I imagine I am a photographer in Sheffield, England. I prefer to use an old view camera, as its gritty, lo-fi style fits that of the respected local indie blog I photograph for. I have a job to do tonight: photograph band Pisco Sour Hour as they play in a local bar.
Arriving, I find the band has already started. Loyal fans are sitting closer to the cramped stage, singing along to all the strange lyrics. Others avoid the unusual group on stage, preferring to sit at the end of the bar and simply watch the lunatics.
The band are clad in frighteningly eclectic attire. The saxophonist wears large, plastic sunglasses; the drummer wears a brown top hat and sweater vest; the bassist sports a white lab coat; and the guitarist wears a kilt and t-shirt.
I set up my camera to capture this curious group, and cover myself with the antique camera’s sheet of fabric when a man (one of their loyal fans) approaches me. For reasons known only to himself, he wears an executioners hood and wields a sledgehammer. I peek out to ask what he wants, and he drunkenly shouts: “For you to join the fun!” He lifts his sledgehammer to smash my camera and I cower backwards. This fateful moment is captured in a black-and-white cartoon on the front cover of the band’s new album, “A Hammer To The Camera Lens”.
Unfortunately, I have never seen Pisco Sour Hour live. I don’t know what they look like and this story never really happened. Still, it certainly wouldn’t be out of place as the subject of one of the band’s songs. In fact, “A Hammer To The Camera Lens” is full of unconventional tales that not only parallel our present world (and times in its history), but point out that it can be a little random and completely screwed up.
Pisco Sour Hour are a tragically undiscovered band. To explain them a way I’m sure you’ll understand: Pisco Sour Hour sound as though Chicago, The Decemberists, and Johnny Rotten had a baby. That baby grew up studying British literature and became a roadie for The Clash, sitting quietly in a corner sipping vermouth (better yet, pisco sour), reading, and smiling knowingly while the rest of the group partied at the bar.
“A Hammer To The Camera Lens” is a little bit of everything I want from any band I listen to: sometimes upbeat, sometimes serious, a little sadistic, and a little sympathetic. From bank robbing monkeys (“Spot Monkey”) to transcendentalist soldiers (“Sir”) to the end of the world (“Bang”), “A Hammer To The Camera Lens” is a lyrical masterpiece. I only obsess over the lyrics, though, because that’s the rarest thing to perfect. Almost anyone can write good music. There are a ton of instrumental albums out there, many received with perpetual critical fanfare, but flawless lyrics are scarce.
Pisco Sour Hour explains their own sound best: “A Hammer To The Camera Lens” is a joyous record with a strong pop sensibility, but one that takes its influence from far and wide, swerving from sax led piano pop, to aggressive punky sounds, to electronic balladeering, to country, all the time maintaining a strong, coherent identity.” The album really is a melting pot of sounds. Sometimes the band breaks down into yelping, Sex Pistols-esque punk; sometimes they drift into pseudo-psychedelic wanderings; and sometimes they make straight, upbeat pop, 70′s style.
Originality is such a hard thing to come by nowadays. It seems so many artists are trying the same gimmicks and making exactly the same kind of music. When you get something truly fresh and original, you know instantaneously. “A Hammer To The Camera Lens” is exactly that.
One of my favorite tracks, album closer “It Only Hurts When I Laugh” (featuring vocals from a mutual friend of the band), seems to sum up everything the band is about. From the ingenious line “you’re looking for a hero, girl/well you know I don’t dig that stuff” to the title itself, it’s perfect proof that there’s something a little off about the music of Pisco Sour Hour, in the best way possible.
