Rising: The Besnard Lakes / Papercuts: Are the Dark Horse / Can't Go Back
In the midst of an exceptionally dry month for new releases, this week two debut albums hit the Also Recommended subcategory of our Best New Music section. Coincidentally, both Montreal's the Besnard Lakes and Bay-Area-based Papercuts trade in mid-century sounds: rich harmonies and fuzzy psychedelia; girl-group stomp and Southern California sunshine.
On the Besnard Lakes' Jagjaguwar debut, Are the Dark Horse, song titles like "Disaster" and "Devastation" imply a conceivably maudlin tone, but neither wallows. Rather, "Disaster" is a lush, beautifully produced Beach Boys homage with swooping backwards strings, while the chaotic "Devastation" resurrects the tight vocal harmonies and kitchen-sink production of vintage Olivia Tremor Control.
On Tuesday, Stuart Berman wrote:
"...[O]pener 'Disaster' begins as a swell of forlorn falsettos and weepy strings (courtesy of in-house arranger Nicole Lizee and moonlighting Godspeed violinist Sophie Trudeau) that yields to a slumberous chorus of Brian Wilson harmonies..."
"....[T]he Besnards turn it up another
notch thanks to bassist/Lacek's belle Olga Goreas' star turn on 'Devastations', a hellacious, fuck-the-man screed delivered in
70s-smooth girly harmonies that provide an uncanny contrast to song's
monstrous psych-metal groove and-- oh yes-- climactic three-way drum
solo."
[from The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse; out now on Jagjaguwar] | [ORDER]
Meanwhile, on Can't Go Back, Papercuts' first outing for Devendra Banhart's Gnomonsong label, frontman Jason Quever sings about daily minutiae with the kind of ache usually reserved for love songs: "Bring me my papers/ Bring me my coffee," he says, so lazily you can picture him leaning back with his feet on his desk. Of course, the tedium of office work here stands in for the tedium of a relationship: "What can I say to you to shut you up right now?" he wonders, and he could be talking about a co-worker, or a partner, or the point at which it becomes hard to tell the difference between the two.
"[Quever] also breathed deep from the stylish post-Summer of Love haze, when dope-smoking folkies traded tokes for euphoric doses, and when the VU started sharing (select) shelf space with Dylan albums and dreamy L.A. singer-songwriter projects. Not that you'd necessarily glean that from the first song, 'Dear Employee', an anomalous chamber-pop kiss off that's got more in common with the Hidden Cameras (minus the "gay church" thing)."
MP3: > Papercuts: "Dear Employee"
[from Can't Go Back; out now on Gnomonsong] | [ORDER]
"'Summer Long' channels prime
girl-group pop, sounding like Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited players subbing for a Phil Spector session..."
MP3: > Papercuts: "Summer Long"
[from Can't Go Back; out now on Gnomonsong] | [ORDER]