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The Red Channels Silver Girl Records
(SG-039) SG-039 is the debut CD from the Portland, Oregon experimental pop band The Red Channels. They started out as a 2-piece recording project in Oklahoma City, which is where this 10 song disc was recorded by the two in early 2002. It was released in June 2003. Delusions of Adequacy on their Silver Girl debut: A band and album with a tremendously well-developed and quite particular sound, The Red Channels self-titled effort is a cumbersome fit for the ear, tiptoeing a thin line between the beautiful and the aggravating. Fitting nicely into the Silver Girl ilk as a slower-paced, moody group featuring female vocals, The Red Channels also push the envelope for the label as they are decidedly more sonically ambitious than many of the other bands under the Silver Girl umbrella. Combining electronic programming, synths, and samples with the more traditional guitar / bass / drums, they fill (and sometimes overflow) each tracks proverbial plate with stacks and stacks of sound bites, all of which are relatively simple on their own but when pumped through the speakers all at once are a bit overwhelming. (Not that this is always a bad thing, but . . . well, we'll come to that.) Floating overtop of most of it are the disturbingly woeful, drug-laden female vocals that strive to give the group their distinction. Often drenched in delay and/or reverb, occasionally filtered through some eerie distortion, take Mazzy Star and run her through a gothic effects box under the direction of a depressed Flood and you might wind up with something akin to this. The lyrics are utterly unintelligible, so all that‚s left is that voice - that haunting, seductive, grating, asylum-ready voice. If you're enticed, good, you should be. An attentive spinning of this record could possibly shake a listener loose, leaving them with a furrowed brow, a shocked nervous system, and a blind stare out the window. Be warned however that when that voice is thrown together with the murky instrumentation into reductive arrangements of highly repetitive songs, it is sometimes too much to bear, and might end up with you begging for that distorted high-pitched circular melody to come to an end before you start breaking things. Still, depending on one's mood, this too can be a good thing. After all, from an artistic standpoint many could argue that a piece of work this challenging to the senses has a value of its own as it pushes the limits of what an audience perceives as being listenable. Whatever one's stance may be, The Red Channels' self-titled album is an ambitious one, deserving of any and all respectable ears open and patient enough to endure the barrage that the band throws at its audience. -- Hutch, 9/22/03 The Red Channels have evolved since relocating to Oregon in late 2002. They now are at least a four-piece and are nearing completion of over a year-and-a-half's work on their second album which will come out early 2005. Current Lineup: Discography: |
