my dreams are back and they are better than ever

Reviewed by Jeff Conant
06.21.05

This is wildly demented circus music, or is it alt country? Or electro-acoustic folk, with reeds and laptop? oRSo is definitely a product of the digital age, but their plucky banjo, off-note clarinet and keening, unhurried vocals harken back to simpler times…like maybe the environs of Woodstock, New York, Autumn 1968, (before the festival). Or maybe on someone’s back porch, 3:00 am, under quilts after an all-night fungus fest, when everyone’s a little dreamy, a little cozy, and just a little dark. And then someone starts playing with the toy piano….

This is a weird and very talented bunch of musicians, all multi-instrumentalists playing in various groups, and the several CDs they’ve put out on their own Chicago-based label are filled with strange, subtle melodies and an easygoing yet eerie kind of sound. Their 2004 release, my dreams are back and they are better than ever, is an understated classic of their unique style. On one song, a minor key recorder played over minimalist guitar picking may sound like 10th-grade prodigies staying late in the high school music room, but the shapely arrangement and warm production values make you want to linger and listen, because some weird and beautiful key change is coming up and you don’t want to miss it. On another, where tenor sax melds with swooning violin and oh-so-subtle electric guitar buzz, the mood is all warm-summer-evening-with-mosquitoes. And then you’re back in the circus wagon, pulling out behind the elephants after a long run in a lonely town, and a thunderstorm is on its way in.

Phil Spirito, the lead songwriter and singer, dresses like a rabbi and resembles a walrus. If that’s not enough to recommend this bunch of post-rock artistes, I give up.