"The Brave and the Bold"
(Overcoat)
Why people think that a duet between 2 idiosyncratic musical talents will be great, maybe twice as good as each artist alone, continues to stump me. I wish that I could forget about Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder's "Ebony & Ivory".
The main problem with this collaboration – and most - is that both artists have to mute their finest qualities in order to meet halfway. Tortoise, best when challenging each other to stretch as far as possible while still holding together, here is reduced to a pop studio backing band. Oldham is at his best at his most alone. He is beloved for his most quiet singing, framing lyrics that can be poetic,
perverse, purposefully misleading. His bands twist and turn when they do, when they can, not when they're supposed to.
Oldham can be an interesting interpreter, but some of the songs here (Don Williams' painfully goofy "Pancho", Devo's "That's Pep!") don't deserve serious revitalizing. The post-punk bands that have informed both artists prove that Oldham was never meant to be a loud rock singer, and that Tortoise was never meant to play straightahead. Both are best when they make the music serve them; here, the opposite is forced upon them.
c. 2006 LEO Weekly
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