The distinctive sound of a furiously wielded bow meeting string, the furtive ebb and flow of a French horn, the clashing rise and fall of a brass crescendo; sounds like a day at the Walt Disney Concert Hall taking in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, right? Wrong.
How about these?
The playful tinkle of a child's Casio keyboard, the unmistakable timber of a banjo, the piercing yet beautiful shrill of a recorder; no, we're not at the county fair either. Tuning in to KROQ or Indie 103.1 will yield encounters with these less-than-conventional instruments. They're untraditional - for rock music, at least - and they're hooking everyone from classic rock aficionados to hipsters.
It used to be that such alternative instruments were commonplace among novelty groups and cultural acts such as a steel drum band or the members of Stomp! - groups you'd love on a vacation or cruise, but not necessarily listen to on a regular basis. Such segregation cannot be made of today's musical landscape.
Now, it's true, the Beatles did a lot of stuff influenced by the sitar and Indian music in their later days, but it isn't what made them famous. Bands today are making names for themselves despite their unconventional instrumental choices, and sometimes because of them.
Yellowcard made a killing, not because they're talented musicians or their music is good enough to distinguish them from other punk bands, but because they have an energetic violin player. That's right, just like Susie Summeyer with the big glasses and the jacked-up grill used to play in middle school. It's the reason I saw them a couple of years ago on campus and why I can't seem to get "Ocean Avenue" out of my head when my iPod decides to shuffle it in … Let your waves crash down on me, and take me a-way-ee-yay-yeah…
But there are better bands than Yellowcard employing such tactics. They range from the traditional extra musician to the insanely talented singer-songwriter (such as Sufjan Stevens, a topic best covered in a separate article) to the absolutely batty. (I once saw Rilo Kiley's opening band Tilly and The Wall do an entire set without a drummer, substituting a tap dancer. I must say, after the weirdness wore off, it was pretty cool.) For some reason, many of these bands hail from Canada. Our north-of-the-border brethren seem to have their fingers firmly on the pulse of true "alternative" music.
The Arcade Fire is probably the best known of these bands. Hailing from Montreal, they utilize piano, violin, viola, cello, xylophone, French horn, accordion and harp on their record Funeral and have been known to add other sounds including the banging of their trademark helmets when they play live. Kitschy? I think not. The sound the Arcade Fire produces, especially live, has a level of intensity and expectation about it that you just can't get from a traditional band. The slower "Crown of Love" really highlights their talent as musicians.
To augment their classical desires, Richard Parry and Sarah Neufeld started a classical, all-instrumental side project called Bell Orchestre. The songs have an Arcade Fire feel to them (check out "The Upwards March") without the lyrics and idiosyncratic wailings of lead singer Win Butler. To further the confusion, Owen Pallett, the man who helped the Arcade Fire with the instrumentation on their first album, started his own one-man band, Final Fantasy. While it has no tangible connection to the video game, Final Fantasy does give off an ethereal feel. I'm waiting to see him in concert, but I have heard rousing live versions of Bloc Party's "This Modern Love" and Devendra Banhart's "Peach, Plum, Pear."
This kind of inbreeding took hold in Toronto as well, where Metric, Broken Social Scene, Stars, KC Accidental and Feist all share members in an interchangeable indie-rock orgy. Let me attempt to break it down for you: Emily Haines fronts Metric and is a part-time member of Broken Social Scene. Two of the other players in Metric, Amy Millan and Kevin Drew, also masquerade in BSS and Stars. Evan Cranley, the bassist for Stars, contributes to BSS. BSS, the supergroup of the whole thing, was started by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, the founding fathers of KC Accidental. Since BSS's conception, they've hooked up with the singer of Feist, Leslie Feist. Thoroughly confused? Well, you can throw a few more names into the mix like Justin Peroff, Charles Spearin, Jason Collett and Bill Priddle. I'd draw you a map, but essentially it's all one big Canadian love fest.
It's not surprising that out of all of this comes a multitude of sound ranging from brass sections four and five deep to a classically-trained violinist. After seeing BSS and Feist last semester, I see now how they all work together. Songs like BSS's "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" and Feist's "Mushaboom" beg for a surfeit of different sounds emanating from all parts of the stage.
The addition of fresh sounds to a band's musical repertoire has diversified and enhanced today's music scene. I've never heard an oboe or cello that I didn't like in contemporary music. What's next, a kazoo or a sousaphone?
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Dylan-Ernst Schäfer's "The Needle" column runs on Thursdays. To comment on this article, e-mail dtrojan@usc.edu or call (213) 740-5644.
