2 out of 5

Label: Taang!

Producer: Rich Costey

This is another one of those ‘singles disguised as an EP’ that would probably be more appealing with further exposure to the band.  But after wanting some Swirlies music for a while and grabbing this 5-songer as my entry ticket, while I’m not disappointed, I feel like the EP is sorta’ a bum deal, as it’s two ‘remixes’ of a song from a previous album, an ‘edit’ of a song from that same album that I swear to Christmas uses the same goddamn melody as the remixed song, and then two exclusive tracks, one of which is a short instrumental.  That being said, the music is actually awesome, it’s just that there’s not enough of it, and running through the songs several times to verify that I was hearing the same thing more than once  – before referring to the Allmusic review and discovering the whole remix thing (since the song titles suggest it – one is called ‘Pancake Cleaner’ and the other ‘House of Pancake’ – but don’t make it expilcit) – did become an exercise in frustration, trying to understand why the slight variations would be committed to disc.  Sure, that could be said to be my own damned fault, and maybe the liner notes would’ve helped me out, but they’re buried in my bigass CD book that I didn’t feel like flipping through… and regardless, it was more that I was convinced there was something I was missing to divvy the songs up, so even if I’d known for sure that they were different versions, the search was more for what the divide was than absolute verification.  Ya dig?

So what is the difference?  Well, ‘Cleaner’ is apparently a cleaned up version of a fuzzy original, and ‘House’ is a housed up version, more of the UK variety, with a cold beat and hollow and repetitive sound to the recording.  Elsewhere, opener ‘Wrong Tube’ (which, again, shares the same vocal melody as the ‘Pancake’ tracks…) starts things off impressively with fuzz to a stomp to a great male/female vocal exchange, and then ‘Labrea Tarpit,’ the quirky instrumental that’s totally Feller Filler weirdness but would work better as a motif on a full length, then after one pancake instance the muted ‘You’re Just Jealous,’ another non-album track which, to me, gets lost sandwiched between the more hummable Pancakes.

To clarify for the ninth time: this is good music.  I still want more Swirlies stuff.  I just feel like there’s really only one or two songs on here – perhaps ‘Tube’ and ‘Pancake’ sound more unique when buffered by a full album of tracks – and so it’s a bit of a letdown to whittle 5 expected songs down to only a couple minutes of fun… enough of a letdown to make listening to the EP questionable and maybe for collectors only.