WOULDN'T YOU LOVE SOMEBODY TO LOVE

- Continuing on the "albums from 2009 that I've listened to" tip:

Pink Strat - Bahamas (Sample)

This one comes to me courtesy of a friend who recommended I check it out, and, for the most part, I'm glad she did. Bahamas sort of fits into this earlier strain of indie music, characterized by such practitioners as Sebadoh's Lou Barlow, that's kind of gone out of vogue in recent years. Namely, the four-track-in-the-basement acoustic stuff characterized by lovelorn lyrics, invitingly unprofessional vocals, simple, lilting melodies and basic, no-frills production.

Right off the top, I do have to say that I don't think Bahamas is as good as something like Sebadoh (for a couple of reasons I'll get into later) but, that's a pretty high bar and, mostly, I enjoyed this record. Afie Jurvanen, the dude behind this whole project, and who's past work has apparently included backing up Feist, has a very interesting voice; it's often in sensitive-indie-guy mumble mode, but, even there he's got a bit more of a country twang to himself than someone like, say, Mark Kozelek, and when he let's his voice get a bit more open-toned, he shows that he's a lot more versatile than your typical bedroom folkie. As you would expect, the songs here are mostly very basic guitar-and-voice things, but, much like his inspirations, Jurvanen wants to play with that form via the production embellishments; for the most part, this works. The running-all-over-the-place slide guitar on "Lonely Loves" is an interesting musical wild card, "Hockey Teeth" and "Southern Drawl" are basically straight-up full-band country songs, albeit not with "country" vocals and the jazzy finger-snaps on album closer "Whole Wide World" add to what might otherwise be a more archetypal composition. Often, he'll bring in an electric guitar to play melodic counterpoint to his acoustic (as on "Till The Morning") and that's a trick I'll almost never get tired of, when it's done well. In addition, I think that all the songs here are very well-written within their chosen idiom, all have memorable melodies and stick-in-your-brain choruses; I'm less into this kind of material than a lot of people but I'll always give props when it's done right.

However, my main issue with the record is that I don't think it ever steps outside the realm of being a very good sensitive-indie-four-track-basement album. The lyrics didn't do all that much for me, outside of a few clever phrases, as I think that the sentiments of alternate puppy-love and wistful melancholy have been done better elsewhere (and, to be frank, they've kinda been done to death). It also sort of feels like four-track folk for the digital age in that the record has a very clean mix, with all the instruments clearly defined from one another and Jurvanen's voice nice and up-front. You might say "how could that be a bad thing?", but the thing is that past albums like this often had very gauzy production where instruments would leak into one another and the vocals wouldn't be clearly audible. Though I'm certain that sound came out more of a lack of money and studio time than anything else, it did create sort of a wonderful aesthetic for this type of music; it may have been way more slap-dash but it also created more of a weird intimacy between performer and listener, the ultra lo-fi production adding to the authenticity of the music. That said, I don't at all doubt Jurvanen's sincerity in this pursuit and I'm not saying that the record is overly glossy or anything (it's positively spartan compared to any radio-rock), but, when you're making music that tends to pride itself on a kind of emotional honesty it's probably better to allow that to come through in the music itself more (it also has the fortunate side-effect of covering up some of your less well-written lyrics). Also, as much as some of his willingness to play around sonically is successful, some of it isn't: "Already Yours" would be a lot better without the off-time drum thump in the background and the piano on "What's Worse" feels out of place.

With all that said, I would still recommend this album, especially if this sort of music is already your bag; and, really, this dude's Canadian and made a song called "Hockey Teeth", how can I hate that?

(Note: The sample I've included is not exactly reflective of the music on the record but it was the only video of them I could find that wasn't completely crap quality)