Like any genre, folk has artists that are true to the origins of its particular style of music. And, like any genre, it has artists that push the boundaries. Capybara is of the latter classification. Try Brother sees the group expanding into new arenas, mashing pop and freak-folk, and sure, let’s throw in a splash of psychedelic as well. That being said, Capybara’s relation to folk is one that can be listed as partial – it is and it isn’t. It is the root, but there’s much more behind Try Brother to limit it to merely folk.

“Hello City Glow”, for example, is barely folk; the sensibilities of the genre have practically disappeared, though they were quite present in preceding tracks “San Francisco, 1906″ and “The Wimp”. Albeit, when the genre’s traits do appear, they’re a version as distorted as the offspring of a Chernobyl victim. But not as helpless – as if the offspring was, say, the next block in human evolution. The same can be said for “Cutaway Kid”. Yeah, this isn’t your cut-and-shoot traditional folk album by any means. And that’s the first telling that limiting the classification to folk really doesn’t cut it.

Along with the aforementioned genres, there are light traces of free jazz in songs like “Soft” and “Happiness / Let Child Roam” and chamber pop flirts with several songs, but above all there’s the avant-garde that labels all these tracks with the favorable ‘freak’ title. Were that a standalone genre it would work, but even paired with the inevitable ‘folk’ there’s still something not quite right. The influences are too wide and too plentiful.

As the instrumentation grows to include trumpets and banjos, and as the band expands into falsetto-meets-baritone vocal harmonies, and as synth lines weave intricate melodies completely unique in the realm of folk, Try Brother becomes something else entirely – a conceptual album of experimental music with folk leanings that is truly par none.

Capybara: Soft [mp3]

Capybara: The Wimp [mp3]

The Record Machine [CD, 2009]

1. San Francisco, 1906
2. The Wimp
3. Hello City Glow
4. Cutaway Kid
5. Soft
6. Happiness / Let Child Roam
7. Magpies
8. Dynamite Dare
9. Birthday Song For Bridgegirl
10. Waves In The Wire

Dub and DIY punk are gaining in momentum, a natural progression of the fuzzed out pop that’s been inundating the indie airwaves. The new album, Bell Ord Forrest, by Kansas City dub-noise duo I Love You fits this classification. With an angst-generating array of synth melodies and tripped-out production, the album opens with an undeniable pinnacle, “The Colloquialism Is Simply ‘Gas’”. As the song dives into the repetitive closing synth and bass lines, one is treated to a drone of greatness.

As the album continues with “This Is The Best Birthday Ever”, it becomes clear that I Love You is a duo that knows and lives fun. There’s a chaos in the music they make, an unquestionable avant noise; but it’s backed by a consistency and an organization that assembles a makeshift order like the Fibonacci sequence in nature. This is a band that builds upon structure, as heard in the final two tracks, “Pillow Talk” and “Sorry I Drank Your Soda”, and they’re not about taking that order and fucking it up a bit. It’s a quality every single great experimental noise band possesses, and it’s one that I Love You has mastered.

From two brief instrumental forays (“Freelance Pedestrian” and “Graceland Is Better Without Elvis”) to an epic drug-referencing 8-minute noise-jam (“Making Snow Angels In Angel Dust”), there’s an inevitable conclusion here. I’ve heard several great albums from the Joyful Noise family over the past two years, and Bell Ord Forrest is the unequivocal favorite.

I Love You: The Colloquialism Is Simply “Gas” [mp3]

Joyful Noise Recordings [CD, 2009]

1. The Colloquialism Is Simply “Gas”
2. This Is The Best Birthday Ever
3. Freelance Pedestrian
4. Cliff Drive Nights
5. Making Snow Angels In Angel Dust
6. Graceland Is Better Without Elvis
7. Pillow Talk
8. Sorry I Drank Your Soda