Maybe it’s May Baleen

Recently I reflected on one of my all-time favourite pop bands, The Unicorns. I discovered that founding member Nick Thornburn has since made mellowed out “luau hip hop” music with LA producer/engineer mate Daddy Kev in their band Reefer. The idea for the band is said to have come about after a drunken conversation at a SXSW party a few years back, which Nick was later removed from for smuggling in booze. The two decided to combine their disparate musical styles in a place they weren’t accustomed to making music. So off to Hawaii it was!

Combining Nick’s penchant for wonderfully quaint and personable song and lyric writing with Daddy Kev’s smooth production style and musical vision, the duo came up with a real winner. Their debut self-titled mini album came out late last year as a digital-only release, and contains five original tracks, one cover, three interludes and two remixes by Dntel and Flying Lotus.

Reefer has been met with mixed response from critics. Some deplore the music for its childlike nature and laid back jamming style, but it has also been praised for its picturesque quality. It is easy while listening to them to visualise the sun-soaked Maui beach on which they composed the songs, but any notion of sickening bliss is scrapped with Nick’s weirdly skewed lyrical vision. He is, after all, rather partial to pondering about whales – in his album with Islands he sang of Vancouver Island’s famed Killer Whale, known to the public as Luna, but named by the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations people as Tsuux-iit (which is what Islands named their song). The whale was controversial as some fought to protect it while others thought it should be captured and returned to its family. Tsuux-iit spent five years living alone off the west coast of the island in Nootka Sound until it died in 2006 after being struck by a boat. Continuing Nick’s whale theme, there is also the Reefer song May Baleen, which is said to be about Nick freaking out about swimming next to a Baleen whale. And of course there’s Where There’s A Will There’s A Whalebone, on Islands’ Return To The Sea album.

Reefer flows wonderfully, much like all of Nick’s previous long-playing efforts. Briefly veering into hip hop territory (the track Crony Island features Daddy Kev rapping under his rapping moniker Busdriver), it is largely an alternative pop album with elements of Nick’s trademark quirky pop and polished with Kev’s fine production values. They do a fruity and wonderful adaptation of Blue Moon, with Nick crooning eerily over what sounds like backwards reverb shakers. Not just harnessed to Hawaii, the pair allegedly hope to produce a follow-up effort in another unlikely location sometime in the future.

Reefer – May Baleen: MP3

Reefer – Myspace

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Canada, Los Angeles