au - verbs, another portland gem
I love that publicity folk send me music everyday and I also love that I am getting them trained to stop sending me those plastic non-environmentally friendly CDs. [Have you ever wondered how much oil and energy it takes to make a CD, and how long it will live in a landfill...?] Anyway, I digress - back to PR folks - they also send me hyperbolic blurbs about their bands. The one that accompanied the fascinating new album from Portland’s AU is an example:
Between these disparate bookends lies the staggering aesthetic expanse of Verbs-the sophomore record from acclaimed Portland, OR. experimental pop collective Au-which, in its swirling depths and subtleties, promises to be one of this year’s most satisfying surprises.
And that was just the opening paragraph. These expansive rants are rarely helpful in giving me a sense of what to expect; they inevitably never match up to my listening experience - let’s just paraphrase ‘beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’ into the ‘ear of the listener.’
With Verbs, Luke Wyland, the architect behind AU has managed to wrangle a rather wondrous and vast sonic landscape of an album into a cohesive musical shape and form using multiple instruments while collaborating with multiple musicians, many of whom if not all are from Portland, Oregon. I dare say that when Wyland released the debut AU album last year the comparisons to Arnold Dreyblatt, Animal Collective, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Grizzly Bear may have been correct [I never heard it.]
On Verbs the resulting sonic landscapes remind me more of Bjork and Sigur Ros in the way multiple vocals and vocal harmonies are wrapped around eclectic beats. I hear gospel and a vaudeville element at work here especially on RR vs D which in its second half sounds like we are in a parade with a marching band or even at an old-fashioned circus. And is the hand clapping beat on RR vs D just a coincidence or is it a favorable, knowing nod to the french singer Camille who used handclaps to such great effect on her stunning song Au Port?
With AU and ‘Verbs’ Portland can be justifiably proud - another feather in the city’s cap. The album is released June 26th, 2008 and ‘RR vs. D’ will be released as a 7″ single on May 20. Keep up with tour dates at their MySpace page.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Words that should be stricken from the English language based on excessive abuse in music marketing hyperbole:
“superlative”
“enigmatic”
“raucous”
“rebellious”
“hot” and even worse, “hottest”
“THE” –as in, “The Juicy DugNuts are THE band of 2006″
“acclaimed” and “critically” when used in the same sentence.
“throes”
“crunchy”
“tight”
and “avuncular” simply because I hate this word, not because it’s overused in PR hype. What’s even more irritating is the “call to action” including in the marketing materials. “Get ready to devour your own adrenaline glands, The Corn-Fed Acid Weasels are coming!” or “Brace yourself for the onslaught of ‘three-chords-and-your-mom’ punk rock!”
If I ever release another album in any form, the PR materials for it will read thusly:
“Please BUY THIS RECORDING, or many millions will starve. It is the most important album of the year, just like all the other recordings which were released this year. Thank you. The End.
P.S. The purchase of this recording should be considered an act of rebellion. Or conformity. Whatever it takes to get the dog to bite.”