Owned since: 2012
Genre: Spoken word eclectic band backed stuff, let’s call it indie rock I guess
Where I bought it: Upset the Rhythm
Year: 2007
Label/pressing: Upset the Rhythm
There are few bands that are harder to google then Brendan Fowler’s BARR project. No it’s not a bar band, no it’s not some political stuff, and not it’s really a band? But it also kind of is. Confusion all around, which always seemed to fit BARR fine. Coming out of the same scene as Animal Collective, Fowler even played drums in Auto Mine, the proto-Collective slowcore band, and being a long time support act for fellow genreless weirdos Xiu Xiu and slotting in nicely between the weird spoken word mayhem of Listener. BARR is very much a product of its time. That time being 2007, really the only thing this record sounds of is 2007. Where this whole slew of weird American bands based in other art fields started to put out records that became niche or big and shaped a whole new generation of bands, pretty much. BARR reminds me of having a headache in a basement at 16:00 on a Sunday matinée show after someone’s spoken word meets electronics project just finished up.
Summary is a follow up to the more loose Beyond Reinforced Jewel Case and pairs Fowler with bassist Corey Dieckman making this kind of cut-and-paste damaged indie pop songs. There is not really a start or finish to a lot of these and they feel like very personal sketches. Down to maybe its most famous track The Song is the Single, going on about him getting very sick on a UK tour and references the Big Boys, skate-punk from Texas. I think the closest thing you can compare it with are the early Why? Records which sports the same kind of hip-hop charged band sound slowly morphing into spoken word. It’s a sound that very much of its time and I honestly think is pretty dated now, even Summary isn’t completely keeping up through it.
But while it might sound a bit tired these days, there is still a lot I like here when I’m in the mood for it. Fowler’s lyrics are self aware and funny enough to keep your interest the whole way through and mixes well with a bass, piano and percussion heavy backing track that hangs more to jazz in a sound than to indie rock, but never really plays into jazz song structures. It feels a lot like the jazz sampling on early 90s hip-hop records but played by a live band.
It’s all something that really gets on my nerves when I’m not in the mood for it, but when I am it’s absolutely great. Honestly, I wish I had more music like this because it’s rare for me to have a record that is so mood dependent for me to enjoy. Barr’s music is God-awful high school talking word stuff on one side with clunky backing, but on the other side it’s a very personal and interesting personal record where the minimal backing is a perfect fit. Even 14 years after release, I still haven’t made my mind up about this one which is rare for me to do and I honestly think that point will never be reached.
But hey, that is what can be so wonderful about art, it can play with your moods and opinion which is ever changing. I don’t want to listen to stuff that perfectly fits with my tastes all the time, that would make me a very boring person, I like to test it sometimes. And honestly, even beside some of the more experimental music I listen to, BARR really grinds way more at me than a lot of that does. It’s a project that doesn’t work but also works for me and still really keeps things grinding in my head.
This is the last BARR record also, and Fowler never really followed it up with a new musical project instead focusing on his art work. It’s fine, I honestly have no idea if I could handle more BARR records and the two out there already have put my brain through a lot of tests already.
Diary of a Slooty Kid: I’m reminded of A Grand Don’t Come for Free, but if that album went to art school.