When Is A Demo

Some readers may argue that it shouldn t matter, on the basis that you either like what you hear or you don t. In a purist musical sense that s totally true, but if it really is a Demo then other criteria come into play. You generally do not respond to the music on a Demo as finished material, (although it might be), but as a demonstration (literally) of the expertise or otherwise that the artists can bring to the crafts of songwriting, arranging, singing, playing and recording.
You also make allowances for the fact that little money might have been available or that the studio gave the band a really cheap deal provided they use an engineer who has only recently learned to tie his bootlaces and even then keeps looking for the brown one called earth .
On the other hand, if it s a real release, for which the unsuspecting public may be expected to unload their piggy banks, then there should be no allowance for any failings. You simply judge it as it is, not how you think it might shape up in some nebulous future.
Such a dilemma occurred late last year when a CD, seemingly on an own label, thudded onto our plush carpets from a band called The White House. Unfortunately, there was no info with it no press release nor biog and it was assumed that it was a Demo and passed to me. But when I saw that it was full-length and was well packaged and recorded, I reckoned it must a proper release and reviewed it as such.
And this is the gist of what I initially wrote as an album review, scoring it five on the legendary Hot Press dice:
On the one hand this is an admirable example of a band who have written, produced, designed and issued on their own label a finely-recorded album of instrumental tracks. Well done, one and all. But maybe you shouldn t do it again.
For there the celebrations must end. If White House intend their album to be aimed at the New Age market, or as music to meditate or practise yoga to, it could do very nicely. Or it might make a workable soundtrack for a suitable film. But as an album to be evaluated for its musical content alone it is more likely to result in a sharp drop in the sales of valium.
Over seventeen soporific tracks The White House s synthesiser doodlings rarely move out of first gear. Interstate is a poorman s Autobahn , like Kraftwerk at half-throttle, while KauZa has echoes of Tubular Bells. Hush comes over all pan-pipes, while Sea Of Tranquillity , might more appropriately be called Sea Of Tranquillisers . It s like Laurent Garnier lashing into the prozak.
Only on ... too much and Minimalist Love Song do you get any semblance of life as we know it and even then the short burst of manic laughter on the latter track instantly recalls Pink Floyd. In a sense, this is music for people who don t really want to make it or listen to it. Extremely well-made, very nice, very pleasant, deadly dull and most unnecessary.
But having penned the above unflattering, harsh missive I then had second thoughts and decided that it might be a demo after all. In which case I wondered if any of the above comments should be changed. As it happens, my conclusion was: not very much although maybe I would have been less critical, if only because I d assume that what I was hearing was a mere skeleton rather than a completed body of work which would doubtless improve with some more flesh on the bone.
Anyway, the point of the tale is that all of this could have avoided had the sender included some info about it.
Meanwhile, the new cassette from Corkonians Dot presents itself as a collage of nineties pop. Although it might be a tad too early for a nineties revival, Dot may have hit on something fresh in their mixumgatherum approach, sometimes coming on like a Reef meets an unplugged Radiohead, while at other times descending below lo-fi to no-fi. Perhaps we have the seeds of a brand new genre here.
You get bits of spoken word introducing the reggaed up opener Remembered Song which then collapses into a slowed-down tape to be followed by some neat jazzy acoustic guitar, cheap and dodgy drums, a winsome vocal and other noises of the kitchen sink variety.
Next arrives some gospel sermonising above a funk beat and so on before the no-fi introspection of Thursday containing all the self-pity of a Loudon Wainwright. That s Mister Christ To You samples Anyway by the Ultra Montanes, while the eminently catchy and repetitive People On The Top Of The Hill dismissively uses a slice of the Hallelujah Chorus and drags in some bits by the Staple Singers.
Dot s work is quite intriguing in terms of style, especially given the eclectic unpredictability of the enterprise, but not always scoring high on the contentometer and actual songs as we know them are thin on the ground. But the no-fi noughties sure makes a damn fine slogan, so maybe Dot are something we should pay attention to. Anyway, I d be happy to hear more from them.
This fortnight s lesson: Make it easier for us. Tell us whether it s a demo or a full-scale release.