Danielson Ships

Never has an album’s first listen blown me away as Danielson’s Ships did. Usually I require multiple listens in order for an album to have an impression on me. But this album broke that rule and that’s impressive in itself. The sound is so unpredictable, so obscure and so intense that it has your heart racing. Now that the shock has worn off, I need to give it my regular treatment of repetition to see if it’s truly great but it’s off to a good start. The band is led by Daniel Smith who is accompanied by a number of family members and for this album, a number of guests. In fact, over 20 musicians contributed to this album. Notably, these guests include Sufjan Stevens and members of Deerhoof. Either these people had a large influence on the album or Danielson’s sound attracted them because there are definitely similarities. A pretty accurate description of Danielson’s sound would be a mix of Deerhoof’s craziness and Sufjan’s pleasantness. Similarly, the feelings they invoke are a mix of confusion and happiness, also produced their respective guests. But whatever influence these guests may have had, no credit can be taken away from Daniel. For without incredible his voice behind these songs, the album would just be ordinary. No amount of words can do this band any justice. You really need to hear them for yourself. So do it!

Ship The Majestic Suffix – I think it’s only fair that the first song you hear be the first song I heard i.e. track one. For ultimately, it was this song that knocked me over with it’s quirkiness. It lulls you into false sense of security in the slow sections, but I warn you, you won’t be there for long!

Did I Step On Your Trumpet? – I simply cannot sing enough praise for this song. I love it so much. His voice, the excitement it creates and the general obscureness makes this track a must hear.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

petre this is awesome. i like did i step on your trumpet better than ship the magic suffix
his singing is cool as and the backup singers.. cool as.

Peter said...

yeh!

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you've reviewed this. I found out about Daniel Smith and his many bands from a rockumentary I saw in LA a few weeks ago called Danielson: A Family Movie. It chronicled his musical life and his many bands and how he recruited Sufjan Stevens and mentored him until he found his own musical genius and got huge. The history and making of Ships was detailed in this doco and as soon as I finished I rushed to the store and bought a copy. You gotta check out the doco if it ever makes it to Australia!

Peter said...

Haha sounds like an awesome film. I only know a tiny bit about him but he does sound very intriguing. Did I get any information wrong? But what you said is so true, something like that has as much chance of getting released here as Danielson does of getting heard, not much. Then again, thats why the internet was invented (right?).

Anonymous said...

check this out:

www.danielsonmovie.com

Anonymous said...

Fbi are promoting Danielson now

Peter said...

really i haven't noticed. if wasn't for sunsets, I'd listen to fbi A LOT more

Anonymous said...

Sunsets is what makes Fbi, and all the other shows, but sunsets embodies what seems to be their ethos. Give a voice to unnappreciated Aus music, sunsets just doesn't play the right type of music is all.

Peter said...

Yeh that's what i mean. i just don't like any of the music they play and being on at a prime time, it really hurts fbi (in my own opinion of course). On the other hand i do listen to the bridge religously and the early afternoon shows when i can, both of which play good music, including a number of unappreciated sydney siders