The Guillemots: so much fun you'll forget it's still modern music

There are only 3 bands that I've encountered at WERS that have truly passed into the canon of musicians I listen to every day: Josh Ritter, Neko Case, and the Guillemots.

I did a write-up for this band a while ago, but I still listen to them almost every day, and --this is a real confession, worthy of a blog--their track "Madeup Love Song #43" is now also my "Profile Song" on Myspace. Here's the dirt on this sandbox-style band:

Rarely in genres other than children’s music can a band be as experimental and blatantly fun-loving as the Guillemots when they sit down to their typewriters and play. The use of the typewriter (amongst other things such as paperclips, teacups and empty water jugs) is one of the ways that the Guillemots blend all the silly distinctions between writing, art, music, and just plain hedonism.

Just in case you’re wondering, “Can such a lineup actually sound good?” The answer is yes, blissfully yes, Bjork-fully yes, Beck-fully yes. If you, unsuspecting listener, were to stumble upon the Live Mix recorded by WERS the afternoon the Guillemots came to town, you might have felt as though you had crashed an outrageous party, with spiked punch, bad karaoke and people swimming fully clothed in the backyard. The result is that the band, like that wild scene, sounds like fun.

One of the more boisterous tracks off of “From the Cliffs,” the Guillemots latest, “Trains to Brazil,” includes an alarm clock, blaring and beautiful horns, and a momentum that mimicks its title subject. Following right after is “Made-up Love Song #43,” the soon-to-be-released single from the album, which starts off with the much-favored beeps and boops that the Postal Service is fond of, then launches into a Coldplay-esque river of high-pitched guitar strumming. Fans of either band will find an exciting new favorite to mix up their playlists, as the Guillemots often one-up their musical cohorts with the addition of other unique sounds (a wristwatch alarm, a courageous cacophony of drums) that will be sure to throw you off as soon as you grow accustomed. But one thing you should get used to: the idea that the Guillemots themselves may spawn a slew of me-too acts, artists who aren’t afraid to let their inner children out to play. With celeb-fans like Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst already playing their music, the diffident band may be taken more seriously in the coming months than anyone, including them, had ever dreamed.

But the whimsical English band can play it straight sometimes. It is fully aware that although it prefers the company of children (the album’s back cover of “From the Cliffs” features them playing in a room with kids, while the front cover features toy dinosaurs), they also have grown-up issues to tend to. In “Over the Stairs,” the band addresses the challenges of approaching over-the-hill days: “Bring me monsters and I will slay them/God I used to feel like I could fly all the time/Where it’s all gone, I don’t know.” But the point is that one doesn’t have to give up and buy a suit and eat bran and play metronomic bass lines, or even play real instruments. It simply means that one must keep dancing and trying to see the world as a child does: as a place of endless possibility. What makes this album worth a listen is the chance that they might make you believe it too.

www.guillemots.com

-Ryan Weaver
(photos by Alexandra Mulcahy)