live @ Iota, 7.15.2002
The Radar Brothers songs are explorations of blissful, half-awake dreams: people experience “murky water visions”, a blank-faced stranger whistles a spectral tune, words “float down like feathers to your feet.” And during a rare East Coast appearance at the Black Cat Monday night, the Los Angeles band offered a hypnotic recitation of their slowly whirling compositions.
The Brothers---singer/guitarist Jim Putnam, bassist Senon Williams and drummer Steve Goodfriend---were joined by a guitarist and keyboardist, widening their sonic dreamscapes in accordance with the chiming tones of their new album, “And the Surrounding Mountains”. That fine record, their fourth, made up the majority of the hour-long set, which blended pinches of Syd Barrett and the muted psychedelia of 1980’s L.A. “Paisley Underground” bands like Rain Parade with Putnam’s forlorn and disorienting lyrical scenarios. Though many of them were similar in structure, songs like “This Xmas Eve”, “Rock of the Lake”, “Shoveling Sons” and the gorgeous “Sisters”, turned on subtle variations: a relocation of Williams’ sustained bass notes, a shift in Goodfriend’s loping drum patterns or the addition or subtraction of layers of synthesizer wash. Only “Shifty Lies”, which built to a cacophonous crescendo, broke the tranquilizing flow.
The Radar Brothers seemed genuinely pleased when the small but rapt crowd applauded vigorously for an encore, and they responded in kind with more of their shimmering balance of form and function.
Washington Post, 2002
