"kalo suka indie rock model pedro the lion di mix sama the gloria record plus sdikit sentuhan electric president..." -clapclapclap
Genre : Indie/Folk/Piano-Pop
1. I See A Map
2. Peter And The Water
3. William And Betsy
4. A Ghost Beneath The Tower
5. Grandmothers Glow
6. Venice
7. The Bridge Of Sighs
8. The Central Memorial
9. An Engineered Interest
10. The Physician
11. The Conductor's Regress
12. Sospiri
The title of the The Winston Jazz Routine's latest album (and second release for Kansas City, MO-based label The Record Machine) sums up its contents accurately. Sospiri, an Italian word meaning "Sighs", is a collection of aching and dense songs that slowly unravel to majestic heights and gently float back to firmer ground. Nathan Phillips, the band's central figure and main composer, takes his gentle piano-based material and wraps it in layer after layer of a wide assortment of instruments. The album opens with him pounding his piano while drums crash and guitars siren out in the periphery. A minute into "I See a Map" the true pace of the album is revealed. The drums and bass fall deep in the background while Phillips sighs his opening line, "My composure lacked as we walked home/counting all the butterflies that flew right around you."
Most of Sospiri is performed in this way, Phillips' characters mostly anguished and stories often tragic. "William and Betsy" describes the betrayal that leads to cancelled wedding plans with its "twenty-four pictures...in a Wal-Mart bag". The offender gets on his knees and pleads initially then finally address his former lover's obstinacy a bit more dismissively. It's not how most songs of love and loss end, but it's certainly more true to life. The following track, "A Ghost Beneath the Tower" manuevers similarly. A soft brass section scales alongside the character's family loss and reaction; "What is in your closet? Boxes stacked from left to right, packed and packed for hours." Many of these songs are set in the present-tense, the characters stepping out of one frame into another, either losing baggage as they go or carrying it with them begrudgingly. "Grandmother's Glow" starts off with pleasant enough imagery; a old, graying woman stirring boiling fruit preserves, sunshine pouring in a window. It turns painfully for the worse when the boiling pot's contents end up on Grandma while her daughter runs for paper towels. Texturally, this is the most effective track on the album, replacing the gentle drums with loops designed to mimic a closet full of canning jars being jostled around. When the drums comes back, the piano twinkles in and out of the melody, stumbling and disoriented. "The Bridge of Sighs" captures the location and experience in Venice that likely inspired the album's title; a prisoner is led to his death over Ponte dei Sospiri, a bridge built in the 16th century that connects the prisons to the interrogation rooms in Doge's Palace. He sighs to himself for his plight and for the last glimpse of Venice he is subjected to for that brief & final moment. What other way is there to react?
In addition to Nathan's songwriting and multi-instrumentation over two dozen others have performance credits on Sospiri. What is captured onto the album, however, is unyieldingly cohesive. At 12 songs and just under 53 minutes in length, it's easy to get lost in Sospiri's otherworldly gaze at, and away from, such heartbreaking tales, but the beautiful arrangements act as a contrast and, ultimately, bring a balance to all the suffering.
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