Prints Prints

[Temporary Residence Limited; 2007]

Rating: 3.5/5

Styles: hodgepodge pop
Others: Talking Heads, Pinback, Brian Wilson

Kenseth Thibideau and Zac Nelson are Prints, as eccentric and promising as their names imply. This duo of dudes does music that uplifts, points toward a positive vista, and experiments without gallivanting all over your patience like two pretentious thin-pricks. Their druggie harmonies reek of a Brian Wilson smile and California at twilight. They set that bonfire on the beach.

These tunes, homemade and home-recorded, are something like hodgepodge pop — they rely less on preparation and more on using what they can gather. “Pretty Tick,” an ode to recurring body twitches (or maybe they mean the deer parasite), seeps into “Meditation,” an effect-heavy riff and cough that sounds as if you’ve just sauntered into a New Age shop at closing time. A distant whistle sounds sporadically on “I Wanna Know,” somewhere off beyond the horizon. These songs don’t hunt; they say hello and invite different elements over to play.

Prints cover a lot of bases — home base, acids and bases, the basics. They’re a little all over the place (we tend to call it eclectic), but there's something familiar about the band’s strangeness. You won’t find it hard to get comfortable with them. “End” is an instrumental. It’s spacey phasers, moans using Jim James’ reverb, and burping drums. And “End” is at the end, appropriately.

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