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There is no doubting that Perth has often been fertile ground, and the era of
being a strictly power-pop dominated location has well passed. So when
introduced to local quintet Apricot Rail it is not the fact that they are a
mainly instrumental act with their feet firmly in the post rock camp that is
the surprise, the thing that sets them apart is just how damn good they are for
a band that are so young.....
Their
recordings have had a fair working over on local community radio and rightly
so. A Public Space, Pouring Milk Out The Window and If You Can’t Join Them,
Beat Them are all favourites of the live show.....
While
unnecessary up to this point, Jack Quirk’s listless vocals are a welcome
addition on Car Crash while Trout Fishing In Australia and Halfway House would
be well at home on a Múm album. Intricate guitar play shape the quiet/loud
dynamics of the tunes and multi instrumentalist Mayuka Juber adds the textures.....
Apricot
Rail’s debut album is the type that should be listened to in its entirety, but
that is not to discount the isolated moments of sheer beauty contained within.
Chris Havercroft
Drum media....
Apricot Rail succeed where so
many other post-rock bands fail because they’re able to get to the point. What
genre-defining bands like Explosions In The Sky take eight or nine minutes to
do Apricot Rail are capable of in three and a half. This impeccable sense for
the immediacy of great pop structures is arguably one of their biggest assets,
and is displayed masterfully on their debut album. It’s a great formula, and
they’ve nailed it here on more than one occasion, whilst maintaining an
eclectic approach to texture and timbre.
‘If You Can’t Join Them, Beat
Them’ morphs from delicate traipse to amiable jaunt to full-on ecstatic rush,
in just over four minutes, and on ‘Trout Fishing In Australia’ the band’s
penchant for melodic overload is complemented by skittering processed beats and
Múm-like strings and horns. There’s an overwhelming sense of hope and lightness
to their compositions, and thanks to the brevity of most of the tracks here,
they carry the listener on a dreamy flight of fancy that flits gently from one
airy mood to another. Only on the eight-plus minute ‘Wadnama’ do the band sink
their teeth into more predictably epic here of dynamics. The flute-tastic
‘Pouring Milk Out The Window’ is like an optimistic summer afternoon and
‘Halfway House’ adds burbling electronics to the band’s signature sound of
guitar harmonics and urgent rhythms.
The album’s (and arguably the
band’s) crowning achievement has to be ‘The Parachute Failure’- it’s
spine-tinglingly anthemic and really leaps out at the listener. It so
beautifully epitomises the band’s key strengths, as evidenced throughout this
remarkable debut - powerful and emotive melodies that engage through the push
and pull of delicate restraint and blissful abandon In a word: lovely.....
Adam
Trainer
Textura
In the same
way that any new release from kranky and n5MD guarantees a recording of high
quality, anything coming from the Hidden Shoal camp is likewise to be music of
a high calibre. And so it is that its latest roster addition, Apricot Rail,
delivers an album of exceptionally full-bodied “instrumental rock” (vocals do
appear but they're sparse in number). Composed of Jack Quirk (guitar,
glockenspiel, trumpet), Daniel Burt (bass, saxophone), Matt Saville (drums,
percussion), Mayuka Juber (clarinet, flute, melodica), and Ambrose Nock
(guitar, glockenspiel, vibraphone, keyboard), the Australian quintet knows what
it takes to make a strong impression—passionate playing, compositional smarts,
arresting arrangements, and a knack for catchy melodies—all of which the band
delivers on its self-titled, fifty-minute debut.
A delicious opener,
“A Public Space” moves through multiple episodes in less than six minutes,
starting from a restrained overture and slow and anthemic guitar section that
move on to a languorous section before ending in a ferocious flameout. The
group colourfully expands on the guitar-bass-drums core by working in clarinet,
flute, glockenspiel, saxophone, and trumpet playing in well-chosen places.
Hearing the woodwinds bleating over the guitar-fueled broil in “If You Can't
Join Them, Beat Them” is just one of the album's many pleasures, as is the
tastefully executed dual-guitar interplay that graces “Wadnama.” Guest member
Allierose Clarke distinguishes “Trout Fishing In Australia” with her cello
playing while Mayuka Juber does the same with her clarinet and flute playing
elsewhere (note the lovely clarinet solo she contributes to the classic
post-rock ebb and flow of “Wadnama,” and the stirring clarinet-guitar pas de deux that elevates
“On The Trolley”). The tinkling, horn-laden rumble that surfaces in the second
half of “Trout Fishing In Australia” suggests a strong Múm influence, while
“Car Crash,” in its verses, nudges the group into L'altra territory on account
of the male-and-female vocal pairing (morose lyrics “I hope you die in a car
crash”) but then tears the track wide open with an explosive if brief coda.
Throw in a gorgeous reverie ( “Pouring Milk Out the Window”) and a closer that,
sprinkled with electronic bleeps and bloops, gallops and thrashes as it takes
the album home (“Halfway House”) and you've got one solid collection.
If
multi-hued post-rock packed with chiming guitars and beautified with woodwinds
and horns is your thing, Apricot Rail's debut collection is definitely worth a
closer look.
Cyclic
defrost....
Apricot Rail has this post
rock instrumental lark down pat. As if some fresh breezes wafted down from the
West Australian wheat belt this quintet play the line between rock,
instrumental soundscape and a border edged skirmish with pop and experimental.
The album saunters open momentarily before the axe’s fall on what could very
well become another melodic grunge pop outfit however it is a flourish as
Apricot Rail move towards a considered, honed sound. It is almost as if on
their first outing they have achieved a ‘mature sound’ without having to go through
the teething stages of raw visceral grunge . However they change again and ‘A
Public Space’ introduces complex guitar melodies, a second movement with
arpeggiated guitar, pause and back into a slow build textured clarinet
melancholy followed by a free jazz explosion.
‘If you can’t join them, beat
them’ is almost the clarion call of the groups idea, a densely textured sound
highlighting the idea of the band as a form of orchestration, tight interplay
and weaving of elements without the insistence of singularity to dull the
colours. The one vocal track ‘Car Crash’ writes its familiar imagery
discretely, emphasis blunting reception before the bleak refrain of “I hope you
die in a car crash”, a hail of power chords ensues drowning their pleasantries.
So they may not be poets yet they have a charm that rock has not entertained
for a long time and the movement towards an orchestral sound makes for axe
murders. With the interesting tunings of the guitar, the giddy delight of
intricacies and nuance of instrument voices, an excellent hold on movement
between stylistic patterns as flourishes and displays of control Apricot Rail
seem intent to prove that rock and roll may not die but may well usurp itself
into the academy.
Innerversitysound