Suggested Listening: Citay – ‘Dream Get Together’

I was born in 1982 and thus formatively, I am a child of the 1990’s.  Musically however, I am very much a child of the 70’s.  One of my earliest childhood memories is of my dad setting an enormous pair of JVC headphones on my head as I sat on our brown floral print couch.  He said, “This is ‘Frankenstein’ by Edgar Winter… it feels like the sound is traveling right through your head as it goes from one ear to the other.”  He was right, it did.  I vividly recall spending childhood evenings laying on the living room floor and listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.  By the time I was ten years old I knew every word of “Roundabout” by Yes.  The very first cassette ever played in my very first car was Aja by Steely Dan (followed closely by Recovering the Satellites by Counting Crows… It was 1997 after all).  As such, I was more steeped in the Psychedelic /Acid Rock of the 1970’s than most children should be.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the so-called “Hippy Music” or “Acid Rock” of the late 1960’s and early 70’s did more to perpetuate the role of the technical studio and engineering aspects of music creation than any other era or genre of music.  The concept of in-studio experimentation was born during the sessions of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde.  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles further explored the potential that studio and engineering prowess could have on the final product of recorded music.  By the time Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973, the recording studio was being utilized as an unmentioned additional instrument in music creation.  The albums of this era from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, or Electric Light Orchestra were for the first time using the limitless potential of the recording process to add previously unheard of dimension to their music and to combine orchestral movements with traditional rock song structuring.  The studio had become just as elemental as the stage in the song development process.  In the tradition of the psych-rock pioneers before them, Citay’s Dream Get Together waxes nostalgic, pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to, and further exemplifies the rock inclinations and studio deftness of the 1970’s; yet does so in a way that belies its constituent influences to create an album that is both refreshing and timeless.

Citay is the musical endeavor of San Francisco’s Ezra Feinberg and a revolving cast of up to ten other bay-area musicians.  Their fourth album, Dream Get Together, manages to elicit a certain headiness and nostalgia simultaneously.  Much like the Fleet Foxes release of 2008, they reflect their influences without apology and craft their songs with careful attention to detail and stellar musicianship.  The end result is an album that hides its density and complexity well- with jangly guitar melodies, four part vocal harmonies, and proggy, meandering song structuring that never comes across as heavy-handed.  Album opener ‘Be Careful With That Hat’ finds Feinberg wryly remarking with refreshing self-awareness, “It’s an homage, not a mockery I swear,” as staccato rhythmic guitars float around the mix, one sonic layer creeping atop another into something elaborate and anthemic—a sense that pervades throughout the album’s 45 minutes.  The homage continues on the title track as Feinberg recreates a summer evening: “Two hands out the window, two hands shifting gears / Next thing you know we’ll be reelin’ in the years.”  It’s an obvious nod to the band Steely Dan which comes just before Feinberg perfectly emulates Walter Becker’s crystal clear, reverb-less electric guitar noodling.  The stunning chamber pop of ‘Mirror Kisses’ finds Feinberg marrying guitar riffing with dischordant squall in a way that immediately calls to mind that of Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Johnny Greenwood; just before fading into the sprawling and heavily Electric Light Orchestra indebted instrumental ‘Hunter,’ which begins with multi-tracked synthesizers and guitars over acoustic strumming before giving way to chugging Jimmy Page-esque rock riffing.  The album closes with the fusion pop of ‘Tugboat’ which is heavily in the vein of the music of another psychedelic San Francisco band, The Grateful Dead.  Over an airy mix of guitar strumming and tambourines, Feinberg remarks, “I don’t want to stay at your party, I don’t want to talk with your friends / I don’t want to vote for your president, I just want to be your tugboat captain.” It comes across in a way that’s so effortless and unassuming, Jerry Garcia himself would have been proud. 

While it doesn’t exactly challenge any musical conventions, Dream Get Together affirms itself as a nostalgic joyride, a breezy and effortless rock record, and as a testament to the timelessness of careful songcraft and execution.  At a time when so many are querying as to what the forthcoming decade will represent musically, one of its most satisfying albums thus far seems just as at home now as it would have forty years ago.

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