Pitchfork

Songs From the Bigtop is the soundtrack to Devon Reed's movie musical The Bigtop, a movie about a kid from the prairie who runs away with the circus and, in Reed's description, "essentially becomes a monster in his quest for power." He also falls in love and there's apparently a subplot about industrial sabotage-- I can't elaborate much beyond that, because the film isn't out yet as of this writing and I've naturally not been able to see it. The soundtrack, however, functions fine without the movie: These are fully developed, listenable songs, all written by Reed but performed by an assortment of indie rock names and newcomers-- in some cases, before the screenplay was even written.

Fittingly then, most of the music has no circus feel in either the writing or the instrumentation, so don't come hoping for calliopes, trumpets, and barrel organs. Instead, it's pretty straightforward indie pop and indie rock, but performed by an all-star cast: Built to Spill's Doug Martsch, the Clientele, Damien Jurado, Robert Schneider's Marbles project, Eleventh Dream Day, Lisa Germano, Matthew Sweet, and Howe Gelb all contribute tracks built on his lyrics.

Generally, the artists are well-suited to the material, though Reed's songwriting tends to lean heavily on the easy rhyme, a trait that becomes noticeable over the course of the album. Reed also allows the artists to stick to their respective sounds, so the Clientele's too-brief song plays like it could easily have fallen off one of their LPs, and Matthew Sweet digs his husky voice into fuzzy power-pop that recalls his early 90s output more than anything he's done recently. A couple of tracks do hint at the film's circus elements: Tullycraft's "The Girl Who's Above Us" has a staggering waltz feel backed with a couple accordions, while Howe Gelb goes more for the scary clown angle on the 54-second spoken word/noise track "Falling in Love".

Thing is, none of this material is all that exceptional-- Communiqué's "Way to Walk", for instance, is a carefully crafted indie rock could-be anthem that never quite breaks out into that huge chorus it's reaching for. "I Only Want the Sky", arranged and sung by Michael Leviton, pokes along without much of a melody, and as gamely as Doug Martsch tries to fill "Cracked and Crazed" with the natural ache that suffuses his own work, the song doesn't give him a whole lot to work with. Songs From the Bigtop is an interesting project, and the contributions of each artist will be attractive to their fans, but on the whole the disc feels scattered and devoid of any standouts.