At the age of twelve, with no money and no job, I was forced to reach out to other resources for new music. Often my friends were my only source, burning me copies from their record collection. However, I soon found that my local library provided me with a varied and gratuitous selection of music. Every week I would dig through the rows of cracked jewel cases, digging until something stuck its head out. One such record, buried behind endless outdated Christmas compilations, was Incubus’ 2001 release, Morning View, a record I find myself adoring a decade after I was introduced to it.
In Morning View, Incubus
provides a buffet of styles in their music. Their sound is extremely varied: it
swings, it rocks, and it jives. Written at a time when the “band dynamic was shifting dramatically,”[1]
this record explores a whole continent of musical styles, wherein the same song
often features moments heavy enough to crush a bus followed sections as soft as
beach sand. Any group of musicians who can redefine their sound in every tune
must be tight, and Incubus is apparently a compact unit. Even their
disagreements apparently give way to soulful musical creation, as with “Are You
In?”[2],
and when they’re on their game, the end result is even more incredible. While
their overall sound hovers around the term “alternative rock,” DJ Kilmore’s
turntables add a hip-hop seasoning that prevents this band from being lumped
into any one genre. His scratching is both melodic and percussive, as he adds
an ambience to the record that essentially defines its sound. His sampling and
spinning are prominent in the compositions without ever overriding the whole
show, which makes him an invaluable character in this band’s composition.
The diversity of sound on this record, with adjacent tracks
almost never featuring a similar dynamic or feel, makes Morning View a very interesting listen. In an interview with Crud
Magazine, guitarist Mike Einziger remarked that “we get bored very easily and
we would never be able to just keep repeating ourselves,”[3]
and with tracks like “Just a Phase,” it’s obvious that this band is unafraid to
change it up. While perhaps not the most sonically beautiful tune on the
record, “Just a Phase” is certainly the most interesting. The tune opens with a
loop from DJ Kilmore (who also provides us with a sweet scratching solo halfway
through the song), and from there evolves in every way possible. The beginning
and end of the song feature some soul-wrenching vocalizations from Brandon
Boyd, while the instrumentation works to build a powerful tension before finally
releasing it in the outro, one of the heaviest moments on the record. The time
signatures of the song are just as varied: “Just a Phase” features an intro and
chorus in 4/4, verses in 6/4 and a prechorus in 5/4, making it apparent that,
from the backbone to the finishing touches, Incubus is unafraid to stray away
from the conventions of composition, leaving us with a tune that is wholly
unique and fun to experience.
While the tunes on Morning
View are consistently vibrant and progressive, the main shortcomings of
this album lie in its inconsistencies. Most noticeable are the varying mixes on
the tunes, which drop the instruments as often as they carry them. In tunes
like “Blood on the Ground,” Einziger’s guitar is full and brutally heavy, yet
in “Have You Ever” the power feels unsupported, to the song’s extreme
detriment. Similarly, Jose Pasillas’ toms sound incredible in “Under My
Umbrella,” but in “Circles” he might as well be playing pots and pans. Just as
erratic is Boyd’s overall vocal and lyrical contributions to the record. While
his vocals lacks not for beauty, Boyd generally seems to be singing towards the
top, or even a little above, his range, often sacrificing power and control for
high notes. “Are You In?” features a vocal both soulfully written and expertly
executed from Boyd, but in “Nice to Know You” and “Blood on the Ground” he
reaches too far for his notes and thus cuts the power from his voice.
Such inconsistencies, though small, might leave some tunes
seeming unrefined; however, no track on Morning
View fails to deliver the grooving rock for which Incubus is famous. There
are a few songs on this record that I really find myself digging, the first
being “Circles,” the final single released off of the album. The tune
introduces itself with a little ambience from DJ Kilmore, before exploding into
a striking and heavy riff. The entire song carries a musical weight that never
stops moving, as Einziger rips distorted chords from his guitar with a force
bordering on violence. The performance of the whole band is miles from
lackluster, and Boyd’s vocal is so energetic that his high notes are tinged
with screams. The closing moments of the song also feature a riff in
alternating measures of 5/8 and 7/8, and Boyd completes the circular image with
his incantation of “round and round and round and round…” Overall, “Circles”
presents a performance of pure, unabashed energy from Incubus, easily
translated into the live footage that makes up the song’s music video.
The second tune that really has me sucked in is the album’s
closer, “Aqueous Transmission.” Featuring Mike Einziger on the pipa (a gift
from the infamous Steve Vai)[4],
this song takes an eastern approach to the ideas of ambience and musical space.
There seems to be very little happening throughout the song, with Dirk’s bass
only peeking in on the chorus, and the percussion going no farther than some
hand cymbals and a gentle drum loop. Yet that empty space perfectly complements
the music, creating a sense of drifting and transcendence only furthered by
Boyd’s lilting melody. The space in this song is then soon occupied by a full
orchestra, which Incubus wisely provides room to develop over the course of the
song. This tune, clocking in at a little under eight minutes, is so full of flow
that we cannot help but fall into its gentle current. With “Aqueous
Transmission,” Incubus creates an audible river for us to float on, to meditate
to, and to immerse ourselves in, from the opening plucking of the pipa to the
last croaking frog.
Whatever style of music may be your fancy, you would be hard
pressed to pick up Morning View
without finding one song with which to fall in love. The efforts of Incubus to
stay true to themselves as musicians have borne fruit in each track of this
record whose branches extend into all genres and styles. With this record, the
members Incubus dive into an ocean of sound and feel without ever abandoning
the anchor of their roots, affirming that, despite everything else, they are a
band that just plain rocks.
Tunes to Check Out:
1) Circles
2) Aqueous Transmission
3) Echo
No comments:
Post a Comment