Jan 18 2005
Joy Zipper: American Whip
Joy Zipper: American Whip
OTO Rating: 9/10
After being held back from release due to legal and financial problems with previous label 13 Amp, we finally get to hear American Whip, Joy Zipper’s follow-up to 2003’s Ep The Stereo and God, and their first long-player since their 2000 self-titled debut. And what a follow-up it is. Mixing classic 60’s pop with Post-rock leanings and an affinity for Brian Wilson’s best Beach Boys productions, the duo of Vincent Cafiso and Tabitha Tindale have constructed their own timeless album with American Whip.
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Track listing:
01 Sunstroke 02 Christmas Song 03 Baby You Should Know 04 33x 05 Out of the Sun 06 Drugs 07 Dosed and Became Invisible 08 Alzheimers 09 Ron 10 In the Never Ending Search for a Suitable Enemy 11 VSX 12 Valley Stream |
Originally hailing from Long Island, (where your humble reviewer also grew up) Joy Zipper’s Lo-Fi atmospherics and sweet harmonies form a perfect backdrop for the suburban experience; seemingly normal on the surface but underneath the facade, a dark and somewhat menacing environment. While the duo are often compared to My Bloody Valentine (whose Kevin Shields contributed additional mixing and production work on a few of American Whip’s songs), tracks like “Ron” and “Valley Stream” have more in common with The Pixies, especially in the intertwined male/female lead vocals, somewhat bizarre lyrics and effective mix of darkness and light.
That’s not to suggest that Joy Zipper is derivative in the slightest. Their influences are plain to hear, yet they never stoop to the level of being mere copyists, instead taking those influences and injecting their own unique style of songwriting over them. “33x” is sort of Burt Bacharach on acid with a “Pet Sounds” production keeping it all together. It contains “American Whip’s” most fully realized lyrics, with lines like “If time is straight like a line, then I’m dying / pulled back my skin and found a mannequin / turned my head off for a while / I’m getting tired of life” smoothly tumbling out of Tabitha Tindale’s mouth while the music shifts and shuffles beneath her. I’ve listened to this track about a hundred times already and it hasn’t gotten tiresome at all. It’s one of those songs that will forever find its way onto mix-tape after mix-tape, which is perhaps the highest compliment a song can receive.
The string sections on “American Whip” are ambitious and fresh. They’re not just thrown on there to say, “Hey! Check it out, my album’s got strings on it!” They’re well thought out and suitably incorporated into the tracks, with “Dosed and Became Invisible” being an effective example. Rather than just being ear candy, the strings on the song are an integral part of the main melody, with just bass and acoustic guitar being the only other instruments used until a flugelhorn solos over the middle 8.
I should also single out “Alzheimers” for praise, a song which manages to be threatening, pretty, sad and funny in the space of four minutes and thirty-two seconds. That one single song can elicit all those responses at the same time is quite an accomplishment, and is especially impressive when you hear so much out there that barely makes you feel anything at all. The taped radio call-in voices in the middle of “Alzheimers” are great as well, and remind me of all the peculiar things you come across on late-night New York public radio. Some other high points on “American Whip”; “Valley Stream,” with it’s chorus, “He came in through the door/ came in right out of the blue/ then he did the moonwalk and I made him a carrot juice” and the lovely and dirty “Baby You Should Know.”
If you loved “The Orange Billboard” by the Moonbabies last year (which was my second pick for best album of 2004), then you’ll love Joy Zipper’s American Whip. Thank God it finally came out; what great music we would have all missed out on. Did I mention that they’re from Long Island?
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