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Label:Polyvinyl

Release Date: Sept. 16, 2003

Website: http://www.matesofstate.com

Mates of State - Team Boo
Matthew Ralph

The organ is an instrument used perhaps most often to put church goers to sleep on Sunday morning. No lie, I once nearly fell asleep standing up while listening to a dirge played out ever so slowly by a 90-year-old organist in a church in Northern Ireland. It was painful, but somehow I got through listening to the song without hitting my head on the pew in front of me as I passed out from complete boredom.

Using the same instrument for good, the tag team of Kori Gardner and Jason Hummel are raring right out of the gate with their latest effort "Team Boo." Just as the name of the record suggests, they tear through these 12 tunes in athletic fashion. Their onslaught of vintage organ, drums, and off-kilter harmonies is so the opposite of the all too typical boring encounter with the organ, that you'd swear the music is more complicated than it actually is.

The group's third album, "Team Boo" enlists Jim Eno of Spoon and John Croslin (who's worked with them in the past and has a hefty credit list that includes Guided By Voices, Beulah, and many others) on the knobs and plenty of friends filling in with hand claps, group singing, trumpet and viola. Listen carefully and you can hear John Vanderslice clapping and singing.

Pretty and chaotic all at once, songs like "Whiner's Bio" demonstrate how fun it must be to be in Gardner or Hummel's shoes. The music is fast paced, yet filled with so many changes — a vocal harmony here, a trumpet there, a slide of the hand down the keyboard — that you don't easily grow tired of hearing their signature sound.

"It all begins with a smile," the line that follows the "Wha happened?" reference to A Mighty Wind in the song "Open Book" perhaps best describes the record's humorous optimism and genuinely positive approach. This is music that picks you up, challenges the notion that a guitar is the true rock instrument, and ultimately gives organs, in this case a vintage Yamaha organ, a good name.

"Team Boo" is a deadly combination of players that has and should continue to score points in a variety of rock circles.

 

 


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