David Grubbs
The Spectrum Between
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David Grubbs
The Spectrum Between
Drag City, 2000
RiYL: The Sea & Cake, Gastr Del Sol, Jim O’Rourke |
The quintessential grad student first mellowed out a bit on his last record, The Thicket, which wedged the lovely "Fool Summons Train" in amidst tinnitus-inducing violin drones and the howlingly pretentious lyrics of"Two Shades of Blue." A followup 12", "The Coxcomb," was a step back towards artiness, split between a one side-long Stephen Crane adaptation with a cast and horn section and a one side-long organ drone. The Spectrum Between, however, is accessible all the way through, without a bit of musical compromise.
With Tortoise's John McEntire on drums and Mats Gustafsson on reeds, it's hard to see how Grubbs could have gone wrong. He's delivered songs here worthy of his collaborators, and his singing continues to get better, both delivery- and lyric-wise. "Gloriette" is the standout, sort of a musical version of the "Mulva" episode of Seinfeld. "This goes back to the evening when I couldn't summon your name / Gloriole, nimbus or aureole," Grubbs sings over his own deft acoustic guitar work, McEntire's lightly rocking drums, and Gustafsson's tenor sax break.
The Spectrum Between, while largely acoustic, rocks harder than anything Grubbs has done since his Bastro days. His relocation from Chicago to Brooklyn seems to have helped this along a bit. While Spectrum inevitably retains some ties to the Chicago "art rock mafia" of which Grubbs and McEntire have long been prominent members, some new musicians and new ideas have found their way on to this LP. Instrumentals "Stanwell Perpetual" and "Preface" show Grubbs repeating himself a bit, but the steady beat of "Whirlweek" and the approaching directness of the lyrics to "Show Me Who To Love" are welcome changes.
The album ends on a bum note, with "Two Shades of Green" repeating its similarly named predecessor's lyrical deficiency. After a promising first line ("if you say 'two shades of green,' don't forget the spectrum in between"), Grubbs proceeds to read off a list of random nouns ("hedgerow, hemlock, iceberg, Kashmir") in alphabetical order. Not his best moment on an album that has more than its share of good music.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.