D+ - Deception Pass
(Knw-Yr-Own)
To call a pop song minimalist, how often is it that of a cautionary label than it is a description that harkens back to real minimalism, that desert of tones and dearth of outward complexity belying a conceptual and covert difficulty? Of course a generalization, but more times than not, denoting pop as minimalism is merely a cover for its being merely minimal, not simply an epigone or a ghostly shade of its namesake, but really a bastardization of the term. Of course, few pop writers claim Young and Conrad as musical ancestors, but those connotations are still carried by the word, and its application is almost always a ruse, conjuring up images of deeper complexity while it simply produces the simple.
Why the rant as such? Every review I read of D+'s various albums decided to reference minimalism. Seriously. I mean, don't call something minimalist in a musical context without knowing where the word comes from. And does it even fit? Ok, so Lunsford uses sparse instrumentation in his work, but that doesn't mean it is minimalist. And to be fair, it's not even very simple, that is, it's not generic indie pop. Much in the vein of his other albums, this one features basic structures with an emphasis on a type of post-modern folk music akin to Beck's earlier works yet by far less weird, which is only an observation, not a criticism. Either way you slice it though, minimalist as is the movement or minimalist as in simple, neither description fits, the former being even more egregious than the latter.
Although I continually champion complex pop and criticize many albums for a lack of difficulty, frequently all one needs to express oneself eloquently are the basic tools of the trade, and in certain instances to critique it as being simplistic would be a mistake and to miss a great deal of what the album has to offer, especially in songs like the title track and "Sound," which are not facile, but rather just unembellished. Does that make sense?
Here's the minimalist review: Interesting folk-pop as seen thorough the eyes of Pacific Northwestern indie rock forefather eyes.
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