Fruit Bats, Kelley Stoltz

Description

Fruit Bats
In this often reflexive and world-weary era of popular music, there seems little room for unabashed wonder, or joy without suspicion. Some regrettable fear planted within each of us around the 7th grade or thereabouts still makes it hard to dance, hard to hold hands, hard to say “I love you,” at least without a quick caveat or escape route at the ready. Over the course of three records, the last two on Sub Pop (2003’s Mouthfuls and 2005’s Spelled in Bones), Eric D. Johnson’s Fruit Bats have looked for ways to file down the cynical edge of modern life and found many. Using bright melodies, defiantly major-key chord structures, natural imagery mixed with the occasional blazing insight and tender observation, the Fruit Bats have never shied away from darkness, but more uncommon in this day and age, they’ve refused to shy away from light.

With The Ruminant Band, this tradition continues in characteristically rich and involving fashion. Consider the title: it’s no coincidence or shortcut that the name of the second track was plucked to represent the album as a whole. “Band” is the operative word here, as the Fruit Bats lineup has expanded to five, who in turn expand the sonic scope of Johnson’s songs to include the barn-floor stomp of “The Hobo Girl” and the Fleetwood Mac-esque shimmy of the title track. On a recent message to fans on the band’s website, Johnson promised on behalf of the Bats, “We are going to choogle for you.” And while the potential for chooglin’ has always existed in some form all the way back to Johnson’s earliest 4-track experiments, The Ruminant Band sees it flower in full.

Now ponder the multiple meanings of the word “ruminant.” Its most popular definition is “thoughtful,” and the Fruit Bats are certainly that. But the term is also used to describe cloven-footed mammals of the suborder Ruminantia, which includes giraffes, cattle, goats, and (please refer to your well-worn copy of the Bats’ 2001 debut Echolocation) buffalo and deer. Applied to the men behind the propulsive yet spacious ‘70s country-rock jam “Tegucigalpa” and the parlor piano soft-shoe of “Flamingo,” this descriptor aptly represents the pastoral bent of the melodies and instrumentation, as well as their refreshingly good nature. When Johnson sings “Climb up with me to the monkey’s nest / … Give your lovely lonesome head a rest / In the beautiful morning light” the colors of that light nearly become visible out of the speakers.

Production credit belongs to Fruit Bats drummer Graeme Gibson, who directs each song in a way that lets each composition stand on its own while remaining cohesive, recalling the good old days of albums as viable art forms. The approach lets each member play a variety of roles, with lead guitarist Sam Wagster rapidly and twangily soloing on “My Unusual Friend” and adding pedal steel to the bouncy “Being on Our Own,” multi-instrumentalist Ron Lewis fleshing out the tunes with a variety of textures, and the whole thing underpinned by Fruit Bat constant Chris Sherman’s inventive bass-lines. Though Johnson has spent the handful of years between Fruit Bats records playing with peers as heralded and forward-thinking as Vetiver and The Shins, the songwriting and production on The Ruminant Band mark a further crystallization of his own melodic instincts and overall vision over the past near-decade, abetted by brothers-in-arms who know both bluster and restraint.

Kelley Stoltz
While Kelley Stoltz’s nigh-religious reverence for all things Beatles, Beach Boys and Kinks has been at the fore on recent albums Below the Branches and Circular Sounds, his new album, To Dreamers, blends a bit more post-punk abandon into its layered everyman pop. Tasteful horn adornments blow against tom-tom beats and 12-string guitars meet reverbed mellotrons, under Stoltz’s warm vocals.

The album begins with “Rock & Roll with Me,” a big beat electric invitation that fades into the melodic stirrings of “Pinecone,” a gently moving Pacific breeze. Later, the deceptively ethereal pluck of “Ventriloquist” is coupled with heavy lyrics, “Seems like there’s no one at all who’s speaking for me.” The motorik élan of “Keeping the Flame” and the electric whirring of “Little Girl” offer new moods, and it’s clear that To Dreamers has maintained the kaleidoscopic core of sounds heard on Kelley’s previous records, while making inroads into new sonic terrains.

As on prior albums, Kelley plays most of the instruments heard on To Dreamers himself, though two of the songs here were recorded by Kelley and his band live in the studio. One of these is a cover version of the ’60s nugget “Baby I Got News for You,” by “Big Boy” Pete Miller, who performs on the recording, dusting off the very valve amps and guitar used on the 1965 original, to add vocals and fuzz.

Kelley, now a veritable godfather to the burgeoning San Francisco under/over-ground (folks like Thee Oh Sees, Sonny & the Sunsets, The Fresh & Onlys), has blazed a path since the late ’90s as a home-recording guru and multi-instrumentalist.

No slouch on the live front, he was asked to open the Raconteurs first US tour in 2006, toured the USA and Europe with the Dirtbombs in 2008, and through a twist of volcano ash-cloud karma, was the support act to childhood heroes Echo and the Bunnymen, in 2010. His songs have been used for international ad campaigns for Volvo and Marriott Hotels, as well as in television and movies.

I would wager that the entire reason behind music itself is to dream. From the young kid strumming a tennis racket along with the Ramones, to the box seats at the opera, the goal is the same. What music does and should do is allow us to lose ourselves and be transported, to find the mystical land where milk and honey meets Xanadu. See where you go with this new Kelley Stoltz record—an album of tunes oddly familiar and yet surprising, like a dream itself.

Gold Leaves
"Nothing gold can stay." Even as he tried to capture it in verse, Robert Frost appreciated the ephemeral nature of beauty. And so does Grant Olsen. Yet a nod to the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet is only one of the reasons the Seattle-based songwriter—best known as half of the duo Arthur & Yu—christened his new project Gold Leaves. An autumnal character imbues these nine originals. Just as foliage buds, changes color, and eventually falls from the branches every season, so too do themes of birth, death, and regeneration permeate The Ornament.

Like most creative types, Olsen's muse is always in transition. The album went through myriad permutations between inception and completion. Although he began work on it nearly four years ago, he scrapped the bulk of those early efforts after a bag containing his laptop and notebooks was stolen. The theft seemed a sign. Perhaps he was writing a second Arthur & Yu album? No. In the space of composing and refining The Ornament, Olsen had married, traveled through Central and South America, seen the birth of new family members, and watched a dear one pass. This transitional period was coupled with observations of his nation in flux, all of which informs the universe of this record. While he hoped to open these subjects up in a manner that would permit a broad range of listeners to relate to the sentiments, he recognized that their inciting intimacy precluded turning these songs into Arthur & Yu tunes.

Getting that damn muse to stand still long enough to even decide what The Ornament was, and how it would take shape, was a Herculean task. At one point, Olsen thought it might be a country album. Or maybe an homage to his love of classic R&B. Learning to let go of the creative process, to get out of his own way, was a crucial step in the album's execution. "I kept scrapping music because I wanted to make some kind of grand statement," he admits—a theme he addresses on the song "Hanging Window." "When I opened myself up to just trying to make a record that still had meaning, but was less grandiose in the overall scheme of things, I started being a lot more productive."

Once that path was clear, Olsen ended up making an album that sounds as vibrant and carefully orchestrated—and idiosyncratically unique—as the best work of many artists prominent in his own record collection: Scott Walker, Skip Spence, Fred Neil. His love of doo-wop subtly informs the harmonies and backing vocals that waft through the songs. With its roller rink organ and rumbling timpani, the title tune is propelled forward by the sort of ambitious yet calculated D.I.Y. production associated with legendary '60s British pop producer Joe Meek. From opener "The Silver Lining," with its sense of a life teeming with possibility (and a deft lyrical borrow from Steinbeck and some 11th century poetry), to the rising strings and keyboards of the dramatic finale "Futures," The Ornament sounds full but never overstuffed. This is a record full of judicious choices. Why squander the recording budget on a full string section, when the warbling, imperfect sound of the Mellotron boasts sufficient charms all its own?

Although he wrote all the songs, calling Gold Leaves a solo project is a misnomer. Olsen had a great deal of help making The Ornament. Jason Quever of Papercuts was by his side through most of the recording process, serving as co-producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist. Quever helped guide editorial choices, keeping scratch vocals when Olsen wanted to go back into the vocal booth and try again, and laid down the four-in-the-morning cello part that haunts "Hanging Window." With a résumé that encompasses tutelage under Motown veterans and credits with Beach House and Brightblack Morning Light, Ben McConnell was an ideal percussionist to anchor Olsen's amorphous musical ideas. Thao Ngyuen (Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Thao & Mirah), Amy Blaschke, and members of the Moondoggies all contributed backing vocals.

"Nothing gold can stay." Memories fade, emotions change… and songs take on new meaning.