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This is one of those times when I've found something so simple yet appealing, that it amazes me that I haven’t seen it done before and even that I hadn’t thought of doing it myself. What Subcons duo Fletcher Foti and Richard Bruno have done is made an album with 24 tracks, each of which represents an hour of a day. And upon further observation, I realized each represents stages in a relationship. At first I was clueless as to why the first and last tracks were blank, but now that I see how it’s all structured, it’s very cool.
Track listing:
01
02
03
04
05
06 Preludio
07 Making Up the Rules
08 Head for Home
09 Golden
10 Four Girls
11 When I Was Thirteen
12 Intermzzo
13 Shiela Kennedy
14 Don't Wanna
15 Not Enough
16 Pray
17 24 Hours
18 Postludio
19
20
21
22
23
24
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This isn’t just a clever theme album, it’s an experience. The Subcons take you through each hour, as well as each heart-breaking moment, with fitting, evolving music. But with the music are bits of background noise, musical props so to speak, like the silence during the sleeping hours, crickets introducing the six ‘o’ clock track, and studio sounds and conversations lilting through subsequent tracks, all bringing the listener more deeply into their architectural design.
It starts out slowly, bright and cheery, with crickets, then clocks, and then a catchy chorus singing “the rain is gone, the time has come, the sun is up, it shines for everyone.” The feeling here, created with rising and enigmatic chord structures, is something like that unknowing yet thrilling expectation that fills you when you have a young, or intense crush. By eight a.m. they’ve met and are singing “I could never be the one to hold you tight/ but it’s okay to feel this way tonight/ because today the world will fade away and we’ll be left alone/ the next day the world will be the same and I will head for home,” and simply appreciating moments shared.
A little time passes, and we see the boy fall for the girl who’s sitting in the sun around nine, and soft, sweet guitars follow – happy tunes, love songs. In the afternoon complications arise, and by this time I’m so engrossed in the album that, though I’m not in that boat myself, I start to get that sinking feeling. The feeling has turned to sweetly sad songs, and there’s almost nothing sadder to me than sweetly sad. By bedtime the music’s confused and even backwards (think Siouxsie’s “Peek-A-Boo”) at points. How fitting. Of course, the story's not quite so simple, there are subplots, complexities, and so on, this is an overview of a very common yet compelling story that most anyone can relate to.
This album got me, it easily pulled me into the familiar storyline, yet in a wholly original way. The album came with a description saying they’re comparable to the playfulness of The Shins and The Unicorns. Comparisons to bands I absolutely love usually make me leery, but I was pleasantly surprised that they did have that playful yet smart and offbeat sound like these bands possess. And most importantly, the songwriting’s there.
*P.S., don't forget to check out their site and click on the little guy with wings.
-Jennifer Hall 12/13/04
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