The sun shines brightly on that Alice duck
July 20, 2006 09:02 PM 


The Amped Up! faithful are no doubt familiar with Alice's Communal Death Duck, if only in name. This eclectic trio are an unusual sort -- they have odd ideas about what pop music should sound like. The Duck offer a new compact disc to the world so that others may better understand their quirky position on sound and song. To that, Amped Up! can only reply: "Same as it never was." 



Communal Death Duck, "We Got Sunshine" CD Richard GuerreroAMPED UP! BLOG!!!!! 

"We Got Sunshine" is the second full-length release by the Alice outsider/indie trio known as Communal Death Duck. Led by multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Norberto Gomez Jr., the band also features his 14-year-old sister Jillian Gomez on drums/bass and vocals and Jacqueline Garcia as secondary multi-instrumentalist/vocalist. That's actually a complicated way of saying that the three players trade instruments from time to time all the while building repetitive, hypnotic layers of sound that provide a distinctly unsettling platform for Norberto's David Byrne-styled vocals (which are also distinctly unsettling). 'Sunshine' boasts 12 tracks and a sonic clarity that is somewhat surprising given the band's love of all things lo-fi. For the unintiated, CDD straddle the art-rock line between '77-era Talking Heads (the band covers "Psycho Killer" in their set) and fellow travelers Pere Ubu and Can -- who all took their cues from the Velvet Underground. But CDD manages to draw from modern-day eccentrics almost nearly as much as yesterday's pioneers. Say what you will about CDD's love of those early Talking Heads records, there's plenty of Pavement in their collective bloodstream (Norberto Gomez's vivid art-based layout on 'Sunshine' bears more than a passing resemblance to 'Brighten the Corners'). The band's use of repetitive absurdist refrains is perhaps the most obvious lesson devotees of Stephen Malkmus (and Byrne before him) could incorporate into their own songwriting and the Duck proves itself quite skilled in utilizing said technique. Half thoughts expressed in "Silly Billy Bum" (with its ridiculously catchy end couplet built on a memorable profanity), "Salenger Bonaparte" and album standout "The Car is on Fire (Numerical ..2), are pounded into the listener's psyche until the concept of linear narrative is but a memory. But there's more. What sets CDD apart from the rest of the Pavement-worshipping crowd is the unison backup vocals of the two gals, Jacqueline and Jillian. A digression is necessary: Outsider music fans are no doubt familiar with the now-classic "Philosophy of the Western World" recorded by the Wiggin sisters who were better known as the Shaggs in 1969. Some have called the Shaggs the worst band of all time, and they may have a point. Be that as it may, the Shaggs' most distinctive characteristic is a hauntingly angelic vocal sound that contrasted rather fantastically with their radically out-of-tune (and time) instruments.CDD are, no doubt, versed in the saga of the Shaggs as their own hauntingly angelic back-up vocals would imply. CDD even manages to fall apart on tape ("Agua Para Uso Humano") before pulling itself back together again as only the Shaggs could in their time. One additional note: while the first half is filled with numerous moments of outsider greatness, the second half sort of meanders along until the journey quietly comes to an end. All of this to say the obvious: "We Got Sunshine" is not for everyone. But for the truly adventurous listeners, 'Sunshine' promises a true departure from the merely alternative into the unsettingly artistic. May the sun never set on that strange (and cool) Alice Duck. 
**** (out of 5 possible stars)
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