Near Castlegar - In January (1996) [Shrimper, SHR72, CD]
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What Does This EP Sound Like?
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Tracklist:
1. Sweet Kryptonic Blue
2. Missionaries
3. Broken Hornet
4. Young Yarrow
5. Untitled
6. Those Wasted Afternoons (Are Gone Forever...)
This was another Justice Schanfarber project (Pork Queen, Good Horsey) though I don't think they had any output beyond this EP. Personnel were Schanfarber on nearly everything; Michael Ledwidge on drums, strings on "Sweet Kryptonic Blue" and keyboards on "Young Yarrow"; and Jason Zumpano on drums on "Missionaries".
Now, here's what makes this EP interesting for the gumshoe-minded here at Claremont Cometh. Michael Ledwidge and Jason Zumpano both played in Vancouver band Zumpano, alongside A.C. Newman. If you want to play 6 Degrees Of Separation From Shrimper, this is your free space. A.C. Newman gets you to New Pornographers, you can really stretch out from there.
As for the EP itself, you can tell from the clips that there's a mix of things here. What really struck me was track 5, "Untitled", which has more of a dreamy ambient quality to it, some different noise textures coming in at intervals. Repetition. The underlying tones that continue throughout give you that particular vibe of... say you're playing a Playstation 2 JRPG and you're not quite to the final boss, but you're very much in the final boss's pocket dimension on the way to fight them. You're hearing something like this. The cyclical noise tones entering at the 2-minute mark give it a different texture, but after they fade out and you're getting some guitar noise instead, definitely back to "this final boss is going to monologue about the nature of the human spirit and then beat the shit out of me, if I don't put up 3 barriers on exactly the correct turn". I say all this with, it must be stated, an intense appreciation for this style of composition and this kind of music. It situates you, mentally. It's a joy to have something like this pop up in between Schanfarber's singer/songwriter and guitar work, which is great on its own.
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