Review & Video Premiere: Weird Owl, Bubblegum Brainwaves
Posted in Bootleg Theater, Reviews on September 20th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Weird Owl’s video for ‘War.’ Their album, Bubblegum Brainwaves, is out Oct. 13 and up for preorder here.]
To their credit, Weird Owl do seem to take particular delight in living up to their name. Not so much the owl part, I suppose, but definitely the weird. The Brooklynite four-piece are a decade out from the release of their first EP, Nuclear Psychology, and after three full-lengths in 2008’s Ever the Silver Cord be Loosed, 2011’s Build Your Beast a Fire (discussed here) and 2015’s Interstellar Skeletal, as well as the Healing EP in 2013 that was their introduction through A Recordings, the imprint helmed by Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre, they’ve become the kind of band for whom predictions sonic or otherwise are largely irrelevant. Thinking you know what you’re going to get from a Weird Owl release is an act of self-delusion.
It’s probably going to be psychedelic one way or another, fair enough, but as to the actual shape and tone that will take, that’s a much more open prospect, and it’s one the band plays to with the bright, crisp melodies of their fourth LP, Bubblegum Brainwaves. At times brazenly poppy and elsewhere dug into a sense of exploration that feels born of space rocking impulses, it’s a record of varied sensibilities that, by the time it’s into its second side, turns even its own methods on their head in favor of heading somewhere else. To wit, that’s the eight-minute, spoken-word-topped “Bartholomew Iris,” on which Genesis Breyer P’Orridge of Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle steps in to recite a sci-fi narrative about a protagonist who chooses the means of his own death. To say the least, it’s a distinct moment of departure.
And not necessarily the first on the album, which opens its easily-manageable nine-track/41-minute run with the proverbial ‘Drink Me’ potion in the form of a keyboard line, drum intro and fuzzy shuffle met with echoing vocals on “Invisibility Cloak.” With “You (Sometimes Not You)” and “Black Never White” immediately following, “Invisibility Cloak” is the first part of a three-song launch salvo from the lineup of guitarist/vocalist Trevor Tyrrell, bassist/keyboardist John Cassidy, keyboardist Dave Nugent and drummer Sean Reynolds that boasts some of Bubblegum Brainwaves‘ most standout hooks, but also three strikingly different takes. Immediately, Weird Owl set a broad sonic context for themselves and flow between the high-energy cosmic soak of the opener, into the key-focused dreamgaze synth-pop of “You (Sometimes Not You)” — the otherworldliness of which comes through all the more thanks to its lyrics — and the urbane post-punk swagger and unabashed fun of “Black Never White.”
Taken as a set, these songs don’t top 13 minutes, and side A will continue to unfurl a diverse personality in the acoustic-led “Such a Myth” before resolving itself in the sweet, semi-Beatlesian melody of “The Lizard and the Owl,” but the cue to the listener to adjust their expectations to be as broad as possible is a hard one to miss, and as skillfully drawn together as the pieces are via their underlying structures and catchiness, it makes the shifting character of Bubblegum Brainwaves more fluid and accessible, allowing for the move into the politically-minded cynicism and comment on appropriation in “Such a Myth” — lyrics like, “Oh it’s my war too/Oh it’s my body too,” seeming to offer a general take on a social media-driven propensity for ego-tizing larger issues — to happen without any hiccup. Keyboards/organ do some of that tie-in work as well, and though he’s never particularly showy as a vocalist, Tyrrell‘s voice provides a steady and human presence across side A that only helps to further guide the listener through what might otherwise be a bumpier course. As it is, tracks are memorable enough in themselves so as not to simply be a hypnotic wash, but still satisfyingly lysergic in their tone and atmosphere. As “The Lizard and the Owl” rounds out the first half of Bubblegum Brainwaves with a subtle apocryphal feel in its storytelling, its linear build underscores the grace with which Weird Owl have been delivering their material all along. It is natural and warm, and so clearly it’s time for the LP to make another turn.
Side B brings four tracks in “War,” the aforementioned “Bartholomew Iris,” “Many Things I Saw in the Coffin” and closer “Tired Old Sun,” and like the material on the album’s first half, each one has its own take, working further to the band’s accomplishment and that of producer Jeff Berner (also guitar in Psychic TV) at Galuminum Foil Studios in constructing Bubblegum Brainwaves with such overarching ethereality of spirit. The feel, however, is darker. “War” is more active and doesn’t quite mirror the push of “Invisibility Cloak” at the start of the record, but is definitely working off some of the same intent, but the low end feels denser and the vocals are rawer and more forward. These things are relative, of course, but while “War” has a hook still very much working in its favor, the titular subject — whether metaphor or literal — represents a marked shift from the bulk of side A’s brightness. That will continue on “Bartholomew Iris,” which, as the band steps back to allow P’Orridge‘s audiobook-style narrative recitation, is the unquestionable odd-cut-out in the tracklisting.
Purposefully so. The only song over five minutes long, it’s meant to leave standard songwriting behind, and while I don’t know the origin of the plot being told — that is, if it’s by Tyrrell, P’Orridge, or sourced elsewhere — the elements of genre fiction and the narrative itself are compelling. Not to be understated, however, is the effect “Bartholomew Iris” has on the tone of Bubblegum Brainwaves. It is such a moment of arrival that it bleeds into the songs before as well as after, and while “Many Things I Saw in the Coffin,” with its folkish acoustic strum, synth flourish, and simple punctuating drums, has more in common with “Such a Myth” early as it moves toward its molten post-midpoint wash, there remains the lingering presence of “Bartholomew Iris” all the while. And when it comes around, “Tired Old Sun” — in which the sun itself seems to resign itself to fatigue in the way one might reading the news every day — works to reengage the dreaminess of the album’s earlier going, but is nonetheless sadder in sound as well as theme. Even for laid back, drift-prone psychedelic progressive rockers, it would seem, the times can feel weighing.
That’s not to say Bubblegum Brainwaves doesn’t offer plenty of float. It does. And I won’t discount the joy with which “right!” is tossed into “Black Never White” to playfully affirm the lines, “We seek the truth, we speak light/And you know we do it every night/Right?” either, but there’s a melancholy in Weird Owl circa 2017 as well, and that turns out to be as much a part of their rendering here as the momentum launched by “Invisibility Cloak” or the depth of the arrangement mounted in “Many Things I Saw in the Coffin.” Fortunately, this variable mood is complemented by likewise malleability of songcraft, and Weird Owl no more lose themselves in discourse than they do instrumentally. This speaks to the maturity taken hold in their approach over their years together, but more important, it makes Bubblegum Brainwaves a work of depth that can feel light or weighted depending on how its audience wants to interact with it. And that it’s open to that interaction, weird, unpredictable and swerving as it is, means there’s still some hope in there as well.
