Oh feedback, you?re the greatest. You fill out songs, you give that raw rock edge, you can either be sweet and warm or harsh and jagged. Without you, there simply wouldn?t be heavy rock. You?re the embodiment of the spirit of music so often lost in today?s cookiecutter, corporate agendified radio milieu. When you?re not near me, I?m blue. Oh feedback, I love you. Here?s a haiku I wrote in your honor:

Sound waves, crashing, crest
Themselves on shores of the mind.
Six strings sitting still.

Austin, Texas, mostly improv jam trio Tia Carrera start their Small Stone Records full-length debut, The Quintessential, with a solid four minutes of softly honed feedbacking on the track ?Home,? accompanied by cymbal washes and ambient guitar notes. It?s a peaceful beginning to an active album, full of unexpected twists and changes in approach that have the band, whose live presence is a thing of dirty classic rock beauty, jamming until the tape runs out on ?New Orleans? (they bought the 15-minute tape), and pushing even further on the 22-minute ?The Unnamed Witness,? while also trying out structure and composition (and vocals!) on mostly-acoustic closer ?Hazy Winter.?

Named partially for the Porche and partially for the Hawaii-born actress best known for being on the other end of the ?She will be mine, oh yes, she will be mine? in both Wayne?s World movies (who ends her last name with an -e), Tia Carrera could only really call The Quintessential any kind of accomplishment if it captured the hypnotic live spirit that?s so much of what makes the band special. After getting lost several times in ?The Unnamed Wholeness? — perhaps titled for that very engrossing effect the band has on its listeners — it?s safe to say that indeed, the full-length that follows EPs like Heaven/Hell and The November Session brings to a tiny plastic disc the swaying rock energy and spontaneity essential to what they do. And in grand, interesting fashion. Separating the two massive jams, the shorter, probably-improvised ?Gypsies? feels like a moment of respite without actually being one, so fluid is the grooving methodology of Tia Carrera.

The three players, Erik Conn (drums), Andrew Duplantis (bass) and Jason Morales (guitar) are on a mission largely unique unto itself in the leafy rock underground. Many bands out there seek to capture the feel and essence of big guitar?s heyday, but where they might do it with some cool Sabbath riffs and Bonham fills, Tia Carrera have stumbled onto an anti-formula that stands them apart from their modern peers and harkens directly to the freewheeling jams of yesteryear. An impeccable vibe that will appeal to fans of the genre with an ear toward the natural creation of music. And feedback.

Tia Carrera on MySpace

Small Stone Records

Tags: Austin, Small Stone, Tia Carrera

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.