August 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Eric Bachmann issues first album under own name 23 August 2002
Composer/indie rock veteran Eric Bachmann comes from Asheville, North Carolina—a retirement mecca, an alternative culture oasis, and a university town all in one. He began an influential if underground music career with a ten year run as front man for Chapel Hill’s critically acclaimed Archers Of Loaf, evolving recently into his solo act Crooked Fingers as well as working closely with Athens chill-twee duo Azure Ray—who in turn collaborated this year with Moby. In the mid ’90s Bachmann put out a couple of adventurous instrumental solo LPs under the alias Barry Black. Wilmington, North Carolina screenwriter/director Daniel Kraus was among the fans of those little-known but still in-print discs, and last year his production team invited Bachmann to compose a score for their new (not yet released) indie film Ball Of Wax. The film’s unusual plot explores the implications of mixing the gentlemanly sport of baseball with extreme violence. Chapel Hill’s Merge Records released the soundrack disc this week. “Eric is one of my all-time music heroes,” Kraus wrote recently. “He was really our first and only choice. When he called and said he had watched the rough cut and wanted to do the film, I was speechless.” As Bachmann’s first release under his own name, the 'original score for the film Ball Of Wax' also has a proper title: Short Careers. Although Bachmann wrote, produced, arranged, and performed most of the album himself, he enlisted a small string section, drummer Evan Thomas (who joined Bachmann on his recent Crooked Fingers covers project Reservoir Songs), and Azure Ray’s Maria Taylor. The LP’s closing track, Ty Cobb, on which Taylor plays guitar, could have fit seamlessly onto Azure Ray’s recent second album. Many of the tracks on Ball Of Wax have a distinctly somber, eastern European flavor. Others, notably Forks And Knives, Finding The Holes Filling The Gaps, and Reach Out And Touch Someone, are deliciously strange and atmospheric. And some, like Vision And Execution, surrealistically intermingle the two disparate feels. The musical progression through this oddly cohesive album becomes curiously dreamlike and engaging. Four bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. Bachmann continues work on the third Crooked Fingers album, slated for a late 2002/early 2003 release. | Crooked Fingers | | Merge Records | | Ball Of Wax movie site | | CD from Amazon US | | top of page | |
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