Psychedelic Buzz
It would be too easy to lump loopy, female lead vocalists under “’60s psychedelia,” but it’s hard when you have a voice channeling the likes of Stevie Nicks, Grace Slick and Janis Joplin. K. Page (along with Sleepwalkers Parade) belts through a hazy filter on her band’s newest release Between the Bridges.
The album teeters along ’90s alt/noise sans distortion with tracks like “Carnival” and “Love is a Bloody Highway.” The slowly-plucked staccato of the guitars just barely carries Page’s playful albeit quirky crooning – not unlike Asobi Seksu’s Yuki Chikudate in some of their early releases.
“Places People Stay” is a mélange of modern reggae and funky psychedelia with Page throwing in some playful dub-ish rhyming, which eventually turns into screaming around the 4:25 mark. It’s impressive to see such a progression of styles without having to resort to a “fusion” of sorts.
Midway through the disc, “Simple Song” showcases the group’s ear for jazz and dynamics. About halfway into the song, Page and the gang pick it up with more reggae/funk bordering the fine line of tongue-and-cheek and 90s quirkiness – never enough to sully the tune. The last and title track begins more like a Sondheim musical washed in a bathe of reverb, delay and eventually melting away at the fingertips of Jefferson Airplane-like trippiness.
In short, K. Page and Sleepwalkers Parade’s Between the Bridges never begs to immerse the listener but moreso drags them along a variety of well-timed bursts. Where the album lacks in provocation, it definitely makes up for it with imagination.
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