I love this “In Our Time” tune more than life itself. I hear the three B’s: Beatles, Byrds and Bach. Abbey Road Studios called, they want John and Paul back. Also, I’m serious about the Bach. They’ve got a beautiful, layered, joyful church music thing going on with amazing guitar sounds, beautiful vocal arrangements and superb production.
This is a COVID garage symphony to God.
Give us, O Lord, peace “In Our Time.” Also, please give us the other dozen or so songs which make up Rich Arithmetic’s Shiftingears…
Another song in the work of which I became quite fond is called, “One Thing: Ocean Girl Trilogy Pt 1 (featuring Maura Kennedy)” because every millisecond of that song is haunting and expertly crafted. This is also a tune where God is knocking on the door of the recording studio. Or perhaps not.
Asked about the song by East Portland Blog, Rich said, “I wrote the three songs of the trilogy over the course of well over 40 years. And it was only when I was recording the most recent song of the three that I realized I’d kept returning to the same girl — a girl from a missed encounter on Huntington Beach back in 1972! Before my a-ha moment, I’d thought I was writing about the feminine nature of God — that is, “Her name is Always.” (She is and always has been.) And though that sounds heavy/deep and more spiritual, in the end I realized I really was writing about real-life human girl! Ha. But such is the way the mind works.”
Whichever way you choose to read the title of Rich Arithmetic’s new CD – as Shiftin’ Gears or as Shifting Ears – it’s a perfect description of what you’ll find on the first full-length album by Rich since 1995’s Sleep In a Wigwam, the album that introduced his uniquely sly approach to guitars-and-harmony indie pop, an album that the Pop Sunday Newsletter labeled a masterpiece,” that the-then Bible of Power Pop, Audities Magazine, listed in its Top Ten Power Pop Releases of 1995, and that Hartbeat Magazine (Berlin) listed as one of its Top 100 Power Pop Albums of All Time.
And now, thanks to KOOL KAT MUSIK, Rich Arithmetic is back with Shiftingears, an album that expands on the pop promises he made way back then. Just as Sleep In a Wigwam kicked off with a Strat-and-12-string jangle-pop number that paid homage to the memory of John Lennon, Shiftingears also charges out the gate with an all-cylinders-firing tribute to a Sixties should’a-been superstar band, The E-Types (a band whom he also covers later in the album). That opening salvo is then followed up in a Beatles-inspired vein that recalls the music & deejays of Sixties AM radio.
And from there, Rich shifts gears and shifts ears with an eclectic collection of pop-and harmony songs that draw from a variety of influences while still establishing his own unique pop credentials.
Familiar to fans of Rich Arithmetic will be the influence of The Beatles, of course, and XTC, naturally, along with incorporations of criss-crossing ba-ba-ba harmonies inspired by Brian Wilson, punctuated by surf-guitar riffs here and there. And to be sure, while those are some of the influences, they do not obscure Rich’s own unique pop approaches to tunemaking. New this time around are several piano-based numbers, a moody Chris Isaak-esque introspection that eventually flings itself into Mamas & Papas harmony sunshine. There are melodic hooks disguised in bar-band clothes, a couple of pieces that borrow from the extended-song approach of the late Sixties and early Seventies, and a piece that presumes to be the reply of the Ipanema Girl and which features a female vocal floating over jazz chords. There’s also a flirtation with Baroque Pop that sees Rich accompanied by a string quartet that back in the day would have made the Left Banke proud. In the meantime, another piece with a Fifties chord progression is followed up by a droning I-Am-the-Walrus-like organ-guitar and-cello song.
Along the way, Rich is assisted by special guests, including the vocals of Maura Kennedy from the award-winning folk-pop duo, The Kennedys, and Lance Morgan from Monsters Under the Bed. The lost-but-not forgotten cult band, The Skweegees – reunited on record for the first time in recent history – pay a visit. In addition, Ray Carmen (from the current-day power pop sensations, Librarians With Hickeys) and Christopher Earl (aka Squires of the Subterrain) share songwriting credits with Rich on a couple numbers.
If you’re looking for catchy guitar riffs, you’ll find ‘em here. Looking for interweaving harmonies? They abound on Shiftingears. Melodies that don’t stop when the music’s over? They got ‘em. Something to challenge a few indie-pop assumptions while still adhering to melody-first expectations? They’re here . . . in spades.
Shiftingears —available now on Kool Kat!
