Nipper!

(ITU)
by Jon Sarre

Not too long ago, I checked out lo-fi hero, whatshisface, the guy who is the Mountain Goats (how come it isn’t just Mountain Goat?). My friend Mick Wreck and I were really drunk and the Mountain Goat guy was really dull. Mr.Wreck demanded to hear a coupla Dylan numbers, or at least a Carole King ditty, and then almost hurled a pint glass stageward. The evening eventually degenerated to the point of the New Bad Things climbing on stage and joining the Mountain Goats guy for what Mick aptly described as “a circle jerk.” Lo-fi had definitely shot its puny wad at that point.

None of that has anything to do with Nipper!. Obviously, if the recorded-in-my-basement-on-my-four-track genre had been overwhelmed by Barlowian singer/songwriter pretentions, no one told these Long Islanders. This low-budget release has a lot in common with the first coupla Silver Jews records (except there’s more Malkmus and less Berman) and pre-“Cut Your Hair” Pavement in general. It’s less noisy than that stuff, but I suppose Nipper! feels confident enough to let the basic song structures with their jangly guitar leads and cymbal-heavy rhythms stand alone. Nipper!’s got some good stuff on this record, so you may wanna keep your eyes and ears out for them.