September 9, 2007

The Online Underground: August 2007
Local Tracks on the Web

By David Pence


Brandon Davis, of Elf Princess Gets a Harley, a "trio" that includes "Mandy [Wheeler] and Brandon's invisible friend, Captain Fun." (all photos/courtesy the bands' MySpace pages)

Elf Princess Gets a Harley: "Irish Goddess"

www.myspace.com/elfprincessgetsaharley

You know this song — the one about the wounded young fellow so smitten with the beauty of the unattainable girl that he’s obliged to “crawl into a poorly lit corner and die.” You want to relax into the track’s tossed-off charm, but the wink in the music is a shade too pronounced to allow that kind of comfort. Elf Princess has a nice feel for melody and an early-Beatles soundscape (drums and driving acoustic guitars; fuzzy, low electric notes; vocals warm and wooly). Smartly, they stay with the straight-ahead structure and let the song gather a sense of nagging anxiety as it unfolds.



Confusatron (from left): Doug Porter, Jason LaFrance, and Adam Cogswell.

Confusatron: "Non Ha Occhi Preview"

www.myspace.com/confusatron

Well, it starts like a song. Then Adam Cogswell taps a tiny drum fill on a rim, and the band runs out of fuel — but no, here's a theremin or something! A new tempo! A new style! And off they go into a frothy, whirling ecstasy like hired musical guns at a Greek or Russian wedding reception… So we realize (with relief) that it's not a song at all – it's a film score or an overture. Like A.D.D. princes, the boys of Confusatron don't light long on any riff or tone. Instead, they swerve or dart around musical stanchions that most mortals can't see. Like Zappa or early Camper Van Beethoven, these dudes can play ideas, and here they've made a track that's witty, showy, and (at nearly six minutes) sort of amusing.



The Baltic Sea (from left): Jason Ingalls, Todd Hutchisen, Jeremy Smith, and Ray Suhy.

The Baltic Sea: "Monswoon"

www.myspace.com/thebalticsea

Here is a brainy, poetic mini-masterpiece. At first you may hear overtones of Yes, particularly in Jason Ingalls' snappy, nearly ostentatious drumming, and in Todd Hutchisen's earnest falsetto vocal. But after the super-moody Baltic Sea has established a tone of elegiac majesty — about half way into this long number — they heat up, adding harsher, almost ferocious sounds to the lush, pastoral textures, and things get thrilling: you want to get cut, or walloped. Then, suddenly, the ferocity is gone, and the group is offering a lyrical coda, notes of treated piano, a droning hum, a serving of backwards guitar, and the light tapping of a typewriter.


Big Fat Family: "House in Yerhed"

www.myspace.com/bigfatfamily

Ahh, the way homemade used to sound: hiss like a gray mist, the off-mic count off, then a handful of analog sounds from different parts of the kitchen — or perhaps the attic bedroom. Like the stuff the dB's recorded in the office of New York Rocker magazine in 1979, this lo-fi track works because the players have feel and the song goes from good to great, fast. As much as anything, this sound is about proximity — that is, the nearness of things that just miss, like double-tracked vocals that don't quite line up, and guitars that chime almost in tune with each other. The narrow spaces between these sounds are full of ferment, and inspired bass and drum tracks give the song a swinging bottom.



Graeme K. in the lab.

Graeme K.: "And Rattle!!!"

www.myspace.com/mckeenstreet

A few bars of found Dixieland, supplanted by 60 strums of foggy guitar, stopped by a disturbing buzz. Figuratively, this hum is the sound of the mad collagist (Mr. K.) throwing the switch and starting a massive machine that integrates sounds in an awesome haze of dirt and noise and rolling rhythm. There are vocals (and a tune), and you can hear guitars and drums and other instruments, but Graeme K. puts his faith in textures and mechanical repetition. Nearly a drone, the track runs on two chords and is propelled by a single three-note riff that sounds over and over. Interruption of the single-minded momentum and worry about the distinctness of individual elements are not allowed. "And Rattle!!!" is a stirring mixture of beauty and brutality.


David Pence is the host of Radio Junk Drawer, heard Wednesdays from 3 p.m.-5 p.m. on community radio station WMPG (90.9 and 104.1 FM; www.wmpg.org).