testface
doctor won't you get us to dawn
(sleepsound | broken sparrow ) 2005

"the warm women in your life will pass through you like water".

doctor won't you get us to dawn grabs you by the nape of the neck at the start ("all the glass prayers"), but by "pinwheels in the daffodils" - seven of a total eleven tracks here - you're laid out in the field rubbing your legs together attempting to make music as finely crafted as Dave Snider and his testface creation.

I got an early version of "doctor", complete with handcrafted artwork and graph paper-printed lyrics - but the music placed on the origami-screened cd-r plays just the same as the version you're going to find. This album is the much anticipated (only seven years) follower to 1998's What To Cut ("crazy, crazy"), and the wait is so damn worth it when it comes to a testface album. On "Pinwheels", Snider states "I'll be the good son one more time" and later follows that with "well I'm tired too, but not tired like you" - all this embraced by his key core of backing players (on record, members of Armored Frog and Tracker shine like crazy, priceless rubies).

It IS the care and attention to unmatched detail that makes albums like these (the rare, the few, the obsolete) so fucking brilliant - the way a vocal is placed just below the drums, but around the keys (see: "picture picture"), or placing the vocals down in a well that is shared by an acoustic guitar and a trail of barely audible feedback ("hold on merry go round" - the track that reveals the albums title line).

One of the finest 2005 will reveal - and another from Sleepsound Records.

".. .stay away from my scenario".

+ kaleb :: (08.05.04)