Tunes Consumed: the Poutine Silver Platter

Bishop Allen has two core members with a rotating cast of on-stage & studio accompaniment. Basically, it’s two people who play simple tunes in simple ways, without an administrative overhead that would only complicate matters. It’s a name that should stick in DIY circles. Afterall they were one of the first bands to take a homestyle approach and transform it into something that was altogether cohesive for an internet (read: Myspace, et al) audience, but the way they caught me was their release schedule: a monthly schedule that was not unlike Christmas twelve times in a year.

Each EP was written, recorded, produced (with altogether lovely cover art), and published directly to the internet via their own storefront. Every purchase would come two-fold: by land or sea, as well as in priting download-format. Every aspect was controlled by this gang of two, and the releases always had a consistent air of quality to them; with only a few bad seeds, which were part of the appeal.

Well, 12 months later they’ve decided to pack that up, and place it in the past-tense as their “EP-A-Month Project” while pushing forward into something new altogether; that is, they’ve been signed to a label now, with a studio. This tends to translate into larger gaps between what will now be full-length albums, and, if you were worried as to who, well, you can breathe a sigh of relief because Dead Oceans is part of a wonderful family; sister to Secretly Canadian, in fact.

The Broken String will be Bishop Allen’s first studio album, and it is one that includes both EP rehashes coupled with some fresh material. It’s apparent from the overall flow of the album that they only re-worked the EP songs in order to better fit them into a cohesive group. On the whole, my only complaint is with the way they molded The Monitor, which though now is still a beautiful track, the studio compromised the raw energy that was present back on the March EP.

Though they may now be with a label, their tune is still simple in all regards. Choose Again, one of the new offerings is a track that begins on an Iron & Wine-esque note, but soon swells into proper Bishop fashion; Like Castanets is one of the fresh batch that I’m rather fond of: it has more elaborate instrumentals than per usual, and is sung as a Spanish-English-hybrid.

Always and again Bishop Allen plays in indie-folk fashion, with tunes as tales of personal experience, that are hung on melody, strings & metaphor.

Here’s a breakdown of the tracklist:
(in brackets are previous EP appearances)

01. The Monitor (March & August)
02. Rain
03. Click, Click, Click, Click
04. The Chinatown Bus (May, & August)
05. Flight 180 (April & August)
06. Like Castanets
07. Butterfly Nets (May & August)
08. Shrinking Violet (April & August)
09. Corazon (January)
10. Middle Management
11. Choose Again
12. The News From Your Bed (February)

The album hits on July 24th, and will be for sale somewhere… (here maybe?) so be on your toes, eh?

mp3:
Bishop Allen - Rain
Bishop Allen - The Monitor (March EP)
Bishop Allen - Flight 180 (The Broken String) (removed by request)
Bishop Allen - Like Castanets (The Broken String) (removed by request)