Papercranes preview

Papercranes
Schubas, Chicago
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Pleading “Don’t get angry with me,” Papercranes enter Exhibit A in their efforts to separate themselves from Florida’s raging rockropolis. But is it really their home?

Centerpiece Rain Phoenix — not a sister to Joaquin or River — seems to have pulled up her roots long ago and spread seeds wherever they might find purchase. She has been in the company of Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., and New York-based “political cabaret” The Citizens Band when not in Florida, and at home she also moonlights with punks Boybeaters and metal act Nux Vomica. Papercranes the band has dipped and swelled in numbers since its recent inception (as few as two, currently at six), setting asea any concrete identity they might have ever had.

The lone document, Vidalia (Mother May I), is an exercise in marrying shoegazed guitar swirls to Phoenix’s voice, which is unarguably the album’s ineffable showcase. Given to fits of late-’90s she-alt bands (K’s Choice, Sixpence None The Richer) and curiously side-stepping the obvious influences from earlier that decade (Lush, Rachel Goswell), Vidalia testifies to the band’s youth as they get by with simple arrangements such as “Pushover,” that are pretty but rarely more than that. Phoenix’s voice carries the band over Eno-esque soundscapes (“Open Your Eyes”) and dreampop (“Show Me”), but fails to dig much out of most of the 11 tracks simply because the nascent band hasn’t been around long enough to work out any depth. She gets help from Vic Chesnutt on weepy, country-dozer “Knew You When”; maybe there’s another opening in the band for him.

Papercranes open for Swearing At Motorists.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly