WOOM – Muu's Way

WOOM are Oakland duo Sarah Magenheimer and Eben Portnoy, who previously went under the name Fertile Crescent. They make the kind of music – happily for the listener but perhaps rather less so for the hapless reviewer – that is quirky, charming, a joy to listen to, and almost completely impossible to catergorise…

This, their debut album, is one of those releases that is better appreciated on an emotional than an intellectual level. The meaning and lyrical content of songs like ‘Back In’, or ‘Salt’ (sample: “My mother is a concept / From the distance of a star”) never quite seems the point. Indeed, apart from the tenuous “theme” of seas and oceans (mentioned in ‘Backwards Beach’, ‘The Hunt’, ‘Sister’, and ‘Quetzalcoatl’s Ship’) it is never really clear from the words what meaning the songs are meant to hold.

That this quickly becomes and irrelevance is a testament to the strength of the music and its other compelling qualities. Magenheimer and Portnoy are both great vocalists, with Magenheimer taking more of the lead vocal duties, with Portnoy’s voice often acting as an accompaniment. On tracks like ‘Sisters’, when the two voices swap around and come in together they fit and combine in a way that is somehow really touching. ‘Foggy Dew’, meanwhile, showcases Magenheimer’s strong beautiful folk-inflected singing voice to best effect, albeit with the shrill backing of recorded spring peeper frogs, pulsing like an alarm or siren. At times the singing is loud, strong, forceful and uninhibited, as on cracking opener ‘Backwards Beach’, at others soft, warm and intimate as on ‘The Hunt’. Perhaps its most enjoyable manifestation (although all forms work well, and adapt to suit the song that contains them) is the perky, jaunty style of ‘Quetzalcoatl’s Ship’, which sounds like a half-remembered childhood singalong song, and ‘Salt’ – all polka-like rhythm and bouncy charm.

There are many quirky touches that somehow manage to keep on just the right side of irritating or twee. ‘The Hunt’ opens and closes with what can only be described as syncopated panting; ‘OK’ consists or the repetition of that one word, echoey, and slightly disturbing, like someone trying to reassure themselves in the face of some troubling obstacle; other tracks feature handclaps and whistling, and then there’s the aforementioned frog chorus of ‘Foggy Dew’… Different forms of percussion lend variety to tracks like ‘The Hunt’, ‘Back In’, Quetzalcoatl’s Ship’ and ‘Judith’, and songs also vary wildly in the simplicity or complexity of the production, instrumentation, layering and dynamics. So often within the same song you might get quiet sparse, acoustic sections that are followed by rich layered walls of sound; while the instruments range from piano, acoustic guitars and breathy woodwind to steel drums, synths and what sound like gongs in the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink closing track ‘Judith’.

That the band are successful far more often than not (‘Backwards’, ‘Sister’, ‘Quetzalcoatl’s Ship’, the beautiful mellow instrumental ‘Under Muu’ and ‘Salt’ are all standouts, while only ‘Judith’ really fails to come off) is, finally, quite a testament given the diversity, variety and fiendishly illusive nature of this befuddling, beguiling, engaging and quite, quite charming debut.