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Paul Dickow has reinvented himself. His newest release as Strategy is a huge surprise and an even bigger statement. It comes out left field on the fledgling Peak Oil label four years after the last Strategy full-length. A series of 12" records released in the last year by Under the Spire, Endless Flight, and 100% Silk are its closest brethren, but none of them sound anything like this. Paul’s rhythms are bolder and his melodies sharper this time around. Lyrics are featured prominently throughout and the atmospherics that once defined his sound have been toned down in favor of tighter instrumental performances and punchier songs. Coming along with the new sound is a gaggle of new collaborators, including Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard), members of the Evolutionary Jass Band, and Scott Ryser of Units.
"Sugar Drop" is the first song on the first new Strategy album in four years. As far as I can tell, it signals the death of the old Strategy and the start of something new. It begins with a familiar but hollowed out sample from "I Have to Do This Thing," then quickly cuts away to a stomping rhythm and Paul singing "I’ve got a sweet tooth." But, the vocal bit isn't a sample. It isn't repeated or blended into a haze of effects. Instead, Dickow continues with verses and a refrain, a keyboard solo, and a band-oriented sound that gives equal space to all the instruments. "Objects of Desire" continues down the same path, with strong, funky rhythms, vocals pushed to the fore, and a brighter overall sound that favors instrumental separation to fuzzy atmospherics. Had I not recognized the opening sample as a Strategy sample, I might have checked to see if the right album was playing.
Dickow’s writing is also more concise this time around. Side A gives us four songs in just 17 minutes, only one without vocals. That terseness lends the first side lots of momentum, which culminates in the manic pulse of "Baby Fever." Horns, fluttering synthesizers, and a thumping rhythm section all dance together before boiling over into a sax solo that absolutely explodes from the horn. The lyrics in this song's first half sound a bit of a mismatched to me, but by the time the sax is done wailing, the vocals have ceased to matter.
It's a barn-burning side-ender that segues naturally into side B’s first song, "Friends and Machines," which utilizes the same horn and rhythm combo found at the end of "Baby Fever." This time around, the combo anchors an instrumental jam that’s lead by a staccato guitar part and a bubbling assortment of hand drums. Cooler sounds and a more relaxed vibe permeate this song—and the whole second side—but cooler does not mean duller. Dickow continuously adds layers and new elements to this song, building tension and then releasing it through his use of texture and color.
The album ends with "Saturn’s Day" and "Dilemmas," two slow-burning numbers that effectively open the parachute and bring the album slowly back to the ground. Both remind me of Paul’s work with Nudge and Fontanelle, partly because they are even more band-oriented than the songs on the first side. There’s even a guitar solo on "Saturn’s Day." Heady and druggy sounding, they're more soaked in reverb and echo, too, and closer to Paul’s past efforts as Strategy. Maybe that’s an indication that he’s erasing the boundaries between his various projects and drawing them all together, becoming less encumbered in the process. Dickow’s writing may have become more concise and structured over the last four years, but somehow Strategy sounds looser and better than ever.
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Her first solo full length in over six years, this album leans more into Bailiff's electric guitar and lush atmospherics rather than the more stripped down folk sound. It has a distinctly current sound, but in a way that triggers memories of the best of early 1990s alternative rock, which was a formative time in my musical development. That’s not to say that Bailiff's more folk inclinations are gone, however: the hushed, spectral voice and the slow, acoustic lead "Your Ghost is Not Enough" calls to mind the earlier, more folk heavy work, even with its transition into a more electrified conclusion.
A strong asset is Bailiff's penchant for balancing hypnotic repetition with sometimes drastic transitions.The slower, melancholy paced "Sanguine," for example, may have a restrained, sad opening, but slowly grows faster and more complex, while retaining the hypnotic vocals and sparse organ accompaniment.Towards its end, it builds to a swirling, psychedelic tinged work that rivals the best of Spacemen 3's forays into the genre.
The best moments are, for me, the ones where the sound takes a more drastic turn in one direction or another.For example, the light, spacious piano opening and angelic vocals that open "Goodnight," are stripped away by a noisy, dense guitar passage and a stiff, metronomic drum machine that, other than Bailiff's feather light voice and restrained volume levels, could be the makings of a very good doom metal song.
"Take Me To The Sun" and "Firefly" might not have as drastically different of a sound, but are comparably uptempo and catchy when compared to the more atmospheric, skeletal songs.The former is more hypnotic and spacey, and with the liberal use of reverb and drum machine is a bit reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Darklands. "Firefly" just stands on its own as a strong, beautiful piece of hypnotic, droney rock music that is less about unadulterated repetition, and includes some very nice guitar soloing.
Like my favorite moments of the Old Things compilation, a good portion of At the Down-Turned Jagged Rim of the Sky makes liberal use of electric guitar and drum machines, which I have always found a captivating combination, more so than straight forward folk music, which Bailiff also does quite well.However, the combination of delicate, fragile beauty (in the vocals and instrumentation) with occasionally raw, dissonant moments, works together undeniably well.Plus, this is exactly how an album should be:a suite of songs that flow perfectly into one another, yet each has its own unique feel, be it pensive ambience orcatchy pop songwriting.
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If the term spastic ever needed an audio equivalent, Survival Tricks would easily fit the bill. While it is rooted in an improvised rock context, bits of jazz, noise, and techno fly around like shards of broken glass in an album that is as equally abrasive as it is spectacular.
Unlike, say, the work of Torture Garden-era Naked City, this is not a work of surgical jump cuts and stop/start genre hopping precision, but something more in league with Boredoms' earliest (and best) works.This is immediately apparent on the rapid percussion and repetitive guitar scrapes of "Lend Some Treats," which quickly drops out in and out of snare rolls and bass guitar hits, occasionally settling into some sort of vaguely funk groove.
When the band settles into a more stable mood, such as the scatter-shot but propulsive "Grimy Super Soaker," it almost starts to resemble an '80s synth band and their gear being pushed down the stairs during a recording session.However, for all its chaos and noise, there is an underlying song-like structure that keeps it engaging, rather than just being a random blast of sound.
The longer "I Heard You Could See Baltimore From There" does do a better job at staying in one place, at times settling into a more pop-like, though still highly unconventional structure.While it’s the closest thing to an understated track on here, that is not saying much.
At times, this overly kinetic sound leans into grating, abrasive territories, such as the constant, repetitive scrape of "Electrolytes in the Brine" that simply goes on too long for such an abrasive approach.The following "A Throbbing Sphere" goes for similar repetition, but its shorter length and less trying sounds make it far more effective.
Normal Love is one of those bands that make description extremely difficult.They’re anything but subtle, and at times, the rapid pounding and crashing can be exhausting.The album as a whole is a bit of an endurance test, but in bite sized chunks, Survival Tricks is a great freakout in the vein of early no wave noise rock that is best absorbed in small doses.
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Marked as the final physical release from this small Chicago label, it is a fine way of leaving the business: a vomit-green swirled 7" in a minimalist, black letter-pressed sleeve creates a contrast that somewhat carries over into the sound of the vinyl. The vinyl contains only two tracks (one from each artist) but a free download is provided that gives digital versions of those two, plus two additional tracks not included on the physical release.
From what I can gather, this is the debut release for Harpoon, who provide some decent, if perhaps not compelling, grindcore/hardcore punk stuff. "To The Tall Trees" is not one of those intentionally rapid-fire songs to the point of absurdity as Agoraphobic Nosebleed would do, nor is it offensive or disgusting, like other bands of the genre, so it harkens more back to the early days of the genre than more modern permutations. Considering it clocks in at over five minutes, it also has to be varied, which it is: there are slower and restrained moments to match the rapid fire riffs and sub machine gun drum programming that keep it from being an exercise in tedium. The second, download only, track "Phlegm" is a bit more surf influenced with some noteworthy variation in approach, but it doesn’t make me want to become an acolyte of the genre.
On the flip side, Locrian’s "Ancestral Brutalism" starts out similar to their other drone work, but the low frequency static texture is met with a monotone jackhammer drum beat, Andre Foisey’s complex, yet simple guitar work, and some downright metal screaming from Terrence Hannum. The band has never shied away from metallic influences before, but never have they been so overt as they are here. The buried and reverberated mix gives that more esoteric edge that keeps it away from traditional hardcore punk/metal stuff, but it is still surprising to hear this side of things, given this band’s ever-growing discography. The "bonus" track, "Antediluvian Territory," goes back to their usual sound: guitar abuse, feedback, and a slow build from ambient into harsh electronic territory. The track shows that post-punk edge that has really been emphasized in their work as of late, which I find hard to describe, but is more Robert Smith than Stephen O’Malley in its nature. Something tells me they’ve listened to Seventeen Seconds more than they have any of Mayhem’s albums, but I could be entirely wrong.
While Harpoon really didn’t set my world on fire, someone who is a greater fan of grindcore would probably find a lot to love, as there is definitely a sense of musicality and composition to their work than other practitioners of the genre usually display, and having heard Locrian’s sound developing over the past year, I think they’re definitely polishing their own sound, separating themselves from an ever-growing sea of mundane drone metal projects.
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![cover image](/brain/images/yellow_swans-war_crimes_3.jpg)
Sequenced out of chronological order, these four tracks represent four individual live performances, unedited and recorded by others, rather than by the band themselves. The first is the final performance in 2008, recorded in Chicago. There is a wide open sense of ambience with clattering reverberated noises, dark stabs of noise, and slow building soft guitar work, hovering between minimal and maximal. About a third of the way through it dissolves into pure harsh chaos, but the melodic guitar never goes away, and an undulating rhythm causes the noise to clash with the less abrasive sounds.
The second track, recorded in Portland by renowned noisician John Wiese, has an intentional lo-fi quality to it. The hollow sound and ambient noises at the quieter moments feel much more "in the moment" than a sterile soundboard recording, but still accurately captures the subtle and quiet guitar loops and cold rustling sound that characterize the beginning of the show. When the track launches into crunchy, overdriven noise some clipping is obviously occurring, but it never eclipses the shrill scrapes and metallic guitar soloing and instead adds to the physical sensations that would have been felt standing in front of the PAs. The recording also captures a sense of discord that comes from playing to an unfamiliar audience (the band went on between a hip-hop act and a country band).
The noisier third performance is a live movie soundtrack performed by the band that focuses on the junk noise and electronic squall, but again allowing the melodic guitar work to appear, even if it is obscured by layers of fuzzbox grime. Even amidst the occasional guitar freakouts and air-raid siren electronics, there’s a feeling of spaciousness to the mix that is often lost in these sorts of performances.
The closing piece, recorded in Iowa at the end of their last full tour, has a more old school industrial sheen to it, with the deep, bass frequency pulses, squeals, and feedback. There’s a mechanical quality to the track that feels like it could be a lost outtake of an early SPK concert or a post-show riot at a Whitehouse performance. Less concessions are made to traditional “music” here, and instead the focus is on full volume assaults.
Surely the well of remaining material will run dry in the near future, however the increased sense of melody via Gabe Saloman’s guitar playing was a unique development that I would have loved to have heard more fully evolved. While they always did dark, murky noise very well, I wonder what the future would have held with the inclusion of more actual "music." Even as a closing statement, the four live sets here give some insight into what may have been. Or what could still possibly be…perhaps they just ran out of "D" words to precede the band name on releases?
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Sweden's BJ Nilsen has a surprisingly recognizable aesthetic for such an inherently faceless genre. Superficially, of course, all the central elements of contemporary electronic drone are here: a sustained and hypnotically shifting backbone, subterranean throbs, and a fluttering array of non-musical sounds dancing around it all. However, BJ is in a league by himself in regards to meticulousness, exactitude, and discipline. There is no clutter or bloat here, no laziness, and no attempt to use density to create an illusion of power and depth. Instead, Nilsen very starkly and crisply conveys exactly what he needs to and no more.
In lesser hands, that degree of calculation and artifice would probably result in a bloodless and clinical-sounding album. Actually, I suppose it is not completely unreasonable to describe this album as “clinical,” but it would be totally missing the point. The Invisible City is a deliberately cold, lonely, and futuristic-sounding album. Rather than an invisible city, it much more aptly evokes a haunting and Lynchian tableau of an utterly empty city at night, traffic lights endlessly flickering purposelessly and swaying in the gentle wind. Given the organic and nature-themed roots of much of the album’s source material, that is a pretty perverse place to wind up.
The liner notes provide a very interesting inventory of the sounds used for each individual track, which makes for an engrossing listening experience. Given that most of the field recordings are digitized into oblivion, I found it fascinating to try to figure out when exactly I was hearing an “amplified chair dragged across floor” or “dead trees leaning up against each other.” On the rare occasions when the source material is clearly recognizable, it is usually employed to disquieting effect (particularly the snowy footsteps in “Virtual Resistance”). The unnerving barrenness and alienation of the album creates a kind of vacuum that heightens the impact when anything recognizably human intrudes (and renders it vaguely sinister). Also, while there is generally not much overtly musical happening aside from occasional shimmering organ chords, vintage analog synthesizer fetishists will be thrilled to learn that Nilsen uses a subharchord for several tracks.
Those already familiar with BJ Nilsen’s work will not be surprised by much here, but they certainly will not be disappointed either. Nilsen has a very distinct and specific vision and he is steadily progressing and evolving within those narrow confines, but his trajectory is not likely to be obvious to casual listeners. The important thing is that BJ excels at what he does: the compositions themselves may be overtly minimal in nature, but the production transforms the base materials into something much deeper and more mesmerizing. This is layering at its most deft, as the glacially unfolding framework of the pieces houses a panning and warping hive of small-scale chaos. The Invisible City is a subtly mind-bending album of crystalline clarity and cold beauty.
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![cover image](/brain/images/wraithsthegreyemperor.jpg)
The Grey Emperor is not an exercise in how deafening noise can be. Lo-fi noise fills in the gaps like background radiation but the volume kept firmly down in the process. Wraiths introduce various unidentifiable sounds into the piece, letting the whole thing simmer like an unholy concoction straight out of Macbeth. Eventually the witches’ brew comes to a boil and what feels like an arctic wind comes through the speakers (the effect helped by the current freezing whether here on the western fringes of Europe). The arctic wind becomes an icy breath, fearful and cruel.
Rusty noises that could either be percussion, heavily distorted and malignant guitar, bass or even vocals again give the impression that something is coming, something large and threatening. The ambiguity of the sounds adds to the panic in a way that pure feedback or sounds identifiable as human cannot hope to achieve. Towards the end of the piece, Wraiths do pick up the intensity without ever reaching “in the red” levels of volume. However, that does not mean that this is not uncomfortable listening (I get the feeling that my fiancée never wants to hear this again) and by the time it ends, it feels like I have had a near miss with Cthulu (the music I mean, not my fiancée!). So many pure noise acts try and get to this level of unease but few ever get it as right as Wraiths have.
My final remark about this album is reserved for how it looks. The demonic engraving on the back of the sleeve combined with the wax seal on the front give The Grey Emperor a formal look like a pamphlet for a Lutherian- style religious reformation but one plotted out by devil worshippers. Breaking open the seal with an audible crack, it is impossible not to feel a little thrill of the unknown when loading the album into the CD player for the first time. While there was no infernal racket, Wraiths have married visual and sonic aesthetics perfectly. This is as unsettling as an album can get.
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![cover image](/brain/images/coleclough_potter-bad_light.jpg)
The first time I put Bad Light on I was sure it would end up being Coleclough and Potter's best record. From the second it begins, it is clear that the duo intends to explore new territory. Instead of processed noise or ambient drones, the album begins with a guitar being tuned up and down, plain as day. Jonathan has utilized acoustic sources to produce phenomenal ambience in the past (i.e., Sumac, with Andrew Chalk), but I can't recall Colin or Jonathan ever using them as much as they do on this album. With the focus set squarely on echo-rich percussion, detuned guitar, and field recordings, both musicians apparently forgot how to pace or arrange their noise. Bad Light sounds like someone practicing on new equipment or ironing out loops before taking them on the road. In fact, it's so minimal that it sounds like a demo instead of a finished product.
"Good Shepherd" opens with the above mentioned guitar, but goes almost nowhere from there. A drone slowly fades in after a few minutes and, by the time the song is over, it sounds a little bit like a car engine at the point of breaking down. Imagine driving an old truck down the highway at 18 miles-per-hour in second gear and then tossing a bandsaw into its bed: that's how the song sounds in its closing moments. Over the course of 14 minutes very little happens in "Good Sherpherd": the guitar fades away and a roar of sound takes its place. The noise is intense and a little disturbing, but I have heard that same effect generated in more interesting ways. In fact, both Jonathan and Colin are very good at generating tension, so why they took such an easy (and colorless) route on "Good Shepherd" is a little bit of a mystery.
The second song, "Mumps," suffers from a similar problem. For nearly a half hour it buzzes and moans away to the tune of metal percussion, gongs, and wooden blocks. At first I thought the extra instrumentation would give Bad Light some much needed diversity, but the song goes on for far too long and wears out its welcome quickly. Records like Sumac and Period were rich and mysterious enough to warrant prolonged running times, but after 10 minutes "Mumps" offers up everything its going to offer. Frustratingly, it isn't even half way over by that point. I had to force myself not to skip the song just in case something cool did happen. Obviously, it takes a lot more than softly struck bells and blocks to make a weak drone strong.
And that brings me to the album's greatest flaw: its focus on everything but the drone. Too much of Bad Light's time is dedicated to acoustic sounds and field recordings instead of solid walls of sound. "Bad Light," the album's closing piece, illustrates this perfectly. It's also a half-hour in length, but the first sound it makes is an awkward, belching kind of noise. The song moves slowly, but introduces new elements quickly, each of which are vibrant and vivid and contribute to the single massive wave of sound that ends up dominating the piece. Perhaps most importantly, Coleclough and Potter's drones take center stage for the entirety of the song, which is precisely how it should be. Keeping all the miscellaneous found-sound stuff in the background ends up making all the difference in the world.
The constantly evolving texture and undulating development of "Bad Light" make for a far more involved listen than the sounds of randomly struck percussive things and poorly played guitars. Its various drones breathe and move naturally and the song just sounds more complex in general. Without extraneous samples getting in the way, "Bad Light" has the chance to become immersive, which means it has the chance to put all of its 30 minutes to good use. The same just can't be said for the rest of the album. The final song is the longest and strongest of the three yet it isn't strong enough to save the album from its own mediocrity.
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![cover image](/brain/images/ghana_special.jpg)
Soundway
Claret clearly set out to cover a wide variety of styles with this collection, but there is a very prominent focus on percussion here that transcends any genre divisions. While some songs are ostensibly Afrobeat, Highlife, or Ghanaian Blues, their differences seem quite small when compared to their similarities. With few exceptions, virtually all of the 33 songs on this double-album sound as like they originated from a great beat and then organically evolved from there. Consequently, the success or failure of a song is intimately intertwined with the strength of its backbone groove. None of the percussionists on Ghana Special sound like they are phoning it in, but many sound like they get a bit carried away- the best songs are often the most laidback and uncluttered (like K. Frimpong's "Kyenkyen Bi Adi M'Awu"). That said, "great" does not always mean "danceable for Western feet". I don't think that there is a single track that utilizes just one drummer—many of these bands sound like they may have three or four different percussionists cohering into one dense and complicated polyrhythmic groove. Odd time signatures, wild fills, and weird accents abound.
Given the almost single-minded devotion to rhythm shown by many of these artists, it is no surprise that pop song structures are usually discarded in favor of an unrelenting, sinuous groove. The most adept at this seems to be Christy Azuma & Uppers International, whose "Din Ya Sugri" combines a funky off-time beat with a tight bass line and a stuttering chord progression to devastating effect. Vis á Vis attain a similar triumph with "Obi Agye Me Dofo," though they twist the formula a bit with some cool psych-inspired organ work and catchy horn hooks. Both tracks feature yet another ubiquitous element on Ghana Special: lots of sizzling and inspired solos (particularly saxophone ones). Ghana seems to have had a disproportionate number of amazing musicians during its heyday and they all seemed quite willing to take chances and push themselves. Embarrassingly, the less-than-amazing musicians apparently also felt the same way, but their over-the-top exuberance is both endearing and far from dull.
Aside from awesome infectious grooves and saxophone flame throwing, it is pretty difficult to predict exactly what each song will contain. The breadth and depth of influences that these bands have assimilated is stunning, as is the degree to which many of them have succeeded in avoiding clumsiness or overt slavishness. Obviously, the influence of other African bands looms large, but there are also clear nods to practically everything else that was happening musically on earth: Latin percussion and fiery trumpets, ska-influenced horn hooks, jazz shredding, psych organs, funk bass and wah-wahed guitars, blues and classic rock guitar soloing, and on and on. The unpredictability sometimes extends to other bizarre extremes as well, as there is no shortage of feral gibbering, enthusiastic animal impressions, and odd boinging noises on this album. I suspect that there must have been a thriving drug culture in Ghana in the '70s, or at least some sort of psychotropic contamination in the water supply.
This is a thoroughly wild and memorable compilation, though I would probably only classify a handful of songs as "essential," as even the songs that don't quite hit the mark are raucous, crazy, fun, and inventive to a rarely seen degree. With very few exceptions, these guys came to tear the roof off the place—the world wasn't listening, so pretty much anything was acceptable. Miles Cleret has done an amazing job with this one, both as a curator and a producer—eveything sounds great. Ghana Special is one of the best things that Soundway has released to date and that is no small praise. (Both the CD version and the 5LP (!) boxed set come with a 44-page booklet containing rare photos and a history of Ghanaian music).
Samples:
- Vis a Vis - Obi Agye Me Dofo
- Christy Azuma & Uppers International - Din Ya Sugri
- K. Frimpong & His Cubanos Fiestas - Kyenkyen Bi Adi M'Awu
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My first time hearing Akron/Family was at one of their concerts which meant that when I got around to hearing their debut album I found that they had held back a lot on that record (due to them having to record those songs in their apartment leading to volume restrictions). Meek Warrior shows a little more of the Akron/Family that captured my attention live.
The opening song, “Blessing Force,” starts with an infectious drum beat being belted out with gusto. The band chop and change style and direction all over the place with the volume well and truly turned up. “The Rider (Dolphin Song)” is another up tempo and noisy jam that is probably the best thing Akron/Family have put out on CD so far. It sounds a little cheesy at times but I think that adds to its charm.
A good chunk of the album consists of the gentle country influenced songwriting that their debut showcased. However, I found the softer songs on Meek Warrior slightly less inviting than expected. They’re far from bad songs but after the excitement of the first track they seem a little safe. However a couple of them stand out as being treasures like the title track which sounds like it was recorded on a sunny beach along the Mediterranean, the clapping and joyous rhythm brings a smile to my face each time I hear the song. The closing song “Love and Space” is also worth mentioning which is a perfect way to end an album. The primarily vocal-led song again captures a lot of warmth and shiny feelings but doesn’t become a schmaltzy campfire sing- along.
The album is definitely a slow burner but thanks to it being quite short, giving it multiple listens doesn’t take too long. At 35 minutes it ends almost before it begins, it seems especially short due to two of the tracks taking up nearly half the running time. Apart from its brevity, Meek Warrior is another delightful album from Akron/Family. It is a natural progression for them but hopefully their next release will be both louder and longer.
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The second album from South London’s Archie Bronson Outfit finds the trio firing on all cylinders, incorporating the influence of American blues and roots alongside their angular guitars and propulsive rhythms for a collection of rousing stomps.
It’s no surprise that the material was recorded in Nashville, not because the album contains any recording signatures from the area, but rather because the songwriting evidences a genuine respect for Americana. Even as they ramp up the rhythm on a disco-heavy track like "Dead Funny," a deep blues still informs the backbone of the song. The guitars are loud and distorted all over this album, but the group wields them with deft control to build excitement and drama as effectively as possible.
For the most part, their efforts pay off. There’s a nice flow to the album that engages as it proceeds, and the transitions are pretty seamless. Sam Windett infuses his vocals with a world-weariness that sticks out from others who sing in that style because of the strength of the somewhat surrealistic lyrics that are actually written by drummer Arp Cleveland. One of the nice extra touches are the horns brought in on a few of the songs: something I wouldn’t mind hearing more of in the future because of the chaotic element they bring to these tightly-wound compositions. The only real misstep I found was the closing "Harp for My Sweetheart," which is basically an acoustic version of the far superior "Dart for My Sweetheart" found earlier on the album. It’s not bad in and of itself, but would have worked better as a B-side since it sticks out so much here. The rest of the album is a fun, spirited romp deserving many repeated listens.
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