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30.11.07 |
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Spokane |
[music] |
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little hours - lp |
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jagaguwar |
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Spokane return with their subtlest work to date, recorded 2006 while the process of reconstructing a mid-nineteenth century, white Federal period house in Richmond, the band’s new home. The once again minimalized tune of “little hours” is quite astonishing for those familiar with the previous work of Rick Alverson and his band, as it shows that Spokane is able to get lusher, slower and more ruminative. Muffled, barely audible, yet gentle vocals over a minimal piano line in minor chords open the records with the first song „singing“. This song sets the mood for the rest of the album and it’s no surprise that it’s not an uplifting or hip shaking one at all. Instead, „little hours“ formulates a harrowing, desperate and desolated tune. Listening to the sinister slow core jam of “thankless marriage”, the sorrowful yet minimal classicism of “building” or the blank resigned depression of “middle school” or “tell me” as you imagine yourself right in a funeral procession. No doubt, Spokane succeeds once again in building up a tight atmosphere that enwraps the listener, while using very few resources, which is a sparse instrumentation of violin, piano and guitar as the tapestry for the hushed dual vocals of Rick Alverson and Courtney Bowles. Their little poems are as hopeless and desperate as their music – both leave the listener emotionally exhausted after the course of the album’s ten songs. To sum it up, while it seems to abandon all direct radicalness, “little hours” is one of the radical and consistent albums in 2007. [phillip]
www.myspace.com/spokanemusic
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