|
 Catch
Me if You Can
By
John Brodeur
The
Long Winters
Putting
the Days to Bed (Barsuk)
On their third long-player, Seattle’s Long Winters attempt
to build a bridge between the grand pop-rock sound of 2003’s
How I Pretend to Fall and the experimental tinkerings
of last year’s Ultimatum EP (whose title track gets
an amped-up reprise here). Instead they burn the fucking bridge
and smoke the ashes: Putting the Days to Bed is a bizarre
and rewarding rock record, further evidence that Winters singer-songwriter
John Roderick is both a genius and an asshole.
Roderick has a singular way of turning a melody sound upside-down,
backward even. (See: “Honest,” the full four minutes of which
sounds like it’s being played in reverse.) It’s frustrating
at first, as the quirks sometimes threaten to render the songs
uncatchy—that is, until you realize six days later that you’re
still humming a chorus, or quoting a lyric as your “away”
message. Personally, I’m thinking of using this one, from
“(It’s a) Departure”:
“I
like the old days, but not all the old days, Only the Good
Old Days!”
That’s the thing: The lyrics are frequently funny, but they
stop short of irony. Instead, Roderick writes honestly, about
life- and love-related things that most of us can wrap our
heads around, but does so in ways that consistently make you
wonder if he’s really talking about what you think he’s talking
about.
The melodies are as elliptical as the lyrics. Sometimes the
two things don’t rhythmically match up, so Roderick simply
forces it to work. Case in point: on “Fire Island, AK,” the
“ter” in “letter,” “den” in “garden,” and “land” in “island”
all sound like afterthoughts, stretched over the held last
note of the phrase. Fragments of melodic phrases trail off
into new ideas, beating dead the idea of a standard verse-chorus-verse
form. It’s as if he’s refusing to let the listener catch a
break. And, if that’s his goal, he often succeeds.
The production, at Roderick’s hand, is just as cagey. Horn
ensembles appear for a bridge at a time, then vanish. A fuzzed-out
electric guitar threatens to push “Fire Island” into overdrive,
but it’s buried under the tambourine, in left field. Canned
beats and analog synthesizer pump beneath “Sky Is Open,” which
desperately wishes it were a mid-period R.E.M. song. “Rich
Wife,” Roderick’s answer to “Gold Digger,” sounds like the
Strokes playing Hall and Oates. “Teaspoon” tethers a disco
chorus to a verse that’s practically out-of-time. (Bassist-
keyboardist Eric Corson, the other original Long Winter, really
steps up here, his intuitive lines unifying even the most
diametrically opposed musical ideas.)
The brilliant “Hindsight” would be worth the price of admission
even if the other 10 songs stunk. It’s a strummy, straightforward
number—it recalls Canadian pop superpower Sloan—that finds
Roderick singing of a love in stalemate. “I’m bailing water
and bailing water/Because I like the shape of the boat . .
. And if I hold you now will I be/Holding a snowball when
the season changes/And I’m craving the sun?” Heartbreaking
and true, this is the album’s emotional center—hence the “asshole”
comment. So frustratingly oblique, yet so magnetic, this music.
Annie
and the Hedonists
Moonglow
on the Midway (Windy Acres)
The Capital Region’s own Annie and the Hedonists conquer a
large swath of acoustic territory on their second CD in 16
well-chosen covers. With more than seven decades of swing,
bluegrass, blues, contemporary folk, and even Jewish Tin Pan
Alley represented, one wonders what, stylistically, this polished,
eclectic quartet can’t do.
Led by Annie Rosen, a top-flight singer whose sultry alto
calls to mind a young Bonnie Raitt, the Hedonists are her
husband Jonny Rosen on guitar and steel guitar, Betsy Fry
on bass guitar, and her spouse Steve Fry on guitar, keyboards,
mandolin, and, even flugelhorn. All three Hedonists sing backup
as well. Along for the often rootsy ride are vocalist daughters
Hannah Rosen and Amanda Fry, and local instrumental aces Frank
Orsini and John Kirk on fiddle, Dave Kiphuth on banjo, Kevin
Maul on dobro, and Peter Davis on clarinet.
The foursome open with “Everybody Loves My Baby,” an uptempo
minor-key 1924 Tin Pan Alley tune. Annie slinks coquettishly
through the verses, and Orsisni contributes an urbane fiddle
break. The next tune, the 1937 hit “Me Myself and I,” stays
in the same vein, and Annie stays in form despite a somewhat
bumpy ending on the part of the rhythm section. Another 1930s
tune, this time in Yiddish, follows: “Bei Mir Bist du Schoen
(To Me You Are Beautiful).” Davis’ urbane clarinet gives the
tune an appropriate klezmer quality here.
But there’s more than swing on this thing—“You Don’t Know
My Mind” is a strutting traditional blues, and Stillhouse
is a1996 song by Gillian Welch that evokes Appalachian old-time
music with its modal melody. The real jewel of the album,
though, is Annie’s moving rendition of Lucinda Williams’ “Sweet
Old World,” a lament for a departed soul that shows how the
alchemy of music can transcend heartbreak.
Fans of fine picking and masterful vocals will welcome Moonglow
on the Midway.
–Glenn
Weiser
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