Spatula belongs to the third generation of Chapel Hill (North Carolina)
college-rock.
The mind behind Spatula is Chuck Johnson (guitar), who recorded
the early singles,
Radio Helmet/ Carmike (Now Sound, 1994) and
Blue Crab (Now Sound, 1994),
and the album
Even the Thorny Acacia (Jesus Christ, 1994)
with little more than the help of a drummer.
The sound is indebted to Steve Albini and
Polvo.
Schizoid tempos, erudite dissonances, moody passages and cryptic textures
pervade Minutehand, Jules and the Termites, True-Life and
Confessional Tutor.
The cello plays a key role on
Medium Planers and Matchers (Jesus Christ, 1995), by injecting Johnson's
convoluted scores with a jazzier and more classical feeling.
Zero Trail leads a parade of intellectual exercises that peaks with
the suite Dover Downs (nine minutes), his most ambitious work yet.
Austere compositions such as The Profundity Requital,
Pari Passu and Coupon Waxer quote most alternative rock of the
1980s without ever sounding derivative.
A Moog surfaces in Hardwick Range.
Johnson shines on the 26-minute mini-album
Under the Veil of Health (Squealer, 1996),
crafting instrumental vignettes that are vigorous without being hardcore and
that are murky without being obnoxious.
The emotional palette ranges from the
jovial, deconstructed flamenco of VFW to the whirling middle-eastern
dance of Service Entrance Fiasco to the
dissonant chamber adagio of King George Island, and sometimes evolves
within the same track (the romantic interlude of
Empire of the Sun shifts gear to a loud, hallucinated, hypnotic
mantra).
The shorter tracks all tackle intriguing and seductively surreal techniques,
and it is a pity that the artist did not deem them worthy of further
development.
Johnson's mostly instrumental art finally came to complete maturation with
Despina By Land (Squealer, 1998), recorded by a trio (including
Chris Eubanks on cello and bass).
Voyage Of The Stan and Sometimes You Die
are his most accomplished compositions yet, the former reminiscent of Doors,
Mike Oldfield and folk-rock, the latter a sophisticated lesson to purveyors of
math-rock drenched in Indian-inspired trance.
Johnson can be complex and experimental (Snake Of One Hundred Paces)
as well as loud and rocking (Continuous Cities).
Clarinet and sarod augment the exotic atmosphere in the carnival music of
The Field Broadens.
Some of the best ideas are still in the shorter songs, fragments like
Strewn And Shoeless (Leo Kottke in a trance)
and Pittman's Violets (crystal serene like a renaissance madrigal)
that transcend genres and styles.
Unfortunately, Johnson is far less engaging when he sings (Lasko).
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