Versus,
The Gunga Din, 31 Knots
Satyricon
125
NW 6th Ave., 243-2380
10
pm Saturday, April 22
Cover
You won't miss
the musicians of the Gunga Din in an airport. "I'm 5'9--with
boots on I'm 6 feet," Duffy says. "But Jim [Sclavunos] is
6'4. We're a very tall band."
"A lot of people
compare [our music] to soundtracks," says Siobhan Duffy,
"which is good, I think. Good music should create an atmosphere."
The first characters we meet on Glitterati, the
second album from New York City's the Gunga Din, are "apocalyptic
women / looking to be forgiven / on the outskirts."
That pretty much sets the mood.
With its entrancing miasma of dark, cabaret-nuanced pop,
the Gunga Din paints subtle but definite portraits of people
trapped "on the outskirts," seeking redemption, a return
to the fold, or family, or innocence.
Their story is told in the cold-shoulder vocals of Siobhan
Duffy, whisper-singing the kind of lyrics Nick Cave might
write if he were obsessed with nursery rhymes instead of
the Bible. Behind her, guitarist Bill Bronson chips off
both brittle, icy chunks and bright, arpeggiated chimes.
The carny keyboards of Maria Zastrow hover, half-sinister
and half-psychedelic. And the rhythms of drummer Jim Sclavunos
and bassist Chris Pravdica throb nervously underneath it
all.
When Duffy calls from a Midwestern truckstop, her phone
voice has even more of the delicate, velveteen quality you
hear on record. Yet she warns people to not focus too much
on the Gunga Din's dark side. This has probably been the
biggest problem when first-time listeners look at the band's
resume: Duffy was in God Is My Co-Pilot; Bronson in Swans,
Spitters and Congo Norvell; Sclavunos in the Bad Seeds and
Sonic Youth; Pravdica in the Supreme Dicks; and Zastrow
in Stereo Total (not to mention hanging with the Birthday
Party and Einstürzende Neubauten in West Berlin). Based
on those credits, you expect something strident and noisy.
The Gunga Din is neither.
And frankly, Duffy seems tired of talking about their combined
histories.
"We're standing on our own now," she says firmly. "Less
and less is it mentioned that we've been in those other
bands. It's getting better. It helped initially, a little
bit--and it probably disappointed a lot people."
Disappointed? In what way?
"It's very different music--more poppy."
In fact, not only does Duffy not view the Gunga Din's music
as a big bummer, she actually sees it as fun. Well, occasionally.
"I think some of the music is uplifting," she says enthusiastically.
Then, after a pause, she adds, "But maybe that's just me,
being a depressive by nature. Some people get addicted--they'll
go for a minor chord as opposed to a major. But I think
some songs are uplifting and happy."
Of course, when pressed to name specific "happy" examples,
she can only think of one or two song titles. On the other
hand, the Gunga Din's smoky pop isn't so oppressive you'd
pull a Sylvia Plath after spinning Glitterati in
the living room. The songs oscillate between poles of emotion,
caught between childlike joy and bitter futility; when Duffy
sings, "Are we having fun yet?," it's hard to tell if the
question's earnest, rhetorical or self-satirizing.
Duffy explains this bipolar behavior as a result of musical
variety. "Song to song, it's very different," she says.
"I hear disco in one song; I hear cabaret in another. I
hear prog-rock in one. It's a mixed bag."
There's another reason for the music's happy-child/sad-adult
duality, too. "Do you ever feel the older you get, [the
more] you regress?" asks Duffy. "You just feel freer, because
you have more control over how your life goes. I feel like
a giant, giant kid."
Yet if there's one element common to all the Gunga Din's
music, it's this: Whether happy or sad, haunted or silly,
this Din is hypnotic. Zastrow's shivering Farfisa organ,
Bronson's shimmering guitar and Duffy's shushed vocals all
blend into a cloud that surrounds audiences like a narcotic
haze.
One drawback to this: "There's one song, 'Bathing in the
Moonlight,' off the first record [Introducing the Gunga
Din]. A lot of times we play it live, I get in such
a trance I forget I have to sing," Duffy says.
But how does the audience react to such a woozy sound?
"A lot of people dance to it, actually," she says.
Then, deadpan: "Well, maybe not in New York--it's against
the law."
Giuliani strikes again. Time for the Gunga Din to strike
back.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 19,
2000
|
