LAWEEKLY show preview for the 12/6/07 show:
http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/rock-picks-rza-etta-james-zola-moon-tori-amos-the-monolators/17875/?page=2
Listing Ship at Spaceland:
Guitarist Lyman Chaffee and violist Heather Lockie have been to the edge of the galaxy and back since the late '90s, when they were still calling themselves Leather Hyman. As Listing Ship — augmented with such savvy local musicians as violinist Julie Carpenter, guitarist Michael Whitmore and W.A.C.O. drummer Kyle C. Kyle — they've expanded their sound to encompass the glassy reveries of their enchanting 1999 debut CD, Sunshine & Other Forms of Radiation, and the gorgeously trippy Pink Floyd–style wallowing of their 2002 second album, Dance Class Revolution, before contracting and coming back down to Earth with the folk-infused slices of arty Americana on their third release, 2005's Time to Dream (all on the True Classical label). Listing Ship's upcoming CD, A Hull Full of Oil and Bone — whose release has been delayed until February since Lockie and Carpenter have been touring with Spiritualized and the Eels — draws on all of their previous personas, contrasting the Mekons-ish sea-chantey title track and the acoustic-driven "One Down," where Chaffee's low vocals evoke Johnny Cash, with the elegantly shimmering pop of Lockie's "Archaeologist," which is riven with quivering strings and a wash of horns. The somberly lulling "Depression," sung by Heather's sister Shawn, is brightened with candy-cane chimes and sleigh bells, while the semi-brave new world of technology is wittily confronted on the Velvet-y rocker "Voice of the Future." (Falling James)
Nov 07 - some trax from whale EP posted on Mainstream Isn't So Bad...Is It?: http://mainstreamisntsobad.blogspot.com/2007/11/ep-foursome.html
June 4, 07:
http://www.storiadellamusica.it/_Listing_Ship.p0-r726
June 12, 07:
http://rocklab.it/recensioni.php?id=1905
Jun 07 - BlowUp review (print only) by Enrico Veronese
thank you, lovely italian music writers!!! baci...
from: http://www.freakout-online.com/album.aspx?idalbum=999
Autore: LucaMauro Assante
04/09/2006
"L'estate è la stagione adatta per "sognare". E, ad onor del vero, il terzo disco dei Listing Ship si sposa perfettamente con l'idea di evasione dai percorsi troppo lineari. Magari l'introduttiva e bucolica "American Song" potrebbe risultare fuorviante sul contenuto dell'intero disco. Al passo successivo, lo scanzonato indie-rock di "The Temptation Of Miss Piggy" già conduce verso altri territori sonori. Così fa il resto della scaletta che procede zigzagando tra echi new-wave ("Chinese Song") e derive country ("Dans La Cuisine", "Death") per poi passare a reconditi omaggi ai Velvet Underground vs Joy Division ("Crooked Teeth") ed al folk strumentale ("Laura Lee Drives South In Spring"). Forse solo la parte finale dell'album si stabilizza su di un sound più morbido e "roots". Non che questo sia un male, si intende, almeno nel loro caso. La piccola orchestra dei Listing Ship, insomma, si dimostra capace di reggere anche sulla lunga distanza, senza denotare grosse cadute d'ispirazione. Peccato solo per la distribuzione "carbonara" di cui godono in Italia le loro opere. Se la media qualitativa si manterrà su questi livelli, comunque, il problema dovrebbe essere presto arginato"
LA WEEKLY Pick of the Week:TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6
Listing Ship, The Shakes, Bodies of Water at the Echo
"Jim Morrison died three decades ago, and it seems like he's been dying ever since, with starry tributes, fawning commemorations and endless reissues of the same old greatest hits. Meanwhile, Love leader Arthur Lee — who directly influenced Morrison and first brought the Doors to the attention of Elektra Records — passed with relatively little attention last year. What gives? Lee's songs have been praised by Robert Plant, lifted by the Rolling Stones, and covered by everyone from the Damned and the Bangles to Shockabilly and the New Christs. Although Love's more celebrated '60s classics — ranging from the shimmering elegance of "Andmoreagain" to the proto-punk fury of "7 & 7 Is" — are still available, most of Lee's work since then is criminally out of print. Tonight, several of L.A.'s own criminally underrated pop groups take on his legacy, including Bodies of Water, Kind Hearts & Coronets, the Shakes (whose recent Teenacide CD, The Rise and Fall of Modern Living, is a wonderful pop travelogue through the back streets of Silver Lake) and Listing Ship, whose Heather Lockie and Julie Carpenter will reprise the string parts they played when they backed Lee on tour in 2004." (Falling James)
F5 ..work like a farmer party like a rock star.. (Wichita, KS) .. 4/06 .. Album review - by Jedd Beaudoin http://www.f5wichita.com/music/index.php?pubdate=2006-03-16&story=albums
..This is good, melodic stuff, meant for lovers and loners alike. Heather Lockie..s voice conjures a sense of innocence and beauty, one that..s accomplished and sincere. She..s at her best on the whimsical ..The Temptation of Miss Piggy,.. the quiet ..Black Eyes of the Sea.. and the Velvet Underground-ish ..Destroying France... Joined by Lyman Chaffee (he lends his vocal talents to his share o.. tunes, including the fancy dance little number ..Death..), Marc Doten, Shawn Lockie, Michael Whitmore, and the radiant Mike Watt (on a good number of tracks), Listing Ship has given us a memorable and sincere record that serves as a snapshot of mature folk-pop in the 21st century...
Illinois Entertainer .. Album review .. by Terrence Flamm .. 4/06
..Time to Dream is the fourth release from what was once known as Leather Hyman when Heather Lockie and Lyman Chaffee formed it back in 1997. Currently Listing Ship, Lockie and Chaffee, along with four bandmates, swing through a variety of styles spinning tales, spouting poetry as well as French cuss words, and exhibiting a keen wit.
..Time to Dream frequently features strings and the lilting, feminine harmonies of Heather and Shawn Lockie, like the acoustic ..American Song,.. about a woman mourning the man who left her pregnant before going off to war. Chaffee sings lead on the exotic ..Chinese Song.. and the bluegrass romp ..Death,.. but his maudlin ..Sarah.. is the CD..s low point. Listing Ship can also switch from the literary musings of ..Ichabod Crane.. to the garage rock of ..Your Crooked Teeth,.. a delirious mix of violins and guitar feedback. ..
www.SPIN.com .. LISTING SHIP featured "band of the day"!!! .. 1/5/06
http://www.spin.com/features/band_of_the_day/2006/01/060105_listingship/index.html
By: Julia Simon
..It might seem appropriate to find Listing Ship's Time to Dream sandwiched right between Belle & Sebastian and Sufjan Stevens on some cutesy woodland creature's iPod. The album's layers of instrumentation are so lush with banjoes, violas, and mandolins they could blanket the driest fauna, and frontwoman Heather Lockie's voice is so saccharine it could soothe any saucer-eyed fawn. With innumerable references to nature .. raindrops, sunshine, forests, and banana leaves among them -- it's hard to imagine that there's actually little that is benign about the Los Angeles-based collective's third release.
..In fact, there's a whole lot here that's scholarly in a rather ghastly way. When the band's male singer, Lyman Chaffee, takes over the vocal reins on only a few of the album's tracks, one can't help but listen more closely to the lines and recall some of the darker verses taught in Poetry 101. Robert Browning could have easily penned the dramatic monologue "Sarah," on which Chaffee imagines himself a war hero while channeling Johnny Cash's buttery baritone and emoting the abhorrent lines, "I held her in my arms and said I loved her/ I kissed her on the lips and said she was mine / she closed her eyes and with her / head upon my shoulder / I shot her in the side."
..While the album's death imagery hardly tries to dissuade the squirrels from scurrying, the Johnny-Appleseed whistling on "Destroying France," the French-bistro stomping of "Dans La Cuisine," and the lo-fi, crock-pot waltzing on "Baise Ca," are enough to convince us to stick around, and maybe even open up our dusty poetry books...
LA TIMES ..Buzz Bands.. column highlights LISTING SHIP .. 2/16/06
http://www.calendarlive.com/nightlife/cl-wk-bands16feb16,0,6898433.story
"Classicist rock gets a Spin"
by Kevin Bronson, Weekend Calendar Editor
"With its quavering vocals, gossamer strings and neo-hippie oeuvre, the L.A. seven-piece Listing Ship fashions the kind of edgy but folksy bluegrass you'd hear at a Mensa picnic, music that you imagine rising just above the chirping of cicadas. They may point their pens at Miss Piggy and ichabod Crane and write lines like "Death comes as a cornflake / to the one who's suffering," but there's electricity in their eccentricity.
Yet what were a bunch of violin-, viola- and mandolin-totin' classicists doing recently as "Band of the Day" on Spin.com?
"I'm mystified by that one," singer-guitarist (sic) Heather Lockie says.
"We sent it to Spin and somebody listened," says Lyman Chaffee, Lockie's songwriting collaborator.
Others are listening too. The group, which finishes up a residency the next two Mondays at the Echo, has garnered attenion for its eclectic album, "Time to Dream," released as part of the collective True Classical CDs. The band grew out of the '90s Lockie-Chaffee collaboration Leather Hyman. "It was much more rock-oriented then," Chaffee deadpans. "Then we got old."
Since 2001 the group has added Shawn Lockie, Julie Carpenter, Laura Steenberge, Kyle C. Kyle, and Michael Whitmore, many of whom play in other bands. Mike Watt even played bass on much of "Time to Dream."
"Somehow we're making this record collective work," Lockie says. "And we've expanded our expectations for this band based on the reaction we got to the record."
College/Art Rock: Listing Ship's ..Time to Dream.. .. 3/5/06
4/18/06 - http://www.indieworkshop.com/music.php?id=2406
"There's something about the saccharine female vocals and general sing-along folk weirdness of Listing Ship's Time To Dream that makes me more than a tad uneasy. They sound so sweet but there's something not quite right lurking just below the surface. It's like the pretty, smiling girl I saw the other day handing out her Church of Scientology booklets downtown. Sure, she looks harmless enough. Then before you know it, it's six months later and you're living at the cult's bucolic agrarian compound staring down a national stand-off with armed FBI and ATF agents, drinking funny-tasting Kool-Aid while wearing brand new Nike Heaven's Gate sneakers. What time is the fucking mothership supposed to be here to pick us up anyway Tom?! Tom?
Ahem..yes. Where was I? Oh yeah, Listing Ship. Time To Dream contains fourteen hallucinations of traditional folk that stroke your hair with one hand while the other is beating you relentlessly about the face and neck area. It's the way folk music should be. The album is creepy and dark and unsettling, but with the right amount of charm and beauty to make it all go down a little easier.
Take "Black Eyes Of The Sea" for example, where the sugary vocals of the Lockie sisters deliver lines like "Death comes as a comfort to the one who is suffering / and she's wiggling in its arms" as innocently as if they were singing a child to sleep. Or on the Cash-like "Sarah", when male singer Lyman Chaffee takes the vocal reins and coos, "I held her in my arms and said I loved her/ I kissed her on the lips and said she was mine / she closed her eyes and with her head upon my shoulder / I shot her in the side."
Time To Dream is obsessed with death imagery, but this eccentric psych-folk ensemble makes death seem almost..inviting. Listing Ship is as deft with a murder ballad as Puerto Muerto is with a sea-shanty, and the two groups share a similarly odd originality. Mike Watt also plays bass on eight songs here, which should be reason enough for you to go out right now and buy this album. Now, who wants to hear more about Dianetics?" - Mark Horan
http://www.musicspectrum.org/2006/03/collegeart-rock-listing-ships-time-to.html
"Even the group..s name is a story, Listing Ship.
..Minimalist pop folk compositions greet you on Listing Ship..s Time to Dream, but each sweetly crafted tune has a tale to tell. They have the ability of traditional Irish, English, or Scottish tunes which tell foreboding stories amid reels and jigs. Listing Ship can similarly weave warning, heartache, and hope into their light tunes which bounce and pop.
..American Song,.. carried by the lead vocal of Heather Lockie, is a going to war story told from the perspective of the 13-year-old girl, pregnant with this young soldier..s child. It could be World War I; it could be the Civil War; it could the Second Gulf War. The music has allows there to be a timeless quality to the yellowed and/or crisply new pages of this story.
..The waltzing feel of ..Destroying France.. takes us back to the days when Beta and VHS were both still viable options. It..s a childhood of make believe, boring games of Monopoly, and time with siblings. I didn..t pretend to be at war with France, as in the song, but you listen to these sweet vocals on the Lyman Chaffee-penned tune (lyrics by Heather Lockie) and you know that you once played in the backyard in that the same world.
..Listing Ship also includes a cover song..well, at least, it..s a cover song in the sense that it is there rendition of an old story. ..Ichabod Crane.. gives such tenderness to the angular, awkward, sad-for-love Crane. Meanwhile, there..s something telling in singing of Crane..s love named Katrina saying, ..For dear Katrina/has true aim/and all the force/of an ample bosom, inheritance, popularity... Crane is bowled over by Katrina, and for the 2005 hurricane to be named Katrina doesn..t seem such a stretch. Crane didn..t pay attention to Katrina in the right way, and so perhaps we see that the government didn..t pay correct attention to their Katrina."
LISTING SHIP..s ..Time to Dream.. ..1 KPFK album of 2005 .. 1/1/06
in Barry Smolin's Top 10 Records of 2005 (KPFK "The Music Never Stops" 90.7 Pacifica) http://www.kpfk.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1212&Itemid=79
LISTING SHIP ..Album of the Month.. (Jan 2006) in IGN .. 2/1/06
(..1 gaming site on internet)
http://music.ign.com/articles/685/685063p1.html
http://music.ign.com/articles/685/685099p1.html
Combine these two to get the full effect!
IGN preview article:
Album Of The Month: ..Time To Dream..
Los Angeles musical outfit Listing Ship serve up some delicate folk idioms.
by Spence D.
..February 1, 2006 - Comprised of mainstays Lyman Chaffee and Heather Lockie, as well as a few choice sonic compadres in the form of Marc Doten, Shawn Lockie, Mike Watt, and Michael Whitmore this release is perhaps the most beguiling thing you'll hear all year.
..Faint, delicate, and hypnotic in its utter simplicity, Time To Dream will make you do just that: find plenty of time to drift off and enter a quiet, mesmerizing world where musical directness is pioneered by floating organic ambiance and a childlike sense of wonderment...
IGN full article:
From: http://music.ign.com/articles/685/685063p1.html
Listing Ship .. ..Time To Dream..: Delicate indie rock awash in mature naivet...
by Spence D.
..February 1, 2006 - You wouldn't know it from the music they churn out, but the interestingly named Listing Ship hail from Los Angeles. And while the City of Angels is known for incubating a diverse array of musical sounds, it's still something of a trip to learn that this outfit hail from such an area and end up making a light-hearted blend of delicate Americana and brick-a-brack folk that is as beguiling as it is otherworldly (think lilting fairy tale induced laments, lullabies, and dreamlike sonic extortion and you're right on the money).
..Predominantly fronted by the cherubic sounding Heather Lockie, Listing Ship's muse is certainly of the lush and voluptuously waif-like female persuasion as songs like "American Song," "The Temptation Of Miss Piggy," "Ichabod Crane," and "Baise Ca" attests to. While Lockie dominates these tunes with a childlike sense of innocent maturity, she's not the only member of the band. Other tracks, like "Chinese Song" feature Lyman Chaffee, who's warm, scraggly baritone provides the perfect balance to his female companion's sprightly bounce.
..On the musical front the duo focus on banjo, guitar, and viola and to flesh things out have brought along a few friends in the form of Shawn Lockie (keyboards) Julie Carpenter (violin), Laura Steenberge (upright bass), Michael Whitmore (vibraphone, mandolin), and Kyle C. Kyle (drums). The overwhelming result is a sound that is deceptively full and expansive while still rooting around in the arena of quasi-minimalistic folk, blues, and roots swoon.
..A perfect example of the above is the lilting, mournful melody that runs through the gently careening "Baise Ca," a tune that borrows from Cajun, country, bluegrass, and other North American folk idioms to create a cohesive little jaunt. This is offset by the somewhat husky lull/drone of "Sleep Of The Beloved," which seems to draw more inspiration from the slower elements of vintage Jefferson Airplane (and other female fronted Summer of Love outfits that dipped into introspective auralia.
..While the bulk of the album centers around gossamery ambiance, there are a few breaks from tradition. "Crooked Teeth" is as the name implies: a Sonic Youth inspired wisp of detuned guitars and craggy vocal slur that also hints at raw, early Velvet Underground. Similarly off-kilter is "Eda no Mel," which is a back-masked adventure through hazy butterfields of golden flutteration.
..The tender moments return on "Destroying France," vocals starting out small and meek and gradually growing in strength as a banjo plucks merrily in the background. The lyrics, however, are dipped in dry wit as Locklie pines about the days of when: "When we were young/Beta hadn't bit the dust/VHS hadn't won.." This bleeds seamlessly into the country tonk bounce of "Death" and then into the down-tempo banjo pluck of "Sarah" and finally culminating with swooning violin expanse of "Laura Lee Drives South In Spring," which doesn't sound anything like the delicious cakes you'd expect it to conjure up images of.
..For all the somewhat prim-and-proper musical trappings and light-hearted adherence to the rich musical traditions of North America, the band manages to keep things wryly tongue-in-cheek, if you're willing to dig deep. A prime example is that the song title "Baise Ca" when translated from French literally means "f@..k that." It's exactly this kind of irreverence that ends up making Time To Dream a wonderful excuse to check out for a few hours and drift away into a never, never land of cumulous serenity...
2/6/06 L.A. Weekly ..Live Pick of the Week.. .. 11/5/05
Mon Feb 6 .. Listing Ship at the Echo
..With such delicate acoustic-based tunes as ..Destroying France.. and ..Ichabod Crane,.. Listing Ship..s second album, 2005..s Time to Dream (True Classical), is a touch more pastoral and traditionally folkie than the band..s debut, Dance Class Revolution. That..s not to say that the artfully eclectic group don..t have their rocking moments: ..Crooked Teeth.. stomps with Velvet Underground stutter-strumming and an exotic, viola-laced buildup, while ..Sleep of the Beloved.. layers somber, trancelike vocals over a hazily electric Pink Floydian sprawl that evokes the first CD..s shimmering title track. When singer-guitarist Lyman Chaffee intones the old-timey ..Death.. or partner Heather Lockie (Eels, W.A.C.O.) gently coos the candy-cane-striped shuffle ..The Temptation of Miss Piggy,.. it..s possible to see how Listing Ship..s quieter interludes might appeal to fans of Keren Ann and the Cocteau Twins. With bass contributions from guest star Mike Watt (the Minutemen), Time to Dream slowly unwinds as a subtly intoxicating spell of enchantment. Also at Cole..s, Fri... (Falling James)
THE EMORY WHEEL (Atlanta, GA) .. 1/27/06
..Listing Ship sets sail into unexplored waters..
by Chris French, Asst. Entertainment Editor
www.emorywheel.com/media/storage/paper919/news/2006/01/27/Entertainment/Review.Listing.Ship.Sets.Sail.Into.Unexplored.Waters-1648624.shtml?norewrite200605171317&sourcedomain=www.emorywheel.com
Blending different genres is an art within itself. It is not often that artists can successfully mix one type of music with another, and when this feat is accomplished, it..s typically met with praise and admiration. For Listing Ship, this respect is long overdue.
..Time to Dream, the septet..s junior release off True Classical CDs, successfully combines alternative-folk, country and poetic lyricism .. along with a slew of other genres, including Middle Eastern diatonic instrumentation and hints of classic punk .. within a 14..track disc sure to leave listeners gleefully puzzled.
Listing Ship is not your ordinary band. While the group has formed and reformed over the years .. at times having as few as two members, though now boasting a full seven-person ensemble .. the Los Angeles musicians have been able to work around the frequent roster changes and are now content with the simple and raw music they are creating.
..There are a lot of voices going on, but a lot less volume and noise [than before],.. Listing Ship frontman and stringed-instrument guru Lyman Chaffee said. ..There is a lot more counterpoint now .. it is what I have always wanted to do with music, but for one reason or another found it difficult to extricate myself from the generic rock environment. The great thing about playing with a bunch of people is that each individual gets to play a lot less...
And this all comes through on the album. While Listing Ship may possess more musicians than a tiny wind concerto, Time to Dream truly revolves around the minimalism of alternative music.
Tracks like ..American Song,.. which viola/vocalist heather Lockie insists must be ..listened to from the perspective of an Islamic fundamentalist,.. maintains a straightforward acoustic sound that leads its audience to concentrate on the story-like lyrics rather than the music.
The same is true of the depressing yet ambitious ..Sara,.. in which Chaffee..s deep, country voice reveals the tale of a young girl..s death over the course of four-and-a-half minutes.
However, a band must have something special to control a sprawling, seven-member entourage. Certainly, the other five musicians are not thrown to the wayside, and various tracks throughout Time to Dream showcase a unique take on instrumentation and creativity.
..Chinese Song,.. and extensive string solo backed by a seemingly quarter-toned vibraphone, mimics the Chaffee and Lockie duet that serves as the song..s chorus. Furthermore, though only briefly introduced, the broad percussive attribute of Listing Ship severs its way through the melody line with a Gamalan orchestra-type bridge.
The most impressive cut on the album, the almost seven-minute long ..Crooked Teeth,.. revisits Listing Ship..s roots in rock ..n.. roll. Beginning with an interesting guitar introduction, Lockie doubles Chaffee..s simple, speaking lyricism .. a tactic with a profound foundation in ..60s and ..70s punk .. that slowly builds suspense into another rusty, yet appropriate, viola solo.
However, nearly five full minutes into the song is a complete meltdown, as the seven musicians combine forces to bring an epilogue unlike any other from its genre. Obviously, Listing Ship hasn..t faltered from its foundation.
The only drawback to Time to Dream is its creativity. Upon the initial listen, a closed-minded audience may toss the release aside.
This is not the hard-rock, pop-punk album streaming daily from MTV, but rather a thoughtful compilation of diverse genres that may need a second or third listen.
True Classical CDs has done something profound by funding innovators like Listing Ship. While other labels strive to form the next groundbreaking trend, this label has maintained a mindset that music ought to be sincerely original .. an attribute that describes Time to Dream...
LIVE REVIEW FROM Santa Barbara News-Press .. 12/5/06
LISTING SHIP @ LOBERO THEATRE 12/3/05
12/5/05, p. D3 .. by Josef Woodard
"Opening the show and coming from an entirely different musical place [than Austin's Reckless Kelly, headlining the bill] was the lovably clumsy, proudly eccentric, folk-pop-country-punk outfit LIsting Ship, whose members have played with the Eels and Brian Wilson....Los Angeles-based Listing Ship's refreshing deviation from musical normality begins with its instrumentation--including violin, viola and acoustic bass (bowed) and vibraphone. None of the singers is very special individually, but they often team up in harmonized melodies and sing lyrics containing dark irony and words you'll never find in the Bible.
"Conventional musical polish isn't the goal here. In general, the admittedly gawky aspects of their musical presentation are in keeping with their persona, as a project far to the left of any mainstream genre. They're prone to adapt various alternative attitudes--from the realms of punk art pop and musical folk art. While their music is undoubtedly an acquired taste, for those with the taste, Listing Ship is onto something new and engagingly offbeat."
from SAID THE GRAMOPHONE, music weblog .. 11/5/05
http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/as_promised_and_with.php
..Listing Ship - "Baise Ca": ..Baise Ca.. can be understood as a suicide note of sorts, but its macabre elements extend beyond that interpretation. I..m reminded of the stark black and white images of the bayou in ..Down By Law:.. the anxiety inducing stillness of the water, a boat cutting through the green surface cautiously, mist and mazes. I..m also reminded of galleys and fires and war in muddy trenches. When I wrote about Think About Life about a month ago I flippantly referred to Heart of Darkness, and now I wish I hadn..t. Because above all, when I hear the tribal click and thud of the percussion and the funereal fiddle, when I hear the singer..s voice emerge, breathless and resigned; I think of Marlow sailing down the banks of the foggy Congo, losing his grasp on reality, seeing a harlequin waving eagerly in the distance... [Buy/Info]Posted by Jordan at October 5, 2005 01:45 PM
from LOVE HAS NO LOGIC, music weblog .. 11/17/05
http://www.lovehasnologic.com/empme/2005/11/17/do-two-ships-an-armada-make/
"Do two ships an armada make? ..
..As children, I am sure all of you did something completely irrational. Maybe you put a screw in your mouth only to have it get lodged into your jawbone. Or perhaps you stuffed a whole package of bakers chocolate into your mouth not realizing it is unsweetened. Maybe you recorded over your parents cassettes with the sounds of you making armpit farts near the microphone of the boombox they had just bought. While I most definitely never did any of those things, as I grew older I did some pretty stupid things. One of which was hide my love of all things twee throughout my high school years solely because my friends thought it sucked. Honest to god, I kept my Tiger Trap records wrapped up in an old pillowcase and stored them between my mattresses.
..No, Listing Ship have not released a twee record. However, the similarities are there. Strings untarnished by distortion. Female vocals that float in the air set against the occasional fragile male voice. An understated rhythm section, the use of violins and keyboards. Sounds fairly twee to me, but then again, on paper a flash-fried, bacon wrapped 1/2 pound of beef smothered in gyros meat, cheddar cheese sauce and mayonnaise should kill a man, but I have seen plenty walk away from tackling the three animal bohemoth. Where twee reveled in the overt cuteness of the basic pop structure, exaggerating and accentuating the sickeningly sweet in an evil plot to make the world smile, Listing Ship slow things down and apply a similar blueprint to the worlds of psych-folk singalongs and bluegrass porch tales. Separately, many of the songs could easily be from different bands, but put together they showcase an extremely talented group of musicians working from a large palette that keeps the listener guessing while always inviting them to immerse themselves deeper in the tracks. Time To Dream is one of the most exciting chill out records I..ve heard all year."