Portland – Let’s get the formalities out of the way: Peter Matthew Bauer played bass for The Walkmen. The indie rock stalwarts who, after thirteen years and seven studio albums, are now on “extreme hiatus” as Bauer phrases it. By all accounts the non-breakup was an amicable one, and no blood, bad or otherwise, has been spilt.
Now forget about all that, because Peter Matthew Bauer’s solo debut, Liberation!, is not some poorly conceived side project. It is a solo album in the best sense of the word, a cohesive, highly personal statement that creates a world of skepticism and belief all its own.
The liberation Bauer refers to in the title has nothing to do with The Walkmen and everything to do with Bauer’s own specific religious, and irreligious, experiences. As the title of the first track, “I Was Born In An Ashram,” makes clear, Bauer’s metaphysical background is a mélange of Eastern influences, including a childhood spent following various gurus via his parents. These influences appear in altered form throughout Liberation!. Shiva makes an appearance as a DJ in one song. The holy city of Varanasi is the site of an Irish wake in the title of another.
Bauer is far from credulous, though. More often than not the mystics he sings of have impure motives and the prophets prove false. In “I was Born In An Ashram” he cross examines the guru and hints at an underbelly of exploitation in the movement. The song, which begins with a clip of enthusiastically chanting children, ends with a jubilant choral round of “Let’s leave it behind…The future is ours. Nothing’s illusion.” which gives the distinct impression that, for Bauer, liberation can mean discarding the dogma of one’s past.
The music itself is exquisitely vibrant indie rock painted from a basic palette of drums, bass, guitar, and piano and given an occasional exotic shade. Liberation! isn’t an Indian Graceland by any means, but there are moments when it blends in Eastern melodies or rhythms to great effect: the insistent stomping tambourine beat at the heart of “Latin American Ficciones” and “Fortune Tellers”; the scale at the beginning of the aptly named “Philadelphia Raga”—a song that begins as a meditative instrumental then morphs into a piece of hazy Americana that wouldn’t be out of place on The War On Drugs’ latest album.
At the midst of it all are Bauer’s vocals, buoyant and inviting but with a touch of nasal rock and roll sneer. He holds forth on the mysteries of God and the hypocrisies of humans with an infectious vigor that makesLiberation! a pleasure to listen to from the opening chant to the ending invocation. This is a bittersweet summer album that hasn’t left my stereo since I encountered it a week ago, and I don’t imagine it will do so anytime soon.
Check out Bauer’s Facebook page here, for more info.
