"Places" Canoe

I have a confession to make. I have been obsessed with this album for the past two weeks, when bandmember Carl Hoiland sent me a humble, kind, informal email asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing his album, even though it was released back in January (which, if you were unaware is pretty much the internet equilavent of the 19th century). I checked their myspace and was enraptured. I listened to their album and was in love. I listened to their cover of "Holland 1945" and was obsessed.

Canoe is a family affair, comprised of some siblings, some spouses and some bedbuddies that may or may not have shared a bed at an Econolodge in Tacoma, WA. This kind of wholesome underpinning, combined with the almost ubiquitous good fortune of being from Portland, OR, makes for an incredible set of tunes. The songs are pleasant, touching, poignant, funny, and aware.

I say "poignant" and "aware" in the same breath because of the song, "Audrey and Eli". A song about the prevalence of instant messaging and the preference of it to the phone is something I (and anyone else who came of age between 1997 and 2004) can relate to. As chat rooms fell by the wayside and we were able to finally connect one-on-one with a friend who was also glued to their computer screen, conversations carried on into the wee hours. The song even addresses, unflinchingly, the unavoidable tendency for young minds to gravitate inexorably toward the naughty bits. In the song, Audrey and Eli, eschewing the phone in favor of the computer, "write all these words/ explicitly/and their moms would yell if they'd ever see/all these words they write/their moms would never see."

Now while I can't necessarily speak to the explicitness of conversations shared in my youth, I can definitely champion the idea of conversing via IM rather than the phone. And even though text messaging via cellphone has pretty much usurped IM for the preferred mode of passive communication in my generation, I still remember fondly the long nights spent in College and High School talking to friends from all over the country and the world. In fact, if it weren't for IM, I probably wouldn't be married to Emily, integral as it was at the formative stage in our relationship. We would IM while I was "working" at the hotel and then continue our conversations when I got home, often into the wee hours of the morning, staring bleary-eyed at the monitor, but unwilling (and not wanting) to go to sleep.

"Audrey and Eli" definitely struck a nerve with me, clearly, and it's weird to feel nostalgic as a 26 year old, but I guess that's the closest thing I can think of for it. But the song that truly made me sit up and take notice, as those first memorable notes and words leaked out of the speakers, was "Holland 1945". Neutral Milk Hotel is one of those bands that I find next to impossible to actually "review". For one thing, they pretty much created the perfect album with "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea", and for another, they are one of those bands that is so intimately entwined with me as a person that I can barely express my feelings in words. When I attempt to, the sounds that come out of my mouth are usually reserved for gibbering crazies, drooling over their thick-buckled, canvas straight-jackets.

So you can imagine my happiness when I heard a faithful, new, reverent cover of one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums. I could tell immediately that this was a cover done by a band that had grown up with this song, they too hadtaken that perfect album to heart and rather than spouting incoherent gibberish, they were able to eloquently capture the spirit of the artwork and place their unique stamp onto it. Their version is more a tribute to the greats than an attempt to own something so incredible. According to wikipedia, some have criticised them for removing the "angst and chaos of the original (which made Neutral Milk Hotel's version so unique)", but I disagree entirely with the sentiment that the "angst and chaos" are what made it unique. As I mentioned above, it's incredibly difficult for me to articulate, but the song (and NMH) is so different from anything I have ever encountered, I can't even begin to express why I love them or what makes their songs so incredible. What I do know is that Canoe's take on the song is perfect; unique and recognizable, different and familiar.

"Audrey and Eli" Canoe
"Drip Drip Drop" Canoe
"Holland 1945" Canoe
***BONUS MP3***
"Holland 1945" Neutral Milk Hotel

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