papercranes | Vidalia (Mother May I)

The group’s songs are simple in concept and tepid in execution, and don’t seem to have required six minds to conceive.

 

All that you need to know about papercranes is the following: Joaquin Phoenix’s sister, Rain (don’t confuse her with doomed child star River) fronts a band. A sextet, in fact. Their full-length debut, Vidalia, is pretty much what you would expect from a band that refuses to capitalize the first letter of their name, which is in some ways kind of refreshing (what you see is too often not what you get with music these days). And what you get is about half an hour’s worth of half-hearted, haven’t-I-heard-this-before whiney-woman music which one can euphemize as “ethereal.” That’s papercranes in a nutshell…but if I’ve somehow piqued your interest, read on.

The question that comes to mind while listening to Vidalia (does that sound like a male enhancement drug to anyone else?) is if Phoenix really needs those five other dudes in the band, because musically, papercranes could have gotten by as a trio. The group’s songs are simple in concept and tepid in execution, and don’t seem to have required six minds to conceive. “Here,” with its silly soundbites of children playing, is about as experimental as the band gets—and what’s up with those lyrics? “We’re all made the same/in different ways”—didn’t we all hear that in Kindergarten? Phoenix’s voice is just covering the territory that Tori Amos has already trampled all over, marked by a breathy whine, often sounding pained in its delivery, coughing up the lyrics rather than singing them. On “Treasure” (the band likes minimal-syllabic song titles), she actually sounds somewhat like Liz Phair, but with a chorus of “Am I the treasure/in your chest,” who cares?

The rest of the band only adds to the austerity. Droll guitar moans and limp keyboard burps serve no other purpose than propping up Phoenix’s limp vocals. The album’s press release describes these backing tracks as “ambient Eno-esque soundscapes,” but who are they kidding? Vidalia is the musical equivalent of using white paint on a blank canvas.

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