Sunday, March 29, 2009

We Are Catamaran: 3P Revue



Callum Plews is a music production major here at SUNY Purchase!! and is also the throbbing brain-cock behind We Are Catamaran, a loose collective-type group of musicians. Well, the other day, dear Callum gave me a couple of rolled cigarettes and a sneak preview of We Are Catamaran's upcoming album, which will be entitled Baby Anne Is In The Fireplace Part One. We Are Catamaran seems to be Callum's pet project, as the performers on each track vary, with Callum as the only constant element. One of the performers featured on this album is Emma Tringali, who, once upon a time, was a SUNY Purchase!! student herself, but has since dropped out to focus on her own musical ambitions. Another dropout (lol) on this album is the utterly fantastic keyboard Wizard Albert Goold. Albert and the total asshole loser drummer Nicholas Shapiro play on "First Fire," which originated as a recording made in their shared dorm room before Callum came in and mic'd everything up. The few songs I heard from the aforementioned/unreleased album/EP/3P, sounded pretty good, though there were a few moments when the production was just too swampy to really discern what was going on. I mean, I LOVE reverb. We all LOVE it. But you can't just put it on everything. For the most part however, the production is pretty well done, at least on the instruments. The shutter drums on "Second Fire" sound vaguely reminiscient of Radiohead's "Videotape," and the whole song just starts off like a disney musical; and then Emma and Miles Roxas come in, and, don't get me wrong, they have great voices, but the sound is overproduced, in my opinion, and something is lost in the layering of effects and whatnot. At times there is a lot happening, and it's all sort of midrange stuff, which makes it hard to concentrate on the swirling shit going around. Overall, however, I definitely see a lot of potential; and the music isn't cliched or played out, it is, at least, strange. So that's good. Also, any musicians looking for a producer, I would reccomend seeking out Callum, or his production outfit, DLR Studios.

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