Swimming Pool Q & The Sight-Seers

Swimming Pool Q’s
Royal Academy of Reality
Bar/None—2003

Even though this album was a long time coming, there is no stagnation in the pool. The Q’s have blossomed like lotus atop a sea of mundanity, and while lead singer Jeff Calder chants “disc of dawn, disc of dusk” during “The Discovery of Dawn,” the band is not exactly sitting on a mountaintop in Nepal. “Discovery” is infused with funky keyboards and lurking electric guitar, making it sound like the Q’s stumbled into a temple hidden in the rainy Georgia woods. A dozen instruments, from vibraphone to sitar, represent the diverse beauty of Dixie on “Deep South,” slow as the Big Muddy herself and as gorgeous as her banks. Calder handles most of the album’s vocals with Anne Boston and also performing a wordless vocal on guitarist Bob Elsey’s “Nocturnal Transmission.” At twenty tracks deep, the record offers a delightful respite from its namesake. www.bar-none.com

-Kevin Wierzbicki

The Sight-Seers
Now We’re In The Sun
International Hits—2003

Both Kopernik and the Sight-Seers are side-projects of Swimming Pool Q’s bass player Tim Delaney. Kopernik is a duo that pairs Delaney with Sight-Seers’ drummer Brad Lewis; the music suggests the soundtrack for an opium den, or maybe mushroom-fueled chamber music blended with Eno-esque synth work. Jeff Calder refers to it as “reverse-trance” music, and whatever the case may be, it is eccentric in a friendly way and definitely not scary or depressing. The Sight-Seers play melodic jangle that focuses on the vocal work of guitarist Zollie Maynard. His voice is full of wide-eyed wonderment, a refreshing antithesis to so much of today’s shouting. With that it mind, it is not surprising that Maynard, also the band’s lyricist, offers up songs titled “Truce,” “Homesick” and “Mend.”
www.thesightseers.com

-Kevin Wierzbicki