Spectreview: Log Across the Washer – It’s Funny How The Colors

Released: November 12, 2021

Experimental Pop
(Lo-fi Pop)
(Indie Rock)

-GREEN-

For a guide to the review color rating system, click here.

Tyler Keene has dabbled in lo-fi pop (a la Daniel Johnston) for a great deal of time now. In Log Across The Washer, a side project following a stint with Canadian stalwarts And And And, he spits out one peculiar exercise in songwriting after another. His output capped out sometime around the middle of last decade after releasing five annually-timed records stuffed to the brim with catchy, roughshod songs. The key to such prolificacy is the ability to look past perfection and tune into the gut, and It’s Funny How The Colors leans even further into that approach. Little on it sounds overwrought or overthought, and much feels inspired by the psychonauts of pop’s past, like Syd Barrett’s whimsy or Avey Tare’s ferocity. It’s stranger than anything he’s put out before, which is why it signals growth.

The strongest cuts lean into a certain warmth we’ve come to associate recent indie acts with. “Listen to Xasthur” checks all the boxes: it’s comfy and jangly and nostalgic in the way either an analog recording or a really clever digital production can pull off. “Over My Head” hits that spot as well, as Keene pitches his voice down and boosts the snare to approximate a cross between Mac Demarco and “Strawberry Fields Forever.” And “Lonely Bill,” which starts off unassuming, encapsulates the spirit of the record in its unbound sprawl.

These are the highlights, but this record is more about the caulk sealing them together. Few turns are entirely out of left-field – like the screwed rap sample that concludes “Plates of Grass” – but there’s a certain spontaneity to the proceedings that stands out on first listen. “Ok Dorks” and “Them Old Stuff Inside the Well” feel like early Animal Collective in their mismatched percussion patterns and blinding breakdowns, while a peculiarly unnerving current hits the hushed “Simulation Saturday” about halfway through. There’s a half-finished quality to the title track (kind of like hearing an old stereoscopic Beatles record in one ear), and the ragged “My Brother is a Disaster” ends in a monologue that ends up going nowhere.

Though It’s Funny How The Colors feels a little like a relic of a certain era of indie yore, it still charms in its ability to surprise. The melodies are still unconventionally lovely, and when Keene hits, he knocks it out of the park. There’ll always be room for this “first idea, best idea” approach to songwriting, insofar as when Keene releases another record five years from now or so, he won’t have to change a goddamn thing.

Recommended for mushroom talk.