Floratone: Floratone

In January of this year, I wrote a brief post about discovering new music by way of All Songs Considered, an NPR Podcast program inspired, obviously, by All Things Considered. One of the bands that impressed me was Floratone, a cooperative group consisting of highly regarded jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, session drummer Matt Chamberlain, and producers Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend. The only exposure I had to Frisell was on Deep Dead Blue, a mini-album recorded with Elvis Costello at the 1995 Meltdown Festival; I never really listened to it, though, for reasons I’ve never fully been able to explain. The other musicians I wasn’t the least bit familiar with, though I knew that Chamberlain had toured with Pearl Jam before their big break, but declined joining the band. Whatever song Bob Boilen played on his program I can’t recall, but I know that it was enough for me to actively search them out. The few songs I heard on the website were great, but that, for a few months, was that: I had pushed Floratone to the back of my mind, content to stick with whatever music I was listening to at the time.

Fast forward a few months, when my friend Chelsea visited me for an afternoon on a layover stop from Manchester, England, to Tennessee. Wondering how we could kill a few hours, I took her into Philadelphia for a meal at an Indian restaurant and a walk to AKA Music. Knowing that I could easily spend a cool grand or two on music, especially because it had been quite a while since I had set foot in a record store, I restrained myself considerably, and picked up only two albums: this one, and a Jayhawks album, at the recommendation of Chelsea. (I’ll get to them in my next review.) (Maybe.) It took me a few days to sit down and listen to Floratone, but the payoff was tremendous: having been unfamiliar with any of the artists involved in the project, I found myself instantly drawn to the laid-back instrumentals, finding it difficult to exactly place a genre on any of the music.

The title track, one of the few instances I can think of where a band has named an album and a song after itself (the other ones being ‘Bad Company’, ‘Black Sabbath’, and ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ … so, basically, practically any band that begins with the letter ‘B’), sets the mood and pace of the album: these songs are in no hurry whatsoever, with plenty of loops and off-kilter noises that it should really be appreciated by way of headphones or a really excellent surround sound system. There are intricacies in the music that may not be apparent on a general listen, buried under more conventional instruments, such as upright bass and a trumpet. The album contains many musical ridges and valleys, many blues and greys, with Chamberlain and Frisell tag-teaming each other but not threatening at all to step on each others’ toes; in fact, something I found refreshing was that neither attempt to hog the limelight, though both certainly have the chops to spend an album’s length twiddling around and making it all seem extremely interesting. This isn’t a grandstanding album; instead, it’s an ensemble piece, with the musicians and producers working in harmony to create a sonically pleasing and rewarding listen that never sounds cluttered and is always organic and earthy.

I’m not going to review the entire album, for many reasons: I’m not that good a writer to really be able to put into words what musicians are trying to do with an entirely instrumental album; but also because it’s such a unique listen, and one that most people don’t seem all that familiar with, that really the only way to experience the album is by actually listening to it. The mood of the pieces – for these aren’t really songs – are conveyed through the titles: ‘The Wanderer’ employs a lazy shuffle, while ‘Mississippi Rising’ and ‘Louisiana Lowboat’ have a more swampy, bayou-esque sound to them, as if it was interpreted by Tom Waits (including some Waitsian shouts from Frisell on the former); ‘Take A Look’ is a little more upbeat and joyous, while closer ‘Threadbare’ sounds exactly like its title, with Chamberlain clattering on various percussive instruments while Frisell strums power chords. An ideal way to end the album, for sure.

I’ve read reviews – especially from Frisell fans – that have been more critical of this album, which I think is fair, though my criticism is less of a criticism and more of a recommendation: it may be suitable to listen to in the background (and it’s one of the few albums I’ve discovered that is an “all-seasons album”), but to get its full impact, sit down one day and really listen to it. Take 48 minutes out of your day, sit back with the headphones on, and just listen. For that is the true and real way this album can be appreciated.

Essential listening: all of it