Monday, July 12, 2010

Carissa’s Wierd…just to drive your spellcheck crazy

Had a kind of quick turnaround review of the Carissa’s Wierd retrospective, out this week on Sub Pop sub-label Hardly Art…very nice, wish I’d had more time with it. This is a band that came and went with mostly local (Seattle-area) recognition, but whose members went on to form Band of Horses and Grand Archives. I said:


Carissa’s Wierd, the intentionally misspelled, quietly radical Northwest indie band that never broke big, made a music that distills adolescence. Moody, disconsolate, tetchy dissatisfaction ran through the band’s songs, rising to the surface in twitchy bits of percussion, occasional profanities, and a profound discomfort with the way things are. Yet, like teenagers, as the songs recoil from the real world, they draw back into a cloudier, dreamier space, defined by whispered verses, twining strings and sweet collisions of parts and counterparts. The songs are often beautiful, but never exactly easy, their effortless melodies shot through with stinging, scornful angst.

More

“Die”

“The Color that Your Eyes Changed with the Color of Your Hair”

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