Some say that if you don't plan to succeed, then you should plan to fail. Others say, "OK, Boomer." Which are you? When it comes to making art, if there is no room for spontaneity or reflexive innovation, then you're probably not engaged in a creative process- you're just making a product. In giving form to your expression, sometimes the best plan is no plan at all. That's at least the premise at the heart of Courtney Swain's and Bradford Krieger's collaboration as Courtney and Brad. The duo entered the studio with only the objective of working together and have since been able to produce a growing discography from their impromptu sessions, starting with DLRDG 003: Our First EP and now followed by their debut LP A Square is a Shape of Power. A Square is a Shape of Power, in particular, is a vindication of their no-precepts process, an approach that permits the subliminal currents of mood and influence to instruct their transformation. These tracks, edited from single-takes, have the fluid coherence of a dream, blending sentimental folk, understated and romantic balladry, humble post-rock, and numerous but district pop influences to the point where they forge a woodshed version of enka as a long tail experiment in internationalist folk relations and an alt-country answer to the cultural collapse of hyperpop. The collision of their influences and their idiosyncratic synthesis is evident throughout, but take on a particularly delicious form in "New Onion Smile," which overlays a karaoke version of a disco groove as the basis for Courtney's melodious peaks and tranquil lows, which when received, simultaneously sound like they are echoing forth from a mountain top in a neighboring village while being confined to the compression range of a drug store's overhead speaker system. These contradictory yet harmonious confluences persist to perplex and delight throughout the course of A Square is a Shape of Power, especially when it comes to the shimmering lounge and country posh chamber pop of "I gotchu," the ambient texture-prone and cosmic-spotlight shoegaze of "Moongazing," the campfire-warmed Shibuya flutter of "Mayonnaise," and the wiggly rhythmic bounce and shrink-wrapped anti-rock of the title track. Everything has a purpose here, even if its significance is incidental- including the lyrics, all of which Courtney sings in Japanese. Her choice of language adds an additional facet of catharsis to these songs, a deep maudlin calm mixed with an intoxicating optimism, an overlap of qualities that are naturally captured by the performance of say, Shinichi Mori, but which is often difficult to personify for artists singing in English. Even though it is probably only a consequence of the group's recording choices rather than any deliberate decision in its own right, I find the measured pace of A Square is a Shape of Power to be gratifying and appropriate to the overall tone of the project. It is as if the band is naturally slowing down in order to move at a speed that is suitable to their ends and which fundamentally resists the tyrannical spiral of the world that has the rest of us caught in its updraft. When everything around you demands that you hammer yourself into a certain shape, the most powerful thing you can do is to become something unexpected. When we're told that there is only room for triangular pegs, Courtney and Brad demonstrate on A Square is a Shape of Power that it's possible to make room for yourself as something that can't be replicated.
