Freelance Whales - Weathervanes (Frenchkiss Records)

This record was written from a collection of dream journal entries.  I’ll try to follow that same pattern and write this after playing it over night and seeing what I can come up with.  Here is what happened …

Many of the connotations associated with ghosts are bad, reminders of a past filled with loss, regret, pain.  But, how different is a ghost from a guardian angel?  Can these spirits exist for a better purpose or as a form of comfort?  What if, after necromancy, you made contact with a ghost?  The Freelance Whales take this is a step further, by having a boy fall in love with this incorporeal lady, on Weathervanes.  The boy - eventually - outgrows the need for this safe depository.

Let me try to explain:

The record begins with the ghost getting comfortable (“We are finding everyday several ways in which we could be friends”) with her existence on “Generator ^ First Floor.”  (live version)This ghost seems to get a name in “Hannah.”  And some of the best (And if your partial to the night sky / If you’re vaguely attracted to rooftops) and worst (Please don’t be a player hater) lyrics are on this track.  “Location” is about the acceptance of powerful spirits being able to affect us.  The most powerful location, though, is in the mind of those ready to believe.

The belief controls how spirits affect this relationship, as heard in “Starring.”  The boy realizes that it is “a stranger’s nightmare.”  “Kilojoules” is the ghost narrating how the boy is starting to have an unhealthy attraction toward her.  She gets that they’ve connected; yet, he is unable to make any living connection by clinging only to her.  This ghost is protecting the boy - the boy that needs to move on from her to be realized as a man.

I interpret “Broken Horse” (Wow! That is an amazing performance) to be a vision of the boy’s future.  He is never capable of being completely vulnerable, to his significant other, like he could (maybe even wants to) with the ghost.  A multitude of regrets, sins and lies consistently coarse through this older version of his soul.  His marriage will be forever tarnished by his longing for the ghost.  The boy comes to this realization during “Ghosting.”  He’s been emulating her, dreaming of “sleeping in the power sockets … mildew in the tiles of the bathroom.”  He needs to break from this safety of his childhood, which is not so safe in real life. 

“We Could Be Friends” is the end of a relationship.  No matter how right the split is, for both partied, it’s still hard to actually ‘be friends’.  The image (and repetition) of “Please don’t put your face into your hands / We could be friends / Please don’t put your face into your hands / We could be friends” is chilling.  Notice, as the split becomes official, the drums and rhythm are leaving very little room for these lyrics.  This lack of gravity, (We compare our hearts to things that fly but cannot land) confuses the relationship, until it falls apart and crashes.  Maybe things went to fast?  Maybe what the relationship was built on, was different for those involved? 

The record closes with my two favorite tracks musically.  The harmony in “Generator ^ Second Floor” is magical.  The boy has accepted his life and is ready for death, knowing his soul will live on through a spirit animal (What is your spirit animal? I’m a wolf), as told in “Great Estates.”  The boy has continued the work of his lovely ghost, by moving into a natural position as a nurturer for other young souls needing guidance, or just needing a friend.

Okay, I’m awake now.  I’ve left the lucid sate of the record, and want to know more about the band from Queens, New York.  The musicians are Judah Dadone, Doris Cellar, Chuck Criss, Jacob Hyman and Kevin Read.  They are generally associated as multi-instrument band (e.g.: glockenspiel, harmonium, tin watering can, banjo), as heard on the record.  Member can play different instruments from track to track.

And, of course, the obvious question:  How did they got the name Freelance Whales?  Judah explained it like this (Spinner):

“The name comes from an experience that I had growing up as a kid, growing up in Israel. My family lived on the Sea of Galilee, which is a lake in Northern Israel that separates Jordan from Israel. My father and his brothers had all been in the merchant marines. You know that everyone in Israel kind of serves in the army, so earlier in their lives they had been merchant marines and they were all really great divers. I remember from a very early age that I really admired their ability to do a lot of skindiving. They would like disappear for minutes at a time and they would dive really deep. They would bring stuff up from the bottom. So at one point, there was no one around, and i decided that I was going to try to do some deep diving! And try to bring something to the surface! So there was this sort of incident that happened, where I dove down really deep, and I found this rock. It was really big and I had a hard time bringing it to the surface. So this lifeguard had seen that I was struggling with it, and he sort of pulled me to the side of the shore. There was a fisherman nearby who had seen this little event transpire. As I was kind of laying there, I had a little water in my lungs and I was sort of exasperated, but this old man who is standing by is really like quietly laughing to himself. It was this old guy who had been known around the area and was thought of as a little crazy. He had seen the whole event transpire. He called me something in Hebrew that roughly translates to ‘liberty whale’ or ‘freedom whale’. And I sort of translated that in my head to freelance whales! I was like six or seven. Yeah, as a little kid, trying to impress his father. More than that I think we chose Freelance Whales because we thought that the letters looked pretty written down and we thought that it sounded nice to say. It was something we didn’t mind saying over and over. There’s the aesthetic reason and there’s also that little anecdote. Whales are very spiritual and musical creatures.”

Congratulations, Freelance Whales, for releasing the DD84 2011 Record Of The Year, Weathervanes.

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