ARTIST: Menomena
TITLE: Under an Hour
LABEL: FILMguerrero Records
GENRE: Instrumental
BITRATE: 187kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 54m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-03-27
RIP DATE: 2007-11-07
Track List
----------
1. Water 17:55
2. Flour 18:45
3. Light 17:30
Release Notes:
Under an Hour was originally composed as one-time accompaniment for a modern
dance performance at Portland, OR's Time-Based Art Festival in September, 2004.
But after working on the composition for up to eight months, Menomena's three
members decided to commit the music to tape. For those of us who missed the
one-and-only showing of Under an Hour, we can be thankful they did. What's
impressive about Menomena's score is not only how well it accompanied the dance
(clips are available through the band's website), but how effective it is
without any visuals at all. Composed of three nearly 20-minute sections, the
music was written to mirror the dance's three movements: "Water," "Flour" and
"Light." Each of Menomena's members were responsible for writing one section,
and each attended multiple rehearsals by Portland's Monster Squad dance troupe.
Integrating the music with the unique choreography wasn't easy ù for "Water,"
the dancers performed in two inches of water on a specially built stage. The
floor was covered in powder for "Flour," and in "Light" a ceiling installation
lowered lights into the dancers' space at timed intervals. But the band also had
to capture in music ù on "Water," for instance ù such esoteric ideas as
"purity," "scarcity" and "play."
Brent Knopf wrote "Water," and it opens the disc with drone-like lines,
minor-key trellises and prog-ish crescendos. Piano, viola, baglama (a baby
bouzouki), toy piano, organ and guitar conjure a watery world of misty fogs,
cascading waterfalls, and torrential tempests. Justin Harris' percussive "Flour"
most closely resembles Menomena's quirky keys-and-drums-centric pop songs. Here,
the cymbal crashes, the drums thunder, and a baritone and alto sax bleat
accompany the powdery clouds stirred up by the dancers and a story line about
"anthrax," "cocaine," "strike," "settle" and "explosion" ù whatever that
entails. Danny Seim's "Lights" proved the most difficult to pull off live from a
technical standpoint. On disc, it leans predominantly on a combination of long
e-bowed guitar lines and a variety of sampled beats, but the result does succeed
in suggesting the buzz of fluorescent lights or the flickering of dying light
bulbs. Each movement seems composed like a mini-suite, so the tempo changes and
textural variations keep the momentum moving forward pretty much throughout. You
probably won't reach for Under an Hour first thing every day, but the occasional
spin reveals more of its charms each time.