For all of indie rock's iconoclast ambition and pretension, the genre has been able, time and again, to inexplicably produce bands whose music has risen to monumentally epic heights. Throughout the 90s, benchmark indie groups like Pavement, Archers of Loaf, Sebadoh, and Guided by Voices all adopted an unapologetically lo-fi aesthetic in order to not only combat the monotony of the mainstream with inexorable layers of distortion and healthy doses of irony, but to also create an entirely new language of sonic possibility for music as a whole. However, while in 2003 many of indie's founding fathers are either off chasing classic rock fantasies, trading in their distortion pedals for Sun Ra records, or releasing greatest hits collections, an inevitable new breed seems hard at work.
Take, for instance, the enigmatic new duo, Parsley Sound: Sounding like the vibrant lovechild of Badly Drawn Boy's melodic lo-fi folk, The Beta Band's beat-conscious noodling, and the Suppy Furry Animals' penchant for 60s psychedelia, Parsley Sounds is one of those rare records that manage to sound modest while frequently pushing the sonic envelope. This realization comes as quite a surprise, given that Danny Sargassa and Preston Mead, the brainchildren behind Parsley Sound, have only released a handful of EPs (one of which being under their alter-ego, Slum) prior to recording this glorious debut for James Lavelle's Mo'Wax label.
From the melodic boho strum of the aptly titled opener, "Ease Yourself and Glide", to the pensive suave soul of "Candlemice", each song here seems to organically unfold layer by layer like budding pedals, revealing subtle sonic nuances. Rather than fracturing the landscape of each song with maniacal floods of distortion, Parsley Sound script a new sonic vocabulary by merging fundamental elements from disparate genres, and in turn construct new contexts for these sounds to flourish. For instance, on the Technicolor wonder of "YoYo", a meditative Rhodes piano motif gives way to a choppy insistent drum loop, only to be followed by crashes of rolling pastoral acoustic guitars, hushed vocal harmonies, irrepressible bursts of flute, and the blissful shimmer of it all interweaving together. While on the tripped-out melancholy of "Twilight Mushrooms", the group immerses the lyrics, "Dream, that's all I do," within a dreamy accompaniment all its own; gloomy Wurlitzer chords rub shoulders with the breezy muted bop of brush drum sticks, syncopated guitar strums, and layers of tape-hiss.
The most impressive aspect of Parsley Sounds, though, is the fact that despite the group's own diverse aspirations, the album never comes across as simply an exercise in studio trickery, two producers just trying to unify dissimilar elements for the sake of doing so. Parsley Sounds, rather, overflows with memorable melodies and inspired songcraft. The meditative psychedelia of "Ocean House", with its shimmering electric guitars, and wandering harpsichord lines, sounds like a brilliant 2003 remix of The Beatles' classic, "For No One", while the unrelenting catchiness of "Ease Yourself and Glide", which imparts a leading melody straight out of the Elliott Smith songbook, is a beautifully hushed forestal ode with clanging, playworn percussion-- just the kind of lushly orchestrated, lo-fi pop expedition with which this album is packed tight. Debut albums rarely come this fully realized, but with Parsley Sounds, this Watford-based duo have stumbled onto the kind of uniquely inspired sound that could influence tomorrow's indie rock as deeply as yesterday's has inspired them.
