“Knife”
from the album Yellow House
2006
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Like “alternative,” the “experimental” designation was one created by somebody somewhere in the mainstream so they could discredit artists who were truly doing something different than whatever was commonly considered to be straight-ahead. And let’s face it: “experimental” seldom implies that an album itself was an experiment; artists know exactly what they’re doing when they set off to make a “difficult” record. In the three years that separated OK Computer and Kid A, Radiohead completely reinvented themselves as a heavily electronic-oriented band. That was on purpose. And Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger knew exactly what they were doing when they asked their Grandmother to do lead vocals on a Fiery Furnaces record. New York-based Grizzly Bear — originally the solo effort of frontman Ed Droste but now expanded to a four-piece — is making minimalist psychadelic folk-music that often gets them labled as freak folk or experimental. But make no mistake: at its core, Yellow House is cinematic folk-pop at its finest regardless of what other labels it’s given in the meantime to make it easier for the public to swallow.
Set to be released by Warp Records on September 4, Yellow House is full of many of the same haunting melodies that characterized the first Grizzly Bear album Horn of Plenty. But the band just sounds “bigger” here: their aesthetic is as engrossing as ever, but the heart and melancholy that permeate every song sound as organic as leaves in Autumn. This is the result of painstaking attention to detail — by all means, something that couldn’t be further from an experiment.