{"id":214,"date":"2012-04-03T09:56:27","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T08:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=214"},"modified":"2012-04-02T15:07:46","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T14:07:46","slug":"music-review-organos-concha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=214","title":{"rendered":"Music Review: Organos “Concha”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Organos<\/a> Concha<\/em> Potluck Foundation<\/a><\/p>\n

On the second Organos album, Maria Albani and pals present us with nineteen minutes and eight songs of lilting and melodic music. There\u2019s a casualness to proceedings here, and while that word might imply sloppiness, that\u2019s not at all what I mean; this album is the aural equivalent of a favorite t-shirt or sweater: slipping it on(to the record player) is something you want to do all the time, but also you want to hold it onto for special occasions because, you know, it\u2019s so damn comfortable. Except these aren\u2019t by any means a bunch of blissed-out flowers and birds and sunshine songs.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look more closely. The songwriting and playing are deceptively simple: basslines lilt between small handfuls of notes, guitars sometimes slide, sometimes stammer, or crackle or whinny, and the vocals stick to a Joan Baez-ly small range of notes (though, I should add, sound nothing like Joan Baez, thankfully). On the second song, \u201cSide Girl,\u201d vocals and handclaps do all the work; it sounds like a folk song that never was, or a folk song that should have been (and now is). On most songs the music and lyrics (\u201cFamily isn\u2019t all there is \/ it doesn\u2019t work and it never did;\u201d \u201cI\u2019m bored \/ man, I could stay in bed all day\u201d) combine to create a haunting atmosphere that might slide into pathos if it weren\u2019t for an edge of defiance (\u201cIt\u2019ll never come if you wait too long\u201d) or hope (\u201cYou\u2019ll live inside my heart, love\u201d) in the lyrics and that insupressable urge to melody\u2014the ear for a hook, or sometimes only half a hook\u2014that holds these brief snapshots (the songs range in length from just over a minute to just under three and a half) together.<\/p>\n

I said \u201cdeceptively simple\u201d back there, and just now I called the songs \u201cbrief snapshots\u201d: each song seems to go before its time is totally up\u2014you want to hear more, although even the shortest song sounds complete\u2014and the lyrics give up enough of their meaning without completely explaining themselves away. The songs combine into a collage of various moments: delicate, wistful, angry, longing, and always thoughtful; they creep into your mind until, with the chorus of backing vocals on the just a little bit heartbreaking acoustic song \u201cAt the End of the Ride,\u201d you find yourself singing along: don\u2019t go; don\u2019t go.<\/p>\n

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