REVIEW: Dusty Trails, Dusty Trails (Atlantic)
- Chelsea Spear
Imagine you've been road-tripping through the Mojave Desert in a large pink convertible with fins sprouting from the back, make circa 1956. After riding through dust and sand all day you've pulled your road-boat over by the side of an endless asphalt road snaking through the sand dunes, and you find yourself toasting a perfect pink-and-orange sunset with a salted crimson margerita as it melts into the horizon.
The music gracing this scene would undoubtably be Dusty Trails' self-titled debut. Former Luscious Jackson keyboardist Vivian Trimble has joined forces with Josephine Wiggs (who played bass for the Breeders way back when) to create music as laid-back and evocative as those bands' brews were stimulating and undeniably original. Loping melodies, airy arrangements, and "ba-ba-ba" vocals are the order of the day. On those occasions when eclecticism rears its asymmetrical head, songs take on the sophisticated strut of French ye-ye ballads that wouldn't sound out of place in Shoot the Piano Player, or break down into torchy country-and-western ballads.
Dusty Trails' music has its idiosyncratic charm, but one wishes for less retro-sounding evocation of Burt Bachrach-esque cinematheque and more involvement. The album's closest branch on the Grand Royal/LJ family tree, Trimble's acoustic duo the Kostars, brought the listeners in with charming, homespun folk tunes you could dance to. As it stands, what Trimble and Wiggs want to do with this project is create music that evokes rather than emotes, but one wishes for a little more substance to back up this thesis. Perhaps these charming, funky little shuffles will gain more significance in their use in Brad Anderson's upcoming film Happy Accidents, but for now this makes little more than ideal use as background music for brunch at some space-age bachelorette's pad.
