Anyone who has been reading here for any length of time knows about my adoration for Mat Brooke and Carissa’s Wierd. I posted back in great detail on the subject back in September, while also lauding the emergence of Brooke’s new band Grand Archives. And now that they’ve released their self-titled debut, I wanted to return to the subject.
It’s hard for me to write about this record because my relationship to Carissa’s Wierd was so personal. It would be like trying to review my best friend’s music. Because it’s not just that I loved them, it’s that they never became big. The Beatles are without question my favorite band, but they fill that role for millions of other people in the world, too. And that gives me some common ground to work from, even as my own appreciation is intensely personal.
I can’t get that kind of emotional distance here. So while I’ll do my best to express my joy at some of these tracks, and to register my disappointment at others, I have to constantly question how much the whole process is being framed by my own position. Part of what I love about blogging is that there is no pretense of an outsider role – I write about what I choose, for whatever reasons I pick – but sometimes it runs a bit too deeply. So here, I can’t help but be self-conscious about why I feel what I feel in reaction to these songs.
All of that is a long introduction for what in truth is probably a fairly simple review: Grand Archives is a good, possibly very good album (my favorite of the year so far). It is fun, loping and dancing in a way that Carissa’s Wierd rarely did. And it’s certainly beautifully constructed. But at no point does it burn itself into the soul.
Is that a flaw or the whole point? I think that can only be answered by each individual listener. For me, it produces a sense of letdown, simply because I will never be able to forget the first time I heard You Should Be At Home Here. And this record, good as it is, clearly could never provoke that same sense of astonishment and wonder.
I knew this in principle of course. But it’s only when I listened to this record from start to finish that the theoretical principle was given true form. I still held out some faint hope that it all could be recreated – that magic is not eternally locked in memory. And maybe it is possible, but miracles are only miracles because they are rare, unique, unexpected.
And so while a part of me can’t help but be disappointed, another part of me embraces the chance to go somewhere new. Maybe the ghost of past loves will always drape themselves over the new, but who says that must be a negative? There is a sense of freedom made clear in the whistling lope of “Miniature Birds” or the lighters-in-the-air conclusion of “Index Moon.” Beyond that, there is a simple, almost ineffable happiness here.
And that’s where I return to the idea of trying to review a record by my best friend. I know it’s silly to think that way about a band I don’t know. But still, after hearing countless songs about lost love and broken hearts, in some way I’m just happy to hear one of my favorite artists feel the freedom to express the sheer joy of making music. This is the sound of a group of friends singing their hearts out with eyes open wide and hopes high.
Of course, many of these songs are delicate, tender, and heartfelt (how could they not be). But they also have a looseness that is unexpected. There is the unbridled joyfulness of “The Crime Window,” the rising tide of strings and choral rounds of “Sleepdriving,”and “Torn Blue Foam Couch” which grows from a few plucked strings and hushed vocals into a boisterous rocker.
These latter two tracks will be familiar to those who heard the initial demo releases from the band. In both cases, they have been speeded up and given the treatment of a full studio. I remain undecided about which versions I prefer, in part because of the tension I outlined above. The new takes are cleaner, brighter, while the demos hearken back more to the intimacy of lo-fi. In short, the new ones make far more clear the break between this band and Carissa’s Wierd. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether that’s good or bad.
Torn Blue Foam Couch (album)
Torn Blue Foam Couch (demo)
I also couldn’t conclude this review without mentioning the gentle ditty which closes the record. “Orange Juice” is quite simple, and took quite a while to really make an impression. But the more I hear it now, the more I think it might very well be the best track. Not for any grand reason, but simply because it – more than any other song – betrays an effortless beauty. It might be the least noticeable track, but (for me at least) that is the heart of its charm.
For more on the band, there’s a great interview with Mat Brooke from The Stranger that’s well-worth a read. In particular, his take on the dueling shades of dark and light in songs like “Louis Riel” and “George Kaminski.”