New music from Flying Fish Cove, Ryan Jewell Quintet
Flying Fish Cove
En Garde
(Jigsaw/Lost Sound Tapes)
Listening to the new four-song EP En Garde from the Seattle indie-pop quartet Flying Fish Cove, which arrived just two months after the release of the group’s full-length At Moonset, this writer can’t help but be reminded of Steve Buscemi’s brief “How do you do, fellow kids?” scene from 30 Rock, where a clearly middle-aged man with a backwards cap and skateboard tries to blend in with a high school crowd.
The intrinsic youthfulness of pop music can make one wonder if there is a point where one simply feels too old for such bouncy pleasures.
However, for this writer, there’s another thing about growing older, and that’s being generally less self-conscious about one’s tastes—in other words, not giving a crap about haters.
So, seek joy where you can find it, even if it’s pop music escapism, which Flying Fish Cove provides abundantly, and which may appeal to fans of indie-pop acts like Heavenly or Rose Melberg.
Front woman Dena Zilber sings sweetly with an unadorned, clear, vibrato-free tone, even when navigating through the emotional turns of “No Ending”, which offers its own gentle speed bumps in its song structure. The title track tries to not be obvious on its verses, but it actually works better during the chorus, using familiar pop pleasures and chord transitions and the tender recitation, “I would start over today if you asked me.”
“Andrew & Ally” (a reference to Andrew McCarthy and Ally Sheedy in the film St. Elmo’s Fire) is perhaps the EP’s most cutesy, sugary moment, with some Casiotone-esque accompaniments, but its floating, dreamy chorus is also among the EP’s best moments.
That vibe extends into “Embarking” with cheap keyboard rhythms and glistening chimes, evoking youthful, wide-eyed pleasures, reminding us that cotton candy still tastes good to adults, even if it makes your lips blue.
Ryan Jewell Quintet
Vibration!
(Two Rooms)
While the new album Vibration! from the Ryan Jewell Quintet resides in the jazz realm, one could also make the case that compositionally, it also carries the spirit of contemporary and modernist classical music.
Jewell is a seasoned percussionist who is comfortable playing alongside both popular artists (including Norah Jones and Jeff Tweedy) and also those who stand outside the mainstream, including saxophonist Jack Wright and violinist C. Spencer Yeh.
Vibration! is a notable album for Jewell, as it’s his first album as bandleader where the ensemble is devoted to performing his creations. Each track employs its own different compositional method, drawing from 20th-century classical techniques that recall Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique, use graphical scores rather than conventional notes, and employ written instructions and ideas (example: “play something from distant memory”) perhaps influenced by Stockhausen’s intuitive music.
The mysterious “Row 1” methodically begins with lonely, single piano notes working through a sequence as if a secret code, before being joined by Alex Burgoyne’s sax, Caleb Miller’s piano and John Philip Allen’s bowed double bass; it straddles intuition and conscious thought with a peculiar atmosphere, enhanced by twinkling electric piano notes, a haze of cymbals, and an enigmatic ending with cricket sounds.
Jewell’s framework on “24 Instructions” isn’t the least bit constraining, with improvised free-jazz outbursts and scampering, while electric guitarist Abhilasha Jayanthi offers odd solos with fuzzy tones that nosedive, disappear, and reappear.
“Gyil” uses recurring monotonic piano notes, played in precise rhythmic unison with hi-hat taps, to seemingly emulate the sound of Morse code, and that modest base leads to fascinating interlocking rhythms and weaving melodies from the other players, figuratively dancing on a telegraph wire.
Frequently, the listener is confronted with unpredictable twists, while the performers function as a tight mass, turning on a dime while playing the composed melodic parts in unison.
Even when the proceedings become violent, like on “Laser Tag”—with saxophonist Burgoyne’s hard-blowing squawking, Jewell’s delirious and feral drums, and Miller’s forceful piano chords—the players keep it together and never fly off the rails.