Menomena

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_{(Taken from Pitchfork Media)}
There's hardly a bolder statement you could make about your band's penchant for innovation than writing software specifically to aid your own distinctive compositional style. This is what Brent Knopf did; his program is called Deeler, and it allows his band, Menomena, to improvise short ideas and use them as the building blocks for broad, loop-based compositions which they then learn to play live. The method borrows most obviously from hip-hop and glitch, and you can pick up slight traces of both in the band's sound, but this music is distinctly pop-oriented, and reasonably traditional where its core melodies are concerned.

The album opens with an accelerated, processed drum roll and then busts out into the aggressive rhythmic assault of "Cough Coughing". Drummer Danny Seim and bassist/guitarist Justin Harris can cut it up like nobody's business, and for some large portions of the song, it's just them sparsely making a groove happen, with vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Knopf's quivering piano occasionally rising like the ghost of an old ambient house record. The song's midsection is a series of head-spinning leaps and cuts through myriad textures, with Knopf resting on a tense piano melody.

But it's not all highwire-act dynamics and ADD jams: I Am the Fun Blame Monster also brims with mood, a dark energy and sense of direction permeating every song. "The Late Great Libido" is a perfect testament to this, with its rivers of bubbling piano, droning sax and frenetic drums. The track is a not-too-distant cousin of Blur, but it does things in ways most bands would never dream of, bursting in the middle with thundering guitar melodies, building itself up in increments, snapping to silence and back, and sending each verse up differently than the one before. Harmonies float in on beautiful beds of piano in one instant, chase away tinkling glockenspiels the next, and then retreat altogether, yielding the field to pianos and heavily delayed drums. Elements you thought had disappeared for good resurface in new contexts with new meanings. You'll never get it all on the first listen, but there'll be no shaking that melody; Menomena could have a huge hit on their hands-- at least at the college level-- if this track finds its way into the right mitts.

Surprises like the ones in "The Late Great Libido" are packed tightly into every song: guitars crash in only to anticipate silence, pianos weave through minefields of modular percussion, and Knopf's pleasing tenor runs a gauntlet of processing and fading to deliver what are fundamentally very basic melodies. "E. Is Stable" springs from a simple guitar line, repeatedly building up and breaking down, while "Strongest Man in the World" feels light until Knopf's hand reaches to the bottom octave of the piano and anchors the song to a sinister bass figure.

Essentially, the band's process of building from small blocks enables them to put endless variations on each basic section of their songs-- introducing a pulsing organ and a plaintive piano separately, for instance, and then heaving them together in multiple combinations later in the song. Even the vocals are, by and large, just another module to be played with, disappearing for minutes at a time and reemerging with choruses just as you begin to grow accustomed to their absence.

Suffice to say, Menomena are a hugely creative band, and with I Am the Fun Blame Monster, they've managed to make an album that's extremely accessible yet entirely unconventional. The thing that drew me to the album in the first place was the crazy artwork, which features a flipbook of four photos and very little other information, save that the disc's title is an anagram for "the first Menomena album." It's just one more subtlety that exemplifies the depth of detail apparent on this record.

quote:

_{(korte door mijzelf geschreven recensie)}
Niet het langverwachte vervolg op het geniale "I am the Fun Blame Monster", maar een curieus tussendoortje van de mannen uit Portland, Oregon. "Under an Hour" is de muzikale registratie van een dansvoorstelling waar de band de muziek voor verzorgde, bestaande uit 3 acten van ieder ongeveer 18 minuten ("Water", "Flour" en "Light"). En hoe saai dat op papier kan lijken, is het niet de nietszeggende ambient die het in potentie had kunnen zijn - integendeel, de stukken zijn bloedmooie epische tracks, zonder overdreven orkestraal te zijn. Ieder stuk is een instrumentale ontdekkingsreis die het zowaar de moeite zouden maken om dansvoorstellingen bij te wonen, en op de een of andere manier is het toch wel enigszins herkenbaar als Menomenas toegepaste stijl op IATFBM. De verwachtingen voor het nieuwe album van Menomena volgend jaar blijven hooggespannen, maar dit soort tussendoortjes mogen wel meer bands maken.

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Op zondag 8 januari 2006 23:08 schreef Wepeel2 het volgende:
Is de naam Menomena trouwens een verwijzing naar dat muppetliedje?
Menomena naaaaaaa naaaaa na na na
Menomena naaaaaa naaaaaa na na na

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Menomena have already begun work on their third album, which they hope to have out on FILMguerrero in the spring of next year. "We actually never really stopped recording from the Fun Blame Monster stuff," Seim said. "It's just all little demos that have taken shape over the last few years. We have about twelve or fourteen that are in a pretty good state right now. We just have to add a few things to finalize the mixes." The band plans to hit the road once recording is finished.

In the meantime, the band members are keeping busy with their own side hustles. Bassist/guitarist Justin Harris is in Australia right now, where his art project Theatre for One, The Late Great Libido: Rock Opera was exhibited as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. A self-contained theatre built for an audience of one person at a time, it shows a twenty-two minute computerized performance featuring the Menomena song "The Late Great Libido" (from Fun Blame Monster) as well as four other Harris compositions. So you're both inside the artwork and watching the artwork at the same time. Whoa.

Between Menomena's touring and recording, Seim continues to make music under the moniker Lackthereof. FILMguerrero recently released his seventh record, Christian the Christian, an album "loosely based on the events surrounding a list I wrote for Pitchfork." Seim doesn't have any further Lackthereof releases planned for the moment, but he insists that the project is "definitely not over with."

Seim also runs Happy Basement, a t-shirt printing company headquartered, of course, in his basement. Happy Basement handled the shirts on the Gang of Four reunion tour. "Now that I have carpel tunnel, it's all Gang of Four's fault!" he said. Too bad! Get back to rocking ASAP!

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Op maandag 9 januari 2006 19:04 schreef methodmich het volgende:
I Am The Fun Blame Monster heb ik destijds bijna een jaar naar gezocht, toen was ie er eindelijk eens. Rose is een wereldsong.

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Menomena are barely a month into their big Barsuk signing and they've already worked out a tracklist and release date for their upcoming record, Friend and Foe. The 12-song workout will storm the nation on January 23 of next year. The album's first single, "Wet and Rusting", is available as an exclusive download by clicking on the link below.

Menomena's upcoming tour with labelmates the Long Winters and What Made Milwaukee Famous launches next Monday. It will be followed by a December West Coast stint with fellow Portlanders 31Knots.

Tracklist:

01 Muscle'N Flo
02 The Pelican
03 Wet and Rusting
04 Air Aid
05 Weird
06 Rotten Hell
07 Running
08 My My
09 Boyskout'N
10 Evil Bee
11 GhostShip
12 West

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Op zaterdag 22 maart 2008 18:47 schreef emokid het volgende:
Hoe kan er hier niets gepost zijn, met Friend and Foe inmiddels al in de winkels. Onwijs goed album, de cover mag er ook wezen.