Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
First a note to rock critics: Enough with the Post-Punk stuff, same with Nu-Jazz. Sure, some of the musicians used to be in punk bands. And yeah, it owes much to Post-Bebop and shares a lot, compositionally, with 70’s fusion… But instrumental, electronic music is neither of those. What it is, is GOOD. Run_return is a relatively recent entrant into this category, and they’re one of the strongest yet. Using live drums, vibraphone, and electronics, they create organic soundscapes, that are as visceral as they are beautiful—bringing elements of Aphex Twin and Tortoise together to create a wholly new sound. Their debut LP was heralded as one of the Best Albums of the Year, and Run_return is not one of, but THE best band you never heard of. Tributary is their anthemic score to the perfect day.
~ Zoe Knight - trampolinehouse.com
Jazz is endlessly reinventable, it seems. From the staid, upbeat rhythms of swing to the unpredictable nature of hard bop, it’s a form that’s nothing if not elastic. Local trio Run_Return takes the genre to an unexpected place—lo-fi and high-tech all at once. The sound melts dirty analog drumbeats into smooth, seething synth washes, and although these guys would happily steal from swing or bop, they adore Fela Kuti, folk, and fusion as well. Of the three free tracks on the band’s Web site (www.runreturn.com), our favorite is “Thoughts Broken by Footsteps,” with its deep bass, warm acoustic guitar line, and quizzical synth loops. Does it matter that this stuff is white-hot right now? Nah, course not—we just like it. The Prids and Crosstide open at 10 p.m. at the Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St. (at Missouri), S.F. Admission is $8; call 621-4455 or visit www.bottomofthehill.com.
~ Hiya Swanhuyser - SF Weekly
flavorpill.com
This must be the year of the sprint, what with Phoenix’s delirious pop hit “Run Run Run,” Detroit’s Run Stop Restore, and now the Bay Area’s own run_return. Despite the vintage digital roots of their name, there’s nothing basic (or BASIC) about the group’s lush, post-rock sound, which fuses the sprawling harmonics of Tortoise with a lo-fi interpretation of the Postal Service’s charmed electropop. Having gone from a duo to a sextet to a trio, run_return have re-engineered themselves with every change, but the most recent update of their code promises pure GIGO: Gentleness In, Grandeur Out.”(PS)
~ jake@flavorpill.net – (production editor) - Flavorpill.com
Bay Area Buzz
Run_Return’s self-titled, self-produced album… is quite simply the best album I’ve heard in a long time. It’s somewhere along the continuum that includes such delightful things as Tortoise, Aphex Twin, Prefuse 73 and maybe even Leo Kottke. I’m normally the kind of person who picks a couple of their favorite songs off an album and just listens to those but not in this case – oh, no – I listen to the damn thing from beginning to end every time.
~ Ben Bush - Bay Are Buzz Magazine
The act Run Return has three free tracks on its website, two examples of post-rock folk-chamber music with a pop touch, and one unapologetic pop ditty. The pleasure in “Thoughts Broken by Footsteps” isn’t merely how the acoustic guitar, plucked slightly off the mark, splits with the metronomic shuffle of the underlying machine beat, but how the beat itself is upset by the merest of microsonic impulses, little fissures that tweak the pattern ever so slightly, making the piece far more than a standard act of analog/digital contrast. Another track, “Tributary,” trades one such acoustic element for another: in the place of guitar we have a lightly bowed instrument, likely violin, its tender physicality — the raw feel that is the distant dream of digital texture-mappers everywhere — set against the tight harmony of electronic pulses, which after a short while are girded with what sounds like an actual drum kit; a later mallet part, inevitably, brings to mind Tortoise’s gamelan-like moire patterns, as canned orchestration (perhaps that original violin, now multiplied digitally) hovers lushly in the background. A fissure-like sound serves as the retro-1980s drum pattern on “Yah, Chilly,” with its analog-synth melisma of a melody, all goofy-sad electronic new wave, at best a gothy pop melodrama; of the three tracks, it’s the only one worth even considering bypassing. “Thoughts Broken” and “Tributary” are both must-hears. All available at runreturn.com.
~ Marc Weidenbaum - disquiet.com
Finding a way to fuse classic analog synthesizers, vibraphones, and drums with an Ibook, Run_return manages to be both the sound of the future and the past. They craft music that I guess folks in the know call “Post-Rock.” I don't really know what that means, and frankly, I find its implications offensive, but the only thing offensive about the style is that more Post-Rockers can’t manage to be a creative, interesting, and dynamic as Run_return. Their show is best experienced close up where you can see their complex and incredibly endearing group dynamic.
- Cement Boat
Discography
-Self Titled CD 2002 Boombox
-'Lullaby' and 'I Miss Cost and Revs' on Boomboxing Vol. 1 Comp CD 2003 Boombox
-'Dead by Dawn' remix on Roots of Orchis' "Crooked Ceilings" CD 2004 Slowdance
-Animals are Beautiful People 7" Aug. 2005 N5MD
-Forthcoming Album Fall 2005 N5MD
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Run_Return began in 1999 in Santa Cruz California. Hailing from Boston, Long Island, and Brooklyn, Raj, Kevin, and Tommy came together to play the music they had always heard in their heads.
This group has become the sum of three parts.
Run_return blends a primative drum machine aesthetic with synthesized melodies, digital processing and live augmentation by use of drum kits, vibraphones, guitars and other instruments. Ideas and references to jazz and fusion, rock, electro and hip hop find their way into the overall sound. The music itself goes from layered introspective moments to darker, rhythmic ones; all of which invoke dreams, memories, delusions, and attempt to be lyrical without using words.
The members are musicians first and engineers second. Although they frequently jam outside of real time by file sharing and are obsessed with and rely on hardware gear (new and old); the music produced really comes down to the three of them in a room together. The core of this collaborative effort lies in the musicality of the compositions. All of the digital processing on earth can’t draw a drop of emotion unless it was there to begin with.
Run_Return has played with bands such as Tortoise, HIM, Chicago Underground Duo, Daedelus, Bonobo, Talk Demonic, Jel, Subtle (Anticon), Mice Parade, Rebecca Gates, The Lovemakers, Isotope 217, The Roots of Orchis and Call and Response.
Recently signing a recording contract with the experimental electronic music label N5MD, the band looks forward to their new album, METRO NORTH, which will be released in the fall of 2005. The album will comprise the trio’s latest compositions and feature the contributions of several amazingly talented friends, including Doug Scharin of HiM, who directed the preliminary studio sessions, Jeff Parker of Tortoise, who lent some guitar parts, and Mike Jorgensen of Wilco, who furnished the band with a formidable sample library.
Links
