Blonder Tongue Audio Baton opens with a sound clip of what I imagine is packaging tape being sealed around a box. And for the duration of the record I try to determine whether I’m the one sealing the box or if I’ve been crammed inside haphazardly. It’s an interesting dilemma since The Swirlies do so much to both alienate and incorporate the listener into their music. On one hand the Boston quartet is masterful at harvesting melody out of molesting walls of noise. On the other, the record mingles esoteric scribbles of sampling that cause the listener to feel like they’re the third wheel in a joke they don’t get. To this latter point though, these samples -- of men taunting each other, tape dispensers and a rant on the medicinal benefits of natural substances -- draw me in closer for reasons I don’t understand.
Recorded amid the high waters of shoegaze creativity and the mounting currents of indie rock, Blonder Tongue Audio Baton maintains a confluence of both genres. This said, The Swirlies infuse the recording with doses of psychedelia that are heavy enough to help to establish a firm identity. Throughout this record we find song after song of noisy slabs blended with charming hooks. “Bell,” the first ‘song’ on the record, with its ringing squall of guitars, yields to a sloppy, lo-fi melody reminiscent of early Pavement. As leveling as any piece of Loveless-Psychocandy, “Jeremy Parker” is a huge song that combines a hint of a dance beat with the cold, fragile vocal interplay occurring between Seana Carmody and Damon Tutunjian. Musically massive, it hits upon the record’s most obvious theme: the sexual tension between men and women. The thematic, effect-ridden, and sampled aspects of Blonder Tongue, however, should not deter the listener from understanding what this really is: a guitar record. With the vocals and rhythm floating low in the mix, the blaring guitars are impossible to ignore.
For historical purposes, Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, is a fun record to reinvestigate. For one, the styles that it presents have been celebrated, then worn, then abandoned, then reinvented since its release. That’s not to say The Swirlies themselves “invented” anything. Rather, its release among similar records like Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, Going Blank Again, and For Your Own Special Sweetheart, caused Blonder to receive less attention than it deserved. So it’s a product of its time. Examining its incorporation of the sounds of the moment, its cryptic agenda of borrowed conversations, and a strong melodic sense, it deserves a place among strong records have synthesized the ideas of others into something genuine and interesting; in or out of the box.