Gap
Dream Gap Dream (2012, Burger
Records)
One
corner of my brain is a pretend laboratory bustling with a dedicated team of imaginary
scientists, and they are hard at work trying to explain the bizarre staying
power of Gap Dream’s debut album. “It is totally inexplicable by all measurable
values we’ve come to understand about music,” say the scientists. They are
distressed about this. They’re working overtime. The atmosphere is tense. It’s
like CERN in there.
The
album, sonically, is derivative. All the songs sound the same, amounting to a
repetition of meter and minor riff variants and similar overdubs, a landscape painted
in monotone. There aren’t many hooks. The lyrics are neither especially evocative
nor particularly relatable. The vocal delivery is distant and unemotional and
reedy. The overall effect is of a horribly out-of-vogue pleasant bittersweetness
that was last fashionable back before The Shins were a punchline. It has a hazy
shuffled-off quality without being charmingly shambolic. It is neither
professional nor amateurish. It is an immovable lump of warm sound.
And,
logistically, worse than all of that: a January release. Releasing an album in
January is unfairly a death knell to credibility. Nobody plans to release an
album in January. It just comes out then because somebody somewhere fucked up.
Somebody was unreliable. Somebody’s on drugs. Somebody’s a clown. Somebody
flaked. Maybe it was somebody at the recording studio or the record label or in
the design process or in the pressing plant, or anybody along the line who
might fuck up an album’s release date.
But
really: the artist. If they were unable to get things the way they wanted it in
time to get the album out before Christmas shopping and best-of list season, then
the least a gives-a-shit artist could do is wait until February or March for
the release. If for no better reason than to avoid the stink of January. It
shouldn’t be that way, but it is. It’s just psychology. January releases are
for flakes and weirdos and hobbyists.
And
the cover. “Oops we need a cover.”
By
all outward signs, this album is not to be taken seriously.
When
you hear something like this, the natural best case scenario is bemused
appreciation. Oh, good for him. This is nice. I’ll put the name “Gap Dream” in
the back of my brain somewhere with the other musical acts that I don’t
currently love but might some day. File in the “has potential” bin. Worst case
scenario is the “nice try” bin. The “it’s generally good that we’re doing so
much reverb these days” bin. The summarily dismissed bin. The “this will never
be anybody’s favorite anything” bin.
But
I have failed to stop listening to this album and it’s been over a year. It’s
gone from “has potential” to “is good” to “staple.” I listened to it three
times this morning because I needed
to. That’s where it is with me right now. It’s been upgraded slowly and steadily from feather
duster to ton of bricks. In the common parlance of the music-addled, it’s a
grower. A monstrous grower. Like “we forgot to mow this section of lawn and now
we have an oak tree.” From a completely unassuming beginning. Against all odds.
In a world without justice one man stands alone. That whole thing.
And
now it has a narrative of its own. Not only do I like this album, I LOVE to
like it. Every time I put it on, I feel like I’m putting a stick in the eye of focus-grouped
careerists everywhere. The very obvious above-stated reasons not to care about Gap Dream have become little war banners
to pick up and gallantly run with towards the onrushing death of Pitchfork-targeted
Best Coasts and Dirty Beaches.
I
say NO to marketing budgets and youth fashions. I say NO to getting your shit
together and taking anything seriously. I say YES to album covers which communicate
NOTHING. And I say YES to hazy druggy unfocused bittersweet music, even when it
sounds almost exactly like everything else, and I especially say YES when it’s as
contented as this album is to merely exist without really asking me for
anything.
That
might be the number one reason why this album stays in rotation. It’s not going
to bother me with anything. It’s no
muss no fuss. In other words, it's not FOR scientists.
Listen
for yourself. But be careful. You won’t not like it. That’s how it starts.
