its been quiet for cambiata lately

taking a small break

getting back together soon

maybe work on new material

stay tuned…

Check out our Spotlight on www.weworemasks.com and download a sampler from our new album FREE!!!

http://weworemasks.com/spotlight-the-cambiata/

The end of everything

The more the Cambiata change, the more they improve

By SAM PFEIFLE  |  January 7, 2009  |  Recommended By 3 People

FIVE SONGWRITERS: The Cambiata.

The Cambiata are never satisfied. They are so self-critical that they decided to record their new record almost completely independently of one another, each of them working with producer Noah Cole. And after a well received full-length and EP that have made the band one of the biggest in Portland, they decided to self-title this newest release because it’s the first one they’re actually happy with.

This is a good thing. Some bands are all buddy-buddy and live together and spend a lot of time telling each other how great everything sounds. That can be a great way to have a lot of fun, but it’s a lousy way to produce music to which anyone else actually wants to listen. For the Cambiata, “we’re all very critical of each other,” says guitarist Miguel Barajas. “So much so that it’s hard not to get into arguments.”

When guitarist and keyboardist Sean Morin says, “We don’t even like each other very much,” it’s hard to tell if he’s kidding.

This ability for introspection and self-improvement has allowed the band to grow substantially in just more than two years. Their first album, 2006’s Into the Night, was impressive, but fractured; it was a study in what they were capable of, but not fully realized. Last year’s EP, To Heal, the first recorded work with drummer Dan Capaldi (Daniel McKellick’s replacement), was luscious and artful, but slightly self-indulgent with too much chaff amid the wheat. With this new work, they’ve taken the important step of stepping outside themselves and considering the listener.

They’ve produced a record full of tight songs that only once go past five minutes, accomplishing the difficult task of creating epics in three minutes, songs made to sound simple in their complexity. “We don’t want listeners to get bored,” says Barajas. “We don’t want people mid-song skipping to the next one because it’s not really interesting … We would talk about and destroy the songs, and I mean violently and passionately.”

The result is a total lack of chaff. Each entry and exit is exquisitely scripted, while Cole, outside the walls of a traditional studio, has worked with each band member (and a whole string section) to create something of a minimalist sound. This record’s theme is change — the first track is “Changing Everything,” an exercise in painstaking restraint — and those who’ve come to think of the Cambiata as a heavy or loud band will very much have to change their opinion. While there is still something of a heavy aesthetic, an affinity for distortion and a fiendish aggressiveness, their sound has morphed in much the way Radiohead’s has, incorporating a new quiet subtlety that better allows the sharp edges to poke you.

This also allows Chris Moulton’s superb vocals to shine all the brighter, as they’re often paired with just the keyboards or guitars in the openings and verses. He may not be quite as acrobatic here as on their past releases, but he is laser precise and produces some truly sublime pieces of beauty, as with the crisp melody of the chorus in “The Gold She Gives,” blending tremendously with the strings and horns to erect a haughty pity when “some bankrupt fool is accepting it.” In the last verse, he manages a perfectly cheery melancholy for “all is well that ends/So let us clap our hands/To another empty bottle.”

Moulton has been accused of being a bit dramatic (okay, really dramatic), but it’s his ability to inflect emotion and meaning into each syllable that makes him a wildly appealing combination of Freddy Mercury and Jose Gonzalez.

There’s still a bit of the band’s old schizophrenia here, of course. How could there not be, with five songwriters producing 33 initial demo tracks from which to cull the best and most intriguing? “Ladybug” is dark and mysterious, launching with a menacing downward bass line from Stan Dzengelewski and Moulton despairing that “I can not keep things alive” and “the Ladybug in my palm surely won’t survive.” Distorted guitars slash in like swinging scythes before soaring into a melody mixed behind the bass and drums, then falling away to give way to a piano that invites an almost dance beat from Capaldi. Finally there are woodblocks, cymbals smacking you in the face from the left and right, and Moulton meandering like he’s punch drunk.

“House Fire” is Sade smooth, with inhales and exhales used as instruments and methodical guitars mixing with gripping cello lines and a spare xylophone. There is subtle drum programming and a digital hiccoughing like the ghost of vocals now forgotten. “You’ll just have to carry me,” Moulton repeats, moving his vocals between the channels and doubling: “It’s an important distinction.”

It is important. Distinguishing between the music you want to make and the music people want to hear and finding that music that is both. In doing so, the Cambiata have distinguished themselves mightily.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com.

THE CAMBIATA with KID:NAP:KIN + the Urgency + Better Than | The Station | January 9 | www.cambiata.net

well its finally finished
its so frustrating having to wait to put it out
itll be out in january
our cd release is january 9th
its gonna be a long two months of waiting
its self titled and 11 songs

tracklisting:

1. Changing Everything
2. Hells Kitchen
3. Chameleon Spit
4. The Gold She Gives
5. For Zelda Fitzgerald
6. House Fire
7. Machine of God
8. Surgery
9. Ladybug
10. Alaska
11. I-V-I

here are some pics our friend Nate SlashAndBurn took at the Anthony Green show at the station:

stan

dan

sean

chris

miguel

fun show yut