Frankie Sparo - Arena Hostile EP
(Constellation)
To the people who dislike Frankie Sparo, he's a one trick pony: a lesser Will Oldham or Jeff Magnum, without any of the charm that those two artists possess. To those who enjoy his work, he's a performer who melds the instrumental sparseness of early Tortoise (before they became a jazz-fusion band and released TNT) with heartfelt and deeply personal lyrics to create a unique sound. I bought his first album, My Red Scare on a winter trip to Toronto, and I was deeply pleased with it. Besides including four of the best experimental folk songs I've ever heard ("Bastard Heart", "Diminish Me NYC", "Send for Me," and "The Night that We Stayed In"), it was an all around stellar album. Which is why Arena Hostile seems like such an odd release. Here Frankie teams up with members of A Silver Mt. Zion and records live to two-track in the VPRO Radio studio. The members of A Silver Mt. Zion rework the arrangements on his songs, some with great results, and some that are less than satisfactory.
The EP takes two of those previously mentioned incredible tracks ("Diminish Me NYC" and "The Night that We Stayed In"), adds in another release from My Red Scare, and a Rolling Stones cover, and puts it all together in a nice little Constellation cardboard package. The first two songs are great in their own right, but the version of "The Night that We Stayed In" featured here is worthy of some mention. It starts out much like the original, but adds in strings, which gives the song a more intimate, cozy feeling that the original sorely lacked. It's easily the best track here. "Diminish Me NYC" doesn't fare as well. Starting with some mildly annoying electronic noodling (akin to what groups like Jackie-O Motherfucker and Gastr del Sol use, but without any of the effectiveness), and continuing in that vein throughout the song; it takes what was once a great track and diminishes it (Ha ha! Pun intended!). The following songs continue this, with the slighty different reworking of "Here Comes the Future" not sounding much different from the original. It's still a great song, though, so it's cool. The Rolling Stones cover is excellent, though. It completely makes up for the failure of "Diminish Me NYC"--it's one of the better covers of the Rolling Stones I've heard, actually.
So, my advice to you is this: buy this EP if you're a Frankie fan. If you don't like his work, don't even approach it. The experiments are different, but it's really just more of the moody melancholy you've come to expect. The uninitiated are better off starting out with My Red Scare.
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