Dolphins of Color

I'm still coming around on the Circus Devils music made by Robert Pollard and Todd Tobias. I appreciate that their collaborations have yielded music that is different from everything else in Pollard's catalog -- few CD songs could pass for those of Guided by Voices, for example -- and that Tobias has pushed Pollard's solo material in interesting directions. Those directions haven't always been the ones I would choose to follow, yet, but with "Dolphins of Color" they have created a song that is near perfect.

With the Circus Devils projects Tobias (and on some, his brother, Tim) creates the instrumentation for a song, and then has Pollard sing over it. This process, with Tobias and others, has been hit or miss. Here, it's a hit. Over Tobias's pump organ and clanking percussion (rattling chains and handclaps, perhaps?), Pollard offers one of his most impassioned vocals, sounding not unlike Peter Gabriel, oddly enough. It's the perfect marriage of music and voice; you wouldn't want anything else from Tobias, and Pollard, while dominating things, leaves enough space so that the backing track can breathe.

It would seem like a perfect song for live performance, but the song, found on the live MOON and as the B-side of the "Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft" single, falls flat here. It seems to require the intimacy of Tobias's workshop creation and Pollard's tight vocals. With drums and a drunken, looser Pollard, it just doesn't work.

Pollard obviously values the song, using it for that solo B-side and including it as one of few Circus Devils tracks on the Crickets collection.