Unrest
Imperial f.f.r.r.
If ever there was a prototypical album for what is currently referred to as "indie-rock," it's this. Unrest started out as undistinguished hardcore band from Washington DC--so undistinguished that they didn't even have a Dischord record contract. After some line-up changes, they started experimenting with a minimalist sound, shaving off vocals and exploring what else they could do. As it turned out, Imperial is the only full-length album from that time that they released (although the bookend ep's to Imperial are excellent as well) from this period. It wasn't until the late 90's and the most recent decade especially that this sort of music became to get wider acclaim: ponderous, soft-loud instrumental songs, artistic explorations of the power of improvisation in straight ahead pop terms--come on, you're getting there. It's what we now are forced to call "post rock." Unrest, in a lot of ways, got there first. It wouldn't be quite correct to treat the album as if it "set the stage," or "inspired" any of what Constellation puts out, or Arts & Crafts; but Unrest shouldn't be looked at as some kind of obscure one-off either, especially now that it's been remastered and re-released. So what is it? The easiest thing to call songs like "Suki" is pop, and we'd do it no better to stick to that term: but Unrest seems to demand more. I say "seems" because at no point does this album "demand" anything--it's so laid back that it's more comparable to bands like Low than Broken Social Scene--but Imperial remains an elusive and unique piece of beauty all these years later.
-Tucker Stone, 2006
The eleven songs on Unrest’s Imperial f.f.r.r. average 144.4 beats per minute. “Sugarshack” clocks in at a mighty 256
bpm. I don’t know what this means,
except that the band has gone out of its way to quantify the speed of each
song, as well as each song’s length, down to the millisecond. The “f.f.r.r.” in the album title stands for
“full frequency range recording.” The
album begins with a volume reference tone, so that you may determine exactly
how loud you listen before the music even begins. Unrest is obviously in love with technical
precision. In an era filled with rock
bands supposedly heralding punk rock ideals—willfully not learning or unlearning
their instruments; using lo-fi recording techniques; singing without regard to
tonality—Unrest got everything precisely right.
But Unrest is not a band about precision, and Imperial f.f.r.r. is not an album about technique. Unrest use their studio know-how in order to take care of their audience. They make listening to the album a shared experience. You become involved in your own listening. At first this occurs simply because they recruit you as a technician—that volume reference tone forces you to make a choice about how you want to listen. Next, Unrest break out their sizable musicianship, but not overtly. Rather, they create a simple, solid foundation of streamlined grooves. These rhythms offer little variation, and therefore become hypnotizing. This is an argument for the simplicity of punk rock over the blind adherence to punk rock ethics—why you should learn how to play. Music, Unrest says, doesn’t have to do a whole lot to be transformative. Finally, the real coup happens when singers Bridget Cross and Mark Robinson sing. Cross is the American embodiment of a Japanese songbird. Robinson is like an obtuse Gordon Gano, forever seeing the world through adolescent eyes, and embracing the teenage confusion that secretly remains with us our entire lives. He wrings stunning melodies out of the simplest parts of “Suki” and “Isabel,” but his voice never stabilizes, instead cracking and faltering. Essentially, Unrest have spent so much time and effort on the foundation so that Robinson and Cross can climb to the top and collapse without fear. This is vulnerability growing out of strength, and it makes for the most haunting album of 1992.
-Marty Brown, 2006
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