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If you've always pigeonholed folk and electronica as polar opposites, Computer Vs. Banjo will make you rethink everything you thought about both. Hatched in the musical crucible of Nashville, the genre-bending band fuses fingerpicked folk with experimental beats to create such a full, original sound, it's hard to believe CVB is just a duo.
You'll recognize their names because they're both accomplished musicians: Johnny Mann was the lead guitarist of Gran Torino, a funk/jazz fixture on the Southeast club and college scene that ultimately licensed songs to TV hits like "The Real World." Beau Stapleton played tenor guitar and mandolin for Blue Merle, a dynamic rock/pop four piece that rose remarkably high for such a short-lived star, releasing the album 'Burninng in the Sun' on Island Records and opening for Van Morrison.
Musically they evolved from different worlds—Mann was a Jazz Studies major, Stapleton a self-taught roots musician.
But because both are adept at crossing genres and applying their multiple influences and skills to their music, charting new terrain came easy to them.
"I did play for many years in the acoustic world...but I was always hearing different timbres in my head," says Stapleton. "With a little experimentation I found myself being able to write and compose the landscapes I had been hearing ever since I had begun to access the creative side of my music brain."
Fortunately, Mann adds, they envisioned similar sounds, which made it easy to compose and program the songs themselves. What wasn't as easy, he says, was finding a producer, "because we really hadn't heard a record quite like the one we were hoping to make."
So the two took on that role as well, spending a year (give or take a few breaks) in the studio to experiment, hone their skills, and translate their instincts into a hook-filled blend of folk, rock and electronica that manages to be in two places at once: grounded in rich acoustic arrangements, with its head in an ambient cloud of driving beats.
Rarely can you hear just one reference. "Give Up on Ghosts" recalls Beck's first forays into electronica and the White Stripes' Delta Blues riffs, but in a more acoustic format. "Low" is reminiscent of Björk's soundscapes, set within the complex melodies of a Phillip Glass-like composition. "San Joaquin" is a heartfelt, modern take on a Woody Guthrie-style dustbowl ballad. And with "Signs of Passing Time," the album ends on a note as spare and melancholy as vintage Pink Floyd, yet sprinkled with ambient sounds.
What shines through on all these songs are Mann and Stapleton's incredible skills as songwriters and multi-instrumentalists. The two trade off on lead vocals and play and program everything from synths to the dobro, to of course, the computer and banjo, pioneering a sound that is truly their own.
Clearly Computer Vs. Banjo's go-it-alone recording and engineering process paid off. Says Stapleton, "I feel really lucky to have had that time to just experiment and be creative." We're fortunate too, to hear the fruits of those 12 months on this amazingly transporting debut. |
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