Centaur - In
Streams
Debut
album by Champaign-Urbana trio led by singer/guitarist Matt Talbott
(Hum/Honcho
Overload)
with bassist Derek Niedringhaus (Castor/Sarge/The
Big Bright Lights/National
Skyline), and drummer
Jim Kelly (Sixteen
Tons/Monitor/Sloworm). Imagine "In Streams" as
the tropical night sky of a new hemisphere, strewn with
comfortably numb strobe-rock epics, weirdly enchanted psychedelic
pop songs,
and the occasional spaced-out prog opus whirling by. These songs
explore the strength and frailty of human life, songs of loss
and longing. Still hip deep in an earthy mysticism (with natural
and supernatural phenomena, as always, key themes), Talbott’s
lyrics betray a profound and, at times, desolate melancholy and
suggest the personal story behind this album that proves too
tragic to relate. Matt’s vocals, at the forefront here
for the first time, are a vibrant presence, no longer buried
in the bombast as the hurricane of sound behind him gives way
to a sinuous tangle of waterspouts... It’s in the eye of
each of these storms that Centaur, aided and abetted by producer-shaman
Keith Cleversley (Hum, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Spritualized,
The Posies, Duraluxe) has seeded the clouds with all manner of
subtle, nay subliminal sonic finery; chimes, flugelhorn, sitar,
piano, and deer. Cleversley is a long-time fan of Hum and of
Matt’s work in general, and feels that the emotionally
rich Centaur is one of the best records he’s been lucky
enough to be a part of.
For fans of Hum, My
Bloody Valentine, Lovecup, Failure,
Red
House Painters/Sun
Kil Moon, etc.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
** Hum expired on 01/01/01. After a 10-year run which saw the
band sign to a major label, receive heavy national radio airplay
with their hit song "Stars," make television appearances
on MTV, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Howard Stern
Show, Hum had run its course. Guitarist Tim Lash enrolled in
college, bassist Jeff Dimpsey accepted a job at the University
of Texas, drummer Bryan St. Pere found his niche in [pharmaceutical]
sales and singer/guitarist Matt Talbott supplemented his gear-buying
habit by opening and operating a recording studio, Great Western
Record Recorders. But like moths to a flame, it wasn’t
long before most of them were drawn back to rock ‘n’ roll.
Talbott, for two years, has been fronting Centaur.
Centaur began when Talbott, who had been writing songs independent
of Hum, asked drummer and long-time friend Jim Kelly to play
in the band. A natural progression led to the acquisition of
Talbott’s favorite bassist, Derek Niedringhaus. After testing
out a fourth member, Talbott decided to keep the band a three-piece. "The
few times we jammed as a four-piece it started to feel like Hum
to me," Talbott explained. "It’s easier to do
something different with just three people. Somehow it just seems
fresher to me."
It wasn’t long before Centaur had compiled a live set’s
worth of mellow songs and began doing one-off shows in Boston,
St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, New York City and Philadelphia.
After two years of performing occasionally and with no recorded
material to speak of, Centaur was finally able to coordinate
their schedules in December 2001, go into the studio and put
some material to tape. Talbott brought on board producer Keith
Cleversley, the psychedelic guru who has recorded albums for
The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev and Spiritualized, as well as Hum’s
You’d Prefer an Astronaut. "I toyed around with the
idea of recording the album myself," said Talbott. "I
started doing it and it wasn’t very fun, and I could picture
a scenario where it would never get done if I didn’t bring
in some outside help... Keith was into recording it, so we got
to make a record that is pretty hi-fi."
After several trips to Cleversley’s Playground Studios
in Chicago, Centaur found themselves surrounded by a smorgasbord
of instruments and began to realize a new vision for their debut,
In Streams, as it strayed away from their live sound and became
a sonic road map of grand proportions. "We tried to take
the pretty simple songs of a three-piece band and flesh them
out, take the songs as far as we could take them, pushing the
envelope as best we could with different sounds and moods," said
Talbott. But the vision was yet to be put into perspective. Months
of draining studio performances, perfectionist headaches, money
constraints and life-altering events made the band question why
they were making the record in the first place.
In Streams carries a certain amount of emotional depth that reflects
a variety of mood and direction. There’s a dark current
flowing through this album. "In Streams definitely has a
lyrical theme and it’s pretty unfortunate that it deals
with some real and very sad events that happened to my wife and
I. It’s strange," Talbott says calmly. "Half
of it was written before our tragedy and half was written afterward
and yet it all makes sense. Songs that meant a certain thing
to me, you hear them now and they have evolved into something
a little different, a little more defined."
- Lyle Hodges
for The Octopus
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