Caitlin Gutenberger deserves to have her name mentioned alongside heavyweights like Chan Marshall, Liz Phair and Eleanor Friedberger. After quietly releasing Two Sheds’ 2006 debut Strange Ammunition, Gutenberger and hubby Johnny?he of Far fame?dropped an EP, then went on hiatus while Caitlin joined Zach Rogue’s (Rogue Wave) solo project, Release the Sunbird. The couple moved to LA from Sacramento in 2012 and Caitlin set about reconfiguring Two Sheds by way of honoring a dare to write 20 songs in one day.
Caitlin fulfilled the request times three, generating a huge amount of material to use for Two Sheds’ second LP, the aptly titled Assembling. Within those bursts of creativity are folded brilliantly simple, yet devastatingly honest compositions that present the type of listen that has an extremely hard time getting old.
The Gutenbergers are joined on record by drummer Josh Barnhart, pianist Mike Sempert and a host of additional musicians. Assembling pieces together makes for an oddly cohesive collection of songs, steeped in the juices of their own urgency but never sounding bored or boring. That safety net is Caitlin’s gift, a pouty, smoothly confident vocalist whose delivery intoxicates with each breathy drawl. Songs like the Side A finale “You Get To Me” come tick-tocking with percussive bottle taps and a heart-rate monitor beat, Caitlin’s easy-breezy chorus presented more “Yoogy toomy” than its proper pronunciation, a playful whittling of syllables that offers entrances into even dreamier sonic alcoves.
“It’s Okay,” another fly-by-night title, instead blooms and fusses within sleepy acoustic guitars, layers of counter-melodic noise and Caitlin’s fluttery, washed-out vocals repeating the heartbreaking refrain of “Things aren’t going our way, but it’s okay,” accentuating the flows from the ebbs like a doting Emmylou Harris.
“Choose” is a similarly inspiring song, an inquisitive melody ascending to the line “You’re so smart/what’s there to lose?/I can’t choose.” There are moments, scarce though they may be, where Caitlin’s lines give a clue into the double-dog-dare nature of the three-day, 60-song approach to the writing of this album. How important a role lyrical non-sequiturs play here means very little in the big picture. These are the types of songs you’ll swear you’ve heard somewhere else, so potent are their allegiances to traditions and so unabashedly do its composers wear their heart’s music on their sleeves on Assembling.
The deep cuts cut just as deep, too. Side B gems like “Heavy” fiddle in squeaky acoustic guitar progressions, a crescendo of keys and drums threatening to overturn the buoy, while the title track is the album’s biggest-sounding rock tune. The mellotron-pocked “Gone” is a lullaby confessional that unfolds slowly, and shortly, as do a majority of Assembling’s tracks; their strength, after repeated listens, may partly lie in their brevity. Regardless, devotees of Mazzy Star’s drowsy outsider pop will find a new altar at which to dream to here.
How much of this album was inspired by outside forces previously unknown to the Gutenbergers is up for debate?Los Angeles can be a weird place. Caitlin even recorded the album closer “When You Left” on her cell phone. What is clear is that when Caitlin sings “I feel the forces pushing in so strong” on “In the Beginning,” you can’t help but wonder how much grace under fire had to do with the quality of the songs on Assembling.
Whatever the wellspring, it worked.