TheAnimalChin's Full Review: Brilliant Mistake * by Tsunami
A pity really.
Like the great masters before them (i.e., Sex Pistols, Big Black, Slint), Tsunami chose to quietly exit the music industry after completing this, their greatest album. Formally dissolving not only their musical relationship, but also the record company several members founded, Simple Machines, Tsunami leaves nothing behind in this post-post-punk world except their music.
Fortunately, it is enough.
While somewhat of a departure from previous albums, “A Brilliant Mistake” is nonetheless, at the risk of sounding cliched, brilliant. Although certainly solid on past records, most notably “The Heart’s Tremolo,” Kristen Thomson and Jenny Toomey’s songwriting coalesces into something much more on this record, engaging the listener at every (musical) turn and posing questions not easily answered. “Mistake” is alternately the work of victims and visionaries; artists capable of lamenting the costs of maintaining one’s credibility, especially with a (overly) critical fan base, while later decrying the current (circa 1997) state of American independent music, a scene, Tsunami believed, that was falling apart as bands began receiving major label interest. As Jenny sings in “Enter Misguided,”
Yeah, we were so impressed to finally catch their interest that we mortgaged more than we could ever recoup…
At some points on the album, Tsunami seems to sympathize with these desires (“Enter Misguided”) while at other times, Jenny and Kristen (the voices) appear to reject this notion (of selling out, no doubt) completely. Borrowing a line from Alexander (the Great, not Bends—Butterglory reference), Jenny sings,
We came, we saw, we conquered,
we looked at what they offered,
there ain’t enough coins in the coffer to ever make it legit…(“Great Mimes”)
This, friends, is a band in conflict. While clearly exhausted with maintaining their indie rock personas (captured perfectly on “Double Shift,” my favorite song on the album, which includes the spectacular chorus, “is that all we get for cutting against the grain?”), Tsunami is equally wary of entering the mainstream world. On the album’s first cut, the powerfully ambitious “Old Grey Mare,” Jenny makes their feelings absolutely clear, singing,
I won’t be formed to the readymade
or matched to the cut of the retrograde
or led by the reins to a pony show
or marketed coy with a bl*w j*b m.o.
So it seems, its Tsunami’s way or the highway. Uncompromising, I know, but admirable nonetheless. And hardly surprising, considering Tsunami hails from outside of Washington, DC, home of the famously (or infamously, depending on which circles you run in) iconoclastic Dischord Records and their flagship band, Fugazi. (Speaking of which, and I know I'm digressing, but Tsunami issues probably the best assessment of our nation's capital, in the song "Match," claiming that it's nothing more than a "small-minded, big-mouthed, well-read but half dead government town")
Musically, Tsunami complements such striking lyrical images with an often loping, somewhat muted sound. Although the band occasionally commences on a full gallop, guitars raging and drums pounding, there’s nothing close to noisiness exhibited on their earliest recordings, most notably “Deep End” and “World Tour…” Tsunami, for lack of a better word, seem to have grown up. And the music on “Mistake” displays this “end-of-innocence” quality. No longer are they playing purely for fun, rather, they now have something to say, and they’re going to say it by gum. Jeepers!
So, in summation, buy this album. Highly literate and never boring, “A Brilliant Mistake” is a fragile scream from a desperate, disillusioned soul who’s seen too much, too soon. Or, if you'd prefer, it’s roughly 50 minutes of music that may summed up with a single word, “Nothung!”
Tsunami resists, and we are so much better for it.
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