Even for those in the know, the Sun City Girls could be a vast riddle. One never knew exactly what they were going to serve up next, authentic-sounding trio jazz, free-form electric freak-outs, poorly played bubblegum covers, tightly wound eastern-tinged thumpers, highly acidic rants, ethnic forgeries and ethnic forgery forgeries all raised their heads in different quantities from time to time. What they served up on their final release, (following the death of drummer and guiding light Charles Gocher), would be anybody's guess.

Cinematic is word that comes to mind. Subdued is another. For the first time in many a moon the girls reign in the horses and the at-your- expense humor and construct a pretty collection of naggingly familiar-sounding tunes. Just where have I heard "Vine Street Piano" before? With the exception of the opener "Ben's Radio", all the songs on Funeral Mariachi are slow, slow, slow. Mournful even, as might be expected. At first I found this a bit disappointing, but closer listening revealed the care with which these stones were polished. The aforementioned first cut has a theme made up of cut-and-paste vocal sections before settling into a loping two-note comp that shores up an exquisitely frantic guitar solo before the short recapitulation. "The Imam" is acoustic guitar melody broken by noisy raspberries leading to murmured singing. "Blue West" has a melody that's similar to an old King Crimson song. This one in particular sounds like no other SCG that I've heard.

As if to re-enforce the cinematic idea, there's a cover of Ennio Morricone's "Come Maddalena", and I keep wondering what the film that these songs belong to would look like. Some sort of spaghetti western transplanted to the Sahara? "Funeral Mariachi" is a fitting title for the final tune, with quiet guitar filigree and Miles-ian trumpet lines, a lingering goodbye.