CD Review: Sebastian Clark and Normandie Wilson
Christina CaldwellIssue date: 7/23/09 Section: Music
|
Music for Smart People
(The Whatever Project)
Grade: B+
There's an episode of "Family Guy" where, as the family is drowning in a rising flood of water, Peter, on the verge of death, fesses up that he never liked "The Godfather." When asked why, he says that it "insists upon itself."
It'd be easy to say the same of the relatively unknown Sebastian Clark and Normandie Wilson's Music For Smart People. After all, with a pretentious title like that, it is self-assuring to both the listener and the artists themselves. While what "smart people music" actually is can be debated for hours, Music For Smart People really is smart music.
Taking a cue from the great '60s and '70s artists of yore, Music For Smart People incorporates bluesy base lines, jazzy brass instrumentation and bellowing orchestral melodies with an underlying pop-rock sound.
Playful nuggets are riddled throughout Music For Smart People. Just when you think the album could become a bore, a whistle, scream or erratic vocal freak-out ala Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock meets you and simultaneously punches you in the privates.
Be the first to comment on this story