Review Summary: Thinking Fellers of the World: Unit!
When tracing a set of influences for San Fran oddballs Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, there’s just as much of a chance of being wrong as being right. There are, of course, all kinds of parallel lines to be drawn from such acts as This Heat, Can, Swell Maps, although they’ve stated they’d never heard those bands until well into their career. It’s at least obvious that the core of this band is post-punk, and they’ve named The Fall and R.E.M. as inspirations, but much of this band’s music, especially on their more “out there” records, seems to have been sprung parthenogenetically from the heads of these thinking fellers, like Athena from Zeus. All the lo-fi experiments, tape loops, oddball humor, the banjo-and-backporch acid trip vibe they’ve cultivated are very much their own collective beast, making it somehow fitting that the unbroken Iowa horizons should be both the birthplace and prove poor containment for this goofball band of creatives. And while Strangers From The Universe is far from their deepest plunge into their inimitable brand of lighthearted experimentation, there’s more than enough originality to make it a unique, off-kilter dip into post-punk quirkiness.
In spite of this quirkiness, which the album is practically dripping with, there’s very little that is alienating or offputting about Strangers From the Universe, at least to my jaded ears. How much of this is the product of hindsight (after all we’ve all been exposed to Animal Collective by now), and how much is due to the fact that these guys just know how to write a song and make it gloriously fun to listen to is up for debate. Just listen to the head-bobbing pop-oddity of My Pal the Tortoise, the kind of idiosyncratic character study that They Might Be Giants might have done, but awash in Thinking Fellers own garage band sensibilities. In fact, to focus entirely on the weirdness of this album as so many other reviews have done is to do it a huge disservice. There is a
lot of pure quality rock songwriting here, and despite the fact that Thinking Fellers are apt to pair a jittery, neurotic near-death experience like Socket with the fuzzed out, wailing interlude of Bomber Pilot doesn’t obscure the fact that these boys know their way around a melody. This isn’t quite a courting of mainstream sensibilities, it also ain’t Beefheart either. When Hugh Swarts, one of the band’s three guitarists and five vocalists, was asked which bands he’d like to tour with he named the Beatles along with Beck and the Flaming Lips, and while that first one might have been in jest, one could actually see it happening when hearing this record, even if the result might be a disaster on par with their tour with Live. Sure the melodies are discordant and the guitars are jangly and constantly playing with conventional ideas of tonality, but much of this album is within the wheelhouse of what the Lips were doing just before they made the leap into psychedelic pop, especially on tracks like the woozy noise-pop of The Operation and the Donovan-on-acid harmonies of The Piston and the Shaft. If there’s any doubt about the Union’s pop songwriting credentials, just take a peep at the lullaby-like Noble Experiment, a bare keyboard backing a gorgeous two-part harmony that approaches an almost hymnlike fantasy of putting aside all the travails of being human and just being something, anything else.
The oddity presented on Strangers From The Universe doesn’t seem to extend to the band itself. Rather, from what I can gather from the scattered interviews available online, they seem to be an affable bunch with an easy camaraderie between each other and a winking suspicion of outside elements. All the experimentation and peculiarity seems to be, rather than being put-upon or an artsy affectation, just seem like experiments born out of curiosity and good humor, spontaneous in conception and playful in execution. And even if your bent isn’t toward the experimental, the more oddball interludes on the album take up relatively little space compared to their other works. For those looking for a prime introduction to this unique band, look no farther. For those with an affinity for latter-day post-punk or early day indie quirk, you might just find a home here as well.
