[rating=9.00]
Any suckers for eclectic musical unions will have no trouble sinking their teeth into Slow Moses’ (formally known as Wooden Indian) newest release, Charity Binge, the band’s first on Jealous Butcher Records. The Phoenix-based quintet – who two of its lead members last year joined Califone for a national tour with The War on Drugs -have somehow fused the convoluted melodic structures of psychedelic rock with the driving polyrhythms of West African highlife; add to this the sober judgement of pop sensibility, and the end result proves an original, surprisingly coherent and, at times, curiously brilliant sound—perhaps what one could reasonably expect to hear after feeding a heavy dose of muscle relaxers to Animal Collective.
Charity Binge’s ten cuts tend to be structured around either a complex guitar riff that blurs the distinction between lead and rhythm, or a deceptively simple chord progression, as in the tune “Singing to the Deaf,” whose opening restraint mutates, over the course of three minutes, into a wild hypnotic tapestry of syncopated melodies, warbles and trills that strike at every corner of a cavernous sonic landscape. Indeed, Slow Moses’ sensitivity to both the complexities and simplicities of songwriting is among their defining attributes.
An exotic, sophisticated guitar melody winds through the center of “Oh, Bembeya,” singer-songwriter Wally Boudway’s tribute to Guinean giants of Afropop, Bembeya Jazz National—also his belated eulogy for that band’s lead singer, Demba Camara, who died in a car accident in 1973: “Even when I’m dying all alone, fingering the holy ghost on my cellphone/The sound you make, it cuts to the bone/Your big thumb strums the power lines.”
In “Teenage Sun,” bass guitar and drums are first to fade into mix, both dialed into a sprawling, midtempo groove, walking circles around a pair of reverb-drunk guitars still rubbing sleep from their eyes.
Of course, not all of Charity Binge’s ten cuts hue to the conventions of Afropop. “Amen” clearly derives from the band’s psych-pop roots. A quick, punchy snare pop keeps the air fresh while the guitar and keys scream in unison, back and forth across high and low registers in a single, breathtaking hook.
Lyrically, the songs are every bit as complex as the music. The sluggish, humid “Fever Dream” ruminates over a relationship that’s grown grotesquely unequal and one-sided, with someone who’s all but run off with all the good stuff: “I know I’m your lever/I’m at your control/So come get me whenever/I’ll be your glass half full.” In the haunting “Lily, I Can See,” the speaker’s beloved seems even further removed. “I don’t want to wake up/With your smile inside my skull/Just like a wild bird flying through/An airport terminal.”
Charity Binge might just have some enduring power, too, especially in the downtown Phoenix music scene. One listen is enough at least to demonstrate how desperately committed Slow Moses is to its art. These compositions were clearly nurtured, cultivated, even subjected to harsh interrogation, and ultimately stripped apart and rebuilt before any saw the light of day. In short, Slow Moses means business, they take their work seriously—a much-needed breath of a new sort of air.
