Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Quick hitters:: River Water (home recordings)
I'm not really sure how to describe the sounds River Water creates on this lo-fi EP. It's three songs, only five and a half minutes long and the disjointed folk sounds don't sound like anything you would have heard before. You can't even find out anything about the man recording it, as he has about 6 "friends" and nary a word about him on the net.
So why am I talking about this unknown entity from Halifax? The songs flow like random thoughts, more focused on the collage of stripped down sounds than structure and melody. The EP starts with Know This, a two-minute track built on lo-fi acoustic strums, fret board squeaks and barely audible vocals and percussion. Sail down each ocean uses more squeaks and scratches to cloud the traditional strums of an acoustic and a much clearer vocal performance. By the time you start to think where you might actually hear this song - my thought was maybe a slow motion, travel montage in a Malloy Brothers surf flick or like a distant cousin of Dirty Beaches - he's already moved on to something completely new.
The EP closer - Murky Lagoon - is an a capella track built on some water sound effects and highly contrasted double tracked vocals about the decline of the environment. It's only a minute long, so by now I'm sure you are wondering what is going on inside the mind of River Water. Honestly, I can't really help you figure it out, but strangely, the five and a half minutes captivated me and made my thoughts race.
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