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Tiny Tunes
By Michael Henningsen, Stewart Mason
SEPTEMBER 8, 1998:
Alibi Rating Scale:
!!!!!= Thank
!!!!= Heaven
!!!= For
!!= Little
!= Girls
Seam The Pace is Glacial (Touch and Go)
Three full years after the brilliant Are You Driving Me Crazy?,
Sooyoung Park and
fellow Seamsters--miraculously, an unchanged line-up since the
last record--William Shin, Chris Manfrin and Reg Shrader return
not with a breakout or breakthrough, but instead with a new record
that serves to further themselves as a most viable indie rock
force and, frankly, re-establishes them as the most consistent,
if overly patient, breath of fresh air in the noise chamber that
is the Touch and Go stable. Park leads the listener through The
Pace is Glacial with the full-frontal guitar assault that
has increasingly marked past Seam efforts, but he also seems to
have become settled enough with himself to craft melodic hooks
that almost invite the listener into the record rather than relying
on his guitar magnetism as a shield between his audience and his
lyrical underpinnings.
It's difficult to say whether The Pace is Glacial is any
more or less measured and perfect than any before it. It is, afterall,
a Seam record, with all the chiming, shimmering and gradual swelling
up of chaos into tuneful Nirvana and remarkable control of tension
of its predecessors. By turns, then, it's difficult and probably
a disservice to simply stick the record in a line-up with the
others and describe how it measures up. It doesn't. But, then,
it does. In the grand scheme of things, though, The Pace is
Glacial represents the tip of the iceberg and a whole lot
of it that's trapped below the surface. Patient swells like the
extended bridge in "Nisei Fight Song" and the unresolved
instrumental "Wig" act alternately as depth charges
that eventually explode and diving bells that slip slowly and
surely toward some uncharted ocean's floor.
Park's vocals billow out in wispy, whispered clouds of introspection
while he and guitarist Reg Shrader lay claim to 12-string symphonies.
Manfrin's drums lead, follow, punctuate and carry home rhythms
produced by bassist Shin. That the alchemy works is something
of a miracle in its own right, but the fact that it has worked
over the course of seven years, four phenomenal LPs (including
the latest) and a couple of equally impressive EPs is almost beyond
comprehension. It takes a certain musical mindset to fully appreciate
Seam and their place in indie rock-dom. In that sense, The
Pace is Glacial is simply the next step toward enlightenment.
!!!!! (MH)
Alastair Galbraith Mirrorwork (Emperor Jones/Trance Syndicate)
For years, my friend Paul Lukas has been raving about New Zealand
guitarist/violinist Alastair Galbraith, so a couple years ago,
I picked up his EP Intro Version. Lord, was it crap--tuneless
fragments of semi-coherent aimless noise. Bleah.
However, it turned out that Intro Version was an aberration.
Tracks on friends' mix tapes made me seek Galbraith's other work.
I've not been able to track down any releases by his two '80s
bands, the Rip and the Plagal Grind (actually, 1993's Seely
Girn compilation contains a couple cuts by each), but recent
solo releases like 1994's Cluster and 1996's Morse and
Gaudylight have shown Galbraith to be a charming eccentric
in the best New Zealand tradition. His songs often sound folk-based,
partly because he favors modal rather than chordal melodies. Around
this folky center, Galbraith favors noisy experimentation, creating
unearthly rackets that occasionally part to reveal some gorgeous
bit of guitar pop, like on the melodic yet skronky "Song
to the Third." Useful touchstones include fellow New Zealand
nutters Chris Knox and the Jean Paul Sartre Experience.
Mirrorwork moves away from the more traditional elements
of Galbraith's works. It's never as messily self-indulgent as
Intro Version, but it sounds as if Galbraith took notes
from his brief association with California's Mountain Goats. Like
those records, Mirrorwork is a series of miniatures--24
songs in just over 41 minutes, ranging from short ("Filter")
to relatively expansive ("Ember"). But unlike Mountain
Goats albums, Galbraith keeps things from getting too samey: "Surrender"
has a hooky British Invasion chorus, and "Last Air"
features beautiful bagpipe-like sounds, while "Rudd,"
featuring some backward vocals, bears striking resemblance to
the more disquieting moments of Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom.
The only problem with Mirrorwork is that while there's
some lovely and exciting sounds here, at their abbreviated lengths,
very few of the songs feel properly fleshed out. Maybe on the
next album, Galbraith will remember how to write hooks. !!!1/2
(SM)

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