The principle that guides Tim Cohen's songwriting process is pretty straightforward: first thought, best thought. Like the mega-prolific indie rockers of yesteryear-- think Felt, Robert Pollard, or Daniel Johnston-- Cohen believes in hitting the record button first and sorting out the winners later. Luckily, his spontaneous mind has a pretty consistent batting average. Cohen's main band, the Fresh & Onlys, has been on a tear for the last two years-- releasing two full-length records, an EP, a limited edition cassette, and countless 7" singles worth of fuzz-laden psych-rock earworms. He still found time to go solo, too.
Laugh Tracks, Cohen's second solo LP, is a mellow, summer record-- full of acoustic guitars, woozy brass, and faded vocal harmonies. It opens, rather appropriately, with the sound of ice cubes clinking in a glass. But other than the laid back vibe it's business as usual. The songs are simple and stripped down-- crafted fast and perfected later on, if perfected at all. Cohen's lyrics are sometimes simple stream-of-consciousness nursery rhymes, likely rattled off at the moment of inspiration. "Mother day/ Father night/ Just come together over me/ So that you would seem to be the same/ You should marry/ Be together forever," he sings on the opening track, "Oh Oh Oh".
As the title implies, there are a few chuckles. Cohen has a good sense of how to make use of humor in music without descending into straight-up wackiness. The slow and swaggering "That's My Baby" somehow straddles the line between clumsy midnight Stones put-on and an earnest love song. It's goofy, but weirdly moving. Album closer "Small Things Matter"-- with its warbled vocals and earnestly inspirational message-- is a little more obviously a joke. "How do you say to a child with clear eyes that lakes are no longer for swimming?/ How do you teach a tender young mind that TV is often misleading?" sings guest vocalist Robert Cohen, only barely in key and a mile off of the beat.
It's the ability to drift between parody and poignancy that gives Cohen a small edge on his peers-- bands like Blank Dogs, Thee Oh Sees, and King Khan. Sometimes, for a moment, the rock-dude mask comes off. "I Lifted My Arms", a dream-logic truck-stop jam, has him at his best. "I lifted my arms up to heaven and God then took me by the hand/ He tore my arms right off my body/ And placed upon me two golden wings/ Somebody teach me how to fly/ No one wants to know more than I," Cohen sings. It's a weird tune-- haunting but tender. It's nice to know that he can crank these out on the regular.
