Dark Dark Dark’s Wild Go dialectic featuring contributing writers, Chris Mollica and Julia Barry. Parts 1-4.
From: Chris Mollica
To: Julia Barry
Wild Go, the second LP by Minneapolis based chamber folk band Dark Dark Dark, doesn’t slowly walk you into the room. It tosses you in with the thud of a drumbeat and the swirl of an accordion. You’re suddenly in Europe, a long time ago, in a dark bar, underground. Everyone is smoking. Everyone in the long ago was always smoking. Obviously, depending on your tastes, you’re not sure this is the place for you, but Wild Go creates a truly interesting, if flawed, atmosphere that is worth a chance.
Not getting a good idea by my vague allusions to how the album may sound?
Let’s try this. The various talented band mates of Dark Dark Dark list banjo, clarinet and cello as a few of their multiple instruments. All of them also happen to be visual artists. In 2008, Dark Dark Dark members participated in “Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea “ an art piece that traveled by rafts made of junk down the Hudson River from Troy to Long Island City, Queens. They helped build the rafts and provided the score for the sea-ON performances. The band also had an instillation at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and did the music for the film Flood Tide by Todd Chandler, upright bassist and sometime co-vocalist.
I seem to have lost my way here.
Last try! Dark Dark Dark is Fiona Apple meets Danny Elfman by way of Beirut. It’s a swirling, moody, hollow ride through various lamentations and longings. There’s beautiful orchestration, no doubt, and Nona Marie lnvie has a voice that invites, taunts, and threatens to lure you to your death. Threatens but never does get close. There is a veneer here which lends itself well to the world of performance art, but one which can act as a detriment to the music.
Julia, this is going to be fun! You are a musician, yourself. How do you feel about Ms. lnvie and her band of hippie art misfits? Did you connect with their songs or were you seated with me, just behind the clouds of smoke?
“When you’re alone, you’re so alone,”
Chris
Download Dark Dark Dark – “In Your Dreams” (MP3)
FROM: Julia Barry
TO: Chris Mollica
Chris, I’m with you in the smoke. I *should* like “Wild Go” if I tick the intellectual checklist, but I couldn’t dive all in at an emotional level.
Invie’s voice is beautiful, strong, raw, guttural, honest. Check. Orchestrations are eclectic, explore combinations of timbres and sonorities beyond usual instrument configurations (jazz trio, chamber quartet, rock band, etc.). Check. Lyrics are heartfelt, poetic, yet concise. Check. Chord progressions and harmonies weave a variety of styles together, playing off of different scales and cultural associations. Check.
But for me, that might be where the smoke is. While I dig that Dark Dark Dark’s songs cover a melange of styles, instruments, and voices, the virgin listening experience was like being tossed on a windy sea. For example, “In Your Dreams,” moves through tribal chorus to classical minor tension to ska to Disney “aah” choir. (And what on earth is wrong with my brain that I keep harking back to “The Lion King” soundtrack?!). In “Daydreaming,” creepy-crawly, Halloweeny-goth chromatics sweeten into blues playfulness, hang out in your regular pop or rock arena, and end with a time-honored classical resolution. “Heavy Heart” is Belle & Sebastian meets metal guitars meets Flamenco. You get the idea. Over these twists and turns, Invie’s lyrics seem to float unrelated, like an oil coating on water; her phrasing often ends with a clipped rhythm that, while mirroring the quirky spaces made by herky-jerky accordion and the chamber rock amalgam, holds me at arm’s length like an angry teen saying, “You don’t understand me.”
And, despite these complexities, Dark Dark Dark didn’t thrill me with surprise either. Their sound overlaps with bands already on my playlist (think Beirut or Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) and utilizes a lot of structural, chordal, and lyrical repetition that didn’t capture my emotional attention. Oh, repetition. What a fine line. Listeners want repetition in order to understand and access what musicians express, but also, we need surprises, contrasts, standalone moments of truth, beauty, weirdness, or deep satisfaction for the rest to bear repeating. (How many times can we jump on this bed until it breaks?) In “Wild Go,” we’re not shouting along to a one-line chorus with windows down on the way to the beach, nor are we invited to sit on Dark Dark Dark’s couch and be part of their mystical world. Even if this album is a secret cabin in a moody, medieval wood, I still need the cabin door to be open–just a crack!–for the songs to move me.
Wait, I do want to back up and recognize the incredibly stellar musicianship of the band (oh, that cello is gorgeous!), the folky gumption of Todd Chandler’s singing, and especially Invie’s vocals. Mashing together as many tones and styles as the songs themselves, Invie’s voice instantly zings to the center of my brain. (I know I’ll get over the instant comparisons to other singers my brain makes on the first couple listens.) Her vocal quality is intense yet her singing style is not flowery or covered up, which I really admire. I wonder if her vocal talent is so multi-faceted that, combined with Dark Dark Dark’s eclectic arrangements and roller coaster of styles, we can’t fully appreciate her expression? I wonder if combined with Invie’s Renaissance capabilities, we can’t absorb the whole of Dark Dark Dark?
I like that Wild Go isn’t all sewn up and polished to an antiseptic sheen like a ton of studio albums we hear these days. The patchwork feel appeals to me. Maybe I just need some more time and listens. The band members and singers perform with such feeling, and the words seem to express something important about loneliness, love, loss, wishes. Oftentimes, albums that turn out to be my favorites are those that I couldn’t understand or disliked on first or second (or even fifth) listen. I wonder if this is one of those?
“Tell me what you celebrate,”
Julia
Download Dark Dark Dark – Daydreaming (MP3)
From: Chris Mollica
To: Julia Barry
I want to get this out of the way. Todd Chandler’s singing may have gumption but I won’t commend him for it. Initiative isn’t something I’m particularly looking for from singers. Some clarinetists should remain there, behind their clarinets, or occasionally, back-up singing. He sinks “Heavy Heart” in the first word. As you said, Invie’s voice is so powerful that when she hands the lead over to Chandler, I feel like my time is being wasted.
Whew. Got that off my chest.
What I really enjoy about your take on Wild Go is the intense battle it’s created in you. It’s downright schizophrenic. It conjures up the question: at what point do head and heart actually matter when deciding whether or not you like music? Let’s be honest. Everyone’s experienced that moment when someone is laboriously extolling the virtues of some band and you can’t help but roll your eyes. Not too long ago, someone “intellectually” tried to sell me on Panic! at the Disco. “They’ve done off with the indulgence of their debut and really found a sound all their own. It really is a record you want to hear.” REALLY? Panic! (!) at the Disco? To be honest, he carefully noted that for their second album, they dropped the exclamation point.
…
I don’t love Wild Go. I like it. I’ll recommend it to some people. Not all. As I was listening to it and writing this, I was distracted by the White Stripes (RIP) doing a cover of Otis Redding. That doesn’t sound like “must hear music” to me if I can be thrown off by a gee wiz whim.
Intellectually, you want to love this album, but do you? For me, music has always been more an art than a science. You’re a musician. Where do you fall on that line?
We all learn to live with disappointments, Julia. Maybe, no matter how you try, the intellectual side won’t match up with the feeling side. Sure, you’ll like some songs, it may go on now and then for guilt’s sake, but in the end, maybe it just isn’t for you.
I’m looking at you Tomboy.
“Oh, if you knew what it meant to me,”
Chris
Listen to Dark Dark Dark’s EP – Bright Bright Bright
From: Julia Barry
To: Chris Mollica
Haha, that’s the first time I’ve ever been called downright schizophrenic. Yes, head vs. heart battles get old. Perhaps that’s just where I’m at these days. But in the case of listening to music, I don’t think it’s as simple as head vs. heart, or as you said, science vs. art. (Yikes, what horrible stereotypes that juxtaposition just made.) What music I like changes over time and with familiarity. For me, there’s more to absorbing and loving music than my initial gut reaction. I’m really fascinated by music in the context of sound, how it falls on the spectrum of our myriad noisy world.
Have you heard the Radiolab episode about how Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” caused an actual *riot* upon debut? The MCs talk to scientists about the body’s negative physical response to sounds we haven’t heard before. People just didn’t know how to hear “Rite of Spring” and biologically went bananas. Later, everyone rushed to hear this new-fangled, amazing piece of music that had caused a riot just years (years? don’t quote me on my dates) before. (Why Stravinsky felt that Rite of Spring sounded awesome is a whole other fascinating podcast on creativity and people ahead of the curve!)
I’m not likening Dark Dark Dark to Stravinsky. But I do know that I’m often repelled by what later turns into a favorite album, and as I learn to hear it, then I feel deeply along with it. Also, my tastes change over time. What used to be innovative now sounds hackneyed, meaningful now cheesy, schmaltzy now classic. And thank god for change! I don’t want to listen to the same four albums my whole life.
Julia
p.s. Yeah, I’d enjoy if Chandler took his singing to a side jug band project. Invie’s voice is surely one that stands miles above the campfire singalong vibe Dark Dark Dark sometimes attempts. (We can stick with Devendra Banhart, Bowerbirds, Ed Sharpe ‘n Crew, etc. for enjoying that.)
p.p.s. For more on the body and emotional response to sound, check out Eyebeam NY’s “Biorhythm” exhibit now on through August.
Download Dark Dark Dark – Celebrate (MP3)
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