Tree Music

Who doesn't love trees?

Great, because tonight you're going to be hearing a lot of them.

Underbrook Coffehouse is hosting two tree bands!

First, The Willow and the Builder, a folk band made up of Richard Miron BR '13 and Wesleyan's Adrian Simon, plus other Wesleyan instrumentalists and Yale singers. The band is releasing it's first album at the stroke of midnight on Oct. 10, but if you go to the show the band will give you a supersecret code to download the album free NOW.

After these budding trees show their stuff, NYC band Tall Trees will play. I went briefly to their website. I don't think I've ever heard anything folkier. Washboards and whistling. Oh man.

Underbrook Coffeehouse should be a fun time tonight. Just let yourself be a kid again and sing along about bubblegum and underwater teaparties. If you've been fasting, be sure to bring some change for coffee, tea and cookies—especially fitting for the youthful lyrics.

In case you can't handle all the tree-hugging, come to the tree free afterparty with Jamestown, The First Town in America at 342 Elm after the Coffeehouse (probably around 10).

If you're still up in the air about tonight's coffeehouse, here's a sneak peak.

The Willow & The Builder's album has some good tracks, but is overall hit or miss.

Richard Miron and Adrian Simon have without a doubt the most adorable band dynamic I have seen on this campus, so the coffeehouse is probably worth going to just for that.

I really like the song "Cut it Down," because it effectively weaves several different musical lines to create a musical scene of a tree reflecting off of water (see album cover). The rich, emotional viola part provides the substance of the song which the vocals later add to. The keys and drums pounding out chords and steady beats keep the piece moving forward and the listener engaged, while the flute adds interesting highlights.

Tracks such as "What's Next" and "A Vast Emptiness" (the title is fitting) use basic chord progressions, sparse textures, and soft vocals that make for a generally boring listening experience. "A Vast Emptiness" captures a different kind of listener with its storytelling style and voice. It feels like an interlude during a scene change of a musical puppet show. "What's Next" picks up a bit when the backup vocals enter.

Backup vocals are an essential component of one of the band's hits "Rosaline." It starts out a bit slow, but the full, soulful vocal lines and bluesy keys really iron out the harmonies. This song is going to sound fantastic tonight with such a big chorus.

Maeve: awesome, tree-loving vocalist

Yale singers tonight include (sorry I'm not up to putting in their class years today) Marina Keegan, Cuchulain Kelly, Tobias Kirchwey, Noah Kleinberg, Paul Leo, Anna Miller, Robert Ramaswamy, Maeve Ricaurte, Steph Rivkin, Chloe Sarbib, Grace Steig, Mary Stottele, Wan Joo Teo, Nine Tigers, and Sharif Youssef. The other instrumentalists are from Wesleyan, but Oliver Hill BR '12, one of Underbrook's co-hosts, will play viola for the band tonight. (I'd like to see even more strings in "Mansion Man" because the strings are easily the best part of the song and could be built up even more.)

Some of the tracks, such as Teahouse Treehouse, are really fun and creative. The joyful, childlike lyrics describing the treehouse "though it's really not that high, it's somewhere to go," with upbeat rhythms will put a smile on your face.

But this childlike cheer sometimes feels as if it goes too far. In "Oh Willow! (Why Wallow!)" the lyrics tell a story of a dream, an interesting principle. But during the dream, the cheery piano riff and exciting lyrics become cliché and tounge-in-cheek almost to the point where the listener feels like s/he is at the circus (not that there's anything wrong with circuses...). When the dream ends, the sadness that insues is also cliché (but at the other end of the spectrum.) Overall, it's a fun song with some creative and humorous images but a bit over the top. I'd like some unconventional chords thrown into the mix.

The most memorable song on the album for me is one I remember liking at lot in concert last year—"Heartache."

The sixtenth notes in the keyboard, dramatic chords, and emotional vocals bring power to the music that surpasses that of other tracks. Lyrics such as "heartache, don't come near me...longing, your days are numbered," present a vivid and very real emotional process: coping. The song also has a nice, punchy ending after some longer, sustained lines.