The Early Americans - Aha! Airmen Secretly
ARTIST.....: The Early Americans
TITLE......: Aha! Airmen Secretly
LABEL......: Roll Music Studios
URL........: n/a
RIP DATE...: Jul-01-2007
STORE DATE.: 000-00-1999
GENRE......: Indie
QUALITY....: VBR / 44.1Hz / Joint-Stereo
SIZE.......: 44,10 MB
Track Listing:
01 - Schematic Of Doom 02:26
02 - Avenues Are The Arteries 03:09
03 - Cardinal Directions 02:10
04 - I Am Not A Book 03:20
05 - A Silent Attack 03:51
06 - Mayflowers 01:45
07 - Kings Of Cough Syrup 02:13
08 - The Situation Unravels 03:27
09 - Literary Menace 02:16
10 - Girl And Flag 03:38
11 - I Will Be Obtuse Forever 02:52
12 - This Is The End Of My Ghost 03:52
13 - All Signs Of A Storm 04:52
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39:51 min
Release Notes:
www.rollmusic.com
Adam Burt and Andy Larson had previously played in a band together
called The Early Americans who were originally based out of Moose
Lake which is in close proximity to Duluth, MN. Jonathon Warnburg
of Signal To Trust and the Misfires was a drummer for them when
they broke up. The Early Americans recorded a full length called
Aha! Airmen Secretly (which was recorded by Al Sparhawk of Low)
and a final ep recorded by Brooce Templeton of Dwindle that may
never be released. In addition, Adam and Andy played in an earlier
version of the Black Eyed Snakes with Al Sparhawk The Early
Americans played their last show in July of 2000. They went on to
form The Vets after moving into the Twin Cities.
(www.modern-radio.com)
------------
These Americans apparently have a very limited grasp of their own
national history-- it begins with Slay Tracks and ends with
Slanted and Enchanted. I can only presume that "early" refers to
the early '90s, an era that saw the brief rise and quick fall of
the nebulous genre known as "lo-fi" and/or "slacker-rock." Aha!
Airmen Secretly comes on like a missive from some anonymous
basement in 1992, all pliable guitar fuzz, cryptic mumblings and
ugly cover art. This, of course, still makes it a fairly
intriguing find, quasi-nostalgic appeal aside.
Slacker-rock's primary virtue has always been its refusal to
provide any sort of context for itself. It's an art form
equivalent to handwritten screeds posted on telephone poles by
paranoid schizophrenics, or rambling answering machine messages
left by drunk people unaware they dialed the wrong number-- while
it may not make any sense to you, you can take some solace in the
fact that it wouldn't make sense to anyone else either. And yet
even the most banal of communications can take on a perversely
poetic quality, as the listener can't help ascribing his or her
own arbitrary meaning to it.
This power of anonymity can apply to any music-- just think of how
many times you've been blown away by a band you've never heard of
before-- but slacker-rock seeks to preserve this mystique beyond
the initial encounter by remaining defiantly obscure. The
higher-profile faces in this crowd (Beck, Guided by Voices, and,
of course, Pavement) inevitably lost a bit of their edge as they
gained more exposure, turning their obscurity into an endearing
mannerism at best. Their less well-known cohorts maintain the
tradition in fine form; bands such as Home, Wingtip Sloat, and Pie
will be forever marginalized (albeit contentedly), and their music
will be known only by the select few fortunate enough to stumble
unwittingly across them. The Early Americans fall squarely into
the latter category, but even in this secret corner of rock
history they're still just a footnote.
With song titles like "Kings of Cough Syrup," "Avenues are the
Arteries" and especially "I Will Be Obtuse Forever," Aha! Airmen
Secretly works that unhip-amateur angle for all it's worth. Two
guitarists skilled in drunken-master kung fu create a clanging,
effects-drenched din while the drummer bangs on a busted kit a few
rooms away. There's a lot of shaky singing and yelling about how
"life is like trigonometry" and "are you ever sure that the movies
aren't watching you?" "All Signs of a Storm" and "Literary Menace"
most directly recall Pavement's warped looseness, and "Mayflowers"
has some lineage back to the angularity of the Fall or Gang of
Four. But overall, the Early Americans don't really sound like
anyone else-- or anything much at all.
For all their careening and roaring, there isn't a whole lot to
distinguish them from the other trillion bands buried permanently
below radar. The few scraps of melody are like driftwood to cling
to in the ocean of noise; eventually you just get tired and allow
yourself to drown in the miasma. There is a certain inventiveness
at work within this album, but still, I wouldn't expect any future
bursts of brilliance from them. (www.pitchforkmedia.com)