Trips & Falls
Straight from my inbox this morning to the giddy heights of the Pages of Toad this afternoon, that’s how fast you can be catapulted to global fame in the internet age. Or alternatively, that’s how little time it takes your art to be pawed by some sweaty online pervert in the internet age, if you prefer.
What made me so excited about Trips & Falls that I felt I had to post this quickly about a group whose album I could just review in a week or so anyway? It’s the weirdness. They play lovely, gentle pop songs which, although they are good, are being done by plenty of people at the moment. These are good examples – I’m not criticising them – but you know what I mean.
However, mixed in with these straight up girl/boy slices of loveliness are really quirky, bizarre little numbers twisted with arrhythmic drums, peculiar distortions and ghostly vocals. You Should Really Get Yours is amazing – perverted and captivating. The song which might be called In Real Life He Wears (or MySpace might have cut the title off – I’ll know when I get the album) is gorgeous and How Do You Do adds just a little bit of frantic Gameboy pop to further subvert the straightforward prettiness of songs like Prelude to a Shark Attack.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself here by over-praising a band whose album may yet disappoint, but if the five songs on their MySpace page were put together into an EP it would be a brilliant one. I await the album with more than a little excitement.
Trips & Falls – You Should Really Get Yours
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Trips & Falls – Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
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I’m really liking this, as well as the tunes on their myspace. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it. The more “idiosyncratic” tunes, like And In Real Life He Wears and the ones you’ve posted here have a similar WTF? quality to Forever Changes by Love, and there’s not many bands that can pull that off. Very exciting.
In Real Life He Wears is actually called IRLHW Corduroy Pants – MySpace did cut off the title. I’ve got the album now, but haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet. I’m looking forward to it though. As you say, the WTF moments really bring it all into focus – particularly the nicer bits, funnily enough.
In Real Life is on today’s podcast too, in case you need another incentive.
C&B are you the only bloke who likes this? I think it’s brilliant. Particularly ‘In Real Life he Wears Corduroy Pants’.
Does anyone actually really honestly like Forever Changes?
Erm, what?
Well, if you can get past the extreme 60s earnestness of the whole thing (Forever Changes that is), it has some decent tracks: Alone Again Or, for instance. Which, incidentally, Calexico do a rather fine cover of.
On Trips & Falls – very cool. I really, really think the drums make it: quirky yet not obtrusive, clever but not ostentatious. I can re-listen to tracks like And In Real Life He Wears and follow the rhythm whilst letting the foreground just wash over me.
I must have listened to In Real Life about twenty times in the last 24 hours. What a great tune.
(And Calexico’s version of Alone Again Or is fucking brilliant.)
I can honestly say that I fucking love Forever Changes. So there. Totally unlike anything being done by their peers. Alone Again Or and The Red Telephone alone are enough for fame in my book. And Bryan MacLean’s heroin-drenched acoustic guitar playing is magnificent.
It’s obviously just me, then.
Scott loves it too. I just don’t get it..
Just read your earlier comment properly Matthew and discovered the correct name for In Real Life…
And y’know, I’m kind of disappointed… I was a big fan of And In Real Life He Wears. It had a certain ambiguity that sat pleasantly with the music.
I agree with Nic. It’s as if Alone Again Or were really called Alone Again Or Back Together With My Baby?.
I like corduroy pants.
Just let me make clear that this wasn’t an indictment of corduroy pants. I’m quite fond of them myself. No ironing, you see. Very important for today’s active lifestyles.
The abbreviated title was pleasingly open-ended.
Actually, the horrible title to Alone Again Or is one of the things I dislike most about that album.
I feel the words ‘wank’, ‘pretentious’, and ‘huge-bucket-of’ coming on again.
But if I start with all that again I suspect I’ll be most unpopular around here!
Two old girls sitting her listening to this music. Some of the best SHIT we’ve heard in a long time! Keep up the good work, we love it!!!
Thanks Phoenix, that was pretty much my reaction when I first heard this too.