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| Popmatters |
 The full title of Stowaways, the new Half-Handed Cloud album, reads As Stowaways in Cabinets of Surf, We Live-out in Our Members a Kind of Rebirth. But though the working title seems to play out much longer than you’d expect, the record itself works in the opposite way. With a tracklist spanning 25 songs—many with titles as wordy as the album’s official moniker—you might think this record is a massive musical tome.Considering Half-Handed Cloud main man John Ringhofer is releasing his fifth record on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label, you’d certainly be forgiven for making that assumption. Ringhofer, however, functions as a curious counterpoint of Stevens’ own massive compositions. These two musicians surely share a love of heavy orchestration—there’s plenty of banjo, string arrangements, and tape loops on Stowaways—and the two have a similar knack for sweet, bordering-on-precious harmonies. Ringhofer, however, unleashes his sound in frenetic, nervous bursts. Of Stowaways‘s 25 songs, only six crack the two-minute mark, and those just barely. What that leaves us with is a record that refuses to sit still. Rather than making it feel disjointed, though, the album’s short tracks knit into an interesting whole. This record, taken in one 40-minute sitting, has a quirky charm that is hard to ignore. Ringhofer spends much of the record openly, and guilelessly, discussing theology and his own beliefs. So it might come as no surprise that he recorded the album in the Berkeley, California church where he works, but what is surprising is how little he relies on the spacious acoustics we normally associate with churches. Instead, the sounds here are crowded up and anxious, as if they are still bottled up inside Ringhofer. Songs like “You Flagged Us Down with A Wave” start as simple folk constructions, but terse guitar riffs and clunky piano chords quickly cut them up into sharp-angled pop songs. In other places, as on “Guy with Driftwood Skin”, songs ride along on humble guitar chords, only to be thrown off the rails when Ringhofer stops the music to break the melody with awkward spoken phrases....full text |
| Mog |
| As compelling as this is as a document of faith, and despite its frenetic energy as a whole, it's hard to latch on to any one defining piece on Stowaways. The full title of Stowaways, the new Half-Handed Cloud album, reads As Stowaways in Cabinets of Surf, We Live-out in Our Members a Kind of Rebirth. But though the working title seems to play out much longer than you'd expect, the record itself works in the opposite way. With a tracklist spanning 25 songs -- many with titles as wordy as the album's official moniker -- you might think this record is a massive musical...full text |
| Stereosubversion |
| Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding about the music of John Ringhofer — aka one-man Berkeley-based band/troubadour Half-handed Cloud — is that his albums are composed entirely by song fragments. Most critics would have you believe that because Ringhofer’s tunes often clock in under the two-minute mark, they fail to qualify as “proper” songs. But according to an interview with Ringhofer in 2006 — one I did back in my college days — he suggests this notion couldn’t be further from the truth. “‘Sometimes it just feels natural,’ Ringhofer said, in reference to his preferred method of composition. ‘I try to make sure a song doesn’t go too long without a good reason. I don’t think it’s a good enough reason to extend a song just because it ‘needs’ to be longer.’” It’s only fair, then, to examine Ringhofer’s songs not only by how they form a unique whole — one of his remarkable abilities and a trait common to all of Half-handed Cloud’s conceptually driven albums — but simply on their individual merit. On his latest album, As Stowaways in Cabinets of Surf, We Live-Out in Our Members a Kind of Rebirth, Ringhofer’s tunes are small yet fully-formed avant-pop excursions resulting in a relentlessly dense album. Simply put, it demands a good deal of unpacking, tune by tune. Despite not being entirely consistent, more often than not, Stowaways is worth this effort. Dense though Stowaways may be, it still brims with the feel-good, infectiously hopeful playground-pop one associates with the former Sufjan Illinoise-maker and Danielson Famile bassist. The ongoing theme of water is played out in pun-titled tunes like “You Flagged Us Down With A Wave” with it’s Beach Boys reverb-drenched guitar riffs and “Guy With Driftwood Skin”’s child-like requests to “Sing it!” along with the “birds.” But unlike previous album Halos & Lassos (which featured ebb and flow tempos and the dividing line of static crackles between each song), Ringhofer keeps a marathon-like pace throughout. The listening experience is not unlike long-distance swimming; Ringhofer leaves little time for you to catch a breath. The puns keep coming with tracks like “You’ll Sea” and “I’m Over The Need To Bail,” whose instrumentation is as diverse as ever. Thumping pianos, lilting banjos, humming organs, prickly guitar, and twisting trombones comprise the majority of tunes. Ringhofer is usually smart and tasteful enough, however, to moderate his sonic arsenal. For example, “Fresh And Bitter From The Same Spring” is a standout with its grooving, sixteenth-note piano bass line. But just when things get moving, Ringhofer draws the line, its pop finality essential to its pop endurance....full text |
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