Jacques Kopstein

Jacques Kopstein is the brainchild of Marty Anderson, singer and guitar player of local art-rock darlings Dilute. In a departure from the meticulous precision of Anderson's other group, a sounds like the product of long afternoons spent at home with a bong, a battered guitar, and a few thrift-store keyboards. Unfortunately, while the record's prankster humor and gentle delivery are welcome, a eventually suffers from gross repetition. A good joke is funny once, yet Anderson cannot resist the urge to retell.

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More About

• Marty Anderson
• Jacques Kopstein
• Mark Linkous
• Sparklehorse
• Ween (Musical Group)

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As the Kopstein pseudonym implies, ais silly. From the circus feel of opening track "Destiny 2" to the answering-machine vocals of "Never Give Up," Anderson revels in the absurd. He peppers the minimal song structures -- often two-chord and driven by an acoustic guitar -- with bizarre sounds, like ringing phones and heavily treated guitars. Further accentuating the silliness is the scratchy, high-pitched timbre of Anderson's voice, a mutant cross between Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous and the Muppet Gonzo.

On a number of songs Anderson uses the device of the multitracked solo to nice effect. The brilliant, stereo-separated guitar soliloquy on "Sunshine" attacks one ear and then the other, eventually swaying together. On "Are to Spend Not Eternity" Anderson strums gently for a few minutes before blending four wailing guitars into one.

Sadly, however, these payoffs run thin over time, partly because of Anderson's lyrical repetition. He casts entire songs with one or two abstract lines like "Who have you got to believe you when you're wrong?" or "Everybody's got a really shitty deal," singing them over and over until the song reaches a catastrophic churning of sounds. While the method works well at first, with the reiteration of the lyric provoking the listener, the style grows boring after several similar tunes.

For all its sonic inventiveness and happy accidents, a deflates with redundancy, as the glory of the best songs is masked by the weakest. Yet, like fellow pranksters Ween, Jacques Kopstein's record can be embraced despite its faults. Perhaps such acceptance will encourage brevity on his next release.