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April 05, 2006
Sun Rises on Sunset debut
Spencer Krug is really in peak form right now. Fresh off of penning half of last year's best rock album, his supposed side band Sunset Rubdown returns with a wolfless parade of new material in the form of the already released (and duly noted) Sunset Rubdown EP, as well as the forth-coming full length Shut Up, I am Dreaming. If the EP was a slight but ethereally pleasing warning shot, the album is a surreal cannonball blast that is not to be ingnored, shaking off any notions that the Rubdown is some sort of a bedroom leftovers project with ease. While echoes of Wolf Parade's bleeding heart overdrive can certainly be found, Shut Up is more subdued and insular. In the great indie rock tradition of sounding like a bold statement, while sidestepping literal interpretation.
And another album of the year contender, to be sure.
Sunset Rubdown - the Men are Called Horsemen There
An apprehensive waltz punctuated by the most basic of drum beats. Guitar lines fluctuate in slow motion over the seven minute running time, evolving from buzzing atmospherics to repetitive circuits and back again. Keyboards fill the gaps as expected, providing forward thrust or majestic spirals on cue. Above the listless musical wasteland, Krug gives impressively varied voice work. In the beginnning he shares sweet harmonies with bandmate Camilla, giving shape and direction to the song. By the end, as Spence splits time with numerous cacaphonous climaxes his desperate warbling gives the impression of a musical interogation subject, head dunked in pools of white noise, gasping out David Berman-esque truisms like "When someone says fuck me/ Someone else says OK" with borrowed air, and then shoved beneath once more.
His vocal command, oscillating music, and numerous "ooh-ooh" injections suggest that he may have stolen a few of Destroyer's rubies. But where Destroyer man Dan Bejar comes across as foppish observer, swilling absinthe above the fray, SK gives a more gut level performance, infusing desperate sincerity into Dada proclamations like "If I was a horse/ I would buck like a leopard!"
A quick Krug recap: Runner? Yes. Father's Son? Yes. Horseman? No.
Sunset Rubdown - Snake's Got a Leg III
Here Krug evokes sparkle era Bowie, as he does, in the best possible way. Saloon piano and simple guitar fuzz propel the track in a sloppy, enthusiastic manner that call to mind the looser Ziggy Stardust tracks ("Star," "Hang Onto Yourself," etc). But as if Krug has reservations about the unchecked hedonism, he continually stops short, leaving his voice to duel with just the starkly minimal piano stabs. Then a candy rush forward again, followed by another step back, for a puzzling, mournful line reading of "Now they eat like kings, oh." Not one to glide on a previously established template, SK winds it up with a dusty guitar driven coda, lamenting being chased by "a Hundred Snakes." What better to drive you away from the glam eden that the song's start threatened?
But as rewarding as these tracks are in and of themselves, they are also uselful as kindling for the coming bright white flame of anticipation for what awaits us in months to come. As Pitchfork reported last week, Mr. Krug will team with his stylistic contemporaries, Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes and the afforementioned D. Bejar, in a "trippy" supergroup now known as Swan Lake. With recently completed albums all around (although the new Frog Eyes disc is likely to be held until early '07), the boys somehow managed to conjure up four tracks a piece to make up the disc. That, is what we in the biz call a shitload of ideas.
Gorilla Vs. Bear had another Shut Up I am Dreaming ditty a short time ago, easily listenable, here.
The album itself is released on May 2nd via Absolutely Kosher Records. Sunset Rubdown's underfed Absolutely Kosher page here.
Tags: Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes, Destroyer, Swan Lake
Posted by Jeff Klingman at April 5, 2006 01:15 PM
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