Christian bands really suck. Most of you probably don't need this reminder, but I thought I'd start out with an indisputable, self-evident statement of truth and then try to slightly undermine it. As a believer, people sometimes assume I'm required by Biblical command to purchase, listen to, and enjoy the music made by Christian bands, but the truth is, I simply can't stand the vast majority of it. In fact, I'm offended by about half of it and embarrassed by most of the rest. It's usually oversimplified, condescending, full of pat answers and clichés, and just plain bad from an artistic standpoint (something that almost always happens when "the message" is isolated and raised above all other concerns).
But I live for the rare exceptions. Music that just happens to be made by people who are Christians, their art just an honest extension and reflection of who they are and where they are in life, and backed up by real emotion. Of course, music of this sort made by people of any faith (or lack thereof) puts a smile on my face just the same. Simply put, I like it if it's good, no matter who made it or what category it happens to falls into.
Up until a few years ago, I knew of few exceptions, and I had almost completely written off Christian music as phony, disingenuous crap. Then along came the Danielson Famile, a revelation. They were so far from the follow-the-latest-trend Christian band marketing scheme that I was used to that I was forced to create a distinction between "Christian Music" and good, artistic music made by Christian individuals. It seems like a no-brainer now, but at the time it was a big deal for me.
Now, a few years down road, main Famile-man Dan Smith runs a label of his own and has co-released (along with Asthmatic Kitty, the label run by sometimes Danielson Famile member Sufjan Stevens, and possibly the worst label name ever) this debut from the like-minded Half-Handed Cloud, a Knoxville-based one-man orchestra by the name of John Ringhofer.
To put it bluntly and a little crudely, Learning About Your Scale is some wack-ass shit. It's like an even more hyperactive Danielson, but with less reliance on metaphor and symbolism, (if Danielson is like Psalm 18, Half-Handed Cloud is closer to Psalm 117, if you get my meaning), less Beefheartian, more Elephant 6-ian. Scale also reminds me of the last couple of records by the Microphones, in the sense that, though anything could happen at any time, there's still a thread running through it all.
Learning About Your Scale runs through 25 songs in just over 24 minutes and makes use of about as many instruments (courtesy of a few friends), so it comes off as a little fractured and disorienting. But at the same time, it almost sounds like one extended piece of music. It all begins with a wide-eyed number called "Worlds in Speech, Now in Reach" which would surely be a future Jesus Freak classic if it stuck around a little bit longer. But the song soon disappears into the four-song mini-epic "Those People We made? We Love 'Em!" which has got to be one of the strangest adaptations of the creation story ever.
At this point, less than four minutes into the album, one of its main shortcomings becomes pretty evident: Ringhofer's virtually non-existent attention span. The only problem is that this is also one of the album's strengths. The arrangements are lush, even orchestral at times, so it's not that things aren't fleshed out. You just wish you could enjoy them longer, or that the transitions would be smoother; Ringhofer gets bored with things pretty quickly, and shifts gears on a whim. But on the other hand, the album's jarring, fragmented feel is one of its more endearing qualities.
The remainder of the album runs similarly a-mile-a-minute. It's as if Ringhofer is going for a different kind of minimalism-- a baroque minimalism that compresses songs in time, but keeps them sonically vibrant and instrumentally busy. There are quite a few successful examples here-- songs like "We Must Be Ploughed-Up" and "Baby Moon," which feature a wide array of instruments and a lyrical completeness. Elsewhere, songs just seem interrupted midstream by the next track, and it can be annoying unless you're really paying attention. But, again, this hurriedness has its own aesthetic value. It offers the album a playfulness that wouldn't exist otherwise, and it reveals a trust in the listener that most Christian bands entirely lack.
