Play Time Play Hard

Play Time Play Hard

Play Time Play Hard

Play Time. (Credit: Linnéa Gad)
Play Time. (Credit: Linnéa Gad)

Upstate New York trio Play Time may be a new band, but its members hail from a wide swath of established underground scenes. Drummer Booker Stardrum sits behind the kit for rising jazz jammers SML, while Moog player Ben Vida co-founded the turn-of-the-century minimalist-ambient group Town & Country, and logged time in post-emo fountainhead Joan of Arc. Saxophonist Will Epstein has played with Darkside members Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington, and worked as a film composer. All three have released solo albums that further expand their palettes, moving into ambient (Vida), experimental (Stardrum), and singer/songwriter (Epstein) realms. 

With all that group experience and wealth of individual styles, Play Time try something entirely different for their debut album on the admirably esoteric Balmat label. The abstract yet grooving instrumental tracks on Magical Object don’t really sound like anything the band members have done before, but they do have a comfortable familiarity. Tracks like “Wanderers” and the aptly titled “Waves Within Waves” showcase the basic Play Time blueprint: a loping Moog bass line from Vida that links up with Stardrum’s deceptively tricky percussion, which often forgoes the snare for dropping-coconut toms and dry-riverbed rattles, set against overlapping melodic drones from Epstein. The synth and sax both immediately evoke the 1970s work of Terry Riley, particularly his collaboration with John Cale, Church of Anthrax. Album opener “Open the Door, Joey,” with its flowing, sedimentary melodies and gently interlocking harmonies, sounds like Riley’s “In C” with a rhythm section. The zenlike synth line and rollicking beat of “Public Broadcast,” meanwhile, essentially update electronic rock pioneers Silver Apples’ “Oscillations” for the streaming era, replacing the older song’s musky vocals with streamlined yet pungent sax runs. 

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It’s a fertile zone in which to operate, and Play Time make the most of it without going overboard. The group’s sound came together during gigs at Tubby’s, a bar in the Catskills town of Kingston, New York, that has become the unofficial national headquarters of a heady, eccentric, and easygoing scene blending jazz technique, electronic tools, and jam-band methods. The music of Play Time— avant-garde without being atonal, adventurous without being alienating, and recognizable without being derivative—fits the bill perfectly, at its best pointing toward a kind of modal psychedelia.

Occasionally, Play Time departs from their primary mode and ventures into rougher terrain. The title track has a lurching, intermittent cadence, with short, hooting bursts from Epstein bouncing off Vida’s offbeat bass notes. Stardrum’s brushwork, sounding like a steam engine at low speed, keeps things from falling apart, but doesn’t put anything together, either. The slow burn of “22° Halo” fares better, with the horn and synth lines syncing in and out of phase to achieve an off-kilter, aching harmony. And the unusually frantic “Standing on One Foot” proves that Play Time can toy with dissonance as well, and even make it—eventually—swing. Play Time might be having fun, but they’re also putting in the work.

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Upstate New York trio Play Time may be a new band, but its members hail from a wide swath of established underground scenes. Drummer Booker Stardrum sits behind the kit for rising jazz jammers SML, while Moog player Ben Vida co-founded the turn-of-the-century minimalist-ambient group Town & Country, and logged time in post-emo fountainhead Joan […]Reed Jackson{authorlink}https://www.spinmagazine.com/feed/SPINMusic News, Album Reviews, Concert Photos, Videos and Morehttps://static.spinmagazine.com/files/2023/08/cropped-logo-spin-s-340×340.png

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