March 2003 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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March 2003 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Tobin Sprout’s first solo LP in 4 years: masterful 3 March 2003
In sharp contrast to Robert Pollard’s genuine pop experimentation we have the new LP by his longtime friend and collaborator, Tobin Sprout. On Lost Planets & Phantom Voices, his first solo full length in four years, Sprout has crafted a lo-fi indierock masterpiece that, like F.M. Cornog’s East River Pipe project, borrows heavily from ’60s and ’70s Britpop and San Francisco psychedelia. As optimistic and varied as those times were, so is this album. Sprout’s Doctor #8, one of 13 tracks lovingly crafted in his Leland, Michigan home studio, is a surrealist novella of a song whose economy of words brings to mind author Martin Amis: “Doctor number five has his feet in the spray/ Doctor number six has to work all day/ Doctor number seven has to sleep alone/ With Doctor number eight.” The next song, Catch The Sun, like many on this album, suffuses the air with a meek-tempered joy that has everything to do with Sprout’s unique vocal delivery—a tasty combination of blithe ease and dadaistic mystery. This is the sort of rock music that can raise you if you’re down, and gently incite you to dancing when you’re happy. Martini, one of two instrumentals on Lost Planets..., revisits the ’60s spy-pop theme sound, à la Mike Alway’s Death By Chocolate. On Let Go Of My Beautiful Balloon, Sprout uncannily recreates the desperate hopefulness permeating the 1968 debut singles by Genesis, as he sings “Taunting fingers leading me to somewhere/ Dull complaints, but there's no pain in somewhere/ In somewhere there are people who won't hurt me/ Floating gently, ever flying, smiling back at me.” Tobin Sprout, known to friends as Toby, has defined the sound on Lost Planets... largely by use of lo-fi drum machines and distortion-heavy analog recording techniques. There’s abundant warmth and complexity in the resulting noise. It goes way beyond the extent of analog noise in the original ’60s sounds he’s referencing, but from here it sounds just right. It’s an effective if surprising approach from a man who, when he’s not composing his perfect melodic hooks, paints photorealist works of art. Sprout’s Website has a link to his Petrified Fish art gallery as well as ordering information for the new album. | Tobin Sprout | | top of page | |
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