Hospital is the San Francisco trio of Karina Gill (Cindy, Flowertown), Mike Ramos (Tony Jay, Flowertown), and Kevin Linn (Sad Eyed Beatniks), three longtime friends and collaborators with their hands all over the city’s DIY scene. Released by Paisley Shirt Records, their latest album 456 is the result of three years of getting together and recording whatever comes to mind—which, apparently, includes “marbles in a washbin, a harmonium through a cat door, and CD racks played in stereo.”
456 feels like wandering into a place you’re not entirely sure you’re supposed to be. You keep waiting for everything to fall into place. It never does.
The album opens with the sad and catchy “Dear Gentlepeople,” while “Dirty Violins and Grease” introduces soft vocals sitting beneath dirty violin, light percussion, and distant wind instruments. It sounds like looking around a room and not quite knowing where to put yourself.
Then comes “Would Love to See You”: scritch, scratch, marbles, back and forth and back and forth. The song circles around itself without going anywhere. That feeling becomes increasingly familiar on the album. Sounds repeat until they stop feeling like sounds and start feeling like places. Even when 456 gives you something recognizable, it doesn’t last long.
“This Might Take a While” begins with guitar strums, drones and some sort of wind instrument. It sounds like everyone is tuning up for something. The title starts to feel like a warning. Take a while to do what? “Color Supplement To” doesn’t give you an answer. Instead, you stumble upon a drum circle accompanied by unintelligible chanting. Are you scared? Curious? Do you dare stay long enough to find out?
By “Je Citrus,” you’re in the drum circle. The drums slow. Static hangs. Strangely, it feels more comfortable now, but nothing has actually changed. It’s like traveling somewhere far away expecting to become a different person, only to arrive and realize everything somehow feels even more the same.
“Hope You Will Be Made Whole” keeps circling. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. At this point, you’re not watching the ritual anymore; you’re participating in it. Like playing duck duck goose with a group of strangers and having absolutely no idea what’s going to happen when somebody finally says “goose.”
Then “Two This Year” offers a small escape hatch. An electric guitar finds a funky riff. Synths appear. Soft feminine vocals float over something resembling a conventional rhythm. After spending so much of the album disoriented, familiarity feels almost shocking. You know what to do with this. You nod your head.
But by then, 456 has already changed the way you’re listening.
The record is full of things touching other things: bow against string, marble against washbin, wind against microphone, hand against drum, some unidentified object repeatedly colliding with another. Hospital takes all of that incidental noise—the stuff we’re usually trained to ignore—and pulls it into the foreground.
There isn’t always a destination. There isn’t always a payoff. Sometimes the marble rolls around the washbin.
