Slim Twig
"Vernacular Violence" CD
Paper Bag
Records
Genre: experimental pop
Toronto, Canada
Sep 10 2008 |
One Wednesday night last summer, a friend and I made our way to
Toronto's rapidly-gentrifying Parkdale area to see a show put on by
Wolfcow, an obscure local personality who splits time between the
noise and no-wave scenes. There weren't twenty people in the audience,
and invited opener Slim Twig (along with a keyboarding crony)
seemed less-than-enthused about the situation. My friend and I,
meanwhile, were less-than-enthused by their set, which seemed to
embody everything wrong with hipster culture. The glazed looks, the
trademark garb, the taken-seriously over-the-topness... So imagine my
joy when Slim Twig's Vernacular Violence arrived in the
Indieville mailbag - at long last, a chance to
exact revenge on a band that just about ruined by Wednesday
night a year prior.
Well, I can be vengeful but I can't be dishonest. Vernacular
Violence is not the disaster I was secretly hoping it to be. In
fact, it's a very strong record's worth of weirdo pop music. "Brothl
Hunting" elegantly acquaints us with Slim Twig's formula:
crunchy keys and Yamaha preset beats blanketing the Twig's
unique ballroom vocals. It might have turned out cacophonous,
save for a strange melodic quality that ties it all together. A bossa
nova beat carries lounge-abortion "Tormen" which is oddly unsettling,
but the disc gets better the further it goes on. Morricone-tinged
"Street Proposition" is brilliantly nightmarish, while "White
Fantaseee" is a mesmerizing, ten minute epic that marks the best
keyboard performance I've heard in awhile and reminds me strangely of
early Go-Betweens material. Still, it is the last track, "Gate
Hearing!," that is Slim Twig's coup de grace.
The brilliant lyrics are delivered with
admirable gusto, accompanied by a miraculously infectious keyboard
part that forms the record's catchiest
moment. So catchy, in fact, that I recognized it from that fateful
show a year prior. Same songs, different opinions. Interested parties
are encouraged to pick up this very strong EP, but if you happen to
run into Slim Twig on the street sometime, be sure to give him
a punch in the face for me. I still want my Wednesday night back.
slim twig's myspace
80%
youuuuuuuutube!:
gate hearing! video
Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 5 tracks, distributed by
the
label,
released Aug 5, 2008] |
