CD Review: Imperfect i's Groopoloops

By Tyler Corelitz

Imperfect i is a project by Oakland-based singer/songwriter Gery Tinkelenberg. His new CD, titled Groopoloops, is a collection of songs performed spontaneously and based around guitar looping, with some sparse atmospheric percussion mixed in. The guitar playing is good, if not a little "new age," and the recording quality is excellent. In fact, all of the production on the CD comes across very well. The album's ten songs are more or less Gery jamming with himself over loops, and as free, improvised songs they actually work quite well. With no set structure, however, their length lends them to being more of an ambient soundtrack to a nice long drive in a big expensive car then out and out songs. The opening lines are usually lost in a wash of layers lapping up against one another, stirring the musical pot. (more >>)

The album is best when it breaks from its acoustic guitar roots and introduces darker, distorted, almost noisy sounds over the top in a manner that is very Frisselian. Considering that Oakland is home to much of the Bay Area's noise scene, these more aggressive elements make perfect sense, and would be a welcome point of expansion in Imperfect i's future.

Much like the East Bay, which manages to balance the SUV yuppie moms and college fraternities of Berkeley with urban sprawl and often shocking poverty in the Oakland flatlands, Groopoloops is half contained and peaceful, half struggling and on the point of outburst. Considering the first half of this equation, it is strange to note that Imperfect i's bio makes note of Tinkelenberg's inability to settle down, as much of this music seems to be the perfect tantric love song to woo unsuspecting yuppie moms out of their yoga outfits and into whatever.