Dust Covered Carpet
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Dust Covered Carpet

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The best kept secret in music

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"Rerededust the Doubts I Trust"

Revelations come in all shapes and sizes, this one here in the act of sitting down in some living rooom with friends and instruments of the whatever is available sortiment and play some songs that come to mind. The kind of collectivism, where, if somebody shows up without any musical talent but likes to draw he is in the band nevertheless – and no that is not necessarily a hippie thing. Think of the Happy Mondays or Avail. Moreover, the Austrian ensemble dust covered carpet is too focused, too structured and not ecstatic and frantic enough to fall into the current free freak folk collective trend. Probably without the freak and the free. Maybe the old term songwriting fits best and we shouldn't change what has been working well such a long time. ....

Within the first song "pictures of the late fall sun" dust covered carpet amass the connotations of current prairie music favorites: the singing swagger and stumble of Will Oldham, the major-minor chord changes that denominate the emotional breakdowns and excitement of Connor Oberst's art of songwriting, the drama and narrativity of songstructures as well as some of the arrangements of The Decemberists, a hint of the harmonic ideas that (gasp) The Mamas & The Papas spread over the world, and so on, and that is only the first song on this eleven song collection. Is it all just a clever mix of other people's ideas? No, not at all, or if it is, then it is perfectly hidden (and we should ask ourselves what actually isn't...?) even if "Pink Glasses" has some double harmonic singing Simon & Garfunkel would have been proud of, how can you trace the origins of a universal form of expression? Anyway, there is more than enough of their own spirit in these songs to make the "for friends of"-tag legitimate and non-discriminatory. ....

The songs on "rerededust the doubts I trust" losely fall into two categories: the intimate, single-person penned song that started its existence with one person alone late at night and played on an acoustic guitar first, an lower, subtler and more personal affair. And the other category is the all of us together, fun-filled, sun-drenched, sing a long narratives with melodies to stick for some weeks. This is where the glockenspiel and flutes come in, where arrangements are not at all tight and lose ends are welcome. For the first one I imagine a situation where the song was written strumming so softly and singing more to the writer himself so as not to disturb the people sleeping next door. For the other category I very much doubt the idea, they were actually recorded on that eponymous carpet in the living room, because sound and mixing are too good. On the other hand, with the tools available in a modern laptop production is so easy to come by that some artists have started to add the lo-fi noise and tape hiss of yonder days on purpose. Moreover I am completely partial to spreading a good story and not letting it be distorted by the facts. ....

It easy to doubt and be mistrusting these days. Everything seems open and available to check and double-check. But that is misjudging the basic facts that modern information technology is 99.9 % a spoof (no, google does not contain all the information in the world, not even by far, not even somewhere to a small percentage of it...) and that people just don't do it no matter what the marketing industry tells them. Most people forget that no matter how much technology, how much digitalisation and how many nifty tools there are available, some basic rules that have formed over the last ten or twenty centuries stay the same, such as action-reaction, love makes people blind, pressure produces counter-pressure, a story well told sticks in the mind. And so on. And that works in favor of bands like dust covered carpet, especially if they keep their attitude of traditional handicraft as superior to mass production. ....

Summing up, dust covered carpet have at least one up on the other Austrian prairie music collective that comes to mind (A life, a song, a cigarette) and that is a certain recklessness and abandon regarding the ease with which they let dramatic effects and emotional climaxes overpower traditional songstructures. Take for example "....Poison.. ..City...." and its various instances a capella points of stressing a line or a verse, its rhythm shifts and variations on the main themes be they melody or content of the lyrics. That is gifted songwriting. - Monochrom: 4/2008


"Rerededust the Doubts I Trust"

Recently I discovered this Austrian band, Dust Covered Carpet. More bands are making the change to explore different instruments; the results are extremely fascinating to say the least. Dust Covered Carpet incorporates glockenspiels with clarinets and flutes along with the ordinary guitars and drums. One would think this is impossible to accomplish a descent tune worth listening to… how wrong you would be to think it. Dust Covered Carpet's music by far is amazing to be called the new 21st century music for Folk Pop genres. Back in the early 60's and 70s, this genre was experimented and it was a hit among the young culture, filled with peace, love, mind-harmony, emotional reservations, and fellow-friendship. By the mid to later 80's, it ran out of energy only to regain its power and be reborn in the millennium, a revamped Hippie Psychedelic.
I for one am a fan of Industrial, Industrial-Rock and Gothic Rock and I found myself adding Folk Pop to my list of favourable likes. When I first heard the track "You'll See", it was like a musical explosive of hip, pop, folk on a twist; the album is filled with many different feelings, exceedingly powerful. 'You'll See', is an excellent 'hey wake up and look around' song; filled with transverse flutes, accordion and drums the flutes adds a special touch to the song.'Poison City' like the other tracks on this album; it merges the previous 70's and adds a modern touch (I suppose the best way to explain it) of what hippie folk would appear to be in today's world. Throughout some of the tracks, I did detect Connor Oberst's songwriting techniques… astounding!
'Picture Of The Late Fall Sun' sun-drenched beach with a young love wanting to spread his love to his long-life love only to be lost in the sands, waiting for; one day, to be discovered and hopefully hearts' love will join in harmony for an everlasting journey.Dust Covered Carpet music has something to offer all music genres…get in a lull spot in your mind and just listen. Recommended tracks: 'A Bridge Needs To Be Built', 'Picture Of The Late Fall Sun', 'You'll See', 'My Flat & My Shadow'.

points: 4.75 / 5 pts
- Mousagenre: 4/2008


"Rerededust the Doubts I Trust"

Ich bin immer noch überzeugt, dass die Prärie überall ist, aber besonders in Wienund seiner weiteren Umgebung. Nach A Life, A Song, A Cigarette reitet da ein weiteres Kollektiv vom Horizont heran und macht es sich in jemandes Wohnzimmer gemütlich, um von der Liebe, dem Leben und den bedeutendsten Kleinigkeiten dazwischen zu singen. Trotz gelungenem Einsatz von Glockenspiel, Flöte und Harmonika zum mehrfachen Harmonie. Gesang und der alten akustischen Gitarre ist das kein (!) Freak Folk, sondern im Gegenteil Songschreiberkunst der Marke Oberst / Drake / Decemberists. Trotzdem eigenständig und originell und vor allem zeitlos. DCC lassen sich nicht einschüchtern und knallen ihre Songs so auf den Tisch, wie sie kommen. Ohne Zurückhaltung oder scheu vor Emotionen. Einfach schön.

Punktevergabe: (8/10) - GAP


"A Cloud, Pushed and Squeezed"

The folk-homerecording collective Dust Covered Carpet around Volker Buchgraber has pulled the reins on their second album, increased on where their strengths are and focused on what they want rather than what they can. The loseness, happy go lucky first take arrangements and creative freedom that comes with ignorance of the first album has gone for a more controlled approach to arrangements and probably the will to revise and rework a song as long as necessary to reach the achieved grade of perfection. Within that process though the warmth and humanity of the songs and the collective music making did not get lost, therefore it is definitely an overall improvement. In a way I am sure that the song “the writer’s pen” gives all of this away, it even mentions the legendary Dust Covered Carpet all of this started on some years ago.

Another fact to strengthen the new found seriousness and seriosity implied in taking a hobby to a meaningful arts project, is that the mastering was done by Harris Newman in Montral, who also worked for Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade and probably a shipload of other alike bands as well. This is also the direction the music seems to be going. That, and Connor Oberst still spooking around everywhere you look, in every dark corner or long unused attic you may find some Bright Eyes.

Within the arrangements of acoustic guitars adorned with all kinds of handy instruments, from drums and harmonica to bass (provided by Dino Spiluttini of Liger) and glockenspiel, mainly the dilligently worked out harmony singings and choirs in the back are standing out. Especially their technically well done execution shows a lot more technical incliniation towards perfection than would be expectable from a pure homerecording for fun project. Is that some signifier for this that the cloud on the cover of the album looks more like a symbolic brain to me? Probably not.

Unlike their local contemporaries A life A song A cigarette and Protestant Work Ethic (and probably a hundred more, but those are the ones in my focus, sue me) Dust Covered Carpet rely a lot more on the most traditional Viennese rhythm: the 3/4 waltz rhythm. When they include an accordion to that as on “Boredom’s my key” the music becomes interestingly close to a seaman’s shanty. Nevertheless, there is no staggering in the rhythmical play. Actually they are structurally quite able to do some complicated things and keep the beat steady as a clock. Not everything that sounds simple is complicated and vice versa and also the other way around. Try to keep that in mind.

“A cloud, pushed and squeezed” puts the stakes up high for all those young songwriters with acoustic guitars huddling in the cold corners of this city, waiting for their turn in the limelight of the small clubs opening stages or at least lightened corners for them. The lesson is one about work and about determination. Attitude determines altitude as one of my old teachers used to say, but he never mentioned that you could adhere this principle to something you love to do as well.




www.beatismurder.com

12/2009 - Monochrom: 12/2009


"Split: Liger/Dust Covered Carpet"

I realized too late that the release of “A cloud, pushed and squeezed” by Dust Covered Carpet is due only in the beginning of February next year and now the review is out and there is not a lot I can do about it. Except say that I am sorry for the missing professionalism (which I am somehow also proud of in regards to music journalism…) and hint at this split release with Liger strongly, which features “Uncover its roots” by Dust Covered Carpet as a sort of ors d’houevre for the album release.

All you need to know about Dust Covered Carpet currently you may read in the review of aforementioned album, but on top of that “Waves may come” the other track by DCC on this release is a fine song as any of theirs, but with a flute on top. There is a lot of great arrangement that has gone ino this song, and it actually leaves the Connor Oberst school of songwriting for a masterclass with some English legend, whose name is not yet to be mentioned because the contractual work is not yet done. But it is very promising and opens up a lot of great visions and ideas for the future, and actually that is all that is important.

To round up side on of this split release Yeah Pretty Boy takes it up to remix “Waves may come”. Now, Yeah Pretty Boy is no-one else but Dino Spiluttini, who runs not only Beat is murder records but is also one half of Liger, which is the other half of this split release. Yeah, label incest has always worked out finely. His mix puts the melancholy and the emotional disturbance of coming of age into the foreground. Sleek, subtle electronic beats and basic keyboard chords undermine the pop-tendencies and give them a pathos and grandeur that is more found in smoke-filled, underground cafes with a singer struggling away in some corner, than the comfortable warmth of somebodies living room crowded with friends.

The loneliness of the individual soul longing for warmth and love in the cold of the modern urban dystopia of WLAN-cafes and late night coding, friends you never meet and virtual connections is a main focus of Liger’s music. They like to expand that idea of broken souls and the yawning desire to break them into excess. Yes, it hurts and they want to show that. In their first track the singer states “I shiver like I’ll die” or in the second song he closes with “Shattered bodys, sweaty palms / I think I love you”. And that is the epitome of positive thinking they can get themselves up to.

No easy ways out, no easy relationships, only extremes. “You are made of win and gold”, the first track of Liger on this split release, culminates in a Depeche Mode like synthie beat, but keeps the acoustic guitar. They do a lot of late night strumming to write songs, too, I guess. Their side is also rounded up by a remix: “Split Yourself Lilith” is reworked by Tokyotron aka Trouble Over Tokyo, who are also on the roster of Beatismurder Records. What did I tell you about incest? TOT put nice and easy IDM beats and some harsher keyboards underneath or over the harmonies of Liger and add something interestingly sticky and fascinating to the track, but it is hard to say how this fits so well when it seems so contradictory.

This vinyl 12” comes in a nicely printed cover that seemed to take away the whole storyline of the movie “2012” – a burning house about to be consumed by a giant wave. If you want to see the full thing, please click on the cover above.

www.beatismurder.com

- Monochrom: 12/2009


Discography

Releases:
2008: „Rerededust the doubts I trust“
2009: „Waves may come“
2010: „A Cloud, Pushed and Squeezed“

Compilations:
2009: “TBA #18 CD-zum Musikmagazin

Photos

Bio

The folk-homerecording collective Dust Covered Carpet around Volker Buchgraber has pulled the reins on their second album, increased on where their strengths are and focused on what they want rather than what they can. The loseness, happy go lucky first take arrangements and creative freedom that comes with ignorance of the first album has gone for a more controlled approach to arrangements and probably the will to revise and rework a song as long as necessary to reach the achieved grade of perfection. Within that process though the warmth and humanity of the songs and the collective music making did not get lost, therefore it is definitely an overall improvement. In a way I am sure that the song “the writer’s pen” gives all of this away, it even mentions the legendary Dust Covered Carpet all of this started on some years ago.

Another fact to strengthen the new found seriousness and seriosity implied in taking a hobby to a meaningful arts project, is that the mastering was done by Harris Newman in Montral, who also worked for Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade and probably a shipload of other alike bands as well. This is also the direction the music seems to be going. That, and Connor Oberst still spooking around everywhere you look, in every dark corner or long unused attic you may find some Bright Eyes.

Within the arrangements of acoustic guitars adorned with all kinds of handy instruments, from drums and harmonica to bass (provided by Dino Spiluttini of Liger) and glockenspiel, mainly the dilligently worked out harmony singings and choirs in the back are standing out. Especially their technically well done execution shows a lot more technical incliniation towards perfection than would be expectable from a pure homerecording for fun project. Is that some signifier for this that the cloud on the cover of the album looks more like a symbolic brain to me? Probably not.

Unlike their local contemporaries A life A song A cigarette and Protestant Work Ethic (and probably a hundred more, but those are the ones in my focus, sue me) Dust Covered Carpet rely a lot more on the most traditional Viennese rhythm: the 3/4 waltz rhythm. When they include an accordion to that as on “Boredom’s my key” the music becomes interestingly close to a seaman’s shanty. Nevertheless, there is no staggering in the rhythmical play. Actually they are structurally quite able to do some complicated things and keep the beat steady as a clock. Not everything that sounds simple is complicated and vice versa and also the other way around. Try to keep that in mind.

“A cloud, pushed and squeezed” puts the stakes up high for all those young songwriters with acoustic guitars huddling in the cold corners of this city, waiting for their turn in the limelight of the small clubs opening stages or at least lightened corners for them. The lesson is one about work and about determination. Attitude determines altitude as one of my old teachers used to say, but he never mentioned that you could adhere this principle to something you love to do as well.

www.beatismurder.com

12/2009