The Sorts – Six Plus lp

The Sorts – Six Plus lp

Slint, Rodan, and Hoover. At the beginning of the 90s these three groups served as a launching pad for other interesting projects. From Hoover's ashes, for example, would emerge The Crownhate Ruin, June of 44, Regulator Watts or the group in question, The Sorts. In a scene -Washington DC/Dischord- dominated by the highly flammable post-hardcore of Fugazi or Jawbox, groups like The Sorts or Smart Went Crazy opposed a more relaxed way of playing, instrumental fiddling, bass tiqui-taca and battery. Fugazi already had their moments of kids-from-Washington-imitating-Funkadelic but The Sorts (and later also The Boom or HiM) turned that intention into their raison d'être, both compositionally and interpretively. They tried to get away from their punk and rock roots, to vindicate the legacy of genres like jazz, dub or even psychedelic funk (the fanzines of the time called it post rock, which was shorter and more fashionable).

The group began as a collaborative project between musicians Joshua LaRue (ex-Rain Like The Sound of Trains who has now gone on to play guitar and sing), bassist Stuart Fletcher, and drummer Chris Farrall (who came from Hoover, a band from the that he had been part of when he was still a minor). As the group consolidated (records on Slowdime Records or Southern and constant tours, above all in the US, but also in Europe and Japan), The Sorts began to open up to collaborations with other musicians. This is how Joe McRedmond (ex-Hoover and ex-The Crownhate Ruin), Carlo Cennamo (saxophones, also in the essential The Boom) or Vin Novara (keyboards, ex-The Crownhate Ruin) became part -more or less- of the group.

“Six Plus” -the album by The Sorts that is now being reissued by the Catalan label BCore Discs, originally released in 2003- could serve as a summary of what the group meant. In fact, it is his latest work, although it does not even come close to presenting that twilight air that the latest albums by a group sometimes have (like a fat Maradona playing for Sevilla). The group does not sound tired or lacking in ideas, on the contrary. “Six Plus” opens and closes with two small experiments carried out in the studio and then we find several samples of that good instrumental work that makes listening to the group's records on a Sunday morning a massage for the senses. The Sorts -like other contemporary groups like Euphone, Del Rey, Pele, Billy Mahonie- rocked in a subtle way, they made you float among the clouds. With this reissue we will miss them a little less.