REVIEW: rRope’s “We Are You There”
rRope may not be a fan familiar to some, but without them, it would not have lead to Foot Village. I received We Are You There (Deathbomb Arc) awhile back, in fact, two months ago, and as I’m listening and looking at how many tracks there are, I was thinking “damn, that’s a lot of music.” 31 tracks? Whoa! But then I realized that in a CD manner, it would equal to two discs. You are able to but this album on vinyl as a 3-record set, so there we go.
The album is a collection of everything the band ever released, from two albums, singles, comps, and split efforts in the mid to late 90′s, and yet this sounds just as fresh and powerful as it would have back then. I’m reminded of music by Trumans Water, Sonic Youth, and early Flaming Lips when an appearance in Rip magazine seemed out of the ordinary. The 6:18 “Mercury” sounds just as moody as anything you’d hear on a Sunny Day Real Estate album. What I like about it is the nice balance between the insanely noisiness and songs that are charming and melodic. If you get locked into listening to all 31 songs in one sitting (as I did twice), this will either make you smile from ear to ear or give you a serious hernia. I enjoy it when I hear music like this where some of the songs feels like it’s suffocating you, either through volume, or the sounds they use whether it’s from distortion, feedback, or whatever these guys had in front of them during these recording sessions. The album concludes with a brief set of live material recorded in 1998, where they bring everything they had and push it to the forefront, and this is the kind of music that would have left thousands of fans creating homemade rRope T-shirts in their garages or basements. The live songs are said to be from what was their last show, and while they did not become monarchs of the underground, hearing this will make you forget status and help you realize that it’s not about the dominance of a monarchy, but merely contributing music that you feel for the sake of creating it. Those who still hold rRope with pride will love hearing all of this in one setting, while a new generation will hopefully be inspired to creating their own music for the sake of creating it.
