Add Date: July 12
Artist: Eleanor Friedberger
Album: Last Summer
Label: Merge
Genre: Rock, pop
Comments: Score one for truth in advertising: Last Summer, the debut solo record from Eleanor Friedberger, was indeed recorded last summer. (Unless you're reading this later than the summer of 2011, and then it wasn't. But that's hardly our fault.) One-half of the sibling duo The Fiery Furnaces, a band that AllMusic.com has described as "[r]estless sonic chameleons", Friedberger's first foray out on her own has produced a terrific LP, as splendidly quirky as anything that she and her brother have done, yet still easily distinguishable from the band's work.
How exactly, then, to describe Last Summer? At times it sounds like a perfect update on '70s pop, at others it's a true indie rock opus (unless there is no such thing), and at times it just goes off the map. Take "Roosevelt Island", when a funky bass line veers into a layered, synth-heavy wall of sound--not exactly your conventional pop song. You weren't expecting that saxophone riff at the end of "My Mistakes", either. (Sorry to play spoiler.) And if you're a Fiery Furnaces fan, you're already appreciative of Friedberger's soulful vocals; no one sings exactly like she, and that's meant to be wholly complimentary.
One of 2011's best. Spin tracks 1, 5, 8, 9 and 3.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment