Brian Borcherdt The Remains Of... Release Date : June 14, 2004. Label: Dependent Music. Rating: Andy doesn't dig rating stuff. Before, there was a moth. Now there is a beetle. Stamped, with care, on a white CD. What does this all mean? I have no clue, but I can tell you a few things I do know about Brian Borcherdt. I will share them with you over the next few paragraphs. Brian Borcherdt is many things. He is sad, he is victorious. He is melancholy, he is triumphant. He is passionate, he is a victim. He is alive, he is making the most of it. He can make you feel. There is a love of beautiful things on this record. There must be, and if not, then it's one amazing accident, because just about every last spare second of this is lovely. I recently started a routine that has me leaving my home at roughly six in the morning, which is something I haven't done in years before on any regular basis. Here, the first day I walk out of my home and out into the early summer day, I hear Borcherdt's first lyrics of the first song, "Co.," Go outside / In the summer air / to feel alive / to be right there... over top of a simple guitar and piano. Nothing could have been more perfect. Why did I not listen to this record once before, even back when I received the thoroughly impressive press pack it (I devoured the writing inside, read it cover to cover.... but didn't touch the music) was a part of, I cannot say. Perhaps subconciously I knew there would come a time when I would need this collection of songs, when it would suit my surroundings perfectly. This was certainly the day for it. Overhead, the morning crows were even barely awake, the moon was still up even though the sky was turning dusky pink. A seed puff strolled casually by my face on the wind. It seems as though Brian Borcherdt wrote this music specifically for days like this. If you want a bare hint of what this collection is akin to, imagine at times a bit of a livlier Hayden, with a more diverse song base. However, don't hold him to that. As soon as his voice becomes riddled with thundering and warbles along, it will turn on its tail and become a trill, light note. Once upon a time, everything sounded like Radiohead. Then Coldplay came along and everyone thought they sounded so much like Radiohead. The Coldplay took on a life of its own and now everyone thinks everything sounds like Coldplay. This really doesn't sound like Coldplay, but I was just trying to make a point. No no, I'm kidding... It doesn't sound much like Coldplay at all, but it's again, just the vocal quality at times, which is so soft and vulnerable-sounding. I just want to take him up and tell him it's going to be okay. There will be a drum machine/synth percussion in one song, and a pile of subtle strings in another. It feels very low-fi, and in fact, the album I possess holds the unmastered tracks from The Remains... Though having not heard the final release, I'm not sure how much they differ. The way the instruments flow with the echoed vocals is very cool. The guitars are often either spaced-out, half-asleep pluckings, or thick, rumbling, clumsy strumming. Even when the songs reach a point where it sounds like they should explode, they don't. Or they do, rather, but in such an understated way. There will be a pale smash and a new instrument introduced to give the song another layer, or a barely-there female vocal. "Monumental" has a drifty whine threaded through it and a clanking, somewhat startling piano sound. "Motel" brings in some cellos, and I somehow envision lying in a stream as the current flows over your face, fish swimming upstream past you, fighting. The beautiful struggle. Then you've got a song like "Can't Stop Lovin' You," which sounds like a soccer cheer or something, and it's about being devastatingly in love. ""Hers"" features a catchy video-game type percussion bit at the beginning. And it rocks. Some songs sound so very loud and angry, and others sound like he's giving up. Even though all the downtrodden themes, from a blind listen, it's very much lie-in-your-lover's-arms music. It's so sweet, yet it can still rock. The many faces of Brian Borcherdt. I'd forgotten how fresh the morning air felt. Lyric of choice : If I'd known how hard this segment was gonna be all the time, I might never have started it up. Damn talented songwriters. This is really simple, but woke up in Lethbridge, just because this song ("Motel") sounds so much like a lazy roadtrip song. Or from "Signals," don't try and shake me / you're still trying to shake the words that I said as the song builds. brilliant song, great lyrics all around. Song of choice : Oh God. "Co.", ""Hers"", "Motel", "New Mexico"... for different reasons. The beauty, the emotive power. "New Mexico" might take the edge for it's rocking-out. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Dependent Records website Brian Borcherdt website Published : August 13, 2004.