Send "Vetiver " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Dustedmagazine |
 Will the real Vetiver please hold up its hand? There seems to be two on The Errant Charm. One is the road-tested combo that’s been serving up reliable pleasures for the better part of the aughts. And then there’s Andy Cabic, the singer-songwriter-guitarist-keyboardist who happens to perform under the name Vetiver. Cabic plays in that band, but that band doesn’t get a whole lot of space on Vetiver’s fifth album. Despite early associations with the regrettably named “freak folk” scene (Devendra Banhart was a sorta-member around the time of the first Vetiver album), Vetiver-the-band is a pretty conservative outfit. It’s content to summon sounds of yesteryear — ’70s singer-songwriters on Thing Of The Past; sun-shiny ’60s folk-pop on Tight Knit; 1970-vintage Grateful Dead during one particularly enjoyable concert I attended in 2006 — and render them with unfussy diligence. On record, Vetiver-the-band is tuneful and undemanding, but Otto Hauser’s drumming can always be counted on to keep things moving crisply. Cabic intentionally did not fall back on that safety net this time out, but put The Errant Charm’s songs together in the studio with producer Thom Monahan. The rest of the group didn’t join in until relatively late in the process, when Californians Cabic and Monahan booked some time in a Hoboken studio and had them lay down the tracks. The results rarely sound like the result of people playing together in a room. The music is awash in programmed beats, plush keyboards, and FX-laden guitars and voices that sound more like Lindsay Buckingham on Ativan than the basic, guitar-oriented sound of earlier Vetiver records....full text |
| Consequenceofsound |
| Vetiver’s catalog dates back to 2004, spanning seemingly unbreakable ties to Devendra Banhart and freak-folk inclinations to country-tainted covers of obscure tracks to an eventual deal and release with Sub Pop. The accessibility of the mellow, beach-infused melodies of 2009′s Tight Knit spoke to a much wider audience than frontman Andy Cabic’s older material, but it was also criticized for being too safe. Instead of resting on his laurels and regurgitating the successes of Tight Knit, though, Cabic and producer Thom Monahan venture into uncharted territory for Vetiver’s fifth studio release, The Errant Charm. Exploring pulsating, lush layers and pushing Cabic’s vocals to their threshold both result in The Errant Charm being an album of considerable depth, but not to the point of sacrificing the characteristic sunny, washed-out aesthetic of his previous work. The record begins with “It’s Beyond Me”, a lengthy number that ends up being a stunning preview of the rest of the album’s sonic adventures. Swirling noise alongside a pretty typical acoustic strum swells into a rich mix of ethereal vocals, slide guitar, and feedback – it’s entrancing, and a pretty stark departure from the days of the ’70s AM radio-ready tunes that have characterized the better part of Vetiver’s career. Cabic and Monahan do it well, though, as the simultaneous haphazard feel and intricate composition of the feedback and thoroughly layered guitar and keys seamlessly come together throughout. The shining example of this is “Right Away”, as its mellow introduction triumphantly swells into a jangling mix of tambourine, keys, guitar, and horns. The repetition of “I wonder if we had anything at all” becomes another instrument in the mix, completely re-purposing Cabic’s characteristic whispery vocals into another production tool. Lyrically, The Errant Charm spends a lot of time longing for lost innocence and relationships. Instead of becoming tiring, though, with consistent lines such as “Your face was all I saw” (“Right Away”) and “You and I suffered the way that young lovers do” (“Worse for Wear”), Cabic takes care to avoid sonic monotony, and the lyrics end up being the main cohesive component of the album. Nearly-danceable bass and upbeat melodies undermine the melancholy, notably on tracks such as “Can’t You Tell”. Its extended instrumental interlude combining jazzy soft rock, strings, and throbbing snyths adds an optimistic feel to what would otherwise be a moody song....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Saying a record makes great background music is usually taken as damningly faint praise at best. Sure, the music sets a mood-- so what? But for something to fade gracefully into the scenery, it has to be finely crafted enough that nothing snags or jars. Unobtrusiveness isn't always a fault, nor is attention-grabbing necessarily a virtue. I realized this one afternoon last summer at a BBQ, where Vetiver's 2009 album Tight Knit was playing at low volume from another room, providing the perfect sonic wallpaper for the day: gentle folk songs drifting into not-quite-yacht rock-- wooden ship rock, maybe. The album didn't grab your attention so much as gently hold your interest, complementing rather than interfering. Paradoxically, half-listening to the album revealed something that giving it full focus did not. It was like some "Doctor Who" creature that you could see in peripheral vision but which disappears when you look directly at it. Vetiver's new album, their fifth (and second for Sub Pop), pulls off much the same trick. This is part sound design:The drums are muted, often no more than a muffled kick pulse; the guitars are finger-picked acoustic or else electric with the edges slicked entirely off; and singer/songwriter Andy Cabic holds his vowels long and lofty, sighing his lyrics as much as singing them. It's also part songwriting: Cabic's melodies are impeccably understated, and his leisurely lyrics set an undeniably easy-going mood. This sort of thing has been Vetiver's lane since their anomalously freak-folky debut, and there's not much here in the way of either deviations or dramatic leaps forward; if Cabic and longtime producer Thom Monahan have tinkered with the band's sound, their improvements are subtle enough as to be imperceptible. Of course, given time, the best background music insinuates its way into your foreground, and after about a week with The Errant Charm, a few of its highlights will work their way into a listener's head: the way Cabic's vocal traces the guitar scale on the chorus of "Worse for Wear"; the cruising JJ Cale vibe of "Ride, Ride, Ride"; the deck chair-ready guitar glide of "Fog Emotion"; the soft organ trill and backbeat to "Can't You Tell". Best of all is "Wonder Why", an upbeat and unreservedly catchy number, driven by bright guitar picking backed by piano, bobbing bass, chords that rev up to the chorus, and the album's most straight-ahead, snare-hitting drumming. Over the top of it, Cabic harmonizes and hums, world-weary and a little worried, but still sounding largely optimistic....full text |
Vetiver lyrics
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