Ester Drang

Related Content

• Noise Pop 2012 Lineup: The Flaming Lips, Sleigh Bells, Bob Mould, and More Added
  January 11, 2012
• Guess What Beatles Song the Flaming Lips Will Play in Tribute to Steve Jobs
  October 25, 2011
• Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music
  January 18, 2012
• The Flaming Lips Release a New Song -- and You Need 12 Smartphones to Properly Enjoy It
  February 15, 2011
• Girls' Father, Son, Holy Ghost -- A First Listen
  September 13, 2011

More About

• Bryce Chambers
• Sufjan Stevens
• Jeff Shoop
• Caledonia
• The Flaming Lips

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Multi-instrumentalists James McAlister and Jeff Shoop, who constitute two-thirds of Ester Drang, spent much of the past year and a half recording Illinois with Sufjan Stevens, backing the lauded troubadour in concert, and no doubt lobbying Young Soofy to make their native Oklahoma the next subject of his "50 States" concept album series. The pair also found the time to link back up with Ester Drang frontman Bryce Chambers to craft this fine follow-up to 2003's sterling Infinite Keys. The trio is frequently compared to the Flaming Lips -- both for geographical proximity and a propensity toward sonic thickness and adventurousness -- yet whereas the Lips trade in quasi-psychedelic orchestral pop, Rocinate features similar components (strings, horns, quirky guitar bursts, creative electronics) stitched together to create, primarily, a rather twee version of '70s yacht rock. Check out the violins that hover hazily over "Come Back Alive" while the track gets its groove on with a compressed disco beat and a shoulder-shrugged bass line; the Ronstadt-esque cooing and subtle vibraphone that rub up against Chambers' smooth, double-tracked vocals on the swaying "Grave Mistake"; or the steel drums that intro the fluegelhorn-punctuated "Smoke and Air." In a different lifetime, Ester Drang was more of a dream pop/space rock outfit, and Rocinate is most engaging when the band merges its past and present, infusing "Caledonia" and "White Lies" with late-period Slowdive synth plinks and blurry six-strings until they sail right into the clouds.