Slanted Spotlight: dredg

A while back, if you remember, Joyful Girl started a segment entitled "Slanted Spotlight". Its purpose was to highlight bands that you may not know of, and her maiden voyage was with the band Winterpills. The band I bring before you is slightly less slanted, and in a completely different style, but one I feel deserves a spotlight. Without further ado, dredg.
image from dredgonline.

According to dredgonline, as their official site does not provide a biography, dredg have existed since 1993, kicking around in high school and self-publishing. From this came two EPs, "Orph" and "Conscious". Strangely enough, their big break came on 9/11 - the 9/11, not just any September 11 - with "Leitmotif" (a very fitting name for this, their breakthrough album, as leitmotif means "a motif or theme associated throughout a music drama with a particular person, situation, or idea" (Dictionary.com)). While fitting in with the natural progression of Dredg's sound, "Leitmotif" is a rawer and harder sound than their two more polished and frankly better later albums, "El Cielo" (2002) and "Catch Without Arms" (2005), each featuring an underlying concept and theme. A fourth album is on its way.

Fellow AtD correspondent Coz introduced me to dredg with the song "Bug Eyes" off "Catch Without Arms," a deceptively pretty song encased in a mid-to-fast tempo and driving beginning. There are few artists which I immediately feel the need to research after hearing one song, and dredg was one of them.

At first, I was slightly disheartened, having only come across "Leitmotif"-era work such as "Penguins In The Desert" (penguins are a recurring image for dredg, with the "Of The Room" video focused on a penguin, and the bridge for "Triangle" being "We live like penguins in the desert/why can't we live like tribes" in an almost Gregorian repetition). Coz prodded me not to give up on dredg, so I researched the latest two releases and ended up buying both of them, playing each one on repetition for weeks on end.

"El Cielo" is more fine-tuned and many parts are instrumental. Their "Brushstrokes" add an almost theatrical note to the album, as if they were a score to the dialogue presented in the songs. The album itself is a meditation on waking and dreaming states, including samples to drive its point home, such as in "Whoa Is Me" ("inspired by the clarity of consciousness, rather than the vividness of dreams"). Many of these samples are taken from sufferers of sleep disorders, the letters of whom can be found in the liner notes.

"Catch Without Arms" goes from very emotional ("Matroshka" - one of the most beautiful songs I've heard from the current decade) to very slick (the "Zebraskin" riff crawls under your skin), and speeds up just enough (the opening "Ode To The Sun" has - at risk of sounding cliche - an infectious drive that gets into you, and it comes back with "This Tanbark Is Hot Lava" and "Hungover On A Tuesday"). Basically, there's something for everyone, from the most pretentious artist ("Scissor Lock," most of the instrumentals), to the sap ("Matroshka," "Planting Seeds"), to the hard rocker. Download a few songs to whet your whistle, and see if you want the albums. I'll bet once you start digging deep, you'll at least be tempted.

Slanted Spotlight: Winterpills

If you have a sharp attention span and have been following us here at Above The Din for a long time, you may remember Slanted Spotlight. I return almost sheepishly with the intent of reviving this feature after its hibernation period.

It's an overcast day in Northern New Jersey, and the air is grazed with a chill that makes the rain more severe. I don't want to leave the room very much, and it's one of those days that reminds me of Winterpills. Their rich brooding melodies seem to seep into the laid-back, reflective atmosphere of the day.

These guys (and girl) were entirely unknown to me until a trusty copy of Paste Magazine came with a CD that featured "Pills For Sara," from their first and then-only self-titled album. It was haunting. It told a fragment of a bitter story, it was literary, with striking lines such as "Biting hard and crushing flowers, sleeping through my superpowers". I was intrigued.

And then, after a hibernation period in my appreciation for them, RyTunes and I explored 2005's "Winterpills" only to find a plethora of interestingly written and textured songs. "Laughing" has a nice cruising melody, "Found Weekend" is artsy cafe waltz meets epic insistence in the repeated "You will live forever." "Looking Down" is melancholy in a thoughtful, understated way. "Portrait" paints a scene we can visualize and contains the deliciously descriptive line "There's honey in my chemicals." The band uses both acoustic and electric guitars, both male and female vocals, and "Winterpills" is an album for days when time stands still. It feels like folk, and like music that doesn't take itself too seriously while at the same time having brilliant lyrical and melodic moments. Some of this may have to do with its humble origins in the home of singer/keyboardist Flora Reeds.

“Our original idea for the first album was to casually record some demos at my house, but before we knew it we were making a full-length record,” says Reed.

"The Light Divides," Winterpills' latest album, was just released on February 27, and I've heard sporadic bits so far, thanks to their official site and their MySpace posting two songs. "Handkerchiefs" is precious, with Reed's voice carrying crystal-clear and the calm-endearing "We need a place where we can talk." I'm reminded of Jewel's early work, with an indie edge and more maturity. "Broken Arm" is more direct and straightforward, accusatory even. The raw start, marching tempo, and profanity (is this their first time?) shows they took it up a notch. It's different, but it's fun.

There seems to be a certain timelessness involved, and the sense of this group as a band of dreamers is conveyed nicely in drummer Phillip Price's explanation of the latest project's name:

"I was thinking how, in the dark, we’re all one unrevealed event, a miasma. It's only when we are hit with light that we are separate. In a way, perhaps this collection of songs is my way of cursing the light and, for better or for worse, avoiding lighting any candles."

Worth delving into on any given rain-day.

Slanted Spotlight: The Shins

This section of Above The Din (pending Coz’s approval, of course) will be devoted to getting the word out about musical acts I (or we) feel are underrepresented in the current music scene. It’s about sharing what we love about bands or artists whose main catalogue falls under the radar, as they are known only by a few songs or not very well-known at all. Personal preferences can come into play here (hence the “Slanted”), and it’s more a space for recommendation than anything else. You might find the artists discussed here amazing, mediocre, or stuck outside the main spotlight for a reason. Either way, it’s good to bring them to light and open your horizons a bit.

The Shins are primarily known for their appearance on Zach Braff’s soundtrack to the movie Garden State. The excellent compilation (one of those movie soundtracks bought on its own merit) contains “Caring is Creepy” and “New Slang” from 2001's "Oh Inverted World".

These selections embody the safe middle ground between the wildly experimental tracks that dominate 2003's "Chutes Too Narrow," and softer, more soldidly composed songs such as “Pink Bullets” from "Chutes Too Narrow" and “The Past and Pending” off "Oh Inverted World". Interestingly, the Shins' second album is the site of more "weird," risky songs than their first major release.

Quirkiness is the band's strongest and weakest point, and is prevalent on both albums. Gems like "unknown quotients, you must be using potions / how else could you tie my head to the sky" from 2001's "Girl Inform Me" are endearing, while lines such as "You may notice certain things before you die. / Mail them to me should they cause / Your algebra to fail" are featured on the same album and may cause severe eye-rolling. The tendency to string together random phrases, while a smashing success on "New Slang," can seem pretentious and inscrutable elsewhere, making them somewhat a "love 'em or hate 'em" act. At the same time, lyrics from the stunning "One By One All Day": "If every moment of our lives was cradled softly / In the arms of a strange and gentle child / I'd not roll my eyes so" stop me in my tracks with their beautiful acuity.

Despite their hyper-originality in phrasing, songs like already-discussed "The Past And Pending" and "Pink Bullets," and "Those To Come" as well, are more like ballads with interesting word choice, and create an ambient, surreal, and wistful atmosphere.

If you like unorthodox phrasing, modern poetry, and/or are a sucker for softer songs (I happen to fall into all these categories), you should give The Shins a try. It’s become a bit of a joke that I often push their music on people I know, but I feel there is excellent material here, that the band is in danger of being associated with Garden State and only that for all eternity if something is not done. Now that this vital step has been taken, I can rest easy for a while.