Rockbites: Supercollaboration Go Back Snowball release debut

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Supercollaboration Go Back Snowball release debut
22 March 2002

Go Back Snowball is the curious name given to an even curiouser collaboration between psych-pop Guided By Voices front man/Fading Captain mastermind Robert Pollard and indie-pop Superchunk front man Ralph 'Mac' McCaughan, who also records solo under the name Portastatic. Their new album Calling Zero is number 17 in the Fading Captain series, and came out three weeks ago on Recordhead records in association with Luna Music.
    Pollard’s curious strategy for the project (which follows a pattern he’s established for Fading Captain) was to ask McCaughan to compose and record some instrumental tracks on his own. McCaughan would send them along and then Pollard would compose lyrics & melody and lay down his vocals. The two operated in separate states—North Carolina and Ohio—and were never in a studio together.
    This unusual framework seems to have motivated the pair, each known for uncompromising pursuit of his vision, to stretch a bit farther. And the fact that Pollard’s invitation to McCaughan was his first Fading Captain project to venture outside the relative safety of the Guided By Voices camp seems to have helped set a more experimental tone. The result on Calling Zero (that’s the disc’s curious title) is playful, synergistic, and oddly cohesive—a psychedelic/indie pop whole far exceeding the sum of its parts.
    McCaughan’s wonderfully varied and fully realized music features horns, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, drums, synths, keyboards, and effects, and no doubt could stand on its own as an instrumental album. But Pollard’s trademark lyrics and vocal delivery are simultaneously strange and inviting and turn the soundtrack into a set of songs as dreamily bizarre as they are infectious and hummable. Three bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

| Fading Captain info | | Guided By Voices | | Superchunk on Merge Records | | CD from Amazon US | | top of page |

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