A Minor Band

Music, like so many aspects of life under capitals thumb, is the site of injustice and contestation.
Bands, genres and approaches that seek to subvert or at least renovate musics lucrative role in the spectacle are maligned and ignore while music that is boring/lazy/alienating/shit is showered with gifts and favour from well wishers. One of the victims of this situation is the brilliant US Maple.

US Maple are the band that are nothing-but should be everything. They were formed in early 1995 by veterans of several Chicago area punk bands. US Maple were, for most of their life, were: Pat Samson, Todd Rittman, Mark Shippy and Al Johnson.

The most widely quoted statement of intent is that they collectively sought to banish rock and roll from their minds. The best evidence of this project are their two masterpieces: Talker and Acre Thrills.

They both proceed in polydirectional courses: everywhere but nowhere all at once. Loose and haggard, pulling every which way to the point of apparent incoherence. But these records still deal in songs and structures, however loose and unconventional.

Its tones are muted and compressed. Todd Rittmans "low" guitar defines large stretches of their minor rock and roll, working circles of strangled flourish in and around the fits and starts of Pat Samsons drumming.

Unlike the usual indie rock tension and release template, Talker builds and subsides/collapses without climax. This void could be said to be the defining feature of Talker and Acre Thrills: songs without release, loose structures without dissonance, punk rock without rocking out.

Their arcs of stop and start and lax structures, however, cant hide the viruosity at play here, more of a punk Captain Beefheart than a debt to any idiot-(s)avant tradition. Al Johnsons vocals are a lurching wheeze sung through clenched teeth that take the form of riddles and poems of unknowable intent.

The paradox of this band, the thing that makes them so enticing and interesting is all these contradictions at play. The fact that they can sound like a glorious mess but have at their heart a sense of control and absence that cant be grasped instantly. They can sound sprawled yet compressed, free yet constrained, contorted yet natural.

P.S-There is a documentary film in the works about US Maple as well.