The Ghost That Carried Us Away

Erik Gonzalez — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:52:01 +0000

8.4

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-That-Carried-Us-Away/dp/B000RPCRN6/wwwthreeimagi-20/

Iceland, for its size, relative placement in the middle of the North Atlantic and its small population, has done a remarkable job of producing excellent music. Sure, its really Bjork and Sigur Ros that has made the tiny country famous, but you don’t have to be a slightly crazed chanteuse prone to wearing waterfowl or make up your own Tolkien-like language to make your name in modern rock anymore. Seabear might just be the sort of band Iceland needs to remind people and great pop music is made in the remote land, bringing Iceland into the land of Jens Lekman, Cats on Fire and the other emerging pop stars of Scandinavian.

The Ghost That Carried Us Away is the debut album by the seven-member group (that, incidentally started as a one man show that seems to be collectively members as it rolls along, not including the 2 honorary members of the band). I suppose the best way to characterize the album and the band might be to think of them as your liberal arts boyfriend, sensitive and caring, the sort of 7-member band you want to cuddle with on the couch. Seabear tackles the same gentle pop of Belle & Sebastian and Math & Physics Club but with more vim and vigor than the former and less of the faux-English pretensions of the latter. Instead, you get a wonderfully delightful and refreshing album that will enchant the sweater and All-Star-wearing kids from coast to coast.

You just have to take a taste of “Cat Piano” and you know what I mean, the song is cool breeze on a summer day, with its rich melody and distant vocals. “Hospital Bed” is much the same, but instead we find harmonies and violins populating the countryside. Seabear creates something like an echo of a far-away memory on “Hands Remember,” a stunning ballad that would make Galaxie 500 wish they recorded it. The dark humor of the band is evident on the melancholy “I Sing I Swim,” where they sing "you left your winter clothes and teeth marks in my skin,", all wrapped up in pop melody, while “Owl Waltz” not only has a waltz rhythm and hooting, but playful handclaps. However, the real gem of the album might be “Arms,” a jangly and infectious song driven by violin, banjo and brushed drums, creating the best Belle & Sebastian song that they never recorded, simply melancholy and wonderful. Seabear turn towards a darker sound on “Lost Watch,” which is more stripped down and mellow. “Summer Bird Diamond” moves their sound more towards Gomez and is as close to “rumbling” as Seabear might get, but still maintains the delicate and fragile sound of the band. The album closes on “Seashell,” which could be considered “Arms” older sibling, with a more developed arrangement driven by guitars and violins. The song slowly picks up pace as it builds to a crescendo and everyone shows up on deck.

Seabear is under most people’s radars stateside so far but The Ghost That Carried Us Away should change that quickly. The album is remarkably unpretentious and invigorating in a genre that can tend to get bogged down with the weight of its own melancholy. Seabear seem to avoid this pitfall and instead just let the music flow effortlessly, combining gorgeous melodies with rich textures to create one of the lost gems of 2007.

Seabear just let the music flow effortlessly, combining gorgeous melodies with rich textures to create one of the lost gems of 2007.

Spider Smile

Whitney Gould — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:35:54 +0000

http://www.amazon.com/Spider-Smile-Tarwater/dp/B000NA265E/wwwthreeimagi-20

tarwater07aug.jpg

German electronic music terrifies me completely. In the same way, German philosophy and design generally make me feel like life is just one big doctors office. I guess it’s because I never understood why some German people have to think of lengthy and complicated explanations of the things around them before they deem themselves completely ready to accept that the things really exist. They break down things to their most primary “meaning” and then show them to the rest of the world in a different light than they were seen in originally. In short, Germans have a knack for finding “truth,” by examining things down to their innermost core. They will let you know that a chair is a surface you sit on that is sometimes elevated from the ground, even though, a chair is just a chair is just a chair. In short, the idea of rethinking something that need not be thought about too deeply is disarming to me.

Tarwater are Germans and they have been making electronic music with acoustic guitars in it for more than ten years. The songs are very dark, like the name, Tarwater, suggests. There are vocals in English, but they are usually rambling and/or repetitive spoken word passages about things like the city or sun. “The sun is coming up, and the sun is coming down,” is repeated at will in “Arkestra,” but not in a U2 way, where the speaker (Bono) is trying to tug at your heartstrings. To most casual fans of the sun, it really makes us happy because it is bright and shiny and makes us tan or whatever. To Tarwater, it seems that the “sun is coming up and down” just because that is what it does, and in case you didn’t notice, the sun is very serious. Why is it the sun serious? It is serious because under the vocals of “Arkestra” there is a bed of music that involves some birds chirping, an acoustic guitar, and, oh you know, just a sample of some heavy drilling. And while I remain terrified by this music, I must give it up to Tarwater for effectively not tugging at my impressionable heartstrings. It really does get exhausting when bands try to get you to feel something.

Isn’t it sort of comforting not knowing what the hell these guys are really getting at? The music is pretty. The rhythms of Spider Smile are generally made up of sampled acoustic drums mixed with strange sound effects (like drills, or birds, maybe even an occasional object being dropped onto the floor). It is very driving and repetitive music, but for all of its driving, it sure does not get very far. And it is not a driving feeling in the way that it makes you want to drive a car quickly on windy roads. It is the sort of driving that makes one want to drive a car slow and steady through a dilapidated suburban sprawl.

At times it even sounds like Spider Smile is an album about driving around America at a slow pace. In “When Love Was The Law In Los Angeles,” there is a desperate feeling of the decay of something that was originally supposed to make people feel good. I can understand this feeling, however vague and opaque the lyrics of Tarwater may be. America is terrifying. German electronica is terrifying. Mix the two, and you have a terrifying world that is ready to be reexamined.

Tarwater’s reexamination ends up being one that is dismal, perhaps, but one that is also beautiful. Just because depressing music is characteristically depressing does not mean that it cannot also sound sort of nice. I guess thoughtful indifference can be a great substitute for bombast if the music calls for such treatment.

Just because depressing music is characteristically depressing does not mean that it cannot also sound sort of nice.

Three Imaginary Girls - Morr Music

The Ghost That Carried Us Away

Spider Smile