6 June 2006

Psapp - The Only Thing I Ever Wanted, Domino 2006

           I’ve never watched Grey’s Anatomy, but I came really close to once. During this past year’s Super Bowl, a preview for the high blood pressure emergency room drama aired nearly every commercial break. My curiosity was unfortunately not enough to overcome my determination to get off the sofa. Had they played the show’s theme song, composed by the “experimental electronic” band Psapp, I might have decided it was worth my while to sit in front of the television for yet another hour of broadcasting. Sadly I turned off the TV after the game and my introduction to the rich sounds of Psapp was delayed. It wasn’t until today that I picked the album from random out of KCPR’s weekly adds to the station. Never before has my excitement about an album come so quickly, especially from a band I knew nothing about before.
           The first track grabs your attention right away with a rhythm section taken not from a drum machine or computer, but samples of toys; tin cans, bells, whistles, any seemingly insignificant domestic object that can hold the attention of an infant for hours. The unique reinterpretation of the beat provides a rich texture throughout a majority of album’s eleven tracks. In fact only one song, “Hill of Our Home”, is guided by a traditional drum set. Complimenting the eccentric beats is an array of warm acoustic guitars, xylophones, and soft splashes of piano. Occasionally what sounds like modulated woodwinds appear on songs like “The Words” and the opening track “Hi.”
           After listening to the album I realized that there is no way you can justify this album as “experimental electronic.” While the use of toy samples in substitute for drumbeats could be seen as an experiment in how we define music, this is where the experiment stops. The songs are well structured and never stray from the direction they begin. I’ll be damned if you listen to “Needle & Thread” and don’t catch yourself humming the melody at least once throughout the day. Tell me, when was last time you hummed an experimental song to yourself? Every song on the record seems to be created with acoustic as well, though without digital samplers and sequencers the album’s beats that drive the songs forward would have been nearly impossible to arrange.
           Although Psapp’s organic rhythms immediately separate The Only Thing I Ever Wanted from the rest of today’s music, they are also what hold the album back. The percussion halfway through the album becomes a little tiring, and “Make Up”, stripped down to only piano and Galia Durant’s vocals is a breath of fresh air. A song like this could have come a little earlier in the album to give the listener a break from the sometimes fatiguing percussion.
           After listening to the album it does make sense why Psapp was chosen to compose the theme for a major television drama. The Only Thing I Ever Wanted is an immediately catchy pop album. It is a pop album not because it is immediately familiar and safe, but because it is from the start strikingly unfamiliar. This unfamiliarity however, does not alienate the listener, instead it provokes the listener’s curiosity drawing them in. What makes this album so easy to connect with is the percussion. The toy-like beats bring back everyone’s first memories of music. Banging on pots and pans on the kitchen floor was most everyone’s first experience in creating sound, if not something we can all relate to. There is a bit of a musician in everyone, some choose to continue to pursue it after diapers. Psapp obviously did, and The Only Thing I Ever Wanted is the perfect reinterpretation of this universal childhood experience.

-Paul Cambon
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