Redneck surrealism. That’s the term filmmaker David Gordon Green coined to describe his style — including the bittersweet, dreamlike love story All The Real Girls — but it seems an apt description for the woozy, rootsy music made by such bands as Fruit Bats, Iron & Wine, Califone and Centro-Matic. And it fits the Gainesville, Florida, quintet Holopaw best of all.
Like an Elephant 6 collective raised on twang instead of pop, these bands share a similarly warm, weary sound, a common penchant for vivid, vaguely nonsensical lyrics that prize imagery over linear narrative, and densely tangled connections to one another. For example: Holopaw’s John Orth is a member of Ugly Casanova with Isaac Brock, who tipped Sub Pop off to Holopaw and plays in Modest Mouse, whose most recent album was produced by Brian Deck, who used to play with Califone and produced the Fruit Bats and — you guessed it — Holopaw.
After two months and two dozen listens, I can’t tell you what Orth is singing about here (deer, sailors, and canaries figure prominently in several lyrics, and “Hoover” is practically a love song to the giant dam), but his reedy, trembling voice is so soothing that I barely care. And though that voice and acoustic guitar are the basis of these songs — songs that never break their gently loping stride — the tunes include a zoo of other sounds as well.
Vibes, synth, and slide guitar appear just in the lead track; other quasi-identifiable noises are the long, trebly echo of what might be e-bowed guitar; ghostly high harmonies and a dry, skittering snare; plenty of piano and cello, some trumpet, and a few cartoonish bars of someone’s off-key whistling. Taken together, this all leaves a hazy impression, but it’s a gentle, lovely buzz.
