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befriended
- the big takeover/Oct. 2003
(Badman)
Not
often does a band manage to make its best music over 15 years after
it started releasing records. Of course TIM’s austere name confirms a
blissful lack of concern with fulfilling conventional pop music expectations.
Previous LP Birds of Our Neighborhood was a breakthrough for wife and
husband team Karen and Don Peris as they moved away from the faintly gothic, 4AD
influenced sound that permeated earlier albums to a more suitable,
warmly reverbed organic shimmer that highlights lyrics depicting life’s
tug between the sad and the splendid. Befriended is the culmination of
previous advances, an LP so delightfully packed with wondrously poignant songs
that from the first listen I was transported from a seemingly
impenetrable multitude of stresses to a more soothing swath of mind, offering
reassurance that “Beautiful Change” and ‘clearer ways to go’ are within
reach. Karen Peris’s almost child-like voice is surely a beacon from a
world-to-come
where perfect empathy is second nature and her words are devotional
without being disdainful, acute without being cutesy, understanding without
being unctuous. These qualities are best illustrated on the gentle and
genial bossa
nova “When Mac was Swimming,” where Karen sagely reminds us ‘Nobody
knows how they are loved.’ Other moments to treasure on what is
possibly the best under-hyped LP in years, if not decades: The moody
organ that introduces “Tomorrow on the Runway,” as well as Don’s sparse
chiming guitar; Karen testifying ‘The soul of my brother is pure, though
he doesn’t think so’ on the hymn-like “One for Sorrow, Two for Joy;” her
graceful glee when singing ‘The snow is here/The light is bright’ on
“Beautiful Change.” Whether Befriended is meant as a command or an
existential statement, it is indisputably essential and has yet to let me down.
(www.badmanrecordingco.com)
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