On Bending Mirrors Portland band Celilo incorporate the mythology, imagery and characters of this city of rain, rivers and bridges into their music, a noir-ish blend of psychedelia, alt-country and indie rock.
It comes through most explicitly on “Wy-Am,” a gently loping ballad with brushed snares, softly plucked guitar and banjo and moaning pedal steel, and some Harvest style harmonica from lead guitarist Adam East. Sloan Martin in his plaintive tenor sings about “drinking Black Velvet with my Indian friends / on the shores of a lake that once was a river.” It’s an explicit reference to something that used to be familiar to all Oregonians, the drowning of Celilo Falls on the Columbia River by The Dalles Dam in 1957. The site was used for centuries as a fishing and gathering spot by local Indians, and its loss still reverberates through the Native community. Wy-Am was the name of the falls in the Sahaptin language, translated as “echo of falling water.”
Bending Mirrors is anything but a history lesson, though. It’s a low-key journey through Portland’s mostly gray moods with the people who inhabit its rainy streets and neighborhoods. The music is deceptively quiet and understated, with only occasional psychedelic electric guitar solos slashing through the muted tones of acoustic guitars, David Pulliam’s keyboards and Tucker Jackson’s pedal steel. But there is plenty of drama and occasional violence, both psychic and physical, in the lyrics.
“Night don’t fall till I shoot out the street lights / sleep don’t come until morning, if at all,” Martin sings in “Winter Pills.” The song has plenty of dynamic shifts that take it from gentle shuffle to anthemic chorus and back.
At the other end of the spectrum from the lament for lost nature in “Wy-Am” is “Sirens of Metropolis,” with lyrics that paint an urban noir scene and tell of loss and loneliness: “Enjoying the rain, my anodyne / left behind rag doll, with buttons for eyes / a napkin stained with words and rings of wine.” The song rises to a near wall-of-sound mid-tempo rock for one emotion-laden verse before fading back to a quieter coda.
“Bush Pilot” is a slow waltz, its lyrics an extended metaphor of loneliness: “My heart’s a hotel with too many rooms and doors that won’t shut all the way / the lounge is always full of intrigues and the furniture is plush / it’s easy to melt into, get left in the dust.” “Pinata” has a hook-laden melody that highlights its sharp lyrics of tragic love. “Scatter the ashes of forgiveness” Martin sings in “Donut Queen,” which seems to be a portrait of small-town life. The album’s title comes from a line in “Sunken Ships,” which has some lovely three-party harmony that could be multi-tracked by Martin or could be Martin backed by bassist Damon Dunning and guitarist East. “Sunken ships pass in the night, too much too little all this time,” they sing.
The most traditional alt-country sound is in “Pink Sofa,” a portrait of family dysfunction, complete with mental illness and drug abuse – in addition to the pedal steel there’s some lovely baritone guitar, and fiddle and harmony vocals from guest Annalisa Tornfelt.
Bending Mirrors is a recording that doesn’t give up all its secrets at once. If it doesn’t make it onto my Top 10 of 2009 it’ll only be because there are already so many excellent releases this year, and it’s only April!
Full disclosure: The wife of one of the members of Celilo recently became my boss in my day job. I already had most of this review written before that happened, and it didn’t affect my opinion of the music in the slightest.
(Homesweet Music, 2009)
