Tiger Saw
gimme danger/gimme sweetness
Kimchee
Tiger Saw is the approximation of Low being led by Hefner’s Darren Hayman. The music on gimme danger/gimme sweetness is rooted in frosty, brittle slow-core. Take for instance the 2/4-time duo “Burning” and “I Am So Cold.” Both songs are stripped down to the elements: minimal, muted guitar strums and austere and perfect boy-girl harmonies, with the latter featuring a lovely shattering of glockenspiel on the outro.
The band occasionally trades in the reverie for assertiveness, as with the snaking organ lines on the sprightly “Love Will Kill.” The full band accompaniment takes center stage with the too brief “West of the Sun,” an orchestral post-rock ode to one of Japan’s literary monsters: Haruki Murakami’s South of the Border, West of the Sun.
The Hefnerian influence shows up in the more sarcastic and coy lyrical moments. “R U Courageous?” begins with the line, “Give me danger, give me sweetness / will you please love me to pieces?” “All My Friends Are Right Here With Me” casually tosses around its laundry-listed characters from one line to the next. In the end, it’s this humorous detachment from the slow-core pathos that makes the album warm, inviting and infinitely enjoyable. Good stuff.
Kimchee: http://www.kimcheerecords.com
