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05/28/08 Waiting Room Omaha, NE
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Boo! Human is Joan of Arc's 11th (!!) album, to be release this Tuesday, May 20th. It looks like they are already well into doing a massive tour to promote the new record starting on the 28th (looking at some of their concert stop, I noticed that they are playing First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, don't you think Churches makes really, really odd venues?).
Life for Joan of Arc started as Cap'n Jazz, a band the centered around two brothers, Tim & Mike Kinsella. They broke up in 1995 and Tim went onto create an experimental indie band called Joan of Arc. By the time The Gap came out in 2000, it was poorly received by the critics, and Tim decided to break up the band.
Using the same lineup as the original Cap'n Jazz, Owls was born (and quickly died after Mike Kinsella and Victor Villareal left the band). But the story didn't end there, Joan of Arc was reborn once more in 2003, as everyone from the Owls/Cap'n Jazz decided to come back on board. Maybe they just followed a divine vision?
That was their long history in a few paragraphs, so after having read all that, I was expecting Boo! Human to sound crazy experimental/background noise/"unlistenable" and "unclassifiable", but surprisingly the album starts off with quiet and sweet acoustic song, "Shown and Told", before going into "Laughter Reflected Back", a song that I think best sums up Joan of Arc's current sound.
The set of songs ("If There Was a Time" #1 and #2 and "The Surrender" #1 and #2) towards the end of the album is kind of interesting as well, showing their progressive/experimental side. The songs are mostly instrumental, and surprisingly melodic and serves as great song passage.
I don't have the official liner notes (the promo copy I have doesn't have all the details), but according to some information I was given, this record also marks a huge collaboration with Wilco, Iron & Wine, Bonnie Prince Billy, Beth Orton[W♥M], and Prefuse 73. My ears aren't that well-trained, so I couldn't tell you who collaborated on what song.
As a special bonus, here is "Little League" by Cap'n Jazz, from their retrospective Analphabetapolothology, released in 1998 from Jade Tree Records. You can grab that MP3 off their website.
Boo! Human is out on Polyvinyl Records and available May 20th at all major record stores. Look for them on tour.
Links: www.joanfrc.com myspace.com/joanfrc www.polyvinylrecords.com
