Treeball
The Strawberry Blonde School of Class (CD)
 Half my life ago, when I was a young Joy Division fan, I decided I would someday make a pilgrimage to Finland, which figured in my imagination as the most desolate place on earth. Since then, I’ve lightened up a little, but in my mind Finland remained bleak and forbidding, the image reinforced by a few movies (Jim Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth” and a few grim films by the Kaurismaki brothers) and by documentary footage concerning the surprising Finnish passion for the tango and the intensely somber form it has taken there.
So when I received this debut CD by Helsinki-based Treeball, I would have braced myself for boring, windswept dirges if the liner notes hadn’t led me to expect something a little more fun. And as is too seldom the case, the liner notes were right. Like so many bands in neighboring Sweden (Happydeadmen, Starlet, The Leslies, Aquadays, Club 8, and of course ABBA, just to name a few), Treeball has produced shimmering, summery pop, as if to create their own, never-ending August.
This isn’t original-sounding stuff, to be sure. Their press kit -- which urges the listener to “imagine a twisted Gram & Emmy Lou, a sadistic Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, musically recalling the literate music of the Go-Betweens, Velvet Underground with the more melodic aspects of Pavement and Teenage Fanclub” – has got it only partly right. The songs exhibit neither the delicacy of the Go-Betweens nor the clear-sighted decadence of the Velvets. (Then again, few can.) In fact, the lyrics are just plain oafish (“I feel that I’m losing you/there’s nothing there/It’s a hair day that’s gone bad/aeroplanes are falling fast/nation’s [sic] ain’t just gonna last/and you just passed”). This can’t be chalked up to the predictable blunders of non-Anglophones; the band is led by UK transplant Nick Triani.
Yet the CD somehow brings to mind the sophisticated pop associated with those artists. “Wild” and “If You Wanna Jump Better Let Go” evoke the spirit and sound (if not the sublime melodies) of Big Star and Teenage Fanclub. “Down” sounds remarkably like Creeper Lagoon, with Triani seeming to mimic Ian Sefchick’s unique vocal phrasing for the space of that one song. “Friday Night” and “Blooms” are irresistibly catchy and elegant, reminiscent of Birdie, The Cardigans, and perhaps Komeda. And “Hey Punk!” plays out over three distinct sections: crunchy guitars and male/female vocal interplay familiar to fans of Imperial Teen; a keyboard solo over charging, repetitive guitar chords; finally, a spacey passage strongly evoking Air and alluding to Petula Clark’s “Downtown.”
Indeed, the worst that can be said about this CD is that it sounds like a great compilation tape: each song sounds very much like some other group, as if they tried to imitate each of their favorite groups in turn. Believe it or not, though, I mean this as praise. If they’ve shown their influences much too plainly in their debut, well, countless bands have done that. But the excellence of these songs suggests a promising future. (By the time this is printed, their follow-up ep, “A Cat Formation of a Mouse,” may be out.) So the old conception, bleak Finland, gives way to a new one, summer-party Finland.
- review by GG (12.22.03)
Stupido Records
c/o TWIN TONE OY
P.O. BOX 301
00121 Helsinki, Finland
treeball@mummypowder.com
www.mummypowder.com/treeball/
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