Best EP of 2010
by
Eric026
Word has it that The Marches – directed with flare by saxophonist/songwriter Richard Conti – are planning to drop a new LP sometime in early 2012. To tide everyone over until that date arrives, the band is releasing Director of Photography, an EP that all but abandons the retro Motown sound they so skillfully cultivated on 4a.m. is the New Midnight. In place of the hip-hop grooves, electro-rock jams, and saucy jazz riffs that largely defined the noir atmosphere of that album, The Marches give us four tunes that highlight Conti’s gifts of orchestration and arrangement with the woodwind family. Applied in a concert band setting, the flute, clarinet, and saxophone can often sound gossamer and fragile, but in Conti’s capable hands the instruments are often made to sizzle and snarl.
‘Big City’ sports imposing pianos and has traces of Sparklehorse’s whispering doom, with a dusting of some Radiohead-style skittering electronics, church organs and a cacophony of ghostly choirs.
‘Black Swan’ introduces some jazz feeling amidst the electronic and natural elements that soon drift hellwards into more darkly hued vocals and harmonies.
‘Cold Shoulder’ has the composite elements of vintage sounding soul, albeit transferred via Portishead, some tested synapses and disturbing volume. Its clear this is a band that will never play by anybodies rules, and for that they should be applauded.
While the Marches may sound a bit more austere and reined-in this time out, they haven’t lost any of their playfulness. A bass line that once intoned the first studio version of "Need Me Back" now walks, the original’s magnificent drums absent for the noble purpose of letting Conti get free on that saxophone of his. And so the track doubles in length but loses none of its swing. Is this what maturation sounds like?
