Menomena
“Friend and Foe”
BARSUK RECORDS
Portland-based experimental rock group Menomena’s members
Brent Knopf, Danny Seim, and Justin Harris don’t write music
like other bands do. That’s not to say their music is so
strange that nothing else is like it, but just that they
don’t create their songs like most other rock musicians.
While some songwriters begin with a chord structure or set of
related ideas, Menomena’s members have developed their own
system.
Using a recording program designed by Knopf, each musician takes
a turn recording some sort of improvised idea, which is elaborated
by the next musician until something satisfying emerges. The
result, after layers of guitar, bass, drums, glockenspiel,
saxophones, piano, vocals, or something stranger, are added, is an
album’s worth of music free to do pretty much whatever it
wants.
“Wet and Rusting,” the album’s single, thrives
on juxtaposing elements that should probably clash but somehow make
perfect sense.
Opening with brooding swells from the baritone saxophone
awkwardly underlying a hauntingly childish vocal line, the track
gains momentum as the vocals shift toward thoughtfulness and the
piano hammers gently at what sounds like an emotional moment from
musical theater.
Enough for Menomena? Certainly not, and in the sort of moment
that could by itself make this album a worthwhile listen, acoustic
guitar and glockenspiel come crashing (well, more like gliding)
down upon the drama, transforming that haunting, childish line from
the beginning into something ecstatic.
True, songs need more than a great moment to demand attention,
but Menomena has found several ways around this problem.
One way to do this is to just have a bunch of them, and as the
band juggles the song’s elements ““ placing a melody
over music it didn’t top before ““ the combinations are
endlessly interesting.
In general, Menomena’s lyrics are more like accompanying
thoughts than elaborate stories, and those in “Wet and
Rusting” give the listener something to ruminate over
whenever the floor drops out.
Sometimes the Menomena approach results in uninspired rambling,
like the high-school-jazz-band-warming-up vibe of “Evil
Bee” or the middle of “Rotten Hell” when the
music starts to sound bored with itself.
But while it’s valid to criticize Menomena on such
specific aesthetic grounds, it does miss the power of what they
write.
While a good portion of each song on the album could never stand
alone, Menomena’s members see the worth in each fragment and
integrate them into something often unexpected.
“Rotten Hell” is just such an example. After about
four minutes, when the mildly interesting introduction makes a
re-entry after the sparse middle section, what was once listenable
becomes captivating.
Menomena might only work for the patient, but, it seems, they
always work.
E-mail Larue at alarue@media.ucla.edu.