Flock of Dimes – Prison Bride // Song Of The Day #241

It seems as if word is only just beginning to spread about Wye Oak’s superb 2011 release, Civilian. And yet just when we’re given room to breathe, out comes a side-project: Flock Of Dimes.

We’re not to complain. Jenn Wasner calls this her “vanity project”; an initially short-term attempt to write a few songs in the two weeks preceding a show she’d agreed to play. At first, she’d written five tracks and then she came to realise just how much fun she was having, so decided to pen another batch. You get the sense when listening to ‘Prison Bride’ that Flock Of Dimes could carry a whole momentum of its own.

Incessant, chop-and-change samples hit you from the very beginning, before reverberating around Wasner’s commanding vocals. Occasionally, the unforgiving pace subsides to allow a fluttering of pianos or a pulsating synth line the centre of stage. On paper, ‘Prison Bride’ is a scatterbrained collection of several elements from various genres that wouldn’t usually sit within a mile of each other. Yet it’s all pulled off with a startling amount of confidence.

Flock of Dimes – Prison Bride

‘Prison Bride’ will appear on a forthcoming Friends Records compilation.