West Coast sextet Subtle's 2004 debut full-length, A New White, proved an auspicious starting pistol. After four self-released, seasonally themed EPs, A New White came birthed fully clothed—a detailed Legoland of inspiration; a uniquely constructed world of ornate arrangement, meticulously tweaked production, and the hummingbird oration of Doseone.
Subtle's main stylistic reference points (experimental electronic music, indie rock, hiphop) shifted like tectonic plates. Dose's verse ("rhymes" doesn't apply, as Subtle's lyrical content rarely jams on rhyme and meter) was further from rap convention than ever, but mostly avoided sounding like "spoken word," due to his highly developed and musical delivery.
The new CD/DVD, wishingbone, further illuminates Subtle. Consisting of remixed songs from A New White and a short film by London animation consort SSSR, wishingbone suggests that Subtle's focus on detail is their dominant characteristic and greatest asset.
The newly versioned songs, including reworkings by both the band and illustrious friends like Mike Patton and Hrvatski, underscore the fact that Subtle's songs feel like remixes to begin with; their heart is the tiny-fingered placement of musical building blocks, tone colors, and words. Their music doesn't feel like composed "songs" as much as it does constructed pieces; in conception, it's more Bomb Squad than Bob Dylan.
Subtle's lyrics follow suit; they revel in a weird fantasy layer of "regular life." Dose describes his text as "squeezing a drop of honest from a regular rock, the overlapping of one's lesser selves in a cyclical and calendar-based waltz from the bed to the mailbox, where bills are put, the treasure map left of serious relationships, and the terrible great nothing-much it all meets between."
In an age when everything from Sims-style video games to MySpace.com deals in the oversimplification and iconic redefining of humans' daily and social lives, Dose's lyrical focuses seem particularly timely and poignant. Now more than ever, the fetishizing of the most mundane corners of life provides the meat of narcotizing entertainment. Fortunately, Subtle dig through these dugs with a more critical and artful eye.
Later this year, Subtle will drop their second full-length, For Hero : For Fool, and preliminary work has already begun on their third album. Of this triptych-in-progress, Dose says, "The three records all grow from/into one another, doubling down and reinterpreting the motifs of the record(s) before."
Of For Hero : For Fool, he says, "Having had so much time with the record's parts before we started to record it allowed me to come up with a pho-notation system for the record: light-blue prints to score a unipersonal rap-rock opera, mostly denoting song color, vocal and musical themes, ideas for recurring melodies, and notes on things we tried in the past that we could return to and do more with. And more than anything after working with Yoni [AKA Why?], the Notwist, and Mike Patton, this record has benefited from our ability to find clarity for our songs, both as metaphor for poem and story told, and as a work of song—of chorus, verse, and bridge."
Though sucker-punched by a tragic van accident last year, which left keyboardist Dax Pierson seriously injured, Subtle maintain a serious touring schedule and their live performances elevate their recorded music to a greater dimension. Segments that feel muted or dusty on record are made bloodily alive during their highly theatrical, ironically unsubtle performances, which find Dose asserting his frontmanhood with stylized affect.
Further, their songs' beautiful, unusual orchestration is clarified by watching Subtle make the most of their diverse setup, a glistening robot of classical instruments, drum-machines-made-performative instruments, and intricately arranged synth textures. Dose says, "We really finish a song when we play it live." This thoughtful marriage of scientific layering and kinesthetic songmaking is what makes Subtle a uniquely remarkable band.
editor@thestranger.com
