Somewhere

While making catchy indie pop tunes with the Courtneys, the groups guitarist Courtney Garvin was also teaming with multi-instrumentalist Connor Mayer to write and record music thats a punchy mixture of C86-style indie pop, prime-era shoegaze, and good old-fashioned indie rock. They started off working at home on a four-track recorder, but for their first album moved to a real studio and called in Joo-Joo Ashworth of Froth to help them get the sounds they wanted. Actually, Somewhere is packed with the kind of sounds that will knock out anyone with even a vague interest in any of the aforementioned styles. The duo capture the hooky melodies and sugar-sweet vocals of classic indie pop and the layered dreaminess and hypnotic rhythms of shoegaze, then add thick slabs of guitar and the shrugging wistfulness of the best indie rock. Tracks like the rollicking Tennis, which sounds like Butterglory after taking the Charles Atlas course, or Talking to My Plants, which comes across like Cluster and the Clean doing some gardening together, show just how well integrated the duos influences are on the album. Not only have they done their homework and put their lessons to good use; they also play the heck out of their chosen instruments. Garvins guitar work is perfect throughout, whether shes jangling like a member of Look Blue Go Purple, churning away in gloriously muddy fashion, or giving lessons on how to raise a six-string ruckus on extended blown-out jams like Pills. She lays down snaky psychedelic lines on the title track, pushes her amp to the breaking point on The Queen Rules, and gets a truly gnarly tone on It Lives, It Breeds, It Feeds. Mayer is there to back her each step along the way, providing rock-solid drums and sneaky-good synth parts that apply just the right amount of color. Its a classic approach, tried and true, and used by many bands. Not too many of them have done it with the same combination of innocence and violence, power and grace, lightness and heaviness. The band describe their sound as harsh twee, and thats pretty close. Nobody else is likely to call them that without cringing a little, but no one should feel shy about calling the band damn good indie rock because Somewhere certainly fits that description. Its a near-perfect encapsulation of all the best things about the styles theyve ingested, played, and sung with just the right amount of gleeful grit and charming enthusiasm. If youve fallen out of love with indie rock -- or even if your devotion never so much as flickered -- Somewhere just might be enough to remind you why you loved the sound in the first place. ~ Tim Sendra

コートニーズのフロントウーマンが立ち上げた新プロジェクトのデビュー作。ステレオラブやヨ・ラ・テンゴらの影響を受けた音楽性は、ローファイかつオルタナティヴな空気を纏っている。また、キーボードを効果的に採り入れた浮遊感に富むポップ性も愛さずにはいられない。適度なエッジを備えつつ、ひたすら心地良い音色を追い求めた肩肘張らないロックは、聴けばクセになること間違いナシ。
bounce (C)荒金良介