College/Art Rock: Harlan's The Still Beat (and Eames Era's Double Dutch)

While I’m listening to Harlan’s album, The Still Beat, let me take you back to the late 80’s, my high school years, driving around in my hand-me-down 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser (that’s a blue station wagon with a Negativland “Car Bomb” bumper sticker). As I explored country roads still attached to Twin Cities suburbia and dead end service roads leading to abandoned railroad bridge deck, I carried my music in a trusty cassette carrier that fit beneath the driver’s seat. That travel case always contained a mini-spectrum from my full music collection—from obscure rock I was exploring to a standby favorite ready to invite singing and steering wheel drumming. Harlan seems to cover that mini-spectrum from my travel case, each song finding a referent in my late 80’s music explorations. (Please forgive any anachronistic references).

“Days of Delirium” has a Charlatans UK piano with the Beatlesque spring day of XTC, and the track’s bouncing piano is offset by some scatter-waller guitar. “Foam Core” takes me back to the wry wit of the Woodentops—acoustic guitar melding with electronics for an earthy electropop rock. The bright keyboard dance on “The Ballads of Selective Memory” play on the memory of Inspiral Carpets.

Appropriate to the title, “Computer Games Under the Sun,” there’s a computer-like keyboard with a robotic-fat keys solo, which recalls the Lightning Seeds. The folky picking of “One Person Band” takes you back to the porch with the Feelies (while bringing the sound through the much more recent sound of Grand Drive.

I think it’s a “My Girl” chord progression on the beginning of “Sons & Daughters,” and while the Temptations are clearly 60’s and not late 80’s, let’s remember that The Big Chill soundtrack was a bestseller in the 80’s. While still keeping some of that Country-influenced Rock feel, “Late Summer” is a late summer tango, a meld of pop rock and other rhythms like Men Without Hats often attempted. “Interviewer & Interviewee” links up where Dire Straits met the Desperado soundtrack. Of course, Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado was 90’s, but the first film in the trilogy, El Mariachi, was released in 1992—which comes close to the 80’s, I suppose.

By this later section of the album, it seems that Harlan achieves some sort of AltCountry sound combined with 80’s Europop. The two movement song “The Ruralist” is very strongly reminiscent of Wilco—which, of course, is connected to the 80’s through the original band, Uncle Tupelo. “The Ill-Matched Unknowns” has that same connection back to Uncle Tupelo, although this time by way of Jay Farrar instead of Jeff Tweedy (Wilco). “Two Pagans” has some dirty, grungy blues with that acoustic AltCountry still hanging around.

With “It’s a Mystery,” Harlan lands in the Sufjan Stevens camp along with other indie folk rock artists like Half-handed Cloud, Cass McCombs, and Paul Brill—all of whom owe something to the folk greats like Loudon Wainwright III and Greg Brown who were making great music in the 80’s apart of from the pop scene.

College Rock: The Eames Era’s Double Dutch
I got Harlan’s album when the Eames Era sent me their newest release. Harlan grabbed my attention, but the Eames Era’s Double Dutch is still worth a mention and a listen.

As I said back in the January issue, “The Eames Era evoke handclaps and swaying hips, while inviting a little thought, emotion, and heart to those party beats.”

Those party beats underscore much of this light-hearted rock with a sarcastic heart. Double Dutch jumps along in different rhythms, but it just doesn’t quite jump out enough. There’s an echo of 50’s guitar, Primitives 80’s rock, and Ashlin Philips still giving an attitude to her airy vocals. While “Washed Out” cooks, other tracks are just that—washed out, drifting off and liable to getting tripped up in the jump rope.

Thank you to Harlan, Eames Era and C-Student Records for the review copy.