Never Enough Hope

‘m reminded, while spinning the newest permutation of the Never Enough Hope CD, of a conversation, conducted in meandering car full of teenagers, circa 1991. We were typical ambling adolescents; driving around aimlessly, doing things our parents wouldn’t approve of, and typically – as youth are inclined to do – speaking in overly dramatic terms about the music of the day. Our local bombshell dropped a bombshell. She, perhaps not tuned in to our exhaultaions of the newest and greatest bands, stated:

“You know, I just don’t like music I’ve never heard before.”

OK, yes, at first it sounds asinine, and we took it as such – for a bunch of future musicians-cum-pretentious-record store clerks, it was the cardinal sentiment of stupid. But looking back, she did have a point: it often takes a listen or two for something to grow on you. It takes time for crafted works to embed themselves in your consciousness.

You may need to listen to Never Enough Hope once or twice to allow this embedding to happen. Then again, you may not … it’s difficult to say. In fact, it’s difficult to really say what Never Enough Hope is. Let us start with what it isn’t.

Never Enough Hope isn’t a band. It isn’t an album. It isn’t an orchestra. It isn’t a symphonic composition, one man’s vision, or a cooperative effort between many talented players. It isn’t ever played the same way twice, or even in the same place twice. Even examined down to the nitty-gritty details – the artwork on the CD – it isn’t the same; the first copy I received was donned with an anchor (the symbol of hope for sailors, hence the classic navy tattoo). The second, and current incarnation, is what I can only assume are Celestial Flaming Kittens mauling the Constellation Pony. All this to say, what Never Enough Hope is: it’s a measure of all these things, and none of these things at the same time.

Oscillation and demarcation are the hallmarks of what I will call, for lack of a better term, the NEH Experience. At times the mood and movement is ethereal, subtly sliding compositional threads back and forth, like disks on an abacus. The totality, or sum if you will, certainly changes, but it is difficult to note precisely where this happens. At other times, it flips modality as cleanly as a pancake.

Although the newest recording of the NEH Experience is broken into six distinct tracks, unlike its predecessor, it still retains fluidity as a complete composition. The difference is, now it is pared down and lean, a team stripped of its baby fat and ready for the playoffs. It is a development I favor, although the Anchor album has its highs, it can be overly cerebral at times. Mind you, the new album may still be lofty at points, but the musical phrases that embody the piece are punctuated by vestiges of pop sensibility. These moments are thankfully and artfully rendered, however, there is no danger of the music appearing on a deodorant commercial or any such similar vehicle.

There are clear nods to predecessers abound. Witness the jaunty, jumping-flea-circus melody lines redolent of Fred Frith’s “Gravity.” Closer to home, composer Toby Summerfield draws upon his own background – the heavy No-Wave soundscape of Bill Brovold’s “Larval” – in which Summerfield played a pivotal role surfaces not unlike a sperm whale at points. The Chicago-cum-Ann Arbor-cum-San Francisco outfit “Transmission” also holds sway on the style, the interlocked wall of the brass/woodwind arsenal throws down textured strata with the force of concrete slabs – a notion Summerfield clearly gleaned from this seminal quartet.

Even the pseudo-faux (bear with the redundancy for minute) snippet that is “The Gift,” the last track of the album, works. It comes off immediately as overly, and yet mockingly, sentimental. I suspect, however, that it was borne of genuine feeling. At first, it is off-putting; this clearly maudlin and possibly self-indulgent mock-tribute. And yet, still, the abacus quietly clicked away via invisible fingers, and gradually, subtly, without a conscious mark upon it, the piece morphs into a grand wash of denoument,, apropos of the album’s mechanics throughout. What is Never Enough Hope? I still don’t know for sure, but it is certainly music that you have never heard before.

No related posts.

blog comments powered by Disqus