Baltimore City Paper: The Agrarians / Meet We the Medicine

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The Agrarians: Meet We the Medicine

The Agrarians: Meet We the Medicine
Label:	Mt6
Format:	Album
Media:	CD
Release Date:	2008
Genre:	Recording
More info on local act The Agrarians

By Michael Byrne | Posted 4/16/2008

"Take this drug, fall from above!/ feel the satisfaction of his love!" the Agrarians' Matt Perzinski sing-talks at the tail end of this, their sixth album. The exclamation points are added only in the disc's utilitarian, black and white photocopied liner notes; save for a slight curve up on the register, he's not exclaiming. It should give you some idea just how stoned--and how murkily mixed--the record is that that volume exists only on paper/whatever's going on in Perzinski's head.

Inside that head, you can easily imagine a whole mess of bright swirling colors, brief scenes from Magical Mystery Tour, and the kind of primitive free-associative thought that happens best under a few warm blankets of cannabis blear. Meet We the Medicine is, more or less, an extremely hazy rock album. Though sometimes it ventures even further and the Agrarians slip surreptitiously into an almost comically pastoral forest folk, where the album's already sparse percussion (many thin drum machines) quits, leaving Perzinski singing nakedly in a queer ren-faire lilt over a muddle of guitar melody and organ smear ("The Shadow Plays") or folk strum ("Circumvent and Invitation").

For the most part, Medicine is a satisfying ride; the melodies are pretty and plenty enough to balance out the obtuse, and frequently hilarious, lyrics about doin' it: "Talk to me secretary/ whip me/ ride you" and "Hot Vinyasa is my mantra/ coast to slid in/ a safely hid sin." The drum machine, however, while something of an MT6 scene signifier, is a real drag when deployed so often in music that just wants to be free and, you know, get laid.

E-mail Michael Byrne

mattperzinski

1 comments.

Member since 4/16/2008

Thanks for the review and the support, CP. I would just like to add that "Meet We the Medicine" was written and recorded in a sober state of mind; furthermore, I personally do not condone excessive drinking or drug use, and I pray for those who are suffering from drug and alcohol addiction.

Posted 4.16.2008 6:45 AM

Krestovsky

1 comments.

Member since 4/16/2008

I just wanted to add that CP readers may also want to look into some of The Agrarians' other work, namely that which was released by Well-Dressed Records. www.welldressedrecords.com...it's open 24/7 for your convenience.

Posted 4.16.2008 6:40 PM

Mayflower

1 comments.

Member since 4/16/2008

The Agrarain irony is so often missed. Agrarian thinking is subtle with its freeform poetry. The writer is working toward something in an odd obsession, that doesn't allow easy interpretation of his meaning, but the insistance of his style seems to be leading somewhere into some strange formulated chaos.

Posted 4.16.2008 8:42 PM

Rover

1 comments.

Member since 4/16/2008

I really must take umbrage with this review. CP is usually spot on with its music, but this feels like a missed mark. I first laid eyes on this woolly man Perzinski at the Hamilton Arts Collective. While I have not heard Medicine, it seems hard to fathom that the mild-mannered young folk singer I met that night could be mixed up in anything queer, comic, or psychedelic. If anything, the lyrics of the album he gathered from the trunk of his car and handed out to passersby, myself included, like alms to the poor, smacked of simple ecstatic Catholicism, a life well-spent in a progressive Bostonian monastery. The lyrics at times do tend toward the tawdry (what Catholic's aren't?), but these moments are easily counterbalanced by odes to, among others, St. Francis. With that in mind, it would not surprise me to learn that lyrics such as "Take this drug, fall from above" actually refer to original sin and Expulsion.

Posted 4.16.2008 11:14 PM

killjoy

1 comments.

Member since 4/17/2008

Rather than being influenced by drugs, The Agrarians have a style that seems to be more akin to William Blake (themes), New Order (percussion), David Bowie (glam), Cerberus Shoal (mood), John Jacob Niles (vocals), Robert Pollard (renegade prolificness), and maybe Will Farrell’s “Roger” character from SNL (bodies sluggish with goat meat).

Posted 4.17.2008 1:38 PM

doublej

1 comments.

Member since 4/21/2008

It is a shame that you feel original styles can only be drug induced -- so much for the influence of vocabulary, the wonders of literature, deep thoughts, skill and let's not forget religion...

Posted 4.21.2008 10:04 AM