The Art Museums -- Rough Frame
Ok, so what trends haven't these guys knocked off? Cheap drum machine loops? Check. 60s psych-folk revivalism? Of course. Fake British accents? Got em'. Lower-fi production than you? Indeed. Still, don't make the mistake I did at first and think they are trying to be groundbreaking or experimental by marrying the whole Surrealistic Pillow theme with the post-post-punk tape-loop minimalist drum machine stuff -- I really think that they just don't have any other mechanisms at their disposal by which to effect percussion. Except, maybe, that rhythmic low rumble, perhaps a hide drum of sorts...oh wait, no, that's just an underproduced bass.
Point is, they just really had to get this shit out the door and couldn't waste time recruiting a drummer. Given the swelling tide of late of 60s-garage psych-rock indulgence -- reference the Woodsist wikipedia entry for an itemized list of those responsible -- I could understand how artsy high school music-making dorkwads who had always worshiped their Summer-of-Love heroes in categorically chickless cliques would suddenly recognize, and grasp, their time to shine. It's fun, and can be a breath of fresh air amidst the prevailing contemporary indie themes that draw on more recent musical decades -- but at this point, twenty-four-odd months into the movement, you've really got to bring something new to the table to separate yourself from the pack. Does the replacement of a human drummer with a machine, albeit if out of economic necessity, accomplish such? I suppose that's up to the listener to decide.
Lyrics are of course secondary to aesthetic, but it's lines like "Let's all sing of modern things/soft and lovely modern schemes" that give me hope that this could indeed be a shrewd arrangement of artistic self-awareness and stark irony. Still, a few lines later they can't resist the "White Rabbit" throwback, "Take the pill, oh do we dare?" The resounding theme of everything here -- the band, the album, the songs -- is, not surprisingly, art, in the kind of youthful, romanticized sense of sojourns in Paris and exhibitions in Brooklyn. Curiously, their myspace page appears to have been designed by a fifth-grader.
What they do have going for them is a knack for solid melodies and an ability to write half-clever lyrics. The whole psych-folk thing is great and all, but I am interested to see whether they can fully merge their two indulgences -- the former and the tape-loop drums -- into some kind of unholy art-mongering juggernaut of 60s revivalism vis-a-vis 80s revivalism. Glimpsing back at their myspace page, a new video they've posted, "S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G.", seems to incorporate some dreamy synths and a more experimental iteration of their beloved drum machine loops -- so I'm hopeful. Check 'em out:
The Art Museums myspace
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