Gregor Samsa

Over Air (Kora)

By Christopher Morgan
Published: April 13th, 2009 | 9:00am

It is common knowledge that the exalted radio session record is one that is best left to the fellows with the taste acquirable to it. Others (presumably civilization in general) would see such things as mere trifles, punishable contraband if you will. On the one hand, there is the unavoidable faint salty-sweetness of artistic self-indulgence packed thoroughly into these records. On the other hand, however, there is something to be said of listening to the radio sessions of a band that has the potential to, at least for a time, set aside the layered fopperies of production and the overall lab science of studio recording and offer a cohesive alternative with the clarity and confidence of a well-rehearsed band — but also with the implied claustrophobia and vulnerability that comes with doing all that in a radio station. While this may impress those who some may call the truest of the true, this is a record of delicate sound and intimate emotion that should appeal to those outside the sphere of the aesthetes.

The Brooklyn by way of Richmond, Virginia, band showed up to record at a radio station in Amsterdam last year; these sessions make up two-thirds of Over Air’s songs, which have been culled primarily from their prior two full-lengths. Gregor Samsa is associated most often with post-rock — typically a synonym for melodic indie rock played really slowly or really loudly, or both — and as such, they compose songs that are soaring in their emotional reach and wondrously transient in their structure. This much has been established on standard records (their most recent, Rest, was composed via e-mail), but what of their live performances? Do they hold up on stage as they do in padded booths? And if so, what would make a radio performance advantageous over a stage performance?

While the radio sessions aren't as much of a shared experience as seeing them on stage, it is a great deal more personal. Now, at the behest of their radioland hosts, Gregor Samsa is still as sparse, melodic, and puzzling as it could be on record, but the production sheen is removed, stripped off, and made naked to show the humanity strewn within the songs. The white noise that permeates in between and through the solemn instrumental style is likely not intentional, but one can't help but notice that, in making the band's edge rougher, it's more interesting. Static hums briefly during the slow fluctuating of string instruments on "Abutting, Dismantling." The spectral vocals of Champ Bennett and the cherubic voice of Nikki King take appropriate leveling to that of a voyeur and wall-gazing shut-in who are both stricken, by whatever circumstances, with defeat and a hypersensitivity to life's subtlest betrayals. All that remains is more or less in the nature of self-explanation.

Every member plays their part with little to no error, adhering carefully to the seemingly simple melodies that have a fluidity not easily confined within a streamline. Also contained at the end of the record are alternate versions of songs that, while formidable and interesting, detract from the basic point of the record and would have warranted their own EP, iTunes album, or even a gold standard B-side.

It should be said, however, that the gist of all that is offered is not entirely new. If anything, Gregor Samsa positions itself on the post-rock scale of accessibility a good distance between the emotive artistry of the Dirty Three, or perhaps Codeine, and the melodic awesomeness of Mogwai, leaning slightly more to the latter if one calls for more preciseness. Nonetheless, a happy medium if there ever was one. But like Mogwai's own sessions for John Peel, Samsa edges itself closer to life with a presumed degrading of atmosphere, even the stellar cover art exemplifies the simple but imperfectly informal beauty of the record.

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