“Fortelling certain doom to the bouncing rhythm of tuba, bass, accordion, banjo, and tongue drum.” That’s how The Scarring Party describes “No More Room,” as in no more room in hell. You could add the following: Tin Pan Alley, Tom Waits, gothic slaughterhouse, phantasmagoria — it’s like, make sure the hatchet is safely in the garage, the double-barrel in the gun safe. There will be quite a party on the ship when the Scarring Party sets sail from Milwaukee for Singapore, but with evil lurking everywhere, will anyone survive the journey? Though not for everyone, these tracks should give you that little extra twist for which you might be searching.
Miho Hatori
The last time 3hive.com saw Miho Hatori, she was singing some samba with Smokey Hormel. But that was ’04, and things have moved on a bit. On Ecdysis — Miho’s debut solo album released on Rykodisc last October — the multilingual chanteuse hops from genre to genre and continent to continent. Looking for Caribbean rhythms? How about Southeast Asian? African? Just keeping skipping through the tracks on the album; eventually you’ll get there.
The Busters
As Joe pointed out last week with the Expos, 3hive could do with a “ska” genre. We might only post a few per year, but the love of ska runs deep here at the 3hive. Joe played in prominent Michigan ska band back in the day, and I once drove from Utah to LA mid-semester just to see the Toasters and Bim Skala Bim with Mobtown. (If any of our readers were at that show, that was me screaming “Veil of Sadness” at the top of my lungs when Bim asked for requests at the start of their encore, only for Shanty Dan to huddle with Vinny briefly before responding that they couldn’t remember how to play that song!) My fascination with German ska (see Skaos and the Special Guests) continues, so it’s time to roll out an old fave, the Busters. Still going after all these years, the Busters display the maturity of those years with “Waiting for the Sun.”
Sparrow House
It seems that with all this frantic social networking going on in the world (umm, the internet?), musicians are following suit. One search leads to the other in an endless maze of “who plays with who.” Sometimes you find yourself following the trail until you end up at a Lynard Skynard tribute band and you wonder where you went wrong. Not so with Sparrow House (which is actually just Jared Van Fleet, of keyboards and guitar for Voxtrot). When I finished following the trail of crumbs, I just listened, smiled and said “sweet!” Apparently, we were a little late on sharing some Voxtrot with you all, but this time I think we’re right on point. The track below reminds me of Elliot Smith, and since I pretty much wish that man was alive every day, I say, yes, Jared, lets please revisit. But the rest of the EP is varied, folky, dark and stormy. The kind of stuff you can close your eyes and be happy to listen to when you just need a moment. The cool kids totally love him and me too. Thanks Jared, I totally needed a moment.
Corwin Trails
So Rob M. suggested this one because his cousin’s roommate’s best friend’s brother is in the band, or something like that; I coudn’t keep it straight. What I do get is the ambient beats and noise laid down by Corwin Trails. Pleasant melodies, event bouncy at times, coexist among fractured and warped samples and scratches. Walls are built and crumble, time stops and starts — it all reminds me of this paper I wrote in college about how, in his poem The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot subverted the Second Law of Thermodynamics. (Sure he did!) Providers of the soundtrack to the film version of this epic battle between physics and literature: Corwin Trails.