Berkeley CA’s John Ringhofer must have ADD. His fifth LP for Asthmatic Kitty is a study in “get in, get out, do your business… and run away before anyone gets a clue of what you’re up to!” It’s a 25-song LP in 40 minutes of brief, hyper, caffeinated sketches that range from 0:52 to 2:15. It’s so hit and run, it’s almost like a bee trying to pollinate the whole flower garden before the gardener returns with a Raid can. One feels a little raided, here, as the childlike schizophrenia of these Christian-faith drive-bys recorded in a church continually tease with the promise of a fully-developed pop melody, over and over, only to conclude just as discernable patterns are being established. This is utterly frustrating over initial plays to say the least, and the rush of ideas pinballing around the album in cramming, overstimulated arrangements is as bewildering as the album’s verbose title. Though like an orchestral-pop answer to Robert Pollard circa Guided By Voices’ Alien Lanes, The Minutemen, and Wire’s Pink Flag, there can be worth in listening intently to As Stowaways (indeed!) as one 40-minute piece , rather than 25 too-short ones. When the jaunty piano and strings combo leads, such as the delightful “Source of the Watercourse” and ‘The Sea Has No Face,” you glimpse the zealous art-rock popster talent behind the laughingly limited attention span. And Ringhofer’s voice, which reminds a lot of Fugu’s Mehdi Zannad (that French artist being the nearest reference for this musical style, as well), is kind of charming in a boyish Neil Young way. If you can invest the patience required to listen to so many disjointed pop fragments in a scattershot, baptismal birdbath, Stowaways is worth the rough and roiling voyage. (asthmatickitty.com)
