Joan of Arc's 'A Portable Model of...' Launched a Polarizing but Influential Career

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Joan of Arc's 'A Portable Model of...' Launched a Polarizing but Influential Career

Twenty years ago, an odd debut got the Chicago band lumped into a genre in which it didn't belong.

By 1997, the shine of grunge was wearing off and a new crop of bands was taking music in a more emotionally honest direction. Whether or not their members realized it, they were building the foundation for what would come to be labeled as emo. 1997: The Year Emo Broke explores the albums that drove this burgeoning genre that year.

While opening for American Football at New York's Terminal 5 earlier this year, it was a bit paradoxical to hear Tim Kinsella thank his brother and former drummer for letting his band, Joan of Arc, borrow the crowd that night. Though not at all a begrudging assertion for Kinsella, who, after 20 years leading Joan of Arc through 23 albums and a seemingly unrelenting pummeling by critics, has never been distressed by outside forces. Joan of Arc was in their element throughout the night, and as they began playing "The Hands" off of their 1997 debut, A Portable Model of…, a portion of the room was transported back to a time when the music they made was as polarizing as it was influential—and when the arguments about its place in the emo-sphere were just as loud. But while some of the crowd happily basked in the nostalgia of the early song, for Kinsella, it was just a quick nod to the beginning of a long and sometimes frustrating story.

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Despite the overwhelming lack of critical support, Joan of Arc has always managed to edge out various levels of interest from a fluctuating fanbase, even 20 years after their debut album angered many critics and lit up message boards across the country. Wavering between art-rock, folk, and a mathy sound, this album tried to divert from the effective but uncomplicated so-called emo formula which Kinsella's previous band Cap'n Jazz had perfected. But Cap'n Jazz's legend and audience grew posthumously, and its diaspora was responsible for bands that had their own fame in the world of emo. The Promise Ring, American Football, and Ghosts & Vodka could all cite Cap'n Jazz as their genesis, and fans as well as the music media wouldn't let anyone forget that. This would make it difficult for Kinsella to rinse the shadow of the scene he helped shape.

The album opens with "I Love a Woman (Who Loves Me)," a simple acoustronic track that sets the tone for what Kinsella and company try to accomplish throughout the album—sparse yet intersecting guitar work with the occasional electronic programming, coupled with analytical yet earnest lyrics. The relaxed pace and toned-down fervor was a divergence from Cap'n Jazz's blunt approach, but instead of forging an entirely new beginning, A Portable Model of… played like an enlightened version of Cap'n Jazz. Rather than finding their depth in the "stop/start" dynamic of before, it was found in the fluidity with which the instruments interacted with one another. On "The Hands," the brainy drums and guitars were met with a new articulation by Kinsella, in which the predominant screaming of his past converges with a sort of atonal singing that would drive many people up the wall, although similar vocal approaches were taken by singers like Cursive's Tim Kasher or Conor Oberst on early Bright Eyes and Commander Venus records.

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At moments, the album stumbles at the hands of samplers and electronic instrumentation. Interspersed between the full songs on the album are bits of droning repetition that can often seem like an attempt to troll the audience (an accusation that follows Kinsella to this day), though it can also be seen as part of a full album experience. But during the album's focal moments, the offerings leave behind some of the era's most memorable emo anthems, including "Post Coitus Rock," where lines like "So in like… In lost with you" exhibit peak Kinsella word play and show that perhaps he finds himself afraid to fully commit to a sincere expression of love. Another strong moment comes in "How Wheeling Feels," a staple of many homemade mixtapes of the era.

And though A Portable Model of… and its follow-up How Memory Works would cement Joan of Arc's place as both an important Chicago band and also an important emo band among many aging music consumers with an affection for a long-romanticized Midwestern music culture, looking back to 1997 Chicago might also adjure the sounds of mathy acts in the vein of Tortoise or 90 Day Men. Although Kinsella would prefer a fixed place among the latter, it's more common to hear them mentioned in the same breath as his fellow Cap'n Jazz alum's efforts, especially when referencing Joan of Arc's early work. "The bands that were identified with emo, that just wasn't our thing. It all just kind of sounded like Journey or something. It was really corny to us," Kinsella recounts after their opening set for American Football. Yet for many young music fans at the time, early Joan of Arc was an inroad into a divergent, genre-expanding form of emo, a sound which played to fans of the shimmering guitars and punk sensibility, but wasn't afraid to test the listener's patience. Joan of Arc effectively became emo's weird cousin.

Much to the ire of those on the inside, the term "emo" never seemed to convey a clear-cut sound as much as a shared aesthetic along with bits and pieces of overlapping sonic and conceptual elements. Much like grunge and many other sub-genres throughout history, the blanket term came as a result of the music press looking in and assigning a name. In 1997, it wasn't yet a conscious effort by kids making noise in their parents' garages to create a set sound. "Emo" was still vague and subjective. Perhaps this disparity is why so many of the bands who are considered pioneers in the genre were the first to scoff at the word. And while some warily accepted the term and went about their business making music, others like Joan of Arc ignored it completely as they prodded deeper into the the unexpected.

And though Kinsella's incessant need to push his own boundaries was always more about musical self-gratification than about purposely eluding some word, as the years went by, Joan of Arc's output veered further and further away from the "emo" sound, and deeper into the experimental. And they were always cognizant that their every step would be scrutinized. But as self-described "musicians with day jobs," the lack of financial aspirations and pressures have allowed them to pursue music in the purest form, without the burden of having to please anyone but themselves. And this freedom has served them in rejecting lucrative offers to do early-album-based nostalgia tours.

Unlike many of their contemporaries, Joan of Arc can continue to be Joan of Arc in 2017, free from the chains of its youth. And though an early Joan of Arc album tour would feed into the emo nostalgia machine, and undoubtedly do well, it's the freedom to do as they please that keeps them, and the die-hard fans coming back for more. While many may long to see A Portable Model of… live again, easily forgotten is the fact that it, like many of their albums, was initially blood-sport for critics. Maybe that's why Kinsella and crew have learned that the best way to be happy is to always look forward, rather than at the past.

Eddie Cepeda is the founder of Mother of Pearl Vinyl and a writer in New York City. Follow him on Twitter.