Comes with a Smile # webexclusives
issues | the songs | interviews | reviews | images | web exclusives | top 10 | history | search
search

April 2006 / October 2005 / February-April 2005 / November-December 2004 / July 2004 / March-April 2004 / November-December 2003 / June-July 2003 / March-April 2003 / January-February 2003 / December 2002 / November 2002 / August 2002 / May-June 2002 / November 2001 / October 2001 / June-July 2001 / all web exclusives / search

Califone | Quicksand/Cradlesnakes (Thrill Jockey)
An effective exercise in genre blurring, Califone's second album is awash with sonic experimentation, yielding a contemporary character from traditional instrumentation and Tim Rutili's earthy vocalisations. On Mean Little Seed, Rutili sounds like a bruised Jeff Tweedy feeling his way through an 'Exile on Main St.' outtake, on Vampiring Again he brings a lightness of touch a la Sam Prekop to the album's most accessible (i.e. tuneful) track. Prekop's stylings are also a lyrical touchstone, obtuse and secondary to the delivery and phonetic form and shape. Ben Massarella's ever-creative layers of percussion forge dense backdrops onto (and into) which additional elements are strategically placed.  With recent recruit Jim Becker handling the majority of strings and electronics and a handful of guest musicians, Califone achieve something not unlike you'd expect a Mark Linkous/Howe Gelb collaboration to invoke, heavy on atmosphere and with an off-hand approach to the songwriting rulebook. What pulls 'Quicksand/Cradlesnakes' from the mire of experimentation for experimentation's sake, is a fundamental grasp of - and a vividly apparent respect for - the song within. Hence, as on closer Stepdaughter, the fiddle-led Million Dollar Funeral, or the aforementioned Mean Little Seed, when less is more, Califone know when to step back and say, "job done."

Matt Dornan
March-April 2003

back