THE RED KRAYOLA
Introduction
Drag City
· Texas experimental rockers return with surprisingly accessible release.
With a history that stretches all the way back to the ’60s, the Red Krayola have always been one of modern music’s most consistently "out-there" bands, with leader Mayo Thompson taking perverse glee in breaking apart the foundations of rock and seeing what he could make from the remains.
The band’s latest album, Introduction, is quite possibly their weirdest yet, in that it shows the band moving towards more conventional pop music. It’s an album shocking in its listenability. From a band whose debut album contained the phrase "Free-form Freak-out" in every song, Introduction seems downright song-oriented. This is not to say that it’s not without its quirks – after all, an album that features a prominent accordionist can’t be that normal.
Combining several styles, such as folk, blues and jazz, the songs on Introduction remain hummable despite some strange juxtapositions, such as the blues-via-abstract art-rock of "A Tale of Two…." Even the instrumental bridging songs are marked by lilting melodicism rather than the fractured atonality of Thompson’s past work. Only "Elegy" approaches the inaccessibility of previous albums, and even then the effect is hypnotic rather than abrasive.
Hardcore fans may be put off by the seeming step back that Thompson and company take with this release, but they shouldn’t be. After all, Introduction is just Thompson exploring another bit of uncharted territory – in this case, an album you can hum while at work.
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