Customer Reviews

Pajama Avenue

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Chicago's Loose Thread Recordings has been quietly releasing music by a number of interesting bands and musicians for a while now, and Zelienople is by far the most intriguing of the lot. Based in Chicago (though they take their name from the neighboring Pennsylvania borough, a "Modern Place With Old Fashioned Grace"), Zelienople could write straight pop ditties if they wanted too. And that's part of the key: underlying much of this, their full-length debut, are wisps of conventional melody and structure. Like Flying Saucer Attack, they like to disguise simplicity with layers of distortion and drones galore. And like :zoviet-france:, they favor an overall organic sound and texture despite all the electricity. Not that they sound much like either FSA or the :zoviet: gang; Zelienople in fact sounds like no one else at all. At times the instruments are impossible to distinguish and the overall effect tends toward the somnambulent (PAJAMA AVENUE, indeed). Matt Christensen's voice, when he uses it, rises barely above a whisper - - sort of an extramercurial JJ Cale - - and the music is positively sheetlike. 'Back To Dangerous', for example, is a near-instrumental that to me evokes heat, haze, memory, distance and shimmering sand all at once. Suspicious? Can't say I blame you. The first track is titled 'It's Hard To Steal Cars' and its first lyric is 'Heavy on the grease . . .' And they've remade that particular track for their recent INK CD (released in Finland, of all places) retitling it 'It's STILL Hard To Steal Cars'. Yes, it's moody. Yes, it's atmospheric. Yes, it's eliptical. None of which does much to help you understand what Zelienople actually sounds like. Worth many a listen.

Zelienople is music to listen to when you need to put your life in slow-motion for a few moments. Less boring than Eno's ambient soundscapes but more dark than Sigur Ros's pretty melodies. And their live shows are even more thrilling...if only the hipsters would shut up and listen.