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The Mumlers
Thickets & Stitches
Galaxia
During the course of a single composition on The Mumlers' debut Thickets & Stitches a lot can happen: French horns wander in and out, pianos roll by out of nowhere, acoustic guitars start and stop, Middle Eastern rhythms snake through and accordions make unannounced cameos. Hailing from San Jose, California, this seven-member collective are one of the most charming bands around. Singer Will Sprott has all the casual, laconic brilliance of Leon Redbone and the eccentric whimsy of Devendra Banhart and he commandeers his compositions with grounded trippiness. Much to recommend here: "Hitched To The Sun" is a warm and wobbly love song; the loose-limbed call-and-response of "Shake That Medication" sounds like a lost underground '60s classic and the sexy and sauntering "Red River Hustle" finds singer Sprott ecstatically reporting, "My woman moves her hips/She is the shoreline/And I am her ship." Recorded live to two-inch tape with hardly any overdubs, Thickets & Stitches is spontaneous, inventive, and refreshingly ego-less. Other notables include the gentle rumble of "Untie My Knots," the organ-drenched pop of "Hush" and the teetering beauty of the album closer "So Long." The eleven songs on Thickets & Stitches are hard to categorize: they're waltzes and then they're not. They're country but not really. They're folk but only a little. They're indie rock, but you know they're not. You get the picture. But what you have to understand is that these songs are intentionally fractured, punctured on purpose and the air that comes out is where the Mumlers' true genius lies.
—Alex Green
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