LP Review: Church Chords - elvis, he was a Schlager + Anthony Pirog

Church Chords

elvis, he was a Schlager

(Otherly Love) churchchords.bandcamp.com/album/elvis-he-was-schlager

Perhaps Church Chords are akin to a 21st-century version of Golden Palominos, i.e. a band with a rotating lineup of disparate players coming together to create some warped pop music. Or maybe Stephen Buono is more like a modern day band leader/catalyst like Kip Hanrahan, the New York musician who released several albums under his own name on which he often took a backseat to rich lineup of musicians with ties to Latin music, jazz and no wave. 

In regards to the first prospect, the personnel on elvis, he was a Schlager changes on every song, with guitarists like Jeff Parker, Brandon Seabrook and Nels Cline coloring the moody surroundings while vocals come from Kristin Slipp (of the Dirty Projectors), Genevieve Artadi (of Knower) and Ricardo Dias Gomes (who also lays down some thick bass grooves on several tracks). 

As far as the second prospect goes, Buono (who has played in the band Split/Red and seems to have a finger on several different musical pulsebeats at a time) receives credits for composing the music on all ten tracks but no instrumental credit. Some songs have as many as six names listed for music composition, not all of them playing in the song. Though the Hanrahan connection might be apt, a better one (which Buono in fact has used) might be Teo Macero, the producer who used the studio as an instrument for so many of Miles Davis electric albums. To be clear, Church Chords don't try to fusion jazz, no wave or Latin music - at least not outwardly.

From the opening moments, elvis has a deep, dreamy quality that offers enough space to accommodate ethereal vocals in several languages, ripping guitar solos and rhythm sections that work like piledrivers that create a steady base around which everything rallies. Sometimes it evokes the stark pop of Stereolab where vocal countermelodies and chugging guitars move over a steady groove ("Recent Mineral"). 

In "Warriors of Playtime," we could be crashing a recording session by the floating Exploding Star Orchestra, since Parker's guitar goes from crisp to tremolo-heavy, and vocalist Thalma de Freitas (Kamasi Washington, Madlib) steps in between the fret work. It doesn't seem like a stretch because Tortoise/occasional ESO drummer John Herndon appears on this track.

The monochord attack of "She Lays On a Leaf" recalls Suicide, but it takes on more bizarre features when the vocal duo of Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham (Finom) and Cline's guitar almost get derailed by an attack from Nate Walcott's trumpet. The guitarist returns with some manic above-the-fretboard yowling in "Owned by Lust," in which Gomes sings in tandem the vocalist zzzahara. The former also sings offers English counterpoint lyrics to Takako Minekawa's breathy vocals on the smoother "Then Awake."

elvis, he was a Schlager sounds a little jumbled during the first spin, but by the end, things have settled into place. A further examination reveals a multi-layered album that actually proves how disparate genres can mingle with the results creating something that retains the edge of those individual styles that cross-fertilized here. It's not merely heady dance music nor is it improvisation that can make it in prime time. It's a lot deeper than that. 

Incidentally, the album title comes from a a documentary about Krautrock in which Moebius (known for his work with Cluster) dismissed the king of Rock and Roll as a "schlager," referring to a type of music popular in Germany which seems to have been bland and unexciting. Buono, let the record show, has nothing against Elvis. But the term suddenly makes the joke clear in the Beatles' "You Know My Name (Look Up My Number" when John Lennon introduces the loungey section of the song as if he were in a club called Schlagers. It also explains why the Warner Bros' Loss Leaders compilation in the '70s full of easy listening music was called Schlagers. 

It's worth mentioning that Otherly Love has also released guitarist Anthony Pirog's The Nepenthe Series Vol. 1. This set of eight duets and one solo track finds him in the company of guitarists Nels Cline, Andy Summers (yes, that Andy Summers), John Frusciante (credited as playing "monomachine"), Brandon Ross, Wendy Eisenberg and Ryan Ferriera. Luke Stewart joins him on bass for one track. Pirog's wife and musical collaborator Janel Leppin plays pedal steel guitar on another. 

These meetings of the minds are heavily ambient, where the sounds of strings being struck are rarely heard, only the tones that resonate afterward. Some tracks could be mistaken from releases on the kranky label, while others have a prog feel or evoke the Bowie/Eno collaborations.