Music
Press
Accordion interludes and discordant vocals, normally harbingers of a sketchy musical experience, are surprisingly pleasant on Art & Ransom's debut LP. There's a certain fanciful charm to the accurate way the piano echoes raindrops on "Rain Go Away" and the violin serenades on "Burning Pages, Not Books" - these musicians know how to play their instruments.
With instrumental experimentation and a very sophisticated aesthetic, Art & Ransom have the makings of a new break-out many-pieced orchestral band, a la Broken Social Scene or The Decemberists. But they are just shy of pulling it off. Behind the curtains of complex instrumentation is the shadow of a doubt. A solid, tight melody is elusive on most tracks and though vocalist Matty McBride does a good job of blurring the line between on-key and off-key, one wonders how much of the trickery is intentional. There's a lot of potential and a lot of talent, occasionally brilliant lyrics and definitely a lot of vision (which their album-cover art can attest to)...but one gets the impression these qualities haven't been fully realized on We Couldn't Even Believe What We Saw. Still, after giving it a listen, it's hard to not be curious about what a sophomore album might bring.
- Nina Wegner
http://theowlmag.com/cdreviews.asp?id=513 - The Owl Magazine
Art & Ransom — We Couldn’t Even Believe What We Saw
Produced by Art & Ransom, Christopher Scott Cooper and Marc Dickow
Recorded by Christopher Scott Cooper at Blue Seven Audio in Fremont, CA
Mastered by Tom Carr at The Annex in Menlo Park, CA
In keeping with the literary rock movement that has come to the forefront thanks to bands like The Decemberists, San Francisco indie rock outfit Art & Ransom’s debut album We Couldn’t Even Believe What We Saw offers English-major indie rockers 11 tracks dedicated to such diverse topics as authoritarian regimes and jaded ravers.
The band has an undeniably orchestral sound brimming with experimental piano and violin. When coupled with their ethereal album art, Art & Ransom deliver exactly what their name might imply — smart, aesthetically pleasing rock in the same vein as British Columbia band The New Pornographers. We Couldn’t Even Believe What We Saw has jazzy, vacillating elements that enable the album to flow together like one continuous, symphonic piece. The vocal styling of singer Matty McBride is reminiscent of Graham Wright of Tokyo Police Club, giving the music more of a rocking edge.
The lyrics throughout the album have a free-verse quality. This element is exemplified in such lines as, “Keep the clouds in the soles of your shoes so you can / Float above the heaven that’s taking all our friends in” and speaks volumes about the depth and creativity of Art & Ransom’s songwriting ingénue.
We Couldn’t Even Believe What We Saw is a breezy debut that is both effortless and orchestral, exposing a fledgling band with limitless potential. (OpenEye Records)
www.artandransom.com
-Jen Tartaglione
www.performermag.com/wcp.recordedreviews.0705.php - West Coast Performer Magazine
Discography
We Couldn't Even Believe What We Saw - LP
Blind Trumpeteer EP
Photos
Bio
When they were both four years old, Matty McBride and Ben Joseph went to Temple Shalom Preschool together. 12 years later, they got back in touch and started making music together. But they needed a band.
Matty knew a drummer, John Moxley. John had a brother, Peter, who played guitar. They all went to school with Matt Rankin, who played saxophone and keyboard. Ben played bass; even though he could play any other instrument just as well, it was decided that he would play bass. Matty played guitar and sang at the same time. Ben knew a violinist named Clara Brill, so she joined too.
Taking their name from the title of a John McPhee book, Art & Ransom started writing. After they had enough songs for a thirty minute set, they started playing shows. In early 2006, they recorded and released, by themselves, the Blind Trumpeteer EP, which had most of the first songs they had written together on it. The shows kept on coming, and they kept on writing they were getting better at it.
Then, opportunity presented itself. To record a full-length album. This was given to them by Marc Dickow who had heard the band at a show. They took it. The album was recorded at the end of 2006 by Christopher Scott Cooper, and released February 10, 2007. It is called We Couldnt Even Believe What We Saw. Inside of it are songs about fascist children, jaded ravers, Charlie Parker, and the northwest. Now that theyre done with it, Art & Ransom are writing even more and playing as much as they can.
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