D+
Deception Pass
Knw-Yr-Own
“We can do anything we wanna do, but we don’t know what we wanna do,” Bret Lunsford sings on this album’s final track. These few lines sum up D+’s third album as well as anything else. Formed in the wake of Lunsford’s years spent with the semi-seminal Beat Happening, D+ is akin to something of a house band for Lunsford’s Knw-Yr-Own label, and includes fellow Knw-Yr-Own artists Phil Elvrum (aka The Microphones) and Karl Blau. Although D+ is first and foremost Lunsford’s band, the lineage of all three artists is evident on Deception Pass, certainly the closest to a group effort D+ have ever been.
Perfecting their whimsical, acoustic indie pop, Deception Pass takes on the form of accidental jams over easily construed melodies, betraying the considered and careful patterns of the music. The title track is a good example of this: a narcotic campfire jam that suddenly but effortlessly turns into extended alt-alt-country folk, taking in psych pop ramblings and a confused, worrying and lovely melody, all over the cause of some 8 wonderful minutes. “No Charge,” on the other hand, imitates Beach Boys harmonizing on a tiny budget, while “Blind Spot” is a lovely country swing-gone-awry, accentuating Lunsford’s characteristic Kermit the Frog vocals.
Willing to cross over into every genre, as long as it retains its inherent quirkiness and oddities, D+ is beautifully lo-fi just for the sake of it, and successfully so. Deception Pass is an acquired taste if ever there was one, but it’s certainly worth the effort trying to fit your head around it.
Knw-Yr-Own Records: http://www.knw-yr-own.com/
