Chicago noise-rock duo "Donny Who Loved Bowling" offers much more than humorous references to cult movies. Their self-described "x-perimental musik" screeches and explodes its way onto Tree Fort, a 24-track largely instrumental offering. Although the album frames Joe Griffin and Chris Petkus primarily as guitarists, they do an impressive job of creating electronic sounds that blend well with their garage-rock style. Tree Fort is not distractingly lo-fi, but any album that boasts the use of Radio Shack microphones alongside professional studio equipment is certainly one that is doing so for the sake of showing off its lack of respect for mainstream recording techniques. Experiments like this often fail, but Griffin and Petkus obviously have enough production skills that they will not be categorized as lo-fi due to lack of effort.
In addition to a unique engineering process, the songwriting style of Donny is also quite far from mainstream. With an album that begins with a declaration of "Elvis is always the king," one would expect a completely different style of songwriting. What follows is perhaps the polar opposite of anything that Elvis has attached his name to. The album is not directionless, but it does become a chore to attempt to truly discern one track from the next. Griffin and Petkus split their time between bass-driven grooves and spooky, if not downright frightening, compositions. Perhaps a result of recording in an abandoned Chicago bar, Tree Fort has an unsettling eeriness about it on the quieter tracks. The ethereal chants of "He causes things to look different so it would appear that time has passed" perfectly capture the feeling of a vacant building, while the resigned voice of "Doris Smiling" accompanied by placid guitarwork sounds equally chilling. Bass-heavy grooves, such as those found on "Don't Worry Kyoko" or "My Week Beats Your Year," are an excellent balance to these quieter tracks. While the album may be one stream-of-consciousness session after another, the grooves provided on these tracks will appeal to most any audience. In fact, the groove on "Drug Eruption" is so powerful, it's bizarre to imagine this duo as anything but a complete four-piece. Their love of Frank Zappa is also spread throughout the album, obviously evidenced in absurd tracks such as "Steve Baldwin" and "The Ballad of Weird Angie."
Although Tree Fort may ultimately be too unstructured for most listeners, there is enough diversity for the album to find a home with several different audiences. That being said, every composition on the album is overwhelming, whether pounding out huge grooves or unnerving riffs. One can only hope that Griffin and Petkus continue to stretch the sonic possibilities of lo-fi.
