Most musicians hate to be categorized,
rejecting any attempts to label, contextualize, or otherwise rape
their divine muse. Because they are, like, totally unique, they
tell anyone who is stupid or polite enough to ask what kind of
music they play that it can’t be described. “You just
have to listen to it, bro,” they say. “It’s a
little bit of everything, all mixed up, with a special flavor all
its own.” What these poor dopes won’t admit or
don’t realize is that (a) describing yourself as
indescribable is the worst cliché in the biz, right next to
“emotional roller coaster” in the press-kit hall of
shame; and (b) most people won’t fork over cash to hear a
band that they know nothing about aside from the fact that its
members consider themselves to be extremely special. No, bands
require hype, and hype requires talk, and talk requires language,
and language requires categories, so the only rational move is to
accept the inevitable and cough up a label before some idiot critic
does it for you.
Doveman has the label trick down pat. In the
press kit accompanying The Acrobat, its debut full-length, the New York-based sextet
describes its style as “lamp rock,” “insomnia
pop,” and “voice-inside-your-head music.”
It’s a nice preemptive strike, but caveat emptor, readers:
One listener’s “lamp rock” is another
listener’s “mope rock,” or what my friend Bob, a
scratchy-vinyl enthusiast, feedback connoisseur, and card-carrying
prole, dismisses as “bread-machine music.” In other
words, if you consider chronic tinnitus a badge of honor, think
Iron + Wine is kinda gay, and never bought into slowcore’s
“quiet is the new loud” aesthetic, Doveman is not the
band for you.
Not only are most of their songs driven by a
banjo — long derided by real rockdudes as the dorkiest instrument
known to man — but most of them also feature lots of piano,
cornet, brushed drums, and violin, not to mention a choked-up frontman
who makes Nick Drake seem like Ethel Merman. With his diffident,
uncertainly pitched whisper, pianist/singer Thomas Bartlett sounds as
if he’s murmuring through flannel bedsheets, and his cohorts
don’t seem to be in any hurry to rouse him. Drowsy and delicate, The Acrobat is a
liminal album, hovering over the threshold between sleep and
wakefulness, charged with the signal susceptibility that takes hold
when consciousness abates. The lyrics are muffled and evocative, the
mood melancholy but never desperate: “We walk through fields of
light/I could die here in your arms/But I’m not sure you’re
worth the sacrifice,” Bartlett sighs on “Honey,” the
album’s closest approximation to a love song.
That Doveman’s softer/slower/sadder
shtick doesn’t induce catatonia is a testament to the
members’ skill in extracting drama from pillowy atmospherics.
It’s no surprise, given the band’s pedigree. Although
Bartlett is only 23, he’s already done time with Elysian
Fields, Mike Doughty, and the tragically underappreciated Chocolate
Genius. Banjo player/guitarist Sam Amidon, who founded the
ensemble, moonlights in Stars Like Fleas, and the remaining
bandmates’ résumés include stints with everyone
from Iggy Pop to Gloria Gaynor, Woody Allen, the Lounge Lizards,
Bonnie Raitt, and Tom Waits. The result is a gentle hodgepodge of
imploded folk, avant-pop, and shoegazer psych, anchored by just
enough downtown skronk and found sounds to keep the songs from
floating away into the ether.
Occasionally the plodding tempos and funereal
arrangements become a bit monotonous, but just as you’re
about to nod off, the band tweaks the formula just enough to bring
you back. At its best, as on the narcotic, fuzzed-out
“Teacup” and the strangely jaunty, vaguely jazzy
“Cities,” Doveman soars.
This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2005.
