The Chad Tape - Chris Reimer

The Chad Tape

Chris Reimer

Independent/Bandcamp

SCQ Rating: 81%

An oft forgotten joy of buying from Bandcamp is that you receive a kind Thank You email courtesy of the artist you’ve just supported. It isn’t really the musicians writing you a personal note of gratitude of course but, with the state of the industry and the financial effects it imposes on artists, the email still feels genuine enough to give you good vibes all evening. On the other hand, the Thank You email one receives from buying on Chris Reimer’s Bandcamp page induces an unsettling mix of emotions; the same disbelief, sadness and confusion felt across the independent music scene when the untimely death of Chris Reimer, Women guitarist and burgeoning solo artist, was announced in February.

Opening my inbox to find an email from “Chris Reimer” with his thanks was enough to resurface those surreal sentiments, but The Chad Tape goes miles further in explaining exactly what we’ve lost. “Trees Die In Switzerland” lurches into earshot with a detuned acoustic dirge and distant flute melody married by some low-end feedback rustling around. The graceful, understated nature of it reveals that, for one thing, The Chad Tape is a collection of ambient music. But moreover, Chris Reimer had a keen ear for the challenging genre that anyone can do, but few do well.

The dichotomy applied to “Trees Die In Switzerland”, where a soothing lead shares space with undercurrents of despair and seclusion, deepens many of the tracks collected by Reimer’s loved ones. “Finnish Song (2)” evokes a barren landscape where found-sounds clatter across its plain while, on “Overweight Motorcycle Cops”, some outdoor field-recordings are caught between a tragic violin arrangement and some curious synths loitering nearby.

The latter track, which fades out within a minute of getting really interesting, reminds listeners that The Chad Tape was unfinished at the time of Reimer’s passing. Although it’s impossible to know how this record might’ve sounded as a complete artistic statement, The Chad Tape echoes the approach Reimer, Chad VanGaalen (who mastered this cassette), and the rest of Women brought to that band’s stunning catalog: dense but seemingly vacant production, a hopeful yet menacing duality, and illuminating hooks despite all of the music’s dark corners. Which is to say, The Chad Tape wouldn’t sound unfinished if not for our tragic understanding to the contrary; at most, its current incarnation would’ve probably earned a few more ‘avant-garde’ accolades, had Reimer lived to receive them.

The Chad Tape is limited to 200 copies and going quickly. Proceeds from physical and digital sales will benefit the Chris Reimer Legacy Fund, which provides music and dance scholarships to children. Support and listen here. 

#19 Album Of 2010: Public Strain - Women

Public Strain

Women
Flemish Eye Records.

Original SCQ Review

Confession time: my interest in Public Strain grew as soon as I witnessed its cover-art. This sepia-tinged photo of Toronto’s College Street in the golden age (completely made that up) mired in a sudden blizzard may have developed semi-tragic connotations since Women’s on-stage meltdown at the cusp of their fame, but it dutifully represents these eleven lo-fi embers that burn brightly despite being buried in snow-thick drones.

Beneath the cover art and Chad VanGaalen’s noise, however, lies a songwriting foundation that most bands would kill for. ‘Heat Distraction’ and ‘Eyesore’ play off the Shins’ casual melodies with open-ended possibilities, and the instrumentation doesn’t cruise by on those laurels. ‘Narrow With the Hall’ and ‘Can’t You See’ rely on minimalist bass hooks to explain full progressions, whereby the dangerously sharp guitars that perforate a rhythm out of ‘China Steps’ and ‘Drag Open’ are starving to get involved. It takes a resourceful band to veil their disadvantages (i.e. lack of a decent singer) into novel benefits, but that’s what Public Strain is: the smoke and mirrors over timeless pop.

Public Strain - Women

Public Strain

Women
Flemish Eye Records.

SCQ Rating: 86%

Pretention is a matter of dates. Those who argue between worthy innovation and been-there bullshit are slipping down a subjective wash, divided by musical knowledge and general preferences. About two weeks ago, a showdown concerning pretention kicked up on No Ripcord over its review of Public Strain, Women’s sophomore album, which was described as “auditory maliciousness”. Yet for a record with such a comprehensive blueprint for divisiveness, it’s strange that Public Strain’s relationship to lo-fi – a focus-point in many of the readers’ colorful comments – lies at the center of debate. Unlike the contest between innovation and pretention, there’s a tangible difference separating orchestration from noise, premeditation from experimentation.

Treat ‘Can’t You See’ as the debate’s official litmus test: if all you hear over the course of the opener’s three-minutes and forty-one seconds is off-key screeching and plodding bass, well, nobody should argue that this record isn’t for you. For the rest of us: yes, Public Strain has lo-fi’s elusiveness but only as a playful tool to position these songs within earshot or frustratingly beyond. The argued-over ‘Penal Colony’ ascribes to similar subdued effects first heard in ‘Can’t You See’, but feels warm and aquatic as if Jim O’Rourke had taken over sound-duties. Instead it’s Chad VanGaalen behind the boards, stretching strings, laying down warm keys and recording some of Women’s most pristine rock jams. Whether you buy into VanGaalen’s blizzard of drones or not, the merits of lo-fi needn’t come up; there isn’t any four-track tape-hiss or untrained static being wielded here.

Speaking of O'Rourke: Sonic Youth must love this album, and not because the two bands share lo-fi as an icebreaker. Women’s songwriting compliments the Thurston Moore-led outfit’s exceptional approach to pop music, rebuilding the genre’s foundations with scathing arrangements that would sound self-hating to most pop purists. Bass-driven grooves cement ‘Narrow With the Hall’ and vicious call-and-answer guitar-spikes surf ‘China Steps’ to a calming resolution, showing Public Strain’s considerable thaw; one that pierces VanGaalen’s desolate atmospheres with rays of clearheaded (but still rightly soggy) pop sensibilities. None of these sonic parallels tread on Sonic Youth’s history in the least and yet elements of this uneven, patience-testing sophomore by Women strike mirrored threads of genius that pepper E.V.O.L. or even Sister.

Some hooks are nearly inaudible, but their set-up and repetitions are felt in tiny collisions, as how the bass and guitar finish each other’s thoughts in ‘Heat Distraction’. Otherwise it’s the deceiving nature of Public Strain’s negative space that transforms these initially underwhelming valleys (‘Can’t You See’, ‘Penal Colony’) into wondrous slow moments which, through no accident, reveal their faults as charms we’d never really considered before. In some cases, listeners may require closing highlight ‘Eyesore’ to put all of Public Strain’s wayward instrumentation into perspective. There is a slight learning-curve here. Even in the presence of ‘Drag Open’ and its tremendous ferocity, I acknowledge that the punk-as-fuck DIY spirit can only bring you so far. Teamed with VanGaalen, Women have transgressed lo-fi for the greater good, delivering one of the year’s most quietly affecting indie-rock records.


Woman / Eyesore by reesindiemusic