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Pattern Is
Movement: Stowaway
Repetition in sound can be a beautiful thing. It is often deceptively static on first observation but so often manages to arouse in the listener a subliminal tension, betraying its veiled intrinsic motion. Repetition, done right, is mesmerizing. Done better, it can induce flickers of profound insight, like the ecstatic flash experienced by deeply spiritual people who use incessant chanting and prayer to invoke the presence of an otherworldly force. And hence the secret of Pattern Is Movement, for indeed, the intricate repeated patterns of this bands music do engender movement. Stowaway, Pattern is Movements second album, hits the ground running even if it is in a surreal, strangely affecting circular motion. The first track conjures the feeling any nervous driver has experienced upon entering a roundabout: as you are immediately whisked away, there is little time to wonder how all the pieces will fit and you are just barely able to keep yourself together long enough to come out on the other side unscathed, though somehow you do. Spun around in a tizzy, you nevertheless get from Point A to Point B. The round and round lyrics of this tune (sample: It / reminds me / of the sea / which buried / it / reminds me / of the sea / which buried / it) perfectly mirror the carousel motion of the guitars, drums and Rhodes piano. The movement may not be entirely forward, but it does progress. The song leaves you woozy and off-balance. And that is a very good thing. Track two is equally consuming. In one section, the lead singer assertively commands Get your hand off my knee over and over again amid unsettling violin spurts and deceitfully glistening keyboard lines, until the guitars erupt into a flawlessly nasty Gang of Four-ish interchange. But these moments are only part of the tapestry of this song, embedded in a larger framework that serves as the set-up to the anxious, distraught tongue-lashing the offending knee-toucher provokes. Its the wine / that makes your / kisses warm the singer had gently stated against a far dreamier backdrop as the song began, and the tracks power comes from the sudden moment of violation when the pattern is broken and a new, unexpected (and uninvited) one emerges. The album contains song after song like this, without doubt establishing its own pattern of defiantly spare and surprisingly twisted narratives set against continuously changing musical backdrops. The only tracks that dont work well are the few where the lead singer attempts these confounding chromatic runs, backed usually by the Rhodes. I swear he even goes Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music on us in one number (Talk Back to Me). But this vocal experimentation is limited to two or three of the 12 tracks here and the album is otherwise consistent and coherent. In 32 minutes, Pattern is Movement packs a walloping punch with Stowaway. The fact that the band stays focused and to the point only helps to further illustrate how much can be accomplished with so little. Pattern is Movement definitely has hit upon a powerfully economical musical equation, and Stowaway proves a handy, first-rate primer.
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