Portastatic / Summer of the Shark, the
Album: Summer of the Shark, the   Collection:General
Artist:Portastatic   Added:Jun 2003
Label:Merge Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2003-09-08 Pull Date: 2003-11-10
Week Ending: Nov 9 Sep 28 Sep 14
Airplays: 1 1 1

Recent Airplay
1. Nov 05, 2003: press and release
Oh Come Down
3. Sep 09, 2003: Arabian Nights
Oh Come Down
2. Sep 23, 2003: Tuesday Afternoon Radio Program
In the Lines

Album Review
johnn
Reviewed 2003-08-27
This is the solo project of Mac McCaughan, formerly of Superchunk and co-owner of Merge Records. Songs vary from sad acoustic pop to more rockin’ noisy tracks. At times, the indie rockin’ songs are very similar the Elephant 6 bands. I’m not crazy about this album, but there are still some decent catchy songs here. Note: There is a static-like metronome in tracks 3-13 that may be a CDR encoding glitch. It might be intentional because sometimes it works well, but I’m guessing that this is not what it’s supposed to sound like. 3, 6, 10, 8, 1

1. starts as acoustic duet, then becomes a lazy sweet pure pop song
2. slow acoustic pop with a sad tension that doesn’t ever break
3. catchy and upbeat rock, noisy and fuzzy guitars
4. midtempo groove built around static-y metronome
5. lazy pop with continuing static-y metronome
6. piano, horns, sweet vocals. slow ballad.
7. upbeat, catchy pop song fitting to elephant 6
8. midtempo sad acoustic pop
9. starts as slow acoustic, then becomes upbeat catchy groove
10. catchy midtempo indie rock a la elephant 6.
11. quiet sweet acoustic number
12. lazy acoustic rock song with a lot of falsetto
13. distant piano

Track Listing
1. Oh Come Down   7. Chesapeake
2. In the Lines   8. Noisy Night
3. Windy Village   9. Clay Cakes
4. Through a Rainy Lens   10. Drill Me
5. Don't Disappear   11. Paratrooper
6. Swimming Through Tires   12. Hey Salty