Lida Husik
Fly Stereophonic
Alias Records, 2815 W. Olive Ave., Burbank CA 91505
Release Date: June 24, 1997
You wake up in the middle of the night to the far-off sound of rumbling thunder. You hear the rain slap the pavement. You smile and slip back into your dream. It never occurs to you to get up, put on your shoes, and follow the sound of the thunder.
Say you do. You get in your car and head toward all the racket. Sooner or later, you'd find your way to the chaos -- the licking flames, the fallen trees, the scattered debris. But lying in bed, the thunder is just another rumble in your subconscious.
Lida Husik's latest, Fly Stereophonic, is a dreamstorm teetering on the edge of wakefulness. Husik's otherworldly voice smoothes your hair and strokes your brow -- but take care not to fall against it, there's a razor-sharp edge there somewhere.
Husik's punk-tinged, preternatural pop evokes a shifting unease, like sitting in a room with two people having an affair. You know something is going on, but you don't know what, and no one's about to bring up the subject. You all laugh, you have a good time, but you know there's something you're missing; you just can't put your finger on it.
Husik similarly keeps each tune slightly off-balance. By adding a bagpipe here, a bossa nova beat there, she incites the curious to wonder what else is in there. Abrupt tempo changes, an occasional disjointed bridge (a drawbridge?) filter through the background fog.
Husik creates the shadowy twin of the perfect three-minute pop song -- where the latter is a shiny, bouncy, seamless whole, the tunes on Fly Stereophonic display a crack here, a split there, just enough to make you want to take the whole thing apart and put it back together (but like a watch, once you separate the parts, you'll never figure out which tab goes into which slot, which gear meshes with which wheel, ever again). Enjoy the storm, and go back to sleep.
-- Lindy Powell
powell@outersound.com
