Rollerball - Bathing Music
(Road Cone)
What would it sound like if Godspeed You Black Emperor! were a roaming
band of gypsies meandering around the western United States with their old
marching band instruments? Probably something like Rollerball and their
new album Bathing Music. With parts recorded in Portland, San Francisco,
Boulder, and Questa, NM, "a roaming band of gypsies" may very well describe
the people in Rollerball, not just their sound. The band organically creates
multi-layered, textured music that is, more or less, as dynamic and expansive
as Godspeed You Black Emperor! while using an eclectic mix of instruments and
full-bodied vocals.
The standout track on Bathing Music, "Wyoming," may be one of the most
evocative, powerful songs of the year. Oddly, though, this also might be one
of their sparsest songs, a piano ballad with two vocalists accompanied by
drums, bass, and wind chimes. The song starts out smooth and mellow,
concentrating on the male vocals. As the piano part builds speed, the song
goes from 1st gear straight to 5th, ploughing through the Wyoming landscape
like a herd of buffalo, singing "man crossing the land, opening wounds,
conquering cities." As the song slows down again, the song decomposes as the
drumming becomes arrhythmic, only to eventually regain focus and, for good
measure, repeat the entire cycle (mellow-buffalos-arrhythmic) all over again.
There are several other great songs on the album as well. The opening track,
"Cockfighter," marries breathy female French vocals with a taped
angry tirade of some guy yelling "you're the stupidest
fucking person I've ever met in my life" and "you've got stupid fucking
tattoos." The music provides a gorgeous backdrop to the contrasting voices
using trumpet, drums, keyboard, and bass. "Wet Food Twice a Day" is another
piano ballad, this time sounding much more like cabaret music. The opening
is a duet of saxophone and piano with percolating sounds in the background.
When the female singing begins, a clarinet floats around the song, sounding
like a snakecharmer, as the bass and drums create a swaying, pounding beat.
Many of Rollerball's other songs concentrate entirely on texture. Some are
very successful, like "The Knocker" which uses a short, repetitive bassline
to anchor some odd, interesting, enveloping atmospheres. However, one or two
fall flat, like "What Are You Crying About?" that has piano, xylophone, and
violin dancing around each other, doing small figures, without much purpose
or effect.
After I first digested this record, I asked fellow fakewriter
John Fail if he had heard Rollerball yet, as I figured he might enjoy them.
His response was he had heard them for the first time the other day, and
"it was fairly fucked up and therefore I liked it." That pretty much
encapsulates Rollerball. If you are looking for expansive, dramatic music
that is more varied (i.e., "fairly fucked up"), then Bathing Music is for you.
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