Artists: We Invented Paris
Title: Rocket Spaceship Thing
Genre: Indie Pop
Release Date: 14th February 2014
Label: Spectacular Spectacular
Album Review
I have to admit that the situation feels a bit conflicting, being faced with music, whose creators claim not be a band in a simple and conventional way, but a “Künstlerkollektiv”, putting the stamp of art on every word and tune. Explanation? The protagonists illuminate their definition of shape with the familiar involvement of artists beyond the musical horizon, like photographers, video artists and designers, but what does this mean for the music? And what does this say about the people who make it? Bad people would call it a generalship, an idealization and corroboration with intellectual floors and profound vaults and I confess you look at it differently then, looking for meaning and purport in every note, philosophical references and contrasts to banality, because you think there must be a difference!
Don´t get me wrong - with ‘Rocket Spaceship Thing’ the Swiss based art community, headed by mastermind Flavian Graber created an album, which is more than the usual handful of good songs! The eleven tracks are sophisticatedly arranged Indie-Pop, with a complex structure on the one hand and catchy melodies on the other, but… it is not the asserted reinvention of Pop and maybe that´s the band´s crux. Their complete biography is traversed by artistic behaviour and otherness, some kind of a bohemian elite code based on the concept of DIY. No external record company that can interfere in the process of creation, sourcing by crowd-funding, making the fans become shareholders, the choice of unusual locations for their shows, so called “speedgigs”, making them play 30 shows a day, handmade CD trays, self-made Christmas cookies send to the fans... all refreshing and innovative, but somehow distractions from the core, high-wrought expectations the music alone can´t fulfil utterly.
Once again – it´s fun to drift to the songs with their enjoyable combination of bittersweet melancholia and great melodies, their odour of old Polaroid pics and strolls on never-ending last summer days. Right at the start the hymn- like ‘Mont Blanc’ is almost essential for the things to come. Decently melodic guitars, well-behaved drums, hooks and a bit pathos and Graber´s choir layered vocals, colouring all with that soothing melancholy, circling the same elliptical path like Tom DeJong´s ANGELS AND AIRWAVES or the more present COLDPLAY, a reference that comes clearer still with ‘Dance On Water’, that starts with vulnerable and fragile vocals over gentle acoustic guitars for bursting in an epic chorus, which the above mentioned couldn´t have done better.
‘Everyone Knows’ accelerates the pace with impelling drums and rocking guitars, drifting close to the areas of courteous Indie Rock á la EDITORS, a perception underlined by the timbre the vocals are dressed in while parading through the verses. ‘Farmer’ surprises with cold and bleak moments, it´s electronic colours and minor chord vocabulary meanwhile ‘Philosopher’ comes along happier than the late CURE ever sounded, even on Fridays, fully fitted with funky guitars and eighties handclapping. ‘Requiem’ is another ballad, impressing with its Spartan arrangement that creates an emotional density nevertheless (or because of that), pushing my mind again to the undertones of the EDITORS and Tom Smith´s wringing out of the soul.
So I almost can stop here, cause ‘Sleeptalker’, ‘Treeless’ and ‘Zeppelins’ are great songs too, finest pop music coated with a patina of sadness and cafard, the complaisant one, never drowning in despair or self-pity, musically well done and sophisticated enough for avoiding the slip in the mainstream. So it seems you´re inclined to say that it´s a great, entertaining piece of work - if there wouldn´t be those expectations the “Künstlerkollektiv” aroused beforehand by postulating to walk un-trodden, new ways, by elevating the musical content to cramped levels of art. Viewed in this light it can happen that there´s a kind of disappointment hovering over the songs, because as good as they are others did it before, not better necessarily, but earlier. And so the “new ways” lead to often in directions of EDITORS, THE FOALS or COLDPLAY, in the gravity of brilliant but established Indie Pop.
Maybe it could be helpful to be a bit more band the next time and to draw out the teeth from the art fuss, because if you thrust all this aside a really good album remains...
Tracklist
01. Mont Blanc
02. Auguste Piccard
03. Everyone Knows
04. Dance On Water
05. Zeppelins
06. Farmer
07. Polar Bears
08. Philosopher
09. Treeless
10. Requiem
11. Sleeptalker
Line-up
Flavian Graber – Vocals, Guitar
Stefan Schneider – Drums
Bruce Klöti - E-Guitar
Michael Rückert – Keyboard
Fabian Langer – Bass
Matthias Rückert - E-Guitar
Website
http://www.weinventedparis.com/
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 7 / 10
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