Elk – Let’s Get Married
Shape Up: 2011
Bedroom pop projects are– obviously– a different listen than a polished, full-on studio album. Not only in terms of technological limitations, as those have become less and less with the advent of affordable high quality recording equipment, but in terms of scope. The goals of a bedroom project are inherently smaller scale than your big ass productions. Sometimes, that personability results in good things; take a listen to Toro y Moi’s latest album, which wouldn’t have been nearly as engaging if too many other hands were involved. Other times, though, the entire album comes off as feeling too insular, and outside listeners have nothing to grab a hold of. Despite some interesting musical ideas and a hodgepodge of influences, Let’s Get Married, the debut long player from Justin Stein’s Elk moniker, falls in the latter category.
There may be good songs on Let’s Get Married, it’s just that I can’t tell. Everything on Let’s Get Married is buried under an omniscient haze, a haze that feels less like the result of the lo-fi recording process (Stein reportedly decided on purchasing a computer to compose music on rather than paying his Brooklyn rent, moving back to his parents’ house in Michigan and living/working in his sister’s bedroom) and more an intentional musical choice. This distance gives Let’s Get Married a dream-like quality, which is increased by the minimalist instrumentation and wide open spaces of songs like “Sarah” and The first half of “Summer Magic”. But this puts up a high and heavy wall between the listener and pretty much anything else– song structure, melody, hell, even emotion.
The seven songs on Let’s Get Married are arranged almost identically. There’s a primary melody, which comes either from a repeating sample or a looping, instrumental riff, that attempts to ground these songs in the here and now. Then Stein’s voice, pushed back in the mix and often layered with reverb, drifts in and out in half-snippets of indecipherable lyrics and oohs. Everything else seems to be random atmospherics; ethereal synth pads that do little to pull these tracks from their uncomfortable limbo between ambient and bedroom pop.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some inventive musical ideas going on here. The opening title track begins with a weird but engaging sample that sounds like it came from a twee Robin Hood soundtrack, and Stein adds some pounding drums and a bouncing vocal thing to it, but unfortunately it’s gone after a minute. Ditto the middle section of ten-minute centerpiece “Rollerbladin’”, which unexpectedly shifts into a bad-ass tropical disco movement at the five-minute mark. It’s a great moment, but one that it’s sadly rendered less effective due to what surrounds it.
If you take the time to unpack the dense atmospherics on these tracks, there is quite a bit packed in here. Influences from shoegaze to loop-based electro-pop to disco to Animal Collective are all noticeable after multiple listens. But despite Stein’s talent for condensing his vast array of favorites into his own style, the fact is that there’s little on the surface of these tracks to demand or even request that type of listening. The 38 minutes of Let’s Get Married pass by without ever leaving an impact.
