{"id":757,"date":"2012-04-10T05:39:43","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T10:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=757"},"modified":"2012-04-10T05:39:43","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T10:39:43","slug":"album-review-the-corner-laughers-poppy-seeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/10\/album-review-the-corner-laughers-poppy-seeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Corner Laughers – Poppy Seeds"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the impossibly winsome vocals of Karla Kane<\/strong> out front, The Corner Laughers<\/strong>‘ pop style is a tasty recipe indeed. Their 2012 release Poppy Seeds<\/em> continues in their grand tradition. While the opening voice-and-ukulele of \u201cGrasshopper Clock\u201d suggests \u2013 if for a moment \u2013 a lighter-than-air confection, the clever melody unfolds gradually, revealing a quality that the British call an earwig. One listen and I defy you to get the melody out of your head. Thing is, if you are (as am I) a fan of intelligent pop, you won’t want to forget the melody; its place in your skull will be a welcome one.<\/p>\n

Khoi Huynh<\/strong> is a melodic bassist in the McCartney<\/strong> mold; his lines rarely restrict themselves to holding down the root note. Instead he often crafts a subtle countermelody that complements the lead vocal line. Like most all of the Corner Laughers’ music, \u201cGrasshopper Clock” is unapologetically upbeat. But there’s not a thing wrong with that.<\/p>\n

Huynh’s propulsive bass line kick starts \u201cBells of El Camino,\u201d and Kane’s insistent and plucky ukulele strums push it in the same direction. Charlie Crabtree <\/strong>often employs a light touch on the drums \u2013 you don’t want to overpower a ukulele, after all \u2013 but he instinctively knows when to throw in a press roll or hard-hitting fill; the result is more finely textured and expressive percussion work than one usually finds on a pop record.<\/p>\n

The swaying \u201cLaughing Stars\u201d weds the 60s jangle of The Byrds<\/strong> with a sunny Brill Building sensibility, and some interesting sound effects give it a modern feel. On the chirping, bouncy \u201cTwice the Luck,\u201d Kane’s not afraid to trill, \u201cdoot-doodly-doo\u201d and \u201cba ba ba.\u201d The tune’s minimalist arrangement suits the vocals perfectly. On \u201cTransamerica Pyramid\u201d the Corner Laughers sound closest to their alter ego, The Agony Aunts<\/a><\/strong>. The track’s lovely vocal chorus recalls The Beach Boys<\/strong> at their summery best.<\/p>\n

On the speedy \u201c(Now That I Have You I’m) Bored,\u201d the band conjure a sound halfway between their normal approach and that of Shonen Knife<\/strong>. KC Bowman<\/strong>‘s guitar is thick with distortion, yet the strong pop feel of the band’s work shines through. \u201c8:18\u201d heads in a spaghetti-western direction, and the arrangement recalls Spanky and Our Gang<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cChicken Bingo\u201d is perhaps the most ambitious track on Poppy Seeds<\/em>, bringing together more good musical ideas than have a right to be in a single tune. Its virtues are too numerous to catalog, but here are a few: the inspired vocal harmonies, Crabtree’s exciting drum fills, the guitar solo. There are many more pleasures within its three-and-a-half minutes.<\/p>\n

The album’s brief instrumental title track sounds like a child’s tiny little music box in the hands of Brian Eno<\/strong><\/a>. The album wraps with the sparkling, Jackie DeShannon<\/strong><\/a>-flavored \u201cThe Perfect Weather,\u201d an ode (in part) to San Francisco. The song earns bonus points for its appealing — and non-clich\u00e9d — use of accordion. In Corner Laughers land, the weather’s always perfect, the flowers are always in bloom, everyone’s always in love, and all is right with the world.<\/p>\n

Poppy Seeds<\/em> wouldn’t be a Mystery Lawn release if it didn’t feature support from assorted friends of great import, and on this outing The Corner Laughers are joined by Allen Clapp<\/strong><\/a> (of, well, nearly everything on Mystery Lawn), Mike Viola<\/strong><\/a>, marvelous fella William Cleere<\/strong><\/a>, Anton Barbeau<\/strong> (watch this space for coverage of his music, coming soon) and a host of other names I expect I’ll learn more about soon enough.<\/p>\n

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With the impossibly winsome vocals of Karla Kane out front, The Corner Laughers‘ pop style is a tasty recipe indeed. Their 2012 release Poppy Seeds continues in their grand tradition. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}