Dive Index - The Surface We Divide

Dive Index
The Sur­face We Divide
Neu­tral Music; 2010

Guest Con­trib­u­tor: Jen Broadwell

Dive Index is made up of the dubi­ous, yet sur­pris­ingly well-​balanced vocal mix­ture of four singer-​songwriters: Joseph Arthur, Mark Gar­dener, Cat Mar­tino, and Patric Cooper. Each song on the group’s sopho­more record, The Sur­face We Divide, begins with a sort of yield­ing lin­ear rhythm then trans­forms into a com­pli­cated web of instru­men­tal lay­er­ing. For instance, “Cut” dis­plays electro-​percussive synth lay­ers and a slow, lin­ger­ing, ambi­ent gui­tar. The two instru­ments then grow louder and col­lide into an alter­nat­ing vocal of crescen­dos and retrac­tions.

Dive Index also con­sists of a few trans­plant indi­vid­u­als, namely Julie Kent of Antony and The John­sons fame and Kevin O’Donnell from Andrew Bird. “Burn Their Bod­ies” starts with a sweet cello part played by Kent. One by one the, other instru­ments join her — gui­tar, drums, and synth respect­fully — before the swift tempo of the afore­men­tioned instru­ments and a lo-​fi hand clap are coated with Martino’s lovely solo vocal.

“Agatha” is dif­fer­ent from the other tracks in that its pace remains the same through­out. The beat starts strong and fast and con­tin­ues for the entirety of the song. This track gives me the feel­ing that a friend­ship has ended — that things are chang­ing and a cer­tain per­son is mov­ing on. The rep­e­ti­tion of the lyrics “We were wait­ing for a bomb to fall,” sug­gests to me that the col­lapse of said rela­tion­ship shocked its wit­nesses, akin to the say­ing “When pigs fly.”

“Love Like Ghosts” is a clus­ter of instru­men­tal inten­sity. How­ever, prior to its inva­sion, O’Donnell’s drums pen­e­trate the tone with a crash­ing two-​stroke beat every other mea­sure. The accom­pa­ny­ing words are not actual rev­e­la­tions, but the acknowl­edg­ment that such rev­e­la­tions are sur­fac­ing as the result of a night of heavy drink­ing and too much time apart from one another. “A night on the edge of life /​You know just how the story goes /​As the night has us stum­bling home /​The years teach us some­thing the days never knew.”

“Blink” opens with awk­ward per­cus­sion and strange, almost eerie, chimes. The build­ing of the song is ini­ti­ated by the cello. Sim­i­larly, the cello sets the foun­da­tion for “Finally Out.”

The inter­wo­ven vocals, loop­ing gui­tars, rich melodies, and com­pressed elec­tron­ics all take credit for an iso­lated expe­ri­ence that can be felt while lis­ten­ing to The Sur­face We Divide. The rushed beats and instru­men­tal com­plex­i­ties are def­i­nitely strong suits to the over­all prod­uct cre­ated by Dive Index. Fur­ther­more, the solo vocal­ist num­bers are grav­i­tat­ing, but I found the the duets to be most cap­ti­vat­ing. The album ends with a ten­der duet enti­tled “Life on the Wire.” Arthur, Gar­dener, and Mar­tino loan their chops to this ele­gant closer. It’s a smart finale, as it brings all the instru­men­tal chaos to a close and rein­states the calm.