MUSIC REVIEW: NETHERFRIENDS - 'NETHERFRIENDS DOES NILSSON'

Something For The Weekend: A Free Download of Classics Sampled with a Shake of Lime

By: Andrew Shaw

October 14, 2011

(Bandcamp) Netherfriends is essentially an art-rock project of slightly loopy muso-nerd Shawn Rosenblatt. There's a deep sense of creativity, compulsion, and friendly experimentation about Rosenblatt's work, no less than in his intention to record and perform an original song in each of the 50 United States. Slightly smaller and easier to catch is his most recent release, Netherfriends Does Nilsson, available for free download from bandcamp.

Harry Nilsson, melodic maestro and lyrical poet, has influence beyond measure. Cited as being The Beatles' favorite American musician, the bedraggled talent once shared a house with John Lennon and The Who's horse-tranquilizer-snorting Keith Moon. The hard-drinking buddies famously reinvented the 'Brandy Alexander' Cocktail, replacing the exotic ingredients with the more readily available combination of milk and brandy. They drunk it up, they drugged it up, and it was during his year-long Lost Weekend that the former Beatle produced Nilsson's album, Pussy Cats -- an understated classic that continues to carry the smell of wide-eyed, ruptured vocal-cord debauchery from the speakers.

Nilsson lived a paradoxically high-profiled low-life in which he never really accomplished the fame that his songs enjoyed. His tunes continue to be widely loved and covered, and are arguably better known now than his face was during his short lifetime. “Everybody's Talkin',” “Coconut,” “Me and My Arrow,” and “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” are all Nilsson's. Even songs that weren't his, he made his own. Badfinger's “Without You” has to be one of Pop's most enduring songs, performed by countless many, commonly believing it to be from Nilsson's pen; such was his lightness of touch, his ownership of delivery.

What Shawn Rosenblatt achieves with Netherfriends Does Nilsson is genuinely in the spirit of Nilsson. This is sort of traditional stuff, but the rules are lovingly scuffed to accommodate personal creativity. Replicating the Nilsson Schmilsson album cover, Rosenblatt stands in a kitchen sporting disheveled dressing gown, one hand in pocket, the other holding a pipe of something just smoked. It's one of the most iconic images of an era in sound. The tunes -- assembled by lifting samples from some of Nilsson's best loved and less known moments -- are a six-track treat of hangover cures and nocturnal seductions. These are tracks that can be used to test the musical inclinations of anyone you may be intent on befriending. If someone likes these tunes, you know they're okay. At the same time that these tracks move, they also inspire deep joy.

Song selection, from such a vast and wealthy catalogue of tunes, is shrewd. “Me and My Ego” is a delighting trip of musical surrealism. Instrumental echos of “Me and My Arrow” resound beneath Rosenblatt's line of self-questioning, in which he asserts new directions, new doubts, musical definitions, and expressive failings. It's a clever tune well-handled, and is wise to borrow, not entirely take, the true target of the original.

Another high, and a moment that will have the Nilsson uninitiated wondering where they've heard that tune before, is “Nobody's Talkin'” -- a contemporary tweak of “Everybody's Talkin'” which had originally featured in the Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman movie, Midnight Cowboy. Tales of sordid metropolitan behaviors, greed, insincerity, loss of innocence, and adult discoveries were played out against a disarming hook and bittersweet lyrics. Here, fewer words are spared; talk is more modern and certainly more sharp than blunt. Disillusionment with friends, the loss of love, and personal adjustments; the ownership of less-than-decent conduct is sung beautifully. This is the sweetest, least self-pitying type of malcontent, and again it's a blinder.

“Girrrlfriend,” closing proceedings, is nothing but fun. Like all of what Nilsson did the weight of lyrical content is warm, heartfelt, substantial, and bent toward storytelling, but it never prevents the desire to stray toward nonsensical, ultra-melodic fun, or to sing “La-Da-Da-Da-Da-Boo-Da-Do-Da-Dooo,Chk,Chk Chk.” There's a genuine feeling that this kind of song, played in the right company, really will deliver a “Warm-hearted woman.”

This little collection is as accomplished as it is cute. Fans of Nilsson, even the purists, will admire the respect and retention of vibe peppered through the modern twists. Perhaps they'll even lament the absence of “Coconut,” which is the ultimate good-time sing-along. That said, it's more than likely that the vibe of shaken lime and coconut, which buzzes through all these songs, will more than satisfy.

Netherfriends display a sensibility of both exploration and humility, and that's always a refreshing signal of intent from a relative newcomers. This is a love letter, not only to one artist, but to the music that has obviously informed and shaped Rosenblatt's approach to craft. His original material can only be in higher demand as a result of this free download; and if there were such a thing as heaven -- which, in this vision, is a backstage room where all the dead legends hang out, rolling smokes and separating the brown M&Ms -- you know the likes of Lennon, Hendrix, Morrison, and Joplin are thinking, “If that's what happens when Netherfriends Does Nilsson, let him do me next.”

Standout Tracks: "Nobody's Talkin'," "Girrrlfriend," "Me and My Ego"

For Fans Of: Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, Adam Green, Only Son