You can add another watershed album to the 54º 40' or Fight! catalog. Measure for measure, The Gypsy Valentine Curve surprises and delights, keeping listeners off-balance and eerily intrigued. Feeling no compunction to obey a strict verse/chorus format -- or, for that matter, song structure of any sort -- San Francisco's dilute (Apparently they're really fussy about that lower-case d -- Ed.) merrily elicits feedback and keeps the groove firmly in hand, in much the same way that the Velvet Underground used to do. Displaying a knack for making even bum notes sound intentional, dilute also pays tribute to Pavement's work with arrhythmic noise-rock and The Pixies' penchant for bleating vocals.
Sudden and often unpredictable changes in tempo and time signature, as well as lengthy compositions (which sound a bit like Rush), appear to be the group's raison d'etre/pastime of choice. The listener, however, never suffers. The Gypsy Valentine Curve is the listening equivalent to watching Harmony Korine's Gummo: a part of you wants to stop, but instead you keep watching/listening, and the further you get, the harder it is to stop (see also Foster Wallace's fictional film The Infinite Jest). Just as your festering ambivalence finally moves you to turn off the stereo, you'll be won over. Dilute's music discursively dangles from a thread, without providing the usual safety net of a constant rhythm section or any chorus to speak of. It is art without form, or nearly without form; you'll wonder how long the band can keep it entertaining without falling off the wire, so to speak. Thus, it is dilute's musical funambulism that keeps the listener in suspense, eager for more.
Singer Marty Anderson (who sounds like Hefner's Darren Hayman) howls, squeals and whoops his lyrics like a shaman on fire. Other bandmates sometimes join him in a conciliatory and joyful facsimile of harmony, as in "Arrows Pointed Down". Dilute clearly prefer to take their music wherever they please, like kids playing instruments for the first time. Gaining confidence and vigor every time they stumble across another workable chord progression, dilute make their music sound less accidental and more like a series of inspirations. Through several years of recording, dilute has honed their improvisational sound; for this reason, repeated listening is strongly advised and rewarded. "Rock and Roll," "Freedumb" and "Bea" are the album's most accessible songs -- and even these gleefully disintegrate before your ears. "Rock and Roll" sounds like just that until, without warning, it downshifts into a sparsely patched-together melody that eventually wilts away over several minutes. In "Bea", a 1950s-style arpeggiated slow-dance feel gives way to thrash-metal intrusions that serve to unbalance and undermine the mood.
As more bands take on the rigors of improvisational music, you are left to wonder if this is perhaps the second coming of jazz's influence on rock and roll. Rock and roll wasn't necessarily founded on experimental music, and many listeners aren't prepared to hear it that way, but any sign of interesting new sounds is encouraging enough. Whether this album is a sign of things to come or merely growing pains, The Gypsy Valentine Curve is certainly a step in the right direction.
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