5 out of 5

Label: Jealous Butcher Records

Produced by: Tim Hurley (recorded by)

Musical hopacotch led me to Red Red Meat, and the first album I bought happened to be There’s A Star Above the Manger Tonight, with which I immediately fell in love.  The kitchen sink clatter and surges from electronic minimalism into bursts of noise was delightful; this purchase coincided with the release of Califone’s Roomsound – the folkiest variation on this style the RRM crew would deliver – and a new dedication was borne.  First to Red Red Meat, then to oft-producer/member Brian Deck, then to the group’s initial post/pre Sub Pop label – the homegrown Perishable.

I bought a lot of stuff, enjoyed a lot, and then years later – i.e. now – I look back and question which albums out of those many’a purchases have earned the most revisits.  Was it Red Red Meat?  Brian Deck?  Perishable?  A clear winner emerged: Sin Ropas.

No discredit to any of the connected people / bands, but it turned out that the elements that most appealed from latter day RRM and early Califone were taken on by – and I’d say improved upon and perfected by – Tim Hurley, wife Danni Iosello, and their Sin Ropas collaborators.  While starting from that same experimental folk / noise stew from which all this stuff sprang, Ropas incorporated both RRM’s punkier side – but without the willful sloppiness – and Califone’s contemplative drone – prior to ‘fone’s Rutili’s going full minimalist hush with that group.  Years passed, and on Mirror Bride, each preceding album stronger and stronger as a lead up, Sin Ropas’ ebb and flow between relative rockers and more thoughtful, fuzzed out sleepy / surreal folk and it is damned glorious.  It’s everything Star Above the Manger promised me, seen to fruition by a band and not the occasional wandering collectives the other various Perishable projects have turned out to be.  So: mysterious, sad, cynically hopeful narratives can stick the landing, and Mirror Bride can hang together as a complete album from end to end, clicking and buzzing and folksing and toe-tapping track to track, with soulfully scrappy vocals and a beautifully mixed (heh, thanks Brian deck!) miasma of instrumentation.