Mark Robinson - Canada's Green Highways
(Teenbeat)
Here's a fun trick to play on your friends. Put Mark Robinson's
new solo album, Canada's Green Highways, in the CD player and then
queue up track 9, "Sylvain Cote," and try to convince everyone
that it is a song from David Pajo's upcoming album.
While Robinson's latest solo album, Tiger Banana, seemed like
a long weekend of funning around that turned into a limited edition
CD, his new release shows more care and effort, as heard in the
many layers and careful construction of the over
nine minute "Sylvain Cote." The song (named after a Washington Capitals
hockey player) is a delicate, instrumental drone that
uses several guitar overdubs to create a crystalline structure of
lightly bouncing progressions. Little more than subliminal use
of drums is added as the song seems remarkably compact for its
epic length.
Like this song and the Tiger Banana album, little more than
guitar and voice are used on the rest of Canada's Green Highways.
If you've heard Robinson's other albums, the music here will seem
familiar, as Robinson takes few chances outside of "Cote" and,
as he's often done before, revisits several guitar themes on his
solo songs that he made full pop songs out of with his previous
bands.
"Peanuts & Cracker Jacks" uses a downward guitar
progression you've definitely heard before as Robinson uses his
old vocal trick of focusing on familiar, interesting sounding
phrases. Like Flin Flon's role call of Indian cuisine or Olympic
Death Squad's "Ski Jump," here Robinson invites you to "take me
out to the ballgame," sung with the same melody as the ballpark
standard. Even more like "Ski Jump," though, is "Angels in
Waiting," the entire lyrics to which are provided in the liner
notes as "Angels in waiting/Angels y'know."
Other songs are a bit more lively though and will help to remind
you why you fell in love with Unrest and Air Miami oh so many years
ago. "100% Guaranteed" is a short, fast, perky song that uses
producer Trevor hollAnd's expert use of synthesizers to great
effect. HollAnd also gives "Wonderful" an interesting sound
as its drum machines and mild industrial grunts fill out the
space well behind the rhythm of the guitar and the light keyboard
melodies. "I'm Still Breathing" is a light, pillowy song with
Juliet Swango of The Rondelles providing backing ewwws and ohhhs
while Robinson provides two intricate guitar parts and sparse
vocals to create a very soothing, pretty song.
As Teenbeat is now over 15 years old and Mark Robinson is still sans
band, his recent solo albums find him in an odd place. He both
seems to want to experiment in radical new directions (his series
of electronica EPs made from sine waves or the instrumental drone
of "Sylvain Cote") while he also seems still to be wrapped up
with recreating the past, writing the same type of songs he has
since Imperial f.f.r.r., even
though they will never be as successful without
the requisite drummer and female bassist. While Canada's Green
Highways is quite fun to listen to, you have to
hope the next major style change or femme fatale partnership comes soon.
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