ANATHALLO

It was a warm night in Tucson, AZ. I’d spent the day getting to Tucson and, knowing me, considering the spelling and pronunciation of “Tucson.” It was March and sweat dripped from every pore I owned. The local band that played before us featured a high school kid who obviously knew how to correctly pronounce Yngwie Malmsteen. We set up and performed. Then another touring band began setting up. They seemed to have eight or nine members. There were horns, keyboards, and a herd of unusual percussion devices—namely a 50” bass drum—strewn across the stage. The “stage” was just part of the floor in the back of a room that was about 40’ long and 20’ wide. The venue was a hole-in-the-wall teen center with a religious affiliation that remained comfortably in the background. For us it was a confirmed date on a self-booked tour—that’s all that mattered. It’s essential to understand that the most key to a successful self-booked tour is actually doing it, not crapping out the week before because shows are falling through or because your friend that used to know Vertical Horizon couldn’t hookup that sweet Hollywood show he’d been promising ever since he found out you were buying guitar strings. Of course it’s nice to book good shows way in advance, play the best venues with the biggest local bands, and get famous like Tamagochi’s. But when the Tucson sun goes down at the end of a long, over-deodorized day all you can hope for is a show—anywhere, with any bands.

The thing you could never possibly hope for is one of the bands happening to be Anathallo—or even any crude approximation of Anathallo. If you were to hope for this, you would become disenchanted faster than my checking account at any one of American Apparel’s 120+ retail locations. Because Anathallo is on another level, a level so rarely encountered in music that it demands measurement on a yearly basis. The experience of this band retaliates against all convention. Anathallo rules.

Anathallo makes orchestrated, narrative pop music. The band’s most recent album (of the year), Floating World, tells the beautiful, positive tale of the death and regeneration of a dog. Musically, Pet Sounds kind of works as a reference point, but “pop-music-in-the-post-Pet Sounds-epoch” works better. With every idea Anathallo allows for harmony. The first (full) track on Floating World provides all the perfect examples: two (or more) tracks of bells, two acoustic guitars, two languages, piano above keyboards, the awesome lyric “I want to skip like a stone from a stronger arm” backed by the coolest harmony of carolers your block has ever seen, a choral key change three minutes through, the introduction of one electric chord, strange percussion, Phil Collins drum sounds—it’s all there. Each track is all over the place, there’s no linearity, but the consummate musicianship and barrier-destroying songwriting make every moment accessible and penetrative. A lot of the tracks remind me of that scene in Home Alone where Macaulay Culkin is in the church talking to the scary guy with the shovel about how bad they miss some people they love, then Culkin realizes what time it is and rushes home to make sure all his traps work, and while he’s running there is that epic choir music in the background. Anathallo sound like that: serious but fun. Then Daniel Stern gets hit in the face with a paint can, Culkin’s older brother has a flat top and yells “KEVIN!”, and the shovel guy makes good with his estranged daughter. Anathallo are also like that. Somehow.

Now that I’ve elucidated my revelry for Anathallo’s music, let’s move on to another aspect of the band that is, frankly, just as inspiring. One of the most encouraging things about Anathallo appears on the business end. The band is a part of this management agency/label cooperative called The Nettwerk that appears to be attempting to alter the erratic course of the music business. They are the Canadian mega-company responsible for Sarah McLachlan, Dido, and The Barenaked Ladies new album, and (seemingly) the marriage of Avril Lavigne, to Sum 41 (Nettwerk represents both artists). According to CEO Terry McBride, The Nettwerk plan on having every artist they represent to run their own label—and to break away from their respective major labels—within six years. I don’t have the inside tip on whether or not McBride has a sleazy agenda, but he sounds good: a Google search links to an article on how he is defending a teenager accused and sued by the RIAA of “stealing.” McBride seems legit, especially considering the artists his label is developing: The Format, The Pipettes (who I like), and Anathallo. Nave
(and this amazing article) calls Nettwerk a “next-gen music company” with the “intent of inventing a new way to represent artists in the digital age.” To the best of my knowledge they have individual agreements with their artists. McBride says he’s concerned with earning “his 20%,” and that’s for management, distribution, organizing touring, and massive, inventive publicity. The band gets much of the rest, namely $5 or $6 per album sold. Most bands, depending on how well they’re being screwed, get $.60-$1.20 per album, and that’s after recouping and not counting management percentage, booking percentage, and publicity percentage. A reliable source told me that if The Format sell 80,000 units they pocket a half million dollars. They sold 11,000 albums in the first couple weeks of release. That was in support of a headlining tour and no radio support. They’re on tour with All American Rejects in the fall and Fall Out Boy in the winter.

The Format is a provocative pop band (much like The Cardigans, another recent Nettwerk acquisition). But Anathallo roar in a different language: even for a true auteur like McBride, Anathallo represent a new wilderness. Like many of my favorite sounds, Floating World is unanimously tough to articulate. The best experience one can have is to see the band live. These sets (I’ve had the honor of seeing Anathallo three times since March) include toyshop magic: percussionists keeping time by shuffling a deck of cards; the band blowing up balloons and letting them go in unison; the band collapsing on stage and coming back to life. The live show realizes the album’s endless caverns of sound and ideas.

That night in Tucson actually evolved the way I thought about the possibility of the experience of music. We discussed Anathallo for the rest of the tour. It was a rare treat for a hot day. Doubtlessly, I will someday stumble upon an Anathall-a (as it were), a band that again revamps my perception of possibility. Don’t get me wrong: I can’t wait. But I know not to look too hard, that this kind of audio magic tends to find you, but can rarely be found.

Here are two videos and two downloadable songs. The first video has great sound. The second video is the intro to the song “Dokkoise House (with face covered),” where the band counts to four, at which point everyone in the crowd yells their best friends name at the same time. The first downloadable track is from Floating World, one of the best songs to watch live. A mind-blistering drumbeat dissolves into the most beautiful (and possibly only) oboe-xylophone-vocals collaboration I’ve heard. The other track is available on the band’s Myspace, but I need to repost it here. It’s an old track, but amazing nonetheless. Wait for that guitar riff at minute 1:10. So worth it!





Right click and save to download ”Hanasakajijii (Four: A Great Wind, More Ash)” from the album Floating World by Anathallo.
Right click and save to download ”To Gary and Marcus: The Soveriegnty of God Is Omnipresent” from the album When We Explode by Anathallo.

Anathallo’s WEBSITE.
Anathallo on MYSPACE.
Anathallo on PUREVOLUME.
Anathallo on LAST.FM.
Anathallo on WIKIPEDIA.
Anathallo on HYPEMACHINE.
Anathallo on AMAZON.
Support Anathallo’s “next-gen” LABEL.