cwas#13 / cwas#12 / cwas#11 / cwas#9 / cwas#8 / cwas#7
cwas#6 / cwas#4 / all reviews / search

Fans of the much-missed 90s LA lo-fi ensemble, Further, must think all their Xmases have come at once. Further, largely the work of brothers Brent and Darren Rademaker, excelled in creating a chaotic, breezy, tune-laden noise pop. Interested parties should actively seek out their 1994 Grimes Golden CD, their melodic apex where a sun-drenched Dinosaur Jr is welded emphatically onto the Beach Boys. Towards the end of their time together, Further's sound shifted towards something approaching a psyched country rock, the cosmic American music of Gram Parsons. This direction was maintained last year when Brent's new band, Beachwood Sparks, released their shimmering eponymous debut on SubPop. Now, it's the turn of Darren's outfit, The Tyde, a six-piece collective incorporating three loanees from Beachwood - brother Brent, Chris Gunst and Farmer Dave Scher. Again Once takes it cue from 1960s West Coast country-tinged psychedelia, but Darren Rademaker's songs chart their own course. The band is credited on the sleeve with 'coloring in' his songs but they do have such wonderful material to work with. There are obvious stylistic nods to 1960s totems like Dylan and The Band (especially on opener All My Bastard Children), the Velvets (North County Times), Love, Byrds and Neil Young but Rademaker's lived-in sincerity lifts this album way above mere pastiche, a Stars in their Eyes Haight-Ashbury special. Your Tattoos, retrieved from an obscure Japanese 7" split single, is warm and funny as Darren sings "You know how much I hate tattoos / but on you I'm sure they're beautiful" and the tune soars. The closing track, Silver's Okay Michelle, this one reworked from a less obscure UK 7", is a stretched out 10 minute epic that still seems too short. There's nothing on here that sounds like it was recorded in the last 30 years -surprising given Further's punkish roots - but that's not a criticism. If you want to hear an album of substance, a West Coast classic regardless of the year of release, Once might just be that record.

Steve Raywood
CWAS #8 - Summer 2001

back