Manitoba
Up in Flames
(Leaf/Domino Records)
It's true that however timeless a record sounds, it is nonetheless of its time.
In this sense, Manitoba's Up in Flames demonstrates some neat musical and historic parallels. Drawing on musical styles birthed in times of provocation and dissent — the psychedelia of the Vietnam era, for example — actual Canadian Dan Snaith (aka Manitoba)
steers the quirky electronica subgenre of Scottish laptop duo Boards of Canada closer
to the mainstream.
Despite any hopes we may have had at the start of a new millennium, the stress fractures that gave rise to the social upheaval of the '60s are recurring today. While this has produced some darkly introspective art already, moody depression is certainly not the only possible response to war, uncertainty and the self-serving lies of politicians.
Others have realized this, too. Snaith's compatriots in Broken Social Scene, for example, recently channeled such post-traumatic anxieties into exuberant displays of sonic largess with their amazing You Forgot It in People. And that comparison is not lightly made. Both records borrow liberally from a multitude of styles, yet are distinct and confidently self-contained. Both acknowledge joy as a motivating force. Both are Canadian at a time when being Canadian wins you no brownie points in Washington (unwillingness to back a foreign war, and a new marijuana controversy ... surely Neil Young's reunion with CS&N is just around the corner). And, eerily, they even share a melodic theme: BSS's "Cause = Time" sounds so similar to Snaith's "Jacknuggeted" that you might posit some recent, fertile meme, something along the lines of musical dandelion seeds. As the past bleeds into the present, so contemporaries — contemporaries as disparate as indiepop collectives and solitary knob-twiddlers — accidentally cross-pollinate. This is true of any art form, but with music it can be wonderfully exhilarating.
If opener "I've Lived on a Dirt Road All My Life" recalls Madchester by way of Sgt. Pepper's with a breakbeat, other songs — "Bijoux" for example — look sidelong at the Flaming Lips and laugh conspiratorially. Barking dogs, croaking frogs, capricious giggling children come in and out of focus. Older IDM
tropes intrude only to wink out like short-lived stars, distant, no longer relevant.
The music speaks (and leaps and stomps and buzzes and swirls) for itself. "Skunks" is all summer Byrds guitars and squealing soprano sax. "Hendrix with KO" is a Pet Sounds in-law for this young century, with lush voices, joyous handclaps and digitally processed whirs coalescing effortlessly. "Crayon" is sweet nursery whimsy, the Jesus and Mary Chain stripped of their feedback roar, the candy without the psycho (although the sporadic deep-throated canine bark is worryingly ambiguous enough alongside such apparent innocence). From shoegazer rock to free jazz, big pop (Phil Spector's wall, Brian Wilson's surf) to breezy electronica, Snaith (along with fellow Ontarian vocalist/collaborator/producer Koushik Ghosh) revisits music's
many milestones and breathes life and spirit into them again.
Perhaps one particular song captures and distills everything that is good about Up in Flames: "Every Time She Turns Around It's Her Birthday" is epic electrobreakbeatpop a la
Mercury Rev, the Beatles, My Bloody Valentine and countless others, up to its damn gleeful elbows in experimental, madcap abandon.
The fusion of rhythm with textural washes of sound is near perfect in its seamless euphoria. Snaith has also supplemented all the usual digital suspects with unapologetic analog accompaniment — keyboards, flutes, sax, guitars. However these pieces of music are described, though, nothing will capture their seemingly endless capacity to surprise. The deep-timbre gallop and tumble of the drum sounds alone really have to be heard — and felt — to be believed.
We need this album; its timing is perfect. Our accelerated lives can easily accommodate
its 39 economical minutes. Its unabashed exuberance is a tonic. Basking in its luxurious mix
of beats and tones, we can recharge our weary souls, counterbalance the gloom — Manitoba is Cree for "where the spirit dwells," after all. The contrast with Snaith's last outing is truly astonishing. And besides, if those quiet, neighborly Canadians are really being less careful of late, this might not be a bad thing at all.
— David Antrobus (digitalis@shaw.ca)
