Article: David D. Robbins Jr. | Artist/Album: Yellow Ostrich “The Mistress”
Will the real Alex Schaaf please stand up, please stand up, please stand up? You can’t help but marvel at the musical compositions this Maine artist makes as the surreal-named Yellow Ostrich. It’s safe to say, his recent record, “The Mistress”, isn’t like anything you’ve heard before. It’s genius. Schaaf layers numerous vocal tracks (of himself) and harmonies with guitars, drums and loops in exquisite ways, creating pieces that feel like a full-on band. The music is a twisted explosion of lo-fi eccentricity. It’s audible Cubism — wild and full of instrumental flourishes, zany cutups and swells of oddball lyricism.
The second song on the record, “WHALE”, begins with heavy bass drum, and looped harmonious utterances that blend flawlessly into a burst of strings and Schaaf’s vocals about riding the leviathan, like some Major T. J. “King” Kong of the sea: “Whale, swing with me whale / We will go far, into the sea / You will take me / Onto your back / Never look back / Never look back / Whale, sing to me whale / Sing me a song / Tell me that things will never go wrong.” Two looped vocal tracks hover in the background, one a melodic “Ohhhhhh”, the other repeating the word “whale”. It’s astonishing. “Hate Me Soon” is an orchestral abstruseness, pretty and strange as a slice of punk meeting “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
The unreal “Libraries” mixes so many vocal tracks in the first few seconds that it’s hard to figure out just exactly how many there are. But Yellow Ostrich doesn’t end his sound-overload there, adding a lead vocal track, heavy drum and the menacing bass of Andy Fitzpatrick: “‘Cuz there will be a fire here today / All you see will slowly fade away / Into ashes, shadows in the mist … in the mists, in the mists.” It’s a track literally about a library burning down, but metaphorically fitting for an artist whose creativity should be spoken of in terms of combustion and its ability to devour everything in sight. The song’s verse, “Flames of memory burn brighter than the rest”, is a gem of a line. Simultaneously extolling the value of memories and the past, while it withers away in conflagration. It’s one of the more inventive lines on one of the best records of the year.
Before this record, Yellow Ostrich recorded “The Morgan Freeman EP”, taking listeners through a six-song journey chronicling the famed actor’s life. It’s full of tongue-in-cheek humor, sung with the seriousness of a professor. Schaaf sings about the famed actor’s early work in his song, “Morgan Freeman’s Early Life”, and uses the repeated phrase “Shawshank” as the chorus in a dance-trip track called “Morgan Freeman’s Selected Filmography”. Schaaf even has a poke at Freeman’s alleged Woody Allen-like relationship with his step-granddaughter in “Morgan Freeman’s Alleged Relationship With His Step-Granddaughter”. It’s a song that makes little judgment outside of a few quips about the media: “If it’s true, / I’m sure you had a good reason / If it’s true, that she’s just 27 / If it’s true, that you’re 72 / If it’s true, I hope you never regret it.” It might all be a little bit too bizarre for most tastes but for the fact this album is so packed with delicious humor and incredible grooves. It’s fascinating. Listen closely. I don’t say this lightly. Yellow Ostrich’s music is unadulterated genius. It’s a rare spark — the kind that fuels wild psychological sweeps and nearly schizophrenic harmonies like you’d find on songs by The Beach Boys or The Beatles. I haven’t heard anything this original since listening to Jordan Maason & the Horse Museum’s “Divorce Lawyers” or kissed her little sister’s “HIGHandLOW”.
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