Comoros - "White Flower" LP - Fedora Corpse Records
After last year’s sense-tickling self-titled Rat Catching LP hit me where it hurt (and ended up on my Pazz and Jop ballot), the White Flower LP, by Comoros (nee Jennifer Melinn of Rat-Catch and Adam Melinn; I think they’re related), sat on the backburner for too long. It happens, and wouldn’t you know it, just as I turned my attention to the whitest of flowers I got a package in the mail containing Fedora Corpse Records’ latest every-six-months-or-so assault on the spine and sensory faculties of any man, woman or child within earshit: A glass-vinyl 12″ by Plante. How sweet life can be …
But I’m slowly dislocating myself from the point … it’s easy to do in the company of Comoros because, as all Seam fans know, the pace is glacial as FUK. This duo is positively anchored to drone, for better or worse, and their formula works best when both members focus their pursuits on drama over drift, accents over ambiance and the tidal over the time-consuming. In other words, GET TO THE POINT, MAN!!
And yes, the joke’s on me, so go ahead and say it: That IS the point. Joke’s on YOU, D-hole! And that’s all well and good, but White Flower is filmic, and that’s what I’m talking about when I mention the consumption of time: You’ll burn a lot of it treading the same territory. I imagine the Dead Man soundtrack by Neil Young plays out a lot like this (the Melinns are sure to have seen/heard it), desolate — I use that word too much lately — and forboding — ditto — and longer and winding-er than … well, I’ll just say it: Follow the yellow-brick drone / Follow the yellow-brick drone / Follow-follow-follow-follow FOLLOW THE YELLOW-BRICK DRONE.
Chances are, you knew if you wanted this one before you finished the first paragraph. Kranky, Dead Texan, Greg Davis, Tangerine Dream, Gas, Lanterna (it’s interesting how large this somewhat unknown band looms lately), Earth, Cluster, Caboladies (might be a bit of a stretch on the latter, but it’s all good) … if two or more of these entities exist in your record collection there’s room for White Flower, and there’s a particular crowd that flocks around this audio beach picnic, a lot of them choosing cassettes as their mode of aural transportation. Thank christ Comoros know enough to vouch for vinyl, because a). my tape player just went tits up (which sux because I just got a great new German Army tape from Night People) and b). vinyl, particularly snow-white vinyl, rules all kinds of fake jazz azz. That’s just how it is.
Couldn’t find a proper music sample — which is cool actually; buy the LP dicks — but the live clip below is part and parcel with the general mood of Omoros-Cay and the distant, ever-glowing star they hitch their wagon to.
