we couldn't afford a cover artist, so we got my 6-year old nephew to do it
It's 7am on a Saturday, I just got up, and I don't feel like getting back to sleep. The working life is doing wonders to me. It's weird, but I think I could eventually come to enjoy it - which is the perfect sentence to describe Sunset Rubdown's music.
Sunset Rubdown is a Canadian group made up of five people (four of them unreferenceable as they don't even have Wikipedia pages - I mean, that's like you don't even exist, right?), including lead singer Spencer Krug, who splits time between these guys, Swan Lake, and his slightly more acclaimed - and certainly more popular - band Wolf Parade. You know, he's the guy with the strange and affected voice, whereas Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner has the more straightforward-sounding one.
Introductions aside, if you know me, I like to work backwards: get the more recent album, and if I like the music, explore the back catalog. Thing is, I've had Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer for a little less than a year, and often, I tend to listen to a band's older stuff within a month of liking their newer offerings. Not so with Sunset Rubdown. Like I mentioned - this is weird stuff: heady lyrics, irrational progressions and song structures, and if you've ever heard the term "swirling rhythms", it had best have been about Sunset Rubdown's music, because I'm relatively sure they have the style trademarked. Due to all the unorthodox clattering Sunset Rubdown seem to do, I wouldn't blame you if you listened to either Dragonslayer or the here-to-be-discussed Shut Up I Am Dreaming (awesome choice of name if I may say so) and couldn't get through more than two songs.
Anyway, in usual fashion, I was turned on to this album by listening to CBC's Radio3. They occasionally play "Stadiums And Shrines II" off of it, which is surprising, because Shut Up I Am Dreaming came out in 2006, and R3 doesn't seem to stray too far from a playlist that's 95% newer music. I first heard "Stadiums And Shrines II" a few months ago, and got as far as finding the torrent for the album, but never decided to hit the download button. Dunno why. So I heard the song again yesterday and decided "to hell with it, I really haven't been listening to enough music lately, and I'd like something challenging". Luckily, the album didn't disappoint, and I had it on repeat all night.
But I'm not here for the album review. I'm here cause I groggily got up to pee at 7am, and all I had stuck in my head, wriggling about like a musical earworm, was "I'm sorry/that your/mother died/...I'm sorry/that/any/body dies at all/these days". Now forgive the gratuitous use of forward slashes, but I couldn't think of any other way to textually present Spencer Krug's staggered delivery of that stanza. The words themselves may be poignant, and their presentation all the more impactful, but his tone is such that you can't quite take it too seriously. Unfortunately, it almost even comes off as mocking, but if you were to listen to the rest of the songs on any Sunset Rubdown - or even Wolf Parade - album (think "Grounds For Divorce" for the best example), you'd realize it's just his natural singing voice, and nothing is implied by it.
Honestly, drums and distortion aside, it sounds like a lead-in from medieval times, or even the ancient Greek figure Pan playing his wood flute in a low-slung forest. I mean, that's the kind of mental image it calls up for me, I dunno if that's strange, but whatever. The flute makes a few other appearances in-song, all of them welcome. Some piano even joins in. These guys will play anything (Pitchfork's review of "Idiot Heart": "...their trademark willingness to play anything that's lying around...") and their songs certainly showcase that. For example, the song following is "They Took A Vote And Said No" and it transitions from quite literally a sea shanty with a triangle tinkling in the background, to an outro with enough distorted guitar pounding it would make My Bloody Valentine slightly proud.
So if you can put up with that, some mind-bending lyrics, equally head-spinning and disorienting swirls of guitar, and a lead singer who could be providing voiceover for the weirdest character on a morning cartoon show, then I certainly encourage you to give Sunset Rubdown a listen. If you can't, then I've probably turned you off of them and I don't care and I'm gonna try and go back to sleep. I'm thirsty too. Ugh.
Posts
