Consider dynamics: the stops and starts, the loud to quiet to loud again. Many a band with roots in indie or punk rock find these to be essential tools in creating their sound. They’ve endured as long as they have because they often work, and whether you’re the Pixies, Godspeed You! Black Emperor or someone playing a second show in the back room of a bar, there’s an immediate and visceral result—that point when, after a subdued idyll, a pedal is triggered and a wall of noise rushes in.
But what happens when you’ve taken those dynamics as far as they can go? The first half of the Seattle group Red Stars Theory’s discography takes the loud/quiet/loud dynamic and stretches it to infinity. Two early EPs, since collected by Suicide Squeeze as one of two self-titled releases in the band’s discography, find the group playing a winding, disjointed style of indie rock not dissimilar from drummer Jeremiah Green’s other band at the time, a little-known upstart called Modest Mouse. Singer/guitarist James Bertram, formerly of Lync, sang in a melancholy whisper even when his tone turned embittered. Red Star Theory’s first album, But Sleep Came Slowly, pushed their style to a more expansive place: the buildups to their loudest moments came in sprawling doses, and Betram’s vocal style became even more subdued, a forceful whisper that seemed of a piece with the music behind him.
Come 1999, Life in a Bubble Can Be Beautiful, the band’s first release on Touch and Go, made its way into the world. Given their output up to this point, one might have expected to hear more of the same: a work that, to ears a decade later, might sound like a descendant of groups like The Antlers—a place where post-rock chops and indie rock release could find common ground. But that isn’t entirely accurate.
I’m perhaps spoiling the ending by saying that the last release made by this band—a seven-inch on Suicide Squeeze— includes a take on John Coltrane’s “Naima.” Having taken the default moody-guy indie-rock template as far as it could go, the band instead kicked through a wall, keeping their grasp of dynamics but working to create a sound all their own, one where atmospherics were key and the lines between the band and their guests were increasingly blurred. The addition of strings to the lineup (Seth Warren on violin, Sarah Cates on cello) helped to root this expansion of their sound. And the presence of Scientific American, credited on two of these seven songs, tied the album to the Northwestern indie-electronica scene of the moment.
Much of Life is a Bubble Can Be Beautiful is instrumental: opener “How Did This Room Get So White” strews tearing guitars across a melody that ebbs and flows, while muted tones open the more subdued (and wonderfully named) “Boring Ghosts.” After lengthy stretches where no voices are heard, the album’s second half winds down with a pair of contrasting vocal approaches. The apex comes courtesy of Lois Maffeo, who croons “A Sailor’s Warning” in much the same soul-drenched manner as her 1996 Dub Narcotic Sound System collaboration “Ship to Shore.” Hers is followed by Betram’s aching voice on “September,” and the two taken together make for an exhausting denouement. “Would you be my accident investigator?” he begins, singing over a melody as tentative as his delivery. When Warren’s violin enters a third of the way through, it’s sincerely affecting. And in the end, it supports an album that brings together a fondness for experimentation with an emotional grounding— exhausting and rewarding in equal parts.
[Photo: ianbart]
