Customer Reviews

Cannery Hours

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Think of a long, tedious, get somehow beautiful coalescence of Pink Floyd's spacey musical aura and Pavement's laziness and coolness. Such a picture is inexact, nebulous, and fairly useless to one who has not heard The Occasion. But for those of us who have, it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

The Occasion is a new indie group out of Brooklyn, whose genre is most closely called psychedelic rock. I highly recommend you at least give a listen. The music is not life changing; it's not too original; but many of us can't seem to stop listening to it. It is music that does not recognize its own existence, music that, as one critic called it, flows "where time and space seem lost" and that "abandons all linear concepts and moves only to fill the vast expanse."

Can't get more accurate than that. The Occasion is the embodiment of disembodiment, the synopsis of the expanse. In this existence, they manifest a massive, drunk, yet structured sound. Sometimes, it even sounds lazy, but its laziness is endearing. Rarely are the vocals belted forth; instead they drop down out of the sound. The music is seemingly played insouciantly, without a care for mainstream musical norms.

In an effort to shun pretension, The Occasion has, in fact, probably become pretentious. Even so, their newest, sophomore album Cannery Hours is just perfect for the ideal mellow that you might just be seeking or the spacey, beery sound to finish up a memorable weekend. It's all here.

While I highly enjoyed album as a whole, the first two tracks gave me an inauspicious malaise about it; those I still do not enjoy as I do the rest. Highlights: Register My Complaints, Secret Shopper (awesome two-minute musical movement), Equine, The Maiden.

that's what it is! Put together the Alan Parsons Project's 70's stuff with 70's Pink Floyd, and throw in a little Syd-era PF, and this is sort-of the result! Some Syd-style lyrics in a few songs, some droning bass, airy guitars, keyboards keeping time, bombastic drums on occasion, sound effects on occasion...it's all there.

The indie / psych band's second CD (of two releases). Tracks that more make this title a must-hear are easy to spot - like the cleverly-written "So Far", the soaring (sort of reminds me of the late Syd Barrett) title cut "Cannery Hours", "Register My Complaints", the low-key (yet) quite tripping "Secret Shopping" and the ten-minute closer "The Maiden". Line-up: Jordi Wheeler - guitar & vocals, Marlon Sporer - bass, Brent Cordero - piano & vocals, Sara Shaw - loops & tape and Charles Burst - drums & vocals. Recommended for fans of the previously mentioned Syd Barrett, Asteroid No. 4 and Lockgroove.