(from CWSY#5, March '01) / home / reviews index

Marble Valley- 'Sunset Sprinkler' (Pork Recordings)
Spinning off into the nether regions of warped indie-pop, the new project from ex-Pavement drummer Steve West, also featuring members of Salako, Jeepster Records' whimsy merchants who aren't Belle & Sebastian.

It starts out so well. There's distorted vocals and simple keyboards, ansaphone messages over new age chimes, all this before the 'proper song' part of the first track 'Pneumonia' kicks in. It sounds a lot like late '80s Fall - obviously Steve West's record collection goes on further than their earlier album 'Grotesque', which wasn't evident from Pavement's Fall-influenced work. It seems that Westy's been lapping up a bit of Snoop too, as the wonderful 'Duche Dog-e-Dog', is, inevitably like the Fall gone hip-hop.

Not that I'm saying Pavement owed everything to Mark E Smith's legends; they played a big part, but other influences were taken on board, and the band themselves could be very original. Marble Valley are more electronic, parts of 'Pina Colada' sounding like dance bods Alpinestars, while 'Rejuvinator' includes some nice kiddies keyboard. Unfortunately this simplicity stretches to the lyrics, which are either unaffectingly straightforward, except on the gorgeous ballad 'Not A Part Of It', or annoyingly abstract. The music can be repetitive. And the vocals (Steve's, I assume) are very sharply nasal, becoming goonier and more irritating as the album wears on. Going from the knowing bombast of 'Triple-e' and the sweetly whimsical 'Cerveza' ("think I lost my mind down in old Mexico") through to the drone-pop of 'Alum Springs' is disheartening.

Salako have some moments of greatness, like the hymnal 'Look Left', clouded by what will lazily be passed as experiments, and it's the same with Marble Valley. Some songs are well worth checking out and there's some nice ideas, but then you just pine for something else…

It started out so well. There was once an American band called Pavement, y'see…