ALBUM REVIEW: RED HANDS BLACK FEET – WE MUST FALL FOREVER IF WE SURVIVE

Red Hands Black Feet We Must Fall Forever if We Survive
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RED HANDS BLACK FEET - WE MUST FALL FOREVER IF WE SURVIVE band promo pic

Post-rock quartet Red Hands Black Feet from Boise, ID

Is it about the journey or the destination?  If I had to count on my fingers how many times I have had this age old debate I would need another set of hands.  Whether between bandmates while stranded with an overheated van in the middle of Washington or with friends at a casual get together, this argument always tends to find it’s way back into the discussion.  I’ve personally decided that it’s relative.  And yes, my conclusion is technically a destination that required a journey through thought which once again begs the question, which was more important?

Thankfully, Boise’s Red Hands Black Feet has written and released a new album that is all about the journey.  We Must Fall Forever If We Survive is the band’s second release and while the album is entirely instrumental, the underlying concept based around a space traveler’s struggle to stay adrift or return home adds a dimension that requires exploration.  Like well constructed chapter titles, each song title provides a starting point for listeners to delve into their own imagination and explore Red Hands Black Feet’s musical journey.

RED HANDS BLACK FEET - WE MUST FALL FOREVER IF WE SURVIVE live

“I Leave You And The Earth Behind” kicks of the record and moves from quiet, well thought out ambience into heavily fuzzed out, rolling ambience that masterfully prepares you for the rest of the album.  After coming to understand the concept behind this album, one can’t help but begin to explore their own imagination as soft and subtle guitar work drifts passed you.  The song continues to build very patiently before launching into an all out overdriven blitz that resolves the song beautifully.

“If I Let The Void In…” rolls in quickly with up tempo toms and aggressive guitars that eventually drop off into a bass driven, clean guitar groove.  Steady, systematic drumming carries this song until the tempo begins to wane and break into a more experimental section.  “If I Let The Void In…” has a very contemplative, questioning vibe that fits it’s title very well.

Red Hands Black Feet quickly answer their own question with the third song on their album, “…It Will Set Me Free“.  Beginning with repetitive clean guitars supported by swells and cymbal rolls, the answer is revealed as a very solemn realization.  Maintaining patience and precision, Red Hands Black Feet show their song writing strength as they ebb and flow through emotionally driven pushes and pulls.

RED HANDS BLACK FEET - WE MUST FALL FOREVER IF WE SURVIVE live grainy

“It Is Lonely In The Universe” is the longest track on the album and is therefore offered the time and space to explore.  Once again staying true to their song titles, Red Hands Black Feet beautifully craft a soundtrack to aid your imagination in pondering the vastness of space.  Dynamics are explored to their fullest from gentle clean sections to soaring heavy resolutions before the song finally ends with the heart-like beat of the kick drum.

Red Hands Black Feet conclude their sophomore album with “Here We Make Our Stand“.  Entering with driven guitars and heavy, half-time drumming, the song screams defiance and strength.  Like most of the tracks on this album, the finale moves in and out of tonal spaces to add great dynamics to the overall recording.  The expertise and obvious care that was put into writing this album should be evident to even the casual listener.

Red Hands Black Feet have been working through their musical journey for a handful of years now and have truly put together a fantastic album in We Must Fall Forever If We Survive.  I have a deep appreciation for bands who choose to tell a story with their craft, both through their music and the way in which they stitch their songs together to form a congruent and thoughtful album.  Sometimes music is a great way to turn off, but there are other times where turning your imagination on and exploring the musical journey can be utterly fulfilling.

C.J. Blessum

Live Review: Ash Grunwald at Meow, Wellington

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Ash Grunwald

Meow, Wellington

Saturday 28 December 2015

Blues rocker Ash Grunwald started the night off with a trifecta of songs about surfing. All three were ridiculously funny, especially “Dolphin Song” – based on a true story of a pod of dolphins rescuing him from a shark. The song ended with Grunwald making absurd squeaky dolphin noises into the microphone over the top of his guitar solo which lightened up the mood of the venue.

The first song had been relatively calm, reflecting the dinner table environment that Meow had put on. But a few songs in Grunwald couldn’t help but let loose with some roaring blues numbers. Out came the resonator guitar and the slide, and there was little holding back from then on.

Ash Grunwald Meow

It was a joy to watch him wailing and stomping and letting rip on the guitar. The tunes were infectious and before long most of the people in the bar were on their feet and moving. Grunwald’s didn’t take himself too seriously, cracking jokes and making silly impersonations in the middle of songs. He was clearly having fun on stage, and projected his humour onto his audience.

I expected a small setup from a man playing a solo show, but in reality it looked like he was piloting the Starship Enterprise. Grunwald was perched atop a red stool, with an impressively large array of effects pedal to his left, two microphones in front of him, and something called a foot drum at his feet. This foot drum was ingenious. It somehow housed cymbals, a snare, egg shakers, a tambourine and a bass drum – all playable through the use of pedals. It offered more dynamics than a standard stompbox and really enhanced the overall sound. The two different microphones also helped to mix up the sound, with one having plenty of reverb and effects going through it.

Grunwald played a range of songs from his repertoire, old and new. There was no prepared setlist, he just picked songs which suited the mood. He took requests from the audience, and also played a variety of covers drawing from blues legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Son House and Howling Wolf, as well as Van Morrison and Gnarls Barkley.

Two highlights included acapella covers of “Grinnin In Your Face” and “John the Revelator”. Grunwald ditched his guitar and bellowed the songs with his powerful voice, clapping to keep the beat. For the latter song he ventured into the audience and encouraged everyone to clap and wail along.

It was a fun time. Grunwald was at home on the stage, fueled by espresso martinis and improvising as he went.  He announced his last song after having played for an hour and a half, only to have to extend his set at the request of his audience – not that he seemed to mind. Some audience members thought highly enough to each tip him $20 for his performance, despite his protests that they should at least take a CD in exchange for their money. And is there a better indicator of great show than people insistent on paying more than the price of admission to attend?

Joseph James

You can also read my interview with Ash Grunwald from a few weeks ago here.

 

LIVE REVIEW: THE MENZINGERS AND MEWITHOUTYOU AT NEUMOS, SEATTLE

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The Menzingers (Scranton, PA, USA)
mewithoutYou (Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Pianos Become The Teeth (Baltimore, MD, USA)
Restorations (Philadelphia, PA, USA)

Neumos, Seattle, WA, USA
Saturday November 14th, 2015

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It had been a very long time since my last live show experience.  I’ve been to plenty of local shows over the past few years but I’m not even sure I can recall the last time I attended a live show where the sound check happened before the doors opened, people were actually at the venue on time, and the first band actually took the stage precisely at the time stated on the flier.  I’m sure very few paid attention to these details.  But for me, being reminded how professional bands operate at professionally run venues, like Neumos, was a breath of fresh air.  Obviously, I need to get out more.

Typically, the reason you attend a show and subsequently write a live review is to highlight the headliner, or in this case, the headliners.  And while The Menzingers and mewithoutYou put on a great show, I didn’t necessarily find anything too remarkable about their sets.  Honestly, this was my first experience with The Menzingers so, to be fair, I can’t really say much about them as I know very little about them (shame on me, I know).  As I like to say, “they were fine”, meaning they did their thing and people enjoyed it and I appreciated what they did.  Enough said.

mewithoutYou on Audiotree Live

mewithoutYou has always been one of my favorite bands.  They are fantastic at writing catchy music that is capable of hitting the heart strings of whatever emotion you’re in the mood to meddle with.  Ever since [A->B] Life came out in 2002 I’ve been quite comfortable keeping their music in my arsenal.  Frontman Aaron Weiss has a unique lyrical style that absolutely works for me.  While others may struggle digesting his lyrics, I am continually impressed with anyone that can work “pumpernickel bread” into their writing.

Restorations opened the night and did a great job setting the vibe for the evening.  I hadn’t really heard much from these guys prior to the show but they are definitely headed in the right direction.  Their stage presence was enjoyable to watch and kept a newbie, like me, entranced for their full set.  Like Restorations, mewithoutYou and The Menzingers held the attention of the venue for the entirety of their sets and I would definitely see them again.

This brings me to Pianos Become The Teeth.  While I had every intention of writing this review on mewithoutYou, it was Pianos Become The Teeth that absolutely stole the show for me.  And it was absolutely for reasons I did not expect.

Pianos Become The Teeth live @ The Underworld, London

Like most bands I come to discover, Pianos Become The Teeth have been around for a while.  They formed in 2006 and have honed their sound over the past nine years moving from an aggressive, post-hardcore band to masters of gloomy, emotionally packed, post-rock.  For those of you who have yet to indulge in their newest record, Keep You, I highly recommend you do so.  If you need an enticing comparison, this album is very reminiscent of Oceana’s Clean Head from 2010.

While the other three bands put on visually stimulating performances, Pianos Become The Teeth struck me in a different way.  I was lucky enough to get to the venue early enough to grab one of the few spots on the balcony that gave me a great view of both the band and the crowd.  Pianos Become The Teeth were steady, energetic at times, but the way they moved the crowd was absolutely stunning.  The movement I witnessed was not physical by any means.  In fact, the crowd was absolutely motionless, aside from a bit of head-banging here and there.  Being fairly in tune with my mushy side, the emotional grip that pushed and pulled throughout the crowd was mesmerizing.

I think I spent most of my time watching one specific kid in the crowd.  By appearance alone, he was completely out of place.  If I would have seen him walking on the street prior to the show there was no way I would have thought he and I were headed to the same destination.  But this kid knew absolutely every word to absolutely every song Pianos Become The Teeth played.

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Pianos Become The Teeth from the balcony @ Neumos

For those who are familiar with frontman Kyle Durfey’s lyrics, you know they are very sad and tend to center around the loss of his father in 2010.  Like many lyricists, Durfey’s lyrics are dark and contemplative.  But unlike some, Durfey is surrounded by an exceptional band that is able to add deep dimension to his words.  The coupling of his lyrics with the desolate tones of his band’s music is nearly heartbreaking.  To me, it’s the cohesion of these two elements that make my eyes well up with tears and send chills down my arms.  I’m sure we all experience these phenomenons in our own way, but experiencing Pianos Become The Teeth live was the pinnacle of emotional overflow for me.

The kid three rows back, belting Durfey’s lyrics will forever be seared into my musical memories.  It was a profoundly powerful moment for me.  It left me wondering how this out of place kid related to Durfey’s lyrics.  What was it that moved him by this band.  Being witness to the connection between the writer and the listener added a totally new experience for me.  Usually you only get to see the back of everyone’s head at a show, but my balcony vantage point let me see things in a new light.  It was truly an honor for me to be in the same place at the same time with five guys in a band, the kid in the third row, a few friends, and a room full of strangers.

C.J. Blessum

 

 

Interview: Ash Grunwald

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Ash Grunwald answers the phone and then breaks off to yell to his young daughter to go see her mum.

“Sorry bro” he apologises.”I just saw a snake in the garden, and I wanted to make sure my little girl was safe.’

Living in Byron Bay, Australia, brushes with snakes and spiders are pretty common, he tells me.

“I’m pretty desensitised to spiders. I’m not even scared anymore. I used to be a bit. But snakes I don’t like. Here we have ’em all. We have all the venomous ones because where I live is sort of sub-tropical. We have the big pythons and everything. But the pythons are cool.

“Like I was having a shower – we have this outdoor shower. I looked up and basically next to me was this three metre python, just hanging. I was like ‘…oh. How’re ya goin?’ They’re absolutely harmless. Well… not absolutely harmless. They are harmless, but you don’t want them to bite you. They really hurt if they bite. And they’ll strike you like a machine gun – they just keep biting. You can get big scars and stuff like that. So you’re not going to just go pick one up, of course.”

Chatting with Grunwald is entertaining. He’s laid back and forthcoming. I observe that Byron Bay, with its annual Bluesfest, is a natural fit for a man who is known for his own swampy, blues-inspired music.

“Bluesfest was my ultimate,” he agrees, “I’ve probably played it three or four times. I’m from Melbourne originally – nice culture, shit weather. I’d come up to Byron and be like ‘This is paradise!’ I’ve got a family now. We’re about 20 minutes out, near the beach. It’s a nice little compromise. It’s not too busy and [you’ve] still got access to all those things that you love about it. It’s pretty alternative, and it’s an idyllic location. I probably did 20 laps of Australia [on tour] before I made my decision, after about seven or eight years on the road.”

Grunwald is committed to his local community, recently getting up-in-arms about coal seam gas mining in and around Australia. He has been pressuring banks to divest from mining companies because of the environmental damage that they are causing. It’s a clear theme in his latest album, so I ask him to elaborate on his views.

“For the last album there was a strong message very much influenced by my work trying to stop coal seam gas mining from coming into my area here, and also going to the front line, where they’ve already got it up in Queensland. The lessons that I’ve learnt in that are just passed on in the songs.

“In another interview I was asked about a song titled ‘The Worst Crimes Are Legal’, and I really do stick by that. I’ve done a lot of travelling in the third world and people say ‘oh, it’s so corrupt!’, but the only difference with the corruption is that it’s not legal, and it doesn’t have a lot of papers that need to be filled out in triplicate. But it’s almost, in a sense, more honest. There are many systems set up to benefit multinational companies, to benefit the rich more than the poor. It’s not a fair system.

“We’re all cynical now. For me to say these things, it’s no big deal. Often the sentiment is ‘yeah, we all know that. Get over it. Stop talking about it’. But if we talk about it, we might be able to change it…

“We’ve got farmers committing suicide over here. Because they get bullied by these gas companies. They feel guilty too, because they’ve had these farms for generations.  This is the first time in hundreds of years that the farmers know how the elders feel. We had elders at these rallies, now holding hands with farmers, and they’ve never been buddies really. Now they’re in the same position. Now the farmers know what the indigenous people feel like, because they’re experiencing this second takeover.

“These dudes [Gas mining companies] are getting plucky. That’s the thing that really got me off my arse. Early on it would have been in some regional town, away from where people can see. But now they’ll try for the middle of Sydney and crazy stuff. They were trying to get licences for right in the middle of Sydney, right near the water supply.

“Here in the Northern Rivers area we actually had a win. We never thought we would, but we actually managed to keep them away. They’ve left – poor corporates, they’ve been paid to leave by the council – but at least they’re gone. So it can happen! Things can be done if people do try.

“A lot of people don’t even listen to lyrics. You want it to work on a musical level perfectly, without any compromise, and then still have a message.”

“You want it to work on a musical level perfectly, without any compromise, and then still have a message.”

When I ask Grunwald to describe his sound, he calls it “an original take, roughly in the region of the blues genre. So it’s modern blues. Sometimes it sounds like blues rock – but not always. Sometimes it sounds like delta blues. . . and sometimes it doesn’t sound anything like blues, but often it’s in that rough region – it’s just a different take on it. And it’s my hope – and it’s up to others to say whether I’ve achieved this or not – my aim is to bring a freshness to the genre. Looking at it afresh and taking it in different directions. Almost going backwards, to the early stuff, to bring it forwards past what people normally think of the blues.”

One way that Ash brings this freshness to the genre is to use less standard instruments. For example, his recent albums eschew the use of electric bass guitar, with  the most recent album, NOW, featuring Ian Perez from Wolfmother using synths to record bass parts, and the album before that featured Scott Owen from the Living End on the acoustic double bass. Grunwald also has a tradition of using weird and creative percussion instead of drums, in the vein of Tom Waits.

“My thoughts on bass is the same as my thoughts on the drum kit” he tells me. “I have conventional drums on those last two albums, but before that I hardly ever had a conventional, straight-down-the-line drum kit.

“Straight-down-the-line drums and normal bass… I’m not really that into. There’s got to be a really good player playing it, or there’s got to be some reason. And if you want to do rocky things, OK, use the kit, use the right tools for the right job. But I love Tom Waits albums where it’s all a little bit different, you know? I don’t think that there’s any point doing things just exactly the same as things we’ve seen a million times before.”

So in order to mix it up and escape from a generic sound, Grunwald tries new things.

“Way back in the day I was getting pots and pans and hitting car doors with a hammer, and just weird things, just anything to break up that same old kit. It’s the same with the bass. If I’d gone and done a psychedelic rock album with the same old drums and bass it would have been too normal. I want to do something that sounds different and bring something new to the table.”

“And as it worked out with that synth bass, moog synth – beautiful warm analogue – it’s way bassier than you can get with a bass guitar. And different attack. A finger on a string is an amazing kind of attack for a bass note, that’s fantastic. But a key from a keyboard is a different matter. So you can have things that go [hums a fast, concise bass line] and it’s really precise, and really, hugely fat. And the fatness isn’t affected by amps, and strings and magnetic pickups, and all those acoustic factors. But still, a warm analogue synth can be impossibly fast. That’s what I like about the synth bass.

“I did one album where I built a cheapie drum kit and detuned it all. And then I just started grabbing bits of metal. And spanners, and pots and pans, and chains… and I just gaffer taped them all to the kit. And when I was overdubbing I would play on this junkyard kit. It was pretty out there. But what I did for years was having a guy play a car door with a hammer. That was pretty out there too.

“The first influence was Tom Waits, who pioneered that kind of thing. After that I went deeper and I went back and listened to a whole lot of field hollers. You know, the black slaves in America working in chain gangs and the only percussion is their tools hitting the earth, or hitting the trees or whatever. It’s almost my favourite genre of music, those work songs. So that influence comes into a lot of my songs over the years. I don’t think I’ve done an album for a very long time where there wasn’t some sort of junk percussion on something.”

Despite having nine studio albums, and numerous awards, I’d hazard a guess that the name Ash Grunwald isn’t that familiar to most New Zealanders. But most of will us have heard his song, “Walking”. Grunwald laughs when I suggest that he may be best known on this side of the Tasman as “the guy from the New World ad”.

“Well I hope I do get that, in a way, because it gets the music out there. They had to use somebody’s track, and I’m glad they used mine. We all go shopping. That song has been so good to me, because it was in a Hollywood movie called Limitless, which was Bradly Cooper and Robert De Niro. Bradly Cooper took this drug which gave him limitless mental faculty. And I was mega-stoked, because when he took the drug they put ‘Walking’ on turned up really loud, and put it in a montage scene. It was mastered really loud, and featured quite a bit in the movie, which was epic! That’s probably why I got that New World ad.

“It was good. It got it out there. I know there’s purists, guys like Tom Waits who would never want his music used for any product. And I’d love to be that much of a purist, but I don’t feel like in the standing of music, that I’m in a position to not appreciate the publicity from it. People are hearing my song, and I do appreciate that.”

Grunwald has covered some Tom Waits songs, and one of his biggest hits was a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’. I ask him to explain his process for choosing songs to cover.

“It’s got to be something you love – it’s a no-brainer if it’s an old blues song. You can bring it to people who haven’t heard it before, and that’s all cool. And when you pick something like a Gnarls Barkley song – I picked ‘Crazy’ – it’s gotta be interesting, quirky.

“‘Crazy’ was funny because it’s huge – everybody knows the song. It was a motivation to think that here’s a huge song that everybody knows, but it’s very soulful and right down my alley. And there’s another song I did on Trouble’s Door called ‘Sail’ by this band AWOL Nation. They’re so different to what I do, but that particular song has crossovers with what I do. So I thought it would be great. It’s like the old-school – someone brings out an album, and somebody else covers it straight away. It’s something that’s not very much done anymore, but it used to be done. I think its good to put an interesting spin on it. Hard to know – usually done on a case-by-case basis.”

I ask Grunwald about his past collaborations, and which people he would like to team up with in the future.

“I’d love to jam with Gary Clark Jr. Never say never in this industry. Never say it will happen, because there every chance it won’t. But never say it won’t happen, because sometimes it does. I’m going to do a recording. We have high hopes – and apparently quite realistic hopes – of getting Tony Joe White and Taj Mahal on the next album, which would be absolutely phenomenal for me. Tony Joe White is actually a huge hero of mine, and Taj Mahal is probably one of the most respected names in blues and roots music these days.

“And that came absolutely out of the blue. that had absolutely nothing to do with me. A producer from America contacted me and said ‘Come over. I’ll get you a flight. Come do an album’. … So weird things do happen at times!”

Grunwald mentions that he gets the chance to meet a lot of these legends in passing at Bluesfest.

“I met Tony Joe White about ten years ago and I frothed. I lost my mind. I thought it was really cool.”

I ask about how he manages to keep his head when has such a busy touring schedule. Initially, for his NZ tour, Grunwald had three gigs planned in a two day space. Now he has tacked a Raglan show onto the following day.

“Is playing Raglan a surf-motivated decision? Well, it doesn’t not factor in. I’m looking forward for going for a wave there, that’s for sure. The gig last time in Raglan was sick anyway so it’s motivation to go back.

“I like being busy. I really have burnt the candle at both ends this year. Part of me wants to slow down, but what opportunity do you decide to miss? That’s a tough one. But you’re not here for a long time, so it may as well be a good time and fit in as much as you can.”

And that’s Ash Grunwald, looking back into the past for inspiration, and then combining that inspiration with creativity to forge a new and original path ahead of him. Whether it’s working with different artists, trying odd instruments or playing in new places, Ash Grunwald is working hard to keep the blues genre fresh and inventive.

 

Joseph James

 

ASH GRUNWALD NEW ZEALAND GIGS:

Friday 27 November
BackBeat – Auckland
www.facebook.com/backbeatnz
1/100 Karangahape Road, Auckland
Tickets $20+ bf:
http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/tour/4966/Ash-Grunwald.utr
Doors open 8pm

Saturday 28 November
Blenheim Brews, Blues and BBQ (afternoon) with Salmonella Dub Sound System, the Nudge plus many more
For info & ticketing info go to http://www.bluesbrewsbbqs.co.nz

Saturday 28 November
Meow – Wellington (evening)
www.welovemeow.co.nz
9 Edward St, Te Aro, Wellington
Tickets $20 + bf:
http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/tour/4966/Ash-Grunwald.utr
Doors open 8pm

Sunday 29 November       
Yot Club  – Raglan
9 Bow St, Raglan
Tickets $10 from http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/ticket/4994/Ash-Grunwald.utr
Doors open 8pm

ASH GRUNWALD LINKS:
www.ashgrunwald.com
www.facebook.com/AshGrunwald
twitter.com/AshGrunwald
www.youtube.com/ashgrunwald
ashgrunwald.bandcamp.com

Album Review: SLVDR/MOMA SPLIT 7″

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The strength of a musical community runs only as deep as the dedication people have to support the music contained within it.  And no, I’m not talking about how many people go to your local show or how many likes you have on Facebook, I’m talking about the group of musicians and creative individuals who define your music scene.  The interconnectivity between bands and healthy competition that results in pushing each other’s limits is what makes a music scene great.  I think we all understand that something happened to live music when the internet killed the same video star that killed the radio star.  A lot of things have changed and perhaps made it harder to build a thriving local music scene in this day in age.  It’s really easy to complain about this and yearn for the “good old days”, but I think we also all realize that while technology may be removing some physical human interaction, the benefits or digital human interactions can lead to some great musical coalescence.

I’ve always wanted to start a small, independent record label.  And whenever I’ve felt inspired to do so I am quickly yanked back to reality by the consequences.  Small labels are all hard work with little to no monetary pay off.  We’ve all heard of crimes of passion, well, small record labels are definitely labors of passion.  It may even require some level of insanity to start your own small label.  But these labels are the ones who make life easier for those of us interested in finding new, underground music.  And when a few small labels join forces from separate areas of the world to bring bands together from opposite ends of the world, we get a remarkable split featuring Rio de Janeiro’s SLVDR and Japan’s MOMA.  The logistical feat in bringing these bands together is both commendable and a fantastic testament to the importance of connectivity and interaction in the musical world of the lesser known.

Released by Ohio labels Tightwolf Records and Delayed Gratification Records along with Norway’s Kakusan Records, this three song split is definitely worth listening to more than once.  We’ve all heard the old adage that music is the universal language.  If any actual language barrier exists its is quickly demolished by the musical work of SLVDR and MOMA.  Dubbed “post-math” by some, this roughly thirteen minute split moves very quickly.  I’m a fan of instrumental, post-rock music, but I tend to lean more towards the cinematic, drawn out styles as opposed to the quick-moving, math-centered instrumentals.  Because the word “math” is in the genre titled, I just assumed I would have to think too much, but both SLVDR and Moma do an impeccable job of luring you in and letting you lose yourself in the music.

Each record label has a unique vinyl color for the SLVDR/MOMA Spit 7

Each record label involved has their own unique vinyl color for the SLVDR/MOMA Split 7″

SLVDR kicks the record off with their song ‘Mike 80‘ and I was immediately impacted by the drumming prowess.  Being the foundation of essentially every musical endeavor, if the drums lack in discipline the result is a horrible recording.  I’ve engineered several recording sessions with a less than competent drummer, and you can immediately tell that the ship is set to sink when the drummer is unable to squeeze a fill in or is trying too hard to do as much as he can.  SLVDR does a lot in very small time frame, but they pull it off beautifully.  Being fairly new to this off shoot of the “post” movement there are several sections of drumming that I just haven’t heard before.  I’m not weathered or versed enough to call it innovative but it is absolutely impressive and is definitely the selling point for me and one of the reasons I decided to review this split.

Like the drums, the guitar bass work is exceptional.  The use of modulating effects is calculated and not over done and beautifully lends itself to filling out SLVDR’s sound which can be difficult to obtain as a three-piece.  I’m a sucker for hooks and the guitar work grabs me for the first time when the band goes heavier at about the 1:30 mark.  Overdriven and straight forward, the simplicity of this section stuck in the midst of ever changing and evolving lines is fantastic songwriting.  These guys are totally capable of filling up a full length with complex time and key changes but taking moments to simplify and grab the ear of the less math inclined enthusiast, like myself, is laudable.  Following a crescendo of gritty guitar and heavy drumming, SLVDR ends with a chaotic math infused outro that ends abruptly, giving way to the piano driven excellence of MOMA.

Japan’s MOMA catches you from the beginning with relaxing piano lines that carry and define their song writing.  Beneath the beauty of the piano lies a solid rhythm section that incorporates numerous time changes and complexities within the music without overpowering or taking away from the gracefulness of the piano.  Initially, I didn’t even notice how frequently MOMA was moving from one time signature to another.  They are truly masters of exploring every opportunity to add or remove a beat here and there while still maintaining an easy to digest sound.

Through the first song entitled “32 Ave“, the guitar work takes more of a backseat to the piano and only adds in a few nicely worked flourishes here and there.  This is not something that is easy to do for many guitar players.  Understanding simplicity and seeing the song as a whole is to some a natural gift, but to others it takes years of practice.  Allowing the piano to dominate the melody in “32 Ave” gives the song a gentle, easy-listening quality that works very well for me.

MOMA was able to fit a second song onto this split called “SUN“.  This song allows the listener to hear the playing ability of both the guitar and the bass while still getting a pleasing dose of fantastic piano melodies.  The ability to carefully place a bunch of notes into a small space is a profound skill I’m not sure I will ever understand.  However, like SLVDR, MOMA does this very well and nothing seems too full or overdone.

slvdr-moma-international-split-stream

While album reviews tend to focus solely on the band or bands involved, I feel it is important to acknowledge the work by the labels involved in putting this split together.  I applaud the effort in bringing two bands from different corners of the world together.  The internet has made this task fairly straight forward but the idea to pursue this split and the trust these labels have earned is remarkable.  For SLVDR and MOMA to toss these labels a song or two and trust that they will nourish and maintain the integrity of their art says an awful lot about these small labels from Ohio and Oslo.

Take a minute or two out of your day and go check out both the music on this split and the great packaging decisions between the three labels.

C.J. Blessum