Rewiring Electric Forest

Darla Farmer | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 17, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: PAPER GARDEN RECORDS
• ASIN: B0014WKC2Y
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,261 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Darla Farmer melds madness with modesty for form a fluent blend of Arcade Fire-meets-Frankenstein's bride lunacy" --Blogcritics.org

Product Description

Darla Farmer is an eccentric 7-piece carnival rock band that manages to gracefully shatter genre borders in ways that even the most critical of hipsters can't pigeonhole. Drawing from influences as diverse as Cursive, Blood Brothers, Tom Waits, and the greatest of high school marching bands and small town orchestras, Darla Farmer creates an entirely distinctive, yet universally appealing sound.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bank on this band!, March 8, 2008

By 

G. Leonard "Darla Farmer Fan" (Denver Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rewiring Electric Forest (Audio CD)

I'm hooked. A ticket to a music carnival ride that gets better with every play. Congratulations Darla Farmer you have rewired music as we know it!

5.0 out of 5 stars yes please more, December 1, 2011

By 

finethankyouhowareyou? - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rewiring Electric Forest (Audio CD)

One of my new favorites, they are crazy energy driven mad carnival sounds with punk vocals that make me want to drink whiskey and run around in circles. Love the horn action especially. Can't wait to hear more from them.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wires of fire, March 12, 2008

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rewiring Electric Forest (Audio CD)

Imagine the Arcade Fire, locked in a carnival funhouse and being smothered by a band of insane jazz-folkies.

That's the sound that Darla Farmer debut in their full-length debut, "Rewiring the Electric Forest," sounding like an indie-rock band is being eaten by a troupe of mad clowns. Their dark-edged indie-rock gets a load of trumpets, music-hall piano, waily fiddle and some nicely androgynous vocals -- and it makes you dance too.

"Sun... is a guise/for all of my favourite lies!" Clint Wilson sings over a tinkly xylophone, right before the song explodes in a raucous rush of vaguely countryish, ominous indie-rock. "And I am surprised/to learn the whole world is disguised...the words that I speak/are upside down and in my teeth/twisted and tangled/and necessary to repeat..."

Things don't slow up with the next few songs, including the eerily festive "History" and the harder, electronic-tinged rhythms of "Mechanical Thoughts." Not a lot of bands can fuse three sounds at once, but Darla Farmer succeeds -- sometimes it's hard to hear where the borders meet with rock, country-folk and a sort of electro-carnie sound.

But then the band tries out some new, less obvious melodies -- a flittering electro-jazzr-rocker, weird tense folk, a nightmarish spiral of dancy bass-driven pop, cluttered catchy rock'n'roll riddled with fiddle, tight country-rockers sputtering with trumpets, and finally the gloriously schizophrenic expanse of "The Apology."

I can tell you this: Darla Farmer is not typical Nashville music. And "Rewiring the Electric Forest" is a pretty good mishmash of musical styles, with darker undertones in there. And some of them are so weird -- like the shifting experimental pop of "The Strangler Fig" -- that they simply don't sink in until you've heard it a few times.

But regardless, the band plays their music with catchiness, dexterity, and a seamless blend of kooky instrumentation. Wilson and Bryce Leonard provide the core bass and guitar, which sound very tight and a bit grimy when you can hear them clearly. But they are usually surrounded by dark distorted keyboard, bouncy music-hall piano, church bells, off-kilter violin, smashing drums, tambourine and a cloud of jazzy brass.

All together, you can never tell if it will be poppy or a stretch of experimental clashes. I'm not quite as crazy about their country-folkier interludes, but fortunately they usually end with something suitably bizarre.

For the record, the lead singer is a man, despite his androgynous voice. Wilson croons out impressively through the entire album, sounding relatively chipper about the dark lyrics ("They'll dance upon the treetops/then they'll burn their forest down/they'd set fire to their bedrooms/if it meant that you'd be found"). It doesn't quite work when he tries the "thrash" vocals, though. He just sounds strained.

Despite a couple freshman flaws, Darla Farmer's "Rewiring the Electric Forest" is a delightfully mad carnival of rock'n'roll. Definitely a young band to keep your eye on.