Search - Tel Aviv :: Shape of Fiction

A flawless gem of indie-rock

James L. | Virginia, United States | 11/19/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This record has been sadly neglected and remains virtually unknown. It's not too surprising since it came out on the heels of the Indie-Rock Glut and Crash of late 1996, (which really did happen, at least in DC where Teenbeat was located when it issued this disc). It's a shame since The Shape of Fiction is perhaps the perfect indie-rock record. I'm pretty tired of almost all of the indie-rock stuff I used to listen to in the 90's, but not this. This one is something special. Tel Aviv have on their second and last record (a promised third never materialized) carved out a very small musical territory, yet within it they find variety of mood, texture, and vision. What results is the sustaining of an intesity of focus, but a focus which never bores, which examines a particular bit of landscape in all its fascinating detail. It also comes across as a gentle reminiscence on everything that was most original and heartfelt in indie music that had come before, as if it had already been seen for the last time. Perhaps it could only mean this to another musician who was there in the early and mid 90's. Perhaps not. In any case, it is saturated with waking and sleeping dreams, both in the floating-yet-focused songwriting and arrangements and in the fragmented-yet-pointed lyrics. A truly remarkable, and remarkably unknown record."