Uniform Motion - Life

Uni­form Motion
Life
Aaahh; 2010

Wispy-​voiced, melan­choly indie-​folk has rather been all the rage the past few years. Some peo­ple decry such music as yet another death knell for “tra­di­tional” rock-​n-​roll, while oth­ers sim­ply admit to not hav­ing the propen­sity to enjoy­ing such mel­low songs on a reg­u­lar basis. I under­stand such com­plaints, as I too voiced them ear­lier in the decade, but some­where along the way, I fell head-​over-​heels in love with the tunes being crafted by acts like The Shins, Fleet Foxes, Iron and Wine, Blind Pilot, A Weather, and any­one else culling the best and bright­est sounds from ‘70s era arty folk-​pop. There’s some­thing quite attrac­tive about the sort of music that com­pels you to sit down, rest, and get lost in the com­bi­na­tion of con­tem­pla­tive tones and lyrics.

Hail­ing from the United King­dom, Uni­form Motion seeks to be included in the con­ver­sa­tion with its newest release, enti­tled Life. I wanted work up a rather apt metaphor to describe the gen­tle, dreamy haze that char­ac­ter­izes this record: wak­ing from sleep and a boat float­ing through a dense fog all came to mind. Yet, such word pic­tures fail to cap­ture the demure del­i­cacy at play with songs like “Back Up Your Soul” and “Oskar,” com­plete the pre­cise arrange­ments and lovely har­monies. The entire record is reserved in tone, but you can always feel its pres­ence. Musi­cally, jazz-​inflected fills and melodic runs on acoustic gui­tar flow and sway over an excel­lent, grounded batch of syn­co­pated drums and percussion.

I do feel that the whis­pered vocals were a bit too monot­o­nous at times, but not in a dry, dull way. It’s just that thin, hushed vocals can only be so expres­sive. Also, though I really do enjoy the pretty, enchant­ing tones of Life, I found that the music was quite con­tent to sit in the back­ground and chill, rather than step for­ward to be rec­og­nized. This eight-​song record reminds me of the beau­ti­ful wall­flower at some high school dance or col­lege mixer who’s too shy to engage oth­ers directly, but whose obvi­ous tal­ents keep her inter­est­ing, if a bit mys­te­ri­ous (and slightly frustrating).

Per­son­ally, with music of this nature, I’m not look­ing for bands to increase vol­ume or tempo in hopes of craft­ing a catchy pop hook. I just pre­fer to hear artists in this genre play with an urgency and imme­di­acy that makes peo­ple sit up and take notice, despite how quiet things might be on the sur­face. Uni­form Motion cer­tainly has the song­writ­ing and vocal chops to cre­ate a stel­lar batch of songs to match nearly anyone’s low-​key, intro­spec­tive mood. I sim­ply would like to hear the band pen a piece that would also shake me out of that reverie and into action (even if it were to just share Life with an intro­verted friend).