Records of the Week

OFFICIAL SITE OF THE NON
THE NON ON MYSPACE

Wil, the lead guitar player for Oklahoma City’s The Non, gave a copy of their  2007 debut Paper City to a 2nd-grade teacher and she played “Komodo” for the eager young listeners.  In response, one child said, “It makes me happy! It makes me sad!;” another, “I feel like jazz;” and another said the music, “makes me want to be superman and save the world.”  These often contradictory emotions match the frantically tangential avant-garde/not-quite postrock of The Non.  The quartet packs the expansive theatricality of arena rock into a constrained, possibly, uncomfortable space.  (Think of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.)  Opener “No Spark, No Fire” drops the listener on the crest of a tidal wave, practically at the peak of a noise-laden crescendo.  Effectively, you get all of the cathartic pay off without the (apparently) unnecessary buildup.  Tadaima‘s track titles are evocative, perhaps on account of their simplicity: “Cloud Collision” is a fairly unmemorable title, but the song’s surprising tones, time signatures, and effects undulate together until  sparring thunderheads seem to be the intended imagery.  Tadaima is a big, in-your-face album trapped a deceptively small package.  It’s just trying to get out is all.