CD Reviews

Cotton Mather | Kontiki [Deluxe Edition]

Star Apple Kingdom

By ZETH LUNDY | February 14, 2012

4.0 Stars

When it was released in 1997, Cotton Mather's sophomore album racked up glowing critical huzzahs across the pond (not to mention big-ups from Oasis), yet dudded here in the States. But why? Kontiki should hold an equally hallowed place on the shelf of canonical '90s indie records with contemporaneous efforts by Neutral Milk Hotel and Guided By Voices. As vivid, challenging, and just plain hooky now as it was 15 years ago, Kontiki is a brilliant synthesis of Beatles-esque pop and lo-fi surreal experimentation, an even richer and more fully realized example of the GBV modus operandi. Singer/songwriter Robert Harrison, a Texan with a voice somewhere between John Lennon and John Linnell, stuck one shoulda-been smash hit ("My Before and After") in between other bouts of fractured classicism. "Homefront Cameo" and "She's Only Cool" are all Liverpudlian bended-knee bounce, "Church of Wilson" puts unbridled power in the band's power-pop, and even serpentine tracks like "Private Ruth" boast serious melodic backbone. Thanks to a Kickstarter campaign, the long-out-of-print masterpiece is back, this time with a second ?disc of demos and outtakes. And if you miss out again this time around, well, that's just your own damn fault.

Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Arts, Cotton Mather, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY ZETH LUNDY

BROWN BIRD | FITS OF REASON | March 18, 2013
Brown Bird, a boundary-pushing Americana duo from Rhode Island, make music that touches upon that can't-put-my-finger-on-it amalgamation of past and future sounds.

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS | PUSH THE SKY AWAY | February 20, 2013
Much like the similarly low-key The Boatman's Call , Cave's highly anticipated 15th album with the Bad Seeds manages the puzzling feat of making a great band seem inconsequential, if not entirely absent.

SCOTT WALKER | BISH BOSCH | November 27, 2012
Scott Walker's late-period about-face is one of the strangest in the annals of pop music.

BILL WITHERS | THE COMPLETE SUSSEX AND COLUMBIA ALBUMS | October 31, 2012
Bill Withers has always been the down-to-earth, odd-man-out of the '70s soul brothers: he's the one who came bearing a lunch box on the cover of his relaxed 1971 debut, Just as I Am .

R.E.M. | DOCUMENT [25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION] | September 19, 2012
Fans of R.E.M. enjoy arguing over which album was the band's true shark-jump, but 1987's Document was inarguably the end of a groundbreaking era.