Chris & Carla: Swinger 500 CD

With the introduction of 8 track recording in the mid-1960's, enough tracks were available to record a song as separate parts instead of needing to have everyone play at once. With records such as Revolver, Something Else by the Kinks, and The Who Sell Out, very successful bands made records which bore no resemblance to a band performing live. Not too much later, this type of recording became unfashionable, and most rock records of the last 30 years sound like a band playing together. For their second studio album, Chris Eckman and Carla Torgerson (also of the Walkabouts) chose the less typical approach. The album combines very synthetic sounds, such as synthesizers and drum machines, with very natural ones, like banjos and trumpets, to create a very diverse set of soundscapes. Some sounds on the album resemble the source that was recorded, while others are more processed sounding. Several songs feature out-of-time playing which could only have been created without interaction between musicians. As important as the unusual and interesting arrangements are, Swinger 500 at its root is an album of great and traditional songs. While some bands today seem to think it sufficient to coerce interesting sounds into just about anything resembling a pop structure, Chris and Carla have devoted as much attention to the songwriting on this album as they did on 1995's much more traditional sounding Life Full of Holes. The performances are also excellent, without self-conscious efforts to be excessively detached or emotive. With its great songwriting, interesting arrangements, and effective flow from start to finish, Swinger 500 reminds me more of records like John Cale's Fear or David Bowie's Low than anything from 1998. (Glitterhouse, Gruner Weg 25, 37688 Beverungen, Germany)