Absolutely Free/Luge/Daniel Romano’s Outfit
Absolutely Free
Two Cares Due None // Boiled Records
Mainstays of the psychedelic and synth-soaked Toronto DIY scene, Absolutely Free have just released their first full-length since their Polaris-nominated self-titled debut of over five years ago. But rather than simply being the next record in the group’s growing repertoire, Two Cares Due None is actually the musical score for a feature film of the same name that was released in 2016. It was their first time writing a soundtrack for a film of this length, though the band’s sound already lends itself well to creating a cinematic atmosphere, which manifests in different ways over the course of the film.
The mood-heavy tracks on Two Cares Due None take us on an open-air night drive to the center of the Earth. Sometimes we float weightless in a crystal cave, buoyed by calming piano meditations (“Post Nightmare”). Other times we find ourselves on horseback, galloping through near-pitch darkness, our path illuminated only by phosphorescent arpeggiations that seem to carry us along in their tendrils (“Travelling”). This is an emotional journey that explores motif and repetition, riding waves of synth that pulse and beat like a human heart, with John Carpenter’s work as well as the more recent Stranger Things soundtrack coming to mind at times. Absolutely Free’s style can already resemble a fuzzed out homage to the retro, so removing the vocals and allowing the band more room to explore that wet synth-laden temperament as part of a film has unsurprisingly yielded strong results.
Despite the often urgent flow of this film score, there are moments of quiet reflection too - small, undisturbed pools tucked away among the trees, places of refuge that appear in concert with the film’s diegetic motion. These moments feel almost triumphant in their gentle assertiveness, contrasting with the buzzing claustrophobic feeling that much of this album evokes in order to build tension and mood in the film - not an uncomfortable feeling, but more of an awareness of the wild unknown that’s waiting just outside the ring of firelight. Shadows biding their time.
Thematically, the film Two Cares Due None and Absolutely Free’s previous release, a hooky EP called Geneva Freeport that features Meg Remy of U.S. Girls, ruminate on similar concepts: objects and the differing value ascribed to them across various cultures. A sacred artifact in one place could be just an unremarkable item somewhere else. It is no coincidence then, that the group was able to craft a compelling and emotive score for the 2016 arthouse flick. But the catchy voice of Meg Remy on “Currency” really got me excited to hear what’s coming next from Absolutely Free, with singing adding so much to their eclectic and inviting sound. Just as this latest release was a pleasant surprise, hopefully the band has something else up their sleeves for us in the coming months.
- Nick Maas
Luge
Luge // Independent
Toronto art-punks Luge return with another masterfully crafted album. The self-titled effort further goes to prove that this four piece may be one of Canada’s most underrated bands. Throughout each track Luge flex their abilities in a most tasteful and playful way.
“Skin So Green” immediately hits the album off on a fast note. A spastic, yet super catchy track. Typical to Luge, the track contains an abundance of different parts but it’s within the transitions that “Skin So Green” hits its hardest. Vocalist Kaiva Gotham’s repeated vocals (almost like a call and response with herself) creates an almost dizzying effect. The album opener feeds into “Triangle Lifestyle” which initiates with a little playful build led by the synth setting the foreground for Luge to take the same riff and shape into many different styles, a skill mastered by the band coming into their fourth full length. The way the guitar and bass play off the vocal melody throughout the verses displays the exceptional chemistry between the four members.
While Luge tend to lean into the more technical and heavy, “Cherin” shows off Luge’s penchant for dynamics. Within the one track, Luge glide through bouncy bassline’s, they drop through loose and airy prechorus’, then blast into heavy math freakout’s before shifting that same freakout into a goofy funk riff (that bass line is soo tasty).
While the entire album hits the mark and is devoid of any low point, its high point would have to be “UP & UP (& UP)” A song loosely themed around getting better (or at least convincing yourself you are getting better). It leans into more pop sensibilities than most from Luge with some of the strongest vocal melodies they’ve ever recorded. The track breaks off near the halfway point into one big extended bridge that features some of the heaviest, funkiest and satisfying riffs of the whole album.
Luge’s whole discography to date is extremely strong but their latest is arguably the best. They fit so much into their music and never lack in creativity, melody, technicality, whit and taste. For a band that draws from so much inaccessible influence, they manage to piece it into a sound that is all together playful, accessible, danceable, heavy, punk, funky and uniquely LUGE.
- Kennedy Pawluk
Daniel Romano’s Outfit
Infidels // You’ve Changed
Daniel Romano has intermittently sported a Blonde on Blonde-era Bob Dylan look over the last few years (see the Mosey album cover), but by releasing albums of indie rock, prog, country and punk within the last few months, he’s definitely earned the comparisons to the famous changeling. Now, Daniel Romano has done the most Dylanesque thing possible and recorded Dylan songs differently than they were played in the studio originally. Touring footage and live albums like Hard Rain show that Bob Dylan constantly reworks his material, and for his fifth album of 2020, Daniel Romano has covered Infidels in its entirety. There are two ways to go about listening to this new album: The first is to look at this as a fun, off the cuff, rock n’ roll take on Dylan’s 1983 album Infidels from Daniel Romano’s Outfit, ignore the concept and the rest of this review, and listen to the album. The second is to take a deep dive into the concept and some somewhat obscure Dylan lore, check out some grainy Youtube videos, and then listen to and appreciate this album as the weird concept album that it is.
In 2020 it isn’t easy to make an album of covers that people will actually care about. Things have changed since 1962 when Bob Dylan, 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for his lyrics, released his first album that consisted mostly of covers. For most artists, what you have to say is important and if you want to release covers there better be something bloody interesting about your versions of other artists’ songs. However, many artists have taken on colossal cover projects after making a name for themselves with their own material. Billy Bragg and Wilco recorded a couple volumes of reimagined, never recorded Woody Guthrie songs; Dave Depper of Death Cab for Cutie covered Paul MacCartney’s Ram in 2010, playing every instrument note for note himself; Flaming Lips have taken breaks from their already impressive deluge of original content to release whole album covers of Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt. Peppers. Heck, Dylan himself has spent the last five years recording some fifty-two songs over three albums covering Sinatra material from the Great American Playbook. So what makes this set of songs from Romano worth listening to? The concept.
Daniel Romano’s Outfit Do (What Could Have Been Infidels) by Bob Dylan and The Plugz is a concept album. It’s not just that Romano and his band decided on an album and went about playing the songs their way. This lofty title prompts two questions: “Why Infidels?” and “Why The Plugz?” Covering Infidels is cool because it’s an oft-overlooked 80s Dylan album, and The Plugz are cool because they were a trailblazing DIY latino punk band from the late 70s/ early 80s. Ok cool so Romano likes Infidels and likes the Plugz and thinks it’d be cool if The Plugz covered that album, but they didn’t, so he’s going to drink from both influential wells and make an album borrowing the lyrics and structure from the Dylan songs and channeling The Plugz in the delivery. However, these Romano versions don’t sound like they could be on The Plugz’ first album Electrify Me, despite the fact that Romano borrowed that album’s cover for this project. Electrify Me is a lot more punk than this. This isn’t an album of punk Dylan covers, and it’s not exactly an album of Dylan covers in the style of The Plugz. Dipping into some Dylan history reveals that Bob played the Letterman show in 1984 with a different backing band than he had on the record. The Plugz rhythm section of Charlie Quintana on drums and Tony Marsico on bass filled out Dylan’s band for this performance. They played a few songs including two cuts from Infidels, and it's this curious performance that seems to have inspired this project from Daniel Romano’s Outfit. They play “Jokerman” and “License to Kill” in the same style as they were played on Letterman, and they’ve attempted to record the rest of the songs pretending to be Bob Dylan backed by The Plugz. So they’re basically doing faithful covers of songs from a collaboration that mostly never happened. It’s like finishing someone else’s film that only had a trailer.
This is high-concept stuff, but the neat part is that the album doesn’t sound pretentious at all. In fact, it sounds about as natural and relaxed as anything the Outfit has done. They’re playing within their wheelhouse here, and the songs are covered with a tried and true Dylan approach. The band is a vehicle for the poetry, and the melodies and vocal delivery help to make the words pop. “Jokerman” sounds like the version on Letterman and it even ends with a harmonica jam at the end, same as the broadcast version. Bob’s Infidels versions had Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor sharing tasty lick duty on their guitars, plus a fair bit of organ, and then Sly and Robbie, famed in reggae circles, filled out the rhythm section, but there’s no reggae to be found on Romano’s versions. Compared to some of Romano’s other releases, the band’s arsenal of instruments is quite modest as well, which fits with the theme. They’ve included harmonica in the same spots as on the original album, and that’s it for instrumentation outside of drums, bass and guitar. Backing vocals help emphasize memorable phrases like “what’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?” and they help stimulate the choruses as well. Rather than reggae bass, the bass here is perhaps the most consistently punk sounding instrument on the album, pulsing along with the changes, keeping the drive going, and never feeling distracting.The band slows down on “License to Kill,” emulating the Letterman performance. It remains a ballad here, but defies the 80s movie high school slow dance mood of the Infidels version. There’s a lot of 70s rock in the arrangements, which seems accurate given the feel of the songs on the broadcast 1984 performance and later-leaked rehearsal takes. The band is faithful, but it’s Romano’s vocals that save these songs, just as Dylan’s vocals and words are the best part of Infidels. There’s some Dylan in the delivery, but it never sounds like an impersonation. For that, check out Jimmy Fallon covering Hotline Bling and other contemporary pop tracks in the style of 70s Bob.
Anyone who sees the modified album cover and wants these songs to sound like The Plugz’s first album may be put off by the lack of late seventies punk grit on this collection of songs, but anyone who embraces the album’s theme will be impressed by the project’s execution by Daniel Romano’s Outfit. The fact that the album stands tall as a rollicking reimagining of Infidels despite the weight of the concept makes it a solid addition to Daniel Romano’s oeuvre.
- Devon Dozlaw
