The most simple, most honest statement I can make about this record after listens now numbering into the hundreds is: Call and Response are here to save pop music. Perhaps I'm biased as I always thought that "Call and Reponse" would be the perfect band name if I could translate my love of "ba ba bas", three-part harmonies, light-hearted lyrics, and Motown-influenced songwriting into musical talent. Northern California's CAR have the musical talent that I so clearly lack, but they also have similar pop inspirations and manifest their influences in an unwavering tribute to '60s pop, the finest disco, Motown and Sarah, while also keeping their sound fresh and uniquely animated in this age. Call and Response has been a record to save my summer, but its winter release date and unabashedly bright-eyed wonder make it a necessary addition to the Slumberland/Sarah/Creation fan's record collection for all seasons.
The album's first three songs feature two significantly rooted in Jean Knight's 1971 smash "Mr. Big Stuff" (a Stax rather than a Motown release). "Blowin' Bubbles" emerges from the R&B framework to twist into an updated, most-modern take on girl pop. While guitarist Dan Judd shares singing duties on the initial verses with one of the three female vocalists (though it is entirely unclear which from the liner) -- Simone Rubi (keyboards), Carrie Clough (percussion and organs), and Terri Loewenthal (bass) -- the three women harmoniously "ba ba ba" their way to the song's conclusion as Loewenthal's funky bass provides the ideal response to the now fully feminine lead vocal's call.
"Rollerskate" is a sunny break between the Knight-influenced tracks. Candy "woah woah" backing vocals lend themselves to an even more bubbly verse glazed in xylophone -- but most adorable for its simple suggestion that one learn to rollerskate before learning how to walk or rock -- as the listener gets lost in the infectious "loop D loop/around the ring let's go" vocal hooks. "Nightflight" has the Knight basslines but Judd's agile guitars and beeping organs push the song along into cherubic vocals. "California Floating in Space" might be my favorite track here but, regardless, it is one of the best pop singles of recent time. The vocals swoon and dive, rising through guitar wrapper to exclaim "Blue painted sea / watercolor in my dreams" and falling romantically into a multi-part but dainty bridge that is unquestionably Kinks-esque. In all, it is a warming contemplation of aesthetics and color, the kind of beautiful simplicity of which summer just doesn't have enough. C&W acoustic guitar, slide guitar and Jordan Dalrymple's pacific drumming add the right cap.
An even happier color study follows: "Colors" is absolute pop mastery. Organs stamping the vocals with all the right punctuation marks, basslines just apparent enough, as the band becomes pleasantly distracted with the colors of the rainbow. Judd sings "The Fool", which is complete with call and answer vocals, pop commands like "put the needle to the groove"; this is undeniably golden. This is what jukeboxes would sound like today, were they to have the same poppy functions as jukeboxes of old. "Lightbulb" and "Stars Have Eyes" allow a final opportunity for slithery bedroom dancing before the 10 tracks end -- the former featuring the amazingly placed a cappella vocal "I'm a lightbulb yeah / And I'm on fire"; the latter, a bassy, glittering boy-girl number with layer after layer of vocals playfully tangling together like a cat's cradle.
Detractors will certainly scoff and say that this is pure fluff, that topics like roller-skating, color patterns and summer skies are discardable and forgettable. Yet they miss the point; Call and Response is not a substitute for your overly cerebral Radiohead and Tindersticks records, but a complement to them. Hell, even Thom Yorke has learned to smile and even dance (anyone who witnessed his renditions of "Idioteque" can vouch for his newfound exuberance), and pop legends the Smiths were known to have their light moments, as do the well-established, but still meteorically rising, Belle & Sebastian. Call and Response has all the right elements -- splendid harmonies, charming vocals and quasi-futuristic flourishes on traditional patterns. This is an infinitely more interesting and accomplished record than most I've heard this year.
