Musée Mécanique
Hold This Ghost (Frog Stand)
By Tatyana Kagamas
Published: September 22nd, 2008 | 9:00am
The dreamlike songs crafted by Portland, Oregon’s Musée Mécanique occupy a tenuous territory. Using a canon of instruments — archaic but not quite obsolete — the band sonically captures a fascination with the past in the midst of an uncertain future.
Perhaps crafted is exactly the right word to use in describing the band’s debut album, Hold This Ghost: Each song is a collection of instruments painstakingly placed to create the tension and longing that define the best songs of the album. In the final track, “Our Changing Skins,” the whimsy of organ and theremin is diluted with the long, slow tones of strings to create a beautiful sense of tension. Likewise, “Somehow Bound” and “Sleeping In Our Clothes,” feature the pining strains of a steel guitar and the accents of an accordion or glockenspiel — the instrumental choices almost seem to function as chapters of a manifesto committed to the sounds of the past.
The albums fails, however, when that very tension and longing in songs is remiss. “Fits and Starts” veers too closely to all that is nebulous about folk pop: An accordion and slowly strummed acoustic guitar bumble through a song too precious to be considered distinct amongst the album's stronger tracks.
Then again, perhaps the track's preciousness is an example of exactly what the band is trying to communicate: When the music of the future presents itself as vague, a return to the sounds of the past — though not the best solution — may be the only viable option. And to Musée Mécanique, walking that very line creates the tension of the present.
—
Musée Mécanique’s MySpace page
Issue #35
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more