"FLAPJACKS, SUNRISE AND VERNE" New Album By The American Watercolor Movement...

i stumbled upon American Watercolor Movement in Jersey City, New Jersey (USA). They were playing in a bar up there, and they had a really nice show. In a collaborative effort with a performing art group known as FEASE, they put on a really good show. Imagine listening to this song while viewing very choppy, real-time edited movie clips on the back wall. You saw images of clouds getting dark, houses floating away, hammers smashing things, a man teaching another man martial arts, and so on.

It was a really bizarre and interesting feeling. But the music is just as effective without the visual aspect of the show.

I stated that the song is not traditional. This is what any person would consider an Experimental style. This is best explained by describing the band. The band is 6 people deep. The keyboard player adds all the atmospheric (almost ambient) feel to any song. The bass guitarist does everything from traditional playing to pounding on his guitar (and no, i'm not talking the 'slap' technique) -- and he also plays keyboard for some songs. The lead singer can change the texture of his voice for whatever song he's doing -- and he's got a lot of energy as I watched him jog in place and dance for almost 2 hours. The lead guitar, somewhat of a misleading name, adds all the bizarre riffs that melt into any song. The drummer is the guy that adds in all the wierd samples that he has syncronized ahead of time on his laptop in addition to the live percussion. Now here's the kicker: The 6th member was just added recently to the band -- she plays violin and cello, unfortunately something you can not hear from the songs available online. But at the live performance the other day, I was hearing short warm tones coming from her cello, or a scratchy string (intentional of course) in another song.

There was a great deal of depth achieved by this rather non-traditional arrangement of instruments.

With all that in mind, picture a song that is a cross between some of the more experimental groups in the world (Wilco, Radiohead, U2, Recoil), and performance art. This particular song features the lead singer doing his lyrics as spoken word. The way he sings the lyrics add a whole creepy edge to the song. Spoken word is not an easy style to accomplish. I almost wonder of the singer had some acting experience, as there are parts in the song that you really feel his emotion. Sometimes, he's whispering. At other points in the song, he sounds like an evangelist preaching to his congregation. All the while, the keyboard and bass guitar are putting forth a lulling sound. The lead guitarist evolves throughout the song. At the beginning, he has a very reptitive and subtle 3 note riff that repeats. But then he throws in his overdrive and wah pedals to get a very industrial sound. The percussion is a cross between some very typical dance beats (from the laptop) and the live drum set that adds a very well coreographed sound. I can't imagine that was an easy accomplishment. Nevermind the creation of such unique and interesting drum riffs, but only part of it is performed live. That requires a lot of practice. The part you can't hear in the version available from their site is that the violin adds quite a bit of tension to certain parts of the song. I only wish I remembered the live version better, as I really would like to study in depth the way the bow-and-string instruments worked into these songs.



So what makes this song so inspiring? Unlike 60% of the music available today in both the real world and the demoscene, this is a true art form. I'm not saying that music isn't art. But this is a song that is painted across the audio spectrum. The song evolves. There's no defined chorus. The song almost has no hard definition at all. It moves like liquid from the start to the end, almost like an ocean. The tide comes in on some occasions, and it receeds on others. But the song is constantly evolving: Getting stronger, growing, changing. And if that isn't enough, the lyrics by themselves are very powerful.

This isn't a jam band. From what I saw and what I heard, these guys have planned every note. Everything is placed exactly where it should be, and practiced so that it is perfect every time. I can only imagine that they have spent a lot of time together perfecting their art.

That's the reason the drummer can keep time with his pre-mixed sessions.

The lyrics are precisely timed with the music, the bass guitar and the lead guitar are very carefully fit into each other's path. And the atmosphere put forth by the keyboard and the cello is carefully thought out.

Even the mixing (both live and on the recordings) are well thought out.

No one instrument overpowers the other. And I believe that even the movements on stage are well thought out, as there are times where the cello player and the lead singer are doing the exact same things. This is not a weekend project. This is a band of dedication. And this song is only one minor testimony to that dedication.

You need to go on the site and download their music. If you like it, you should buy the CD. Trust me, it's well worth the investment. I guarantee that the music of The American Watercolor Movement will inspire you. And it looks as though they will become more inspiring down the line. It's a tight band, tight music, solid show and the energy and patience to make it all work. I would feel guilty if I didn't let you, my readers, know about this song or this band.

Reviewed By D. Travis North

"FLAPJACKS, SUNRISE AND VERNE" New Album

From: Jersey City, New Jersey. It's hard to imagine this amalgam of junkyard technology, unabashed artiness, multiculturalism, and high theory coming from anywhere else.

Format: Full-length long-player. Fourteen tracks, forty-four minutes.

Fidelity: Much of And The Maps Came Down was recorded on four-track media, and you can tell. But there aren't any sloppy or muted songs, and as arty as this band is, affecting a fashionable murkiness isn't part of the project. When it counts, they're clear and communicative. Call them mid-fi.

Genre: Art-rock.

Arrangements: Cool synthesizer and guitar buzz, flamenco hand-claps, horns, lonely recorder, casio drum machine loops, a keyed instrument that sounds remarkably like a mellotron (couldn't be...), random unidentified bubbles and burbles, rattling percussion, whispers, introspective muttering, machine whirs, chants in foreign languages, the distorted speech of passersby.

What's this record about?: It's a hypnotic European travelogue of impressions, experiences, chance encounters, and missed connections. But this is no Club Med vacation -- AWM want to bring out Europe as confusing, sleazy, foggy, threatening, decayed; usually sexy, sometimes dangerous, always alluring. Jason Cieradkowski's songs are crammed with peddlers, old buildings, ruins, airports, cafes, "chlopcy", and fetching girls whose languages he doesn't speak. Lost in a kaleidoscope of vaguely recognizable sounds and cultures, Cieradkowski's narrators drift from location to location, following barely-discenrnable signals and voices, and an unarticulated longing. Chasing chicks through grubby European streets becomes a metaphor for communication breakdown. Or maybe it's the other way around.



The singer: Cieradkowski howls, chants, scats, hisses, croons, and breathes heavy, and leaves it all on the table even if he never goes over the top. If he's more impassioned than tuneful, or if his voice is an acquired taste, well, I can only suggest you work with him -- he'll take you down some strange, frightening alleyways where you never imagined you'd go. I'd compare his cracked, side-of-the-mouth tone and approach to Phil Judd, the first singer of Split Enz, but I fear he's a forgotten man even in New Zealand. At times, (especially the walk across the rooftops of "Black Market Cologne") his cigarette-choked pipes sound remarkably like those of Paul Buchanan of the Blue Nile. He's also one of the few vocalists this side of Aidan Moffat who's capable of doing spoken-word tracks and not coming off as a total idiot in the process.

The band: An intractable art-rock combo. The guitars never crunch or pulverize: instead, they play wiry, angular figures that insinuate their way into the listener's consciousness. The chilling "Dresden" proves that drummer Brian Wilson can do a four-on-the-floor beat, but he'd probably rather not -- his tastes lean toward jazzy ride cymbal and busy, unconventional snare parts. AWM likes synth pads that sound as if they were borrowed from the preset bays of disused mid-eighties digital models. It all adds to the Euro-creepiness: the feel of abandoned tower-blocks and gorgeous, polluted canals, and tourism as dislocation and flight through a panorama of intangibles.

The songs: Built around grooves. American Watercolor Movement generally take a guitar figure or rhythm, lace a melody or recicitive over it, and let it build to a climax or dissolve into ether. There's a dub streak here too -- the track is liable to fall away at the most unexpected moments, creating an aural close-up on Cieradkowski's shreiking, perplexed face.

What distinguishes this record from other indie records like it?: I'll be straight:And The Maps Came Down is a major release, and one of the most interesting rock albums to come from New Jersey in the past five years. Musical travelogues tend to be distinctive by nature, but Cieradkowski's European explorations have gone to tape with uncommon vividness. Far from home, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and beholden to a foreign logic, the narrators stumble through sonic tapestries alternately carnivalesque and menacing. The silences between the tracks feel like the spaces lost in translation.

What's not so good?: Four-track recording imposes its particular limitations on even the most imaginative acts. Here, too often, the bass guitar that should be driving these groove-pieces is milky and insubstantial, or as on "I Paparazzi", almost absent. As good as And The Maps Came Down is, it would have hit harder had the bass guitar been properly recorded and mixed.

Recommended?: This is not the easiest listen; some of the pieces, like the French riot of "Pour Les Auditeurs" or the savage post-colonial madness of "Lifestyle", are manic and abrasive. They're also great. Even the most challenging moments here are worth riddling through. And The Maps Came Down is a brilliant record, and if you're brilliant yourself (and I know you are), you owe it to yourself to pay attention to it.

Reviewed By Chill-Town.Com

"AND THE MAPS CAME DOWN" The First Album


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