Reviews
Rafter
Music For Total Chickens
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Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2007-02-04
Answer me this: if you had to come up with a certain sound, or name one band that you would sum up as making music for total chickens, what would it sound like or who would it be? For me it would have to be extremely safe, extremely accessible, and a style and sound that could be very popular; it couldn’t be overly complicated because that might scare the chickens off.
Who did you come up with? For me it was Jack Johnson, but Franz Ferdinand also came to mind, as did U2 in recent years. Who didn’t come to mind is Rafter, and it is he whose album is actually named Music For Total Chickens. I like a guy with a sense of humour.
My introduction to Rafter was through Bunky, whose songs either knock me off my feet or leave me completely unmoved. There are more of the former than the latter, so I was very interested in both of Rafter’s recent releases, 10 Songs and Music For Total Chickens. You might remember Ronan’s unflattering review for 10 Songs. I’m not here to write a rebuttal; it’s a music review site, this is going to happen. Sometime, for the hell of it, we should each write a review for the same album just to show the disparity in opinion that I’m certain would occur. I like the album, yet will admit it’s far from perfect. Music For Total Chickens narrows that gap to perfect substantially.
Those who have followed Rafter Roberts’ careers probably aren’t surprised. Having worked with the likes of the Rapture, the Fiery Furnaces and even Sufjan Stevens as a producer and been involved in countless other projects, this isn’t your typical experimental vanity project. It is measured lunacy, and that is how I feel when I listen to these eighteen songs played in the same length I might normally hear twelve songs. It’s a very polyphonic experience indeed, and not one that I felt a need to revisit after my maiden voyage. Thanks to a certain Jessica, I did revisit, several times, and finally the clarity came. This isn’t music for total chickens! It has a learning curve, a steep one; to think I almost balked at the opportunity to learn this for myself.
Opening track “Encouragement” only lasts a minute and twenty-four seconds, but it’s a captivating start, with its cluster of electronic sound effects and Rafter’s semi-spoken/semi-song emo-fied lyrics. I’ve warmed substantially to this song as I have the album, but on first listen it’s exactly the type of experimental alternative music that the mainstream -- and in this case, probably even a casual indie fan -- usually balks at and makes excuses not to bother listening to.
This leads into a much more structurally typical song, the melancholy “Hopes.” As Rafter gently strums away on his acoustic guitar, the story plays out, getting more powerful and more verbose, eventually leading to the crushing ending with Rafter somewhat sceptically singing (in a guarded falsetto) “I’ve got my hopes up high-gh-gh-gh” repeatedly. The songs are all so brief, I think of them like snapshots, and this is one of the best Music For Total Chickens provides.
It lasts just a fleeting 42 seconds, but “Primera” is one of the most energized, breathtaking experiences on the entire album. No words, just playful, almost child-like drumming, out-of-tune guitar and chimes. It could be Ben Harper when he was a kid, if Ben Harper was borderline insane.
Fast forward to “Your Way”, which I am going to label as industrial-folk-emo. Why? Because I can! That is what you get to do when you have one of these things -- if a song doesn’t fit in a genre, you create it. And now I bet there are those of who you feel an overwhelming urge to hear it; you should fulfill that urge, it’s well worth it. And I’ve never enjoyed hearing a crushingly depressing song about inevitable failure as much as I do “Unassailable.”
In the second half of the album, Rafter goes even a bit obscure for these ears. On first listen I would have almost said I hated the second half of this now; now I’ll say I just don’t mind it, “Peace” being a rather killer exception. The cymbal work here is absolutely sublime. Save for that, the rest of these snapshots need not to have been developed.
There is less fault to be laid at the feet of Rafter Roberts because I admire him a great deal for putting out such a bold album and not being deterred by the reality most listeners weren’t going to have the patience for it. If you have a friend who’s an artist, and they’ve ever let you see how they work, I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of stuff they never would put in a show. This is very much Rafter Roberts’ doodle pad; some of the doodles are exquisite, others not so much. I’m still very glad I flipped through.
Score: 7.2
- Dan