the burdens

“There is something very right…like a melody that's fitted to your pocket. Alt.country without any country, or any alt. It's just the things you can't adequately write in words: want, home, wanderlust, the comfort of singing a sadness to friends. " --Said the Gramaphone - Said the Gramaphone

‘Uh Oh’ aurait pu sortir il y a cinq ou dix ans, ça n’aurait rien enlevé à son statut de bon disque. Les atouts, on les connaît déjà car on a déjà rodé leurs qualités dans bien d’autres formations.

On trouve ainsi un couple à la base de ce duo : Richard Scullin à la guitare, mandoline, basse et chant, accompagné de Karin Stack à la batterie, à l’accordéon et marimba, avec l’un ou l’autre musicien ami sur quelques titres.

The Burdens - Williamstown, Massachusetts - joue aussi la carte du minimalisme et d’une certaine sécheresse roots qui ne sont là que pour mettre en relief leurs mélodies souvent gagnantes. Il reste alors à sortir les références comme autant de cartes de visites : Yo La Tengo, Pavement, The Clean, Minus Story, Giant Sand, Sebadoh ou Built To Spill, mais dans ce qu’ils ont de plus squelettique et essentiel. Lo-fi mais brillamment écrit, enregistré et interprété.

C’est que The Burdens a le talent d’avoir compris que le dérivatif ne servait à rien. Le duo a son propre son, son intensité et son authenticité et on a vite compris qu’on va pouvoir se perdre longuement dans cet album de seize titres plus solides les uns que les autres, à l’un ou l’autre faux pas près.

L’album s’ouvre sur un tube indie, ‘Lonely town’, une seule chose à faire, taper du pied, la chanson est solide, typiquement indie et emballée en 2min40. Bien sûr, on en a déjà entendues des chansons comme ça mais ce n’est pas la nostalgie qui nous retient aussi, c’est l’impulsion et la joie de vivre que The Burdens injecte à ses compostions. ‘Alibi’ double la mise mais sur un ton légèrement plus poignant et mélancolique, voir rêveur, quelque part entre le Yo La Tengo de ‘Fakebook’ et les Red House Painters. Grande chanson.

On poursuit avec le plus roots ‘Right now’ où l’on comprend que The Burdens est un groupe surtout live, qui ne doit d’ailleurs se concevoir que comme cela, les chansons se concevant aux répétitions organisées sans doute dans le garage du couple. Il y a un peu de cette énergie de vie pulsante comme une source naissant entre deux rochers au milieu du désert telle qu’on la retrouvait sur le ‘Moebius Syndrome’ de Minus Story.

‘So we are thinking’ a un indicible parfum néo-zélandais dans son intro contemplative à la guitare avant de se transformer en un instrumental désertique, un peu plus loin ‘Sparse’ s’inscrit dans la même veine, avec des touches plus nocturnes cependant. Le groupe poursuit avec le très prenant ‘I’m not your fuck’ qui s’approprie un peu de cette rage sourde et maîtrisée en façade, commune aux premiers disques de Modest Mouse ou Pavement.

La plage titulaire se révèle par contre complètement anecdotique avec son groove et ses vocaux étouffés qu’on dirait empruntés en ligne droite à Calvin Johnson et à son Dub Narcotic Sound System. De même on oubliera le bluesy ‘Oh no’. ‘All we are’ et ‘have no mercy’ marquent le redoux, très roots et traditionnels, mais efficaces et passables.

Heureusement, on retourne tout notre intérêt avec un ‘I’ll let you know’ enlevé, sombre et uptempo qui me rappelle un peu Giant Sand pour son authenticité, même topo avec ‘blind philosophy’. Un chouette instrumental suit, ‘MGS’, qui me fait quelque peu penser à du Yo La Tengo.

Nouveau petit hit avec le délicieux ‘Unsure’, roots et très indie mais intimiste quand même, dommage que le duo n’explore pas plus férocement cette voix-là, car la voix de Richard y est bien plus mise en valeur. Un instrumental anodin plus loin et il est déjà temps de se quitter avec un autre instrumental nostalgique et rêveur comme un coucher de soleil l’été à la campagne, loin de la civilisation.

Sur leur premier album, les Burdens ne transcendent pas vraiment le genre où ils se sont établis, mais laissent déjà derrière eux un certain nombre de pépites, comme une forme de fondation sur laquelle ils ne manqueront pas – on l’espère – de construire une discographie tout en s’imposant peu à peu jusqu’à devenir eux-mêmes des références.

didier
http://www.derives.net/reviews/review.php?id=508
- derives.net

www.adequacy.net
I think the simpler the mission of a given rock band is, the more fanciful and obfuscated the language used to describe it can get. How one guitar and a drum kit can give flower to such a bouquet of "-ism"s is a remarkable thing to see. Just ask the White Stripes. To be fair, though, I don't think that it's always the fault of overzealous critics simply getting carried away. It can be genuinely tough to nail down the exact impact of the stripped-down and (okay, I'll say it) "minimalist" sensibility that has taken hold of so many corners of the rock world in the last several years. What is clear is that while such a sensibility will, of course, succeed or fail based on the skill of the band in question, when it does work it's a great thing to hear.
One thing is that certainly has to be harder to do than it sounds. The Burdens, a husband-wife duo from upstate New York, build their songs around simple beats and, often, just a single line of lyrics. All their songs are short and to the point, as they've studiously cleared away all the accoutrements and grace notes and distilled each song down to the most important lyric, the key chord change, and the melody's most effective hook. I mentioned the White Stripes earlier, but really the only thing the bands have in common is the impulse to cut out the nonsense and get to the point. Urbanity and hipness aren't part of the Burdens' mission statement. Uh Oh, the band's debut release, sounds easygoing and often downright sunny in places, though the lyrics can be cryptic and slippery.
Two of the songs at the album's center don't make any sense at all, at least not in any traditional way. On "Uh Oh," frontman Richard Scullin sings only the repeated phrase "Roy G Biv"; likewise, the bluesy "Oh No" features only the words "Oh, no." Truthfully, the songs with a little more going on, like "All We Are," work a little better. And note that even that song has only one lyric, it just sounds more complicated, a little more like a song and less like an experiment. An even better example is "Blind Philosophy" – just an all-around great song.
It makes more sense to take the album as a whole, a single project. In that sense I think it's a great success. Like Now You Know, Doug Martsch's post-Built to Spill solo debut, Uh Oh's simplicity disarms you and invites you in, really invites you to listen to it, and its charms reveal themselves slowly. That's what lo-fi can do best, and the Burdens seem to know this.
- Delusions of Adequacy

The Burdens: “uh oh” (2004) ; “Living It Up” (2006)
Distributor: Carrot Top (CTD, Ltd), iTunes, AmpCamp

“There is something very right…like a melody that's fitted to your pocket. Alt.country without any country, or any alt. It's just the things you can't adequately write in words: want, home, wanderlust, the comfort of singing a sadness to friends. " --Said the Gramaphone

The Burdens: guitar/drum indie rock duo: yardsalerock, recorded at home and mixed/mastered by Craig Schumacher at Wavelab in Tucson (Iron&Wine, Calexico, Richard Buckner, Giant Sand, Neko Case, etc.). The Burdens are Richard Scullin (guitar, songwriter) and artist Karin Stack (drums, accordion, marimba, etc.).

Their 2006 CD, “Living It Up,” features 15 original songs. Guest musicians include Anne Doerner (The Books) on fiddle and Allen Whitman (The Mermen) on bass. In February ’06, Richard Scullin returned for a second time to Wavelab to mix with Craig Schumacher.

Joining The Burdens on their first CD, “Uh Oh,” (2004) were Craig Schumacher, Nick Luca (Luca, Calexico, Iron&Wine), and Allen Whitman (The Mermen, Fez Guys).

National Public Radio (NPR) reviewer Seth Rogovoy described The Burdens as a cross “…between recent later Wilco and Yo La Tengo.” And while Chuck Eddy, Sr. Editor of The Village Voice, previewed a Burdens Saturday night Knitting Factory show as “…jangle popsters from Massachusetts,” the band is more aptly described by Performer Magazine, as “an unpolished Modest Mouse.”

George Ford, Delusions of Adequacy: "The Burdens distill songs down to their lo-fi basics, creating a uniquely potent brand of folk-rock." Ford noted strong similarity of The Burdens to both Doug Martsch and Pavement.

The Burdens have played venues (The Knitting Factory, Pianos (NYC), Flywheel (Easthampton, MA), Valentine’s (Albany, NY), The Iron Horse (Northampton, MA), and The Main Stage at Mass MoCa (North Adams, MA), The Lizard Lounge, etc.) and have shared stage with Matt Pond PA, The Malarkies, K. (from Ida), Carmaig De Forest, Drums&Tuba, artist Mike Oatman, The Moth (NY city storytelling collective), Oceanographer, etc.

Recommended tracks from “uh oh”: 1, 2, 13, 14

“…smart, original, deceptively catchy, emotional yet unsentimental music, driven primarily by Scullin’s guitar, with Stack’s drums locking in the groove.” Tad Ames, Berkshire Living Magazine, October 2006

See also www.karinstack.com
- the burdens

the Burdens - Uh Oh
Recorded by the Burdens at Stone Hill
and Wavelab Studios, Tucson, AZ
Mixed and mastered by Craig Schumacher at Wavelab Studios

Lots of people are looking for something. Whether it’s your keys, your drink, or your date, it gives us direction to be looking for something. That said, the Burdens’ new record Uh Oh sounds like a band in search of something, but there is actually nothing negative or incomplete about this vibe at all. The Burdens make it work, telling a story in each song,
whether with voice or instrumental. The Burdens’ sound, much like the music of Cake, kind of plods around with hands folded behind its back, eternally in search of something. They had better not find whatever it is, because this is one pretty
cool trip.

The Burdens could sound like an unpolished Modest Mouse, yet while Modest Mouse struts around and jolts, the Burdens just kind of swing around; a lot cooler about the whole situation. Uh Oh features some structured songs as well as a few forays into musical thought and philosophy. “So We are Thinking” is a harmonious piece of communication between two entities that we will refer to as “Left Guitar” and “Right Guitar.” The magic in this track is that it doesn’t sound like two
dudes playing two guitars, it’s a musical dialogue. The same thing happens in “Rain,” except this time the rhythm section studiously tries to keep their vibe going, while a solo guitar comes in, stomping all over the place. The semi-instrumental
track “Uh Oh” serves as kind of a palate-cleansing sorbet during the midpoint of the record, sounding very much like the drumbeat from the SNL Christmas song. Horatio Sanz, Chris Kattan, and Jimmy Fallon do not appear in this song; rather the Burdens repeatedly invoke the name and spirit of Roy G. Biv for reasons unknown. Whatever the reasoning behind their record, the Burdens have provided something of strong interest with Uh Oh. (self-released)
Contact: www.theburdens.com
-C.D. Di Guardia
Performer Magazine, June 2005


- Performer Magazine