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Album Details

• Artist: Portastatic
• Album: The Summer Of The Shark
• Label: Merge
• Year of Release: 2003
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-08-15

Portastatic has always been Mac McCaughan's second priority and over the last couple of years it's kind of seemed like it. Summer of the Shark is an album that actually seems like a fully realized album that makes it seem like more of a focus than Superchunk. Mac pours his heart into pretty much every track on Portastatic's latest offering. If you can't see that in the track "Paratrooper" then you are colder than an Arctic Winter. It could be the most gentle and peaceful song that McCaughan has ever written. Mac borrowed the help of longtime indie stalwarts Yo La Tengo for advice and some playing. While there are not any obvious places that Yo La Tengo can be heard influencing, you can tell the overall feel of the album is much more cohesive than any of their past albums. A few other 'friends' helped Mac out on the album: Janet Weiss (Quasi, Sleater Kinney), Tony Crow (Lambchop), Margaret White (Sparklehorse), Matthew McCaughan, Aaron Oliva and John Plymale. I'm a big Superchunk fan and I have become a fan of Portastatic as well. They are two completely different projects with the same vocalist. It's nice to see a songwriter capable of being diverse enough to manage to projects of this magnitude, let alone run a label as well.

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