What hath the fringe tree wrought? Is it a mere figment of your imagination, or is it something so out on the fringe that it nearly didn’t register? Fringements One is the first chapter, wherein we avail to the public documentation of intimate practice space encounters, obscure demos, and even some “slicker” recordings that just never found a home on any of our official releases. In other words, you are witnessing the birth of a whimsical encyclopedic series of semi-random events. In other other words: Variations, Eat Your Art Out!
We’ve made it to XX!! Yes, it took longer than it took Chicago to make it here, but that didn’t prevent us from calling it “Chicago XX,” did it? It’s a potent little sucker, too. Maybe we shouldn’t still be rocking out this much at “our advanced age,” but… well, we are! Harmony and dissonance, love and hate, oboes and drums… they all help to form this delicious and strange bedfellowship.
We’ve made it to XX!! Yes, it took longer than it took Chicago to make it here, but that didn’t prevent us from calling it “Chicago XX,” did it? It’s a potent little sucker, too. Maybe we shouldn’t still be rocking out this much at “our advanced age,” but… well, we are! Harmony and dissonance, love and hate, oboes and drums… they all help to form this delicious and strange bedfellowship. Maybe this is going out on a limb, but it’s possible that (in addition to the bevy of instruments on this album) this just might be our most gripping full-length to date on the vocal front: Carmen Armillas and Greg Beemster and Thymme all turn in some poignant and varied performances. And let’s face it, Shelby Donnelly’s artwork is something you’re gonna want to stare at long after the needle has made its way through the entire record. Vinyl only! At least for now!
Our first brush with beer. The soundtrack to your life. Better than you think. Better than we thought. Some id vomit, some hidden gems. Variations On A Goddamn Old Man, 1 1/2?
Some “go cat, go” speak for ya… Beginning and ending the album in Kraut Pop territory (a surprising move in itself) does not prepare the listener for the breadth of musical riches contained within: a song about monsters, equal parts creepy and empathic, sung by the singular Dawn McCarthy; a frightening/surreal rap breakdown (for lack of a better descriptor), expertly performed by Bethany Schmitt (aka “The Buttress”); beautifully tortured guitar sounds throughout; distorted bass; triumphant brass; melancholy strings; insistent grooves; a dual mouth trombone/actual trombone moment; and then there’s an endless parade of additional musical guests (Carla Kihlstedt, Nils Frykdahl, Sacha Mullin, Katherine Young, to name just a few), whose contributions to this record are absolutely dizzying. All of this wrapped up with a nuanced and well-considered sonic bow by engineer Todd Rittmann (of Dead Rider), who may have delivered CHEER-ACCIDENT their most immaculately produced (their 19th) album to date.
Listen to Last But Not Lost from Fades.
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It’s the lost salvation army band drowning the frail falsetto multiple drumming existential crisis with your final breath exclaiming, “Charles Ive’s gotta tell ya: These are the Salad Days!”
It’s the lost salvation army band drowning the frail falsetto multiple drumming existential crisis with your final breath exclaiming, “Charles Ive’s gotta tell ya: These are the Salad Days!”
It had been six years since the previous full-length, so the only real reason that this album exists is because it had to. Drums, guitars, pianos, air organs, violins, brass, woodwinds and the human voice are the tools with which to put off death. Whiling away the hours? No, these instruments are utilized in an incisive manner, taking a three-decade expanse and compressing it into 37 minutes of concision. With a great amount of emotional depth, and a unique, nuanced attention to sonic detail, this is perhaps CHEER-ACCIDENT’s richest consolidation yet. A great place to begin a 35-year journey in reverse.
Listen to Immanence from Putting Off Death.
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Also known as CHEER-ACCIDENT ‘81-’84, as that is when all of these recordings took place. Yes, those were the formative years… In other words: We were in (and/or just out of) high school when we made this stuff, so give us a break!
Listen to a clip of Feed Grey One from Younger Than You Are Now.
This is CHEER-ACCIDENT at their most stripped-down and aggressive. Recorded in November ‘89 (in Steve Albini’s charmed basement studio) before Nirvana’s Nevermind and Slint’s Spiderland, Dumb Ask serves as a vital historical document placing CHEER-ACCIDENT in a sort of “alternative to the alternative” parallel universe which existed concurrently to the more “above ground” bands of the early ‘90’s.
