Depending on where you conduct your Internet research, the marimba, a wooden-block percussion device with West African origins, may be one of the world's oldest instruments. After migrating to South America with African slaves, it caught on big, gaining its Latin name and becoming the national instrument of Guatemala. When it reached the United States in the early 20th century, the marimba was welcomed into symphony orchestras and jazz ensembles, who appreciate the instrument's deep, resonant sound.
So leave it to Spencer Krug to put an idiosyncratic spin on the instrument on his Dreamland EP, helpfully and truthfully subtitled Marimba and Shit-Drums. As a love letter, Krug's EP, a single 20-minute track, is closer to a novella than a valentine. The result could have been idle indie rock tourism, but Krug clearly spent some time learning his way around the marimba's blocks, making an instrument rarely encountered in rock into an appropriate vehicle for the REM sleep journey the song narrates.
As Krug plays it, the marimba is versatile. At low tones, it sounds like someone dribbling a ceramic basketball around an empty gym. Run a rapid tempo on the high tones, and it sounds like a wind chime caught in a hurricane, or a slot machine symphony. Through the instrumental segments the blocks' woodier vibrations start bleeding together into a gamelan-style pointillist drone. But Krug escapes strictly avant-garde territory, layering melodies until they take on the busy, crowded quality of an 8-bit RPG's dream sequence music.
Still, thank goodness for the shit-drums, which are appropriately named in terms of their fidelity. Every time the marimba waves threaten to engulf Krug, the drums splash in like a life preserver, adding a welcome sonic backbone. The song's most radio-friendly segment is just such a moment-- eight minutes in, where Krug's hazy beach visions are suddenly made urgent by a clattering drum part and geysers of spiraling melodies.
The sloppiness of those shit-drums may be what keeps Krug's composition from being a stripped-down version of a Tortoise epic-- the back half of "Djed" isn't too distant of a cousin. But I'm also reminded, more recently, of Destroyer's "Bay of Pigs", last year's example of an indie icon working with elongated song length and unfamiliar instruments. There's a dream logic to both songs, a sense of progression and narrative despite cut-and-paste lyrics, and each has a slowly unspooling structure that brings to mind a palindrome. There's even a satisfying resolution, where Krug drums the listener back to wakefulness while meta-commentating on the instrumentation by concluding in double-track, "I am making hissing sounds with my mouth."
Those are the moments that make Marimba and Shit-Drums more than just a gimmicky stylistic constraint. Thanks to the contradictions of the marimba-- soft, delicate tones generated through mallet thwacks-- Krug is able to hit just the right emotional note, conjuring an otherworldly and anxious dream-filled night. Like anyone recapping their dreams for you, it's sometimes uncomfortably voyeuristic, but the unusual arrangements make it much easier to take.
So leave it to Spencer Krug to put an idiosyncratic spin on the instrument on his Dreamland EP, helpfully and truthfully subtitled Marimba and Shit-Drums. As a love letter, Krug's EP, a single 20-minute track, is closer to a novella than a valentine. The result could have been idle indie rock tourism, but Krug clearly spent some time learning his way around the marimba's blocks, making an instrument rarely encountered in rock into an appropriate vehicle for the REM sleep journey the song narrates.
As Krug plays it, the marimba is versatile. At low tones, it sounds like someone dribbling a ceramic basketball around an empty gym. Run a rapid tempo on the high tones, and it sounds like a wind chime caught in a hurricane, or a slot machine symphony. Through the instrumental segments the blocks' woodier vibrations start bleeding together into a gamelan-style pointillist drone. But Krug escapes strictly avant-garde territory, layering melodies until they take on the busy, crowded quality of an 8-bit RPG's dream sequence music.
Still, thank goodness for the shit-drums, which are appropriately named in terms of their fidelity. Every time the marimba waves threaten to engulf Krug, the drums splash in like a life preserver, adding a welcome sonic backbone. The song's most radio-friendly segment is just such a moment-- eight minutes in, where Krug's hazy beach visions are suddenly made urgent by a clattering drum part and geysers of spiraling melodies.
The sloppiness of those shit-drums may be what keeps Krug's composition from being a stripped-down version of a Tortoise epic-- the back half of "Djed" isn't too distant of a cousin. But I'm also reminded, more recently, of Destroyer's "Bay of Pigs", last year's example of an indie icon working with elongated song length and unfamiliar instruments. There's a dream logic to both songs, a sense of progression and narrative despite cut-and-paste lyrics, and each has a slowly unspooling structure that brings to mind a palindrome. There's even a satisfying resolution, where Krug drums the listener back to wakefulness while meta-commentating on the instrumentation by concluding in double-track, "I am making hissing sounds with my mouth."
Those are the moments that make Marimba and Shit-Drums more than just a gimmicky stylistic constraint. Thanks to the contradictions of the marimba-- soft, delicate tones generated through mallet thwacks-- Krug is able to hit just the right emotional note, conjuring an otherworldly and anxious dream-filled night. Like anyone recapping their dreams for you, it's sometimes uncomfortably voyeuristic, but the unusual arrangements make it much easier to take.
— Rob Mitchum, February 5, 2010
