Biography
Despite the relatively
small solo discography, Bob Drake is one of the most important
figures in modern avant-prog. Among other things, he was a
co-founding member of Thinking Plague, and singer for the
5uu's in the 90s. Drake's stylistic range doesn't just include
RIO, though. He also played a variety of instruments in Susanne
Lewis's indie rock band Hail, as well as producing in LA for
major artists like Ice-T (!). His own solo work shares elements
of all of the above (well, not Ice-T), but sounds like none
of them. From the immediately likeable What Day Is It?
to the bizarre and aggressively experimental Medallion
Animal Carpet, these albums are showcases of one man's
highly personal production style, multi-instrumental virtuosity
(and he doesn't read a note of music!), and compositional
talent -- with a surprising amount of bluegrass and folky
fingerpicking thrown in for good measure. - Alex
Temple [May 2002]
What
Day Is It? (1993)
Every once in
a while you run into an album that takes influences you thought
could never work together, and blends them so well that the
bizarre transitions seem completely natural. This, Bob
Drake (of Thinking Plague, 5uu's, etc.)'s first solo album,
is a perfect example. We get hints of RIO, a large dose
of bluegrass, vocal harmonies straight out of Yes, and a slightly
toned-down version of the noisy, dirty production of Susanne
Lewis's quirky indie rock band Hail. Drake plays almost
all the instruments, so we get his usual wonderfully out-of-tune
violin playing, adept acoustic fingerpicking, and, also reminiscent
of Hail, an electric guitar sound that's completely unlike
anyone else's. And there's the lyrics -- simultaneously
cute and creepy, kind of like H.P. Lovecraft filtered through
Edward Gorey. (Sample line: "I went down into the cellar
/ I saw something on a table / It was surrounded by strange
tools.")
As you might
expect, the album has quite a bit of variety. On the
one hand, there's "The Statue," which could easily be an outtake
from a Thinking Plague album. On the other, there's "Weeds,"
which is largely Kottke-style fingerpicking, though the guitar
is occasionally joined by whiny background synths, handclaps
or amazingly satisfying groovy organ lines. Then there's
"The 13th Animal," an insanely catchy, bluesy indie rock tune
reminiscent of Hail's "Crummy Man," but filled with hemiolas,
off-accents and, in one place, folky melodies played with
Univers Zero rhythms. And "Rainy" manages to be completely
cohesive despite containing stripped down voice and guitar
passages with distorted spoken-word material, Ivesian misquotations
of "John Brown's Baby" and "Stars and Stripes Forever,"
and brief passages that could be right out of "Close
to the Edge."
I should be
a little clearer about the Yes influence. It's pretty
well-known that Drake is a big Yes fan, but on this album,
the influence that comes through is stripped of all excess,
leaving only the cheerful, CSN-influenced vocal parts.
What's more, Drake tends to subvert the Jon Anderson similarities
by pairing tunes like the bouncy "The Sawblade" with lyrics
about the destruction of all life on earth. ("I saw
lightning bolts come down and devastate the ground / Saw the
ocean drying up and mountains wearing down")
So if you're
not a Yes fan, don't make the mistake I did and avoid getting
this because people compare it to Yes. The influence
is minor, and the album certainly doesn't sound "symphonic"
in any way. What's more, except for a couple of tracks
that drag a little ("Death Valley" in particular), this is
a damn good piece of work. For me, the only real liability
is the production -- Drake doubles his own vocals on nearly
every song, which gives them an "oily" sound that can be "too
filling" if you listen too often, if that makes any sense.
But that doesn't detract from my enjoyment, it just means
that I don't listen to it quite as often as I would otherwise.
Do yourself a favor and check it out. -
Alex Temple [May 2002]
Click
Here for Tracklist and Lineup Info
Medallion
Animal Carpet (1999)
This could easily
be one of the strangest albums of all time. Yeah, I
know what you're thinking: look at the line-up.
Members of Thinking Plague, 5uu's, Henry Cow, Science Group,
Art Bears. That's not so strange -- it probably sounds
like RIO, right?
WRONG.
Part 1 can only
be described as "lo-fi industrial bluegrass." The Kottke-esque
folk of Bob Drake's earlier solo albums is still here, but
filtered through a production so messy it puts Hail to shame.
Lyrics are randomly generated by a computer program called
Spaghetti: "Floppy jelly lubricated a desirqable king
a senile telephone flattened a curious fish." In several
places, the vocals are mixed so far down that the lyrics are
inaudible, and the booklet says "some lyrics deliberately
obscured and/or mutilated." Vocal lines are often multi-tracked
and polyrhythmic, and the music is occasionally interrupted
by blasts of pure noise and loud industrial synth drums that
remind me a bit of Nine Inch Nails.
You must be
wondering now: "but is it good?" Such a twistedconcoction
could be truly awful, but it could also be brilliant in the
right person's hands. Luckily, Drake is a supremely
talented musician, so most of it works very well. A
few tracks are really excellent: "Concrete Husky" features
an atypically clear texture that pits extremely fast vocals
against equally insane folky guitars in a deliciously elusive
rhythm that changes so quickly you can never quite get ahold
on it. "Bedraggled Things" uses blues chichés
in a noise-rock context to produce a strangely catchy result.
"Crude Internal Organ" consists of a hymn tune sung by an
entire choir of Bob Drakes, each of whom sings different lyrics,
and "I'm Afraid There Are Results" could practically be an
excerpt from Drake's debut What Day Is It?, if it weren't
for the noisy, fuzzed-out church organ passage that opens
it. Not surprisingly, there are also some tracks that
don't work so well. Most of these pass by quickly enough
to work as transitions, but there is one that gets on my nerves.
"Slab" is an improvisation by Drake, Science Group composer
Stevan Tickmayer and two ex-Thinking Plague drummers named
Mark. The problem is that it employs a sort of techno-industrial
backbeat through the entire piece, and while this worked when
the Science Group did it for ten seconds in the middle of
a piece, it's simply tiresome when used for four minutes --
especially when your time frame has been sped up by listening
to 11 tracks of music that changes approximately every 30
seconds.
Still, Part
1 is generally very good. It's Part 2 that really demonstrates
that experimentation can go too far. This section is
basically a bunch of country songs. Sure, they're even
lower-fi and noisier than Part 1, and the actual instruments
and voices are barely audible at times, but they're still
suffused with enough twang and drawl to make the section basically
unlistenable for anyone who doesn't like C&W. Part
3, while enjoyable, is also kind of pointless; it's a quirkly
little Lovecraftian pop song written and sung by Tim Gadd,
whose Australian accent is the main thing it has going for
it.
So, no, this
isn't a masterpiece. Part 1 is definitely worth hearing,
and is more than enough proof (as if proof were needed) that
Drake is a fiendishly original musician. But don't rush to
put Medallion Animal Carpet on your to-buy list just
yet.
- Alex Temple [January 2002]
