The Grace Period - Dynasty
(Audio Dregs)
The first time I heard this record, I was leaving Boston. It was about 2 in the
morning—stuck behind a line of staggered traffic, people pouring out onto the
streets. A police car was parked in front of a bar, lights flashing. "Tell me,
what's it like to be sober?" From a warm, bubbling mass of drums and sounds
came a warm, bubbling mass of voices, and this girl asking this simple question.
The name of the song is "Best of Boston." (The Grace Period is based in Boston;
I was given this CD by one of the folks in said band; I might have been a bit
drunk at the time; this isn't all coincidental.) I could still see my breath
in the car as I waited for the traffic to push forward. It was damn late; I was
getting tired. This music felt like winter, the way it feels when you're just
coming out of the cold into a warm house, or when you're bundled up in
preparation to venture outside. The sterility of the electronic loops and
noises is softened by the drumming (done on an honest-to-goodness drum kit),
bits of acoustic guitar, and the (predominantly) female voices sampled
throughout. Leaving Boston, getting lost in Cambridge, driving down the Mass
Pike late at night, these sounds floated in the car like dreams of sleep.
The second time I heard this record, I was driving through Lyme, CT. It was
mid-afternoon; I had just left a work-related meeting, and my day was finally
done. The sky was a light shade of grey, the trees standing stiff and barren
beside old Colonial houses and splintering telephone poles. This album still
sounds and feels like a New England winter—the iced pistachio-green cover, "I
Can See My Breath," "Paris Au Printemps" (mocking us folks freezing in the
northeast, I'm sure). I want to say that this music shimmers, but that sounds
too trite. Still, there's a grace (ha ha) and a sense of fragility in these
constructions. Some of the sounds—the warped twinkling in "Boring Ariel
Layout," the chiming acoustic guitar in "She Listens to The Cure"—have me
imagining snow falling on twice-frozen ice. Now that I'm more awake, though, I
can notice more things. While these songs are fashioned from loops and samples,
meticulously organized and constructed, there's a sense of space in these songs.
They're cozy and comfortable, whether the beats come fast ("I Can See My
Breath") or slow ("Evil"). There's a sense of humor in here, too—the sped-up
voice ("Now you should bring in that other part") introducing the beat in "I Can
See My Breath"; the blast of trumpet flatulence that ends "Welcome to Bali99", a
song that's already seasoned with quaint samplings of sitar and tabla; the bits
of dialogue ("I'm so famous!"; 'Yeah, totally.") in "Boring Arial Layout."
There are sample-driven "electronic" albums that exude a sleepy warmth and
comfort; there are sample-drive "electronic" albums that exude a piquish sense
of frivolity. The Grace Period does both, and often at the same time, and does
so quite well.
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