Reviews
Calm Hades Float
Review by Charlie Wilmoth, Allmusic
Windsor for the Derby effectively mixes ambience and post-rock guitar-playing on Calm Hades Float, the group's first album. Most of the songs here begin with clean-toned guitar arpeggios -- think Durutti Column, or a less complex Slint -- and feature distant drums, buried vocals, and layers of guitar feedback. Like most ambient, Calm Hades Float aims for atmosphere, not drama: The songs lumber slowly and include few structural changes, and the guitar parts are poker-faced and minimal. Adam Wilitzie mixes everything, but the guitar is low enough that the listener has to strain to hear the swelling background noise. Its presence is nonetheless important, though, because it makes Windsor for the Derby's music feel motionless. The group's guitar style is partially derived from Slint's brand of math rock, but the effect of Windsor for the Derby's music has more to do with the rich stasis of Labradford or Stars of the Lid.(4/5)
Metropolitan Then Poland
Review by Jonathan Cohen, Nude as the News
Windsor For The Derby quickly followed up the late spring 1997 release of its debut album Calm Hades Float with this five-song EP. Metropolitan Then Poland revels in an odd, spacey blend of "post-rock" minimalism fairly different from the styles found on the band's debut.
Album opener "Exposito" gets the head spinning with random pings and pongs bouncing around off-tempo kick drums. The mean "Slow Death" employs shiny guitar and drums and a quicker beat than any Calm Hades Float fare. But the song's sequel, dubbed "Slow Death Plus," is five minutes of pointless, crackling noise.
"Moving Florida" is the EP's weakest point, a poorly recorded live version that runs out of steam quickly. Luckily, "The Electric Co." sounds more like familiar WFTD, with a dropped-D tuning and a trio of finger-picked, swirling guitars as its guide.
There are some good ideas on Metropolitan Then Poland, but they don't translate as well as they did on the group's first record. Pick this up only after you've thoroughly investigated Calm Hades Float.
Minnie Greutzfeldt
Review by Jonathan Cohen, Nude as the News
Sometimes, it seems the creative things one can do with a guitar are probably almost all used up. Seven chords have done the trick only until recently, when it has become apparent that nearly all guitar-based music sounds like something that came before it.
That said, new music (read: post-rock) is becoming less about the actual notes that are played but about how these notes are transformed through repetition, effects and studio manipulation. One of the new breeds of bands advocating such a modus operandi is Windsor For The Derby, a quartet that captivates the listener with sound and imagery rather than just music.
Don't get the wrong idea. Minnie Greutzfeldt employs the standard guitar-bass-drums lineup. But these seven compositions pull back the curtain on the mysterious realm that is post-rock, in effect soundtracking the very thoughts that have no verbal precedent. Nebulous song titles and liner notes devoid of text make it clear that interpreting this music is a task for the listener, not the composer. Thus, Minnie could be viewed as the internal sheet music for a hallucinogenic day in the life.
And so the day begins. "Fat Angel, Skinny Ghost" switches our brains on, repeating light guitar chords like a test pattern. "Stasis" proceeds like so many gentle kisses, and we feel as aware of our surroundings as we've ever been. But "No Techno w/Drums" spins reality on its side, repeating reverb-soaked guitar lines over alien bass and analog keyboard transmissions.
Constant snare drum snaps twirl our confused selves in any direction but the right one until "When I See Scissors" raises the shade on a gorgeous sunscape of soothing guitar melodies. The clear, double-guitar warmth of "Useless Arm" rushes us down a faintly-lit corridor of memories, providing fleeting glances of loves both past and present. By the 1:30 mark, things have turned dissonant and dark, only to "reconcile" by steadily coming to a crescendo filled with eternally sad riffs.
We're dreaming of the whole affair during the hypnotic "Skimming+," as drums fade into the background like a train on a rainy night. Enveloped in ambient noise, we return to the far-off vistas that mirror the more mundane landmarks of wakeful existence. Minnie is the accompaniment to the surreal inner workings of the human unconscious.
Review by John Bush, Allmusic
Windsor for the Derby's second album alternates a few tracks of post-Slint guitar obtuseness ("Stasis," "No Techno with Drums") with the more atmospheric fare of "Bass Trap." Although it's hardly a uniform sound, all of the tracks have a fragile beauty matched by few in the post-rock brigade.(4/5)
Difference and Repetition
Review by Jonathan Cohen, Nude as the News
Homeless after the shutdown of Trance Syndicate Records, Windsor For The Derby has resurfaced on Michael Gira's (ex-Swans) Young God label for its third new album, Difference And Repetition. Assembled over the course of two years (members are geographically spread from Texas to New York City), Difference picks up where 1997's splendid Minnie Greutzfeldt album left off, incorporating vocals more frequently than ever before.
Even with more voices floating in the air, WFTD break no molds here, planting both feet firmly amid the territory currently staked out by newer "post-rock" acts like Tristeza or South. In fact, Difference bears strong parallels to South's self-titled album, both in the clean, intertwined guitar parts and an allegiance to minimalist composers like Eno, Reich and Herzog.
Nevertheless, Difference puts the WFTD spin on these familiar influences, revisiting the kind of internal soundtrack that made Minnie Greutzfeldt so ideal for contemplation. Electronics are more readibly apparent, particularly on the synth-addled, almost Pink Floyd-esque "**." "Shaker" imagines Steve Reich and Stars Of The Lid composing underwater, while the solemn mellotron melodies of "Nico" abandon modern precedents for a sound right out of the Middle Ages. "Shoes McCoat" takes the minimalist ideals as far as WTFD ever has, as two guitar parts slowly move in and out of sync with one another over the course of 13 minutes.
Fans of the band's more straightforward guitar/bass/drums compositions will revel in opening track "*" and the gentle motions of "The Egg," two fine uses of simple but pretty melodies and minimal rhythms. An early Pink Floyd vibe (perhaps side two of Umma Gumma) is revisited on closer "Lost In Cycles," as a far-off voice adorns a crystalline acoustic guitar melody.
With seven songs and only thirty-five minutes of music, Difference is not the grand follow-up to Minnie Greutzfeldt for which some might have been hoping. But with a number of future releases in the works (including a compilation of singles and odds and ends), it's a musical diversion well worth exploring.
Review by Mike Headley.
Windsor for the Derby has recorded their most minimal and sparse album to date, but also their most engaging
Resurfacing after the demise of their label Trance Syndicate, this Austin Texas-based, studio-only band has recorded their most minimal and sparse album to date, but also their most engaging. Finding a new home on the Swans' label, the band has lost its Slint tendencies and techno beats stripping the music down to moods minus attitudes. Languid soundscapes filled with xylophones, tambourines, and vibes broaden their scope while still presenting their character mysterious aura. Tension is built while never letting loose, vocals never rise higher than a whisper, and rhythm sways like a boat on a windless day. The highlight of this record is Nico, a seven and a half minute opus filled with gorgeous reverb laded guitars and keyboards depicting a desert background, rich and arid with faint rumblings in the distance - perhaps a hopeful thunderstorm. Again, the tension and suspense act to lock in the listener to the magnetic, hypnotic beauty. Sometimes you get so caught up in it all, you have to blink hard to regain your composure and true surroundings.
Review by Andy Pierce, Mean Magazine
Herein resounds electroacoustic tone color of the least possible gesture that amazingly achieves artful expansive duration.
Buried under with superlatives suitable (or... uh, Love Spirals Downwards' 1996 amniotic-phonic backwash Ever (which it resembles (or very different reasons), Windsor For the Derby find themselves saddled with this boast from their lead sheets: "The lost link between Nick Drake and Pink Floyd's Ummagumma." Ouch! Lots of sincere and ready nods to Drake will make the rounds, but nobody, and I mean nobody, has man-aged the same artful fragility of Drake in the quarter-plus century since his passing. And wasn't Ummagumma an album certain Floyds dismissed (do correct if I'm wrong), even though Waters' cuts are the ones that hold up or have any lasting musical interest?
Despite more pedantic misgivings, per-haps, I do love this disc. Core WftD dudes Daniel Matz and Jason McNeeley craft something altogether apart from press prognostications. Herein resounds electroacoustic tone color of the least possible gesture that amazingly achieves artful expansive duration. Take “Shoes McCoat,” which tantalizes via thinly fleshed guitar overlays and the mid-ground thump and splash of drum and cymbals. So painfully and deliberately simple that nearly thirteen minutes of sound evaporates in your ear, leaving your cognitive pathways to piece together the settled memories. “Shaker” is a viscous drip of a track where something quietly (but discernibly) vocal sandwiches itself between / over / under tremulous strings, faintly cavernous keyboard gestures, and the slow pulse of a softly exploding bass drum (presumably). A song like “Lost in Cycles” comes somewhat close to suggesting the group’s press hype, but even here its execution tells a different story. A straightforward acoustic execution is mere distraction for subtle tonal suspensions, the signature elusive vocals, and a left-field noise splice that closes out the album. All in all, it’s fine stuff.
Review by Andrew Cardeen, Mojo Magazine
There's no reason to overlook the third lp from texas post-rockers windsor for the derby. "difference and repetition" is their first for ex-swans leader michael gira's young god label and continues on the gentle trajectory of their earlier work with a soothing mix of repeated phrases, hushed whispers, and organic ambience. think eno, tortoise, and late '60's pink floyd."
Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic
On their debut recording for Young God, and third album overall, Windsor for the Derby refine their delicate, intricate guitar landscape even further. Based in Austin, TX, the group is comprised of Daniel Matz and Jason McNeeley with guests that include Adam Wiltzie from Stars of the Lid, Christian Goyer, and Erik O'Brien. Keyboards, from floating electric pianos and tightly woven yet spaciously measured guitar patterns, dictate the flow from which Windsor for the Derby's music emanates. On the nearly 13-minute "Shoes McCoat," the band tangle two guitars in an edgeless, knotty, slowly unwinding labyrinth that grows longer in length and intricacy over the track's duration. Certain notes get stretched to resonate a tad longer before they move, or a sudden shift up the neck on one note like a slide whistle will occur, but otherwise, the patterns build and unfold, adding layer upon layer of mysterious intent that results in gorgeous music. Everything is so subtle here -- even the vocals are so slurred and unreachable as to be just another instrument in the mix. The analog keyboards in "Nico," a pipe organ (resembling a harmonium), and a piano resonate in the shadows of the bass and guitars as an off-meter rhythm accents each phrase, and another, and another, until the phrase becomes the pulse of the tune itself. But perhaps nothing here is more strikingly beautiful than "Lost in Cycles," a vocal track where the lyrics are indecipherable, whispered hoarsely into a lilting guitar line and a sustained keyboard line that gives way to feedback on both sides of the channel to create a dense yet melodic wail of harmonic distortion. Windsor for the Derby is perhaps not the best-known band making records from Austin or even on the Young God label, but no matter how hard they are to find, their records -- especially this one -- are worth seeking out (www.youngod.com).(4/5)
Review by Nirav Soni, Ink 19
Honesty is a characteristic I value in people. More than just truthfulness in what one says, I value someone that's honest to one's self. Good, genuine, and simple things are hard to find. That is why Windsor for the Derby is one of my favorite bands. They radiate a quiet peacefulness that is so rare.
Difference And Repetition carries the same torch as "Minnie Greutzfeldt," but that torch seems to have grown heavier. There is an element of world-weariness in this music, different from the quiet optimism of their earlier works. Michael Gira's label seems appropriate for this album; there is no Swans-esque bombast here, but the same grace of all of Gira's projects appears here. Difference And Repetition shares the lyricism of White Light from the Mouth of Infinity-era Swans, but strips the music down to its barest level. The guitars slowly trace out melancholy patterns over the occasional drizzle of the vibraphone. They haven't lost their affinity for unique sounds, demonstrated by the muted thump of "Shaker," or the breathy rumble of "Shoes McCoat."
Windsor for the Derby epitomizes the humanism I love in all art, whether it is music, film, sculpture or portrait. Simply beautiful.
Earnest Powers +
Review by Charlie Wilmoth, Allmusic
Earnest Powers is a compilation of singles and unreleased tracks by the Texas post-rock group Windsor for the Derby. It's spotty, as rarities collections tend to be, and the first third of the album is mired in post-Slint guitar arpeggios that feature plenty of repetition but not enough attention to atmosphere or production to really be engaging. After that, though, Earnest Powers is a lot more exciting: in the fifth (untitled) track, for example, the band collects some high-pitched samples that might have originally come from a recorder, then spits them back in a frazzled polyphony over an insistent drum pattern. Then, on the next track, the group layers electronics with increasing complexity over a robotic Krautrock groove. The next few songs similarly mix samples with rock instrumentation, and Windsor for the Derby is far better on these tracks than they are on the first few songs on the album.(3/5)
The Emotional Rescue LP
Review by Michael Chamy, The Austin Chronicle
Which of the following does not describe the longtime sort-of-local group Windsor for the Derby? 1.) cerebral. 2.) groovy. 3.) sappy. Anyone who's heard these mostly instrumental post-rockers, split between Austin and New York since core member Dan Matz left for the Big Apple in 1996, would answer No. 3 in a heartbeat. This is a band that, in their time here as a regularly performing unit, never really felt comfortable in a club, only able to truly stretch their wings in oddball venues where they could consume the listener's attention with their sublime, multi-part hypno-rock epics. Well, in the time since Matz left town, the band's sound has given way to the song. Matz and the other Windsor principal, Austinite Jason McNeely, have reinvented Windsor for the Derby on their fourth proper LP, The Emotional Rescue. Where the old Windsor was tight and lean, the new Windsor is sparse, easygoing, and filled with vocals. Love songs, even. The lyrical prowess is here, but the detached, half-spoken vocals make the album sound like the emotional investment isn't. The real crime of this change, though, is shelving the rhythm in favor of a droll, meandering accompaniment. Only McNeely's title track, maybe the sappiest song of them all, really works, because it's full of energy and rhythm, yet still shows off the band's rich instrumental prowess. For a full primer on the old Windsor, Emperor Jones brings us Earnest Powers +, a new odds-and-ends collection. A band that has always been concerned with album flow, Windsor appears to have stockpiled some quality material. Earnest Powers + is a brisk walk through Windsor's enthralling web of circular grooves, including a pair of very successful drum-machine experiments. It jams, and it's got a playfulness about it -- it's Windsor for the Derby's Ciccone Youth, only they bring their strong A-game to these B-sides.
(The Emotional Rescue) **
(Earnest Powers +) ***
Review by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Fakejazz.com
Songs of love and loss are the last things I would expect to hear on a Windsor for the Derby record. Their pervious 3 LPs have, more often than not, been mesmerizing exercises in mechanical compositions, and what little lyrics were sung or spoken could hardly be discerned behind precisely placed vocoders or a wall of arpeggiating guitars and low level keyboard drone. Their last LP, Difference and Repetition, began to break their mold, but it's this, their 4th LP, that finds Windsor for the Derby completely and comfortably bearing their skin. Almost all the songs have lyrics, and both singer/guitar players (and founding members) Dan Matz and Jason Macneely execute them in subtle and acute ways that contrast each other well. The opening track, "The Same" finds Matz soft-spoken whisper over top a bed of organs and a poignant acoustic guitar. It works well as an opener and sets the mood for the whole LP, not unlike slow Sunday mornings in the summer time, when everything is transparent. "Awkwardness" and the title track find Macneely searching for love and dealing with loss among Factory-esque guitar grooves and up beat drum-pop. "Fall of 68," a romantic and reminiscent track in the middle of the LP, has hazy piano notes and back porch acoustics which are definitely a high point of the LP, Kenny G-style sax notwithstanding. The mechanics and chilly rhythms aren't all gone though, and "Mythologies" only serves to prove that Windsor for the Derby can still carve out songs that start and stop on a dime. The closing track, "Donkey Ride," calls to mind the cover art of the LP, a dream like image of a city, and invokes the same suspended feeling. It's a decidedly quiet and simple way to close a beautifully open and emotionally loud LP. (rating 10/12)
Review by Eddie Jorgensen, Sacramento News and Review
Hardly another posthumous slowcore act following in the footsteps of its idols, Windsor for the Derby has been releasing music since 1994, embracing the greater attributes of its contemporaries. Like many of Michael Gira’s projects, Windsor has embraced elegance over posturing and has captured melody though sparse arrangements--as on the fine opening track, “The Same,” or the closer, “Donkey Ride.” The Emotional Rescue LP succeeds with lush acoustics, piano and saxophone. “Now I Know the Sea” and “Awkwardness” are a few additional tracks that hint at this Austin, Texas-based quartet’s love for seminal Chicago textural acts such as the Sea & Cake. Windsor is currently on tour with Portland-based prog band the Swords Project throughout July; it’ll be interesting to see how its sound translates into the live setting. Odds are the show will be a real treat.
Review by Andrew Magilow, Splendid
The fourth release from Austin/NYC's Windsor for the Derby finds this reclusive band creating organic tunes through a mixture of spatial manipulation and gentle vocal phrasings. However, unlike previous releases, where the focus was almost exclusively on mellow beats and methodical changes, Windsor has consciously channeled its reserved energy into writing poignant lyrics that fill out the skeletal framework constructed by the band's customarily sparse instrumentation.
For long-time Windsor followers, the eight-minute opening number "The Same" is a far cry from familiar territory. Warm, wispy vocals take center stage, accompanied by minimalist guitar chords, creating an unexpectedly cozy tune. The band even goes so far as to add a humble vocal melody that blends well with Farfisa organ and perfectly plucked notes. After a few listens, it's quite apparent that the mindframe that created the cold, almost robotic-like creations of the group's past work has been radically jostled, sending its owners into previously unexplored musical territory.
"Emotional Rescue" is not a Stones cover tune, but it could be the most poppy and upbeat Windsor track to date, with moderately paced guitars and a light, jazz-flavored drum beat. For those seeking familiar territory, "Donkey Ride"'s lazy, reverb-soaked guitar will bring to mind the band's earlier, weightier and more hypnotic material, leaving you feeling dazed and lethargic.
Emotional Rescue's high point is the winding "Fall of '68". Incorporating frail vocals and a brilliantly simplistic guitar melody, "Fall" wraps itself around you without ever raising its volume or changing its tempo. In turn, "Mythologies" could be considered the archetypal Windsor tune of the bunch, as its well defined structure and repetitive notes take their inspiration from the band's back catalog.
If you considered past Windsor for the Derby releases too low-key or monotonous for your tastes (I certainly did), the Emotional Rescue LP asserts the fact that the band not only has exceptional songwriting talent, but has finally concocted a potent mixture of poppy melodies to complement their core of tranquil notes and minimalist orchestrations. Windsor for the Derby has reached a critical career juncture; they've recognized that a more vocal-intensive approach adds new depth to their structured compositions, creating a smoothly flowing stream of grand hymns and graceful guitar work. There's enough variation here to entice those previously uninterested in the band, while a fundamental familiarity will most certainly satisfy the group's existing fan base.
Review by Ronald Andryshak, JUNKMEDIA
There's nothing as timid as turning acoustic after playing electric for a while—or so I'm told. They say it's much like using a bayonet against an army with submachine guns. Years of bending sound, forsaken for the wistfulness of an oddly tuned acoustic instrument? Imagine a world where Sonic Youth, after releasing EVOL, decided that their cagey, art-punk sounds weren't worth pursuing. Rather, they devote the rest of their career to Bert Jansch covers and coffee shop banter. Blech! Regardless of what your opinion of NYC's Murray Street stalwarts is, be thankful it didn't happen. On the other hand, one must remember Sonic Youth did change over the years. From grunge (Dirty) to glam (Goo) to epic (Daydream Nation), their digressions into melancholy have held up furtively alongside their punk beginnings.
Windsor for the Derby's newest release seems to follow a similar career arc. Previous audio explorations by Windsor found them delving into the cerebral proselytizing and ever popular snooze bar instrumentals that Popol Voh, Tortoise and their imitators have perfected. On The Emotional Rescue LP, the fourth full-length from this New York-via-Austin outfit, Windsor have dug their heels deep into the gravel and cultivated the ideas planted on albums past.
The seed in question can be found on 1999's Difference and Repetition. Released on Michael Gira's very own Young God Records, Difference and Repetition featured little of the experimental organ dronescapes or electro-fuzzed freaking and tweaking found on previous releases; namely, the Metropolitan and Poland EPs.
With acoustic guitars featured more prominently in the mix, which is pushed even farther on The Emotional Rescue LP, their sound has quickly became introspective in scope, responsive and rhapsodic in concept. If the sublime melancholy of the pensively glowing guitars doesn't touch a nerve, the heartfelt vocals surely will.
The album's first track, "The Same," opens with a sparse, whirring organ melody before laying bare its six-stringed acoustic whimsy. "A warm June day/ In a wintertime dream/ The crisp and true breeze/ Of the northeast spring." The haiku imagery treads beautifully through the seasons before Windsor dozes their way back over the pond with a chorus that explains "It's the same, It's the same/ As when I hear you call my name/ Every other love is put to shame."
"Indonesian Guitars" is a slow motion make-out instrumental for friends and lovers. One worthy of several listens. This is the sort of music I get excited about. It reminds me of the first time I heard John Fahey; damn it, it even reminds me of the first time I was introduced to Pullman's exercises in Faheyism.
The title track, "Emotional Rescue," is another favorite, featuring airy Thurston Moore-like vocals and a crescendo that stops short of a caterwaul. The song cleverly falls in on itself with a solo that expands on the plodding bassline and heavy-on-the-ride drumming before blooming with new harmonies as the tempo increases.
Having made a name for themselves touring with the defunct and sorely missed The Swans, Bedhead and the bombastic And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Our Dead, Windsor begins to feel more and more like the red-headed geek no one wanted to dance with at the prom. After a few spins of The Emotional Rescue LP, it's hard to understand why. All of the bases are covered: lots of melodies, endearingly passionate lyrical observations and ace studio gadgetry. Regardless, they've yet to make a splash in a pool filled with artists who've managed a quicker buzz with far less effort (turned on MTV2 lately?). The Emotional Rescue LP gets an eight out of ten, and listeners not familiar with Windsor for the Derby will find it's a great starting point.
Review by Matt Shimmer, Indieville
"The Emotional Rescue LP" is Windsor For The Derby's fourth album since it was started, and it also marks the band's first release on Aesthetics. The band has added a few members to its roster, and as such this album is slightly different from its predecessors.
"The Emotional Rescue LP" is very moody and emotional, and although the band does occasionally bring in some happy elements, the album comes off as being slightly depressing and moving. Although the album is actually broken into nine songs that are separated with silent pauses, the whole LP manages to go by like one big movement, as opposed to merely a collection of tracks.
My favourite piece was definitely "Fall of '68," an amazingly beautiful pop song that features the best chorus I've heard in a while. When the restrained saxophone playing eases into the piece, you can literally feel the strings tugging at your heart, and the singer's slightly agitated voice only enhances the emotional experience.
Meanwhile, "Awkwardness" is another excellent song. Taking cues from the music of labelmates Hood, the track whisks by in a gust of dreamy guitars, padded drums, emotional vocals, and throbbing bass. When it finally fades away at the end, you'll feel slightly detached from the world, only to be brought back to Earth by the suitably-titled "Another Rescue," which seems almost like a confrontation - it's a very close, warm song, and this distinction juxtaposes with the other tracks, which tend to be less personal and more epic.
As I previously mentioned, "The Emotional Rescue EP" comes together like one big movement. Despite the diversity and individual distinctions of the songs, the album finds itself as one big whole. By the end of this whole, you'll be completely drained - yet fully satisfied.
89%
Review by L'entrepot
Windsor for the Derby, one of the pioneers of postrock is finally back with a new record: 'The Emotional Rescue'. The slave makes it already clear, the black shadows of the past are gone, instead there is a more brighter clearer sound, symbolised by the gentle white on the cover. The sound is more open, with minimal arrangements. Silence has become one of the most important instruments. The absolute height on the album is 'Fall of '68', an almost traditional folk song, barged by acoustic guitar. Piano and sax hovers through the song. But also the others songs on 'The Emotional Rescue' are coming close to pure beauty.
Review by Matt Fink, Allmusic
Taking a slightly different route than on their previously uniformly solid releases, Windsor for the Derby eschews the weighty instrumentals of their past in favor of a mix emphasizing vocals, solemn acoustic guitars, and florescent keyboards. On their fourth album, the minimalist and hypnotic tendencies of their past remain, with Dan Matz and Jason McNeely remaining as the only full-time members of the band. Now walking the line between spacy folk and chamber pop, the arrangements of twinkling guitars and intricately repeated rhythms give the set a much different dynamic than their previous recordings. If that entails that The Emotional Rescue LP is their most accessible release, that isn't to imply that this is a shrewd attempt at commerciality, as tracks like "Mythologies" offer more than a few reminders of their old sounds. Enchanting in a newly cinematic way, moments such as "Now I Know the Sea" and the title track enjoy an emotional intimacy that was not always apparent in their earlier releases. All in all, a release that seems to present a band on the verge of an artistic breakthrough.(4/5)
Review by AM, The Eye
Austin, Texas' Windsor for the Derby seem a lot less angular and gloomy than they used to be. Maybe they realized that Tortoise-style aloofness is hard to maintain. (Plus, it feels good to smile every once in a while.) On The Emotional Rescue LP, this skilled collective come off like a more sedate Sea and Cake, all heartfelt vocals and chamber-pop soundscapes. "Fall of '68" features pensive guitar work and oh-so-subtle sax flourishes, while there's an engaging twang to slow-burning ballads like "Indonesian Guitars" and "The Same." Rating 3/4 stars.
Review by Kara Tutunjian, Earlash
Upon first listen, it would be easy to lump Windsor for the Derby in with the Thrill Jockey set of Chicago, Illinois. There is an unmistakable brightness and gentle propulsion to some of the guitar work that quickly evokes the feel of a summer joy ride or bicycle excursion often conjured by the Sea and Cake. Yet there's something different about this band that separates them, brings them to a sparser landscape, and reduces the atmospheric humidity by ninety percent.
Unpretentious, metered vocals, almost spoken, sometimes multiple and in unison, give a gentle haunting that spans evenly across the prairies of Austin, Texas -- Windsor's home base. Delicate guitars that slowly wind around and cross each other's paths are laced with sleepy keyboard meanderings. While "Emotional Rescue" and "Mythologies" are definite nods to Chicago, there is an overall thriftiness to the body of the sound and the melody, as well as a '60s haze to the male vocals that give Windsor for the Derby the air of a collective sage.
The mood is more varied as well: slipping into the nostalgic '70s vocals of the Rolling Stones ("Fall of '68"); creating a playful Asian sound that doubles as a banjo promenade ("Indonesian Guitars"); taking us on a gentle merry go round ("Donkey Ride"). This music allows for space to think and years to ponder, and it's no wonder that it has attracted the support of established musicians like Michael Gira.
We Fight Til Death
Review by Chris Toenes, Pop Matters
Future Days: Windsor for the Derby merge their out-sound with lyrical songs
Windsor for the Derby are one of those groups that continue to contort and reassemble themselves over time, retaining elements of their former selves while taking things somewhere else, and We Fight Til Death bears out this progression. First, a little history: as Windsor for the Derby has evolved over its 10-year existence, their body of work has expanded and contracted with flourishes of stylistic growth unique for a group once pigeonholed as "post-rock". The term itself may go on to be known as the most benign catchall phrase, topping even grunge; describing a wealth of disparate musicians working on the fringe of rock music idioms, or who simply added some minimal drone to a curiosity for leftfield art music.
Windsor started during an Austin, Texas musical renaissance that included bands like their sister group, Stars of the Lid, along with label Trance Syndicate's stable, and Virginia's Labradford, who were tuning into a Brian Eno vibe while their indie rock peers tinkered with lo-fi melodies. Dan Matz and Jason McNeely worked with a revolving cast of collaborators over the course of several records, producing primarily instrumental, progressive meditations on drone and groove. In 1999, they moved into a partnership with Swans founder Michael Gira's label Young God Records, Matz collaborating with Gira on What We Did. Gira was impressed by the group's penchant for noisy mantras built on loops and overrun guitars, while keeping a pulsing rhythm loosely attached to the framework. The title of the group's record during this time, Difference and Repetition, hints at their modus operandi, as well as to where they would eventually take it into pop forms.
Two years ago, Windsor released The Emotional Rescue LP, which served as Matz and McNeely's noticeable break into melodic territory, adding vocals and some strummed-guitar chug. Rescue is full of hummable songs with catchy hooks, but also maintains the band's foothold in the realm of drone and experimentation. We Fight Til Death follows in this vein, and gloriously so. The irresistible pop overtones of the slow-build leadoff cut, "The Melody of a Fallen Tree", and the beautiful lyrics in guitar workout "Nightingale" show their lean towards the altar of off-kilter pop through the use of simple structures. "Black Coats" nods not-so-subtly to New Order, an obvious pioneer of mixing guitar rock with dance sensibilities, but the cut is, sadly, over too soon. Straight four-on-the-floor dance beats make appearances throughout the record, adding a bit of electronic structure to the washes of guitar fuzz. If Krautrock pioneers of the infinite beat Can ever wanted to make a pop record, "For People Unknown" would be on the Windsor demo justifying their working together. It is simply the best current example of the constant heartbeat percussion and swirled drones made famous by Czukay, Liebezeit and associates, while remaining a sing-along number. The title cut takes another step to the fringe, with industrial rigidity and a psychedelic tint. Overall, this record is strong throughout, illuminated with inspiration and optimistic subject matter.
If their move to Philadelphia is indicative of the change in the band's current focus, the city of brotherly love is putting a warm tone to WFTD's music these days. And unlike most of their peers under the early '90s "post-rock" tent, they haven't been left in a graveyard of nostalgia and self-reference. Windsor for the Derby remains as vital and adventurous now as they were then. Who knows where they'll take it next.
Review by Johnny Loftus, Allmusic
Working at their own pace in the Indiana-based home studio of Dan Burton, Windsor for the Derby's Dan Matz and Jason McNeely seem to have established an anything goes mentality. We Fight Til Death swings between elongated post-rock experiments and vaguely tense, concise indie. It has its moments, to be sure, but also suffers from detachment, like a sonic daydream. Fragilely delivered, opaque lyrics mar this Death, getting in the way of instrumentation that's always organic, precise, and inviting. Luckily then, Windsor for the Derby includes songs like opener "Melody of a Fallen Tree," an eight-minute controlled burn that builds from a consistent guitar rattle and breathy organ into what sounds like a tickling post-rock tribute to New Order. There are some weak vocals in there, but the jamming overtakes them. Same goes for "Nightingale." "The Door Is Red" is a contemplative piece that winds spidery, faraway guitar through an insistent drumbeat, while "Flight" spends a few minutes on the tonal, hesitant plain, garnering Windsor's usual comparison to Labradford. The title track and "Black Coats" spike this relative tranquility with screechy distortion and the angular, compressed rhythms of post-punk, and "A Spring Like Sixty"'s warm acoustic strumming, pretty violin, and quite gorgeous, languid pace offers yet another side of the group's sound. We Fight Til Death gets distracted easily; all of its ideas are great, but they don't always come to fruition. Still, that same gripe might actually attract listeners who like schizophrenic albums.(2.5/5)
Review by Derek Miller, Pitchfork Media
In her steam-dreamed masterpiece, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison insists that, "If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it." On their first two albums for Trance Syndicate, Windsor for the Derby took this possibility for granted. Covering thick, steel-curtain guitars with enough space in which to flop around, they seemed content to play aural scavenger, assembling the myriad junk-sale parts for you but demanding your own images and vicarious frameworks. So it comes as something of a surprise that on their sixth album, We Fight Til Death, Windsor seem to carry a grudge and make jagged accusations. One can't but imagine that, if pressed, they'd now flick a dandelion spore in Ms. Morrison's bluest eye and hum something about the vacuity of the word "surrendered."
Well-played post-rock was always the bedrock of Windsor's sound, but they've added angst, a flayed post-punk edge, and new-wave organ loops to their ambition, creating a sound that should be familiar to Yo La Tengo fans, yet remains distinctly this band's own. Beginning on 2002's The Emotional Rescue, Windsor began to use vocals for more than just their innate musical timbres, and some of the foggy mutterings and inaudible wordings began to become genuinely decipherable. A subtle move away from their previous soundscapes, that album showed them reaching beyond academic musings, spawning teeth in the process, and learning how to gum at-- if not to gnash and grind-- the periphery of their sound.
Now, on We Fight Til Death, Windsor for the Derby has put those incisors to use. The band hasn't lost the ability to soundtrack your lunch-hour daydreams, but the pacing on this album never subsides into monotonous quiet/loud dynamics, and the surprises all seem to throb with enough tension and release to avoid scattershot inscrutability. Indeed, Windsor seems to be asking: What is a vacation without the hourglass grind of the workday? So once the drifting, lysergic burst of gorgeous opener "The Melody of a Fallen Tree" subsides, the sweaty humidity it creates must break. It comes like a dank, determined storm on the ringing guitars on "Nightingale", committing the unspeakable bastard mash-up of Doors-derived incandescence with the anthemic rhythms of Talking Heads.
Windsor head back to their roots on the moody "The Door Is Red". It's post-rock with a noir-punk sensibility-- too gassed with inert pleasures to ever rise to its feet-- and it uses that sangfroid refusal to fill the air with arrangements based on stillness and pensive voids. The song revels in hesitation, and while its guitars seem to want to argue the point, they eventually agree to disagree.
After the minor mid-album lull-- the inert "Logic and Surprise" and the forcibly manic "Black Coats", two songs which seem to regress to paint-by-numbers indie rock-- comes the album's most immediately charming song, "A Spring Like Sixty". Atop slow, shuffling drums and flickering acoustic guitar, Windsor creates an arid, itchy ballad that dries the sweat from the record's straining and heaving. Despite all of its unpredictable sidesteps, nothing on the album prepares you for the mechanical Germanic grind of "For People Unknown". Bouncing on lockstep rhythms and a hypnotic guitar, the song's determinedly glacial sounds are both soothing and celebratory.
Closer "Flight" recedes into the distance, sifting itself into smudgy dawns smoked with rotted leaves. The song's stinging feedback is as close to their former material as anything on the album, but it also underscores their growth. You don't need to create your own images with their efforts any longer; this whirlwind work coaxes you into one communal memory after another. Windsor for the Derby is no longer content to merely ride the air--- they're determined to suck it from the room and choke you dim.
Review from Leonard's Lair
Now 10 years into their careers, Windsor For The Derby have always operated under the loose description of post-rock and - much like The Sea And Cake - their career path has moved from jazzy instrumentals to music embracing stronger song structures and languid alternative pop. 'We Fight Til Death' may well be the band at their peak with a fine and varied album that hints at past influences but ultimately has its own distinct trademark. Doomy percussion punctuates 'The Door Is Red' and 'Black Coats' like a Piano Magic record, the title track begins what seems like a mock-up of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and graceful first track 'Melody Of A Fallen Tree' is reminiscent of Dave Greenfield's keyboard work for The Stranglers. Amongst the references lurk 'Nightingale' (repetitive but in a positive, hypnotic way) and 'A Spring Like Sixty'; possibly the defining moment where the subtle melodies really dig in to the brain. With a string of line-up changes already behind them, this is the sign of a band fully at ease with their own comforting and very moving sound.(4/5)
Review by Dave Lilley, cdreviews.com
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, most pictures really aren’t, unless about nine hundred of those words are "boring" or "crap." The cover art of Windsor for the Derby’s latest album, We Fight ‘Til Death, however, says it all. It is unobtrusive, understated, sparse, and seems to present something not altogether cheering in a not altogether oppressive sort of way. It rather presents itself as is and leaves the viewer to decide for himself what to think about it. The sketch is of a wild-eyed bird (a frazzled young crow perhaps?) lying on its back, claws grasping at the sky, which has, presumably, fought ‘til death.
(But one can’t be sure).
Certainty is somewhat elusive when listening to this album. Not within the album itself, but for the listening taking part in it. And that is entirely a good thing; it encourages the listener to remain alert, but like the cover art it does so in a rather unobtrusive way. It is up to the listener to listen, or to ignore. We could go off on a long discussion of free will here, which I would be more than glad to do, but with just the right amount of self-restraint, we’ll skip it—almost. For if we were do go down that road, we might realize that free will is an integral part of being human, and therefore if this album has something to do with it then we can give Windsor for the Derby grand praise for making us all a little bit more human.
The complexities of this album only begin with the issue of free will. While the album retains a cohesive unity, the subtle range of expression from song to song is impressive. The album’s opener, "the melody of a fallen tree," would fit well amidst the songs of American Analog Set’s Promise of Love, while the title track brings to mind (my mind anyway) the Smashing Pumpkins’ incredible "silverfuck." While I can’t quite muster up an image of Billy Corgan singing it, it is easy to see James Iha rocking "we fight ‘til death" on Vieuphoria. Live. To the back row.
Windsor for the Derby more than manages to bring these diverse songs together on We Fight ‘Til Death. While this gives great credit to the production of the album (the tracks flow from one to another very well, so that it is sometimes easy to miss the switch altogether), it also shows the distinct vision of WFTD that went into the songs on this album. There is something—intangible almost—about this album that makes it theirs. Nobody in the world could have made this album but Windsor for the Derby. And they did it well.
From the near-poppy beats (beeps) of the "the melody of a fallen tree" to the more indie feel of "black coats" to the (relatively) grinding guitars of "for people unknown" to the atmospheric fade-out of the album’s closer, "flight," this album is a representation of the kind of work a good band can produce after maturing and evolving for ten years. Windsor for the Derby has achieved "a sound." It is not a sound like The Strokes’ which can be easily identified in a few chords or a song (note: I think The Strokes are great), but rather it is a sound that takes the entire album to fully realize. While the band did not seem to be wandering aimlessly before, on this, their Secretly Canadian debut, Windsor for the Derby seems without a doubt to have a very clear picture of what they are as a band, and how to make great music for all of us grateful listeners to hear, if we so choose.
Review by Jeff Marsh, Delusions of Adequacy
I wanted to start this review with a brief discussion of the use of repetition in music. Repetition may not sound like a good thing; after all, consider how many tired rock bands repeat the same three chords ad nauseum, the same chorus over and over, the same hook. But if done properly, repetition of certain melodic synth and guitar lines can create lush, ethereal soundscapes. Bands have been doing it for years, using repetitive parts of songs to flesh out electronic, ambient, and atmospheric music that takes you to another place. And it’s in that repetition that the song envelopes you, that it wraps around you, becomes familiar and fulfilling.
Windsor for the Derby has perfected the use of repetition in pop music. Over the course of 10 songs, this longstanding band wraps warm melodies, synths and beats and guitar and studio effects and just the right amounts of rock to create songs that are beautiful yet upbeat, ethereal yet poppy. It’s done through careful use of repetition: not the repetition of a single thing but layers of synths and beats and such, and changing often enough that it doesn’t become tiring but rather exciting.
The opening “The Melody of Fallen Tree” is a fine choice for opener, as it starts slow but picks up, wrapping sweet vocals around a gorgeously warm melodic synth and beat. The song has hints of a folky flavor as well. The throbbing pulse of beats and synths resemble a heartbeat as the song flows into “The Cutter” and then “Nightingale,” which, with its body-swaying rhythm and slick guitar line, is perhaps the perfect blend of groove and substance.
My favorite song here is “Logic and Surprise,” which showed up on an Acuarela Discos compilation last year and completely blew me away. A slightly different version appears here, yet the song is still so beautiful. Slow and subtle, with an electronic vibe floating beneath this slick and enveloping beat and soft lyrics, this track is well worth the price of admission itself. But there’s not a bad track here. The band rocks more on “Black Coats,” gets moody with low vocals but upbeat, almost danceable rhythms on “For People Unknown,” and more experimental and mellow on the closing “Flight.”
Although Windsor for the Derby’s core duo of Dan Matz and Jason Mcneely has been together for 10 years now, this fifth full-length is the first I’ve heard from the band. I’ve heard it described as lovely and lush pop and upbeat rock, and these songs mix bits of all of that. With absolutely perfect production, the end result is one that’s embracing, textured, warm, and still fun. It’s an absolutely beautiful album with a unique feel that is all this band’s own. This is one to own and savor.
Review by Andrew Magilow, Splendid Magazine
Living in Austin for many years, I've had plenty of exposure to Windsor for the Derby. Even after the band's primary members, Jason McNeely and Dan Matz, left Austin, we all kept tabs on their whereabouts and steady stream of musical output. Somehow, WFTD stuck it out through the trying times, honing their mellow and sometimes moody post-rock as they went.
As witnessed over the years, Windsor for the Derby has effectively evolved from an experimental instrumental rock band to prudent purveyors of melodic sleepers. Several tracks on We Fight Til Death could almost be mistaken for alt-radio gems, except that WFTD refuse to confine their music to a short, calculated time frame, and listeners with short attention spans are therefore unable to cope. Repetition and length still play pivotal roles in Windsor's work, hypnotizing ears with ambient drones and minimalist instrumental explorations.
2002's Emotional Rescue LP hinted at Windsor's melodic predilection, and as expected, Death continues the trend. The quizzically titled opener "The Melody of a Fallen Tree" is incredible: its charming backbeat and wispy vocals have a pop vibe, while winding keyboards and mild-mannered guitar add several dense layers to the mix. The result is eight minutes of tasteful aural bliss that should satisfy longtime followers and entice fresh ears to dig deeper into the album. "Logic and Surprise" begins with a psychedelic vamp, a buzzing Moog and warmly sung vocals. A delicate piano speaks in unison with the vocals as low-key analog bleeps chime in. It sounds like Elliott Smith hanging out with some blitzed-out, anonymous '60s Kraut rockers. Campy organ and a strutting drum beat accompany the stripped-down rocker "A Spring Like Sixty". WFTD are notably confident with their vocal presentation, proudly layering them over the thin chords. Gone are the days when McNeely and Matz buried their lyrics under the weight of many musical layers, or simply went without them, leaving the instruments to do all the talking.
The band's early day experimentalist flair has definitely taken a backseat to their contemporary hook-intensive approach, but glimpses of the past still appear. I'm drawn to the Joy Division-inspired drones on "The Door Is Red". Neurosis even comes to mind, as something mighty sinister brews behind this "Door". Trembling guitar accents the prominent yet simple bass line, driving the tune toward a grand conclusion. You expect an explosion of guitars, or a severe vocal lashing, but that's simply not WFTD's style; the band prefers to leave you hanging on, wondering what could have been if the track had continued for a few more minutes.
The title track is a dramatic departure from the rest of the disc. The feisty, war-torn monster bleeds distortion and sweats poignant, snare-kissed beats. A wall of sound is quickly erected, only to be shattered by angular, angry guitar that has Slint written all over it. Thankfully, you can still count on some things remaining the same with Windsor for the Derby.
Eerie album-closer "Flight" embraces feedback, erratically squealing out its message. The piercing tones are eventually replaced by cavernous piano notes, perhaps symbolizing the band's career transition from tangled, post-rock-inspired guitars to the more solemn and spatial work of the past few years.
While residing in Austin, Windsor for the Derby always came across as a cold and distant band. As they've progressed from cross-country collaborators to New York City residents to their current home in Philadelphia, a noticeable warmth has begun to emanate from their music. Repetition still drives the point home, and WFTD still retain an experimental element in their songwriting, but We Fight Til Death is the first album in the group's 10 year existence that has not only turned my head but made me quietly jam along. McNeely and Matz have found their calling and left a lasting impression with this fierce yet fragile album.
Review by Sean Ford, Cokemachineglow
Sometimes a new member can invigorate a band that’s either running on its own fumes or has tired out all the ideas in the toolbox and needs someone to put a new spin on things. Such was the case with the addition of wunderkind Jim O’Rourke to Sonic Youth, and, on a lesser scale, apparently the same thing has happened to Windsor for the Derby.
Because Windsor for the Derby has inherited more from new member Timothy White (I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness) than his old band’s penchant for pink and white cover art. Windsor’s somewhat droll and atmospheric space-rock sound benefits greatly from the angular, cutting guitar and new-wave/post-punk songwriting sensibility that White brings. It’s amazing what a little songwriting can bring to a post-rock band that likes to create sonic dreamscapes. I like a good sonic dreamscape and all that, but a little direction through that dreamy haze is always a good thing. Newcomer White may or may not have a lot to do with this, but the fact is We Fight Til Death features sprinklings of the frenetic tension that ILYBICD featured in spades on their 2003 self-titled debut. It’s this tension and moodiness combined with the spacey, pretty melodics Windsor has made their name on that make Death an interesting and worthwhile listen.
Sometimes, the repeating chiming guitars will be buried deep in the mix, haunting it like the ghost of new-wave past and sometimes they’ll jump out and flash you like a lonely old man in a trench coat. Opener “The Melody of a Fallen Tree” sounds like a deranged slow cousin to New Order. Make no mistake, this is still laid-back atmospheric rock, but with a hint of tension and added guitar interplay that can make it sound like a good Interpol song (remember those?) slowed way down. The singer sounds quite a bit like Califone’s lead singer, Tim Rutili, here. “Melody” segues seamlessly into “Cutter,” a track which I could imagine rocking a night club filled with grad students studying for final exams somewhere in the mid-West. The beginning to “Nightingale” samples the sound that happens when you open a door in the original Zelda (1986, Nintendo), and lurches into what sounds like a solid I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness song with a techno underbelly and absolutely wretched lyrics.
Then there’s “Logic and Surprise” and “Black Coats,” the one-two punch in the middle of the album that sounds the most similar to White’s Darkness work. “Logic and Surprise” is a slow building electronica-tinged dirge with nice lyrics that features a mounting tension that somehow never releases, until “Black Coats” rolls around.
Had I heard “Black Coats” before hearing this album, I would’ve just excitedly thought it was a ILYBICD song, so close does it come to that band’s sound. But this is not a bad thing, and that has to be partly White’s contribution. It makes me wonder if I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness has broken up, but at the same time not mind too much if this band is going to feature White’s stylings. “Black Coats” is also delightfully abrupt, and in an album full of droning songs, it’s decidedly welcome.
“For People Unknown” sounds like a more spacey Joy Division. This is either blatant pandering to a market that can’t seem to get enough dance-anything at this point, or a hell of a dance song. About a minute into the song, you realize it’s mainly a hell of a slow building dance song. It’s odd to be mentioning dance-ability so often for a record that’s mainly atmospheric, but it is precisely so and perhaps that’s one of things that keeps me listening. Windsor utilizes angular repetition and mounting moodiness to build songscapes that eventually just make you want to dance, but with your hands in your pockets.
Frankly, this is an odd listen, it’s as if someone gave Low a pulse at points and then the next song will just meander away into the distance like a sad kite. Some of the songs just never find an idea that’s worth as much time as Windsor allots it. The production sparkles throughout, and on certain songs, it’s marvelous, but on others you wonder why exactly they spent so much time producing and so little editing the song down (“The Door Is Red” comes to mind).
In the end, that’s where Death fails. It needs an editor. So while the addition of Timothy White has made the band more diverse and added a new dimension to the Windsor sound, there’s still work to be done.(rating = 73%)
Review by Michael Chamy, The Austin Chronicle
Windsor for the Derby is an ongoing saga of growth and change, like a personal blog with a 10-year archive. It's primarily the story of Jason McNeely and Dan Matz, who founded WFTD in Austin in the mid-Nineties before briefly relocating to New York and then becoming a geographically separated collaboration that continues to this day. We Fight Til Death is the latest chain in a colorful evolutionary process. After years as an engrossingly meditative, instrumental concern, 2002's The Emotional Rescue EP was a quiet collection of song-driven bedroom confessions. Only problem was, they'd forgotten the bells and whistles along the way. We Fight Til Death carefully runs both sides of Windsor through a Cuisinart, and in the end a new, tasty puree results. "The Melody of a Fallen Tree" is the striking, eight-minute opener and high point, a bright, layered piece with lyrical complexity, lush keyboards, and a driving beat. Throughout Death, one gets the sense that this version of WFTD has some of the same goals as the other Austin band McNeely founded before bowing out last year: I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness. Namely, snippets of gothica integrated into a robust post-Cure party shake, which never come at the expense of the focused precision and attention to atmosphere and nuance the group's always had. We Fight Til Death is a fine comeback from one of Austin's more intriguing indie subplots.(rating 3/4)
Giving Up the Ghost
Review by Fred Cisterna, The Stranger
Certain '90s post-rockers and their descendents can be pretty dull. Despite all that fancy instrumental layering you can still end up with a lot of stale napoleons. Windsor for the Derby clearly enjoy stacking opposing styles—but on their sixth and most recent full-length, Giving Up the Ghost, the resulting strata actually have an impact.
WFTD mainstays Dan Matz and Jason McNeely are clever with their songwriting, however oddly put together the songs might be. Their vocals are never simply afterthoughts: They signify. The group's material is catchy without being overworked. The songs are complex yet natural; they're not self-conscious sound widgets designed for maximum college radio play.
"Giving Up" is a case in point. About three minutes into this amazing track, a hypnotic instrumental groove emerges. The buildup of drums, cycling guitars, and other elements creates a deeply wistful vibe, even before the vocals return to take things higher. The song lasts almost seven minutes and winds through several changes, and it ain't just a crafty studio concoction. "Praise," "Shadows," and "Gathering" all feature a neo-'80s edge that comfortably fits into the album's overall flow. In fact, Giving Up the Ghost is the kind of disc where everything—folkie strumming, rock minimalism, and harsher sounds—cozies up nicely.
3/4 stars
Review by Cory D. Byrom, Pitchfork Media
Windsor for the Derby has seen its fair share of changes over the years. The group formed in Tampa, where the core duo of Dan Matz and Jason McNeely were joined by drummer Greg Anderson. Since that time, the band grew to a four-piece, then shrank again to just Matz and McNeely, and those two have moved all over the country, with McNeely residing in Austin, Texas, and Matz calling various East Coast cities home. In summer 2004, however, the two both moved to Philadelphia. As a result, Giving up the Ghost is an anomaly in the band's catalogue. Instead of being forced to get together semi-annually to share ideas and record, WFTD were able to record in their home studio, creating an album that is more fluid than past efforts, yet retains the band's characteristic disconnected feel.
Windsor for the Derby's music has always been a bit of a mish-mash. Long instrumentals borrowed from post-rock sidle up next to folk-tinged pop songs; jarring, discordant guitar lines ramble over subdued electronics. And although Ghost doesn't really break from that mold, it finds the band moving further into the quiet, low-key ambience they've been flirting with on the last couple of discs. Most of the songs feature solemn, at times almost whispered, vocals, with several songs employing haunting, catchy hooks.
"Empathy for People Unknown" uses layered vocals and droning keyboards to create the hollow atmosphere that permeates the disc. Elsewhere, the band flirts with new wave on "Praise" and post-punk on "Gathering"; both fine examples of their knack for taking on a variety of styles while still sounding distinctive. In fact, that dichotomy, that ability to at once sound fresh and conventional, has always been on of WFTD's greatest assets. Perhaps it's a result of Matz and McNeely building their musical relationship from different parts of the country.
The strongest number here is "Giving Up", a dark, wistful ballad that begins with strained vocals and acoustic guitar that slowly lead into a somber, repetitive middle section, building to the refrain, "It's probable/ Things fall apart." It's the sort of tune that could change Natalie Portman's life in Garden State II.
There are only two instrumentals: Opener "Dirge for a Pack of Lies" and "The Front". The former features an odd, minimalist beat accented by what sounds like an accordion, while the latter is the closest thing here to post-rock, with swirling echoes of keys, guitar harmonics, and other muffled ambient noise surrounding plaintive acoustic guitar strumming.
With the addition of Anna Neighbor and Charlie Hall to the line-up, Windsor for the Derby has once again branched into full-band status. The fact that this line-up has been frequently performing live only strengthens the cohesiveness of Giving up the Ghost, which may stand as the band's most focused disc to date.
Rating 6.8/10
Review by Jay Breitling, Junkmedia
Windsor For The Derby principals Dan Matz and Jason McNeely, who have called many locales throughout the U.S. home since the band's inception, in 2004 established residency in the same city (Philadelphia) for the first time in years. The resultant windfall of time together (along with some new collaborators) seems to have tightened the veteran post-rockers' focus for its sixth record. The sort-of title track, "Giving Up," holds court at the center of the 35-minute set as both an obvious focal point and ably executed example of the band's aesthetic. Ushered in with acoustic guitar and a thin vocal, the song piles up repetitions, builds a droning head of steam and finally cuts loose a drumbeat before delivering the record's biggest, and most depressing, chorus: "You say every secret word, and then you go it alone..."
Similarly strong are the quietly percolating rockers "Empathy for People Unknown" and "Praise," songs that give voice to widely divergent influences: the former suggests an affinity for Grandaddy, while the latter (along with its successor "Shadows") channels darker Joy Division urges than those that buoyed Interpol to prominence. There is some irony in following up a record called We Fight Til Death with one titled (and as vital as) Giving Up The Ghost. However, Windsor For The Derby doesn't sound as if it has succumbed to anything save for its singular atmospheric pop tendencies.
Rating 4/5
Review by Johnny Loftus, Allmusic
After 2004's We Fight Til Death Windsor for the Derby principals Dan Matz and Jason McNeeley relocated to Philadelphia separately. The close proximity removed the "project" tag from Derby's name, since Matz and McNeeley could now spend indefinite amounts of time recording and playing shows with WFTD. They also added full-time personnel on drums and bass guitar, and nothing says "band" -- not "project" -- like a rhythm section. These tweaks to the formula likely account for the dramatic sonic shifts in 2005's Giving Up the Ghost. While Death had more vocals and a greater melodic sense than past records, Ghost is its own mysterious pop animal, an immediately unique and curious document that suggests slowcore, unplugged Yo La Tengo, introspective indie-folk, and the post-rock/experimental voyages WFTD's always taken. "Giving Up" begins with a gentle acoustic guitar and pained, wizened vocals; soft percussion brushes come in, and slowly a clamoring electric guitar and faraway harmony vocals appear out of the mist. It's definitely pop, but it's been deconstructed and refashioned. Unlimited studio time definitely has its charms. The crisp, nimble "Empathy for People Unknown" could be the Aluminum Group, while "Shadows" is claustrophobic and tense, driving toward a payoff for its wiling bass guitar and freaky, flanging keyboard effect. The song's vocals are once again buried in the background, giving it a gauzy quality that's just incredible. You think you can touch it, but then you can't, and it's like a dream unfolding all around you. Red House Painters and Low are also touchstones for Giving Up the Ghost. Acoustic guitars strum along to feedback in unseen chambers, and "Every Word You Ever Said" revels in the space between its halting notes until a shimmering, liquid-mercury keyboard drifts into the frame and drums tumble in between. But for all its faraway humming and quietly steady pace, Windsor for the Derby has still made a "band" album. It always sounds recorded live, and the instruments join in at such an organic pace, it's not like someone pressed a button or clicked a mouse. Giving Up the Ghost is truly a record of atmospheres, and you can't create those in the mail.(Rating 4/5)
Review by David Bernard, PopMatters
Windsor for the Derby's Giving up the Ghost is an unusual piece of music. Therefore it is my job (as the music critic) to tell you (the concerned public) whether the music is worth your time. But here's the thing. I read reviews as much -- or more -- than you do. With a nearly infinite amount of music and a less than infinite amount of free time, I rely on critics to tell me which releases aren't a waste. I even glanced at the reviews of WFTD's last album in preparation for reviewing this one. What I found is that critics love them. They wet themselves over any band willing to buck the verse/chorus/verse format. A great difference exists, however, between a band incorporating so many sections into their songs that verses, choruses, bridges, pre-choruses, etc. are indecipherable, as compared to a band that drones on and on with the same bits repeated. WFTD are the second type of band. Verse/chorus/verse structure is scant, but ingenuity often is, too.
When I listened to GUTG for the first time, I projected the previously earned good reviews onto the band and prepared myself for a half hour of quality music. What I heard was initially disappointing. On first listen, the songs sounded fragmentary, the beats sounded flimsy, the lyrics were impossible to make out, and the vocals were poor at best. But I, as a music critic, wanted to praise it all because it sounds like something I should praise. It's the same part of me that wants to praise "Revolution 9" even though I rarely wish to listen to it while plowing through The White Album. Instead of giving in to impulses, I did what any good critic would do. I turned off the lights, put on a good pair of headphones, and listened to it again. Guess what? I felt pretty much the same way. Though the third listen did reveal a little more. Giving up the Ghost is the type of album to play as background music at a party when no one has to pay too much attention to it. Then afterwards, everyone remembers how hip and cool the music sounded. It's often propulsive, sometimes memorable, but only half extraordinary.
After repeated listens, many aspects do gel. The instrumental tracks (the opener and "The Front") are oddly gothic and organic. They blip and boop with the best of Kid A, juxtaposing the beats with acoustic guitars and other natural tones. The dissonant vocals of "Empathy for People Unknown" are acceptable (even catchy) after a few listens, and "Praise" distinguishes itself as the clear standout. "Praise" blasts out of the gate with a jagged guitar tone and a drum machine pounding the Modern English "I Melt with You" rhythm. The song is clearly different from pretty much everything else on the record because it has an actual melody and an actual chorus with actual chord changes. Hesitant keyboard notes give the chorus even more texture and open up the otherwise simple sound. "Giving Up" is the closest thing to a traditional song on the album. It features little more than a finger-picked acoustic guitar, softly brushed drum set, and a persistent tambourine banged somewhere in the distance. The words sound almost as if they were squeezed out of the singer against his will. Then the song transforms into a cathartic release, stretching past the six-minute mark (and nearly to seven) with more prominent guitars, louder drums, and vocals that can very nearly be disseminated. It's all quite good, though a tad longwinded. The final track suffers from the same problem, starting gorgeously and ending after its welcome has run out.
Other aspects of this CD remain baffling no matter how many times they're heard. Backing the vocals on "Empathy" is a seemingly broken organ capable of producing only two chords. The rudimentary drums and oddly delivered vocals don't help the sound. These components are hip for the sake of hip. It might be the catchiest song on the record, but I'm not even sure if I like it. "Shadows" drones and drones, reminding me of Tenacious D's "One Note Song", complete with a bending note flourish every few measures. The vocals are buried so deeply in the mix that the lyrics are not allowed to contribute anything more. It's with this song and others that I long for a traditional verse/chorus/verse structure to provide a little variety. Instead I get "The Light is On", which let's me know that I'm not quite ready to hear another two-chord song. But don't worry, oh concerned listener, because the next track, "Gathering", dips right back into the glory that is a song with only two chords. Can it be true? Oh wonderfully bland day! None of these songs is bad, mind you, simply repetitive.
I would love to quote some lyrics, but the recording doesn't give me enough confidence to decipher them correctly. "Every Word You Ever Said" is the only song with words front and center, and even that song runs two and a half minutes longer than it should. So what am I left with? Giving up the Ghost is a 30-minute album that seems much longer and could easily be trimmed to the mid-20s. Even so, I look forward to reading other reviews. Critics will happily explain why my analysis is wrong and why WFTD are geniuses. I'll learn that I haven't been listening to a good band capable of some greatness and frequent mediocrity. I'll learn that my ears simply aren't mature enough to understand the sophisticated music. Thank God for music critics. (rating = 5/10)
Review by Bill Meyer, Dusted Magazine
With a name like Giving Up The Ghost, you might expect this album to be an exercise in fatalism. After all, Windsor For The Derby has been around for over a decade; for most of that time principal members Jason McNeely and Dan Matz have been based in different corners of the country (the former in Austin TX, the latter in different parts of New York state), and they’ve filled out the band with a long line of part-timers. But they’re far from shuffling off this mortal coil.
About a year ago McNeely joined Matz in Philadelphia, and they settled on a relatively stable line-up with returning bass/keyboardist Anna Neighbor and drummer Gianmarco Cilli (since replaced by Charlie Hall). The effect on the music is a subtle, yet palpable solidification. They’ve melded their early atmospheric excursions and the acoustic, song-based approach of The Emotional Rescue LP with the bold, '80s-tinged beats and intuitive guitar interplay that made last year’s We Fight Til Death so great. And like a batch of chili that’s better after a couple days in the pot, they’ve given these elements time to stew together; this is the first record that the band has recorded at a leisurely pace at home, rather than in a studio on a watch-tapping schedule.
The result is diverse yet coherent, and possessed of enough rhythmic wallop to dispel any titular phantoms. The brief, brisk opening instrumental, “Dirge For A Pack Of Lies,” uses harmonium and hand percussion to establish a caffeinated middle-eastern vibe that flows with paradoxical ease into the new wave-ish keyboard jam “Empathy For People Unknown.” Here and elsewhere, McNeely and Matz use an ear-grabbing guitar lick to resolve the tension between simple, catchy melodies and brooding lyrics. Next up are a couple songs with thick synth textures and bold drumming that bring to mind early New Order, but just as you’re ready to try and zip up your Members Only jacket, they switch up with “The Front,” an eerie, guitar-dominated instrumental. On side two, the changes come quicker and sharper, yet they feel as inevitable as the swings of a pendulum. “The Light Is On” is light and frothy, a tonic before the shuddering rave-up “Gathering.” Far from snuffing out, Windsor For The Derby sounds like a band with a new lease on life.
Calm Hades Float / Minnie Greutzfeldt Reissues
Review by Adrian Pannett, Delusions of Adequacy
In these days of instant-fix – all too often career-dwarfing - debuts, it’s become too easy to dismiss artists who prefer to develop a slow-burning vision. Whilst some do have the capacity to condense their essence – for better or worse - with the first fling of an album release (see Gang of Four’s Entertainment! and Come on Pilgrim by the Pixies for classic examples), others do take more time to realise peak potential. For instance, if people had given up on Sonic Youth after the pretentious cacophony of Confusion is Sex, would we still have heard the career-defining Daydream Nation? Would Yo La Tengo have made it to the seminal mid-term triumph of Painful had the group not previously cut the clumsy jangling of Ride the Tiger? Would Devendra Banhart have delivered Cripple Crow - his fourth and finest album to date – if nobody could had encouraged further excavation of the elemental magic lurking in the lo-fi splatter of his Oh Me Oh My... debut? Such hindsight-heightened questioning is easily returned to the fore now, with these modestly reconfigured reissues of Windsor for the Derby’s first two albums; 1996’s Calm Hades Float and 1997’s Minnie Greutzfeldt.
Were it not for the late-blossoming beauty of WFTD on the group's fourth ‘proper’ album, 2002’s The Emotional Rescue (and its two subsequent sequels), would the band have been remembered as merely minimalist mid-90s post-rock ‘also-rans’? Were the seeds of Dan Matz’s remarkable latter-day blooming as a sublime singer/songwriter secretively sown across these two largely vocal-less long-players? If you love latter-day Windsor releases, can the earlier ones stir the same passion, or do they exist in their own airless vacuum?
Well it’s an equivocating ‘maybe’ to all of those posers. However, both albums undoubtedly capture WFTD in the caterpillar stage, featuring the basic genetic code for unfurled future greatness as well as encasing a stand-alone snapshot of the band in its infancy.
Debut long-player Calm Hades Float certainly does initiate one unbroken WFTD trait: stubborn shyness and wanton evasiveness. There’s barely a shred of sleeve information about the songs, the musicians involved, and how they were created on any of the group’s albums, and until this reissue, the seven original tracks on Calm Hades Float didn’t even possess names. Somewhat sardonically, they’ve now been rechristened as “One,” “Two,” “Three,” and so on. Cutting past the ephemeral aspects of the Windsor world, musically Calm Hades Float is unapologetically mired in the era from which it came. Which means Matz and co-pilot Jason McNeeley leading us through eerie Labradford-like ambient guitar ‘n drone sparseness (“One” and “Two”), Tortoise-aping rubbery bass, drums, and electronics (“Three” and “Seven”), chiming arpeggios and brittle rhythms à la Aerial M (“Four” and “Six”), and the dreamy electro-pop of “Five,” with Matz’s tender taciturn tones briefly surfacing (making it the closest forbearer to latter-day WFTD recordings). Overall, Calm Hades Float may not be earth-shatteringly original, but it’s far from being an embarrassing flick through a collection of the band’s baby photos either. The bonus tracks are pretty intriguing too, especially the contemporary live recording of “Mythologies,” a mesmerising Krautrock affair that finally appeared in a studio incarnation on the aforementioned Emotional Rescue in a virtually unchanged arrangement.
Minnie Greutzfeldt doesn’t dramatically mess with the formula of its predecessor, but it does feel like an even more introverted beast - that is high in ambience and low in drama. The sparsest strands of Calm Hades Float are revisited and reduced to an even less-resonant sonic footprint. The slow-motion emptiness of the opening trio of tracks culminates in the self-descriptive “Stasis,” a barely audible hum that almost makes any early-Low recording sound like a raucous speaker-shredder in comparison. On the hypnotic “Bass Trap,” the band sound more alive, with interwoven low-end twang worthy of Doug McCombs’s Brokeback project. The midpoint of “No Techno w/ Drums,” however, takes a time-travelling tumble back to Brian Eno’s 1975 experimental classic Another Green World, with warm electro-acoustic guitar strum and fuzzy keyboard washes. “When I See Scissors” and “Useless Arm” both make pleasant enough nods to The Durutti Column and Mogwai, but it’s the closing electronic glistening of “Skimming +” that acts as the album’s most memorable moment. What really makes the Minnie Greutzfeldt reissue worthwhile, however, is the addition of the marvellous Metropolitan then Poland EP. Splicing searing synths, choppy drums, groovy bass-lines, and jagged guitars, the five formidable tracks resemble a ragged distillation of Fugazi’s Instrument, Can’s Tago Mago, and Billy Mahonie’s What Becomes Before, proving that WFTD’s muse has always hid some sparkle beneath its darker surfaces.
Whilst these two reissues may not resuscitate revelatory lost gems, they do however elevate Windsor for the Derby’s early back catalogue beyond mere footnote status.
How We Lost
Review by Adrian Pannett, Delusions of Adequacy
If life was ever truly fair, then Windsor For The Derby would be nearly always be mentioned in the same breath as Yo La Tengo, The Sea And Cake, American Analog Set, Slint and Gastr Del Sol. Yet the group – led by the co-founding duo of Dan Matz and Jason McNeely – continues to hold a painfully unobtrusive position below such a high-pecking order. Whilst much of this could be down to the (un)natural injustices of the music world, it’s hard not to think that Matz and McNeely probably planned some of it this way; given their wilfully oblique live shows, their taciturn response to critical interrogation, the minimalist visual presence of their catalogue and their defiantly unfashionable sonic furrow-ploughing. But despite themselves, Matz and McNeely have - since the pastoral near-perfection of 2002’s The Emotional Rescue LP - cut a slew of smoulderingly sublime recordings that might one day help WFTD to be acknowledged as a genuinely special band. And come that time, this latest long-player would undoubtedly be near the top of the essential listening list.
Smudging the darker streaks that made its predecessor - 2005’s Giving Up The Ghost - a little less approachable than Emotional Rescue and 2005’s balmy We Fight Til’ Death, the self-deprecatingly anointed How We Lost is possibly WFTD’s brightest, dreamiest and most melodic statement to date. It’s twining of tuneful tenderness and tension-releasing energy finds the ensemble reassuringly at ease with itself.
The languorous “Let Go” opens proceedings with an elegiac ‘80s Factory/4AD drum and dronescape with Matz’s hushed tones declaring, “Grab a hold of everything you know - and let go,” as if it were a some form of personal manifesto commitment. Whilst it’s perhaps a circuitous calling-card for what follows, it reinforces the feeling that the members of WFTD care about little besides living inside a self-contained bubble. By the second track we’re into the blissful fuzz-rock of “Maladies”, which bleeds into the wordless throb of “Robin Robinette”, that in turn glides into the gorgeous shimmering chug of “Fallen Off The Earth”. At the LP’s midpoint, the delightful harmony-saturated “Hold On” wafts into earshot, reincarnating The Beach Boys’ Carl and Dennis Wilson with a serene Spiritualized space-rock groove. It’s the kind of song that could/should be a bonafide ‘hit’ across the airwaves, albeit in a more enlightened parallel universe.
With Matz relaxed and optimistic over an unplugged duet of guitars, “Forgotten” keeps the bar raised high with an unintentional – but certainly not unwelcome – nod to Jim O’Rourke’s masterful Halfway To A Threeway EP. The ensuing “Troubles” folds back How We Lost into an electro-acoustic mesh that buries Matz’s pipes deep into the mix in preparation for “What We Want” and its blur of string-bending, loose percussive bedding and nagging organ motifs. The graceful “Good Things” remains roughly within the same dense sound collage before the finale of “Spirit Fade”, which strips away some studio layers for an elegant almost ecclesiastical drift into a foggy undetermined distance - leaving you wanting more than the whole album’s somewhat terse 36 minute running time. That’s part of WFTD’s charming stubbornness though; just when you think you might have figured-out what makes Matz, McNeely and co. capable of such captivating craftsmanship, they down tools and fly back into their own mystery.
Although How We Lost is still unlikely to earn Windsor For The Derby some long-overdue kudos amongst the art-rock intelligentsia, it deserves to be recognised as one of the warmest and most quietly revelatory records to be released this year.
Review by Joe Tangari, Pitchfork Media
Over their last few albums, Windsor for the Derby have traveled steadily further from their roots in 1990s post-rock and into the realm of melodic indie pop. Vocals went from being little smears in the mix to fully-formed, coherent carriers of melody and understandable lyrics, rhythms lost some of their krautrockiness, and they generally became a better band. As of their eighth LP, the band's always-fluctuating membership stands at five, with Jason McNeely and Dan Matz in the lead, as always.
They haven't totally abandoned their old post-rocking ways-- they're still as much about sound as they are about songs, and some of this record's inconsistency stems from relapses into meandering soundscapes, albeit mostly brief ones. Little ambient doodles like the mostly inert "Robin Robinette" and the disheveled-sounding "Troubles", which features guitar playing totally out of rhythm along with barely discernible mumble-singing, just don't fit anymore amidst cranking, memorable rock songs such as "Maladies" or "Fallen Off the Earth".
The first two thirds of the album are mostly filled with crisp songs. Opener "Let Go" rises from a placid tone pool into a moody, minimal number with floating, doubled vocals, fluttering organ figures, and a nice, clean guitar part-- it's supremely uncluttered and bodes well for the rest of the album. "Maladies" largely delivers on the promise with its thumping beat, good guitar riffs, and fantastic wordless chorus. "Hold On" and "Fallen Off the Earth" flow in a similar vein, falling back a bit more on the band's familiar motorik-derived sense of rhythm, while the nicely understated guitar-and-voice track "Forgotten" features possibly Windsor's best lyrics to date, with simple ruminations on being remembered and growing old.
Then there's the matter of the album's final third, which takes a headfirst dive into grainy shoegazer territory with little in the way of warning. Though "What We Want" is actually quite good, subsuming the noisy guitars in favor of organ and harmony vocals, it stills feels disjointed next to what comes before, and the other two closing songs aren't as memorable. Indeed, after years of indecision as to what kind of band they wanted to be, Windsor for the Derby seem to have finally opted against ever deciding. And that's really not a bad thing-- while it's not a masterpiece or terribly cohesive, How We Lost still manages to pack a lot of interesting and even excellent music into its 36 minutes.
Rating: 6.7/10
Review by Eric Hill, Exclaim!
Texas bands seem to have a weird affinity for UK rock, and WFTD offer a big clue with their moniker. Over 12 years and eight albums, their spiral sound frequently swept over early ’80s Factory records on into early ’90s shoegazing. On How We Lost this spiral touches down squarely, though the band’s modus operandi has been more about generating the atmosphere than aping the specifics of certain My Bloody Joy Divisions. Opener “Let Go” features a light but primal drum pattern and skeletal bass line straight out of Faith-era Cure, but the echoed vocals and reedy keyboards keep things from getting too mopey. Their willingness to go with a pop wash of guitars and la-la-las makes this their most consistently “up” album to date, reaching a sugar high on the Beach Boys “wheeeooo” harmonies of “Hold On.” One surprise that jumps these rails is “Forgotten,” an Americana acoustic song that reminds us which side of the Atlantic these lads are from. A couple of brief, spacey sound experiments aside, this is a quick and uncomplicated listen for those whose lives have lacked new Swervedriver or Pale Saints for too long.
Review by Dan Raper, Pop Matters
How We Lost is the eighth album from veteran independent rock group Windsor for the Derby. The band’s been around for around twelve years now, in various forms and in various locations scattered around the country. They’re now based in Philadelphia, and have filled out the original duo’s at times sparse sound with a few new members and recording help from a bunch of other musicians. In their Philadelphia studio, you can imagine these seasoned musicians obsessively layering their familiar sounds into new arrangements of limpid psychedelic-tinged rock.
What might cause you to take an interest in a group like this—one that has remained firmly but unremarkably true to the musical ideas that it first lighted on all those years ago? Unfortunately, competent though it is, How We Lost seems to say, “not much.” In 2006, Secretly Canadian reissued the group’s first two albums, Calm Hades Float and Minnie Greunzfeldt from 1996 and 1997, respectively; these may have sparked some new interest for the group. At the very least, they provided an instructive historical perspective. In comparison, How We Lost is much more mellow and coherent record. This is obviously the result of a more mature band.
The best songs on How We Lost create mellifluous springtime atmospheres out of which snatched melodies emerge. You feel like digging around in these songs to find the pop heart, but it resists easy discovery. Instead, on a static and lovely song like “Good Things”, the structures are intended to confound. The songs often stretch for four or five minutes, but it’s because there are long introductions and short codas; it’s a compositional technique Sonic Youth has also used successfully. “Maladies” is a more upbeat take on the general form established here, and it’s more impactful for the raised energy. And the final song on the album, “Spirit Fade”, is a sweet send-off. The mid-tempo song builds with stereo guitar lines into perhaps the closest the group has come to a triumphant chorus. Then it ends abruptly—a neat promise of more music to come from this workmanlike band.
You occasionally feel that the coiled nature of these songs could be reflected in some lyrics of particular insight—it’d match the studied intricacy of the guitar lines. Instead, we’re given platitudes and clichés: “I feel alone in the City / I wanna be near you always”, e.g., in “Good Things”. Without this impact, and lacking the muscular power of an otherwise similar band like the Besnard Lakes, Windsor for the Derby just sort of float by without leaving too much of an impact. Sure, the rhythms are offbeat, the guitar lines blend into each other in rich harmonies; it’s just that something—passion, maybe?—seems to be missing.
“Hold On” might be where Windsor for the Derby state most explicitly their goal for How We Lost. Over the big, echoing guitar lines the lyrics talk about finding “the secret place, the simple place”. The group’s interested in paradise; turns out it sounds something like the Jesus & Mary Chain. That’s OK, because that song, and a few others on the album, provide something close to an adequate soundtrack.
Rating: 6/10
Review by Nick Neyland, Prefix
Is it possible that post-rockers Windsor for the Derby could have any gas left in the tank after seven albums and numerous lineup and label changes? The Philadelphia-based band hasn’t exactly souped-up its engine for How We Lost, which instead finds core members Daniel Matz and Jason McNeely expanding on the folk-meets-shoegazer experimentation of 2005’s Giving Up the Ghost.
Clearly Matz and McNeely see Windsor for the Derby as a slowly evolving beast, with each new album offering a further set of mournful vocals, Eno-esque ambiance, and gently plucked guitars. They really hit their stride on standout tracks “Maladies” and “Fallen Off the Earth,” which are rare excursions into the kind of upbeat dream pop that Yo La Tengo has turned into a trademark.
Rating: 7/10
Review by Scott Bryson, Chart Attack
Windsor For The Derby have been around for 12 years and nine albums, but they sound irrepressibly young and modern. For those that have shied away from their past records because of "post rock" labeling, this is definitely the time you should jump in. How We Lost starts off in much the same way that Young Galaxy's self-titled debut did — a hypnotizing slow burner followed by an unapologetic rock anthem — and it's an irresistible formula. These boys aren't afraid to experiment either; the album's third track is a continuous loop of reverb that clocks in at more than two minutes, but works well as a cooling-off period. There's an undeniable Jesus And Mary Chain influence on this disc, and its presence is a little surprising, because WFTD admittedly overproduced in search of perfection. How We Lost does fall a little short of perfect, but it's a definite statement that this band are heading in an enjoyable new direction.
Review by Thomas Rooker White, Detour
Giving Up the Ghost, Windsor for the Derby’s 2005 album, was made with the benefit of having the entire group living in the same spot. Windsor main dudes Dan Matz and Jason McNeeley collaborated in a studio together instead of trading tapes through the mail, and they settled on a full-time rhythm section. The result was an album that sounded more like a band than WFTD had in a while. It’s like that on How We Lost, too, which travels to the legendary melancholy and dramatic, sometimes claustrophobic shimmer of Factory Records for material such as “Hold On,” “Maladies,” and the angry bees in a sewer system intro to “What We Want.” There is also “Fallen Off the Earth,” which sets its mechanized trolley rhythms against spiny guitars, halting harmonies (hello, American post-punk), and even a bit of keyboard. Over twelve years and seven albums, Windsor for the Derby have never responded well to structure or templates, which means the more cohesive and sightly louder moments on their eighth full-length counts as rock band material. They offset this with brief interludes like “Robin Robinette” — it’s little more than a warbling keyboard tone — and “Troubles,” where guitars pluck and whine like animals pawing at the same piece of meat. These pieces don’t really go anywhere, but they work as counterpoints to WFTD’s desires to soak the flinty sound of early 80s Factory bands with introspective American post-rock.
Review by Parasites & Sycophants
How We Lost, Windsor For The Derby's follow up to 2005's Giving Up The Ghost is out on Secretly Canadian. Opening with morphing drones, joined in by drums and a pulsating bass, first song "Let Go," has an ominous haunting feel broken by a floating key riff. With the tone set, the album shifts to a higher gear on mover "Maladies," propelled by noisy guitar and a very cosmic ambiance. How We Lost then slips in to the instrumental lull, "Fallen Off The Earth," before rejoining the tide with the upbeat mood and sunny harmonies of "Hold On." There is more to digest here, like the acoustic revelation, "Forgotten," the swirling cyclical style of "What We Want," and interstellar exoticism of the album's finale, "Spirit Fade," which has a looser tone than the rest of the album, perhaps implying resolution or just letting it all go. Good times and Good adventures.
Review by Angela Zimmerman, Crawdaddy!
Of all the albums that are released each month, there are always some that are considered growers. Ones that remain out of the mainline of consciousness, ones that speak to people with the patience, fortitude, or faith to keep on investing in the complexities of a record, even though the first few listens may not stand up on their own emphatic legs. Oftentimes slow and convoluted, these growers may get overlooked or cast aside because of the time required to extract its brewing beauty or significance. Growers may even stand less of a chance today than ever before—there are so many bands putting out albums, and if an album doesn’t speak to you somewhat immediately then it’s easy to move on to the next, right? Windsor For the Derby’s new album How We Lost is an understated but intricately crafted example of an album that becomes more and more appealing the more time I spend with it.
It’s also one that fares best through headphones. The accompanying one-sheet claims the band “spent the last year and a half writing and recording the How We Lost record. Holed up for days on end in their Philadelphia studio, they recorded and re-recorded obsessively until every sound was exactly where they wanted it.” This is the stuff that post-rock is made of: Ambient guitar and layered instrumentation awash on a plane of subtlety. Every detail well orchestrated and deliberate, How We Lost is quiet and brooding but also breaks out into crescendos of subdued candor, most notably on the album’s second track, “Maladies”, which is a lovely transition from the nearly creepy intro, “Let Go.”
The album continues in this deliberately restrained manner, from slow burning songs like “Fallen Off the Earth” into the quickly moving “Hold On.” In its entirety, How We Lost is not an album that will move me per se, but it’s a commendable one with its selective choice of encompassing instrumentation that abstains from becoming too heavy-handed or pretentious. The focus of the band is tangible, and it’s possible to discern some of the controlled frustration that went into this recording. Again, the one-sheet qualifies that “Gear broke, hard drives crashed, gear broke again, and nervous breakdowns ensued.” How We Lost is the band’s eighth album, an impressive run for a group that’s never really broken out from a niche side of the underground.
“Forgotten” is a plucky, thoughtful ode (“Are you worried you’ll be forgotten / Without your story told / So sad to be forgotten / And grow old alone”), and the following “Troubles” is a meltdown of post-rock sound reminiscent to Mogwai. The following “What We Want” is a dreamy dance of a song with lyrics that don’t dig in too deep, as they are nearly afterthoughts to the album’s overall atmosphere: “What we want / To close our eyes / What we want / Is close your eyes / What we have / To lose we rise.”
This is not a revelation, nor is it an essential album, but it’s one that is beautifully crafted and continues to gain strength and durability with each listen. There will always be a place for dedicated and graceful albums like How We Lost in the rock canon.
Review by Kieron Tyler, Mojo
Elegant fusion of '80s northern bleakness and sunny pop.
Windsor for the Derby's seventh album follows their contribution to the Marie Antoinette soundtrack. The influences of core members Daniel Matz and Jason McNeely are clear, but the band's musical identity hasn't been submerged. This compelling and subtle mood music washes from the speakers like the unexpected child of Factory Records circa 1984 and The Beach Boys. How We Lost's opening textures recall Bowie's A New Career In A New Town. Then a bass guitar dips in, evoking Section 25. Maladies, the next cut, draws on Low Life era New Order but takes off with some "bah-bah-bah" vocal lines that no serious-minded '80s band could have countenanced. From this point, the album soars, balancing the ethereal against the melodic - most grippingly on midway cut Hold On. Potentially, Windsor For The Derby could become the bluster-free Killers it's OK to like.
rating: 4/4
Review by Peter Watts, Uncut
Subdued, sporadically excellent post-rock.
After their slightly disappointing 2005 album Giving Up The Ghost, mercurial post-rockers Windsor For The Derby have returned to form, rediscovering the variety and imagination that made 2004's We Fight Till Death such a treat. However, every album is different with this lot, and How We Lost sees them channelling a New Order and Factory Records groove, particularly on superb opening track "Let Go". A melancholic air hangs over the record, but there's also space for the Teenage Fanclub uplift of "Maladies" and the faintly country twang of "Forgotten".
Rating: 3/4
Review by Kyle Lemmon, The Line of Best Fit
Post-rock bands follow such similar artistic paths that the outcomes have become almost funny. Windsor for the Derby doesn’t escape this formula. They started in the 1990s as a pure post-rock outfit with heady krautrock leanings. Over the course of Windsor’s discography, as post-rock groups are wont to do, they’ve whiddled down their palette. The irony comes in regard to the audience. Post-rock purists tend to detest the emasculation of “their music” for conventional melodies but new audiences can’t quite get their heads wrapped around bands like Windsor for the Derby. Their ceaseless waffling between genres is baffling.Its certainly a tough conundrum for the veteran group to shake. Windsor recently received a small amount of notice for their blip on the movie soundtrack scene with their 2004 song ‘The Melody of a Fallen Tree’ appearing in Sofia Coppola’s Marie-Antoinette. The light nylon guitar strums and the rise and fall of an organ motif buttresses that song’s pop lullaby lyrics. Nothing is quite as frolicsome on How We Lost but Dan Kurtz’s[sic] lyrical urgency remains - if only heard through a murky shoegaze haze on too many tracks.
Surprisingly, singing and lyrics haven’t been a stranger to Windsor’s music but you wouldn’t guess that was the case on previous outings. It was cloaked in their aural theatrics before. Now everything is precise and clear on opening track ‘Let Go.’ The telephone dial-like tone in the beginning echoes underneath the doubled vocals and little organ flourishes. The melodic guitar line carries the mood well into the more raucous ‘Maladies.’ It is the band’s most clear tip towards Psychic TV but one could argue that many song’s on this release and others fall into the same category. The wordless chorus is bouncy and harmless and lets up for a distorted close. Another die hard habit that holds over from Windor’s early days takes shape as the glacial ambient track ‘Robin Robinette.’ It feels out of place next to to the more rock-centric and slightly motorik ‘Fallen Off The Earth.’
‘Hold On’ moves along like a Stereolab song with its whirring tones and percolating percussion. When Matz’s introductory falsetto vocals drop into lower registers it sounds a tad shameful though. ‘Forgotten’ sees one of Windor’s frontmen trying the singer-songwriter mold on for size. The quick shifts in genre keep things interesting for not much longer though as the dead legged second half falls on your ears. With this being Windor’s eighth LP, the band’s revolving door lineup has seemed to take its toll on the Austin, TX collective. Jason McNeely and Dan Matz try their best but ‘What We Want,’ ‘Good Things’ and ‘Spirit Fade’ are dismally murky affairs. ‘Good Things’ seems to be the worst offender with its plodding cadence and spectral vocals. How We Lost certainly contains some merits but its many detractors keep it from being anything but another step wiggle registered on the same ladder. Yet another victim of the post-rock curse. Sigh.
Rating: 64%
Review by Ned Raggett, The Quietus
Tampa, Florida outfit Windsor for the Derby must occasionally feel like they’re rather out of time and place. For a while in the late nineties, however foolish it might seem now, it appeared that the church of rock had suffered an irreparable schism between nü-metal and post-rock, a genre mysteriously born after people started listening to Slint albums. Windsor for the Derby, of course, belonged to the latter wing, releasing quietly acclaimed albums such as Calm Hades Float, Minnie Greunzfeldt and Difference and Repetition as the decade wore on. Yet although they might have faded from view as they scaled back to just two core members, they’ve continued to persevere in their own quiet way.
It’s common to read a mention of a group, hear about a member’s solo or side project and suddenly think “Yeah, what DID happen to them,” only to discover they’ve been recording and releasing all the while, thanks very much. In a time of overwhelming media saturation, this is the baseline, not the exception - to think otherwise is to flatter oneself.
And so, How We Lost seems to be almost too fitting a title, a final admission of surrender to a babbling rabble that no longer cares. Indeed, this is something also echoed in more than a few of the song titles " ’Maladies’, 'Spirit Fade’, and so on. So it’s both comforting and surprising to hear the low tones and steady drumming on the opening ’Let Go’, pause to scratch one’s chin, and then realise that the singing is sweetly beautiful. Similarly, it’s great to hear a song like ’Maladies’ that invokes the mantle of Joy Division but doesn’t sound like freakin’ Interpol at all. Windsor For The Derby continue to explore the now decade-old sounds for which they were first known " the motorik rhythms and Beach Boys harmonies on ’Hold On’, the serene post-shoegaze glimmer on ’Good Things’. That these might be considered in some circles to be passé in 2008 can only make them better.
It’s suddenly and appropriately gratifying to hear a band so removed from the suffocating context of one time to sound different in another. The pageantry of whatever indie rock is supposed to be these days all too often crashes in as a deluge of hyperbole, when it's rather merely a revolution in a cycle that'll inevitably pass its course. Windsor for the Derby, by contrast, can perform a gently sparkling song like ’Fallen Off the Earth’, and sound genuinely happy to be there.
Review by James Skinner, Drowned in Sound
Remember that scene in Adaptation when Meryl Streep and the one that isn't Nic Cage are on the phone, simulating the calming, soporific whir of a dial tone? If not, well, it sort of goes like this: two characters, thrown together in a bizarre scenario (this, lest we forget, is a Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman film) gradually develop a relationship of sorts, and in one phone conversation pitch their voices together effectively recreating – yes! – a dial tone. Memory is hazy, but what stayed with me (to the point where I’m clumsily relaying it now) is the soothing, quietly transcendent nature of sound – not music as such: more resonance, and its capacity to gracefully (unwittingly) unfetter and unite.
So why impart in the first place? Well, because on the opening track of Philadelphia-based Windsor For The Derby’s eighth studio album, this is exactly what unfurls itself upon the listener. There’s no pomp, no spectacle – merely an aurally inviting flow indicative of the album as a whole. ‘Let Go’, for that be its name, is an invitation to do exactly that, and willingly surrender yourself to what follows: “Grab hold of everything you know / And let go”.
Yet How We Lost doesn’t actively vie for your attention; in a musical classroom where Foals make overtly intelligent interjections, Crystal Castles belligerently swing on their chairs at the rear while The Kooks brazenly excrete into their exercise books, Windsor For The Derby are more likely to be found winsomely gazing out of the window – or perhaps sitting on a university green quietly assessing the scene – because, really, they’re nothing like these bands. The comparison is obsolete, almost, for theirs is a sound more seasoned, less informed by what’s ‘now’ (with merit or without) than what satisfies them; what they can achieve, and whether eight albums and myriad line-up changes down the line, it’s ultimately still worth it.
A year and a half gestation period (that found the band painstakingly imbue upon this record a sound with which they were collectively pleased) is reflected in the end product – as stated, this doesn’t hit the spot immediately, drifting by listlessly at first, reverb-heavy double-tracked vocals and deliberate though languid tom-tom strikes of assistance in this. But give it a few listens and the finer touches – flourishes of keys, for example, or twinkling melodies previously imperceptible – become apparent, hidden depths gradually though assuredly revealing themselves.
‘Maladies’, for example, is an M83-esque swirl of shimmering pop, ‘Hold On’ a persuasive, tuneful sojourn you could mistake for My Bloody Valentine at their very sunniest. Even the ambient meander of ‘Robin Robinette’ makes complete sense in this context, and while ‘Spirit Fade’ makes for an appealing closer, ‘What We Want’ is perhaps the key offering here, typifying the gentle insistence felt elsewhere in a slow-burning, evocative push.
It’s not, admittedly, a groundbreaking album, and nor is it perfect. It is, however, a quietly pulsating and frequently intoxicating proposition, ebbing and surging in all the right directions, tailor-made, almost, for headphones and spiralling train journeys. In its loose themes of acceptance and rebirth, it also offers an increasingly rare sense of hard-won contemplation.
Rating: 7/10
Review by BC, Chimpomatic
Certainty is luxury these days, I mean to really know something for sure be it good or bad. I know England aren't going to go out of Euro 2008 to Portugal, I know I'll never pay money to see a Tarantino movie again. Musically, I know I'd rather stick pins up under my finger nails than go to a Kaiser Chiefs concert and that Michael Jackson's Billie Jean is one of the greatest 3 minutes life is likely to provide. So all these things are banked, I know where I stand, but the same can't be said for my feelings for Windsor For The Derby. In my vast gamete of appreciation that holds Billie Jean at one end and Kaiser Chiefs at the piss stinking other, Windsor For The Derby would probably fit in the better half - occasionally creeping towards the top but then slipping back down to the wasteland of the middle ground. When they creep slowly in the direction of the the hallowed Billie Jean pinnacle it would be during the eight minutes plus of the blissful The Melody Of A Fallen Tree which opened their 2004 album We Fight Till Death. This song is so pleasing, so complete and so sublime it tears the rest of the record down around it. The record is by no means bad, in fact there are some great moments but none that come close to its opener, and the same could be said for their follow up, How We Lost.
The success of The Melody Of A Fallen Tree throws my certainty out the window with this band. My love for it casts a searching eye around the songs that lie at its feet and though their are many a fine moment on How We Lost I am agin left wanting and confused. None of them come anywhere near the depths of the Keiser Chiefs but in a way I wish they would, at least then I'd know where I stand.
This band's talent lies in 2 thongs, their courage to go on past 4 minutes, although only 2 of them hit the 5 minute mark here, and their Krautrock/Joy Division/ New Order tendencies. When all of these things happen in the same song their position on the scale shifts in their favor. The album starts off well with the hollow sounding Let Go kicking things off and the gritty guitars of Maladies continuing the momentum. Fallen Off The Earth sees the band in familiar territory with steady rhythm building slowly but surely to a subtly layered finale. But it's Hold On that picks this album up by the scruff of it's neck and carries it to greener pastures. Running down the center of the record Hold On's patience and persistence reminds me of why I think I sort of like this band. It maintains the same steady pace as its predecessors but where lesser songs would reach for the fade button this one forges on, long outlasting the gentle vocals with a majestic guitar solo. It aint Melody but hey, it's getting there.
The trouble is it's surrounded by the usual fillers that ultimately condemn this album to yet another not quite memorable effort that does little to convince me of my opinion of this band. There's way too many ambient time wasters that only serve to dry up the once rich pastures of the mentioned high points, leaving a slightly moist wasteland of mediocrity.
Rating: 2.5/5
Review by Jill Wilson, Whats on Winnipeg
Most of the latest full-length from Philadelphia-based Windsor for the Derby will send fans of mid-'90s indie rock on a pleasantly nostalgic journey, back to a time when guitars gently buzzed and swirled moodily over subtle but insistent drumming and muffled but sweet-sounding vocals.
Fallen Off the Earth is a shoegazer's dream, a lovely combination of prettiness and grittiness, with sparking synth under the guitars. Troubles, however, with its intentionally mismatched rhythms and off-key noodlings, comes off as art-school wankery and a waste of time when the band is capable of writing such briskly entertaining songs as Maladies, a layered, fuzzy confection with a muscular beat, a bada-bada sing-along chorus and frisky tambourine.
Unfortunately, the album takes a detour to Dullsville on the last couple of tracks, but there are some dreamy pop stops along the way.
Rating: 3/5
Review by Dan Osmolowski, Wireless Bollinger
New Romanticism is new again. Within the last month we’ve seen Cut Copy and M83 fall back in love with the melodrama, naivety and exuberance of those heady days of pop. We can now count Windsor for the Derby as a willing participant in the push to elevate synthesizers, metronomic percussion and jangly guitars to flavour of the month status.
By their own admission, WFTD are also enamoured with the Factory Records back-catalogue and the iconic label provides a worthy inspiration for an album whose sound is distinctive yet difficult to pin down at the same time. The triumphant pop triumvirate of ‘Maladies’, ‘Fallen Off The Earth’ and ‘Hold On’ is the jewel in How We Lost’s crown and provides plenty of options for radio singles. The way in which ‘Maladies’ ramps up after a chug-along opening is exhilarating: some minor key riffing bursts into a wall of sound chorus that simply climbs and climbs.
‘Fallen Off The Earth’ is an example of how reverb can be used in the production of a song to deliver an engulfing experience for the listener. Where the likes of Beach House (who practice a more mellow brand of dream pop) overuse the staple of shoegaze to the point of suffocation and tedium, WFTD’s more direct and aggressive approach to song writing relegates the reverb to an atmospheric trimming as opposed to sounding like an instrument all of its own. The final cog in the wheel, ‘Hold On’, marries some Beach Boys harmonies to synth undercurrents and is reminiscent of The Radio Dept.’s insistent rhythms or a dirtier American Analog Set.
How We Lost is not a one-trick pony. More often than not, a willingness to display a grasp of a range of styles and blend them together is the signifier of a great album. But at other times it’s the singularity of the artist’s vision and their ability to stick to what they do best that makes an album work. In this case, Windsor for the Derby have attempted the former but it has turned out to be their Achilles’ heel. The muted soundscape of ‘Robin Robinette’ is unnecessary, but at least it serves to introduce the album’s centrepiece in ‘Fallen Off The Earth’. The cynic in me might suggest that such an instrumental ‘song’ lengthens the album as opposed to value adding any real element to the narrative. The hypnotic textures of opener, ‘Let Go’ are memorable and the interplay between the rhythm section’s tom-toms, blunt kick drum and rubbery bass provide some nice textures but they seem to lead nowhere, only serving to make the transition to the rock of ‘Maladies’ slightly jarring.
Unlike a good literary or cinematic experience, How We Lost climaxes halfway through its 10 tracks, allowing the latter half to meander without any real purpose. If it were not for the percussion-less, acoustic lament of ‘Forgotten’ (which reminds of Australia’s excellent Underground Lovers) the last five tracks could have forced a rename of the album to ‘how we lost it’. In the context of the album’s focussed opening, ‘What We Want’ is messy, ‘Good Things’ is tired melancholic shoegaze and ‘Spirit Fade’ is just plain lazy song writing – a sort of generic dénouement that posits a slow wind down is the only way to conclude an album.
How We Lost clearly outlines how Windsor for the Derby are to achieve world domination: play simple, catchy-as-hell pop songs; ramp up the drama and don’t worry about being clever. The new wave/new romantic revival needs another willing participant to extend it’s run… and quickly, before the young kids starting bands begin to dig their mums’ Kenny Loggins and Bonnie Tyler records.
Rating: 68/100
Review by Austin Powell, The Austin Chronicle
Windsor for the Derby's catalog, composed by former Austinites Dan Matz and Jason McNeely, marks a series of sequential relationships, each album a reflection of what preceded it. With eighth LP How We Lost, WFTD's tales of distance and time finally come full circle, balancing the tranquil ambience of 1996 debut Calm Hades Float (reissued in 2006) with the more melodic moments from 2005's Giving Up the Ghost. Recorded over a year and a half in Philadelphia as a quintet, this ebb and flow becomes immediately apparent in opener "Let Go," which moves from pacifying Eno-esque tones to shoegazed pop (not unlike its contradictory counterpart "Hold On"), while the more upbeat "Maladies" ripples into the camera-shutter reverberations of "Robin Robinette." "Forgotten" revisits the bedroom acoustics of 2002's The Emotional Rescue EP, and ethereal closer "Spirit Fade" presses forward through the blankets of reverb. Windsor may wander, but they're never lost.
Rating: 3.5/4
Live
Review by Ollie Russian, Drowned in Sound
The venue: Brighton Sanctury Cafe
The date: 6th January 2003
Windsor for the Derby are a four piece from Texas, three guitars, 2 guys singing and a drummer. I've always loved the sound of 3 guitars playing together, not in a wanky Billie Mahonie style but in an understated heart-string pulling kinda way.
The venue should be a perfect setting for the band, intimate and confined, however during the first song things do not go well for the band. Obviously tired after travelling all the way from Belgium earlier in the day the band are far from happy, when in the middle of the first song the venues owner decides they are playing too loud. For most of the crowd this seems like complete bullshit, how can softly sung vocals and the sound of 3 clean electric guitars possibly be too loud? For a few minutes it looks as though the band are just going to pack up and leave, thankfully they persevere and we're treated to 'a quieter set'.
It's beautiful. When there are vocals present they are softly sung and dripping in emotion, kinda Bonnie-Prince Billy / Papa M-esqe but set to a beautiful backdrop of testing guitar melodies all pulling in different directions and yet meshing together to build up into a gorgeous gel of sound. Individually each guitarists plays in a minimal and stripped down style usually with one picking, one strumming via a delay pedal (the best invention since the electric guitar) and the third acting the part of bass guitar producing simple bass-lines somewhat reminiscent of the high-end bass style of Peter Hook. Coupled with simple, pounding drum beats, the Joy Division comparisons again resurface, however unlike the rip-off merchants that are Interpol et al the comparison is only fleeting but does the trick.
Windsor are an amazing band, building up intense melodies and hooks through repetitive guitar lines then introducing new beautiful riffs that interweave their way through your heart and soul. Like Godspeed! they don't have to rely on hitting a distortion pedal to take a song to that next level, they can be intense without hammering the listener into submission with a wall of screaming guitars, believe me this is a difficult skill to achieve. For the first time in ages I witnessed a band that made me want to rush home and pick up my guitar again (which I duly did!).
Anyway enough of my ramblings, you should get down to their gigs this week and witness them for yourselves, they play The Social in Nottingham on the 7th January and at the Arts Cafe in London on the 8th January and their fourth album 'The Emotional Rescue LP' is out now on Aesthetics records! (rating 4.5/5)
Review by Trine Bjørkman Andreassen, Robots and Electronic Brains
Windsor for the Derby/ ML @ Sanctuary Cafe, Cella, Brighton
(6th January 2003)
Some places are built for great gigs and some have great gigs thrust upon them. Unfortunately the Sanctuary Cafe in Brighton falls rather heavily into the latter category. You are more likely to eat a tofu and nut paté sandwich in the basement (or Cella as they so wittily call it) than hear cool new music. This venue bizarrely only allows two musicians on stage at any time and doesn't allow them to play at any volume approaching audible. And what have we got tonight, ML, a new hardcore electronica project which prides itself on the military technology used to make the bass rip apart your speaker cones, followed by Windsor for the Derby, a four, yes four, piece band with a real drum-kit, presumably real drummer and real amplified electric guitars. This is not going to be an easy ride for our American friends, who are on their first UK date of their European tour, and it looks dangerously like a blind one...
As I arrived early I was lucky to witness the tortured moment when the band where politely informed that only two of them would be allowed on stage at a time, and oh could they keep the volume down. Windsor having just flown in from the continent seemed completely and utterly blown away. No doubt they had heard of England as a quaint little place with bizarre oldy-worldy habits and customs, but man, come on, what the fuck is this? Their expressions said it all, first disbelief, then amazement, denial, and then fear. Fuck these Brits are for real, they are for fucking real. They are asking us to somehow rewrite our set for two people and to play in semi-silence.
After a series of negotiations with the cafe they up the number to three. Now this is real crazy for the Americans. They can have three of their four-piece. Like yeah that makes much more sense. So who do we lose? The drummer, the singer, a guitarist. Er.. right. They storm off and call an impromptu Windsor meeting. They are not very impressed. Meanwhile ML is soundchecking the loud tortured sounds of lonely analogue keyboards being impaled on digital bit crunchers. This is clearly not helping the tension in the room.
It looks dangerously like the Windsors are not going to play ball with this particularly English googly. All eyes focus on the band as the promoter goes off to convince the owner to compromise, maybe only two of them will play at once, perhaps they can stand on each others shoulders, maybe they will play alternate parts, god knows there must be a way through this. And after a long and painful wait the cafe relents, and suddenly its all on again. Hurrah for the English sense of fair play, a fair chance and chips 'n nut-paté. The band sound check, loud and strong, the cafe informs them that there may be four of them but they must be as quiet as mice... this is going to be a strange gig...
Its dark and fucking freezing in the Cella. If they'd had any sense they would have named it the Freeza. The only ones who look even the slightest bit comfortable are the Fat Cat DJs who seem to be having great fun swapping esoteric Mongolian nose-flute electronica, and then playing it for two fucking hours. Great. Bit of a tip boys, sometimes its nice to actually play something that not only the illuminati have heard. It is not selling out if more than five people have heard of the band.
Following the usual Fat Cat obscuronica the first band ML, otherwise known as David Meme vaults onto the stage, he is a brighton based musician who seems to hatch new band identities with every passing day. He kicks off with a gentle sweet electronica number presumably to butter up the cafe owners who seemed to have deposited secret police in the audience to watch for on-stage volume transgressions. And then by track 3, my ears catch the slightest twist of the volume knob, a movement of the bass EQ... With each passing track it is more like listening to a band than a radio playing faintly in another room. And yet there are stirrings across the room, the volume police are straining...
ML is definitely to be played loud, the louder the better, and as he cheekily ups the sound so is the potential for a coup d'electronica. And as we come to 'Heavy Artillery', a particularly aptly named track, we feel the subsonic sounds of the foundations moving as the volume control seems to have edged much further. And suddenly the volume police pounce, and ML is all smiles, oh yes he seems to be saying, a slight accident, his hand motions downwards, yes, I imagine him saying, I'll turn it straight down, but he doesn't. And it seems to get louder... And I like it, this is it, my kind of electronica, loud, hard and you want to move to it. And yes this was his last one so he didn't give a fuck.
After a suitably dignified Fat Cat filled pause the Windsors take to the stage. The look like a band, there are four of them which is strange for a four piece at the Sanctuary - one expects the cafe's band mutilation technique is more often successful. Although the stage was built for singer-songwriters and their bongo-player, they somehow all manage to squeeze on. And they are looking good, and I mean cool, even the bearded one, Dan Matz, who looks like a dad who had to fill in whilst one of the guitarists was ill. They tell us that they have to play quiet and apologise but there's a cheeky smile shared across the band and I for one don't believe anything Texans say (even the nice ones).
With their first number the whole audience leans forward as one to strain to hear the song which even through this adversity sounds strangely lush and beautiful. And then to our collective horror the volume police pounce. This is not making any sense at all and Jason McNeely throws down the guitar in disgust and for a nasty few seconds we think its all over. But with pained faces the volumes go down and they carry on, it seems that our American friends can still learn a few tricks from the Brits.
Windsor for the Derby were majestic, soaring, moving and loud. Yes LOUD. They too apply the trick of starting quiet and little by little edging that volume control up past 2, then 3, far past 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and oh yes, the big 11. It was slow, it was invisible and the volume police only caught on by the last track by which time Windsor were waking up the dead. And that was it. The band were off, the volume police were celebrating a semi-success, but they were caught off-guard by the clamour of the audience. The cries from the crowd were almost heart-breaking, they wanted more, they shouted more and they wanted louder, and then suddenly the Windsors were back on, and they promised a quiet track, despite the audience calls for it to be louder and turned up. And they did it again, the cheeky monkeys, louder and louder, and louder and LOUDER and they were fantastic, they triumphed against adversity and petty British cafe rules and they were truly fucking excellent.
To be honest its not often I leave a gig feeling like I have fought a war with the bands but tonight we were all together against the rules, against music at a volume your Dad would like, against all that is anodyne, dying and lifeless and we won. We fucking won.
Review by Larry Fitzmaurice, SPIN
Windsor for the Derby: Live From New York!
The Texas post-rockers turned out a paint-peeling performance at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge.(September 1, 2008)
At Manhattan’s intimate Mercury Lounge Saturday night, the crowd was worried. Word had gotten out that the night’s headlining act, Austin, TX's, Windsor for the Derby, were running late due to a holdup at the Canadian border and might not be able to make it to New York in time for the show. Not even a lovely set of static-swathed folk from opening act Black Branches could calm the somewhat anticipatory mood.
Luckily, the band made it (and only a half hour late), and after a quick apology by guitarist/vocalist Dan Matz, followed by what had to be the quickest stage setup involving two drummers we have ever seen, Windsor for the Derby launched into a stellar forty-five minute set that showcased the band's ability to mix the subtle with the sonically overt.
Matz's voice nicely complemented his Yo La Tengo-esque guitar blasts, while drummers Greg Anderson and Charlie Hall played in perfect lock-step without threatening to rhythmically overshadow the rest of the band. By the set's conclusion, which featured guitarist Jason McNeely perching himself on top of an amp, it was clear that even for a band that titled their recent full-length How We Lost, Windsor for the Derby know how to triumph in the most stressful circumstances.