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Herman Düne
Giant
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Article
written by Ged M
Mar 11, 2007.
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This might be the record when the underground goes overground but for all the expansive production, it’s still clearly a Herman Düne album. The major label deal means backing vocalists (the Woo Woos, who include David and Andre’s little sister Lisa Li-Lund), plus dramatic strings and horns (The Jon Natchez Bourbon Horns) and more elaborate percussion. But though they’re adding layers to the songs, they don’t obscure the heart that beats of the centre of each one. The opening track shows you what they’re able to do with the additional colours in their palette; with its calypso rhythms, sultry horns and call-and-response from the Woo Woos, ‘I Wish That I Could See You Soon’ switches on the summer whenever you play it.
In Düne fashion, the songs alternate between David’s and André’s. David’s are the more literal, referencing people and places, and the most direct love songs; André writes songs that are romantic, reflective and fuzzily otherworldly (“I choose to focus on what’s here and not know what the world wants me to know” he sings in ‘Bristol’). The contrasting songwriting and style sets up the creative yin and yang that has driven every Herman Düne record so far. ‘Giant’ also includes the first two instrumentals by the Düne; the jazzy New Orleans rhythms of ‘Baby Bigger’ and the first “la la la” vocals I’ve heard them do on ‘Mrs Bigger’. But just as novel is ‘No Master’ where Andre sings, the Woo Woos respond and they’re backed by nothing more than simple and heartbreakingly effective percussion.
On ‘Giant’ they’re referencing the classic American songbook, and not just the folk and Velvet Underground pages. The slightly geeky, naïve and emotional delivery, more feeling than technique, is pure Jonathan Richman. There are touches of Simon and Garfunkel on ‘1-2-3/Apple Tree’ and Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass on ‘This Summer’ while you might be in Miami Beach for the Latin rhythms of ‘Pure Hearts’. The key track on the album, though, is ‘Take Him Back To New York City’; from the Shangri Las style opening line “and so the girls go: ‘hey, what’s going on, why don’t you sing a song?’” to the poetic Coney Island late summer AM radio feel, it sums up everything glorious about American teenpop music.
You can pull it apart and analyse why it works but the proof’s right in front of your ears. It doesn’t replace the other Düne records; the beauty is that it sits alongside them, complements them, joins them in your favourites. For the way its achievement matches its ambition, the album deserves the title they’ve taken.
Untitled Document
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