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Aloha hail from Cleveland (Ohio) and debuted with the
EP The Great Communicators (Polyvinyl, 1999), five brief and intriguing
blasts of jazzcore.
The album That's Your Fire (Polyvinyl, 2000)
successfully merged pop-jazz, progressive-rock, minimalism and post-rock.
The brief overture, Last Night I Dreamt You Slept Beside Me, set the pace
with its convoluted drumming, jazzy vibraphone and pattern repetition.
Ferocious Love is emblematic of their dysfunctional counterpoint:
the jazz undercurrent of the vibraphone and cymbals seems disconnected from
the doom-like guitar and drums, and the vocals sing a ballad that only at the
end the others acknowledge.
The focus of attention keeps shifting.
The Broadway-esque vocals and a panzer bass dominate Don't Sleep.
in intricate pieces
The stuttering quasi-ska guitar and the petulant vibraphone lead
A Hundred Stories down the abyss of a frenzied post=rock jam.
The piano creates most of the brainy structure of Saint Lorraine (probably the standout), which implodes in a gently fading lounge-soul jam a` la
Police.
Tony Cavallario on vocals and guitar, Matthew Gengler on bass,
Cale Parks on drums, Eric Koltnow on vibraphone and piano displayed
the technical prowess of a fusion combo and the imagination of a Canterbury outfit.
They prove it with the nine-minute Heading East , in which
guitar and vibraphone create two superimposing minimalist patterns.
Their take on music harked back to the 1970s, but propelled by the neuroses of
the 1990s.
Sugar (Polyvinyl, 2002) is better structured although a little less
adventurous.
They See Rocks, Let Your Head Hang Low, It Won't Be Long
are still impeccable performances but tend to reward the musicians, not the
audience.
The counterpoint is so subtle here that one loses the thread of the song.
Replacing Koltnow with a new keyboardist on
Here Comes Everyone (Polyvynil, 2004),
the band moved towards a sunnier and catchier sound,
distancing themselves from the previous album's jazz leanings
(although half the songs still feature the vibraphone).
Some Echoes (Polyvinyl, 2006) was a more traditional work that
even sounded like a tribute to psychedelic-rock of the Sixties.
Brace Your Face was the only piece to be led by the vibraphone,
and also the standout track. Keyboard arrangements dominate
Summer Lawn and Mountain.
Aloha's multi-instrumentalist
Cale Parks debuted solo with Illuminated Manuscript (Polyvinyl, 2006),
weak on the vocals but rich on the arrangements.
Body Buzz is the highlight of the pastoral seven-song EP Light Works (Polyvinyl, 2007).
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Giuseppe Schiavoni)
Gli Aloha arrivano da Cleveland (Ohio) e debuttano con l’EP The Great Communicators (Polyvinyl, 1999), cinque brevi e intriganti esplosioni di jazzcore. L’album That's Your Fire (Polyvinyl, 2000) fonde felicemente progressive-rock, free-jazz, minimalismo e post-rock in pezzi elaborati come A Hundred Stories o Saint Lorraine. Tony Cavallario alla voce e alla chitarra, Matthew Gengler al basso, Cale Parks alla batteria, Eric Koltnow al vibrafono e al piano, mostrano la perizia tecnica di una band di fusion unita alla fantasia della scuola di Canterbury. Il loro approccio alla musica richiama gli anni 70, spinto però dalle nevrosi degli anni 90.
Sugar (Polyvinyl, 2002) è meglio strutturato anche se un po’ meno ardito. They See Rocks, Let Your Head Hang Low, It Won't Be Long sono pezzi sicuramente impeccabili, ma tendono a soddisfare più i musicisti stessi che gli ascoltatori. Gli Aloha passano dall’emocore al progressive-rock incrementando la dose di jazz (e di vibrafono), allontanandosi dal ritmo e indulgendo in sottili contrappunti.
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