Biography
American Watercolor Movement is an art rock/indie rock band from Jersey City, NJ. It started in 1998 as an experimental art and music project, and in the same year the first album, krautrock inspired Flapjacks, Sunrise and Verne, was released on Perhaps Transparent Recordings.
The second album And The Maps Came Down was self-released in 2004 and didn't have similar sound as the previous one, shifting more to the indie rock/art pop. All songs on it share the same theme — the theme of travelling to Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Russia, Poland) and trying to communicate with different people there. This album features foreign languages, hinting them through the titles, occasional phrases or even writing lyrics in them: Spanish (Charging For Mariscos), Italian (I Paparazzi), French (Article I. (Treaties Nouveau) and Pour Les Auditeurs), Hungarian (Lifestyle), Russian and Polish (Wesolego Chlopcy. The closing track The Sway Of Your Torso mentions some international airport in the song and probably hints that the American traveler finishes his European tour and returns back home.
The third album, It Takes Fifteen To Tango In My Book, What Book Do You Read? was self-released in 2006. It mainly got lukewarm feedback from the USA audience, but also achieved the cult following in the indie-rock scene of the former-USSR countries, mainly in Russia.
Such a strange reception can be explained by the theme and the sound of the album.
The main theme is mainly abstract, but some songs ironise over the stereotypical soviet culture, such as mocking typical naming of the streets in soviet era ("communist garden" and "dictator square" in Monkey Lady).
Album blends together electronica and european-esque rock, utilising beats instead of drums and demonstrating vocal skills of Jason Cieradkowski. It makes the listener want to dance while evoking the feelings of some unknown nostalgia.
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