CD Reviews

Paper Thin Stages

Magic Jar of Jar of Animal | Self-released

By DEVIN KING | July 8, 2008

3.5 Stars

It’s been a little more than a year since Paper Thin Stages decided that, as one lemmingtrail.com poster put it, “songs were passé.” Although this holds true for the long improvisations of the live shows, for their new album the band wrangle originally non-discrete material into 11 song-like morsels. Although there is a bit of free-but-focused noodling — listen for Tristan da Cunha’s Ernie Kim playing saxophone on “Something Notes in Here,” the longest and jammiest song on the album — there are at least five musical moments that count as songs in the pop sense, redolent as they are of labored chord progressions and (nearly buried) melodic singing. Like Black Dice and bands on the Norwegian Rune Grammofon label, Paper Thin Stages base their music on improvisational checkpoints of glitchy ambiance, pitter-pat drums, and glittering guitars (and maybe laptops?). But with their history as a math-indie trio, they avoid the hip-hop and funk-rhythm quotations that often mar bands attempting to freak out. Available as a free download (from www.paperthinstages.com), this record is yet another 2008 local rock release that just flat out rules. (For a few others, see “Download: Fourplay.")

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