Redeemer [KLP231]

City Center's first full-length on is Redeemer and it's a time capsule of strange geography and slow-motion memories; ten stretches of well-crafted sound by Fred & Ryan, distilled over the course of 2 years where the duo traveled around the country multiple times playing different versions of these songs in every basement, bar-room and house party available. The album title is actually the name of a street and a church (both) on said street in Ann Arbor, where Fred grew up and Ryan went to school. The songs are an attempt to retroactively understand said growing up (and said school), with underwater thoughts about high school tortures, stoned spring days listening to headphones for the microscopic elements of beauty, true love in a way that knows no age or era and the next generation of all these things already projecting themselves into the future at an alarming rate. Musically based in a tradition of what could be called the "understanding jam," City Center draws equally on the amped up teenage anger of hardcore confused angst at the Gap sales rack circa '93 or the frustration of the kid trying to talk about Fluxus at the open-armed parking lot scene of a Dead show in 1971. In the end, these songs reach out and grab at nothing, observe everything and ask no questions. The story folds back into itself like dim lights in the windows of houses only ever seen from the outside. Also available: City Center "Zen Kids" [DBN117]   Saturday Looks Good to Me Fill up the Room [KLP182] Puppers Obvious Redeemer Modern Love Cookies Thaw After Hours Giraffe Soft Marauder Teardrop Children