MP3: Papercuts – “Future Primative”
MP3: Papercuts – “Future Primitive (Ruby Suns Remix)”
Papercuts’ You Can Have What You Want is the newest phase in Jason Quever’s ongoing pop investigations. The relatively earthbound happy-sad pop of Mockingbird & Can’t Go Back is now launched into the vault of the skies. Here Quever delves further into epic, hazy pop using mostly vintage organs, pulsing bass & Kraut-via-Ringo-inspired drum rhythms. Intact from those earlier efforts are Quever’s sense of arrangement and drama, as well as his soaring vocals, draped in reverb gauze.
The words reveal an obsession with mortality and things cosmic, while sonically the voice acts as another instrument. This obsessively all analog effort (no computer processing here whatsoever!) cuts across several eras of dreamy sound: 80’s/90’s Creation & 4AD records, The Zombies, 60’s French pop, even CAN’s Future Days, & then there’s the inevitable connection to former tourmates Beach House & Grizzly Bear. Indeed, Beach House’s Alex Scally helped with some of the arrangements, but You Can Have What You Want is its own strain of addictive pop. For many, it will be the blissful / melancholy jam of the summer.
From NPR’s Song of the Day on You Can Have What You Want
Papercuts’ Jason Quever has a thing for the music of the ’60s: His focused pop nuggets exude feel-good charm and a touch of sadness, channeling the spirit of The Zombies and The Byrds along the way. Or at least they used to. If 2007’s Can’t Go Back was the singer-songwriter’s nod to the jangly pop of the early ’60s, then its new follow-up, You Can Have What You Want, represents a step toward the looser, more psychedelic rock that came later in the decade.With the assistance of Beach House’s Alex Scully, Papercuts delves deeper into more expansive territory. The songs are hazier, with icy guitars and thick, oscillating blankets of keyboards and organs. Recorded exclusively with analog gear – no computers, all vintage instruments – the album conveys an authentically well-worn feeling, as if the listener is looking at a faded old Polaroid.The song “You Can Have What You Want” opens with a softly strummed acoustic guitar, before giving way to churning synthesizers and an otherworldly chorus. Quever’s opening line (“You can have what you want / and throw the rest away”) teases out a trope in painful breakups: The notion of separating once-intermingled belongings is an established yet tangible metaphor for a fraying relationship. The languid tempo oozes with heartache, but, as in so many of Papercuts’ songs, under the veil of romantic melodies and ghostly harmonies, the song transforms the familiar into something new and hopeful. – Michael Katzif
PAPERCUTS
04/24 San Francisco, CA Cafe Du Nord *
05/02 Arlington, VA Iota #
05/03 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom #
05/04 Petersborough, NH Glass Museum #
05/05 Winooski, VT Monkey House #
05/06 Allston, MA Harper’s Ferry #
05/07 Brooklyn, NY The Bell House #
05/10 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop #
05/11 Athens, OH Union Bar and Grill #
05/12 Chicago, IL AV-aerie #
05/13 Pontiac, MI The Pike Room at The Crofoot #
05/14 London, ON Call The Office #
05/15 Toronto, ON Horseshoe Tavern #
05/16 Buffalo, NY Big Orbit’s Soundlab #
05/17 Pittsfield, MA Copperworks #
* = w/ Cryptacize, The Finches
# = w/ Vetiver
Papercuts
You Can Have What You Want
(Gnomonsong)
Street date: April 14, 2009
01 Once We Walked In The Sunlight
02 A Dictator’s Lament
03 The Machine Will Tell Us So
04 A Peculiar Hallelujah
05 Jet Plane
06 Dead Love
07 Future Primitive
08 You Can Have What You Want
09 The Void
10 The Wolf
PAPERCUTS LINKS:
MySpace – www.myspace.com/thepapercuts
Press Materials – www.gnomonsong.com/papercuts