 |
|
|
REVIEWS: MORE SAD HITS From the original release: “Like real water in a world of soda pop.” — Robert Wyatt REVIEWS OF THE 2008 REISSUE: The Sunday Times (London) Must-have reissue The Wire Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang originally released their debut duo album in 1992, under the tutelage of producer Kramer, who helped shape their creative identity as a duo, on the rebound from the disintegration of Galaxie 500 (they had actually retired from the music business the previous year, after releasing an EP as Pierre Etoile). More Sad Hits has gained in stature over the years, where originally it seemed to be something of a footnote, a fragile echo of an already brittle-sounding group. In fact it operates on two principles, potentially at odds with one another: firstly, the urge to expand musical horizons beyond the Galaxie 500 blueprint (here, in the process of finding their own voice, they cover Soft Machine and sample Madame Butterfly); and secondly, a retreat from the whole being-in-a-group scene, with instead a journey inwards, in a sustained contemplative state. In following both these impulses, and successfully reconciling them, Damon & Naomi create a self-contained world of sound that drifts on softened harmony vocals and the fragile, almost bottomless, rhythms of sparsely strummed guitars. Kramer skillfully lets this music breathe with only the sparsest of adornments. Newly reissued, this sounds oddly prescient, with a haunting, near-weightless folk-rock quality. [nb: the Madame Butterfly reference isn't correct, it was actually The Magic Flute!] Mojo Once more with feeling for the uxorious Bostonians' 1992 debut. When Galaxie 500 fell asunder in 1991, bookish, romantically linked rhythm section Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang almost quit music to devote themselves to their cult publishing house, Exact Change (which still thrives). Persuaded of their latent songwriting talents by New York Svengali/producer Kramer, the pair gravitated to guitars and keyboards, first as the short-lived Pierre Etoile, then reverting to their given names to unite with Kramer and cut More Sad Hits. Rudimentary of strum and clattering of drum as it is, Yang and Krukowski's sophisticated pop ear is nonetheless much in evidence, notably on opener E.T.A. -- its Velvets-indebted indie chug emblazoned with the duo's soaring, plagal harmonies. Little Red Record Co, meanwhile, comes with medieval woodwinds and This Car Climbed Mt. Washington (first aired on Pierre Etoile's sole EP) rocks out to unlikely but pleasingly anthemic effect. Uncut: Reissue of early 90s lo-fi classic, by former Galaxie 500 members By 1992, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang had served as members of much-garlanded indie shamblers Galaxie 500, and as a duo trading as Pierre Etoile. It was at this point that they were chivvied into a studio by Galaxie 500's producer Kramer, also major domo of eccentric New York imprint Shimmydisc. The album that resulted is commendable for distilling most of the virtues of the lo-fi ethos of Galaxie 500/Kramer while largely avoiding its vices. Which is to say that More Sad Hits is modest, honest, human, organic-sounding and riddled with some exquisite tunes, without descending into wilful amateurism or irritating wackiness. The wistful "Laika" suggests a garage Cocteau Twins, while the mournful "This Car Climbed Mount Washington" summons a pale and interesting ghost of Robert Wyatt - who enthused about "More Sad Hits" at the time, and with good reason. The Independent - Arts & Books Following the break-up of slowcore pioneers Galaxie 500, Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski eschewed music in order to pursue other artistic interests, until their old producer Kramer badgered them enough to get back in a studio. The result was More Sad Hits, an achingly beautiful album of studious simplicity, reflecting in part the influence of Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom, to which they had been listening obsessively. It's aptly titled: featuring Yang's plaintive vocal over rudimentary guitar strummage, the opening track "E.T.A." evokes the situation of losing a loved one in an air crash, while "Little Red Record Co" mournfully considers the contradiction of the pop industry operating at the nexus of culture and commerce, questioning the efficacy of ambition as a spur to creativity. The melancholy tone continues through tracks like the prescient "Information Age", before finding redemption of sorts in the nobility of endurance suggested in "Once More". Their voices are perfectly attuned to the material, Yang's uninflected innocence pairing seamlessly with Krukowski's dismayed-choirboy tones, while the sparse basic arrangements offer Kramer full rein to indulge his psych-rock leanings, including passages of backwards guitar, washes of mellotron and Hammond organ, and operatic samples in the manner of Holger Czukay. Pitchfork When Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang's debut album More Sad Hits was originally released in 1992, it shared a sonic aesthetic with the UK shoegaze scene that had been on slow burn for a number of years. As the former rhythm section of Galaxie 500, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, duo had already identified with the enigmatic sound of groups such as Cranes, Cocteau Twins, and Slowdive. More Sad Hits continued this trade of influences: blurring boundaries with guitars that sound like synths, keyboards that sound like guitars wired to a dozen glorious chorus pedals, and massive, lush song structures. Choosing More Sad Hits as a title could well be seen as a gently sarcastic nod to this period of shoegazing, which frequently featured bleak, melodramatic lyrics-- something Damon and Naomi also craft well, though their music at this time was more light-hearted in sound than some of their more goth-influenced contemporaries. On first impressions the material on More Sad Hits can feel overly repetitive and somewhat passive compared to the extraordinary beauty of Galaxie 500's greatest moments, which makes it an easy album to navigate, but trickier to love immediately. It needs time. The vein of fragility that overrides the sound-- wistful vocal melodies, seemingly sloppy song structures-- is deceiving, because the songs gradually reveal themselves as multifaceted and deftly spun compositions that allow intrigue to flourish within even the most delicate passages. In songs such as "Laika" and "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" (a different version was originally released in 1991, on their only EP recorded under the short lived moniker Pierre Étoile) Yang's bass lines are mixed far below the happy-go-lucky jangle of Krukowski's rhythm guitar, yet it is these low, pondering tones that ground the song, telegraphing a sense of melancholy that will be comfortingly familiar to all fans of shoegaze and slowcore. It seems odd that Damon and Naomi were met with a doubtful reception when they first started out on their own, following the departure of former Galaxie 500 vocalist Dean Wareham (who consequently went on to form Luna)-- a classic case of associating a band with its vocalist rather than recognizing the collective input of the musicians as a whole. More Sad Hits was originally intended as Damon and Naomi's swan song to music, and an album that they previously admitted they didn't think would ever get made. Sixteen years later they have released six more albums-- which includes some memorable live and recorded material with the great Japanese band Ghost. Remastered and repackaged, More Sad Hits takes Damon and Naomi back to the beginning and reignites the building blocks of a duo that continues to thrive. Record Collector Reissued on their own 20-20-20 label, More Sad Hits is the lovingly remastered and carefully packaged debut from half of Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang. Following the dissolution of their previous group, the couple spent a year in the musical hinterland. They were coaxed back into action by Galaxie producer Kramer, who also funded the album and released it on his Shimmy Disc label in 1992. The prodcuer's faith was rewarded; More Sad Hits remains an enchanting listen. Many records of its ilk and era have aged badly, buried under artificial synthesizers and cheesy drum sounds, but time has been kind to this debut. Damon & Naomi's is a dreamy but somewhat eerie sound, Naomi's voice providing a cut-glass counterpart to the musical bittersweet swirl. There's an evident progression from the Galaxie sound, with influences dreived from European folk music, jazz and standards (the closing cover of the French ballad This Changing World acts as a languidly beautiful coda to the album). After seemingly slipping from the critical radar for some time, this reissue should remind music fans of a highligh of early 90s indie music. Drowned in Sound They say time is a great healer, and in the case of one time two-thirds of Galaxie 500 Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, it was more a case of indulging in a spot of reflective therapy culminating in More Sad Hits, their first recording as a duo. Initially released to a largely unsuspecting public in a quite underwhelming fashion back in 1992. The world was preparing itself for the grunge phenomenon that in a matter of months would change rock music forever; slowcore or any of its melancholic predecessors wasn't on the agenda back then. More Sad Hits could be considered something of a requiem mass extinguishing the traumatic last few months of Galaxie 500 - Krukowski and Yang didn't exactly hide the fact that the break-up with the other third of Galaxie 500 Dean Wareham was purely down to musical differences. Indeed, even the sleeve notes of this re-issue mention "the bad energy Wareham always brought into the studio with him", a clear sign that relations weren't exactly amiable between one and all for a long time. Between times, Krukowski and Yang had been listening to Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom almost continuously since the split, and it was largely due to the impact of that record from where More Sad Hits bore fruition. As with their previous works, esteemed producer Kramer found himself sat at the controls once again, and listening to the record now it becomes even more apparent how much of an influence he had on the end product, turning what could have ended up as being nothing more than an exercise in morose self-pity into a statute, grandiose affair whose inspiration would galvanise esteemed artists like Low and Neutral Milk Hotel (their song 'Naomi' is purely influenced by this record, fact fans) into writing some of the best music of their career, ultimately creating new sub-genres in the process. Kramer's input into the record actually goes beyond mixing desk duties, his guitar work coming to the forefront on two of the record's highlights 'E.T.A' and 'This Car Climbed Mt. Washington'. Not only did he help create arguably the finest hour of Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang's recording careers, he also firmly established himself as a maverick genius in the process, setting the standards for what was to come both from his own hands and those of his contemporaries in the future. However, let's not take anything away from the actual songs themselves here either. Twelve pieces of music in all, each and every one written at a time when neither party really had any inclination to carry on making music as widely illustrated in the lolloping 'Little Red Record Co.', which compares the music industry to a dictatorship similar to that of Chairman Mao. Elsewhere, their mournful, Hammond-saturated reading of Soft Machine's 'Memories' and ode to all things Wyatt 'Sir Thomas And Sir Robert' resonate with a dense, yet strangely familiar beauty that may have confused the living daylights out of a music underground searching for the ultimate rock fix back in '92, but now sound resolutely perfect in the current climate. Although More Sad Hits rarely finds itself mentioned in the same breath as Damon And Naomi's previous work such as 'On Fire', one suspects that is more down to circumstance than the actual quality, as this album hasn't merely improved with age, its finally found a place and era that can truly appreciate the greatness that is contained within. A funny thing, time, eh... Plan B When Galaxie 500 split and Dean Wareham slinked off to form Velvets clones Luna, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang went into hiding until coaxed out of semi-retirement by their producer, Kramer, who forced them into his Noise New Jersey studio in the summer of 1992. The result was this, More Sad Hits: where the slow-motion melt of late-period Galaxie 500 meets the duo's nascent interest in the mantric improvisations of Can and The Soft Machine. Indeed, sometimes More Sad Hits reads like an extended tribute to Robert Wyatt with song titles like 'Little Red Record Co' and 'Sir Thomas and Sir Robert'. It is notable that both Wyatt, and Krukowski and Yang, were rhythm sections frozen out of their first groups -- and they each responded with beautifully melancholy dissections of the human spirit. Damon and Naomi went on to become acid folk royalty, but here they're fragile, tender and still licking their wounds. In the process, they made one of the defining statements of their career. Junkmedia More Sad Hits is a reissue of the debut album from former Galaxie 500 members Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang. Originally released in 1992, one year after Galaxie 500's breakup, it represents their first attempt at writing and recording on their own. Even heard through the ears of a different decade, Naomi's voice still conveys the same feeling of melancholy and longing which is stunningly complimented by Damon's soothing, yet fragile, ambivalence. Their slightly eerie moments of contemplation in response to pivotal life-affirming questions are what create the album's overwhelming dreamlike atmosphere. Poetic lyrics and moody arrangements are never overdone or intentionally gloomy. They retain a bittersweet optimism and pop quality even during moments of intense reflection. During the ethereal "Astrafiammante," Naomi sings, "Will you call me from a phone in a burning field? / Sirens I hear scare me / Now that you're gone." The album is filled with singular moments like these, moments of raw sensitivity that build and build until they're brimming over with infinite sadness. But it's not a sadness that makes you feel upset or depressed. It's a comforting sadness, a relief that you have found a comparison for feelings that, on your own, may have been difficult to describe. And within the sensory-overload is the realized dream of two people who followed their creative path and came up with exactly what they were looking for. Is This Music? A year after Galaxie 500 dissolved, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang returned to producer their producer Kramer's studio and recorded this album chock-full of what have been described as psychedelic break-up songs. When Galaxie 500 had disbanded, they weren't even sure about continuing, and according to the sleevenotes to this re-issue, seemed to have enetered a stage of almost hibernation where they listened to Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom over and over again. Comrade Wyatt - and I use that phrase as warmly as possible - described this album on release as being "Like real water in a world of soda pop." It's so real, so pure…so different. Yes, of course you can hear aspects of Galaxie 500 in here, but if you've never heard Damon and Naomi before, don't simply expect them to sound like Luna. This is some of the most beuatiful and fragile music you will ever hear. Belle and Sebastian and Low amongst others must have been taking notes. But don't simply pigeonhole this as hardcore indie or slowcore or whatever. This is an album that has widely, and rightly, become regarded as an underground classic. now it's time for it to become as well-known as it deserves. Rock 'n' Reel Following the acrimonious dissolution of Galaxie 500, founding members Damon & Naomi were eventually persuaded by producer Mark Kramer to return to the studio to cut a series of tracks that would act as an unofficial swansong to the gourp. Shorn of the mounting commercial pressures and creative strains of their former venture, the result was an unapologetically romantic, deliriously heart-rending album here granted a timely reissue with glossy packaging and informative sleeve notes. Psychedelic in the very best sense of the word, Kramer's production plunges you head first into a watery dream world of sonic expanse and emotional intimacy best evidenced in the gorgeious daze of 'This Car Climed Mt. Washington'. Damon & Naomi's world is one where tears are indistinguishable from the cleansing drum of the rainfall outside, and even the most cynical soul will struggle to suppress a twinge of empathy with the yearning reverie of lines like, 'Will you call me / From a phone in a burning field?' An album whose stature grown with every passing year, the influence of More Sad Hits remains such that even its creators seem surprised to find themselves still around sixteen years on -- not bad for an album conceived as a languorous last hurrah. Subba-Cultcha From the ashes of much lauded, shoe-gaze-meets-Slint, late Eighties alt-rockers, Galaxie 500, begrudgingly rose unwilling folk-pop duo, Damon and Naomi. Despite insisting upon a departure from the music scene from which they'd become disillusioned, ever-faithful Galaxie 500 producer Kramer, bullied them out of hiding to record the songs he always knew they were secretly writing for themselves. When they finally agreed, it was to make a farewell album and the erstwhile rhythm section of '500 took to Kramer's home studio, laid out the bones for him and let him do the rest. The result is one of the most influential psychedelic pop records of the past two decades, garnering praise and imitation from the likes of Robert Wyatt and Neutral Milk Hotel. More Sad Hits is an album of playful yet melancholic pop tunes with a fervent focus upon pure song-writing and a dismissive attitude to the rock-posturing that so often accompanies it. Simultaneously sparse, yet densely populated with Kramer's best production work to date, it alternately plumbs the depths of human sorrow before soaring to the occasional vertiginous high. Since its first release on Kramer's own label, Shimmy Disc, it has ensured Damon and Naomi have been kept busy with six follow-up records and has been re-released by Sub Pop and now Damon and Naomi's own label 20|20|20. This is your third chance to bag this 16-year-old album and certainly the best 16-year-wait of the year. New-Noise.net Through their 20/20/20 label Damon & Naomi re-release their classic slowcore album 'More Sad Hits'. It is an album of great warmth and much beauty. It is indeed a classic album. It is an indie album that transcends its roots to reach soulful heights that most of its imitators aren't even aware of. The combinations of male/female voices allied to trippy psyche-rock that elevates it and sometimes smothers is what makes Damon & Naomi so special. 'More Sad Hits' is a timeless album that will probably still sound special in a further 16 years. Clash When More Sad Hits was released in 1992, the world was gripped by the grunge movement. At the same time, here in the UK, Britpop was still waiting to explode, which left Damon & Naomi somewhat overshadowed. Formerly two thirds of seminal 80s band Galaxie 500, the husband and wife combo are at their most melancholic on this album, but in a pensive, introspective way. Transporting you back, the echoey reverb of the vocals and downbeat dreariness is very of its time. If you're after some dreamy pop from the 1990s and haven't heard this album, you can't go wrong. Evening Telegraph First released in 1992 after the pair left low-fi pioneers Galaxie 500, this album became a cult classic adored by no less a rock grandee than Robert Wyatt. It's simple, beautiful and melancholic with the male and female voices meshing to create a genuine emotional force. PopMatters The best records seem more relevant with each passing year. To wit, "Information Age", the third song on Damon and Naomi's 1992 debut LP, now reissued on the duo's own label. It's about how more computers does not make it any easier to figure out your emotions, how a high-speed Internet connection won't save a relationship or help you make the right decisions about your life. The final verse feels especially pertinent these days: Computers crashing Choosing their way to go was exactly what the duo was doing in 1992. Not calculating a business move or planning a career, but quietly following their own path. It was their first album in the wake of their now-iconic first band, Galaxie 500. Damon and Naomi had previously released an EP, a tentative step towards making music on their own. 'Starting a new band' may have been done tentatively as well, but the truth is, instead of starting a new band, More Sad Hits represents them making music on their own for the first time: writing songs together, letting them be influenced by their tastes, no matter how esoteric or non-commercial. It's not about hitting the big time, it's about figuring out their own way to go. It's significant that they chose their own names as the band name. According to the liner notes, it was a move suggested by producer Kramer, a friend from the Galaxie 500 days who was a guiding force on More Sad Hits, helping them realize their own artistic visions and also adding to them, recording their songs clearly, playing interesting lead guitar, and bringing in unusual instruments to play. Those odd sounds are part of the album's atmosphere, which is slightly eerie but not in an overly mannered way. The mood is melancholy, not one of overwhelming doom. This isn't the sound of dreams collapsing forever, it's moments of quiet contemplation during big life changes. It is bittersweet farewells and anxious questions about what's next. The repeated lines at the end of the second song, "Little Red Record Co", capture the album's pondering of what's around the corner and its climate of potential disaster-"And when the bubble breaks / Will we fall too far / Will we fall in place / Or will it move us on?" There's a dreamy strangeness to that song, from the repetition and whatever weird instrument does the otherworldly solo. That mood highlights the poetry of the lyric, heightens its effect. More Sad Hits is filled with these powerful moments of longing and ambivalence from the synthesis of music, vocals, and lyrics, which all work together perfectly. The extended jam at the end of "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" is a pivotal moment of release. One of my favorite moments is Naomi Yang's voice sounding especially ghostly on "Astrafiammante", as she sings, "Will you call me from a phone in a burning field? / Sirens I hear scare me / Now that you're gone." Her voice is a transfixing presence throughout the album. In the opening song, "E.T.A.", she seems both floating and grounded. It's a startling introduction to the album's bittersweet beauty. When Damon Krukowski joins in, his voice not singing counterpoint, but as an echo; the sound of Damon and Naomi is complete. In truth, it's a sound that wasn't that distant from Galaxie 500, though they've grown further from it since. Luna is more often mentioned as heir to the Galaxie 500 legacy, since Dean Wareham was the frontman of both, but the atmosphere Galaxie 500 created is not forsaken here. This album claims that legacy just as often, maybe even more so, though it also represents them breaking off from the past, moving in their own direction. Much of the otherworldliness and emotional impact come from sounds and influences that Galaxie 500 never came close to. There are the hard-to-place instruments, sometimes vaguely old-World European; the cover of a Soft Machine song; the closing cover of a sentimental French ballad ("This Changing World"); the jazz drum solo used as a segue; the bits of opera worked into the texture of one song; another song that references Robert Wyatt; the soft psychedelia of the whole affair. Since then, Damon and Naomi have evolved their 'sad hits' into something even more inclusive and international, yet at the same time more personal and idiosyncratic. They've explored sadness, an infinite theme, but in diverse ways and touching on various other ideas. More Sad Hits was the beginning of Krukowski and Yang's career as the duo Damon and Naomi. It also was a remarkably gentle, sensitive, and thoughtful album for 1992, the year Nirvana hit the top of the charts, soon to usher in a legion of copycats. But More Sad Hits stands as more than just an important piece of history. It's a riveting work, an exemplary fulfillment of the album format: atmospheric pop music with numerous moments that absolutely crystallize hard-to-define feelings. It's comforting, sad music made for times of bad news. What music is better suited for today? As two musicians' statements of independence, it's also a call to make art in times of distress, to follow your own creative inclinations even within, or especially within, "this changing world". Organ (London) BEST REISSUE OF THE WEEK: Damon & Naomi - More Sad Hits (20/20/20) Burton Mail Originally released in 1992, when Nirvana were changing the world's listening preferences, this lovely collection of delicate, acoustic songs may have been misplaced in the timescale of popular music, but it sounds truly fresh and modern today. Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang are the duo whose names appear on the sleeve but really the album was made by a trio involving New York producer Kramer, whose subtle injections of sonic wizadry add a wonderful new dimension. Full of pathos and longing, haunting vocals and evocative melodies, More Sad Hits is a gleaming gem of loveliness and well worth 45 minutes of any music lover's time. Artrocker Once there was a group of sad falsetto psyechelicists known as Galaxie 500. They turned slow tricks of beauty, slices of pure melancholia, soaring sadness and ecstatic relief. Precursors of 'slo-fi,' a minimal skew to the wide left of the American indie scene in the early 1990s. Galaxie 500 split and became, on the major label hand, Luna, a group fronted by singer Dean Wareham, in thrall to New York postpunk janglestars The Feelies. And on the other, Damon and Naomi. Slighted by the split, and wilfully independent, D&N's debut, produced by Kramer, wayward honcho of Shimmy Disc, reissued here, ironically entitled in memory of their previous lives and in celebration of what was to come. What do you get? A warm collection of fuzzy hugs, acoustic guitar ditties performed on thin silver electric wires, group singing activities, communal laments. Eclectic electric psychedelic folk long before the likes of Devendra Banhart considered the possibilities of organic futurism. Lysergic guitar drapes invitingly around Damon and/or Naomi's fragile vocals, occasionally a Hammond organ swirls around, blue like ice, throughout a strummed untreated electric guitar grounds the listener in the songs. Like a tightrope from the tip of mid 1980s twee to the summit of early twenty first century acoustic movement, and more together than Belle and Sebastian, this East Coast psych reflects the quiet moments of the Velvets, and provided a watercolour background to grunge's super saturated splatter. Gentle, effective. For slow grey winter afternoons. The Independent The reissued 1992 debut album from Galaxie 500's rhythm section stands up well for its understated fragility. The lush playing bridges lo-fi slowcore and shoegaze, with swooning dream-pop tunes to distinguish. The results resonate as a gently assertive statement of intent and independence. The Shropshire Star More Sad Hits is lovely. It features the beautiful voices of Damon and Naomi, who released this record a year after the break up of Galaxie 500. Melancholy in style, it is an evocative and tender release of frail, beautiful songs. The duo make intelligent ever-so-slightly psychedelic songs that are romantic, lush and ethereal. Mesmerising. Fans will welcome the reissue of this much-sought-after classic. The Crack This is a re-issue of Damon & Naomi's first album from 1992 and it remains a melancholic thing of delight. These songs seem to hang in the air, occasionally rising to reach graceful heights and then swooping down to sorrowful depths. This is an album which has steadily grown in its reputation and now seems about as good a time as any to pay it a revisit. The debut album by Galaxie 500's Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang is a masterclass in American indie melancholy, inhabiting the same realm of slowcore sadness as the likes of Low. Songs such as 'Little Red Record' and 'Information Age' are quietly robust in their fullness of arrangement, regardless of how emotionally frail the songs and their singers might initially seem, and although the album's title suggests a knowingness on the part of the artists with regards to how constructed their moroseness is, songs like 'This Car Climbed Mt. Washington' are by no means shrinking violets, calling upon soaring lead guitars and extended instrumental codas. 2008 seems like a pretty good time to re-familiarise yourself with Damon & Naomi's oeuvre, their particular brand of dream-pop tends to avoid the use of unnecessary, outdated effects so has more of a timeless feel than likeminded material by so many of their contemporaries. New Times As the forefathers of the eventually shoegazer and slowcore nation that arose in the 1990s, Galaxie 500 released three perfect albums of beautiful, atmospheric pop songs that turned down the avalanches of feedback and distortion used by My Bloody Valentine, yet still had as much emphasis on textual effects and dreamy melody. When the vocalist/guitarist Dean Wareham left the trio to form Luna, the two remaining members, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang banded together and continued on with some coaxing by ubiquitous indie musician/producer Mark Kramer. Originally released in 1992, Damon & Naomi's debut More Sad Hits now gets remastered and repacked masterfully with linear notes written by the pair themselves, as they take a walk back into their past memories. Ghostly pretty, there are hints of the Cocteau Twins-hauntingly ethereal, yet with less gloom, all softed by Naomi's gentle voice. While not as glorious and balanced as Galaxie 500's output, this is a great soundtrack to your next rainy day, giving your Mazzy Star albums a deserved break. AU After the dissolution of Galaxie 500, the surviving members, Damon and Naomi, had to be badgered by their erstwhile producer Kramer into making another album. So burnt were they by the manner in which 500 ran its course, they considered it their swansong to the listening public, if anything at all. In fact, it became their debut in a career that now finds them on their seventh. Today, this remastered reissue finds itself on their own 20-20-20 label, but is it the lo-fi classic it was once declared? Romantic, sparse and numbing, its endless 4/4 strumming propel us to bleakly melodic indie horizons, More Sad Hits has proved influential and is worth (re-) discovering. It is an album unrettingly blank in tone, rising and falling in a Prozac daze of music that sounds more abandoned than offered up to be lauded. Originally released back in '92, "More Sad Hits", Damon & Naomi's debut release following the split of previous band Galaxie 500, showed the songwriting strengths of the epomymous duo. Without the restrictions placed on them by being in band, the pair distilled dream pop out of the indie brew. Some sixteen years later the impact of this band's influences on music can be more easily measured against the source and it holds up remarkably well. Highly innovative and inspirational, it's standing up to the test of time and remains a great record. The Skinny n their previous incarnation as arch sleep-rockers Galaxie 500, Damon and Naomi carved an interesting niche for themselves in the 80s Sub Pop scene. 17 years after striking out together, the duo have re-released their debut More Sad Hits. Reminiscent of the psychedelia of 13th Floor Elevators and the folky, dreamy soundscapes of Cocteau Twins, it certainly lives up to its melancholic title. Songs like Once More and This Car Climbed Mt Washington are quite poignant American indie, and the simply strummed Sir Thomas and Sir Robert evokes what The Pastels were doing over this side of the Atlantic around the same time. Overall, there is a stark and frail beauty to the work which stands out in 2008. True to the title though, if you make it through the whole 12 tracks in one go you might find yourself reaching for something like Steptacular for a bit of emotional redress. Magnet After Galaxie 500 burned to the ground in 1991 at the hands of frontman Dean Wareham's blazing ego, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang retreated and, as they outline in the liner notes to this reissue, "turned our attention to other artistic pursuits: painting, writing, publishing books." Lucky for us, G500 producer Kramer coaxed the couple back into the studio. Freed, as they put it, from Wareham's "bad energy" and enthralled by Kramer's trove of recording gear, Damon & Naomi made the most of their second act, Yang's ethereal vocals supplying an instant signature as they essayed the peripatetic, slide-guitar dream pop of "E.T.A.," the strummy freak-folk of "Laika" and more. From the vivid Man Ray photo adorning the sleeve (now a mini-LP design) to a bluesy cover of Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper's "Memories" and a Twin Peaks-esque take on Claudine Longet's "This Changing World," 1992's More Sad Hits signals an artistic pursuit. Out of the cinders of G500, the duo emerged dreamily optimistic and triumphant. SoundsXP In 1992, apart from one spot of musical dabbling as Pierre Etoile, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang were contemplating pursuing other art interests and book publishing after the acrimonious dissolution of Galaxie 500 but were persuaded by Kramer to return to the studio. It was a good decision; the now reissued 'More Sad Hits' (originally on Kramer's Shimmy Disc record label) marked their debut as Damon & Naomi, setting the scene for their gently romantic, introspective dreampop. In the UK it would have sat alongside the shoegazers, although there's also a clear Velvet Underground influence carrying over from their Galaxie 500 days, but this was more poetic and intellectual and what stands out is the intensity of the communication between the partners and their producer/ co-player Kramer. There's a wistful, ethereal sense of melancholy on 'Laika', 'E.T.A.' and the wonderful 'This Car Climbed Mt Washington'. There's also a lightness of touch that you sometimes don't associate with the clever, serious Damon and Naomi, in the cover of Soft Machine's 'Memories', complete with mod-pop Hammond organ, and 'This Changing World', a version of a song sung in English translation by Claudine Longet but originally a 1968 Eurovision Song Contest also-ran for Line et Willy. From the cover (a Man Ray photograph) inwards, it's a striking work, on a par with the Galaxie 500 releases that preceded it and laying down a template that has been much replicated by others and seldom matched. It's one of those re-releases that actually earns the title 'classic' and is essential listening. |
|