[0]I’ve occasionally heard it mooted by unenlightened acquaintances—good citizens all, make no mistake—that the general soundtrack ‘round Deep Water Acres seems inordinately focused on things any “normal” person would find difficult to stomach, listening-pleasure-wise. Leaving aside for now the question of why anyone would want to try to digest most of what constitutes mainstream popular culture at the moment, such assertions still remain hard to credit.
In fact, I’ve really got a fair sweet tooth for the sounds of pure pop confection, especially within the tradition of song-creation traceable back to the first flowering of self-conscious rock music in the 1960s, and that, if you know where to look, flourishes to this day (though often safely out of the harsh public eye). Things like a focus on melody and arrangement, experimentation within structure, a sense of balance and proportion, a spirit of play… if I mention the Beatles as a kind of ur-text for what I’m talking about here you can probably get the picture, though of course that model has been remade variously since their time.
I will admit to being kind of picky about the style. At this point it’s pretty clearly a “classical” form, and so it necessarily brings with it whole sets of boundaries and restrictions and formal requirements that can make it a tricky act to properly magick. Too much adherence to formula = yawn; while forced attempts to discombobulate that formula can end up arch and mannered and not much fun. On the other hand, built right into the original psychedelic pop of the 1960s was a certain impetus to screw with the structure even as one was creating it, at the time especially (given the proclivities of the makers, y’know) through the use of wild effects and structural surprises – Syd Barrett becomes as much a part of the gene pool as the Fabs – which potential is part of what gives the genre its staying power. And one cool thing from our own historical vantage point is that a variety of possibilities and permutations have been created down the years, and today it’s not really necessary anymore to be solely committed to any one of them; in fact it might be more fun to play them off one another and see what happens.
Take for instance The Vanishing Act, a solo CD by Oyvind Holm of Norway’s Dipsomaniacs (purveyors of excellent psych-pop since the late 1990s), released last year on the Australian Camera Obscura [1] label (and pictured up at the top of this column). As they developed from lower-fi origins the group became more and more astute at extracting various strains of sike-song, with the spirit of Beatle John hovering above and guiding the process, and brewing them together into a uniquely flavored beverage perfect for sunny days both summer and winter. For the uninitiated, I might suggest 2003’s Stethoscopic Notion (also on CO) as the perfect starting point, balancing as it does pure pop moves with a plethora of wiggly effects and perfectly incense-scented arrangements, reading Revolver and the Byrds via the Soft Boys’ post-punk edginess. The Vanishing Act however sees Holm working mostly on his own, in a return to the earliest Dipsos m.o., but with quite different and more sonically evolved results. More than anything else in terms of current contenders this makes me think of the Shins – uptempo songs with 60s roots, new wave twiddles, and indie-rock chunkiness. And like that group, this hit me at first as a little too smoothly together, undeniably well recorded and excellently arranged, but perhaps wanting a little more edge to keep one on the line. It’s subversively sneaky though in both music and lyrics, and what seem initially like relatively small hooks develop on repeated listens into pleasantly ensnaring knots that draw the listener in deeper and deeper. Lennon still looms: the swinging “Wait My Time Away” kicks off with a backbeat right from “I’m Only Sleeping”, while “(A Good Taste of) Everything” is a midtempo piano-driven number that could have come right off the White Album. But with its layered arrangements and smooth vocal harmonies, the other operative period reference on Vanishing Act could even be a particularly wry take on the Monkees (of all things) – check for instance the sly “Neighborhood Watch Patrol”, which sonically invokes one of Nesmith’s delightful almost-country numbers, but with lyrics a darker modern update on the social conformity of “Pleasant Valley Sunday” – in the process, taking the paradigmatic example of “inauthentic” pop and turning it into a genuinely personal expression (all part of that subversive thing I mentioned before, remember?). Not that Mr. Holm was necessarily pondering these issues in his creation of the album; pop being largely about pleasure, I’m guessing he was probably focusing toward making the smartest and best sounding album he could. But he still does it, that’s just where his sensibilities lead his creativity, and that raises the album well above most similarly-constituted examples. It’s a pretty swell place to end up if you’re so inclined.
[1]
Heading south across Europe we meet up again with Italian acid-pop freaksters Jennifer Gentle, and their first US release, Valende, out last year on the venerable and resurgent Sub Pop [2] label. The band made a bit of a splash in the tuned-in community with a pair of self-released albums a few years back, later compiled by Aussie label Lexicon Devil into a double CD titled Ectoplasmic Garden Party, which title gives some inkling of the group’s mixture of the quaint and the otherworldly. Similarly, while the Barrett reference in the band name provided some idea where their roots lay, there was no way to prepare oneself for a cranium-frying assault that sounded like early Pink Floyd on a forced run thorough the loony-bin chemical funhouse of mid-80s Butthole Surfers, the second album especially combining sick extremes of sing-along music-hall pop and screaming mental damage, disturbingly twee melodies sung in pitch-altered voices while guitars and rhythm section imitated a lurching merry-go-round that periodically levitated into aggressively spaced psychedelic improvisations (their authentic ability at the latter testified to by a between-albums release of jams with Acid Mothers Temple guru Kawabata Makoto). Valende finds the group scaled down from its prior quartet monster, working as a duo of Alessio on percussion and singer/guitarist/songwriter Marco on most things else. At first the full-band firepower is somewhat missed; opening and closing sections of the album come off as sketches for the unholy mind-destruction of the past, more stripped down musically and with psychic extremes more implied than eruptive. Nicely twisted; but nice isn’t necessarily what makes this band special. Now, the middle section of the disc, on the other hand, features a suite of pieces that branch out into some genuinely new territory for the group, recasting noisy extremity as a floating folked-out spaciousness that surprisingly handles all comers in that genre while still sounding every bit JG. “Circles of Sorrow” is all candle-lit folk-psychedelia, with added cello, recorder, and ghostly sound effects, and on the other end of the arc sits its partner “Golden Drawings”, gorgeously elliptical melodies stretched and time extended rather than packed into an explosive rock setting; in between we find two halves of a vaguely creepy piece of falsetto faery conjuring called “The Garden” bookeding an expansive stretch of layered free improvisation titled “Hessesopoa” that, depending on your mood, could sound like anything from a peak experience to a load of gear being quite creatively hurled down a flight of stairs (ideally both at once, probably). This particular 25 minutes of music is as good as anything I’ve heard in the style lately, and makes a case for Jennifer Gentle as a potentially significant force in the whole neo-avant-whatever-folk arena. Overall I guess Valende ends up feeling like something of a transitional album for the group, which in no way means it’s insignificant, and I’m guessing it’ll be pretty fascinating to see where these characters head next.
Also setting up a new home at Sub Pop is San Francisco-based Kelley Stoltz, whose last proper album, 2003’s Antique Glow, deservingly garnered him a fanbase stretching well beyond the narrow enclaves of anything “underground” (and a bit of the sour-grapes backlash that would expectedly go with such a development). After an initial self-release on LP, Glow was released on CD a couple of times in the US and UK, and it got Stoltz branded as a lo-fi pop-psych troubadour with elements of Barrett, Ray Davies, and Nick Drake in his musical DNA, though bred within a more contemporary home-recorded sensibility. Stoltz wasn’t quite so easily pegged though, and his next release was Crockodials, a full-length cover of the classic 1980 debut album by Echo and the Bunnymen reimagined as chunky 60s garage psych (which, if one considers that the “hot” “alternative” sound of 2004 involved semi-cooked simplified “updates” of post-punk models like Gang of Four and Joy Division, was a pretty darned funny thing to do). The new Sub Pop disc Below the Branches finds our protagonist in a larger studio, but still holds on to some of the engagingly ragged edges of its predecessor, probably in part due to the fact that Stoltz still handles most of the instrumental chores (though the list of guesting friends is a bit longer than before). Most tracks are based around acoustic guitar, with deceptively straightforward rock arrangements grounded in a nicely understated and proportional use of the possibilities of layering. Anglophilia is still the rule, but whereas Glow was clearly a scruffy 60s-based trip, Branches touches down in a less-visited area of the psychedelic heritage and one deserving of a lot more respect than it’s usually accorded, that of the melodic end of early-1970s post-psych territory. The references are worn boldly and proudly right out of the gate, the stomping beat and pounding keys of “Wave Goodbye” like some lost early Eno pounder on a good-times bender. “Words” on the other hand is a lovely rolling thing that, with its lilting melody, high fragile vocal, and supple guitar/keyboard flow, evokes those gentle psychedelic numbers that colored early Caravan albums. “Mystery” references the ghostly droning nostalgia of John Cale’s Paris 1919, while “Memory Collector” and “Prank Calls” with their swinging backbeats, warbling vocals, and domestic lyrical irony could have sat comfortably (right up at the bar with the rest of the group, having a pint of bitter) on the Kinks’ quite different but equally nostalgic Muswell Hillbillies. There are some sneakier curveballs – “Birdies Singing” could be Mike Cooper jamming with the Velvets (I’d sure like to hear those rumored Machine Gun Co. tapes from 1971) – but the obvious touchstones aren’t forgotten, though even they fit with the period feel: Rather than a Beatles rip, “The Sun Comes Through” has a Plastic Ono Band stomp with a bit of tape foolery right in character; and even the obvious Beach Boys nods are a couple of steps removed, “Ever Thought of Coming Back” in particular sounding like late-period Move doing a Beach Boys thing (which makes this a reference to a reference I guess; ow too postmodern my head hurts), though “Winter Girl” could have sat comfortably on Sunflower or Surf’s Up. Given all of these references, it’s pretty clear Stoltz is going for a kind of pastiche here – recreating a period vibe that probably only exists as such in his own cultural imaginary, and that thus allowing for his own personal stamp on all the elements – and it’s a good one, managing a guidedly eclectic breadth while staying totally on purpose; lacking maybe the twisting bite that makes similarly-conceptualized pastiches like Brother JT’s Rainy Day Fun such perennial winners, but with a subtle and thoughtful irony all its own. To some extent your mileage might vary based on your liking for the elements pastiched, but if you’re not too wrapped up in whatever else you’re wrapped up in these days there are some seriously enjoyable pleasures on hand here.
[2]
Leaping in a single pop bound across the continent, we find the latest CD by North Carolina’s Kingsbury Manx, The Fast Rise and Fall of the South (released late last year on Yep Roc [3] records), which is especially enthralling due to its focus and grace rather than its eclecticism. Initially garnering praise with their self-titled first album back in 2000 as a sort of folkier cousin to the spacy indie-pop style practiced by the American Analog Set, even then it was clear that KM (hmm, nice initials…) wanted to reach a bit deeper, with loving bits of Pink Floyd and the Beach Boys incorporated into the mix. It seemed like they weren’t quite sure yet how to incorporate their spaciness and their pop influences though, and the next couple of releases found the band working through various indie and otherwise permutations of their folk-rock base – not least of which some of that iconic 80s post-new wave strum’n’jangle historically associated with their own neck of the woods (any Let’s Active fans out there?). Fast Rise and Fall… sees everything come together on a new level, and represents in both concept and execution a major leap forward for the group into a perfectly autumnal classique moderne sound, detailed and organic live-band-plus-decoration arrangements that perfectly fit the songs they surround like the rich smell of leaves complementing the bare branches pictured in the gorgeously apposite cover paintings. Comparisons are there if you want to look for them, but the album succeeds completely on its own subtle merits, with a consistency of tone and atmosphere creating a nearly suite-like flow through various strands of melodic folk-rock and roostsish psychedelia; in fact, if there’s any consistent reference point throughout it would be the Kinks’ 1968 touchstone Village Green Preservation Society with its already-timeless mood of nostalgia and lyrical thematic currents. Musically, the album incorporates waltz-time and other odd tempos, folkish acoustic guitars and piano, smart allusive/elusive lyrics, strummy uptempo gallops, melodic hooks that sink in instantly but still sneak up days later, full rich harmonies, vintage instrumentation of various and sometimes surprising sorts – the combination of banjo and mellotron on “Animations” makes such perfect sense you wonder why it’s not used more often – and even occasional upward flights into psychedelic storms on the likes of the rocking “10008”, the droning “Nova”, and the album-closing “Ol’ Mountainsides” with its atonal guitar solo licking the sky like a barn fire on the ridge before gradually subsiding into a smoking mound of coals. This type of creative pop traditionalism may not be the most fashionable thing in this time of avant-hootenanny-free-freakout-power-doom whateveritis – interestingly, in much the same way that Village Green stood off to the side from the patchouli hordes of 1968 – but to be honest I’ve gotten a good deal more honest mileage out of this album than a lot of items with higher hip-o-meter readings. “Honest” is a good word I think; this is a genuinely open-hearted album that in spite of its melancholy tone projects nothing but positive energy into the world.
[3]
Finally, a few words about a disc that’s just recently crossed the psychedelic editorial desk here at Deep Water Acres, a 23-minute CD-R e.p. by Portland, Maine’s curiously named Phantom Buffalo (released by the most excellent Time-Lag Records [4] from that same fine city), with the hard-to-dispute title Killing’s Not OK. Actually, I have a couple of previous Time-Lag releases by these guys when they used the rather more prosaic animal monicker the Ponys, but apparently some name confusion led to the alteration. I’m not sure the new one isn’t a more representative fit though, hinting at an oddball naturalistic slant as seen through a screen of awkwardness. These 5 tracks were supposedly recorded in a single afternoon, and indeed show a straightforward live sound, and with the group’s increasingly confident playing that’s a good way to get a feel for their particular "thing" if you’re not previously familiar. While parts are decidedly psychedelic in intent, overall the songwriting style remains grounded more in indie-pop and new wave models, with occasionally some of the “quirkiness” (not a word I usually like to have to use) that implies. A couple of tracks even have a kind of twitchy energy that, coupled with the tenor vocals, brings to mind either early Talking Heads or, say, the Olivia Tremor Control. And in fact, if you can imagine the better aspects of those late-90s Elephant 6 groups getting together with David Byrne to drink lots of cappuccinos and discuss how to update classic psych-pop models for a nervous new era of semi-sideways ironic potential sincerity, then you’ve probably had too much coffee to drink yourself and need to take a breather, man. Go have a smoke or something to take the edge off. Oh, and special note really needs to be made of the lovely packaging on this one. Time-Lag generally specializes in the fine object creation – PB’s first album was released as double-LP gatefold with the marvelously cartoony band-created collaborative drawings covering most surfaces. This of course isn’t quite that elaborate, but is packaged in a slightly oversized black cardstock sleeve with more of that trippy artwork scrolling down across it like some lost Avalon Ballroom concert poster; really nice to get lost in; I only wish it was larger…
So if it’s cool with you, I think I’m gonna wrap up there for now. I want to be careful so’s I don’t overextend my pop sweet tooth’s sensitivity – would hate to end up with any musical cavities that might require a sonic root canal, y’know? But other suggestions for fine current psych-pop are more than welcome, please feel free to add yr own comments (one of the nifty benefits of this whole online thingamabob)… And let’s do this again sometime, eh?
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