“The Errant Charm” is a superb soundtrack for an afternoon idyll. Vetiver bandleader Andy Cabic spent hours wandering the streets around San Francisco’s Richmond District, listening to rough mixes, tinkering with lyrics and arrangements. The album opens with “It’s Beyond Me”, a slow boil of acoustic guitar and vintage keyboards over a roomy beat. Here you’ll encounter almost every sonic idea showcased on “The Errant Charm”, the album’s universe distilled into one vibrant song.

As the summery “Can’t You Tell” unfurls, you’ll begin to pinpoint some of the album’s unifying elements, the integration of drum machines and a washed-out, ambient guitar sound, peppered with jangly flourishes. Then there’s “Hard To Break”, the hazy, layered harmonies and sunlight-dappled guitar evoking fond memories of Fleetwood Mac circa 1982’s “Mirage”.

Cabic and producer Thom Monahan have already made four Vetiver records together and know each other’s aesthetics well. It was time to experiment more, which was why Cabic didn’t arrive at Monahan’s Los Angeles studio with many completed songs. Instead, they started with lots of loose ideas and fleshed out the best bits. In some instances, they augmented or edited parts by themselves, and at other junctures they waited until the remaining Vetiver players could convene in one place to contribute. Those full band performances figure prominently in the album’s driving midsection… “Right Away”, “Wonder Why”, “Ride, Ride, Ride”… each of these selections is more propulsive and rocking than the one before it. Certainly that was Cabic’s intention for The Errant Charm, to push the dynamic range of Vetiver to previously unheard extremes.”

Purchase June 14th on Sub Pop

“Three San Francisco-based musical acts – Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Vetiver – tour the country performing their genre-defining music in the summer of 2004. They help each other overcome family tragedies and car accidents, and meet colorful characters, forgotten musical heroes, and folk luminaries as they travel across the country.

The film is an intimate portrait of life on the road for these young musicians early in their careers, playing tiny, obscure clubs and art galleries, but on the verge of larger success where small vans are replaced by large, impersonal tour buses. Here music is a creative, organic, inclusive endeavor. They not only sing about – they create – the world in which they want to live.”

TheFamilyJams.com

Still waiting for a release date to the masses.

Gust of Wind # 4

Papercuts, You Can Have What You Want

Gnomosong

This gust of wind comes in the night, and gently warms the soul, leaving behind the remnants of a necessary evolution- one that can find all of us deconstructing the past, so we can grow in the future .

“We are here then we’re gone, it’s our work that marches on” Jason Quever sings on the first single “Future Primitive” of his most recent record ” You can have what you want.” The title of this new ten tracks,  reveals the nature of the human spirits journey for unconditional life. Much of this stemming from  our immortal realities. This record, the third from the band Papercuts, is no less a personal triumph then the previous two records, under the Papercuts mantra of moody lines, and drifting rhythmic melodies, that encourage us all to explorer tell the jubilant end.

Papercuts  is Jason Quever’s band, but the impressive talent surrounding him on this latest project should not go unnoticed.  Helping this band’s direction is co-founder of Gnomonsong records Andy Cabic, and leader of Vetiver, the highly acclaimed San Francisco neo-folk band. Gnomosong was founded by Cabic and Devendra Banhart, who in the last four years has risen to the helm of this neo-folk revival.  Also, helping with arrangements and playing on the album, is Alex Scally, who is the brainchild, if you will, behind the band Beach House, they in many respects have risen to new heights with last years acclaimed devotion record, which was on many top fifty lists – you should check it out!

My initial response to this latest effort by Papercuts was not what I had hoped it would be. I first began listening to them in 2007 and fell head over heals for Can’t Go Back, it was full of textures old, and new – it made days bright and thoughtful.  I was hoping for the second coming of that sound, but instead, we are greeted with a darker feel on You Can Have What You Want. After listening to this record six times, I find it to be similar to a puzzle piece, fitting perfectly with the complete set.

This music is similar to a long journey. Its not a break from the past work, but a continuation of the mindful search-party of life.  This particular time, this particular artists, is finding a somber moment in his own movement. I actually like this album, and its funny how the day in which I have listened closely, the weather outside matches the mood of the record. Its raining, but the flowers are very close by, and people have begun maintaining there plots  – we have as well. I hear this record as just that, a plot that has been tended, but is being rained on. The sound of the record is muddy in parts, there is a sense of deliberate intention to sound grainy. The certainly accomplished that, and then some. During one of the tracks I thought my speakers were blown. The basic setup for the band is the standard guitars, bass, drums, some organ, various keyboards, all filtered with endless effects of reverb, and slight distortion. The vocal of Ouever is as beautiful as ever, so much, that unless you knew the band, you would think he was a women – I am powerless against female singers. If you had to label the singing style, you could say serious, and whiny at times, but not too much, enough to make us think about life, and how much life we actually have deep down.

The influences are no doubt from the sixties and seventies rock. The mixture of folk and rock n roll make you think its an old record. I would say there is some nineties grunge influence on top of that. Papercuts are out of the Bay area, and recently that has fostered many bands with this similar sound – the psychedelic organ never hurts.

Jason Quever is an intellectual, who thinks maybe too much – we should all do this more often.

- Ryan Boos,  August 24th, 2009