Review by Margaret Reges
What does White Flight sound like? What doesn't he sound like? White Flight, otherwise known as Justin Roelofs (dreadlocked UFO fantasist and former member of Kansas' the Anniversary), sounds like a mash-up of Devendra Banhart, the Flaming Lips and Beck. In other words, Roelofs sounds a lot like Animal Collective, only funkier. White Flight drifts into sparkly indie pop à la Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots ("Pastora Divine"), only to shift gears and drive into patchouli-scented, Banhart-esque acoustic bliss ("Solarsphere") and then veer into crispy, greasy stoner hip-hop (on one of the album's best tracks, "Deathhands"). It's full of anvil-heavy bass beats, funky-ass Muppet vocals, and scrunchy horn sections, and all of it sounds unabashedly homemade. This isn't to say that the album is guilty of insularity or naval-gazing. Sure, there are a whole lot of vocal over-dubs, found sound, and gaudy instrumentation, and on tracks like "The Secret Sound" (a swamp awash in vocoders and horns) it's tempting to dismiss Roelofs' project as just another bedroom studio vanity project. But if the album is indulgently lo-fi, and if the lyrics can be almost ridiculously hippy-dippy ("Listen, lion! Educate your children!"), you can't deny a good hook when you hear it. There's a real sense of fun here, especially on bouncy, crunchy tracks like "The Condition" and "Now," and that's what makes White Flight one of 2007's strangest, scariest, and most weirdly addictive independent releases to date. No kidding.
White Flight
White Flight
[Range Life; 2007]
Rating: 5.5
As home recording technology advances, the illusion of music as unmediated communication is becoming more and more seductive. Whereas homemade recordings used to bear the aesthetic limitations of "lo-fi," artists can now deliver multitracked digital epics that seemingly spring fully formed from their brains into your iTunes-- no band, studio, engineer, or producer necessary. This freedom can yield amazing results, but it doesn't come without its pitfalls: In many cases, the absence of constraints and collaborators can result in a disorganized and unwieldy record. White Flight, the debut release from former Anniversary guitarist Justin Roelofs, illustrates this point.
Recorded in a neighbor's basement, White Flight is an overstuffed assortment of hip-hop beats, hippie poetry, and indie pop instrumentation. It's a record that could be described as "unclassifiable" or "genre-bending," but leaves you wondering why these descriptions are generally deployed as compliments. The most "classifiable" and "genre-stable" moments of White Flight are generally the most rewarding, if only because the record so rarely comes into focus at all.
With its warm drum machine beats and jubilant horns, album opener "Now" immediately brings to mind the excellent bedroom pop of Matthew Adam Hart's Russian Futurists. However, Roelofs does nothing to cultivate or develop the sense of musical intimacy hinted at on "Now". Hart always wraps his compositions around a central memorable melody, but there is little overarching musical logic to White Flight. By the middle of the overlong "Pastora Divine", Roelofs' Devendra-esque warble, which never really seems to commit to a melodic or rhythmic style, has already worn out its welcome.
And it's a shame, too, because Roelofs does find his way to some genuinely interesting moments. While nothing approaches the overall success of "Now", there are a handful of impressive sonic and melodic fragments scattered throughout the album. For the most part, these are isolated instances of sharp production-- particular drum or keyboard parts that seem almost uncannily well suited to the way they're recorded. This convergence of material and treatment helps many of the record's weaker sections slide by unnoticed, and lends an air of cohesiveness to a woefully disjointed record.
In a sense, the blog buzz White Flight has been receiving is perfectly apt-- the album is loaded with the kind of "Whoa, that sounds cool!" moments that can grab your attention even while you're absorbed in online multitasking. But this record is not flattered by scrutiny. Stripped of its bells and whistles, there isn't much substance to White Flight, and even its abundant sonic embellishments can come off as mere annoyances when given too much attention.
-Matt LeMay, February 26, 2007
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