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 REVIEW Rewind Growing up with the New Sound of Unwound BY MAC MONTANDON 243-2122 EXT. 349 |
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Unwound, Paul Newman, Yind Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 778-5625 9 pm Wednesday, Feb. 10 $7 When I was going to school in Santa Cruz, Calif., in the early 1990s, every boy I knew--and many girls, too--wanted to be Justin Trosper. We were growing up (as much as undergraduates can be said to grow up), moving away from punk adolescence and into our own jazz age. We were as likely to read Sassy , Glamour and Maximum Rock 'n' Roll as J.G. Ballard and Jean Beaudrillard. We were naive enough to think about creating a new music and fashion aesthetic, and confident enough to try. Boys wore suits to cocktail parties, wallet chains flapping out from under sports coats, and girls wore boas and dramatic mascara. We made the scene, filing into Victorian living rooms to adore what we considered the "New Sound." Local bands like Nuzzle and the Fisticuffs Bluff played a kind a music that combined punk, pop, folk and jazz. Everyone was in a band, of course--mine was a well-meaning, shy and untalented outfit called Sea Foam Green--but Trosper's group from Olympia, Wash., Unwound, provided the soundtrack to that time, the records that were always on at parties. Saying that Unwound belongs to Trosper is, I realize, tantamount to saying that the Marx Brothers belong to Groucho. We would not think of Trosper or Groucho at all if it weren't for their mates. But we still think of these leading figures first and foremost. Unwound is Trosper's world. Since 1993, when the band recorded its second (and what many would call its best) 7-inch, "Mkultra," Unwound has comprised bassist Vern Rumsey, drummer Sara Lund and Trosper, who does most of the singing and guitar playing. They had recorded a previous single with a different drummer, but when Lund came along that year, Unwound arrived at what became its characteristic sound: Lund's steady, imaginative beats make the music danceable, even as it unravels in staticky noise. Since she joined Unwound, they band has released at least one album every year, all but one on Kill Rock Stars records. In 1997, as part of an EP, the band released the epic 10-minute-plus song, "The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train." In many ways, that song encapsulates what Unwound does. By that I don't just mean what the band does musically--uniquely juxtaposing rough sounds with smooth ones--but the attention to detail with packaging, song titles and cover art. Unwound is one of a few new bands that has its own aesthetic. The jacket for that LP is entirely white, save for the bold, pink-orange characters of the band's name. The Future of What, 1995's LP, looks like a socialist propaganda poster. The 1998 release, Challenge for a Civilized Society, features a war-room map of the world. In each case, the art is right for the music, which often sounds like an approaching train, beautiful and destructive. (If Unwound were a literary character, it would surely be Anna Karenina.) While playing a show, Trosper often looks as though he's considering leaping in front of an oncoming locomotive. Bored and pissed, he gazes unwaveringly at the microphone, as if it were a friend who had just betrayed him. To read his lyrics--deciphering them live is not an option--is to believe that he knows a thing or two about betrayal. Trosper's prose landscape is a jagged, claustrophobic place made from failed friendships and existential liberty. "Dragnalus," the first song on Fake Train, opens with Trosper scream-talking: "This song that song love song hate song you're so bored with my life your life this life our life." In a twist representative of his writing style, he confesses later in the stuttering track, "I don't feel strange, I don't feel anything." These lines are typical Trosper. It's as if he is playing a game of word association by himself. I first saw Unwound play in a Santa Cruz basement, where fiberglass
tufts sprouted between ceiling beams. It was crowded and hot, and you
had to strain on tiptoe to see. Perspiration turned made-up faces into
mini Jackson Pollock paintings. The band came on, murky, soft and elegant,
before swerving its sound into a sonic car crash. Each song reminded
me of the feeling of riding a subway train at night, when light from
unseen sources flickers suddenly, passes quickly and is then forgotten.
Trosper's narrow, pale face jutted below stylishly unkempt straight
black hair, and he looked forlorn and world-weary. Yet his band had
built the New Sound--as smart as jazz, as unsatisfied as punk. I wouldn't
have wanted to be anywhere else than that dingy basement that night,
and I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could.
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