White Hinterland

Phylactery Factory | Dead Oceans
By CAITLIN E. CURRAN  |  April 22, 2008
3.5 3.5 Stars
080245_hinterland_main
In January, Scituate native Casey Dienel blogged: “For the present and foreseeable future, there won’t be any more Casey Dienel.” It wasn’t an Internet suicide note but news of a musical departure of sorts. Critics adored the homegrown folk quirk of her 2006 solo debut Wind-Up Canary (Hush), which was recorded on a farm in Leominster. Yet as she noted in a recent NPR interview, Dienel’s a collaborator. So she formed a quartet, reinvented herself as White Hinterland, and schlepped to Portland (no cows or silos in sight) to record her first post-Dienel album, Phylactery Factory. Although its nine tracks retain her folk leanings and delicate-yet-sensual vocals (which register somewhere between Feist and Joanna Newsom), “Calliope,” a bittersweet plea underscored by soft piano and trembling violin, and “A Beat Washed Ashore,” with its eerie, piercing reverb, and sweeping piano speeding and slowing the tempo in waves, boast a darker, more polished sound. Dienel’s lyrics tend to drift toward poetics (there’s even a Robert Frost reference on the final track), but when “Napoleon in Waterloo” develops with its added instrumentation into a final mélange of staccato drums and scissoring strings, its resolves more like a good story.
Related: Self-starter, ID Check: Casey Dienel, ID Check: Casey Dienel - sidebar, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Casey Dienel, Joanna Newsom, Robert Frost,  More more >
| More

Most Popular
Blogs
 More: Phlog  |  Music  |  Film  |  Books  |  Politics  |  Media  |  Election '08  |  Free Speech  |  All Blogs
ARTICLES BY CAITLIN E. CURRAN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   . . . AND SO IS YOUR MOM  |  August 08, 2011
    Va te faire enculer . Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Actually, I just told you to fuck off. Pardon my French!
  •   PRIDE AT 39  |  June 01, 2009
    Not to downplay this year's Pride Week or anything, but the annual weeklong mélange of events geared toward New England's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is just one year shy of its 40th anniversary. Which makes it sort of like the night before Christmas.
  •   THE CRASH COURSE  |  May 06, 2009
    It was a sunny but brisk Friday afternoon in March when my bike was hit.
  •   EAT IT, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL!  |  May 06, 2009
    It's a Thursday afternoon at Lexington High, and 20 or so students have congregated in a music room surrounded by racks of folding chairs and sporting a sleek black Steinway baby grand.
  •   THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE  |  April 24, 2009
    Of Montreal live at the Paradise, April 21

 See all articles by: CAITLIN E. CURRAN

LATEST SLIDESHOWS

All Slideshows