Krakatoa - We Are the Rowboats
(Cuneiform)
When most of the contemporary instrumental music I run into is some variant of the Slint formula, the overwrought Godspeed You Black Emperor crescendo, and diminuendo ad nauseam (if we define our scope: composed instrumental music, set in opposition to genres such as free jazz or improv noise or jamming, but for our current purposes not including what would fall under the herald of modern composition), so that the allure of the music—it's grandeur and hypnotic beauty—is also what limits it, ultimately obstructing the music from becoming something of substance, that is, while the music is irrefragably pleasant to listen to, it often lacks character or movement—that rise and fall I'll only call a simulated oscillation, the musical equivalent of a motion picture, I can often become annoyed with the indie rock instrumental.
It is of course snobby for me to say this, but when I want to listen to purely instrumental music, that is, to concentrate on sound as sound, I do not turn to indie rock where perforce the choices are either members of the former paragraph's stable or are mere interludes, placed purposely as respite, but rather to the above parenthetical selections, and even though I personally didn't care for Krakatoa's We Are the Rowboats, I do think that they deserve credit for not towing the party line and instead creating an instrumental album that does not proceed in funereal fashion but instead actually infuses their songs with personality and playfulness and, gasp, memorable melody.
The songs on We Are the Rowboats unfold as if Krakatoa were Rachel's, except not boring. While the album does not bowl me over, what is interesting about it is that it has what so much of its brethren are missing: character. Now, maybe that character is that of the jester—the gambol of the pizzicato strings in "Telegraph" or the goofiness of "Snoopy with Mohawk"—but at least there is life within these tracks and not the methodical dirge-like gait of everything else I've heaped so much animadversion on above.
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