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Teen-Beat 356.

The Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers

Better Days, Coming Now

Cradle
Winners
Morning Coffee
You Don't Mind Me
All You Want to do is Make Me Cry
Bug Light
Progress
Paul McGinnis
Someone New
Better Days, Coming Now

Telephone
Be Lonely With Me

Compact Disc (CD) ($14,44)

Silk-screened chipboard
package, 6-panel folder.

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DESCRIPTION

The third and final album from this husband and wife duo.

LINER NOTES

PLAYERS

Jeannine Durfee, vocals, bass guitar, drums, et cetera

Rob Christiansen, vocals, guitar, keyboard, et cetera

AND QUITE OFTEN

Mike Halverson, drums, bass guitar, percussion

GUEST PLAYERS

David Garland, piano on 5

John Rickman, drums on 5

RECORDED BY

Rob Christiansen
and Jeannine Durfee

at home, Brooklyn, New York, USA

MASTERED BY

Jennifer Munson,

at DB Plus, New York, New York, USA

MUSIC COMPOSITION

Rob Christiansen
and Jeannine Durfee

except
the title track written by Kyoko

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jennifer Bove

COVER DESIGN

John Foster, Fuszion Collaborative

ET CETERA

A short film set to the music of "Bug Light" is embedded within the compact disc and is viewable with a personal computer.

THIS MADE POSSIBLE BY

Stewart Anderson,
Jennifer Bove,
John Foster,
Mark Robinson,
Steve Silverstein,
Jen Turrell,
Caroline Walter.

STICKER COPY

This is the third album from Jeannine Durfee and Robert Christiansen. Rob has recorded bands such as Low, LaBradford, and Unrest. He was also in indie-prog band Eggs and played in Grenadine with Jenny Toomey.

REVIEWS

"On roughly half of these songs, the Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers (which, oddly enough, has more men than women) play gentle, minimal music in the spirit of Young Marble Giants -- ad hoc percussion or rudimentary drum programming backing up subtle, three or four note melodies knocked out on bass guitar or picked out on a Casio -- but with less metronomic precision to their playing. On the other half, they explore the possibilities of faux-orchestral mall-organ arrangements in the manner of the Magnetic Fields, but without the smug irony or cleverness. When they mount an ersatz-disco homage on "All You Want to Do Is Make Me Cry", it's not to rub their recherche tastes in our face -- it's only to reveal more starkly the desperation that was always present in the genre, the pathos of lonely people in clubs trying to find meaningful connection in a place and with a manner least suited to it. In both approaches, there is an innocence to their songs that never crosses over into preciousness orprecociousness, despite occasional whimsy (particularly in "Bug Light") and the threat posed by Jeannine Durfee's schoolgirlish voice. However, by stripping her delivery of anything resembling seductiveness (which would imply a scheming calculation, a knowingness that thwarts innocence), Durfee is able to project a guileless yearning that is easy to sympathize with, easy to assume as an expression of your own hopes if you were so inclined. Often stumbling in their rhythms, or slightly missing cues, the Thinkers reveal unpolished edges, an unsteadiness that serves them well, giving a sense of organic spontaneity, while capturing just how fragile the impulse to create can be. The way the vocals are recorded contributes to this as well: the mikes' input level is turned way up, so they pick up a lot of the room as well as the voices, making for a palpable intimacy that at the same time avoids being claustrophobic. On the gentler songs, like "Cradle", "Winners" and 'Be Lonely With Me", the singing becomes an interior monologue, just as quiet and just as insistent, repeating the hopeful of discouraging phrases we use to buoy or undermine ourselves.

These simple, unassuming mantras immediately stick in your head, in comfortable dialogue with your convoluted thoughts."
- Rob Horning, Splendid [e-zine]

"While 2001's Ume Sour reflected Rob Christiansen and Jeannine Durfee's stay in Japan and that country's certain fascination with flashy plastic and reflective culture influences, Better Days Coming Now finds the husband and wife duo back in Brooklyn, back on Teenbeat, and building another Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers album out of pop residue and little bits of happiness. Better Days Coming Now is like a Yo La Tengo album without the squelch and indie pop jones. Christiansen and Durfee deconstruct everything, separating out their cooing harmonies from plucked, faraway guitars ("Cradle"), recycling the Velvet Underground as patchy, keyboard-squiggle twee ("You Don't Mind Me"), and devoting their most ambitious arranging desires to a wavering and unpretentious tribute to the Bee Gees and chintzy cool love rock ("All You Want to Do Is Make Me Cry"). The album's tinny qualities can be somewhat trying; "Bug Light" is nothing more than the two of them singing to their frail selves. At the same time, the Sisterhood has been made stronger by the emergence of Durfee's vocals, as her particular non-singing singing voice is more interesting than Christiansen's. "Paul McGinnis" might be the best thing here. As chopped-up sequences and samples suggest early-'90s dance-pop (there just might be a smidgen of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" in there), Durfee lilts "You want to be a star/Look inside and make yourself strong," and her fragile style makes the song's message of empowerment that much stronger. Highly recommended for fans of more eccentric pop sounds."
- Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

"A mainstay of the mid-'90s Arlington scene -- yes, there was such a thing -- ex-Egg Rob Christiansen has since covered a lot of ground. He and wife Jeannine Durfee spent two years in Japan, which was obviously an influence on the gently mixed-up sounds made by their band, the Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers. The 'Hood is now based in Brooklyn and has expanded to a quartet, although that's not evident from the thin, homemade sound of its third album, "Better Days Coming Now."

"All You Want to Do Is Make Me Cry" offers diluted funk and "You Don't Mind Me" manages a modest equivalent of Stereolab's groove, but most of the album is fragile and ephemeral. The principal timbres are Durfee's soprano, Christiansen's high tenor and a variety of tinny electronic sounds, including Casio beats and modem bleats. The group certainly doesn't seek to overwhelm its listeners. At its best, the Sisterhood's music is pretty, clever and a little coy. Appreciating its low-key charms is -- as Durfee and Christiansen warble on "Bug Light" -- 'like waiting for my ladybug to shine.'"
- Mark Jenkins, The Washington Post

"File (with affection) under: Quirky. The Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers, composed of Rob Christiansen (Grenadine, Eggs) and his wife, Jeannine Durfee, undertake their first West Coast tour in support of their third record, the gleeful Teenbeat release Better Days, Coming Now. Sonically, the Sisterhood is sort of like a twee-pop Deerhoof (if that's plausible)--with tangled boy-girl vocals, saccharine melodies, and hopelessly erratic song structures. Coupled live with skits and elaborate theatrics, the band's precious eccentricities couldn't possibly cloud the infectious delight of craft."
- Zac Pennington, The Stranger

RELEASE DATE

August 4, 2003

FORMAT

compact disc

LENGTH

37 minutes, 52 seconds

12 tracks

CATALOGUE No.

Teen-Beat 356

DETAILS

968 pressed.

PACKAGE:
Stock 4-panel chipboard CD sleeves silkscreened with blue, yellow, and green ink. Half of the pressing is primarily yellow and blue, and the other half of the copies and primarily yellow and green.

INSERT:
Full-colour printing on uncoated .

LABEL:
yellow, blue, and opaque white ink.

STICKER:
2" x 3" burgundy ink on glossy white paper. Placed on northeast corner, on top of shrinkwrap.

Silkscreened by
Jeannine Durfee and Rob Christiansen, Brooklyn, New York.

Insert printed by
John Foster, Alexandria, Virginia.

Pressed and packaged by
Bellwether, Bloomington, Indiana.

DISCOGRAPHY

SINGLES

King Me
Lunchdate
Help Me Catch this Fly

ALBUMS

I Remember the Day Smarty Marched...
Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers
Ume Sour
Better Days, Coming Now

COMPILATIONS

Jiffy Boy Records
Wakefield: Volume 1
Wakefield: The Teen-Beat Boxed Set
Rocker Supernova
The Adventures of Pablo, Circus Boy Compilation
Never Kept a Diary
Ten; Ten
Little Darla Has a Treat For You vol.12
These Are Testing Times
Little Darla Has a Treat For You vol.14
Little Darla Has a Treat For You vol.15
Chihuahuas and Chinese
New Atmosphere for the Future
You Gotta Get More Alive
Number Nine
Hopping on the West Coast
Viva Mobstar
Little Darla Has a Treat For You vol.16
2002 Teenbeat Sampler
555-55
2003 Teenbeat Sampler
Teen-Beat Subscribers' CD, 2003
2004 Teenbeat Sampler
Teen-Beat 20th Commemorative

ALSO

Teen-Beat's 17th Anniversary
Teen-Beat's 19th Anniversary

RELATED

Eggs Stick Insect Viva Satellite

SONGS

A Goof Plays on the Roof
A la Teen
Action 98
All You Want to do is Make Me Cry
Ami-chan, Mai-chan
Armstrong Archer
Basketball Club
Be Lonely With Me
Better Days, Coming Now
Brown Door, Green Mat
Bug Light
Cheap Food Duad Circles
Cradle
Darlin' Ellen The Decision You Must Make Between Alcohol and Kissing Me
Decoder Ring
Dedicated Julie
Dolphin Girl (Introduction Music)
Doors and Humming
Flower Girl (Credit Music)
Help Me Catch this Fly
I Will
Indeed I Do
Investor Relations
Just Look At The Building... It Stands
King Me
Klaus McGurdy's Mechanized Clock
Lichetenstein
Lunchdate
Miss America Morning Coffee
Ne Ne, Ami-Chan
Nen Ga Joo
The New Style Poetry
Pablo, Deepsea Aquanautics Mausoleum
Paul McGinnis
Piano 2
Progress
Raaahhh!
The Rainbow
Ramanhat Nbaddah
Regrets Sable
Sakura No Heya
Sayuri
Shiny
Slow, Classic
Someone New
Song for Tony and Ian
Songs Children Can Make with Their Mouths
Swingback Modern
Telephone
These Things Will Keep Me Loving You
Those Qualified for Telephony
Time Piece
Timing is Correct
Tootling the Multitudes
Tottori Made
Warrenton 1
Winners
Yakusoku (A Promise)
You Don't Mind Me