"Baby Walrus" Baby Walrus and a Jangle Pop Exposition

Many thanks to the girl who lives in my old apartment, for it was her text message about a package from Slumber Party Records that got me in touch with my Jangle Pop roots via Baby Walrus. As the first bizarre track started (one of eighteen), Emily was reading the abstract on the back of the album. Words like "jingle bells, vegetables, flutes, hats, drills, cats, dogs, cabinets, clapping" were all used to describe the craziness that is Baby Walrus, and from what I can tell, all of them are accurate. They all describe this kind of frenetic energy, an ADD style of making music, as if every five seconds someone came into the room and said, "Hey, lets try to use these forks for something!" or "I think I have a busted TV in the basement, that would be perfect for this song!" Most of the time I would balk at this kind of reckless abandon and gluttony of craziness, but with Baby Walrus it felt perfect and absurd. This ridiculousness got me thinking about the other bands that have a similar aesthetic, if maybe a bit more refined. The bands that share the energy and enthusiasm, the fun and shakiness of it all. Bands like The Unicorns and Neutral Milk Hotel and even British Sea Power (yes, that British Sea Power). Bands with more experience that may foreshadow the direction that Baby Walrus might be heading in if they continue as they are.

The Unicorns have an excellent Jangle about their sound. With recorders and squelch and dueling vocalists, it's no wonder they were only together for one album. I am very sad that I only discovered them after their dissolution, but what we've got on this one disc has more frenetic energy and is bursting at more seams all at once than most bands can achieve in an entire career. I think it's probably better that The Unicorns disbanded after recording "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?", that way we've got this one, perfect distillation of the band and the sound, without the dilution that often occurs as a career plods on, proving once and for all that it truly is better to burn out than to fade away.

I think Neutral Milk Hotel straddle that fine line between reining in the frantic energy that gives them so much of their sound and yet still letting it run free with the lunacy that it deserves. I was tempted to talk about "Avery Island", their debut disc that's pretty much all fuzzed out Jangle Pop, but I thought it would be more interesting to talk about the muted, controlled Jangle of "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea". Jeff Magnum has the perfect voice for a ramshackle Jangle Pop band, the off-center, not quite bad vocals that endear you at first and hypnotize you at last. Under his careful conducting, his band creaks and sputters, sparks and fires in fits and starts as it rumbles through the album. With "King of Carrot Flowers Pts Two and Three", Magnum sets us up gently before letting the whole shitstorm loose on our ears, tugging on our earlobes and poking at our frontal lobes.

Some of you may have scoffed at my mention of British Sea Power in speaking of Jangle Pop. That's probably because you read the Pitchfork review of "Do You Like Rock Music?" or you've only ever heard "Open Season". But it's their perfect debut album, "The Decline of British Sea Power" that has it's heart and soul in Jangle Pop. Their sound is safe like a razor sharp kitchen knife, becoming equal parts more dangerous and more safe the sharper it gets. Unlike the Unicorns and Neutral Milk Hotel, British Sea Power haven't self-destructed under the uncontrollable entropy that is at the center of Jangle Pop, but rather, they've dulled the knife that gave them the edge with "Decline...", sliding into ever more dangerous waters. Don't believe me? Listen to "Decline of British Sea Power" side by side with "Do You Like Rock Music?". I LOVE both albums, but it's easy to see how their sound has been dulled. Their rickety, rollicking energy has been replaced with soaring, epic bombast. Are they fading away rather than burning out? I certainly hope not.

"Flipless in What Plastic Box" Baby Walrus
"Tuff Luff" The Unicorns
"King of Carrot Flowers Pts Two and Three" Neutral Milk Hotel
"Apologies to Insect Life" British Sea Power

Baby Walrus: Official MySpace Buy
Buy "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?"
Buy "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"
Buy "Decline of British Sea Power"

A quick note about the Springtime Redesign. I got bored last night and decided to spruce it up a bit around here. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.