-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Joy Zipper
ALBUM...: The Heartlight Set
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Dream Pop
YEAR....: 2005
LABEL...: Vertigo
COUNTRY.: USA
PLACE...: New York City, NY
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 923 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 13
SIZE....: 273.87 MB
URL..: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartlight_Set
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Zipper
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/joy_zipper/the_heartlight_set
- TRACKLIST
1 Go Tell The World 2:03
2 1 2:33
3 Thought's A Waste Of Time 4:02
4 You're So Good 3:43
5 Anything You Sent 2:47
6 No Time Pt. 1 0:39
7 For Lenny's Own Pleasure 2:45
8 You Run The Game 3:29
9 Window 3:41
10 2 Dreams I Had 3:23
11 World Doesn't Care 3:48
12 Rockdove 3:29
13 Holy Diver 4:50
Total Playtime: 41:12
The album starts with a little in-studio banter. "Time is money, come on!"
This was certainly true of last year's mini-album 'The Stereo & God', but
what will become of this new, more considered effort?
The opening track is a statement of intent. 'Go Tell The World' is a fitting
title for a band who have had to rely so much on word of mouth and celebrity
endorsements; indeed, a Mister Gary Lightbody featured them on his mixtape
'The Trip' last year. This record is Joy Zipper reaching out to all the
people who haven't heard of them and are yet to bathe in their musical
day-glo lights.
With such an agenda, they get off to a confusing start. Most songs on the
first half fail to breach the 3-minute barrier and so this album can leave
you very disorientated at times, with only Tabitha Tindale's lull keeping
your feet on the ground. Her nonchalant, bubblegum-chewing attitude coupled
with a sickly-sweet, breathy delivery and cutesy lyrics make The Beatles seem
like wife-beating bastards in comparison. However, perseverance will serve
you well as penultimate track 'Rockdove' is a silk cutting of kooky keyboards
and luscious melodies which you could envisage accompanying a 50s American
infomercial telling you "How To Get The Best Out Of Your Whites".
When Daphne and Celeste released their uninspiring cover of 'School's Out' in
late August, they became a record company's liability and promptly
disappeared from our radar. Joy Zipper have clearly done their market
research. It makes perfect sense to release a collection of songs with such a
summery feel just as the temperature starts to crank up a notch. On the
whole, this album is jam-packed full of the kind of dreamy pop that really
wouldn't sound out of place on a Velvet Underground album or on a patchwork
rug, over-looking the setting sun.
For a band so established on these shores (this is the third album to have
been received with critical acclaim), they enjoy relatively little success in
their native USA. But with an album this good, hows about we keep them a
secret for a bit longer, eh?
*
Love or hate US teen drama The OC, it features some pretty decent music and
has helped improve the profile of numerous indie acts including Franz
Ferdinand and The Killers Stateside, where R&B, hip hop and middle of the
road pop often dominate the Billboard 100. New York indie duo Joy Zipper have
also experienced the honour of hearing their second album, American Whip,
played on the show. The follow-up The Heartlight Set is poppy, melodic but
cool enough to make its way into Seth Cohen's record collection too.
For indie fans whose taste extends beyond British guitar bands that are
played on Radio 1, Joy Zipper probably need no introduction. But for everyone
else, they are boyfriend-and-girlfriend twosome Vinny Cafiso and Tabitha
Tindale. They sound a lot like many other American indie acts, a little bit
Mojave 3, a little bit Breeders perhaps, but have a distinct enough sound to
stand out on their own. They are partial to hazy vocals, gentle guitar
strumming and navel-gazing lyrics which all contribute to a throroughly
delicious jangly guitar pop sound.
The album opens with Go Tell the World, one of the rockier tracks on The
Heartlight Set, which wouldn't sound out of place on a White Stripes album -
heavy drumbeat and guitars overlaid with a simple but strong vocal from
Tabitha Tindale. Next track, 1, is poppier and more melodic than its
predecessor and helps demonstrate the variety of tone on this album.
The range of sounds achieved by Joy Zipper is in part attributed to the fact
that the duo alternate vocals, which can radically alter the sound. Tindale's
voice possesses shades of Hope Sandoval and Tanya Donelly - sweet without
becoming sickening, while Cafiso is the slightly weaker of the two vocally
but expresses enough emotion to compensate. The vocal harmonies are also
extremely effective.
Tindale tends to lend her vocal to the heavier tracks such as the opener and
also You're So Good, which is one of the strongest tracks on an album that is
consistent throughout. Window is another stand-out song, and once again
features Tindale on lead vocal. It's fast-paced, with grumbling guitars,
lovely harmonies and angsty lyrics such as "Window, looking out the window,
checking on the hour.The grass has grown an inch since you have left.
Counting all the times I missed you. You were all I wanted maybe I was
blinded by the thought". It demonstrates that while Joy Zipper do the soft,
slow ballady type songs beautifully they are more comfortable and distinct
making music with a heavier edge.
The weakest track on The Heartflight Set is possibly the final tune Holy
Diver. It is a bit slow and slightly monotonous, however given the right
environment, say lying naked in candlelight, while staring in the eyes of a
significant other, it could take on a different meaning.
In fact the whole album is designed for life's intimate moments. It is the
sort of listening experience that is best shared with an intimate group of
close friends over a bottle of wine or spliff or whatever else does it for
you, in a darkened room while recalling warm memories.
It's unlikely to reach momentous levels of success but when has that really
mattered to true music fans. Joy Zipper are not the sort of act who make
music to be on the front covers of the tabloids - they do it for love not
money. And long may they keep on producing albums like The Heartlight Set.
*
"Heartlight," whatever that may be, has lent its name to a personal favorite
young adult science-fantasy novel by T.A. Barron, a Marion Zimmer Bradley
witch-story paperback I came across three minutes ago on Amazon, and of
course, the rousing Diamond/Bacharach pop song. It makes sense that Joy
Zipper would adopt the phrase, given their obvious debt to My Bloody
Valentine's Loveless, the phosphorescent pink glow of which come closest to
sonically approximating its compelling image. On The Heartlight Set, Long
Island duo Vinny Cafiso and Tabitha Tindale continue to let that oneironautic
influence shine in a greasy rainbow alongside Stereolab and the omnipresent
Pet Sounds.
At the outset, Joy Zipper's latest looks to augur a slight shift. First track
"Go Tell the World" all but sends up the band's frequent White Stripes
comparisons (y'know, 'cause they're a couple) with Tindale's talky,
blues-based vocals calling out over a swinging drum beat. Shortly, though,
the typical swirly Shields-isms snuff the budding retro-rock in familiar
shoegaze-era production values. The Belle & Sebastian pop of "Anything You
Sent" is another exception, veering dangerously close at the chorus to the
"come on, come on and dance all night" section of Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer
in the City". By the record's end, songs like horn-lightened "World Doesn't
Care", catchy yet endlessly repetitive "Rockdove", and diaphanous, immersive
finale "Holy Driver" return to the band's status quo.
In their sonic appropriations, Joy Zipper most resemble Snow Patrol's
polished Final Straw. Indeed, first single "You're So Good" has Tindale and
Cafiso both sounding notably Lightbody-esque over simple, crunching guitars,
and the lyrics share Lightbody's intra-relationship emotional space without
his string-yanking specificity. Forthcoming single "1" is a catchy gray spot,
laying Cafiso's unspectacular love poetry ("you're the one") atop one of the
recycled chord progressions that allowed 90s alt-rock radio to exist. A fizzy
guitar lead during instrumental bits jumps straight out of the solo in
Weezer's "Across the Sea", but the words are more Green Album.
My childhood Heartlight involved vast galactic struggles worthy of L'Engle,
if not Lucas or, humph, Dubya. Joy Zipper's meticulous dream-pop is,
similarly, in the realm of the tesseract-enabling science fantasy, but its
emotional palette ranges mostly between kinda-melancholy ("Thoughts a Waste
of Time") and sorta-happy ("What You Want"-esque "Window"). OK, there's also
the incongruously tawdry "For Lenny's Own Pleasure" (that's Bruce, natch). No
Diamond, though.
*
The Long Island, New York duo that make up Joy Zipper, Vinny Cafiso and
Tabitha Tinsdale, a couple outside of their musical partnership, have
received comparisons with Jack and Meg White, the twosome at the centre of
Detroit rock group The White Stripes.
In reality, however, the mix of warm, fuzzy tones and barbed words at the
heart of Joy Zipper's third album 'The Heartlight Set' puts them closer in
the pantheon of rock partnerships to Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic
Youth.
'The Heartlight Set' opens in determined fashion with the handclap
percussion, heavy guitars and insistent words of two-minute track 'Go Tell
the World'.
Forthcoming single '1' is cheerier, with harmonies and a more gentle guitar
backing making something similar to what the Dandy Warhols might produce. The
lead single off the album, 'You're So Good', is likewise upbeat, talking of
love, contentment and long summer nights.
The record's highlights, however, and Joy Zipper's strongest suit in general,
are the tracks that mix the sunny yellows with darker tones. While Tinsdale
and Cafiso take turns on lead vocals, it seems that Cafiso is left to front
much of the gloomier stuff.
The first of these, 'Thought's A Waste of Time', includes vocal harmonies and
upbeat guitar lines but overlays them with lyrics of melancholy and despair.
Another highlight is 'You Run the Game', an acoustic-guitar driven, wistful
moment of remorse for a relationship developing for the worse that finishes
off with a refrain that seems more a note of contented resignation than
despair. This seems to be Joy Zipper's style.
'World Doesn't Care' is even moodier, coupling downbeat lyrics with an almost
despondent guitar line.
'Anything You Sent' is more Belle and Sebastian, combining happy words with
quirky melodies, while 'No Time' is a sparse unaccompanied vocal track.
What is probably the best song musically on 'The Heartlight Set' is also its
most curious lyrically, the lurid drug trip 'For Lenny's Own Pleasure' that
seems to in some way involve US comedian Lenny Bruce.
But then, the story of 'The Heartlight Set' is a story of contrast, making it
one for those who like music with a quirky combination of brightness and
humour with a darker edge.
-=- SHGZ -=-
-=-=-==-=-=-
Shoegaze
is a genre of alternative rock that
originated in the late 80s. The genre is very
difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music
within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its
shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and
textural distortion that create
a tranquil, opaque
feeling.
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