It can be troublesome describing what an artist sounds like, but perhaps Michael Zapruder has taken away some of the guesswork since he serves as [Pandora->http://www.pandora.com/]’s musical curator. A little predictably, the music genome project spit back three other white guys that play songs, listing Will Oldham, Luke Haines, and (huh?) Dave Matthews. But to me, for richer or poorer, Zapruder more closely resembles Randy Newman. Like the better Newman moments, his latest full-length Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope is raggedly intimate, even-keeled, and admirably restrained. The dry consistency, however, at times caricatures Newman “just singing about what he sees,” slowing the pace to a drip with sentimental imagery bordering on antiquity.
The pace lends the record a restlessness that doesn’t always afford enough patience to allow its slow development. A clanging railroad crossing and reel-to-reel hiss displace “Can’t We Bring You Home” somewhat jarringly from the contemporary, an effect echoed by the acoustic hymnal “Second Sunday In Ordinary Time.” These cuts float on their brevity, but the same cannot be said of “Black Wine” a pastoral epic that clops along for a redundant nine minutes, despite vocals recalling a tender Roger Waters. With a difficult narrative thread to follow and minimal thematic variation, “Black Wine” becomes a medieval chore with little at stake for payoff.
Yet Zapruder generates great suspense when he’s inclined to hurry, as proven by “Ads For Feelings,” which strolls along a meandering guitar and surprising orchestration grounded by a charging bassline. It’s an interesting way to manipulate the tempo into a whistling shoegazer somewhere between Fujiya & Miyagi and Yo La Tengo circa I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One. Likewise “South Kenosha” is well-balanced, effectively distorted, and punctuated by a warm organ that shimmers through a pelting hi-hat cymbal. Appropriately, lush instrumentation and narrow vocals understate a build that recalls Sufjan Stevens. Here, Zapruder really warms up, the electricity less stratified as if thatched together by the hum of feedback. And as another display of Zapruder’s range, “Bang On A Drum” grooves hypnotically, playing an organ’s wobbly timbre against an in-and-out tabla that eventually takes control of a pounding break.
Yet perhaps the more reserved and symphonic efforts ask too much of the storytelling for an album where images are not as spartan as they are threadbare. While Zapruder admirably removes the mood from the contemporary, the album’s staid pace and sleepy vocals isolate the work. And that perhaps, is not a bad thing, if each singer-songwriter is marooned at their piano. But the haunting lack of urgency in Zapruder’s voice and keys evokes uneasiness, its unabashed leisure, the brand reserved for a flaneur, sprawls over the entirety of the record leaving too much air to breathe.
1. Happy New Year
2. Lucy's Handmade Paper
3. Ads For Feelings
4. Can't We Bring You Home
5. Black Wine
6. Harbor Saints
7. South Kenosha
8. Bang On A Drum
9. White Raven Sails
10. Second Sunday In Ordinary Time
11. Experimental Film
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