It's easy to underestimate the effect that motive has on the way a record turns out. Some set out to make a masterpiece, others to explore new sounds, and still others can't help reacting to newfound success, either by attempting to prove it wasn't a fluke or striving to distance themselves from the formula that brought them that success. And then there are those rare albums that develop organically from weekends spent casually recording with friends, miles from spotlights, with virtually no pressure or expectations to deliver. It's tough for an established band to make an album like this, simply because scrutiny colors everything a veteran band does, but hundreds if not thousands of ultra-obscure garage bands (and I'm not talking about well-funded, Detroit-aping Swedes here) across the country patch together inspired records simply by accident every year.
If ever an album fit that description, it's this one, the grab-bag debut from Boston's Bluegrazer, which could probably be referred to as a side-project of Hip Tanaka's Joe Pleiman if that band weren't so ridiculously obscure themselves. So there's nothing for these guys to lose for trying everything, and try everything they do, piecing together a full CD of scattered ideas, wacky pop songs and assorted fits of lunacy, complete with a sort-of-tribute to They Might Be Giants' "Fingertips" concept, which comprised about 20 short snippets of music that spiced up their Apollo 18 album when you set your player to "random."
Pleiman openly admits that the Johns' influenced his approach, though the Brooklyn-based duo only informs his actual sound very slightly. Truthfully, the 26 tracks on the album are about as focused as a Jackson Pollack painting, some of them sounding like they were banged out from conception to what you're hearing in about a half hour; others, like "Turn It Over", with its delay-drenched, angelic refrain and dry, aggressive verses, obviously took a lot of thought and post-production tinkering. There's total fluff like "Jam On", a hooky indie rock two-step that's so casually ingratiating you won't even notice how sticky it is until you're singing it in the car two days later, and über-oddities like "Brendan Smith", which is basically instrumental Wesley Willis, a bleepy Casio jam that seems designed purely to amuse.
And then there's "Word", a great process piece that features a nasty fuzz bass and some surprisingly solid beats behind a collage of one-word answering machine messages Pleiman had his friends leave him. You get over-eager participants yelling things like "Schmoopies!" and more low-key offerings like "verisimilitude," "Netherlands," "moist", and, perhaps most tellingly, "fingertips," but it's the way the music reacts to what's being said that makes it more than just a novel idea.
Of course, amidst all the faux-country trucker songs, wistful folk tunes cropping up out of nowhere, and spiky, extemporaneous pop songs, it's really easy for a quietly fantastic song like "Sister Sue", with its flypaper melody and great off-the-cuff harmonies, to get lost, or at least hidden, in the shuffle. And that's really the biggest criticism you can level at The Bluegrazer Album. It's all over the place, and in its wanderings, it occasionally steps in something unpleasant or surrounds a great song with two pretty mediocre ones. Still, for all its unevenness, this album is about as much fun as you can have in 73 minutes without resorting to substance abuse.
