Sweet Trip - You will never know why 6.1

                When I listen to this, I’m reminded heavily of the sort of pysch lounge perfected by The High Llamas and Stereolab. That’s not a bad thing. If you’re going to pick a sound to mine, why not choose something everyone will enjoy. For the most part, this is an enjoyable if not entirely original album. 

                “You will never know why” revolves around ambient pop and shoegaze. “Acting” starts out smoothly before revving up and slowing down. Really the slower, mellower parts are the better pieces of their album. For me, their attempts at urgency fall flat. There are many bands who do fast music well, I figure they should probably stay within their comfort zone. When “Acting” quickens up, I sort of wish they’d get back to the spaced-out sounds offered in the beginning or the end. Oddly, they kill their own mood for no discernible reason.

                The rest of the album passes by pleasantly enough. After a while I grow a bit sick at the lack of sonic diversity. Sure, I’m a fan of minimalism but they use the same beats and patterns over and over again. I wish they had perhaps varied things up a little bit in terms of the sound and kept the tempos a bit lower. Together both of those minor tweaks might have made me a bit more receptive towards this album. 

                As a result, I’m a bit lukewarm to this collection of songs. Spending a whole hour with this San Francisco based band wasn’t horrible but merely uneventful. Had I seen more songs like “Acting” I could see myself enjoying it a lot more.

I’ve Been Franklin – Settling the Score 7.6

             I’ve Been Franklin is the first release of the “Holy Page” online record label. The basic premise of the Holy Page is artists release their music for free (download here), and the record label head Christian Filardo does the artwork. Considering the “Creature Comforts” kind of cut-up Christian did for the artwork, I don’t think it’s a terribly bad idea.

                Gregory Campanile has worked in many bands, but this project is the first I’ve heard of him. Besides working in Reindeer Tiger Team, Total Noise, Bikeula, Dragon Zone, Levines!, Unkill Frankenstein, etc. Basic gist is he’s a busy man in Arizona. Here is his first solo outing, originally released in 2009, recorded from 2008 to 2009. Listening to it, I’m reminded of other quirky solo arrangers like Nathan Michel, who relied on unusual arrangements for maximum emotional effect. Even his vocals on “Foreign Frog” sounds like something you’d find on Nathan Michel’s “The Beast”.

                Though it is only 22 minutes, it feels fully formed. According to the very few notes I have on this, he wrote this in a few different locations using only Garageband. Most of these songs are below the two minute mark, but listening to it, those lengths are long enough. Somehow he’s able to convey all he wants to touch upon in just that sort span of time. He has a fragmented sense of pop, with melodies and enough quirks to keep you interested. 

                “Settling In” offers the kind of gloopy synthesizer you’d expect beginning a High Llamas track. He takes that and slowly builds into a zoned-out space. Even the ending shows off the same attention to details, with “Smoking” ending in a blurred piano.

                Actually, if this is the first release for the Holy Page label, they’ve obviously set the bar pretty high. Who knows, maybe I’ve Been Franklin might be encouraged to release more. Here’s hoping.