Carter Tanton is a musician’s musician. Even though he released a record, Freeclouds, under his own name in 2011, the Baltimore-based producer and guitarist is still primarily known as a recording engineer for Marissa Nadler and Twin Shadow’s George Lewis, Jr., and as a member of Lower Dens. They’re Flowers, Tanton’s debut as Luxury Liners, is a product of his time on the road. While in transit, he was forced to abandon his original guitar arrangements for the only instrument on hand: a laptop. Rather than bemoan his restrictive circumstances, Tanton ran with them, making an album that feels like a fresh start.
For They’re Flowers, Tanton is concerned mostly with deconstruction and stripping things down. Nowhere is this more evident than on album…
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…opener “Caribbean Sunset”, a John Cale cover. Tanton lifts the lyrics verbatim and tangentially follows the chordal progressions from the original, but overall he completely re-imagines the song so that it swoops and shimmer like light reflected off a glitter ball. And it rings truer for the song’s exoticized female protagonist than the original’s accordion, stilted violin, and a wood block for good measure.
But deconstruction always brings the risk of collapse, and Tanton reaches a few points in They’re Flowers where he should have pulled a different piece out of the Jenga tower. His weak spot continues to be lyric-writing, and “Memphis Alex”, a tribute to Alex Chilton, is filled with insipid rhymes. The lyrics are usually easy to overlook in the face of his mastery of sound, but it can still be frustrating to parse a line, however abstract, like “one day my prince will come running home” (“Valley High”).
Over the course of the album, a recurring theme is Tanton’s inability to choose between wistful synth-folk or unapologetic retro bombast, or at least how to reconcile the two. He tries on messy album centerpiece “Life’s a Beach”, which features the War On Drugs’ Dave Hartley and his solo project Nightlands. The beginning wades through Hartley’s voice and slow wind chimes, speeding suddenly into a thicket of keyboard effects before bringing in the Beach Boys harmonies in the background. Between all that, the interlude’s sagging keyboards, and the sheer length, there’s just too much going on.
Like any self-editor, sometimes Tanton has trouble knowing when to stop, and this makes They’re Flowers feel more like a second draft rather than a finished product. He still seems most comfortable crafting other people’s material into a cohesive whole in the studio or on the road. With his own, it’s telling that the most fully realized, stand-alone song is a cover. He’s found his voice, and now he just needs to figure out how to use it.