I’m not ashamed to admit that I didn’t get it when I first heard Liftoff’s Sunday Morning Airplay.
But after the second listen, the effect was more… surreptitious. I had Saint Etienne dreams of chillwave proportions. The band is a new collabo of Steven Albert, Steve and Johnna Raskin (of Speedy Consuela), and Thievery Corporation’s Rob Myers. Together they don’t just create sounds; instead, they lay out rich soundscapes that recall the aforementioned Etienne, Calexico (by way of Ennio Morricone), and Portishead.
http://fortknox.bandcamp.com/track/marshmeadows
Airplay has a musical storytelling approach that glides between Spaghetti Western motifs and dreamy sunshine pop à la The 5th Dimension. This may sound like an odd combination, but it’s been experimented with before. Damon Albarn once mixed American roots music with Michael Nyman’s orchestral compositions (the Ravenous Soundtrack). Morricone spent decades adding pop themes to old western concertos. Though it’s its own unique sound, Airplay is part of this melodic stream of consciousness.
The album begins with a season, “Autumn.” It’s a brooding track that starts with a lo-fi twinkle, like the sun emerging from the vast, dusty horizon at dawn. Then the romp and stomp of the bass drum enters like the cavalry. The track suddenly becomes the soundstage of the six-string samurai Rob Myers, entering with the dreamy pizzicato of the sitar. “Autumn” is the warm-up track for the musicians, who are very adept at making their sounds splash, then congeal into Gregorian-like harmonies.
Vocalists Steven Albert and Johnna Raskin enter Airplay with “Summer’s Shown.” They add throaty arrangements that feel like an incantation. Their folksy interplay brings into fruition Mother Nature’s most cherished tug-of-war of the seasons, Indian Summer. The instrumentals—throughout—act like a leitmotif to the fall solstice. Steven and Johnna’s singing, on the other hand, travels throughout your senses and rallies for more summer. The song is a reminder that summer is never forgotten, especially since it’s recurrent.
Sunday Morning Airplay ventures into the post-modern with songs such as “High Sis,” “Off Yer Feet,” “EmilyMaryAliceKatherine” and “Kool It Man.” Each of these songs is cerebral and didactic. I can imagine an up-and-coming artist being complete completely spellbound by each of these songs and experimenting, using them as patterns for his or her own style.
The final act of this album—that is, the last five or six tracks—is quite extraordinary, albeit unusual. Each of Liftoff’s players throws down, taking turns showcasing his or her own signature moves. Most notable is Albert’s vocals in “Nothing is Something.” It can’t be duplicated, but if there were any audible references I could make, think of a mellower version of Robert Wyatt’s (of Soft Machine) more nasally sound. Johnna Raskin is the main vocalist in “Shine,” which mixes her ethereal voice with low glitch and upbeat drums. There are, of course, hints of Thievery-style grooves with Rob Myers and Steve Raskin acting as viceroys to the musical ensemble.
Sunday Morning Airplay is released by Fort Knox Recordings digitally today and on vinyl this fall and is currently available to stream in its entirety on Bandcamp. It is so singular in its style it may already be creating an infrastructure of new sounds to adopt. It’s both chill like the revolving earth and rampant like fingers on a fretboard.
And hopefully, the album will be an entrée to more Liftoff releases.
We’re giving away a 12″ single from Liftoff’s Sunday Morning Airplay, “Kool It Man”! Since this album has some sounds of the Old West, you can enter to win by telling us your favorite Western theme. I mentioned Morricone and Calexico. You can too—just choose a specific song!
The winner must have a mailing address in the continental US or Canada and will be selected on Tuesday, September 13th. Good luck.
