''Calamity'' is the fourth album by

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

n pop band

The Curtains The Curtains is an American band founded by Chris Cohen and visual artist Trevor Shimizu in San Francisco, California in 2000. Style Their first three albums are mostly instrumental music which uses electric guitar, Moog Concertmate MG-1 and d ...

, released in 2006 on

Asthmatic Kitty Asthmatic Kitty is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by a community of musicians from Holland, Michigan led by Sufjan Stevens and his stepfather Lowell Brams. Some were Holland natives, and others had come to attend local coll ...

. It was recorded directly after

Deerhoof Deerhoof are an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. They currently consist of founding drummer Greg Saunier, bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez. Beginning as an improvised noi ...

's "

The Runners Four ''The Runners Four'' is the seventh studio album by American indie rock band Deerhoof, released on October 11, 2005 by Kill Rock Stars, ATP Recordings and 5 Rue Christine. A vinyl edition with a different cover was released by the label Children ...

". The album is exclusively produced by

Chris Cohen Christopher David Cohen (born 5 March 1987) is an English former professional footballer and is currently assistant manager at Southampton. Primarily a midfielder, he was able to operate equally in the centre or on the left, but was also emplo ...

. It features guest performances by

Nedelle Torrisi Nedelle Torrisi is an American musician who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Biography Torrisi grew up studying classical violin and performing in musicals. Her mother is an ex-nun and pianist, while her father was an ex-Jesuit priest and jazz drum ...

and Yasi Perera (vocal harmonies), as well as

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

by John Ringhofer. The album's music is mostly composed of compressed

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

s; the instrumentation has been described as "nondescript" and "delicate". It is classified as

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 ...

, although songs contain other elements such as

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

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 ...

, and

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

Track listing

# "Go Lucky" – 3:11 # "Green Water" – 2:19 # "Wysteria" – 2:11 # "The Thousandth Face" – 2:56 # "World's Most Dangerous Woman" – 2:41 # "Tornado Traveler's Fear" – 2:44 # "Roscomare" – 3:02 # "Old Scott Rd." – 2:08 # "Calamity" – 2:27 # "Invisible String" – 1:19 # "Brunswick Stew" – 1:43 # "Fell On a Rock and Broke It" – 2:07 # "Spinning Top" – 2:50

Personnel

* Chris Cohen – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums *

– vocals * John Ringhofer – trombone

Reception

''Calamity'' received mixed reviews from critics, with a metascore of 60 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

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 ...

rated the album 7.4 out of 10, stating that Cohen was "struggling to balance his twee pop tendencies with experimentation", while

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 ...

gave the album a 3 out of 5 stars, stating that "the hits outnumbered the misses".

References

2006 albums The Curtains albums Asthmatic Kitty albums {{2000s-indie-rock-album-stub