Reviews
Language Arts
Short Run EP
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Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2008-07-22
Literate and verbose, Language-Arts flood their verses with word-jumbles and playful imagery. Dense and classically-trained instrumental passages form the base, while slow-moving double-bass lines swell under Kristen Cudmore’s rapid-fire pixie-rap. Essentially, they’re blending disarming indie-pop with classical influences and an ear for jazzy hip-hop textures. This is Small Run, a 4 song tour-only EP, available… er… right now in unique CD sleeves, in what my best estimation is homemade screened ink. It’s probably too late already. Only 100 copies made, says the sleeve, and I have one. You don’t. I win.
A short treatise on rapping: Effective rapping firstly needs competent flow, marked as in poetry by metre, cadence and speed. This is, as results can prove, all that is needed to succeed in rap. The underlying meaning of the wordplay can be overlooked through compelling delivery of nonsense words, stream-of-consciousness blathering or, more commonly, inane bullshit. What tends to break a rapper out from merely being competent is, in my opinion, the ability to impart wisdom.
One could make the case for there being a dearth of wisdom in the rap game currently. One could also make the case for a lack of intelligence across the board, in all musical genres. One could also make the case that I’m using this CD as a vehicle for my own petty musical concerns. There is plenty of evidence for all of this. So can Language-Arts, a band full of mildly awkward, bookish-looking young people, working in the fields of indie-pop and hip-hop, bring the goods?
They’ve got the flow. Kristen Cudmore can spit out more syllables than you can in a shorter time. She’s on the beat, or dancing around it, finding ways to cram in two to four verses of words into one measure of music. She does it with an unaffectedly childish voice, and is not afraid to speak-sing and hold notes with a charming and pure voice, akin to Joanna Newsom except not abrasive or so obviously put-on. She’s got some things to say, as well, and they’re clearly articulated, if you can process the strings of sounds hitting your eardrums. Cudmore’s delivery will leave you looking for a lyric sheet (they’re printed on their website, thankfully) as some of the more percussive passages of words are so clipped and crisp they lose their recognisability as sentences as cut their way into the rhythm of the song.
The lyrics are solid, though. Perhaps no grand revelations are present, but there is certainly a broad ground covered on only 4 songs. Opener “White Socks in Birkenstocks” meditates on stripping down pretensions and “getting back to basics”. It runs from questioning the sincerity of tattoos and trendy religion (yeah, we all know that guy who smokes a lot of pot and is “totally Buddhist”) to passing over pharmacology for a wholesome breakfast solution. It ends with “What of it really matters? / Call me an anthropologist questioning our culture’s patterns” which I believe may qualify as boasting, another feature of some kinds of rap music. Except this rap music is built on a shuffling beat, heavy tom hits, an organ freak-out, and a lilting chorus melody that’s burning itself into my head forever.
“Boxed In” follows a sombre guitar progression into musings on emotional confusion and defending the sincerity of her own heart. She asks “Cause I want to know you in my next life / Does being young make it any different? / will I ever be able to comment?” while the song picks up from slow and sad to an up-tempo stomper before finishing with fluttering nylon-stringed guitar and plenty of delicious fret noise. “Tuck it In” opens with multi-tracked pleading “Let’s sing about the things we see when we sleep / and how they feel real” before hitting a quick rhythm, heavy on bass. Lyrics come in double-time detailing a slightly creepy and surreal scene where her mother dies and the family receives a call from their deceased grandmother before the kids flee the house, overturn the pool and sail away on it’s overturned shell.
“Stay There!” builds up a slow layering of “ahhs” and double-bass before leading into a mellow keys-driven jazz section. The musicianship of the band should not be overlooked because of the idiosyncratic vocal delivery. Eventually the band locks together into a ride-driven burn-out slow-jam of back-up harmony “bop-bops” and cymbal crashes that should leave the body swaying pleasantly, lighters held aloft.
This is what EPs are good for. These are all, apparently, songs from their upcoming album, and if Small Run is an accurate sampling of said album, it should be well worth the purchase. All four tracks are dense with musical ideas; each song is stuffed full of guitar riffs, playful bass lines, synth textures and shifting drum patterns that rarely rely on time-worn structures. There’s a wealth of creativity here, more than most bands use for an entire album. As I mentioned, this EP will probably not be available to you. But you can find 3 of the songs on this album at their website: http://www.language-arts.net/language-arts-media.php At the very least, try “White Socks in Birkenstocks” because your inner (or perhaps outer) nerd demands it.
Score: 8
- Jeff Geady