“There will likely be snacks.”
On the flip of the century, solely Spoon’s Britt Daniel may match Andrew Wegman Chook for sloganeering. Whereas Daniel fired off dispatches from rarified dirtbags and guttersnipes, Chook dove into his personal baffling world, rising like a deep-sea diver clutching pearls of perplexing knowledge. Visions of “Don Quixotes and their B-17s,” calls for to “Let it’s printed on each T-shirt on this land/ On the best of cottons and the hippest of manufacturers,” and, in fact, snacks.
Subsequent to the folky offshoots of ’00s indie rock, Chook reduce an odd determine. Within the ’90s, he’d been a sideman to zany swing revivalists Squirrel Nut Zippers earlier than he created Andrew Chook’s Bowl Of Fireplace, a barely extra buttoned-down model of the massive band nostalgia he and Jimbo Mathus delighted in. However, after a bitter present the place his band bailed on him, the Chicago native appeared to recalibrate. Because of a smorgasbord of pedals plugged into his violin and a co-sign from Ani DiFranco, his solo present garnered rapturous and befuddled acclaim. His 1996 debut Music Of Hair and wonderful 2003 observe up Climate Techniques introduced a sideman searching for a voice. And Chook lastly discovered it in all its confounding glory on 2005’s The Mysterious Manufacturing Of Eggs.
Chook’s whimsical supply and pliable baritone that makes him sound like a kindly older brother, greatest seen when he took on the position of a musical trainer “Dr. Strings” on youngsters’s TV. (Facet word; I noticed Chook carry out in 2012 and two drunk 30-year-olds screamed “DR STRINGS” between each tune earlier than he performed half of the jingle then apologized for not remembering all of it.) Chook’s music is much less “for youths” and as a substitute achieves the good pantheon of “for all ages”; Pixar, Ghibli, The Goonies. And similar to Spirited Away, between the sweetness and heat some actually fucked up shit occurs. It’s a trick Chook lampshades by chuckling “A story that’s somewhat grim and gory/ is it simply one other youngsters’s story/ That’s been declawed?”
The aforementioned “Don Quixotes and their B-17s” arrive in “Sovay.” In a verbose feat solely matched by Aesop Rock, Chook rhymes “Journey Of The Valkyries,” “vagaries,” and “proclivities” in a skewed story about idle suicidal ideation, (literal) freeway theft, and plotting the destruction of the political caste — all whereas hovering, windswept violins and chiming glockenspiel match his lackadaisical coo. Hear with out listening to the lyrics and “Sovay” is all charming pleasantries. With the lyrics it’s all Brothers Grimm (and gory). It’s no shock that Chook would turn into a confidant to St. Vincent; her early work additionally delighted in twisting the screws on the margins, crafting unease within the minutia.
Chook’s love of swing, vaudeville, and massive band is perched within the periphery of Mysterious Manufacturing, a rhetorical, normally surreal, flourish. See regal opener “/=/,” the place Chook’s golden, shimmering whistle duets with a pile of drained strings, sounding like a warped model of muzak from Nineteen Fifties company commercials. Equally, there’s the wonky circulation of “Banking On A Fable,” which bounces inconsistently on bitter, plucked violins straight out of an A Hawk And A Hacksaw album.
Chook was additionally blissful to match menace with muscle. On “A Nervous Tick Movement Of The Head To The Left” a hopeless duo speak to a shadowy group after a near-death expertise solely to search out out “by all accounts you actually ought to have died.” The swooping strings, glitchy drumming, and Chook’s beady-eyed supply give the tune an sudden, however apropos, punch as our protagonists are left with no solutions, solely anxiousness. Equally unsettling is “Reverse Day,” the place Chook bemoans that he didn’t remodel into an octopus on a made-up vacation the place physics and society each escape into bloody revolutions. The slinky string work injects pleasant dread as Chook mumbles coy threats to the 1%: “They’re going to get up in establishments, in jail, or in hell.” Then it instantly mutates right into a cheery people tune, with Chook portraying a member of a celestial forms, making excuses for why the world didn’t finish. “I’m beneath specific orders to dare not communicate its title/ Hear, I simply work right here,” he stammers, just like the beast of revelations is beneath an NDA.
Although it’s at all times taken at an obtuse angle, Chook’s narratives concentrate on freaks and outsiders wanting in at a world of extra. “Measuring Cups” follows college youngsters with developmental disabilities, the titular kitchen instrument getting used to scope out the precise quantity of pink matter you may have. “We’ll provide you with a fancy and we’ll give it a reputation,” Chook sighs. As somebody who grew up with dyslexia and dysgraphia, Chook’s sarcastic telling off of academics and directors who view youngsters as statistics made me livid and gave me a speck of hope. “Sovay” and “Measuring Cups” aren’t the one songs that dream of guillotines. “Banking On A Fable” equally sniffs at energy, as a Svengali determine makes Faustian bargains, “although it’d contain baby labor,” Chook sneers.
Even the album’s greatest tune, “Pretend Palindromes,” is a crooked and worrying story. It bursts forth with pleasure, large as a U2 refrain, just for Chook to speak incessantly about monsters and a serial killer that wouldn’t be misplaced on a Clipping. tune. Chook performed a lot of the devices on Mysterious Manufacturing, however Kevin O’Donnell’s percussion is the delectable basis. “Pretend Palindromes” sounds as large because it does due to his avalanching drum fills, and the jittery “Pores and skin Is, My” slides between attractive and foolish on skittering toms. The identical goes for the album’s most colossal observe, “The Naming Of Issues.”
“The Naming of Issues” is likely one of the few instances that Chook does a extra conventional indie-rock efficiency, a refined reminder he’s a hell of a guitarist. His chords swoop, duck and rise like a boxer earlier than the refrain hits, a choral of violins matching his crunchy riff with O’Donnell’s cavernous percussion propelling the tune as Chook breaks out right into a heartrending violin solo. That second, the place Chook’s notes swirl like fall leaves caught in a gale, is likely one of the few the place he flashed true virtuosity. He confirmed an unimaginable quantity of restraint on Mysterious Manufacturing. Regardless of being the indie violin man, Chook’s string work is an confederate, not the point of interest. There are beautiful moments of dexterity, just like the rising string orchestra on “Nervous Tick Movement Of The Head To The Left” or the rambunctious, plucked solo on “Pores and skin Is, My.” However with Mysterious Manufacturing Chook by no means flashes technical prowess for the sake of it.