In 1998, a Seattle band led by singer-guitarist Jake Snider released their debut EP. In 2001, another Seattle band led by singer-guitarist Jake Snider did the same. The second of those groups was Minus the Bear, who have gone on to tour internationally, released three albums (with a fourth on the way), and have been remixed by the likes Tyondai Braxton, Fog, and members of dälek. It’s not hard to understand why: at their best, Minus the Bear write terrific, punchy pop songs, enlivened by Snider’s relaxed lyrics and J. Robbins-esque everyman delivery. Yet the band we’re here to discuss are Minus the Bear’s predecessors, a group called Sharks Keep Moving, whose discography encompasses less than 20 songs and who made fascinating rock music out of unlikely elements.
The first notes of “Try to Sleep,” which opens their 1998 EP Desert Strings and Drifters, are languorous, more concerned with setting a mood than with a payoff of released tension. But that payoff does eventually come. The first words heard are “Rolled off to my side of the bed/ Slightly cold and only slightly tired.” It’s a malaise, but a different sort of malaise than many a post-collegiate post-punk anthem traded in -- one closer in tone to The Wrens’ The Meadowlands than Braid’s Frame and Canvas.
Applying the “post-rock” label to this EP isn’t entirely accurate, but like the jazz-influenced direction Karate was adopting at a similar time, Desert Strings and Drifters represents a way to channel the tensions of both punk and post-hardcore and push them in different directions. The looping “Arizona,” with its refrain of “Call this a landscape? Man, any other state” and Stephanie Goldade’s steady viola, takes things into Dirty Three territory. It is quiet resignation rendered across a wide screen, and when it does reach a conclusion, the listener is left exhausted, an emotional mirror of the trying times and draining conversations implied by these four songs.
Their history was brief: Desert Strings and Drifters followed a split 7-inch with the noise-punk band Kentucky Pistol. It, in turn, would be followed by a self-titled full-length and a final EP titled Pause and Clause. Meanwhile, Sharks Keep Moving, their only full-length, featured a subtle shift in songwriting, with four twisting instrumentals and four stark, moody rock songs. Indeed, each of the band’s releases has its own particular character, but Desert Strings and Drifters’ combination of lush textures, embittered ennui, and musical tensions continues to haunt a decade later.
1. Try to Sleep
2. Cashmere, Washington
3. All Out Of...
4. Arizona
