CHECK YOUR EMO AT THE DOOR:
Two Releases from DeSoto Soar, Whatever Genre They May Be

by Tim Frommer

The practice of affixing labels to styles of music has been the kiss of death for bands and the unfortunate genres that fall prey to them. "Alt country" and/or Son Volt anyone? Perhaps I'm not being fair, but if you had your ears and eyes on the sprawling indie underground for the last three to five years, the term "emo" was inescapable. Essentially some sort of punk-rock subset, the key idea was that this music was performed, um, emotionally, and was supposed to engender some self-same, deeper-than-superficial reaction among listeners. My preferred response to this came from J. Robbins, who questioned when music stopped being emotional so we could have a new genre celebrating it. Indeed.

If at first "emo" was a catch-all phrase for a sound and ethic that grew out of the D.C. scene from the late 80s and early 90s, the label quickly spread to just about anything that didn't previously have a ready-made epithet to make reviewers' jobs even easier, freeing up their time for more important tasks, like getting on guest lists. Bands as sonically dissimilar as Milwaukee's indie pop darlings the Promise Ring and El Paso's noise merchants At the Drive-In were instantly tagged "emo." Labels that released one band who could potentially fit under the "e" word, like Jade Tree (the Promise Ring), were, de facto, "emo labels."

The hazard this causes is simple to see. Bands lose out on a potentially wider audience and non-discriminating listeners miss great records. Emo backlash is now stylish, so pity your band if you're released by an "emo label" or are crowned that word for no reason short of laziness. Fewer people in the decidedly small, and at times ferociously narrow-minded, indie community will now listen to you.

J. Robbins was a good "authority" to ask. If a wheel diagram had been drawn to show the emo revolution, Robbins would have been darn near the center. A member of now-defunct D.C. band Jawbox, who were more melodic though no-less-fierce contemporaries of Fugazi. A recorder/producer/engineer on more albums than anyone not named Albini, including the Promise Ring and Jade Tree label-mates Jets to Brazil. His current band now records for the record label DeSoto (run by his Jawbox co-conspirators Bill Barbot and Kim Coletta), which specializes in this so-called emo though I guarantee your mom would be able to hear vast differences between Dismemberment Plan and practically anything else. And, perhaps most pointedly, the singer and songwriter behind said band -- Burning Airlines, DeSoto's flagship.

DeSoto releases a few hand-picked items each year. Quality should always count over quantity, though with two releases earlier this spring the label has upped the ante on anything released to date in Y2.001K, including albums bands with "radio" in their names (more on that later). Identikit, the second full-length from Burning Airlines and a future lived in past tense from the Seattle-based Juno are out for public consumption and I cannot recommend them both highly enough.

"Outside the Aviary" opens Identikit with a familiar sound -- a tightly-wound blast of rock featuring Peter Moffett's aggressive drumming and sharp guitar lines from Robbins. J. sings out his complex lyrical stories painting vivid pictures and allegories, at times simultaneously. "Displaying the scars where my hands were tied, from martyr to sinner in record time, while she took the orange from the autumn sky, so sublime." Throw in a call-and-response style chorus and set your stopwatch. All this in under two minutes.

Pleasant surprises abound throughout Identikit. The tightrope-taut production is reminiscent of Sugar's Copper Blue, with split-second pauses between songs leaving the listener little choice but to stay alert. The band also experiments more with varying song tempos and tempo changes within songs. Nothing wrong with a sledgehammer every now and then, though the message can be more powerful at conversation volume. "Everything Here Is New" is a good example of this. The rhetorical punch of "when everything here is new, who will remember you?" is not lost among the racket the trio can brings in spades elsewhere.

Identikit is no concept album, though the theme of identity is apparent in many of its songs. An identity beyond the physical, but rather the elements that make one human: senses, emotion, nostalgia, interpersonal relationships (and not necessarily of the romantic variety). Peppered throughout the songs are words like "armor," "silhouette," "mask," "martyr" "sinner," "ego," "lines we memorize," indicating a need humans seem to have to act to a certain expectation or definition rather than simply being themselves. "Is the body you were last found living in?" asks the narrator in "Morricone Dancehall." Saving the best for last, the album ends with the exceptionally poignant "Dear Hilary," about recalling an old piece of fan mail, sitting to write her anew and playing the sometimes dangerous game of reflection.

Speaking of reflection, I still don't get all the hoopla surrounding Radiohead, though I do like Amnesiac a bit. A few years ago, they released an album called the OK Computer that was supposed to herald brave new worlds in rock. I bought it, spun it about a dozen or more times, and shrugged. I don't mean to make comparisons, but one song on Juno's a future lived in past tense moved me more than anything I've heard Radiohead commit to tape (not that I've heard the Oxford boys complete discography). "The French Letter" is a song probably too ambitious by half. It's over 10 minutes long, but then a future is nearly 70 so go get your double-shot venti no-foam-whatever because Juno doesn't believe we're living in the ADDled age that Time has bought with Merck's ad dollars.

Then again, with song titles like "A Thousand Motors Pressed Upon the Heart" maybe Juno does want to be compared to Radiohead. Just kidding. Said instrumental opens the album and is a good mood-setter. Juno features several talented multi-instrumentalists and employ the odd sample (or "found sounds and field recordings," as the liner notes suggest). Slurped that coffee yet? Because "Covered with Hair" is now crashing out of your speakers, with Juno's creative mastermind Arlie Carstens warning "Cool your city plans, your grids and dead ends, spread sheets, sweaty hands and fancy laughs. Get on your knees I want to see blood"