Gentle Listeners, I present to you this month a review of the latest album by Finn Riggins, the band that possesses the lowest possible Oracle Shack number that a band can have without actually being Oracle Shack. (Note: Low is good on the Oracle Shack scale.) Indeed Finn Riggins has strong ties to this former local indie rock band, and to Moscow and to the Co-op as well. The title of their new album is “A Soldier, A Saint, An Ocean Explorer.” You can find it along with their first CD “alive bugs ( )” in the lovely new CD display, which you can twirl around to find a number of CDs for sale at the Co-op.

Finn Riggins is Lisa Simpson on guitar and vocals, Eric Gilbert on synthesizer, organ, keyboards and vocals, and Cameron Bouiss on drums, steel drum and vocals. My last column about Finn Riggins (April 2007) described how these UI music graduates quit their jobs and relocated to Hailey ID to commit to their musical destinies. Since that review, they recorded their second album in California on the Tender Loving Empire label, and they have toured with the same pace and intensity that they apply to their music, putting 15,000 miles on their van, darting from Boise to Bozeman to Brooklyn to Salt Lake City. Audiences have greeted them with enthusiasm in venues as diverse as the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan and Lisa’s old high school in Belmont, New Hampshire. They have slept in a lot of rest areas. They may be the hardest working band in Idaho, though they are hardly ever here these days.

When they stop in Moscow it is usually for a good cause, like Friends of the Clearwater or KRFP. Their most recent performance here was a benefit for the latter, held in the Pritchard Art Gallery. The audio portion of that show was accompanied by the digital media improvisation of Joseph Von Stengel. Von Stengel’s art is as difficult to characterize as that of Finn Riggins, both being cultural post-modern mélanges for which the sum total is way more original than any one component influence.

Here’s why you should buy this CD. Though many of the tunes are the same as those heard on “alive bugs ( )”, the recording quality is superior and the vocals are much more up-front on this new album. You will get a better sample of Lisa’s emotional range, from sweet to sardonic, and you will better discern the well-written lyrics that reflect the band’s spirit and playfulness. This band is root strata, Moscow-stamped, experimental, alternative, techno, punk, jazz, and a product of the Lionel Hampton School of Music. Finn Riggins is our people and they play our music, as complex and difficult to define as all of us are.

Finn Riggins’ conceptual continuity has evolved from their early trademark empty parentheses (perhaps a space reserved for an infinity of possibilities), to an emphasis on the rhythms of three-ness. The three-fold title of the album recurs in the chant on the final track: “A President, a Pacifist, an Auto Restorer.” (“It’s all right daddy don’t breathe no more, cause he settled through the cracks between the floor boards.”) My personal favorites are still the highly danceable “Glove Compartment” and “Blackrock,” which were heard on the first album. The new tune “Hraka” is alternately jubilant and introspective, and features some odd sound effects. Is it a Moog or a plastic tube being swung around? “Pannin’ for Gold,” highlights the band’s sense of humor, which they express instrumentally as well as vocally. I don’t know how to explain this, but I can hear it. “Carbonate,” like “Pancake” from the first CD, features Cameron on steel drum. There’s a lot of intentional distortion in some tunes, or perhaps my speakers are blown.

You can experience Finn Riggins right here in Moscow at Mikey’s on Feb. 15. A word of caution to the more chronologically gifted Finn Riggins aficionados like myself: you will need ear plugs, anti-inflammatories, and a massage later. The band is loud and impossible not to dance to. And if you haven’t guessed it yet, this band’s Oracle Shack number is one!

The Co-op listener is written by lifetime Co-op member Jeanne McHale, who enjoys supporting local musicians and hopes they will remember her when they become famous.