Chattanooga Pulse

Pocahaunted
Make It Real
(Not Not Fun)

The Los Angeles group Pocahaunted, led by vocalist Amanda Brown, concocts entrancing, murky, drugged-out jams and dub-influenced sound pieces, using approaches for each release ranging from “dark raga” to “tribal soul” to “Pocahaunted does Tom Tom Club,” according to Brown.  It grew from being a prolific two-woman outfit including Bethany Cosentino, who has since left and now leads the pop band Best Coast, to its current five-piece configuration featured on its latest album Make It Real.  It expands upon the territory mapped out on previous releases, going from the American West to Jamaica to outer space, and this time, it has a blurred focus on psychedelic funk, with a loose grip and deep grooves.

Make It Real opens with “Touch You,” setting the scene with a Jah Wobble-esque bass line, somewhat bleary funk drum beats, echoing organ chords, and a wandering guitar searching for a melody; it picks up the pace in the last minute and a half, ramping up to a busy conclusion.  The three female voices largely function as one faceless collective; the words themselves hardly matter on Make It Real, and there aren’t very many of them—the lyrics could all probably fit on a business card.  But rich lyricism isn’t the point of the band, which chooses to enthrall with the pull of repetition and even uses wordless singing on “You Do Voo Doo.”

Although Make It Real generally has shorter songs than usual for the group, much of it could be heard as one giant, sweaty, reverberating mass.  Some moments stand out, like the saxophone accents on “U.F.O.” and the organ-chord delay pedal meltdown on the closing track “Save Yrself (Its Nice),” which sports vague West African touches.  Fully enjoying psychedelic music, funk, or dub means giving in to it, and Pocahaunted’s amalgam is a satisfyingly unusual intersection that effectively casts a time-defying trance spell.

Friendo
Cold Toads
(St. Ives)

Five seconds into “Counter/Time,” the opening track of the mini-album Cold Toads by the Calgary trio Friendo, a jarring out-of-tune guitar joins the song, which might be enough for some people to immediately dismiss the band.  The drumming, not exactly streamlined or totally confident, adds to this notion.  “Try!  Try harder!” I thought as I cringed.  However, if the listener makes it far enough into it, then things start to make a little more sense.

Friendo features Michael Wallace, who plays drums for the group Women, and here, he takes the role of front man, with singing and lead guitar duties, joined by Nicole Brunel and Henry Hsieh on guitar and drums, respectively.  The group strolls through songs with a tender charm—not really naïve, but not exactly experienced—occasionally beefed up with guitar distortion and lo-fi blasts.  A typical number maps out its melodies with straight eighth notes and an uncomplicated rhythm, and the low, repeated guitar notes give the band a sort of late ’70s post-punk quality, like on the track “Oversees,” which could pass for some early demo of a Factory Records band if the vocals sported a British accent.

The unrefined musicianship and home-recorded quality of Cold Toads also brings to mind music from the British D.I.Y. movement, where spirit and personality were treasured more than tight, proficient performances.  “Callers” is the number that ultimately tore down my defenses, with a breezy attitude, high register singing, and indistinguishable lyrics; it made me realize that Cold Toads works on its own modest, undemanding level, even though much of it doesn’t boldly distinguish itself.  Then I wondered if I would’ve enjoyed this more if someone had given me a blind listening test and then lied to me, saying that it was some D.I.Y. release from 1979 from some obscure band.  Oh, the guilt.