Garcia Peoples – Dodging Dues
No Quarter Records – 14 January 2022
Seven songs. Thirty-five minutes. Why such a huge buzz? Because this is Garcia Peoples, and Dodging Dues is an album quite unlike anything else you’ll hear. And it’s only just the middle of January!
Working with Matt Sweeney, over the course of two sessions in February and October of 2020, the New Jersey Six have developed something that goes far beyond the usual reference points, treading previously uncharted territory. The glory of having so many people writing the music is that the expanded context enables the band to go in so many different directions that surprises aren’t simply a part of the equation, they are the equation. Nothing is exactly what it seems.
Nowhere is that more clear than on the 8 minutes and 35 seconds of “Here We Are.” Slide and guitar interact, yet there is no immediate antecedent. Shades of their namesake begin to appear but go away almost as quickly as the song begins to dance to a beat all of its own. Layers of vocals only add to the atmospherics of the piece as they continue to “ride on.” Just when the song begins to feel like a country piece, the entrance of a piano takes the song in a new direction before the drums begin beating a fractured rhythm. Then out of nowhere, the song takes on an ever more intense framework in the final compelling minute.
The basic ingredient of Dodging Dues is breathlessness. Over the course of those 35 minutes, you hear a band that goes in so many different directions you never have a ghost of a chance of truly taking a breather. Opening the album, “False Company” has the bones of British Folk music grafted on to something much more muscular. Twin guitars take things further afield before the final freak out of both guitars.
The triptych of “Cold Dice,” “Tough Freaks” and “Stray Cats” are all connected, yet along the way, they cover so much ground one feels a little bit like David Byrne reciting “How did I get here?” The glory of Garcia Peoples is their ability to take you on a trip you never realized you were taking. Getting on the bus, you can go in any direction, but the one thing you can almost guarantee is that where you get off is never where you expected to be. The guitar solo in “Tough Freaks” spins out of intense chords before mellowing into “Stray Cats.”
Melding new metals out of the bones of so much music they have integrated into their consciousness only hints at the aural adventures of Garcia Peoples. Dodging Dues is just the latest example of a band that is consistently trying to find the next doorway to the stars.
https://garciapeoples.bandcamp.com/album/dodging-dues