''Camoufleur'' is the fifth and final
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by American
indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...
band
Gastr del Sol
Gastr del Sol (derived from a combination of the name of a race horse (Gato del Sol) and David Grubbs' previous band Bastro) was an American, Chicago-based band, consisting for most of their career, of David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Between 19 ...
, released on February 23, 1998 on
Drag City.
Critical reception
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...
of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
described ''Camoufleur'' as "a subdued, meditative affair, bringing together elements of
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
,
film music
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...
, and the
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
", which gradually "opens up, revealing layers of modest beauty".
[ '']Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' critic Rob Brunner found that it showed Gastr del Sol's music continuing to become "less obtuse", praising the album as "their most listenable — and ambitious — work yet".[ Joshua Klein of '']The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' felt that its "move toward more standard song structures, while not a radical revamp, sounds fresh and enjoyable."
In 2018, ''Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'' placed ''Camoufleur'' at number 38 on its list of the 50 best albums of 1998.Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and record producer who has composed various film and television soundtracks. He is best known for his 1967 album ''Song Cycle (album), Song Cycle'' and for his ...
' work with Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and m ...
."[ '']Fact
A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scient ...
'' ranked it as the tenth best post-rock
Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...
album of all time in a 2016 list.
Track listing
Personnel
Credits adapted from liner notes.
* Jim O'Rourke – composition, performance, recording
* David Grubbs
David Grubbs (born September 21, 1967) is an American composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. He was a founding member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol. He has also played in Codeine, The Red Krayola, Bitch Magnet and The Wingdale ...
– composition, performance
* Markus Popp
Oval is an electronic music group founded in Germany in 1991 by Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, Frank Metzger and Holger Lindmüller. The group pioneered glitch music, writing on CDs to damage them and produce music with the resulting fragments ...
– composition, performance
* Edith Frost
Edith Frost (born August 18, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter who describes her music as "pensive countrified psychedelia".
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Frost moved to Brooklyn in 1990 where she played in the country bands ''The Holler Sis ...
– vocals
* Stephen Prina – vocals
* Darin Gray – bass guitar
* John McEntire
John McEntire (born April 9, 1970 in Portland, Oregon) is an American recording engineer, producer, drummer and multi-instrumentalist, based in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of both Tortoise and the Sea and Cake.
McEntire started playing dr ...
– drums, recording
* Steven Butters – steel drums
* Jeb Bishop
Jeb Bishop (born 1962) is an American jazz trombone player.
He grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and attended Jesse O. Sanderson High School. He has studied music (classical trombone performance) at Northwestern University, engineering and ...
– trombone
* Rob Mazurek
Rob Mazurek (born 1965) is an American composer, cornetist, improviser and visual artist living in Chicago, Illinois.
Biography
Rob Mazurek is an American electro-acoustic composer, cornetist, improviser and visual artist living in Chicago, Illi ...
– cornet
* Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.
A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered composi ...
– clarinet
* Jeremy Ronkin – French horn
* Julie Pomerleau – viola, violin
* Maureen Loughnane – violin
* Phil Bonnet – recording
* Markus Oehlen
Markus Oehlen (born 1956) is a German visual artist working in painting, sculpture, and music. In the 1970s and 80s he was a founding member of the influential neo-expressionist art movement Neue Wilde in Düsseldorf alongside Martin Kippenberg ...
– artwork
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1998 albums
Gastr del Sol albums
Drag City (record label) albums
Domino Recording Company albums
P-Vine Records albums