Minus Story hail from Lawrence, Kansas, and, uh… well, when I think of or hear the name Kansas immediately I conjure, in my pop culture polluted memory bank, things like, 'Auntie Em', 'Toto', and of course, 'We're not in Kansas anymore'. And I believe the band Minus Story still calls Kansas home, so obviously they've avoided the rampant tornadoes and the fevered dreams that befall Kansas farm girls with pigtails. What they have not escaped, or should I say 'lost', is the whirlwind of creativity that comes with youth. And it is again present on their latest release on the Jagjaguwar label, 'Heaven and Hell', a five track EP available on March 1, 2005.
The song, 'Time Wastes Itself', opens with the band's familiar warbling keyboards and guitar effects -- to quickly drop off as lead vocalist Geiger intros his tale of insomnia, dreams, sleep, and love lost. The song, lulling at points, as befits the lyric, is a cradlesong for the indie kids -- 'Time Wastes Itself', feels like an insomniac's daydream of sleep and love.
+ time wastes itself - (heaven and hell EP)
And from their last release, 'The Captain Is Dead Let The Drum Corpse Dance'...
"You Were On My Side" - song review previously posted on betterPropaganda.com
Minus Story blew into my ears from dusty Kansas by way of Boonville, Missouri - swept into view on a tornadic front, seemingly independent of the surrounding weather systems. After listening to these guys, I would venture a guess and say this sound of theirs was developed in an insular fashion... they woodshedded the music, only taking it out at night, only in the company of each other, revelling in the creation of their sound, their style.The song 'You Were On My Side' feels like Sunday morning to me - kinda lazy, kinda that hurry-up-and-get-dressed-for-church-you're-gonna-be-late vibe from when you were seven years old, like the lost day of the week with no center, no destination.
The music begins with a church-loft organ slipping in like water sliding under a closed door. The band members voices and instruments gathering force - a mass of water now threatening to split the door's heavy oak. The experimental nature of this band is a force of nature, a flood threatening to overwhelm the more melodic elements of the band - but not succeeding. This song and the album 'The Captain Is Dead Let The Drum Corpse Dance'(Jagjaguwar) drops them into the same vicinity as other experimental/indie rock masters, Modest Mouse and Ugly Casanova.
+ you were on my side
courtesy of betterPropaganda.com
When I think of Lawrence, I think of Quantrill's Raiders and their terroristic attack on the town that left the streets littered with bloody corpses (about 150 men in total) because Lawrence housed an abolistionist headquarters in the Civil War era.
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