Name: Mutilate Us
Brand: Unbranded
SKU: 751431
Price: 19.95 SGD
Availability: InStock

Mutilate Us

By Am / FM

Rating

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Format

CD (1 Disc)

Release Date

2 August 2001

Coming Soon

Album: Mutilate Us
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Mutilate Us
2)	Secretly Odds in Knowing Normal Worlds
3)	Best Man, A (Put My Girlfriend on Fire)
4)	You and Me at 53
5)	Those Long Arms
6)	Yours Recklessly
7)	Leanne, the Seasons Persist
8)	When I Died in Sebastopol
9)	Time Flows Much More Slowly This Way
10)	When Larry and Gary Get Married
11)	Disney Girls (1957)
12)	Success Rides a Shiny White Line
13)	Mutilate Us
14)	[Untitled]

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EAN

0711297461022

Writer

Am / FM

Producer

Michael Parsell, Brian Sokel, Terrance Yerves

Other Information

202617

Country

United Kingdom

Studio/Live

Studio

Label

Unbranded

Performer Notes

AM/FM: Brian Michael Sokel, Michael Ryan Parsell.
Additional personnel includes: Ben Dickie (electric guitar); Jen Smull (cello); Eric Wareheim (Fender Rhodes piano); Justin Tripp (Hammond B-3 organ); Josh Mills, Carly Van Anglen (bass); Greg Giuliano (drums); Terence Yerves (percussion, programming); Beth Bloffson, Mike Robinson, Nina Aron (background vocals).
Recorded at Meatlocker Studios, Philadelphia, Pennsylvaniain 2000.
Personnel: Brian Sokel (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, acoustic 12-string guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar, lap steel guitar, mandolin, organ, keyboards, glockenspiel, percussion); Michael Parsell (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, glockenspiel, drums, shaker, percussion); Nina Aron, Mike Robinson (vocals); Justin Tripp (guitar, electric guitar, organ, percussion); Eric Wareheim (piano, Fender Rhodes piano); Terrance Yerves (drums, percussion, programming); Greg Giuliano (drums, percussion); Matt Werth (percussion).
Recording information: Meatlocker, Philadelphia, PA (2000); The Meatlocker, Philadelphia, PA (2000).
Photographer: Eric Wareheim.
After hearing this debut full-length, it's easy to figure out why Brian Sokel and Michael Parsell called their project AM/FM. Their debut album haphazardly charts 75 years of pop history in the course of its 13 songs, while always sounding like its own ragged, off-kilter self. Mutilate Us seemingly incorporates a little bit of everything -- late-night paeans, open-plains balladeering, glazed-over '70s rock, cluttered indie pop -- then wraps it in a skewered lo-fi package to give it context and date it decidedly to the postmodern 21st century. They are just as capable of turning a cover of the Beach Boys' "Disney Girls" into a wispy, romantic Elliott Smith tune (which they do) or plucking a new wave melody from their memories and mutating it into strummed country crooning. And the wild variety of genres and subgenres collide head-on, creating oddly warped, wire-crossed hybrids, the parts of which are impossible to peel away from one another. "Those Long Arms" turns sh*t-kicker country into indie rock so that the final product doesn't really sound country at all except in fits and starts. The first half of "Yours Recklessly" sounds like a beaten-down, sepia-toned Appalachian ballad by using nothing but skeletal acoustic guitars, woeful Hammond organ, and some heartbreakingly lonesome co-ed harmonies. It feels more poverty-stricken and anguished -- and authentic -- than 100 similar attempts to recreate the harshness of Depression-era balladry, before giving way to its brash pop underside, a metamorphosis that mirrors the mood of the lyrics. The fractured, messy quality of the music conceals its purposefulness. Like the white noise of Pavement or tightly wrapped tics of Guided by Voices -- two bands, incidentally, which AM/FM recall -- the smallest details, moments that could otherwise be construed as accidents, are actually the qualities that end up transforming the songs. "LeAnne, the Seasons Persist," for instance, has a breezy, autumnal soft rock melody, but the percussive clang that runs through the entire song, sounding not unlike a sledgehammer hitting a railway pin, is pure blues -- as, in fact, is the sentiment of the lyrics. The tune itself, though, is nowhere near the blues. Such juxtapositions have a freakishly appealing effect. Mutilate Us is the kind of album that you are glad cannot be pinned down, because to do so would be to delete the quality that makes it so exhilarating and full of surprises. Like all the finest examples of laissez-faire pop, there is enough in each song to keep you returning long after the melody has been burned into your mind. ~ Stanton Swihart

Professional Reviews

Alternative Press (5/01, p.80) - 3 out of 5 - "...Infectious, melodic, eclectic, guitar-based pop - a little indie rock here, a little classic '60s pop there..."

Magnet (6-7/01, p.78) - "...AM/FM succeed by playing Flaming Lips to its own Modest mouse....If the key to lasting pop music isn't hooks but unexpected changes, AM/FM's Brian Sokel and Michael Parsell can quit their day jobs..."