April 12, 2007

THE CADRE * 70

ARTS & ENT!

ARTAIN

ANT

Watch out for Zuma this summer at local venues

Kent Aitken

Reporter

Occasionally CDs just show up in the Cadre office, sent by artist or record labels looking for press. I gave up

on the Cadre collection in a hurry; album covers featuring girls with zombie makeup wearing bikinis fail to inspire me.

With that in mind, the Zuma CD that appeared one day was a nice break. The handwritten note taped to the case was a nice touch, asking us to listen to it twice and emphasiz- ing that point with no less than two exclamation marks.

Zuma, as it turns out, is made up of 4 Islanders who previously had been playing as a cover band. “Pleased to Meet You,” the 10-song album they sent us, is their first CD as well as a showcase of their recent evolution to original music.

“Zama is a Neil Young album from 1975. It’s also a beach in California,” explained Iain McCarvill, “we threw out about 100 names and that’s the one that stuck.” Jain shares the front of the stage and the songwriting du- ties with Dan Paynter. Iain’s cousin, Liam McCarvill holds down the bass and Derrick Curley plays drums.

The boys draw heavily on clas- sic rock for their sound, citing The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd as influences, but Zuma’s their name for a reason.

“We're all huge Neil Young fans.”

The classic rock shows in their songs. Many of their songs definitely reflect a Neil Young vibe and the scattered harmonica re- inforces it. In an indie- rock culture, launching into the style Zuma has is rare. While their age, unfortunately, is betrayed in their song- writing, the songs are generally well put to- gether and Zuma puts a respectable effort for the tradition they want to carry. “Any Road” is a great song and an example of their effort;

“UFO” is an example of their age and I can’t help wishing the song was about something completely differ- ent.

Two of Zuma’s members currently go to school at UNB, so although the CD was recorded recently, the band is laying low until the summer.

“Basically [we] would just like to play a few gigs at Baba’s and around.”

In the meantime, K-Rock’s been playing two of their songs, “Pleased to Meet You” and “Second Hand Stoned.”

McCarvill explained the song Sec-

Local band Zuma poses in this undated handout photo

ond Hand Stoned.

“Tt’s about a guy who made a prom- ise to his girlfriend that he wouldn’t get high, so he’ll just go into the room with [his friends] and breath in the air.”

After mentioning that their CD is being recorded through talks with Lloyd Doyle, the head of PEI-based Sandbar Music, McCarvill said they weren't concerned about getting signed, instead focusing on gigs and building a fan base.

“Maybe get some people looking

Submitted photo

into us rather than us looking into them,” he said.

With the semester winding down and Zuma’s members coming home, you might start spotting them around town. Zuma’s got the rock sound impressively figured out, throw around some sincerely appreciated harmonica, and Paynter and McCa- rvill harmonize well. As their song- writing gains experience Zuma could add a distinctly different flavour to the Prince Edward Island scene.

Japanese Folklore, Murder, Summer Romance and More Murder: The Decemberists going four for four so far in CD releases

Kent Aitken Reporter Japanese folk legends don’t generally play the muse for North American rock bands, but The Decemberists deserve better than skepticism. In the past they’ve turned sea shanties and Celtic folklore into their unique sound (an entire EP in the case of The Tain, née “Tain Bo Cuailnge” when it was merely an Irish epic), so why not a story about a man marry- ing a woman who is secretly a crane? Two or three stories, actually, depending on who’s counting. The title tracks for the new CD include “The Crane Wife 3” and “The Crane Wife 1 and 2.” This isn’t the only occurrence of blended songs in their

repetoire — Besides the three separate songs making up “The Island” on The Crane Wife (released October 3), The Tain EP was a single track with

5 parts clocking in at just under 20 minutes.

The unique storylines fit well into front man Colin Meloy’s style, whose songs are usually as much short stories as they are songs anyway. In “The Island,” Meloy weaves together a setting in part 1, introduces charac- ters (and unspeakable intentions) in part 2 while managing a “Whiskey in the Jar” quote, and implies the climax in the denouement in part 3. The entire tale drifts over 13 minutes of evolving music, but as it’s winding down you ask “wait a second, did he

actually do what I think he did?,” and probably will have to wait for another listen.

Meloy actually narrates songs from the point of view of a killer at least a few times over his 4 LPs and 3 EPs. It makes you wonder how he man- ages to tell such varied stories as if he’s lived them while praying that he hasn’t.

It’s not a// tragedy, murder and revenge though; The Decemberists step out of the darkness as often as necessary to lighten the mood with quicker moving and less disturbing songs, which generally come with less detailed stories. The Crane Wife splits the track space equally between these two themes. They produce songs

that immediately entice you but have enough quality to avoid the repre- hensible label of “catchy,” all the while staying true to the rich feel that makes you think they were brought up on a pirate ship.

I can’t say that the ambitious The Crane Wife is their best album, ow- ing to the quality of their previous releases so far and the slight drag I feel mid-album. Fortunately, that’s only a couple handfuls of minutes out of a great hour and The De- cemberists’ talent for putting songs together is still working like a charm. Some would call The Decemberists an acquired taste. Agreed. It’s the Johnny Walker of indie rock and it’s worth getting into.