It's New To Me: Wattle & Daub by Strapping FIeldhands (1996)

Sketch entitled "Work" by James McNeill Whistler, c. 1901

I feel like I was sold a bill of goods on Strapping Fieldhands. "It's like Guided By Voices singing sea shanties!" they said. Well, they lied. I don't know why all the eccentric '90s bands of the American Midwest get lumped together - I would hesitate to compare Strapping Fieldhands to anything else I've heard before. Although I admit that I like the comparison someone made that likened them to a clan of inbred hillbillies who have formed a musical cult around Pink Floyd's Meddle. I picked up the out-of-print Wattle & Daub album on the ol' Interwebs with pretty low expectations, but I still initially felt misled somehow.

But I like that Bob Malloy and his Phillie-based ensemble were doing their own thing, and Wattle & Daub has really opened up on repeated listens. A fascination with history and mythos is found in a lot of Strapping Fieldhands' songs, and the imagery of "Song of Mourning Dove" and "Chronicle of a Tortoise" hearkens back to early British folk music. Did I mention that Malloy sings everything in a thick faux-Brit accent? The backwoods psychedelia and scholarly rusticity mix throughout Wattle & Daub with varying effectiveness, but I like how it comes together on songs like the buried-in-the-tracklist gem "Rose Seed", with its layers of treated guitar, burbling drums, and off-kilter melody line.

"Rose Seed" by Strapping Fieldhands