Dust Covered Carpet

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.




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12/2009 - Monochrome

We have many reviews but most of them are in German. sorry.... - Dust Covered CArpet