Flutterama - Vinyle Marron

Description

The new album – the seventh – by Half-handed Cloud, Flutterama, is a jubilant indie-pop record of 18 songs by John Ringhofer, who explores spiritual ineptitude through lively arrangements and radiant melodies that skillfully deteriorate thanks to choppy tape manipulations, analog sound distortions, and an animated orchestra made of sound effects. John's work on Flutterama was inspired by the teenage liturgies of Frances Mary Hunter Gordon (recorded at Abbey Road during the Beatles era), the murky images and sounds of Guy Maddin's films, the bold forms of Sister Corita Kent's devotional prints, the exquisite fragility of Elizabeth Cotten's voice, Alberto Burri's burlap assemblages, Alvar Aalto's church designs, Andrea Büttner's poverty-inspired artworks, Lou Barlow/Dinosaur Jr's lo-fi sound collage "Poledo" (which cites the name of Jesus), Julie Canlis's book A Theology of the Ordinary, Wallace Berman's visual collage, and the beautifully ramshackle D.I.Y. aesthetic of The Raincoats. The tracks on the album, recorded on the same 16-track used last by a sound technician also employed by the Beach Boys in their home studio, surprisingly use very few synthesizers – he preferred to patiently create most of the album's effects by discreetly breaking away from rock instrumentation through recordings of reel-to-reel organs, the sounds of deflating balloons, a few guitars, a piano (sometimes recorded with a baby on his lap), brass, the snapping of a tablecloth, and a half-speed music box. He was assisted by Brandon Buckner, a long-time collaborator of Half-handed Cloud, on drums, and by American songwriter John Van Deusen for the backing vocals.