{"id":8141,"date":"2013-12-10T16:56:43","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T16:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=8141"},"modified":"2013-12-10T16:56:43","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T16:56:43","slug":"califone-stitches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/12\/10\/califone-stitches\/","title":{"rendered":"Califone \u2013 Stitches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/2013\/12\/10\/califone-stitches\/califone-stitches-300x300\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8142\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8142\" alt=\"Califone-Stitches-300x300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Califone-Stitches-300x300.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s fitting that the leadoff track from Califone\u2019s 12th album, <em>Stitches<\/em>, is titled \u201cMovie Music Kills a Kiss.\u201d<!--more--> The Chicago band\u2019s relationship with film runs deep, including frontman Tim Rutilli\u2019s own foray into movie-making, <em>All My Friends Are Funeral Singers,<\/em> which was accompanied by their own original soundtrack. That cinematic bend also accompanies <em>Stitches<\/em>, which makes its own case as a potential soundtrack for a hazy, delicate western.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The album\u2019s title, as well, is particularly apt \u2013 Califone sews together not only genres of music \u2013 electronic, blues, pop, and folk \u2013 but also all of those sounds within individual songs, creating a veritable Frankenstein with each and every one, usually inside four or five minutes. The magic part is that despite the tendency of lesser musicians to make something like that sound bloated or crushed under its own ambition, they pull off an album full of true beauties \u2013 meticulously put-together, sparkling Americana gems.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This winning combination is never more apparent than on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iAiQQjm2HAQ\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cMoses,\u201d<\/a> starting out with dramatic strings that end up punctuating a thin acoustic guitar and piano, and ending in a moving orchestral crescendo. \u201cA Thin Skin of Bullfight Dust\u201d sounds almost like it could be a Broken Social Scene song, with a heavy driving beat provided by no less than five different types of percussion, along with poppy guitar codas and a muddled ending of confusion and feedback. \u201cMagdalene\u201d has a Beatles-filtered-through-Monument-Valley vibe. And the standout track, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kKFF7qH0-dI\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cmoonbath.brainsalt.a.holy.fool,\u201d<\/a> is pure country beauty, with its pedal steel and droning electric guitar solo.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>Stitches<\/em> is a diverse and eclectic album, more than the sum of its parts. And it\u2019s so well put-together you won\u2019t even be able to see the scars. (Dead Oceans Records, <a href=\"http:\/\/califonemusic.com\" target=\"_blank\">califonemusic.com<\/a>) <strong>Matt Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 It\u2019s fitting that the leadoff track from Califone\u2019s 12th album, Stitches, is titled \u201cMovie Music Kills a Kiss.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[156],"class_list":["post-8141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-califone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}