Rooftops – Forest of Polarity
rooftops - a forest of polarity
As a child, I would have this reoccurring dream: I am sitting in the passenger seat of our red ‘83 Oldsmobile, my brother in the backseat. My brother and everything else behind me has been phased out and my only knowledge is that I am on the move not knowing where the hell I am going, and I am scared to death. Generally speaking, math rock and its unquantifiable subdivisions have given me a similar feeling. Maybe it’s my personality type that jumps at easily accessible song structure and melodies bouncing from verse to chorus to verse to bridge to chorus back to verse, therefore making me anxious of music with atypical signatures and dissonant chords. Forest of Polarity, the debut album by Rooftops, manages to break me through that barrier with surprising ease.
Rooftops is Mark Detrick (Lands Farther East, Sunset Riders, Treasures), Drew Fitchette (Braille Tapes, Praise of Folly) and Jonathan McIntyre (Johnny V, Snow Cuts Glass, Narrows, Moons & Goochers) on guitars and Wendelin Wohlgemuth (Braille Tapes, Praise of Folly) on drums. Recorded at Bayside Recording Studios by Mr. Paul Turpin, Forest of Polarity opens the course on a lush, well-crafted soundscape, through two proper introductions and into a land to which I am a stranger. Several minutes have passed. I know not where I am or how I got here but I know that I am not scared. My ears are so absorbed into the sounds of fingers jumping around fret boards like they’re playing hopscotch, and these perfect drums, that when the vocals hit, I’m almost surprised to hear them. Quicker than I realize I’m actually hearing three voices, they’re gone, and forgotten, until they reappear down the path and suddenly I’m in an opera house, seeing the Eye of Jupiter and everything that lies between life and death.
Forest of Polarity features Sara Jerns [Pan Pan, The Love Lights] , Kat Bula [Thimble vs. Needle, Pirates-R-Us; Feed & Seed] & Dylan Rieck [The Crying Shame], all of whom, also with the help of Turpin, help Rooftops in creating not just the most intricately beautiful math pop album I have ever heard, but a community mantra, a rhythm of notes which plays our existence in harmony. While available for d/l via interwebs, physical copies include wonderful photos and design by Cameron Jennings that feel nice to hold in the hand. This is Bellingham at its finest and I’ll say it now: my vote for best album of 2009.
Clickpop Records
www.myspace.com/rftps
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