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Okkervil River albums have so much personality, the songs themselves become characters: players, people in the guise of animals or gods (and who can tell the difference sometimes?). And like watching a melodrama, we are witness to emotions that heave and plummet with frightening force. The songs can be drunken youth: the rotund boots on their feet knocking wildly on every surface. Or they can be villainous and smart, full of smiles and wishing-you-well up to the second they thrust the dagger into your belly. Pitched, lust-crazed, calculated: that is one half of an Okkervil album. The other emotion is equally intense in its thick, slow agony: the eternity it takes to remove the knife, knowing you have it all to do over.
And so it goes: soaring, drunk, angry, knife, stab, agony, pull-it-out-and-let's-do-it-again. At the San Fransisco Bathhouse in Wellington, New Zealand, on a crisp early autumn night, we were blissfully adrift for 90 minutes in Okkervil's choppy moods.
The stage at The Bathhouse is best suited for solo acoustic guitarists, DJs, 3-piece indie punk bands, or, at most, a quartet. Watching six musicians walk onto stage was like seeing a clown car act in rewind: you keep thinking, "surely they can't fit another one up there." But up there they fit, dressed sharply in black suits and white shirts. There was a bit of shuffling, slow turning to make sure Patrick's bass wouldn't take out Justin's eye, but always professional; never awkward or anxious. One got the impression this was not the smallest venue they had played in.
With the lights still low, Will Sheff begins what will be an unrelenting assault on the microphone with an apology for the idiosyncratic circus that is America's primaries, and to break the sad news that Obama had lost both Texas and Ohio. "If you had been holding on to hope, now's the time to let it go," he murmurs before screaming a fast version of "The President's Dead" that progressed seamlessly into "Black." The rest of the show played like a long-planned, well-rehearsed mix tape in that each song spoke to the next.
This is not to say that Okkervil River live is exactly the same as Okkervil River recorded. The band does not merely play tunes: they perform songs. While the rest of the band keeps time, plays each part precisely, Will is left to scream and sputter, or weave legless as he gives himself over to emotion. And although it appears at times that he's completely chopped--stumbling, twirling around eyes closed--the fact he never once bumped into anyone else on stage proves he is a sober performer: he knows exactly what he's doing.
Although Will Sheff is certainly the focal point, some of the loveliest moments were brought about by the other band members: how Travis Nelson kissed his drumsticks before charging into "Black", Patrick Pestorius's wry smile and dry wit ("Travis bought a cricket set yesterday . . . think we might introduce it to America because we're running out of professional sports"), the way Scott Brackett and Jonathan Meiburg mouthed the words to every song, and the humility of Brian Cassidy when it was announced to the crowd that this would be his last performance with the band. One of the sadder moments, true, but a testament to Okkervil River as a band. To paraphrase poet Albert Golbarth, they are tight, but highly unbuttoned.
(Please note I will make one small mention of the opening act, Ladybird, but nothing else: they were a dreamy French pop band with one nervous, Ritalin-starved guitarist. One bad apple, etc., etc.)
Okkervil River performs the second half (was busy rocking out to the first half) of "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe."
Perhaps it's my liberal arts background, or perhaps it's that I'm currently reading Rushdie's Satanic Verses, but its difficult to ignore the tones of reincarnation lingering throughout this album. Its title alone conjures common death/rebirth motifs: the ancient mariner, baptism, Odysseus--that irrevocable notion of returning to some salty silence, real or imagined, only to emerge once more; to return to return, etc. And when the parenthetical addition to the title track is "Life After Death," well, it becomes a little obvious there's more here than a few quirky tunes.
The songs also toy with the metaphor of joining, and on many tracks there is a logical collision in verse between I/you/we. Toward the end of the album, the song "Ones" begins with introspection: "in my mouth, my eyes, my ears, my nose." In most circumstances, one could dismiss this as little more than navel gazing. Yet the low timbre of the vocals and steady, repetitive tempo lulls us into a dreamy ease, making the shift to "our head, our legs, our toes, our eyes" barely discernible. And then "we" return to the sea: the first 5 minutes of the final track is water. Quiet, ubiquitous yet barely there.
More composed than their Unicorns albums, but still retaining that playfulness, Islands' Return to the Sea has a few tracks that stand out. Like "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby", "Rough Gem," and their elegy to Earth, "Volcanoes." Yet for all the pop-laden riffs, there is a latent darkness roaming about. I'm reminded of reading about Victorian England, how people would dress up the recently deceased for photographs (mostly babies and children who died prematurely, but sometimes whole families). Return to the Sea aims its lens at spousal and drug abuse, genocide in African diamond mines; the apocalypse: all dressed up to wholly resemble pop songs.
Should one read any further in to an indie record? Even here Islands is coy, inviting us using one hand to share the metaphor, but using the other to dismiss any greater interpretation with a wave: "dig deep, but don't dig too deep / when it's late you'll see the hole is empty."
Comments
i really like this album, but haven't quite thought of it in this way before. thanks for your insight.
Isolation and creativity is a marriage known to artists for centuries. From Rainer Maria Rilke, who holed himself up in a castle on the Adriatic to produce his Duino Elegies, to The Bachelorette, the Kiwi keyboardist who shut herself in a small cabin on the coast of New Zealand's north island; artists know that removing yourself from civilization for months on end leads to inspiration and, sometimes, poetry. Without distractions taking up all the thinking space, one's imagination is allowed to stretch it's legs. In the case of Bon Iver, those legs are very long.
Bon Iver (a deliberate misspelling by singer Justin Vernon, apparently, of the French bon hiver) could easily be mistaken for an acoustic TV on the Radio, especially on songs like Skinny Love, and The Wolves, the latter sounding like it's haunted by the ghosts of gospel. Thankfully, that comparison dies a slow but lasting death as you hear more, and by the time you get to For Emma, there is only winter's touch slipping through the door jamb.
Vernon keeps a consistent tone throughout the album, but there is enough difference between each track to keep the sound fresh. As one who has spent a considerable amount of time alone away from friends and family (not as extreme as shutting one's self up in a winter cabin, but close), I can identify with the creative surge that accompanies loneliness. He leaves just enough space between the notes to resonate. There is a sense of distance, a feeling that the characters in these songs--even the songs themselves--are in no hurry to be anywhere. Besides, it's a cold world just outside that door, so let's just remain a little longer.
Comments
I can identify with the creative surge that accompanies loneliness. Loneliness is an entirely different critter than aloneness. A deliberate seclusion of one's self, whether one escapes to a forest cabin or retreats into music, should not engender loneliness. Alone can be the most glorious feeling this side of love (irony a-plenty there).
So, the track you posted lived up to your glowing review. An interesting evolution of the sound, leaving us far from our starting point without moving very far. Quite nice.
A valid point, admittedly, but I hesitate to join you in hyperbole. While one can enjoy being alone, I would hesitate to call it "the most glorious feeling this side of love." Infatuation, perhaps, but not love.
Comments
it looks/sounds like a great time, especially because of the smaller venue size.