What Laura Says
Is All Over The Place And That's Not A Problem
Jun 21, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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I Suppose
unreleased
James: a natural puff piece on the social constructs of moving things with your mind. namely your heartland... cuz it usually works the other way around.
Mitch: One of the new-school Laura sing-songs procured during this, the second era. It's all very exciting to me!
Gregor: Always a lively one, the tack piano owns this version!
Jcub: The dizzying lust of goofy means for goofy ends. Spooky!
Danny: yes or no...just let me know. Every time I find myself in these situations, this is my soundtrack.
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Waves
original version appears on Thinks And Feels
d: written for, and/or because of, my grandma's cabin in Mexico, where we spent many a cloudy day on the sunny beach.
jc: a churning and bubbling for the budding of cuddling, right?
m: This song literally made me dizzy upon first listen... pretty much secured my interest in the minds contained herein. This song has morphed into epic proportions on the live stage!
g: Subtle and dreamy, eerie sounds coming from the other side of the room on this one. this sounds like Muscle Shoals to me.
j: eight or nine times I've played this for strangers in theatres. More and more skittles every time... so rewarding.
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Done What's Right
original version appears on Thinks And Feels
m: Absolutely haunting, this tune most definitely has an old soul.
j: this song always makes me dig in. wherever.
g: transports me to the mind of an early southern field-hand.
jc: for me, it's the feeling and finding of certain inner borders of, as well as structures of, feelings.
d: a tale of bruised heads and the quest for feeling thereafter.
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Dot Dot Dot
original version appears on Thinks And Feels
j: an old westerly piece on loving the tree for what it IS and not what it can be.
d: straddles the fine line between the sincere crushing and the electomatic kind. the unfortunate plight of one's disbelief in the powers of inevitables.
m: Your eyelids sparkle and get heavy as you stick your tongue out... I really don't know what else to say.
g: ... needless to say it moves, this take that is.
jc: A pretty snare for those caught in they underwear.
Our neighborhood, these days, is teeming with chipmunks, scuttling this way and that, looking like they run all of our yards, as tiny, tiny valets or loiterers. They never stay in one place for long, even when they think no one's watching them, as we always are through the backyard windows. It's an endless game of chase and be caught, no matter the humidity or the energy that might be in the tanks of the little critters. They do laps and laps, zipping here and there, changing course with their small claws poking into the soil or skidding over the concrete - under bushes, tearing through the grass and bouncing off any nearby trees that just serve as pivot points. What Laura Says, thinks and feels gives off a similar sort of never exasperating, never expiring exuberance in its approach to songwriting and just as importantly, to the playful interactions of people to one another. The songs on the Tempe, Arizona band's debut full-length, "Thinks and Feels," are all motion and constant shifting and shaping, roly-poly chunks of rabid and unmethodical excursions into the first few doors of the creative mind's work room. It's a room that features numerous overlapping thoughts and criss-crossing paths that find ways to melt into each other in little parts, tangling themselves all together into some nugget of original expression that's borderline bizarre. They're light and airy and they jump off, darting left and then right and rounding back around so that it all makes as much sense as is intended. The band uses its adventurous side without letting up, giving its songs real character that succeeds in portraying all of the young turbulence that goes into the making of fresh and new romances, or ones now suffering the debilitating effects of efforts gone awry. What Laura Says and the music it makes tends to feel like a bundle of nerves and agitation and apprehension that cannot be reasoned with, just witnessed, almost as a voyeur. It feels as if a lifetime's worth of passion and real living is getting crammed into these pieces of time that they put together around an idea or a phrasing of an idea. It's the way young romances tend to work - the total immersion and the sucking dry of all energies by being with, talking to and thinking about the other person until it eventually begins to taper off and seem a little much to at least one half of the duo. The band has a way of making this manic and idiosyncratic way of going about their writing not come across as being a detrimental part of the effort, but one that sets it apart from the norm, enhancing all of the flighty and well, fucking manic ways that people get worked over or are worked over on a daily basis. It goes without saying that sometimes the music that needs to be coming out of and into our bodies should take on some of this reflective glow. It should feel odd and laden with voices and thoughts that need reckoning, whatever that actually entails.
What Laura Says Official Site
What Laura Says MySpace Page
Terpsikhore Records
