At the risk of sounding woefully unsophisticated, I must assert that the majority of instrumental pop releases strike me as, the Brits would say, poncey. Though my jaw dropped along with Millions Now Living Will Never Die, though I've exfoliated triumphantly in a clawfoot tub to Don Cab's American Don, and though the post-hardcore fusion of Guinness-world-record hopefuls Hella astounds me, I can barely bring myself to spend money on the stuff, which makes being a promo-entitled critic pretty bitchin'. If you can't admit that a large proportion of vocal-less CDs wallow in Louisville/Chicago plodnamics, then you must live in a library or a sex lounge. Which is, of course, a way of saying that these albums best befit either studying or, as PG movies in the 80s would say, the making of whoopee.
The borderlands minimalism of Bexar Bexar seems to subvert the limitations of instru-pop via variety and hypnotic (but not numbing) repetition. Their sound is as urbane as it is provincial, equal parts Fennesz and Jay Farrar's score for The Slaughter Rule. I'd normally flinch at how Bexar Bexar hints rather than goads, falling in line with instru-pop's creed of circuitousness, but they are the rare act that pulls off being scions of Mick Turner pedal-flexing and Martin Gore echo-sonics, and so subtly that they make Calexico's vocal-less numbers seem Limp Biskitesque.
"Aidos" forges a gorgeous Frankensong out of laptoppery and sentimental guitar, suggesting a sublimi-core U2. Any rookie Ghostbuster could detect Jeff Tweedy's desire to strum over the blip-loops and hesitant piano of "Where She Lives Every Day". The Flintstones percussion of "Esther's Vice" entrances the listener as the plucking rises and fades in the mix, silencing anyone whose previous position on instru-pop was "Hey mang, wake me when Cerberus Shoal is finished."
Full truth-in-advertising legislation would require that Bexar Bexar label their disc with a warning that it might take people back to that one particular adolescent autumn when sports seemed spiritual and the prom seemed like performance art. Their whittled sound is a Battlefield:Earth between synthesizers and six-strings in which no winner is declared. Only their late-blooming, pokier compositions lend credence to the idea that instru-pop is a tad Cirque de Soleil, or for people bored with debating how Philip Glass' symphony of David Bowie's Low ripped off his own Mishima soundtrack. Consciously fending off instru-pop dismissals by flouting how much they are loved by NPR's This American Life may be a poncey-bunk move, but a quick consultation of Bexar Bexar's "Red R.O.T" and "Blue R.O.T" should qualify them to accompany the day that cancer is considered a natural cause.
