We Are the Rowboats

Playful, mostly-instrumental jazz-rock (oh -- am I supposed to call this post rock?) from this Brooklyn, NY by-way-of-Philadelphia quartet. Third LP. Every song meanders -- or takes a hairpin turn on two wheels -- across multiple styles. If you pay attention, you get seriously dizzy. Somehow each song manages to remain coherent. Each has a different feel. The more music you know, the more of the allusions you'll get. (There's a metal band from Minneapolis with the same name, btw.) Instrumental unless noted. All tracks are worth air time. Start with 4, 9, 15, 16. FCC: 16

1. Launches abruptly into wacky, insane calliope oddness. A minute long.
2. Mid-tempo. Begins with fast-plucked guitar and slow bass, then drums & strings. Gray-day indie pop. A bit like The Feelies except for the harmony violins and psychedelic electric lead guitar.
3. 7/4 time signature jazz-rock with plucked & bowed violins out front.
=> 4. Mid-tempo. Starts with happy guitar and monotone male vocals. Then becomes lilting jazz-pop instrumental.
5. Slow to start, changes to mid-fast. Begins with whimsically dark piano and violin, adds drums and accordion. Goes all over the place... bossa nova, slow and quiet, angular jazz, noise rock, etc. Wacky. Ends abruptly.
6. Mid-tempo. Starts with solo guitar. Bouncy hippie music.
7. Jazz pop with strong, repetitive bass line and nice one-note organ.
8. Slow fade in -- 20 secs to full volume. Hypnotic with whimisical weird fx. Slow fade out. 1:30 in length.
=> 9. Mid-fast for the most part. Directly quotes many songs. Cartoonish!
10. Slow. Sad, folky beginning but ends highly percussive and fast. An instrumental tear jerker that gets pissed off at the end.
11. Slow, Tom Waits-like piano-centric beginning, then Bertolt-Brechtian. Repetitive but oddly gripping. Ends with 15 secs of wind/scream fx as final piano chord fades.
12. Starts with guitar and cricket noises, then adds off-key, off-rhythm violin. Trippy. Ends with slow fade and dog barks, other fx. Fades directly into next track
13. Fades in from previous track. Bossa nova-like beat. Accordion, piano, violin, loud drums... mid-slow and acoustic but pretty intense nonetheless. Ends with just violins
14. Starts with Angular piano arrpegio, then searing, angular guitar and drums. 1:20 long. Ends with processed frog noises.
=> 15. Eastern-European violin and percussion. I challenge you to figure out the time signature. Then switches to a slow, swing-blues mode. Then goes Flamenco... castanets plus feedback guitar... keeps evolving through straight-ahead fusion and beyond. Ends abruptly.
=> 16. FCC. "I'm gonna fuckin' kill you" in sampled spoken word before music starts and "...ruin the fuckin' party" after music ends (you could cue to start of music, and stop as soon as music ends, to avoid the FCC violation). Fuzz guitar. Rockin'.