It's time for a new definition of the phrase "lounge music." Sure enough, this term seems appropriate enough for the genre it usually represents, but something tells me there's other music that begs for the genre name that doesn't recall sipping martinis under a slowly rotating disco ball, leaning on a bar in your leisure suit, and chatting it up with the dark-haired, pseudo-intellectual, all-too-stylish chick with the sequined dress. No, perhaps the word "lounge" can be transferred from the noun to the verb. As in, the type of music you put on when you want to lounge around the house, reclining in your La-Z-Boy by the window on a sunny day. Or maybe out in the yard in the hammock on that same day, if you're lucky enough to have a hammock. Or a yard.
Clearly, this has to do with the Caribbean's first full-length release, Verse by Verse. The songs are crafted with pop chord progressions, and certainly, a couple of songs, like "Have You Thought about Turning Pro?," feature a somewhat vigorous pop leaning. But more often than not, Verse by Verse drifts lazily through your ears and reverberates through your mind, although it may take a few listens to notice. And even if the tempo is upbeat, Don Zientara's versatile production style helps each instrument hover just off the ground, subdued and with clarity, rather than settling them in busy rhythmic excitement.
The ex-Townies sect of the Caribbean includes Michael Kentoff and Matthew Byars. Kentoff's nasal, restrained vocals pervade the group's sound. And they also bring Townies' knack for interesting titles to the mix as well, with tracks like "Help Would Only Confuse Me" and "I Am the Mosque." Ex-Smart Went Crazy drummer Tony Dennison shows off his skills by including the announcement of "Tony's drum part, take one" at the beginning of the closing track, "Girl at Fairgrounds," to prove that he can do a one-off just as well as anyone.
That being said, these musicians in this "new lounge" trio are not virtuosos. In fact, they proclaim that, as a consequence of visiting guest musicians who handle certain parts in the studio and on stage, the three members of the band are "the three least talented people" present at any live or studio session. This fact is hard to deny, although perhaps almost as hard to accept, since their record proves their chops to be quite competent. Kentoff, Byars and Dennison are a studio group, and as such, they exchange instruments based on individual ideas, which are then put together to create a seamless collaboration on each song.
Comparisons to other artists are occasionally notable; a fraction of the wide range of Beatles influences are detectable, and the guys sometimes sound not unlike their polar-coastal indie "new lounge" counterparts, Death Cab for Cutie. At times, both comparisons can be made in the same song, such as the opener, "I'll Simplify My Life (In Fremont)," featuring Ringo's beat, Lennon's piano, and Benjamin Gibbard's boyish croon. Meanwhile, "To Call Your Very Own" resembles a lost Loud Family song. But the tone of Verse by Verse's entirety comes off as something entirely their own-- one of those mixes of influences and familiar sounds that ends up surviving any likenesses and, consequently, creating originality.
Now, me, I'm listening to Verse by Verse in my computer chair, occasionally partaking of my mug of caffeine-free Diet Coke ahd trying to ignore the ever-increasing carpal tunnel symptoms, as always. Yet I imagine that the recliner/window or hammock/yard scenarios-- the "new lounge"-- would be perfect for the bulk of a record like this. When I have a chance, I expect I'll try it out. And you should, too, friends, for you have witnessed the coining of a phrase that will be widely acceptable in our elite musical lexicon in no time at all. Whoever said this gig wouldn't influence people, anyway? Oh, and thanks to the Caribbean for being the effective catalyst. Nice album you got there.
