Guitar – Come Summer
Come Blues – The Abandoned House of Micha Lueckner & Susi Tunn in 14 Songs
Self-Released, 2014
In our modern age, where everyone can know everything about
everything, it’s nice to stumble across a band with an ungoogleable name, give
their album a listen because it has an interesting title, and just go along for
the ride. The band’s website runs like a messy flash game, but I was able to
glean some information. Notably that Guitar hails from Cologne, Germany and
showcases the output of Michael Lueckner and Tokyo-based vocalist/co-songwriter
Ayako Akashiba. The site explains Guitar’s intent at its inception in the early
00s was “to produce new unique guitar-based songs and sounds that normal guitar
bands do not or can not produce” and then how this idea was abandoned in favor
of using all sorts of instruments.
The result is a lovely and strange hodgepodge that very much
reminds me of the records of the Books. Yet where the Books championed a sort
of electronic music/audio collage blend, Come
Summer Come Blues feels more like an audio scrapbook. The songs blend and
fold together, but the influences are pretty wide. Shoegaze, trip hop, folk,
minimal techno, ambient, and post-rock elements are spread pretty equally
throughout the record recalling My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros, Portishead, and
Kraftwerk (because of course). Not to mention a significant Japanese influence
that is not entirely limited to Akashiba’s beautiful vocals. The most
surprising moments are when actual structured songs take form out of the
sprawling sonics (notably “Spiders are Lonely Demons Dwelling On Your Attic,”
which sounds, of all things, like early Death Cab for Cutie). There’s also a
transcendently beautiful acoustic guitar interlude titled “Love Won’t Fade”
that blew me away. There’s nothing that special about it, but the way it serves
as a palate cleanser in this sensory overload of an album is pretty great.
After that, it cuts back into sparse, looped and reversed electronics and we
remember where we are: An album that is also a hall of mirrors, reflecting back
things we have heard before in a unique and inventive way.
You can listen to the album in its entirety over at Bandcamp:
You can listen to the album in its entirety over at Bandcamp:
i really appreciate this post. think i first stumbled upon this 2018, and to see it still here is incredible. great review. included this link in the comments of the album in my itunes, for reference. ... great blog
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