To Be Jung

The loud mystical minimalism of Reading Rainbow


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Published: Sep 16, 2009

Jessica Kourkounis

Reading Rainbow

Sarah Everton first came across the title of Reading Rainbow's debut, fittingly enough, in a book.

The Fishtown-via-Richmond, Va., drummer and singer was mired in Carl Jung's Man and his Symbols earlier this year, and the references to "mystical participation" resonated. She dug the idea of mankind communing with nature, of rejecting modernity and embracing simplicity, retreating en masse into the wilds and letting the shared immersion trigger a spiritual awakening.

Now, Everton isn't quite a peyote-and-sweatlodge gal. She doesn't even like to camp. The simplicity she seeks with singer-guitarist-organist (and boyfriend) Rob Garcia is more artistic, and philosophical.

To wit: You'd probably use the word "minimal" in describing Mystical Participation (released Tuesday care of tiny local imprints Slipshot Music Kiss and Single Girl/Married Girl). It's a record where playful guitar pop, brisk drumbeats and freewheeling rock 'n' roll harmonies are fed through a dreamy prism. With reverb layered on all thick and psychedelic (à la lo-fi trendsetters No Age, Vivian Girls and Times New Viking), the sound can be deceptively massive, but it's actually quite straightforward.

Other signs of simplicity: Garcia rhapsodizes about recording on a Tascam 388 reel-to-reel eight-track. Everton's album art — a lion and a bear with Technicolor light spilling from their mouths — was drawn freehand and collaged onto scrap paper. The release is primarily vinyl (with an mp3 download card); their previous, self-titled EP was sold on cassette. All this would sound insufferably pretentious if the duo weren't so thoughtful and genuine about their methods.

"It's funny, it's not like I'm totally against technology," Everton says. She has friends who record their music digitally, who dabble in Garage Band and drum machines. They sound awesome to her ears. "But it's not for us."

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The stripped-down approach began in the duo's previous band, Forensic Teens, a Screamers-inspired keyboard punk trio that was mostly active back in Richmond. Everton's role, pretty much, was synthesizer noise. "I didn't have real parts to play," she recalls. "I had never played music before."

They moved to Philadelphia in spring of 2007; after a year, their drummer decided he didn't want to play out-of-town shows anymore. Dealt a difficult hand, Everton and Garcia decided to honor their upcoming gigs with songs they'd been cooking up on the side. They called the project Reading Rainbow — partly for silly childhood nostalgia's sake, partly because it was the name of a Forensic Teens song — and rushed to prepare. "It was a total whirlwind," recalls Garcia. "Getting it all together, recording some songs on a four-track cassette, practicing and going out of town."

Minimalism was initially a practical matter. Everton was extremely green on drums. Her kit was just a snare and floor tom, played standing — anything more, she says, was just too daunting. "I don't consider myself a real musician," she jokes.

The shows went better than they expected. They began to take the project more seriously. And that simplicity, initially thrust upon them, was cultivated into a thrilling aesthetic.

Reading Rainbow has experienced some guarded growth. Everton plays a full kit on Mystical Participation. Garcia made their sound more exploratory while maintaining basic instrumentation; using the Tascam, guitars were double-tracked and vocals layered to create more tonal richness.

"I absolutely do not want a rack full of effects," Garcia says. "Just distortion, reverb and tremolo, those three are the classic guitar pieces."

"Why do you need a bass if you have drums?" ponders Everton.

Their get-simple outlook is there whenever the lyrics are discernible beneath the squealing reverb. "In the City" is a city mouse/country mouse kind of thing. The refrain on "We Are Too Young" spells out a feeling of claustrophobia from being trapped indoors too long: "I can feel the woods calling me back to the places I come from/ Stuck at my job is wearing me out, I can drop it all to have some fun."

Fun is the operable word; Garcia says their themes reflect trepidation toward the intense responsibilities of adult life. Hence the delightful noise-pop sound. Hence the silly name borrowed from a TV show they watched as kids.

They knew it would subject them to all manner of PBS jokes. They've shared stages with bands who covered the Reading Rainbow theme in tribute. They're fully prepared to get more of this now that the show was dropped from syndication. Hell, they court the jokes — see myspace.com/LeVarMotherfuckingBurton.

But in that playfulness is a profundity, and in their play, the duo has built something special. Everton is more comfortable thinking of herself as a musician, for one thing. She wasn't expecting this. "It's turned into this whole thing we weren't really planning on," she says.

(john.vettese@citypaper.net)

Reading Rainbow's record release show is Mon., Sept. 21, 8 p.m., $10, with Hot Guts and Beach Fossils, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919, kungfunecktie.com • They also play Sat., Sept. 19, 8 p.m., $8, with Woven Bones, Darlings and The Armchairs, Pilam, 3914 Spruce St., yarga.net • and Tue., Sept. 29, 8 p.m., $10, with Wavves and Ganglians, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 866-468-7619, r5productions.com.