As the esteemed visionary, songwriter and curator of many moods for 17 years with Death Cab For Cutie, Chris Walla has achieved a certain respect. As an artist seemingly unwilling to reside within a niche foisted upon him by unforgiving media, the revolutionary days of the last gasps of Seattle’s chokehold on popular music, or to bow to the typical style-vision a “solo career” should best adhere to, Walla is unique. His second full-length ought to be resounding proof enough of that, as Walla’s meditative Tape Loops is about as removed from the salad days of the DCFC heyday as is possible.
Saturated in warm, ghostly geographies, Tape Loops was engineered entirely by Walla, revealing a perhaps not-newfound passion for analog loop recording techniques. Shades of the intro and outro to DCFC’s “Lightness” permeate the album, providing the insight that these sonic panoramas are no new development for Walla. By manipulating analog tape recordings and looping them, Walla also reveals the intricacies of his compositional mastery in slowly unfurling snapshots. The result is a collection of five songs that shine forth powerfully spare arrangements, emerging from your audio source to your ears like hauntings from a house inside a daydream. So striking are the album’s emotive qualities that throughout several listens in its entirety, it would not be rare to become briefly catatonic within its cosmic folds.
“Kanta’s Theme” begins the meditation, coaxing mournful notes from a sad piano, like the conjuring of dead spirits from the Obon dances of Japan. Only this is something more depressed, something more for the dream-state of your subconscious to fuss around within, to tip-toe through the tulips of Walla’s internal sound collages. “Introductions” follows, segueing smartly from the piano of “Kanta’s Theme” into a new realm of hammer/string striking. The similarities in approach to pioneers like Eno and Fripp notwithstanding, Walla’s ability to let everything ride on the repetition of one unnerving melody is enchanting. Guitar squalls are allowed to rear their bully mugs at times, only to be cleared again by those bewitching melodies. By minute four of the eight-minute “Introductions,” you’re hearing something new, even if you’re not. You are wide open for the suggestions of the hypnotist.
If it weren’t obvious, this is not a pop album. There are no vocals and no drums. By virtue of the dreaminess through which Walla has fragmented these five songs, you are able to decipher what you want to decipher from Tape Loops. It is both an experiment and a declaration, not unlike the recent explorations in modular synthesizer compositions from formerly boxed-in avant-pop songwriters like Sam Prekop.
“I Believe in the Night” is perhaps the most readily accessible track on Tape Loops, while its successor “Goodnight” is perhaps its most pensive. At over 11 minutes, “Goodnight” is your inkblot test. What do you hear? What do I hear? Where is he going? It’s like asking someone what color time is.
If Tape Loops is any barometer for what Walla’s deceptively quiet post-Death Cab future holds, sign up the dreamers.