The Decemberists

wühlen sich durch den Bürgerkrieg

13.06.2006, 15:56, Text: Heiko Behr

Vor einiger Zeit haben wir ja schon schnöde und kurz die Rückkehr der gloriosen Decemberists angekündigt. Nun hat sich Frontmann Colin Meloy den Kollegen von Pitchforkmedia anvertraut. Der Stand der Dinge für "The Crane Wife" (VÖ: Anfang Oktober) sieht also folgendermassen aus: momentan wählt man aus 22 Stücken aus, deren Richtung noch etwas unklar scheint. "It's hard to totally say what the record is going to be like since we're still in the beginning stages of it, and especially since there's so many songs that need to be trimmed down into a record, it's hard to say what the shape of the record will be. But for the most part, it feels like it's going to be kind of strange. And there will be a few of the three- or four-minute pop numbers that will have the Decemberisty tint to them. But for the most part it feels like-- it's kind of cliché, but-- exploring new territory, which is exciting." Was bei vielen Bands wie ein immer wiederkehrender ermüdender Refrain klingt - The Decemberists aus Portland nimmt man diese Ambition mit Freuden ab.

Und auch allen Puristen sei gesagt: Meloy und Anhang bereuen den Schritt zum Major Capitol keineswegs: "We've had the Capitol Records A&R people come in, which is kind of terrifying because as long as I've been a fan of music, and been aware of the differences between independent labels and major labels, that infamous initial listening by the A&R people in which they frown and shake their heads and say they need to hear more singles, that was kind of terrifying to me. So they came in, and we had strategically put together the two obvious singles that were both short and kind of poppy and fit in with the Decemberists idiom and played them for them. And they liked them. And they asked what else we were doing, and then we started playing the long proggy song cycles, and that's when they got really excited. So it was kind of a positive bit of reinforcement, that they actually support the fact that we're moving in a relatively strange direction."

Thematisch arbeitet sich Meloy immer wieder gern am amerikanischen Ursprungsmythos Civil War ("My particular fascinations, I guess you can't really get away from them-- wars and soldiers and ghosts, things like that") und an chinesischer Geschichte ab, eingebettet in - wie Meloy nahelegt - britischen Folksound der 70er.

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