Blue Water White Death - Blue Water White Death

Blue Water White Death is the brainchild of two of today’s most unique songwriters--Jamie Stewart of the eclectic, risk-taking pop group Xiu Xiu, and Jonathan Meiburg, golden-throated front man of Austin art-rock quintet, Shearwater. Longtime fans of each other’s music, for their first collaboration Stewart and Meiburg adopted the name of a 1971 documentary that follows a team of increasingly reckless explorers on a shark-finding quest to Australia’s aptlynamed Dangerous Reef. As Blue Water White Death, the two conjure music that, like the underwater world of the ocean, is dually ominous and serene, and fittingly, considering the band’s namesake plunges boldly into new sonic territories. From the album’s first few notes, listeners are swept into a distant world where anything that can happen does so without losing a natural sense of order. At first listen, the two may sound like a pair of reclusive eccentrics making music in a derelict mansion, perilously balancing beauty and horror with the absurd (“look around/absolute/unpleasantness/twiddling its thumbs”). Soon, it becomes apparent that there are three distinct modes at play: clean, even tones and the nonchalant picking of acoustic guitars that recall life on the open sea, notes and words paced like breaststrokes on the journey to the depths, and finally, jarring, mysterious noises meshed with vocals that echo the isolated, garbled qualities of the inside of a diver’s mask. Despite BWWD’s complex, cohesive feel, Meiburg and Stewart came to its recording sessions empty handed, writing and recording the entire album in a week’s time. The production, handled by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, The Roots, Black Mountain) is pristine and crisp, keeping the album accessible even in its darkest moments. Who says an album has to be carefully planned and painstakingly refined over weeks, months, or years to become something amazing? For Blue Water White Death, greatness can be achieved in just a few days.

Tracklisting:

1. This is the Scrunchyface of My Dreams 2. Song for the Greater Jihad 3. Grunt Tube 4. Nerd Future 5. The End of Sex 6. Death for Christmas 7. Gall 8. Rendering the Juggalos

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