From Resonance 41 (April 2004)
Dan Cuddy's part-time, all-star psychedelic ensemble has done it again. While a seven year wait isn't exactly a proper amount of time to consider "in the wake of," Inside definitely rides the cosmic detritus of the Pillow's debut, Ancient History. Slightly more fuzzed out, and benefiting greatly from the production skills of Michael Deming (Beachwood Sparks), Inside's lilting, folk-y melodies shine throughout, as do inventive violin and viola arrangements. In fact, it's the strings that add most of the otherworldliness to the proceedings, as the songs are rooted in a clear pop tradition. Despite the constantly shifting "The Whole Thing" and drone-drenched "Fantastic Light" that earn the album its true psych stripes, one can't help but feel a certain tongue-in-cheek approach to the genre, especially with an opener titled "Please Come To Our Seance" and forced-sounding references to sitars, teacups and ancient tongues. But syntactical reactions aside, Inside the Special Pillow is well worth the wait for fans of these once members of Hypnolovewheel, Sleepyhead and Run On, and a nice, warm place to enter as a novitiate.
(Alex Stimmel)
From Time Out New York (January 1-8, 2004)
After the dissolution of the quirky, mercurial indie-rock group Hypnolovewheel, bassist Dan Cuddy formed the Special Pillow, which is not the cuddly, twee band you might expect from its name. While the frontman's lyrics often evoke childhood innocence, that's usually to show something sinister in the sweetness, as with "Poison Apples," whose upbeat hooks and melodious nostalgia are subverted by mentions of "candy cyanide" and "jack-o'-lanterns filled up with razor blades." Generally following the "I Am the Walrus" recipe for psychedelia--queasy insistent strings; surreal imagery; chords descending in discordant, unorthodox steps--the Special Pillow grasps what's thrilling and frightening in a kid's unbounded imagination, capturing in song the moment that a coat draped over a chair becomes a monster in the dark. Not only do the album's cello and violin shiver and warble, so does Cuddy's coy, nasal voice, which slides and undulates around the melodies.
Despite two extended pieces, "Fantastic Light" and the epic, proggy "The Whole Thing," Inside isn't lugubrious, stuffy, or orchestral. Instead, the highlights--the droning, theremin-saturated "Nothing Important" and the country-tinged "You Can Do It (Just Don't Do it Wrong)"--reveal the band's facility for crafting affecting pop. Though these songs work well enough on record, they come across even better live, where the Special Pillow goes with a streamlined, guitar-free setup, fully revealing the group's ingenious arrangements. (Rob Horning)
From Amplifier #40 (January/February 2004)
The Special Pillow's 1997 debut, Ancient History, was a marvelous blend of '60s psychedelia and '90s space-rock textures. Six years on, the follow-up, Inside the Special Pillow, offers pretty much the same, only with poppier songwriting and sharper melodic focus. As before, the Special Pillow is singer/songwriter Dan Cuddy, drummer/producer Peter Walsh and various friends, including violinist Katie Gentile and cellists Cindy Brolsma and Timothy Noel Harris, who add lush chamber-pop atmosphere to even the rockier tunes. The songs themselves are a fanciful, dreamy set of low-key, jangly/droney pop nuggets, with literate, impressionistic lyrics highly recommended for fans of Yo La Tengo and the Green Pajamas. (Stuart Mason)
From Splendid (February 2, 2004)
Load up the bong, kids -- it's going to be a long night. Comprised of members of Hypnolovewheel, Splendora and Yo La Tengo, Hoboken, New Jersey's The Special Pillow traffics in a melodic brand of hazy American indie-rock that seems determined to pass itself off as psych. Yes, the cover art reveals a typical stoned obsession with Hindu gods and octopi, and yes, there are a few tracks that make a run for the nine minute mark, but Inside The Special Pillow deserves much better than the admiration of aging hippies and Ptolemaic Terrascope readers. There are a bunch of terrific songs here beneath the swirly veneer, colored with jangly guitars and Katie Gentile's swooning violin (still the most underrated rock instrument out there), and it's their pop instincts, not their freak-out potential, that eventually connects.
Not that head-Pillow Dan Cuddy makes it easy, and damned if he isn't going to try to ruin some of his most gorgeous melodies with fey lyrics about seances, "magic floating chalices" and "crystal cosmic sparrows". If you can get past his Woodstock-talk, though, songs like "One Finger" and album highlight "Automatic Doom" will blossom like vintage Southern jangle-rock, perfect for an Athens, GA barbecue. Less successful are "The Whole Thing" and "Perfect Light", the record's concessions to bloated jam rock. Transcendence doesn't have to come wrapped in lengthy guitar solos, and the half-a-dozen pop gems here are already much more mind expanding.
Taken as a whole, Inside The Special Pillow is mildly frustrating, but with some judicious CD player programming it reveals its considerable charms. Think of the lyrics as part of some obtuse joke, if you must, but listen around them and you'll find a stunning, off-kilter pop record. And for all you violinists out there: if "Tiny Honey Sea" doesn't convince you to ditch America's orchestras and start quirky rock bands, there's no hope for us at all.
(Ben Hughes)
From Canned magazine (January 12, 2004)
Nostalgia is a mysterious thing. It can make grown men and women do things that seem pointless and childish at first glance--coloring and hiding boiled eggs, for instance. Inside the Special Pillow, the second album from Hoboken, New Jersey, collective The Special Pillow, brings up the provocative, terribly pretentious question: can a band be nostalgic for a sound that was popular certainly before they were adults, maybe even before they were born? Or has the indie-pop sound become inbred enough that we now have tributes to tributes, revivals of revivals?
The Special Pillow would fit in well at a Donovan fan club meeting, drinking coffee from paper cups with the Ladybug Transistor and the Apples in Stereo. The band's name--and the Hindu-goddess album artwork--scream: "WE'RE A PSYCHEDELIC REVIVAL BAND!"
However, their sound goes beyond straight early-Verve psychedelic atmospherics (though there are more than enough of those) to contain a surprisingly far-reaching range of indie-pop influences and touchstones. Violin is a highlight of many of the songs, at various points recalling chamber pop, alt-country lamenting and the strings crescendos bands have been ripping off ever since the Beatles' "A Day in the Life." "Automatic Doom," a song dominated by sleepy, fuzzy surf guitar, nearly mirrors the sound Hoboken compatriots Yo La Tengo have been developing lately. Most of the songs, however, are much more clear-headed, all minor-chord vocal melody and shaking tambourines, with guitar and bass fighting in civil wars between the urge to groove and the urge to rock.
Songwriter Dan Cuddy has talent for the quirky pop hook, taking elements that have certainly been heard before by fans either 60's or 90's pop music and making them into something consistently enjoyable. Some of the more upbeat numbers, thankfully spread out throughout the album, have the power to stick in your head for days--namely "Nothing Important," with "Poison Apples" and "New Best Friend" also standing out.
As a whole, the album invites the listener onto a rickety lifeboat for a cruise through Nag Champa-scented waters. If the swirling guitar lines and hot sun make you woozy, just lie down and close your eyes. 7/10 (Katie Rife)
Praise for Ancient History
From Ptolemaic Terrascope No. 24
Trace the ancient history of The Special Pillow back with your fingernail a short way and you'll find connections with Terrascope favourites Run On and psychedelic pop deities HypnoLoveWheel, whose songwriter and bassist Dan Cuddy is the founder and gracefully nasal vocalist of this extraordinary agglomeration, a veritable super group of musicians based in and around Hoboken, New Jersey. Together they could almost be expected to either bliss-out expansively all over your best Persian or implode catatonically in a shower of atonal abnormality, and yet somehow they successfully manage to pull off both with considerable aplomb and still leave room for the occasional skewed pop masterpiece, c/f 'Tomorrow Night' (an earlier single on the Really Fast Racecar label). What really elevates this debut CD's worth of 1994 recordings above the paranormal though is the magical combination of (Yo La Tengo's bassist, Dump soloist) James McNew's evocative electric guitar curlicues and Katie Gentiles winsome violin bowing on the opening, and aptly titles, epic paen to psychedelic spaciousness, 'Ascension to the Flower-Garden of Worm-Eaten Taboos', the jangly 'Escape from Historic Williamsburg' on which Gentile describes a bee-swarm with her violin bow and cellist Cindy Brolsma's empirical string bending on the meandering 'Ladyfingers'. Great sleeve--Sun City Girls collide with the Wellwater Conspiracy in a burst of orange and purple. (Phil)
From Your Flesh #36
Debut long player (a 7 inch was issued previously) by this NY combo headed up by ex-HypnoLoveWheel singer/songwriter/bassist Dan Cuddy. Joining Cuddy are also-ex-Hypno drummer and tech wiz, Peter Walsh, new Run On member, violinist Katie Gentile, cellist and member of Splendora, Cindy Brolsma, and Yo La Tengo bass player James McNew doing his bit on guitar (a la his Dump solo project). This motley meeting of musical misfits musters a sykeedelik sweet and sour squall with a wink and a couple of nods. Cuddy's vocals are deadpan and piquant, the strings are great and cheesy and grate cheese, McNew's guitar is Lou chordy or tastefully sustained Eno melodic. Jams are seductive, simple, sedate, and Spacemen 3 derived. Cool! This is a promising start full of gracefully twisted melody and winsome backdrop. Recorded in 1994, but only now seeing daylight, Ancient History will be followed by a new batch o' rock featuring the angular stylings of guitarist Carey, late of Carey's Problem. Can't wait. (Dave Rick)
From CMJ
When Hypnolovewheel disbanded, bassist/singer Dan Cuddy formed the Special Pillow, and unpretentious, sly group also including Yo La Tengo's bassist James Mc New (playing guitar), percussionist Peter Walsh, cellist Cindy Brolsma (also of Splendora) and violinist Katie Gentile (now in Run On as well). Ancient History collects recordings that were made back in 1994 or so--hence the name (a couple of them appeared on a single back then). The group's unusual dynamic is built around its two string players who sometimes play lead-like parts (as on "Escape from Historic Williamsburg"), but more often provide the essential textures of the songs, letting the rest of the group supply the gentlest of pulses--more often than not Walsh plays hand percussion only, and McNew's guitar part on "Ladyfingers" is mostly just a pinging two-note hook. The first half of the album is a single, drone-based track, "Ascension to the Flower-Garden of Worm-Eaten Taboos," which turns into an extended, trippy guitar solo; after that the songs grow more vocal-centered and varied in their arrangements. Start with the sweet, melancholy "Tomorrow Night," or let "Worm-Eaten Taboos" crawl its full length into your listeners' minds. (Douglas Wolk)