Questions in Dialect

Item: As You May Know
Author: Dave Kerschbaum

As You May Know

(2003)

Reviewed by Dave Kerschbaum

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Label Esperanza PlantationThe Phantom Tollbooth2004

ambient experimental post-rock

Music has long been used to evoke feelings from an audience. We expect it when we view other forms of art, especially film. We relive the feelings evoked when we buy the soundtrack to our newest favorite cinematic masterpiece, be it the chilly beauty of Danny Elfman's choral score to Edward Scissorhands, the olde timey feelings of O Brother Where Art Thou, or the dreamy jazz trip of Angelo Badalamenti's contribution to almost any David Lynch production. Questions in Dialect, a trio from Mississippi, understands the power of a good soundtrack, and has put together a minimalistic, pensive score to elicit something from its audience. The difference is, the film that goes along with the band's latest disc, As You May Know, is in the listener's head.

What Questions in Dialect does best with this disc is paint images in the listener's mind, while giving the audience time and space to form the stories around these sound pictures. Most of these songs contain a warm, mellow guitar, a rolling drum kit, a few spacey effects, and not much else. One gets the feeling something is stirring in the quiet evening as a methodical guitar and percussion cadence disappears into a very quiet, lonely echo guitar before building into something bright and joyfully sleepy in "They Rose Up in the Twilight." "The Resurrection of the Dead" lulls the listener into its quiet before proceeding to the Big Finish, creating the feeling that one has stumbled onto unexpected new life. "Walking on Water" is a bright, liquid song that does indeed bring to mind miracles of faith and water.

The idea of creating a soundtrack is embraced by the band, apparently, as is acknowledged in the title of the underwater circus of "Roll the Credits."

If the otherwise impressive As You May Know suffers anywhere, it's that the band has found a comfortable song progression (quiet intro, crescendo, barely audible meandering and finally a big crescendo) and uses it on almost every song on the album. This is an unusual genre (instrumental/soundtrack/mood music/dreamscape?) that won't find its way to commercial radio anytime soon. Perhaps what's most impressive about the music Questions in Dialect makes is that the band sounds very natural in creating it.

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