Indie label stalwart Sub Pop has enlightened us with a new label, Hardly Art, yet instead of shoving it in our face with an over dramatized first album, it has instead left us with Arthur & Yu, a quiet hippie-folk-indie-pop-lovefest duo from the good ol’ Pacific Northwest.
In Camera, the band’s debut album as well as the label’s, seems to provide the soundtrack for a young couple hopping aboard an old steam engine train, and the story of their trip across a new unexplored territory. The album’s opener, “Absurd Heroes Manifestos,” paints this picture perfectly, with a driving Appalachian-folk sound. This is a couple that is tired of the same old thing, and knows that they have to do something different, and they have to do it together: “cause when your mind does not approve / you know you’ve got to move.”
The album varies between curious traveling songs like this and “Afterglow,” and then brings us into the couple’s train car, waking up on a Sunday morning and staying in bed all day. It wouldn’t surprise me if “Come to View (Song for Neil Young)” and “There Are Too Many Birds” join the playlist of cute indie pop songs to make out to.
It is evident in Arthur & Yu’s music that they have a plethora of influences, from the Rocky Mountain folk style, to the psych-acoustic pop of the 60s, to clear influences from bands of today (see Belle & Sebastian for “Lion’s Mouth,” Peter Bjorn and John for “1000 Words,” The Boy Least Likely To for “The Ghost of Old Bull”). However, they are able to mesh all these styles together in a unique blend which separates them from most indie pop bands. Though their names aren’t Arthur & Yu (they’re Grant Olsen and Sonya Westcott), the duo is able to show off their multi-instrumentalism well in this album, as well as the fitting synchronizing of their voices, made into a dream-like quality with the reverberations present throughout the album.
This is an album that didn’t try to go for anything over the top and in your face, but rather brought you into the mindset of the duo and paved the way for a successful future. And plus, it’s pretty damn easy to make out to.
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