Computer Vs. Banjo
When one of these things shouldn't belong, belongs
It’s like when we used to play that “one of these things doesn’t belong” game on Sesame Street. You’d have, for instance, a carrot, an apple, a potato, and a piece of broccoli and you had to pick out which one didn’t make sense being there in the rest of the group, the one couldn’t meld with the others because it was so different. The apple in this context would be the “one that doesn’t belong.”
So in the context of that game, if you’d put forward, say, a drum machine, a keyboard, a computer, and a banjo, you’d most likely pick out the banjo as the odd man, seeing as all the other items are electronic devices which can be used to make music (don’t anyone tell me it’s the computer because it’s the only one you can play Warcraft on). And it is most likely in that spirit of “un-matchingness” that the guys of Computer Vs. Banjo decided to handle their musical exploration; taking the highly organic, unmistakably folk resonance of the banjo (and other acoustic instruments) and melding it together with a good dose of digital soundcrafting. And the first taste we have of this is in the form of their song Give Up On Ghosts.
What we have here is a smooth pop tune, bluesey and drawling to the core; with its prickly banjo strumming, poised handclap presence, tambourine jostling in cadence, and bluegrass coloured verses, the song would be very much à propos being lazily performed on someone’s rickety porch on a hot July afternoon. However, the thudding drums, droning synths, and fuzzed out vocals give it a sheen of modernity, a sort of new-meets-old which can’t keep it confined to the background of some backyard county festival. Not to mention that funked-out jam three-quarters into the tune, which jazzily shambles into a hiccuping moment of delirium; there are enough layers to this song to understand that this one here is one that belongs.
MP3: Computer Vs. Banjo - Give Up On Ghosts
www.computervsbanjo.com
myspace.com/computervsbanjo
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