When the terminally adorable Canadian quartet Shapes
and Sizes signed to indie-rock über-cutie Sufjan Stevens’s record label, Asthmatic
Kitty, the sudden surfeit of sweetness must have been overwhelming. Surely
molars crumbled in its wake; blood turned to syrup; insulin waved the white
flag. Only an army of tap-dancing Japanese toddlers, baby spider monkeys in
matching bonnets, and the teenage Sandra Dee could have upped the awww factor. It was a
match made in twee heaven, if not Tokyo. But there’s more to Shapes and Sizes than eight
pinchable cheeks and a press photo that looks like something a proud
grandma might pull out of her pocketbook. The 10 songs on the group’s
self-titled debut are oddly engaging, pitched somewhere between the Fiery
Furnaces’ autistic artistry and a community-college production of South Pacific. Sometimes
they sound like a ’60s girl group commandeered by Philip Glass;
sometimes they sound like Pavement multiplied by the New Pornographers and
divided by Eric Dolphy. If that doesn’t make much sense, neither do
Shapes and Sizes’ shambolic minisuites and turn-on-a-dime
arrangements. Three of the band’s four members write songs, and it
sounds as if they compose potluck-style, each bringing in separately
written parts, jury-rigging them together, and delighting in the happy
accidents that result. Shapes and Sizes is one of those bands that sound as
if a single change in lineup might ruin everything, so integral is each
member’s musical personality to the collective character.
Co-vocalists Rory Seydel and Caila Thompson-Hannant, who also play guitar
and keyboards, often sing in unison, an octave apart, and seldom attempt
conventional harmonies. Seydel has a strangled, slightly nasal emo-boy
tenor; Thompson-Hannant has a sturdy, vibrato-heavy alto that shifts from
ingenuous lilting to brassy belting in the space of a chorus. In some of
the most effective numbers, the irresistibly incompatible pair trade off
lines in the snappy, dialogic manner of musical-theater protagonists,
amplifying, contradicting, or complicating each other’s statements.
Their colleagues are no slouches, either. Bassist Nathan Gage and
drummer/vibes player Jon Crellin, equally adept at skronky jazz and quirky
pop, ground the whimsy in roiling rhythmic textures and shrewd
counterpoint. Guest musicians augment the cheerful mayhem with tenor sax,
trumpet, flügelhorn, viola, and pedal steel. At just over 40 minutes, the CD isn’t long, but
it covers a lot of ground. “Island’s Gone Bad” pits
Seydel’s seasick vocals against a bleary saxophone, a whiny viola,
surfy drums, and Thompson-Hannant’s buoyant warble. While Seydel
kvetches about having to scavenge for food and call the parents,
Thompson-Hannant blithely declares, “I like eating fruit off of trees
when I’m with you/Fruit always tastes much sweeter, and air always
tastes much cleaner when I’m with you.” Imagine a mash-up of Blue Lagoon and Lord of the Flies. The
ukelele-flecked “Northern Lights” and the galloping,
punch-drunk “Goldenhead” are high-drama girl-group anthems,
whereas “I Am Cold,” a glacial synth-dirge, is a study in
art-rock minimalism. Although the Thompson-Hannant solo tracks are the most
hummable, the duets are the most affecting. In “Rory’s
Bleeding,” Seydel explores the comic possibilities of self-pity,
joining an angelic Thompson-Hannant in singing, “If Rory goes to
heaven, we’ll break up the band/We’d be sad, we’d be sad,
but it isn’t in our hands.” The lurching, pedal-steel-laced
waltz “Boy, You Shouldn’t Have” ends with Seydel begging
to be taught “how to not care” and Thompson-Hannant coolly
repeating, “I’ll never tell you” and
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” It’s very sweet and
very funny, and it says a lot without resolving anything, which might as
well be Shapes and Sizes’ motto.
This article appears in Jul 6-12, 2006.
