune, plonky piano, great jazz trumpet (stand up Anna Nibbs), Pentangle impersonation ("The Joys of Tardiness") ... on and on it goes. this is the record that whistles "This is Not a Pipe" in the face of musical sobriety and stamps on the fingers of the musical librarian.

This CD defies reviewing. Taking it seriously is stupid, calling it stupid misses the point. It's lots of great ideas taken just far enough to know that they don't always work. It is a small treasure. I will bore people for the next twenty years, saying "I bet you can't guess who this is?" and "You've got to hear this bit". I have played it though from beginning to end many times now. But I don't think I'll be doing it again for a while. Mental health is a precious thing.

I can tell you that every track has a different instrumentation and style. It's very unsettling. I can reliably report that not many humans could dance to it. There are not many bits where the Sleeman/Overy partnership could turn the mic to the Knebworth crowd and go "C'mon! Sing along!". There's nothing here for the Radio 1, 2, 3 or 4 playlists. God knows what it would be like live. Frank Zappa does Play School?

Great stuff.