STILL SINGLE

A space for thoughts on music and culture, as written by Doug Mosurock and a select handful of individuals. This is intended as a supplement to our regular feature Still Single, published on Dusted Magazine. Updates will run here more frequently, and may feature writing on music not covered in the column. Compact discs are still not accepted for review -- we have more than enough vinyl and the occasional cassette to worry about.

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June 4, 2009

Enablers – Tundra LP (Lancashire & Somerset)

Enablers LP

Perfect! I’ve been waiting years as a June of 44 fan to some use, when along comes the third Enablers full-length (followed by an assignment to review it). How else would I be able to point out that not only does Tundra recall June of 44 more so than did previous Enablers releases, the San Francisco quartet even packaged this one as a giant matchbook…just like JO44’s Anatomy of Sharks mini-album from 1997! In reality, Tundra’s packaging made it such a royal pain in the ass to access the vinyl (without permanent damage to the otherwise gorgeous idea) that I was practicing “Nope, must’ve sent that one to someone else” in the mirror. It’s easy to forget, and even easier for younger readers to never realize in the first place, that June of 44 represented the better (and earlier) end of what indie rock did to Slint. This was commonly tagged as “math rock” when it kept the metal riffage then “post-rock” when the metal-riffage was replaced with someone’s idea of jazz, which lasted for a couple of Tortoise records before the whole mess can be historically understood as “post-good.” Instrumentally, Tundra resembles “still-heavy” June of 44, a period when the band fired on all cylinders, that more or less came to an end after the above-mentioned EP. To be honest, hearing this sound again is a nice surprise, complete with the loud/soft dynamics and snaky guitars that we grew so tired with back then. Enablers does it well and with enough of a unique take to distract (somewhat) from the delivery of poet Pete Simonelli’s spoken lyrics. He really does sound like Ken Nordine, a hilarious antithesis of the emo-savvy singing/shouting that the underlying rockings were largely associated with during the petering-out stretch of this subgenre in the late ‘90s. Still, we’re not talking Mike Patton here, so the vocal-sensitive can rest easy and rest of you can get off your asses, because this pretty little thing is limited to 400 hand-numbered copies. (www.lancashireandsomerset.co.uk)

(Andrew Earles)

2 years ago • Notes