Pitchfork

[Posted Monday, October 20th, 2003 04:30:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

+/-, whose name never gets uttered without some reference to Versus (see?), are set to release their second full-length, You Are Here, on TeenBeat November 18th. Founded in 2001 by erstwhile and still sometime Versus member James Baluyut, +/- has plowed an eclectic furrow; in fact, it's not an exaggeration to say that they probably beat Dntel to the emotronic punch, but received absolutely no credit for their groundbreaking work. All of this is to say that +/- kind of pioneered that blending of guitars and electronica that we now more or less take for granted.

James has recruited some longtime collaborators for this incarnation of +/- including Versus' Patrick Ramos on guitar and vocals, Chris Deaner of Damnation on drums, and Tony Zanella (who is also in True Love Always) on bass. This lineup put together the Holding Patterns EP, released this past spring, and met up again at James' New York City apartment for the writing and recording of the new album. The live favorite "Trapped Under Ice Floes" makes a repeat appearance here, somewhat altered from the original Holding Patterns version, hence the "Redux" of the title. Tracklist:

01 Ventriloquist
02 Surprise!
03 Trapped Under the Ice Floes (Redux)
04 She's Got Your Eyes
05 Summer Dress 1 (All Her Winter Clothes)
06 Cutting Out
07 Megalomaniac
08 Scarecrow
09 No One Sees You Like I Do
10 Here We Are (Again)
11 Everything I See Makes It Feel Wrong

Speaking of live favorites, the band's sound translates scarily well to the live environment, and you can expect a much less mellow and rather more frenetic experience than their recorded output might lead you to expect. +/- is playing a bunch of dates in support of the new album, the first few of which are in the company of the sublime Wrens, whose praises we simply cannot sing enough. The dates:

10-22 New York, NY - Luna Lounge (CMJ festival showcase)
11-07 Boston, MA - TT The Bear's (w/ The Wrens)
11-08 New York, NY - Knitting Factory (w/ The Wrens)
11-09 Washington, D.C. - Black Cat (w/ The Wrens)
11-10 Carrboro, NC - Go! Room 4 (w/ Disband)
11-11 Atlanta, GA - Echo Lounge (w/ Sinapore Sing)
11-12 Louisville, KY - Rudyard Kipling House (w/ Red Tailed Hawk)
11-13 Chicago, IL - Schubas (w/ Written in Sand)
11-14 Detroit, MI - The Lagerhouse
11-15 Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place (w/ Kiddo)
12-02 Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds
12-03 West Palm Beach, FL - Respectable Street
12-05 Charleston, SC - Village Tavern

In other +/- and related news, Baluyut told Pitchfork via e-mail that the band will also be be playing SXSW and perhaps embarking on an Asian tour in the Spring. Both Holding Patterns and You Are Here are released in Japan on & records, the typographical humor of which James thought we might appreciate (+/- on &-- it gets complicated).

We also tried, with some trepidation, to find out if Versus was dead or merely resting, but there didn't seem to be any real sense of certainty about that, even from the horse's mouth itself. As James put it, "There is no official position on Versus right now. Everybody seems enveloped in their own projects. You might call it LIMBO." Those projects, in addition to +/-, would be Richard Baluyut's Whysall Lane and Fontaine Toups TFT. With so much post-Versus product coming down the pike, who wouldn't want to limbo?