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Pattern Is Movement, All Together

by dave heaton

The Philadelphia-based duo Pattern Is Movement truly have their own sound, the uniqueness of which I usually attribute to the singing and drumming. Andrew Thiboldeaux sings in almost an operatic style, rising and falling dramatically. That somehow fits Chris Ward's propulsive drumming, which often locks into a solid groove (band bios have noted that the two first bonded over a shared love of hip-hop).

On their latest album All Together, however, the singing and drumming are only part of the appeal. Through keyboards, beats, and just a general attention to layering and arrangements, they've given the album its own atmosphere, its own feeling. It's atmosphere not completely unrelated to Radiohead's Kid A/Amnesiac period (though maybe I just think that because they do a mean cover of "Everything In Its Right Place"). It's friendlier, more optimistic, but not without its sadness ("Tragedy" is one song title, even) and its traces of claustrophobia.

There's an avant-musical-theatre/rock-opera feeling to some of the songs, especially those where the lyrics seem the most narrative, like "Trolley Friend", which sets the scene of people loading onto a trolley for the morning commute: "Next in line / next in line / get on get on". That theatrical feeling comes as well from the songs seeming to tell one collective story, lyrically and musically. That could be because of the creative impetus for the album. They used as inspiration for all of the songs a set of photographs found on the street. Those black-and-white photos are included in the album packaging, with a correlation given between the photo and its corresponding song. I waited to look at them until I had listened to the album a half-dozen times. I was expecting them to be more literal, especially the one for "Trolley Friend", which shows not a trolley but a group of people around a campfire.

There seems something especially Philadelphian about a band who would look at a picture of friends at a campfire and decide they were trolley friends. Or maybe I just think that because I take the trolley to work every day and most mornings see the same people. Maybe that Philadelphia-ness is why I found this so great to hear: a couple weeks ago, while driving a rental car from here to Michigan, I heard Lou Reed and Hal Wilner praising the band, after playing one of their songs, on some rambling satellite-radio show they have. I remember one of them asking, about a particular guitar sound or something, how did they get that sound? Which for Pattern Is Movement is a fair question.

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