Search - John Mark Painter, Fleming McWilliams :: The Way We Are

Goose bump music

Jason A. Hoffman | Fort Wayne, IN USA | 10/02/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Maybe once a year, I hear an album that gives me literal goose bumps. This one gave me goose bumps on my goose bumps. The second release by husband and wife writing team, The Way We Are retains the imaginative pop styling of their first album but with a more mature approach to lyrics and composition. Fleming, the wife, sings, writes the lyrics and creates the melodies which are unbalanced, full of unexpected twists, yet natural and horribly catchy. Husband John creates rich tapestries of sound around these melodies, writing the music, making string arrangements, and playing an astounding number of instruments (aside from drums and orchestral strings, he plays every instrument on the album including such non-conventionals as flugelhorn, balalaika, vibes, flute, oud, saz, dilruba, spacephone, accordion, dulcimer, and the creepy theremin).Like the music of The Police, their sound is immediately catchy with just enough pop to have wide appeal but with enough musical meat backing this pop to appeal to the die-hard musician. Ben Folds, perhaps their biggest fan, calls their sound "the Carpenters of the 90's with a Led Zeppelin rhythm section". "I'm So Small" opens quietly but with enormous tension that soon floods into a full-out punk-flavored assault of guitars, Indian-flavored orchestral strings and Fleming's voice that can effortlessly glide from a sweet little girl to a screeching banshee. "Sssh!", with it's Alanis Morissette feel and theme of falling for a best friend, is driven along by timpani and spent more than one day in my head. Singing about their marriage, "Comfortable" hits home with anyone who has gone past the infatuation stage in a relationship with it's laid back, Carpenterish sound. The title song finds Fleming wondering if she and John will grow apart or stay "the way we are" against a jazz-influence slide upright bass part that morphs into an aggressive chorus of complex, interwoven vocal lines. "Radiate" can only be described as "The Go-Go's Meet Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass". In "Ugly Girl" Fleming sings "I can't believe you're leaving me for an ugly girl" while John plinks away merrily on the xylophone. Other songs verge on disco, mix R&B with tango, swing with grunge, and dirty blues with Siouxie and the Banshees. In the hands of lesser artists, this juxtaposition of styles would be a sonic mess. With these masters of songwriting, however, the result is absolute perfection."

5 stars for "I'm So Small" alone

Joshua Sperling | Los Angeles, CA | 06/05/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

""I'm So Small" has got to be one of the best songs I've heard in at least 3-4 years, I really, REALLY wish I had discovered the rest of Fleming & John's music when it first came out, but unfortunately the only song I'd heard by them was "Ugly Girl", which I thought was good in a funny, cute sort of way, but was in no way prepared for just how excellent this band is. I stated above, this CD deserves 5 stars just for "I'm So Small" and is worth every penny. The song literally gives me goosebumps, it totally affects me. Get this album. Don't think about it, just get it."

One of the greatest albums you've never heard

woburnmusicfan | Woburn, MA United States | 01/30/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"By rights, this self-recorded, self-produced second album by wife-husband team Fleming & John should have ruled the airwaves in 2000. "Sssh!" should have been played to death on the alternative stations, while "Comfortable" should have dominated adult stations AND become the official theme song for all 5th wedding anniversaries ("You'll agree that we've become predictable/But I really don't mind being this comfortable"). Instead, the novelty song "Ugly Girl", co-written with pal Ben Folds, became the single, and the album went unheard. Someday soon, either of these songs or "Rain All Day" will be prominently placed in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie and this pair will be discovered by the masses a la Aimee Mann.Wife Fleming McWilliams sings and writes the melodies and lyrics. Her voice goes from a Maria Muldaur coo to an alternative scream to an operatic wail on a moment's notice. Husband Mark John Painter writes and arranges the music, and plays almost all instruments except drums. On "The Pearl" alone, he plays guitar, bass, cello, flugelhorn, balalaika, vibes, and timpani. The songs run a variety of styles and moods ("I'm So Small" starts the album as an alternative screecher and closes it as a lounge number). Yet the album still has a coherent feel.These two have recorded a better album in their barn than most could do with a year in the studio. The production mixes Phil Spector's classic pop with Jon Brion's kitchen-sink approach, and the arrangements teem with original touches: The timpani used in place of bass drum on "Sssh!", the operatic vocal between verses on the languid, gorgeous "Rain All Day", the discordant cello figure during the chorus of "The Way We Are", the theremin on "Sadder Day" (a song that you could picture Cibo Matto covering), the hammered dulcimer on "Suppressed Emotions" (which you could picture Tori Amos covering), and so on.This is an Enhanced CD, which includes a 7-minute video documentary on the making of the album."