33 rebellions per minute
1997
Meringue, MUSIC FROM THE MINT GREEN NEST
"Double LP (13 songs, one four-part suite, over 80 minutes) Anything I
could say will sound like bullshit hyperbole, but this is the most
extraordinary record I have ever heard. An absolute unequivocal triumph,
the world's best band top themselves (and everybody else). They feel so
good they never need to tune. Edition of 1,000. $10 ppd." --- Brian
Doherty
Normally I wouldn't feel it useful to quote an album's description in
its record label's catalog, but Brian, owner of Cherry Smash Records,
probably isn't kidding. Even if he was, of course, I'd happily lie for
any label that'll sell me a $9 T-shirt advertising the bands under the
slogan "It'll be a great day when the prisons have all the inmates they
need and the Pentagon bombs the schools". I mean, I need to wear
_something_ while I'm working on my teaching degree, right? What was I
taking about? Oh, yeah...
Digression #2: When I use the term "brilliant" in these pages, I of
course am analogizing to the common-law definition proffered in a Bill
James Baseball Abstract, whereby "intelligent" means "s/he agrees with
me", while "brilliant" means "I agree with her, but I'd never have
thought of it myself"; in other words, brilliance implies both major
creativity _and_ my personal seal of enthusiastic approval. By
"perfect", I mean that every moment on the album is at least
interesting, and that everything contributes positively to a unique,
identifiable (though probably not describable in words) artistic vision.
Thus while one of my earlier reviews implies that brilliance without
perfection is possible, so is perfection without brilliance. That may be
where Meringue is. Here first is my quick, useful description for the
ultra-cognoscenti among you: if we picture the artistic distance between
The Apples In Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control as a physical
distance, and assume you get from Apples to Olivia by walking ten blocks
west, then Meringue is reached by walking west four more blocks, passing
en route into a gated community where aimless long-winded people (no
heckling allowed, you reader you) are excluded, while top-notch
guitarists are in legal charge.
For the rest of you this'll be tougher. Meringue play lots of guitar/
banjo/ mandolin, plus percussion, keys, pipes, brass, reeds, magnetic
tapes, and soft high-pitched male voice. They do tune, but to their own
invented scale, which is attractive enough. They play quietly, even
religiously in their concentration and care. Pieces do not obey anything
resembling song structure, but the listed "songs" average around five
minutes and include both lengthy (but not meandering) instrumentals and
brief sung sections--- "Look Into My Eyes" and "Surprise Of Nellie
Bligh" and the rockist "Schmoufisch" even seem like pop songs in
context, though play them after just one Green Day song and you'd
instantly realize "What the f---??!?". The songs bleed together into
side-long pieces, though only side 3--- ending with the droney and
mechanistic, but in a good way, "Womb World"--- is listed that way. Side
2 is rather down-home, in their alien fashion, and probably makes
extensive use of the seven guys in Bright Down Campfire Fadeaway
Strummalongs, although I'm only _sure_ they appear in "Big Bright
Down", side 4's closer, which returns you to normal tuning, in apparent
recognition that until their next album, you'll need to return to the
normal world and they might as well ease your way. I'm not wholly sure,
yet, that I don't prefer the normal world anyway. But I'm giving
Meringue every chance to convert me.
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