Poster

The Polyphonic Spree

Singin’ with glorious smiles on their faces By Martijn Haas

Hailing from Texas and numbering 25-or-so members, The Polyphonic Spree succeed in taking their listeners on a psychedelic trip. Live, their uplifting lyrics and dynamic performances have been setting the European festival scene on fire. They say everything they do is part of a bigger religious plan - they even might take over the world! But they hold enough back to retain an air of mystery, an American pop act that sometimes comes across as some sort of sect.

Anyone who has ever stuck some music on purely to just lie back and trip on has simply got to get their hands on a CD by The Polyphonic Spree.

This band from Dallas makes music that at its best manages to create a totally euphoric state in the listener. With their theatrical performances, the Spree have for the last two summers been a huge sensation at many a festival on this side of the pond.

To that end, the (usually) 25 members dressed in colourful robes, make use of a range of instruments including harps, violins, trumpets, and a whole slew of other instruments that are rarely seen elsewhere in modern pop music.

The founder of this original line-up, Tim De Laughter, has a background in grunge rock. With his previous band Tripping Daisy he walked in the footsteps of acts such as Pearl Jam and The Smashing Pumpkins. When the guitarist of the latter, Wes Berggen, died in 1998 of a heroine overdose, De Laughter was plunged for some time into a severe depression. You could see The Polyphonic Spree as his (brave) attempt to use uplifting music to combat the sadness of life. The first album the group released was The Beginning Stages (2001, Good Records) which occasionally harked back to the previous (musical) life of De Laughter, thanks to the spicy rhythmic undertone. But the follow-up, Together We Are Heavy (2004, Good Records) is an explosion of positive sentiment, a symphonic masterpiece so sweet and so deliriously optimistic that the listener has to go with it or burst. Listening to this album with all its harp solos, close harmonies and ethereal tones takes you right back to that vegetarian anti-authoritarian commune from circa 1973. All that’s lacking is someone to pop round and offer you a piece of home-made space cake.

However irresistible the music is on CD, it’s the live performances of the formation from Dallas that really blow you away. De Laughter and his extended company create during their performances a scene that brings to mind a musical like Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. All band members wear the same robes, and the while the exuberant choir members are singing they are dancing neatly choreographed steps. own ways once the latest live tour is finished. Even he himself has been walking about nursing the idea of winding up The Polyphonic Spree once and for all, because the organisation of this musical mega-undertaking often threatens to engulf him totally.

What DeLaughter really wants his audience to know is that The Polyphonic Spree gave him the opportunity to make a childhood dream come true. It wasn’t for the dresses or the 25-piece band that he set out to do all this. It was all in the cause of being able to express himself in the most honest way he could at that moment. Which meant that every trumpet player or harpsichord-guy was needed to form The Polyphonic Spree.

Gone were the guitar licks and the rock-heavy Led Zeppelin-styled drums. In came the chants about love and total self expression. And let us not forget the sing-a-longs with ten other singers. And, yes, the idea of having ten tracks that can be listened as one big song - also known as the classical symphonic concept, explored to death by progrock bands in the early seventies like Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis. This aspect of their performance has led to the frequent criticism that De Laughter has established less a band than some kind of sect. Not only because of the clothing, but also the lyrics that burst with references to the Bible. Performances have drawn comparisons with followers of that other charismatic Texan, Waco leader Jim Koresh, the guitar playing guru who a good ten years or so ago called for and got a mass suicide. He adds that Texas has often been the cradle of weird musical acts, and that these were not all followers of Jim Koresh. In his vision he is just the follower of a famous tradition: think of the crazy weirdness of San Antonio-based The Butthole Surfers, or the tragic soap opera that is the life of manic depressive singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, who lives near Forth Worth. The vast Lone Star State now at last has a side other than the wellknown cowboys-and-oil image to show the world: that of refuge for the hip, free-thinkers who wash up in the universities and high schools in cities such as Dallas, Forth Worth and Austin.

DeLaughter is maybe not the most brilliant composer in contemporary pop music. But he knows how to arrange. According to De Laughter, these critics are missing the ‘project’ character of his band. Accordingly, the group members of The Spree all go their It will be fun to see and hear what his next idea will look and sound like. But one can imagine that it probably will be another hippie kind of thing. Because that is what sticks; he is a man almost archaic in his approach, a hippy by heart. It will definitely be something completely different from the latest guitar, bass and drums band.