18: Fences
Album: Fences
Genre: Folk/Acoustic
Label: Onto
Not everything needs to be complicated. In the rush of modern living we’re constantly being battered about by media overload, people overload and even thought overload. I’ve been told I think about things too much and I know I try to do too much in the space of a day and then feel bad about myself when I don’t meet my own impossible standards. It’s stupid really. You’re probably wondering what this has to do with Fences. I suppose it doesn’t really, but I can’t help but feel an ease of calmness settle throughout my being whenever I listen to this record. It’s a kind of tranquility that escapes us in our day-to-day lives, and being able to find such simple quiet within an album of music makes Fences worth whatever time you can give it.
Fences, the (mostly) acoustic folk project of one Chris Mansfield (a local yokel to my home town of Seattle,) brings my mind back to a simpler time and place: A place where you can be satisfied to sit on a hill overlooking the Sound and be content just to sit and enjoy the breeze and sunlight. Real sunlight. Cool breeze. Perfect summer weather, with no gadgets or loud noises to disturb you. That’s the place that Fences’ music takes me.
Mansfield’s music isn’t overly produced or super difficult: this is Indie Pop to a certain extent. Or Indie Folk Pop if you want to get technical. The songs are fairly simple in their verse chorus verse structure and built around Mansfield’s acoustic strumming and soothing voice. Of course, this isn’t exactly happy music. Fences’ songs are all about the sticky interactions of Mansfield’s interpersonal relationships. Love, loss and fucking up are the themes of the day, but the beautifully uncomplicated nature of Fences’ music allows the listener to identify particularly closely with him in a way you might have difficulty doing with even the most human of rock stars. Which should be a bummer, but the music provided by Mansfield and his backing band is just so damn pretty that you can’t help but feel good even as he sings “I’m fucking up/I’m fucking up/I’m fucking up everything” during the anthematic chorus of the album’s lead single “Girls With Accents.”
There’s a bit of Rob Crow in his sound, but with more acoustics and less dreamlike vocals. Fences music is very grounded in reality and the painful situations that life puts us in sometimes. The album is short but sweet, a little more than half an hour of gentle sounds and stumbling relationships, with some excellent standout tracks. There are the obvious poppy singles of “Girls With Accents” and “Sadie” which features an almost Rock chorus and has Mansfield raising his voice above it’s usual, almost lilting register. But my favorite songs are these: the longest song on the album “My Girl The Horse,” which is a sad song (of course) about Mansfield’s failing kinship with a horse OR a sad song using the metaphor of horses to detail another breaking friendship/relationship. Either way, it’s a melancholy but gorgeous piece. The other favorite is “Your Bones,” the penultimate song on the album evokes the dark of a warm evening in August, with heartbreaking overtones. The subject matter of the song recalls the perspective of someone (Mansfield’s loved one,) telling him that they’re no longer in love with him and that there is someone else. The chorus is Mansfield pleading with his loved one not go. The song is very short, but I find something about it completely captivating, though painful.
Relationships are complicated. Fences songs are not complicated on a musical level, but on a lyrical level, the difficulties arise. The great balance of his music is the straightforward nature of the music coupled with thorny themes and stories. I hope you enjoy this record as much as I did, though you’re going to have to wait till the summer to enjoy it with a view.
Top Tracks: “My Girl The Horse” & “Your Bones”
Also Included: “Girls With Accents”
17: Ceschi Ramos
Album: The One Man Band Broke Up
Genre: Hip-Hop/Indie Rock
Label: Fake Four Inc.
(I like to write things in threes.)
Ceschi (pronounced chess-key) Ramos is the founder of Fake Four Inc., an indie label that’s been making waves as of late. In the grand pecking order of pigeonholing, keeping Fake Four in a box is difficult as they traffic in everything from post-modern Hip-Hop (Awol One, Factor & Dark Time Sunshine) to bizarre Indie Rock (Gregory Pepper, Pretend You’re Happy & Boy In Static.) The eclecticism of the label reflects that of its founder, as Ceschi has had his four finger (he’s only got that many on his right hand) in a number of different musical pies over the years, from his own Anonymous Inc. to Toca (a Indie Pop Fusion band with his brother David) to Metalcore growlers Dead By Wednesday. When flying solo though, Ceschi likes to blend his various influences into a strong hallucinogenic concoction in a sturdy Hip-Hop glass that’s meant to be enjoyed slowly, not downed in one gulp.
Ceschi’s most recent solo album, The One Man Band Broke Up, also happens to be the strongest work he’s done to date. His first collaboration with German beatsmith DJ Scientist, One Man Band is a concept album about the rise and fall of a musician named Julius and his one-man band The Bearded Savior. But Ceschi also uses the story of this fictional character to paint a real life portrait of his own fears of failure, problems with the record industry and the struggle of being an independent musician. In the realm of Underground Hip-Hop, Ceschi’s irreverent lyrical and delivery style puts him somewhere between the Spoken Word techniques of Sage Francis, the fantastic wonderworkings of Astronautalis and the unorthodox reconstructionist tactics of Onry Ozzborn. This, combined with DJ Scientist’s lo-fidelity audio sculptures, built from somber horn sections, crackling vinyl piano samples and dirty drum hits, makes for a tragically sad tapestry that is both fraying at the edges and breathtakingly beautiful.
Ceschi doesn’t have what you would probably call a “pretty” voice, but he’s a master of dexterous word play, and when he really wants to, can spit like a machinegun loaded with lightning… or shurikens. His tales carry the great weight of the story of Julius And The Bearded Savior, which, while a little difficult to follow at times (I don’t know how liner the narrative is,) is both a moody rumination and also possibly a cautionary tale to those who would try to tread the same path as Ceschi or even his fictionalized counterpart.
To get the whole of this rogues yarn, you need to listen to the album in full (something you should do anyways,) but it’s not as though individual tracks don’t stand out. My favorite cuts from the album come early on, with the 2nd and 3rd track. “Half Mast” sets the stage for the story as well as introducing us to a bit of Ceschi’s own back story. I should point out that the perspective for most of the album is Ceschi singing about Julius, though at times the lines between perspectives blur, as to when the story is Ceschi’s and when its about Julius. “Half Mast” and the world weary “No New York” are two examples of when the story could be about Ceschi or Julius interchangeably. “No New York” is actually another of my favorite songs and even features an appearance by Astronautalis, although he doesn’t really do much, just kind of mumbling at the end of the song.
The album is not frontloaded though, every song is excellent and every song, even some of the odd interludes play a part in furthering the story. It’s not a very happy tale, as evidenced by the harpsichord driven “Hangman” whose cheerful chorus features the lines “hang in there hangman/swinging from the gallows/all the dust from your bones/will make the flowers grow.” The song is also a bit of a dead mans party, with guest raps from Shoshin, M!c King and Ceschi’s own brother David Ramos. But ultimately, The One Man Band Broke Up is an extraordinary album and showcases Ceschi’s best and most emotionally raw work thus far. I know I only seem to talk about sad albums, but if you’re going to pick just one album to get your woe on, pick this one. You can bob your head to this one.
Top Tracks: “Half Mast,” “No New York ” & “Hangman”
1 comment:
Thanks for the post! great reviews!
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