YOU HAVE to hand it to Boyarm’s Shawn Knight for covering his bases. The split 45 between his own band/collaboration Stationary Odyssey and local indie-violin-instro outfit El Boxeo comes with a CDR gratis. You never have to leave home without it.
For their part, Stationary Odyssey’s “Spongelike Wonderland” splices together a gauzy shoegaze electro-dub replete with toy piano, melodica and science lecture vocal samples that sally into the mix and cut the torpor just enough to stay on the dreamlike side of irritation. El Boxeo’s instro b-side “My Job at the Party Is…” doesn’t work as well. Over a seemingly random mash-up of drummer Danny Sperry’s shuffle-boogie-march snare beats (he has trouble either keeping up or making up his mind, not sure which), violinist Lisa Norton interjects stabs and lines that don’t so much add to the music’s tension as fill the space with hints of gloom. Then every 30 seconds or so, they break into a quasi-sprint wherein Zach Norton’s bass takes the baton from the drums. The last chorus is energized by a fuzz pedal on the bass, and then it disappears as quickly as it came.
Chris Handyside writes about music for Metro Times. E-mail [email protected]
