Elevator - A Taste of Complete Perspective
(Teenage USA)
Rick White's old band, Eric's Trip, was arguably the best and most
deserving of a place in history of all the various pop groups from the
early 90's that could be associated with the term "lo-fi." They wrote
amazing songs and did so prolifically. In their five or six years of
existence they created a surprisingly large catalog of cassettes, seven
inches, EPs and full length albums, none of which, to my knowledge,
contained a single un-great song. They wrote prettier, catchier melodies
than Sebadoh, and bigger, meaner riffs than Royal Trux, and their
trademark was combining the two--enveloping sweetly sung, sincere lyrics
in a haze of blistering fuzz. On an Eric's Trip album you could always
count on hearing everything from the loudest Stooge-like barrages, to the
quietest songs played on acoustic guitar, and always woven seamlessly
together in a white noise collage of tape hiss and found sounds. Though
Eric's Trip was far from an unknown band, they never really achieved the
kind of recognition they deserved, and in 1996 when they ceased to exist,
few people seemed to notice.
Toward the end of Eric's Trip, though, Rick White and his wife Tara began
Elevator to Hell. It started as a side project which provided an outlet
for songs that were even more eclectic and varied than could wash in
Eric's Trip, which was by then a band with a relatively established
"sound." However, Rick had been apparently the principal of three song
writers in Eric's Trip, and with that band's demise and the integration of
drummer Mark Gaudet into the line-up, Elevator to Hell became the heir to,
and something of an extension of, Eric's Trip.
While Elevator to Hell (which was later briefly renamed Elevator Through
Hell, then Elevator Through, and now simply Elevator) retained much of the
Eric's Trip sound and approach, and in fact many people seem to want it to
actually BE Eric's Trip, it has nevertheless continued to be its own
thing, a band which is much less straightforward, both musically and
lyrically. Not surprisingly, this has never been more true than it is on
Elevator's new album A Taste of Complete Perspective. While Eric's Trip
was generally heart-on-sleeve transparent, this is an album which is best
characterized by its almost complete obscurity, mysteriousness, and
impenetrability. The lyrics are incomprehensibly weird, and are made even
less direct to the listener by thick effects, loops, and burial within the
music. The music itself is also given an ambiguous strangeness by the use
of multiple layers of sound within the songs, and atmospheric clips of
noise and sound which bind the album into a nearly continuous hour long
flow. It is absolutely dense with sound. This is bad trip music at its
best--disjointed, confusing, dark and just a bit scary--but almost
always engaging.
An example of Elevator's use of layers to tamper with the listener's
perception is "I'm a Radio Station." Maybe the highlight of the album,
this is a light, pretty, upbeat pop song. The song is very nice by
itself, but to complicate things, it's placed on top of a bed of eerie,
atonal drones. As a result, the song is not just beautiful, but bizarrely
so. The album is full of such juxtapositions, which, when done right, add
strange new dimensions to the stock sounds of pop music and the feelings
automatically associated with those sounds. Sort of disorienting in a
nice way. Plus, there are some just plain old good songs to be found
here.
A Taste of Complete Perspective is by no means perfect. If you're like
me, you'll find that the lyrics are sometimes overbearingly odd-ball, and
that the album doesn't really swing into full gear until about track four
or so. But don't give up too soon! Listen to the whole thing and then
listen again. It will grow on you.
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