Spacious new dispatches from far-out Chicago trio
Pit Er Pat’s early melodies were quirky and erratic, kerplunking about like jazz without a backbone, despite Fay Davis-Jeffers’ charming popstress vocals. But around 2005 the band finally nailed it, hitting a subsequent series of Thrill Jockey releases to the moon, almost literally, having reached a spacious new indie-rock frontier where musical eccentricities became boundless punctuations.
On High Times, the band employs horn arrangements by Icy Demons’ Dylan Ryan, and a Far East garage sale booty of Burmese temple gongs, bobo balaphones, anandalaharis and many other toys that require the aid of an encyclopedia reference. Slathered in spiritual tinkerings, it’s very much an opus– and certainly a departure from the drums, keyboard and bass instrumentation of the band’s early work. From Rob Duran’s cavernous, pinch-hitting guitar on “Omen” to Fay’s newfound angelic coos on “The Good Morning Song,” the mood is always well-paced and full-bodied. Even in crescendo on “Creation Stepper,” when three-minutes of aqua-wood patterings merge with a barrage of cymbals and a chorus of tribal hymnals, everything is filtered into a trance-like thread. Pit er Pat may have decamped to the moon a while ago, but now they’re finally sending back reports of life.
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