AMN Reviews: Cheer-Accident – Q-Pop (2023; Bandcamp)

Question 1-How does one comment on an album that shows little, if any stylistic continuity from track to track?

Question 2-How does one try and draw connecting threads from an ensemble’s live performances to a recorded group of songs where these threads don’t actually exist?

Question 3-How does one try and lock into a specific sound of the past as means to relate to a current sound of popular music when said current sound sounds like all sounds extant going back through the history of all sounds or none of those sounds in the aggregate?

Answer to Question 1-I just did, but it’s really not that important.

Answer to Question 2-Don’t bother, it would be like comparing Apples to Kumquats.

Answer to Question 3-Don’t even think about it… and if you are idiotic enough to try and describe the sound, avoid metaphors and/or similes because that’s just lazy writing.

Well this isn’t going to be easy, is it? I mean, really… avoid metaphors and/or similes??? That’s like asking a music critic to write a lovingly composed appreciation to their Proctologist. No, let’s throw that particular rule straight into the circular file.

Implications of question one: The group Cheer-Accident has existed for roughly 35 years and shows zero signs of slowing down. The fact that they are able to reinvent themselves continuously, not only from album to album but… in the case of Q-Pop from song to song is fairly incredible.

Implications of question two: The 11 songs on Q-Pop are all under four minutes, and most are under three minutes. In the live performances that I’ve seen, the band stretches things out. They may add lengthy segments of improvisational chaos or keep things structured in some way… but proceedings tend to be dealt with in a more exploratory manner that further develops whatever musical ideas they are presenting. The fact that the band has a shifting cadre of musicians adds to the dichotomy of live vs. Memorex.

I refuse to call the “short songs” on Q-Pop tone poems, or sonic vignettes, or miniatures… or other twee sounding descriptors because I hate those terms. What I will say is every one of these “short songs” flash into existence as a fully fleshed out, developed musical entity. While they may not have an “A section” or a “B section” or an intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure… they don’t need to. Cheer-Accident knows the popular music song rules… they just choose to break them. I don’t think this aspect of the “short song” is very apparent in their live shows.

Implications of question three: If you are trying to talk about a current piece of music in terms of comparing it to past pieces of music, is there even a way to go about that without using metaphors and/or similes? Let me try something.

Exhibit A as a corollary to question three-aka the stupid, kinda boring way of trying to describe what’s on this album: The songs on Cheer-Accidents latest album, Q-Pop harkin’ back to selective atavistic memories (generated from people of a certain age) of many different kinds of music that they have heard since they were able to identify sounds as music. Thus, Cheer-Accident have ingeniously collected and collated all this sonic data into short form songs designed and presented in a pleasing package to elicit a feeling of reminiscence within the listener…perhaps of the good ole days.

Exhibit B as a corollary to question three-aka the better way of trying to describe what’s on this album that includes metaphors and similes: Q-Pop brings new meaning to the mental image of Joseph’s coat of many colors. Every “short song” is its own symphony. Its own “War and Peace”. Its own new season of “General Hospital”. Its own Cecil B DeMille/Chuck Heston biblical epic.

Let’s go in numerical order… opening Q-Pop is “Off The Clock” where we get (what seems to be) dueling thumb pianos, a brass section, a deceptively simple drum beat and a nicely harmonizing, melodic chorus of voices. The thumb pianos sound like they are playing counterpoint off each other. This last aspect made me feel like sprinkling white powder on my face, donning a wig and LARPing Johann Sebastian Bach playing experimental pop music.

Then we have “Bonk”. I think “Bonk” is most likely the theme song for the character that graces the cover of this album (see above). If 80’s Crimson grew a sense of humor and decided to replace Belew with Prince (take a moment to think about that please)… it may come close to describing “Bonk”. The amazing thing about this epic is the hidden complexity that undergirds everything. The rhythms are all askew and the “Fripp on a high dosage of serotonin” melody lines will make you look like an out of control top on the dance floor.

Next is “Q 1” where I can’t help but imagine a chance encounter between Gentle Giant circa their Interview period (mostly from the melody line in the beginning) and an “end of days” Ragnarok scenario. This is a prog “short song” which in and of itself is a non-sequitur but let me ask you… when has Cheer-Accident NOT confounded the expectations of their listener audience? They pulled off something in 3:30 minutes… packing all kinds of changes into one diminutive song capsule that would take 30 minutes for even the most seasoned Shire dwellers to accomplish.

“Evicted”, one of the shortest of this collection of “short songs” has some nifty raw scratchy guitar work and a really excellent and very active bass line serpentining itself throughout the 1-minute and 39-second duration. It begins in a funerary fashion but is shortly uplifted by a jubilant horn section that somehow just makes everything alright again.

On “AM”, the listener (or at least, this listener) is dropped in the middle of a dank, steamy jungle somewhere in Southeast Asia. What sounds like a thumb piano tuned in an exotic, non-western fashion carrying the melody, and some ethno-wherever type percussion providing motion… is eventually beaten down into a metallic drone-like affair with only the occasional pitch change. I was waiting for the psycho-acoustics to step forward out of the long tones but they said no.

Next comes “Dot The Eyes” and this is their big epic. This is their “Lawrence of Arabia”, their “Don Quixote”, their “Close to the Edge”. It’s an extensively drawn-out study of interlocking melody lines, crunchy rhythm guitar moves, piercing and proud slide guitars, soaring vocals and a horn section that… at the conclusion slides the work into the land of the atonal. It’s a quest, a grail coveting journey… it’s 3 minutes and 44 seconds long and it’s really good!

“Car Crash (Again)” is a short interlude that allows me, in a very general way to draw parallels with a 1960’s era acousmatic work. Take my word for it, it just kind of has that primitive “experiments in modern recording” sound. Many of its sounds are difficult to identify with any certainty and it relies completely on providing textural contrast to the next “short song”, “Disclaimers Aside”… the albums second epic. Electronically treated John Bonham-esque drums mates with a layer of sinister Organ-ish sounding sonorities setting the stage for a trombone fanfare leading into the short vocal dominated middle section… which in turn acts as the songs more “musical” (i.e. melodic) statement. The outro is an extended onenote drone that eventually pulls a “little engine that couldn’t”… strangling off into oblivion. Bye Bye lil sound.

On the mega-brief “PM”, the band delivers a stern and very forceful vocal credo of things that they just refuse to do, under any circumstances… exclamation marked by a vague motorik beat driving the “I mean business” type compulsion. This doesn’t include putting together an album of “short songs” that aggregates the everything of everywhere… apparently.

“Clock Stopped” begins by laying down an acoustic bass/drums foundation augmented by keyboard chording that would have made Zawinul and/or Corea smile. Vocals materialize in typical quirky C-A fashion and it’s then that I realize there is a whole universe of tinkling, chime-like percussion living underneath this casserole. No man… it appears that the clocks haven’t stopped. Shortly thereafter the song does… but not before a dirty Holdsworth-ian guitar figure makes its presence known.

The finale is “Polish Vasectomy” and, if the procedure is as freakish as this song… I’ll pass. Don’t pass on the song though, just the procedure. The kitchen sink/chaos magick approach is taken with some psychedelicious studio effects stringing the listener along from the safety of their own headspace to a basement in Humboldt Park, Chicago… all the way back to the comfort of their Grams parlor… due in no small part to its recorder ensemble ending.

That’s my tour of Q-Pop… a short album that is decidedly not short on style.

Conclusions: In its brevity, Q-Pop is chock-full of whatever you can imagine music can be chock-full of. Most of the songs were available as subscription-only offerings but the powers that be decided to aggregate them into a physical release. This was a good decision because the collection stands strong, very strong when heard as a complete album. I hope, with all my above verbalizing, I gave the impression that this is music from a band that utterly refuses to compromise, under any circumstances. They are gonna do what they are gonna do, and we are all the better for it. This collection stands as an essential addition to their long and winding discography. Go get it!

Mike Eisenberg (meisenberg1@hotmail.com)