Sun Araw - "Houston Abstros" 7-inch - Monofonus Press
LISTEN to “Bump Up” by Sun Araw [from the "Houston Abstros" 7-inch] HERE
Sun Araw – “Trireme” MP3/download
I review Sun Araw about as often as fictional character (is it weird, bringing a fictional character from a movie up like this?) Dewey Cox pays for drugs: “NOT ONCE.”
But how could that be? The fellow, nee Cameron Stallones, is behind some of the most popular movements and ensembles of the day, and he’s even been partially blamed for chillwave. I guess there’s your answer right there — he’s been getting enough coverage; he don’t-a need-a tha Gumshoe-a.
But now the forbidden fruit must be tasted, as Will Ferrell once said.
Besides, I’ve been snatching up Araw’s records all along even as I ignore Ducktails and Blues Control. Same with the various Magic Lantern sides that pop up. It’s a good investment, both musically and financially, and both projects hold their own space in the continuum, with little, if any, overlap.
The 300-run “Houston Abstros” 7-inch is still gaining steam in my head, particularly Side A. I abhor a few of the directions taken and more than a few of the conventions revisited, yet “Bump Up” is far from a soulless c-wave exercise. It builds a life of its own through the usual hypnotic effect one expects to experience when a theme is repeated, and the guitar chords, delivered in incisive, heavily wah’d jolts, are chosen so deftly you’ve got to let them in. And once you let them in, like any bad musical neighbor, they don’t leave; won’t leave.
There’s a brand of milky, foggy soul here, more than I tend to find on any given day wherein new releases are stacked, packed and sacked on a daily basis. The emotions running through the music soak in quickly and sink deep enough to stick. I do have to warn you though: It’s another one of those songs with a drum-machine beat that doesn’t change, coupled with a pattern or two and accentuated by — you guessed it — some wah-wah-ing George Harrison would of been proud of. I’ve heard the recipe umpteen times, but in the name of Avey Tare, it’s done justice via “Bump Up.”
The flip, “December,” is a Teenage Fanclub cover for those one-out-of-33.5 people who kept listening to Fanclub long before and after that “Popular” song got up in everyone’s grill. I wasn’t/am not one of those people (Death Cab For Cutie were/are), so I own no personal connection to this song or its context. What can I possibly have to offer by way of an evaluation?
Well, I can start by mentioning the depth of “December,” the super-submerged low points and trebly highs that scream out of the speakers even when the volume is turned down (don’t worry, I’m rockin’ it). There’s also the army of echo, charged with coating every last morsel with globby handfulls of ethereal gunk; certainly not shy about performing their duties, they are.
“December” is most impressive by way of its construction. Sure, those same old repeated patterns are in there, but so are new wrinkles that crinkle and crease Araw’s time-honored sound. It’s not as forward-thinking as the flat-out goat-fuck-of-the-head that is “Trireme” (listen up-top), and, in this case it doesn’t have to be. I believe in it.
Seven-inches like “Houston Abstros” make my art-time job as a reviewer easy. Some writers live to trash whatever wave has crashed to the shore most recently. Me? I avoid the dregs of the underground like the blackest, plague-iest goo ever to sluice from the earth’s oily vagina. Which, again, is why I appreciate it when someone gets it so right, even while, perhaps, technically getting it so backward.
Sun Araw - iTunes
