Artist.......: Shapes and Sizes
Album........: Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner
Label........: Asthmatic Kitty Records
Genre........: Indie
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Mar-15-2007
str.date.....: 000-00-0000
quality......: VBR/44.1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. Alone/Alive 03:37
02. Head MovinÆ 02:53
03. Geese 03:46
04. The Taste in my Mouth 05:31
05. Teller/Seller 02:22
06. Grassy corner, a sunset 00:44
07. Highlife (I had been duped) 04:47
08. CanÆt stop that (sinking) feeling 04:08
09. The HorseÆs mouthy mouth 05:45
10. The Long Indifference 04:04
11. Canvas skies, Muslin trees 01:38
12. Victory in War 04:08
13. Piggy 03:53
14. one, two, three 04:00
Runtime 51:16 min
Size 67,6 MB
Release Notes:
Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner kicks off with a
solid rock march ambitious enough to soundtrack the
first 10 miles of any road trip. The opening track
is one that Shapes and Sizes could very well have
penned during their recent 30 kilometer move from
Victoria, where the band members met through the
city's vibrant artistic community, to Vancouver,
B.C.
Initially the Canadian four-piece adopted the
familiar singer-songwriter paradigm, but decided to
break those parameters by having everyone write and
sing. The gamble paid off; S&S concocted the
self-titled debut album of bi-polar, stop-and-start
songs that pulled listeners onto an emotional ride,
and raised ears, hairs and goose bumps at Asthmatic
Kitty Records. Anxious to test their brand of
experimental pop on the more southernly Americans,
Shapes and Sizes went on tour across the States.
Somewhere between British Columbia and New York,
the band found themselves sharing a rusted van with
the songs that would constitute Split Lips, Winning
Hips, A Shiner.
Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner hardly sounds
Canadian, at least when compared to the recent
immigration of crafted pop from the West and
Quebec. Fusing Jon Crellin (drums) and Nathan
Gage's (bass) formal musical training with the
youthful energy of Caila Thompson-Hannant (keys)
and Rory Seydel's (guitar) R&B background, S&S
consistently stretches and questions the musical
structure of each song while providing an outsider
objectivity to the complicated scope of music from
the lower 48.
Lyrically, Split Lips is at once celebratory and
derogatory; among other things, a peculiar but
calculated meditation on naive nationalism and
potent protest ("Victory in War, oh what a bore").
"High Life" focuses on benign habits turned
scabrous, and "Alone/Alive" casts an existential
strobe on freedom and dependence minus the
pretension that usually comes along for that ride.
Split Lip's harmonious discord is also technical:
the band recorded with JC/DC Studios (Destroyer,
New Pornographers, Tegan and Sara, etc.) and mixed
with Asthmatic Kitty's own Rafter Roberts (Fiery
Furnaces, The Rapture, The Plot to Blow Up the
Eiffel Tower) to forge a pristine decomposition.
Don't try turning it down- the overdrive provides
the framework for equally aggressive lyrics that
combine sensuality, violence, and social critique.
S&S is on the dawn of a second move, literally. The
30 kilometers from Victoria to Vancouver wasn't
enough, so they are now on the road to the
catacombs of Montreal. Likewise, Split Lips is a
second move for the band. It is guided and on the
mark, etching a continent-long mural from points A
to B. Shapes and Sizes is probably out somewhere
between those points at this very moment, thinking
and singing.