Misery Is A Butterfly

Performer: Blonde Redhead
Artist: Eyvind Kang; Skuli Sverrisson
Engineer: John Goodmanson; Ryan Hadlock
Producer: Guy Picciotto; Ryan Hadlock
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Blonde Redhead: Amedeo Pace (vocals, guitar, baritone guitar); Kazu Makino (vocals, guitar, clavinet); Simone Pace (drums, percussion, programming). Additional personnel: Eyvind Kang (viola, violin); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Skuli Sverrisson (bass). Lyricists: Amedeo Pace; Kazu Makino. Personnel: Blonde Redhead (programming); Amedeo Pace (vocals, guitar, baritone guitar); Kazu Makino (vocals, guitar, Clavinet); Eyvind Kang (violin, viola); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Simone Pace (drums, percussion). Audio Mixer: John Goodmanson. Recording information: Longview Farm Studios (03/16/2003-05/03/2003); The Magic Shop, New York, NY (03/16/2003-05/03/2003). In keeping with the group's move from Touch & Go to 4AD, Blonde Redhead's Misery Is a Butterfly is their darkest and most delicate album to date. The brilliant Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons and Melodie Citronique EP found the band moving away from the cerebral, no wave-influenced style of their earlier albums and toward a more intricate, emotional sound, but this album's preoccupation with filigree and shadow both reflects and represents the sensibilities of the label that released This Mortal Coil's Filigree and Shadow almost two decades earlier. The band's transition from their old home to their new one is smooth, but not as smooth as the album's actual sound; Misery Is a Butterfly's lush production and arrangements polish away with virtually all of the edges and angles that still informed their sound on their most recent recordings and pretty much defined their earliest ones. The move is both liberating and limiting: the album's soft focus allows Blonde Redhead to explore its relatively newfound romanticism more deeply than before -- particularly on the Eastern-tinged "Anticipation" -- but with less tension between the fragile and harsh aspects of the band's sound, its soft focus occasionally drifts into lack of focus. Songs such as "Melody" and the title track are lovely, but feel busier and more drawn-out than necessary; however, the indulgence that makes Misery Is a Butterfly's weakest moments somewhat ponderous also makes its best songs sweepingly romantic. The strings and keyboards that swirl around "Elephant Woman," "Doll Is Mine," and the gorgeous duet "Pink Love" give the album a brooding, overwrought feeling that conjures up fairy tales and lovesick recluses, and the album's song titles are just as evocative, alluding to love that is distorted, bruised, and in the case of "Equus," usually forbidden. There's something decadent about the album's layers of sound, and its wide scope paradoxically makes it one of Blonde Redhead's most insular albums; indeed, the indulgent isolation that permeates Misery Is a Butterfly makes it akin to Suede's Dog Man Star and Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain, in mood if not exactly in sound. The Blonde Redhead of old returns, somewhat, on more high-strung songs like "Falling Man" and "Maddening Cloud," both of which add some much-needed urgency to the album's mannered heartache. Misery Is a Butterfly might be a slightly less magical album than Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons because the listener is more aware of the effort going into the spell, but it's still an album of unusual grace. ~ Heather Phares Moving from their longtime home at Touch & Go to the renowned 4AD label, NYC art-rockers Blonde Redhead have made telling sonic adjustments, trading in their noisy, abrasive edge for a refined, often orchestral sound. The trio--Kazu Makino and twin brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace--makes the transition clear from the get-go on "Elephant Woman," which features Makino's breathy vocals over a backdrop of harpsichord, strings, and light percussion. Melancholy is certainly the main theme of this album, as exquisitely exemplified by the title track, a somber, keyboard-driven piece that borders on chamber music. However, just when the proceedings verge on the morose, the band emerges with two upbeat songs, the swirling, Stereolab-like "Pink Love" and the guitar-driven grandeur of "Equus," revealing that they can still rock when the mood strikes them.

Entertainment Weekly (3/19/04, p.65) - "[A] volatile mix with a touch of fidgety elegance." - Grade: B- Uncut (4/04, p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 - "These are seductive confections, all blurred strings, magical chimes and tear-stained metaphysics." CMJ (4/04, p.35) - "Densely layered and orchestrated, with swelling strings and keyboards often burying the twin guitars and drums of Kazu Makino and brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace, MISERY has a cinematic quality, as if its songs were art-house shorts." Mojo (Publisher) (p.106) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[A]s the album title suggests, they've carved a bleak and beautiful album; their best, in fact."

Italian twins Amedeo and Simone Pace formed Blonde Redhead in New York City during the early 1990s with Japanese vocalist Kazu Makino. The group's brand of noise-rock earned them an unshakable comparison to Sonic Youth. Although the two groups indeed shared many musical characteristics, Blonde Redhead would go on to hone and expand its avant pedigree into something uniquely its own, emerging as one of the finest underground rock bands of the era.

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