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Published Dec. 19 - 25, 2001
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The
Tired Sounds Of /
Kranky Records
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Review:
Stars Of the Lid
The Tired
Sounds of
Stars Of the Lid
Review by Art Howard |
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Part of what has
always made Austin, Texas' Stars Of the
Lid interesting is that they
challenged the very concept of what music
is. Consisting of two guitarists (Brian
McBride and Adam Wiltzie) whose
instruments -- so effects-laden they're
unrecognizable -- are looped over the
sounds of humming refrigerators and prairie
winds, Stars makes every other
"pop" group sound samey,
unimaginative and trite. Where other
groups take the easy route of chord
progressions, choruses and drum kits,
Stars Of the Lid produces atmospheric
washes, pleasantly devoid of pep or
angst, leaving not even the percussive
attack of a plucked string in their wake.
To the uninitiated (or to those who just
hate this stuff), applying words like
"good" and "bad" to
what sounds like nothing but a series of
volume swells seems as vague as the
music. Is it really possible to do a
20-minute drone wrong? Well, yes, because
unfortunately Stars Of the Lid has done
it on The Tired Sounds Of…
The murmurings on this two-disc set
really are, in a word, tired. Whereas
their 1995 debut Gravitational Pull vs.
the Desire for an Aquatic Life mastered
the subtle art of lifting you to the
stratosphere without appearing to go
anywhere, Tired Sounds sounds
like listless noodling. In the past,
Stars Of the Lid carefully merged the
sounds of shooting stars with layers of
ethereal guitar, spacing your brain out
in a most agreeable manner. Like staring
at a magic eye poster, smart compositions
underpinning the drones made themselves
apparent to the patient listener. With Tired
Sounds we just get a single
instrument dawdling on forever, without a
road map, going nowhere. Wiltzie and
McBride have attempted to spice up the
spiritless monotony by injecting the
occasional muted sound effect or sound
byte, but hey, if I wanna hear talking
and car doors slamming, I buy a CD in the
spoken word or sound effects sections.
Wake me when The Tired Sounds
Of… is over.
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© 2001 Art Howard
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