Austin Sound

Infinite Partials’ debut album End of Begin is an evolution of extant sound rising from Appalachia, classical concert halls, folk, world, and even the tiniest measure of ginger ale acoustic pop. It is a warmly alluring and exceptionally well-produced album that lights upon selections from any person’s musical memoirs. Maybe Andrew Noble’s mandolin chews up the musical jargon dictionary. Perhaps Andy Strietelmeier and his violin slice through expectations. Jesse Jones’ djembe and Andrew Davis’ cello certainly rebuff the advances of critical tarts. You can practically feel the sunlight streaming through the windows and the soft reverberations flow through and fill the room; as a producer, Stephen Orsak should be proud.

Yet while the music rises above one’s expectations, it is the Frenchman-wave of Grant Hudson’s literally abstract songwriting and musical direction that remind me of the moonflower, Ipomoea alba.

What Was, the EP side project of Dan Grissom from some say Leland (ssL) is both a maiden voyage of Grissom’s solo work and an offering of subtle charm and perfectly human imperfections. By the third listen through the 20 minute album, on the second song, yours truly actually cried. In a time and in a society where hate turns the quick buck, What Was captures a grace that is both delicate and luminescent. Is it perfect? No. Completed in two days as a means to obtain gas money while on tour, there’s only so much one can expect. But, do the imperfections matter? Not in the slightest. To the contrary, they add to its magic and make it the best $10 I’ve spent all year.

If ever there was any doubt about the origin of the intimacy, harmonic roots, and floral humor found in ssL, they have been answered by this EP. Tracks like “lazy fluorescence” rely primarily on basic folk instrumentation and Grissom’s contemplative boy-next-door voice. The result is a general theme of almost painfully simple lyrical poetry opened up and revealed under his care.

Essentially a one-man album, Take a Look Out Your Window leaves you feeling giddy, giggly, and silly. The band is Pataphysics but it’s Patrick Healy bathing under the heat lamps, dancing, clutching the microphone to his heart, crowned by a fuzzy wolf hat and sacrificing the profane. “I’m a children’s music performer. [K]ids love making fun of everything that is sacred - no exception.” Assuming most of us have the good sense to still be childlike, the 350 copies of Pataphysics’ album will likely be gobbled up like Oreos spirited from grandma’s cookie jar. So do yourself a favor and look for it.

Lest you think that the band name promises an exercise in “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments” and feel a bit cowed by Pataphysics, fret not. Choosing the name of the project was merely a convenient and cute pun, not a statement of intent. Not to be restrained, however, Healy wrote me saying, “We’re just an eccentric rock group I guess - we might get weirder and work in theories of ‘Pataphysics’ when we mature musically. Who knows.”

Whatever the purpose, San Antonio band Boxcar Satan and solo artist Ghostwriter’s first collaborative effort, hobo nouveau collapses into a biting, gritty good time tethered by velvet ropes of fire. Call it 52 whirlpool minutes of punk folk made by snappily-dressed no-account day-jobbing night-rockers and I won’t fight you - but I’ll only half agree. Without knowing how long the preparatory discussion lasted, I can only say that for a two-day recording after a two-day practice, it’s a near seamless weaving of contemporary songs from Boxcar and Ghostwriter inlaid with commentaries of folk-heroes. Holding its own against the most lofty and cash-infused albums, it captures the breaking point of the dispossessed.

Undercover Art: The Secret Show Knows No Boundaries)
by Zoe Nicol

Living in Austin, music litters the city. On any given night you can show up to a sanctioned venue, crack open your wallet, hand over the contents therein, and you are magically permitted entry. For the next few hours, you may gossip with your friends, fix your eyes on the stage, or do a little dancing. It can be a roaring way to spend an evening and a cherished part of our city culture. But what if things were slightly different? What if you didn’t need an ID card, cash or credit, and simply spent an evening with your friends? What if you combined sitting on a grassy knoll under the stars, candles flickering, feeding on evening air, with a quiet performance of strings and harmonies? Could such a simple alteration of place and electricity transform your experience? Over the course of the last year The Secret Show has revealed the answer to be a primal and resounding Yes.

Glad-handing the Top 40’s of the solid-gold era and making pretty promises about the future, Tourmaline, the 10-year follow up to 1997’s Redemption Day from Kevin Carroll, best known as the lead guitarist for Charlie Robison, is glossy and rainbow-colored. But then so is an oil stain in driveway. Sweltering tones inaugurate the record, promising a candle-lit ambrosial album, unfortunately undone mere moments later when Carroll’s robo-soul vocals emerge. The door, thrown wide, opens into a tryingly-long 48 minutes of pop-Zen musak.

Who fingered your grandma? You know someone done the deed. Now you can thank Lick Lick for that stirring reminder. From the lotus of an empty compliment and a mumbo jumbo of uproarious nonsense blossoms the pungent, sweet, flummery flower of Lick Lick. Their self-titled CD is a self-described “prunk” creation - prunk being preppy punk¹ - and decoded that means it’s more about having fun playing and making fun of everything while doing it than doing anything else.

The introduction track, “The Bad Pet,” sets the stage for about half of the album with outlandishly gesticulated progressive rock moves. “Squib,” “Male Pattern Drunkassness,” and “Dirgy” build on unexpected rhythm changes, profuse use of keyboards, and electric guitar poking at you from all different directions. Fluxuating between the McStabby screaming elocutions of Matt Kelly and almost spoken-word rock-woman-raw vocals of Mo Pierce, an opportunist is enticed to transform fully into a hedonist, despite the you-think-this-is-a- bad-idea-check-out-what-I’m-going-to-do-next theme.

Golden Arm Trio’s newest release, The Tick Tock Club is enthralling. In 37 minutes, GAT manages to appeal to those who sit under the moonlight holding their head in the hands, those who like big band knee-jangling dancing, and even the jazzy beatnik who’s smoldering beneath your skin. Amazingly enough, it’s accomplished without sounding disjointed, being bipolar, or foregoing the narrative design. The album is a well-balanced, eclectic, and exciting result of complementing weighty strings, impatient brass, bare essentialism, and crowding instrumentation. The charm is perhaps the inner workings of this years-in-the-making album: interspersed musical themes that you think will be tied down—but instead, they’re only held long enough to captivate you before they’re flipped around, inverted, and push you into a new direction.

Filled to the brim with silver-toned harmonies, oratorical pop, and possessive hooks, Clear To The Far Side of Way Over Yonder is an elusion into a grayscale and pastel dream world where the foregone conclusion is that romance never ends sweetly but with a measure of resigned despondence. The Drawing Board, true to the name, takes a step back from the situation and pencils in sketches for the beginning of the next star-crossed affair.

Matt the Electrician’s fifth album, One Right Thing does twelve things right. That’s good news for us because there’s twelve tracks. The record is a poignant blend of Americana and front porch Tao-Te Ching. Throughout the album, you have the distinct feeling that the band is just down the street, waiting for you to show up and help catch fireflies. Sever’s songwriting remains unashamed at being more human than obscure as both the grace of the poetry and the accompaniment create a homespun gossamer of sound. Be it reflections on evolving from being a kid in love to being in love with his kids or holding out for that single tiny brass ring on an otherwise disastrous ride, Matt puts it succinctly in “Held Together”: “we are held together by tissue and twine.” One Right Thing may be a delicate gift, but it’s a beautiful, lasting one.