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Gold Chains

Young Miss America

Electronic,Rap

Dominique Leone

Topher Lafata, perhaps informed by an adolescence of Black Flag shows and slamdancing in his suburban Pennsylvania bedroom, is coming at this whole "authenticity" thing from a strange angle. Rather than play up his "hardships" or overcompensate for a lack of ghetto wisdom, he gets by on sheer geekiness and neon indie funk. That isn't to say Gold Chains should retreat back to the server room, because when in doubt, he's more likely to lapse into sub Sir Mix-A-Lot machinegun flow than drain a beat with glitchy, crystalline tomfoolery. To hear him tell it, the world revolves around only so many things, and it's probably a good thing he doesn't list race among them, as it wouldn't advance his cause very far anyway. The long and short of Gold Chains is wrapped up in insular, detail-oriented aggression and a recurring love/hate relationship with cash money. Don't look for hard cred where it doesn't exist; he's just good, clean fun. Even more than fun, Lafata gets close to home on your ass-- especially if you're a young white male with time to burn. Throughout Young Miss America, his debut long-player, he laments love lost over material and the fear of a life left empty over the pursuits of money and watching the strippers glisten in the sun. "Citizens Nowhere, what do you want?" he asks his constituency of desperately bored, vaguely ambitious turks. Let him be more specific: "What do you want from me?" He makes this inquiry in "Let's Get It On", in which the Gold Chains position is made perfectly clear. Never mind that he brings in an actual female to testify that it ain't all about the cold-hard, this stuff will hit you hardest if you either believe everything he says (not likely), or dig the hooks. This album has hundreds of hooks, and I think that's Lafata's way of revealing which of his own personal philosophies he holds the most stock in. Gold Chains turns out beats okay, but his tunes might grab your post-production fancy-- I counted not less than six complete backing track plan-Bs before the chorus on the album's opener, "Code Red". Impressively, he manages to pull these tricks out of a largely sample-free bag, though what he gains by way of a fairly unique sound he often gives right back via arcade-goof organ patches and ill-advised lapses into electro-pop when it seems he should be turning up the bass. Lafata boasts a "record with no filler," and maybe he's going for the indie kids who don't buy the high BPMs, but when "Several Times Defined" busts of the gate with Farfisa and squeaky clean go-go beats, I get the impression I'm not supposed to be laughing at this. Similarly, "The Game" hits the razor-sharp jazz piano in all the right places, but lines like, "I just felt some magic, girl, and I think I just might be your type," don't seem like they'd go well over pogo stick, stop-time two-step. And they don't. Things get a lot more interesting when Lafata brings out the real guns, as on the Spaghetti Western-informed, dancehall romp of "Nada". His voice is naturally brutish, so when his ideas and arrangements are kept in focus, the Gold Chains growl gathers no moss-- in addition to making his occasionally affected Jamaican accent much easier to take. This tune volleys from slow-burn riddim mange to pretty convincing cinematic grandeur (check those cymbal crashes, John Williams), but when "I.O.U. becomes 'you owe me'" it's the beats and Lafata's persistence that sell his already amply stated warnings against greed. He even manages to stay funky for more than one verse at a time on "Revolution", though that he's stealing chord progressions from The Art of Noise probably says more about the record than anything. Still, get this man a remix gig for Justin Timberlake, stat. Moments here suggest Gold Chains could be really dangerous should he one day choose the big picture over the instant gratification of a thousand new directions. It's not as if Young Miss America is a necessarily incoherent experience-- and it certainly sounds like something aimed for parties (as opposed to, say, music for computer programming). In fact, his most endearing moments, such as the trashcan suave "Break or Be Broken" (imagine Louis Prima recast as an MC in heat), point to a future as either a very entertaining DJ, or the between-girl entertainment at Big Daddy's XXX. One part Busta-lite, and the rest full-on skater bravado: Gold Chains isn't going to tear up the world of hip-hop, but he's not totally empty handed.

Artist: Gold Chains, Album: Young Miss America, Genre: Electronic,Rap, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "Topher Lafata, perhaps informed by an adolescence of Black Flag shows and slamdancing in his suburban Pennsylvania bedroom, is coming at this whole "authenticity" thing from a strange angle. Rather than play up his "hardships" or overcompensate for a lack of ghetto wisdom, he gets by on sheer geekiness and neon indie funk. That isn't to say Gold Chains should retreat back to the server room, because when in doubt, he's more likely to lapse into sub Sir Mix-A-Lot machinegun flow than drain a beat with glitchy, crystalline tomfoolery. To hear him tell it, the world revolves around only so many things, and it's probably a good thing he doesn't list race among them, as it wouldn't advance his cause very far anyway. The long and short of Gold Chains is wrapped up in insular, detail-oriented aggression and a recurring love/hate relationship with cash money. Don't look for hard cred where it doesn't exist; he's just good, clean fun. Even more than fun, Lafata gets close to home on your ass-- especially if you're a young white male with time to burn. Throughout Young Miss America, his debut long-player, he laments love lost over material and the fear of a life left empty over the pursuits of money and watching the strippers glisten in the sun. "Citizens Nowhere, what do you want?" he asks his constituency of desperately bored, vaguely ambitious turks. Let him be more specific: "What do you want from me?" He makes this inquiry in "Let's Get It On", in which the Gold Chains position is made perfectly clear. Never mind that he brings in an actual female to testify that it ain't all about the cold-hard, this stuff will hit you hardest if you either believe everything he says (not likely), or dig the hooks. This album has hundreds of hooks, and I think that's Lafata's way of revealing which of his own personal philosophies he holds the most stock in. Gold Chains turns out beats okay, but his tunes might grab your post-production fancy-- I counted not less than six complete backing track plan-Bs before the chorus on the album's opener, "Code Red". Impressively, he manages to pull these tricks out of a largely sample-free bag, though what he gains by way of a fairly unique sound he often gives right back via arcade-goof organ patches and ill-advised lapses into electro-pop when it seems he should be turning up the bass. Lafata boasts a "record with no filler," and maybe he's going for the indie kids who don't buy the high BPMs, but when "Several Times Defined" busts of the gate with Farfisa and squeaky clean go-go beats, I get the impression I'm not supposed to be laughing at this. Similarly, "The Game" hits the razor-sharp jazz piano in all the right places, but lines like, "I just felt some magic, girl, and I think I just might be your type," don't seem like they'd go well over pogo stick, stop-time two-step. And they don't. Things get a lot more interesting when Lafata brings out the real guns, as on the Spaghetti Western-informed, dancehall romp of "Nada". His voice is naturally brutish, so when his ideas and arrangements are kept in focus, the Gold Chains growl gathers no moss-- in addition to making his occasionally affected Jamaican accent much easier to take. This tune volleys from slow-burn riddim mange to pretty convincing cinematic grandeur (check those cymbal crashes, John Williams), but when "I.O.U. becomes 'you owe me'" it's the beats and Lafata's persistence that sell his already amply stated warnings against greed. He even manages to stay funky for more than one verse at a time on "Revolution", though that he's stealing chord progressions from The Art of Noise probably says more about the record than anything. Still, get this man a remix gig for Justin Timberlake, stat. Moments here suggest Gold Chains could be really dangerous should he one day choose the big picture over the instant gratification of a thousand new directions. It's not as if Young Miss America is a necessarily incoherent experience-- and it certainly sounds like something aimed for parties (as opposed to, say, music for computer programming). In fact, his most endearing moments, such as the trashcan suave "Break or Be Broken" (imagine Louis Prima recast as an MC in heat), point to a future as either a very entertaining DJ, or the between-girl entertainment at Big Daddy's XXX. One part Busta-lite, and the rest full-on skater bravado: Gold Chains isn't going to tear up the world of hip-hop, but he's not totally empty handed."

Sunn O))) & Boris

Altar

Grayson Currin

Longtime Southern Lord labelmates, tourmates, and metal bands Sunn 0))) and Boris seem like natural collaborators, though they approach their music with disparate intentions: Sunn 0)))'s blood-covered drone subsumes everything around it, while Boris' blend of patiently unraveling noise and fractious thrash entices and then dramatically repels an audience. With that contrast between push and pull in mind, Altar-- written and recorded largely before a joint tour last fall-- risks leaving an audience stranded in the middle by inertia. Indeed, the second half of Altar does just that, leaving the audience adrift in left field with little direction or purpose. But, together, the first three tracks are a perfect capitulation of their conjoined aesthetics. Opener "Etna" creeps in through feedback and slowly building and shifting bass tones before a huge guitar sweep-- split between Sunn 0)))'s Greg Anderson and Boris' Takeshi-- takes charge a minute in. A veritable war of tones follows, Boris drummer Atsuo filling the low-lying space between the subterranean guitar arches with cymbal rolls. Six minutes later, the air forces-- piercing, upper-register, signature-Boris guitar attacks-- obliterate the lowly, warring miscreants, razing the drama and letting it slow burn into "N.L.T." The follow-up-- featuring the bowed bass of Sunn 0))) collaborator Bill Herzog-- is a vibrantly bleak and texturally captivating work reminiscent of Daniel Menche. Atsuo-- the only other musician present-- splatters the canvas, lustrous edges shaped from the sound of bowed cymbals and a carefully managed gong. It's followed by Altar’s centerpiece and masterpiece, "The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep)". "Belle" is the one track on which its players conspire to subvert outside notions of both bands. Sunn 0)))'s glacial motion is intact, as is Boris' lucid use of almost-gentle tones. But the amplifiers are turned down, and distortion is all but lost. Instead, warm analog delay lets the sound drift in plumes, and beautiful, understated slide guitars and O'Malley's careful piano create a cradle for Jesse Sykes. Here, her voice shifts and floats like the retiring wafts of blue-gray smoke from a funeral pyre at a misty dawn. It’s an exhalation, a last breath of robust beauty. But, on the heels of such an overwhelming, unexpected triptych, Altar never recovers, essentially moving in redundant circles for 32 minutes. Three tracks either highlight the magic Sunn 0))) and Boris have crafted separately for a decade or the pitfalls that such work has avoided. The deftly fragmented chords that end "The Sinking Belle" open the door for the record's second side, but "Akuma No Kuma" is waylaid early by a harangued vocal take, an out-of-place horn fanfare, and overly involved Moog lines. Wata's eerie voice and the nebulous echo on everything in "Fried Eagle Mind" builds a paranoid sleep-state eclipsed after seven minutes by a solid sheet of guitar noise. It fades barely, slamming hard into "Bloodswamp", a 14-minute, multi-textural drone that would be an accomplishment for most other bands. Asymmetrical and leaning, Altar isn't the metal icon its lineage would suggest: It bears neither the rapturous juggernaut geography of Sunn 0)))'s White 2 or Black One nor the transcendent overpowered amorphousness of Boris' Pink or Amplifier Worship. But it does speak of things to come, brave new directions for bands respectively referred to hitherto either as sheer sonic titans or on-off schizophrenics. Those descriptions are much too reductive, and such evidence is the onus and gift of Altar.

Artist: Sunn O))) & Boris, Album: Altar, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "Longtime Southern Lord labelmates, tourmates, and metal bands Sunn 0))) and Boris seem like natural collaborators, though they approach their music with disparate intentions: Sunn 0)))'s blood-covered drone subsumes everything around it, while Boris' blend of patiently unraveling noise and fractious thrash entices and then dramatically repels an audience. With that contrast between push and pull in mind, Altar-- written and recorded largely before a joint tour last fall-- risks leaving an audience stranded in the middle by inertia. Indeed, the second half of Altar does just that, leaving the audience adrift in left field with little direction or purpose. But, together, the first three tracks are a perfect capitulation of their conjoined aesthetics. Opener "Etna" creeps in through feedback and slowly building and shifting bass tones before a huge guitar sweep-- split between Sunn 0)))'s Greg Anderson and Boris' Takeshi-- takes charge a minute in. A veritable war of tones follows, Boris drummer Atsuo filling the low-lying space between the subterranean guitar arches with cymbal rolls. Six minutes later, the air forces-- piercing, upper-register, signature-Boris guitar attacks-- obliterate the lowly, warring miscreants, razing the drama and letting it slow burn into "N.L.T." The follow-up-- featuring the bowed bass of Sunn 0))) collaborator Bill Herzog-- is a vibrantly bleak and texturally captivating work reminiscent of Daniel Menche. Atsuo-- the only other musician present-- splatters the canvas, lustrous edges shaped from the sound of bowed cymbals and a carefully managed gong. It's followed by Altar’s centerpiece and masterpiece, "The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep)". "Belle" is the one track on which its players conspire to subvert outside notions of both bands. Sunn 0)))'s glacial motion is intact, as is Boris' lucid use of almost-gentle tones. But the amplifiers are turned down, and distortion is all but lost. Instead, warm analog delay lets the sound drift in plumes, and beautiful, understated slide guitars and O'Malley's careful piano create a cradle for Jesse Sykes. Here, her voice shifts and floats like the retiring wafts of blue-gray smoke from a funeral pyre at a misty dawn. It’s an exhalation, a last breath of robust beauty. But, on the heels of such an overwhelming, unexpected triptych, Altar never recovers, essentially moving in redundant circles for 32 minutes. Three tracks either highlight the magic Sunn 0))) and Boris have crafted separately for a decade or the pitfalls that such work has avoided. The deftly fragmented chords that end "The Sinking Belle" open the door for the record's second side, but "Akuma No Kuma" is waylaid early by a harangued vocal take, an out-of-place horn fanfare, and overly involved Moog lines. Wata's eerie voice and the nebulous echo on everything in "Fried Eagle Mind" builds a paranoid sleep-state eclipsed after seven minutes by a solid sheet of guitar noise. It fades barely, slamming hard into "Bloodswamp", a 14-minute, multi-textural drone that would be an accomplishment for most other bands. Asymmetrical and leaning, Altar isn't the metal icon its lineage would suggest: It bears neither the rapturous juggernaut geography of Sunn 0)))'s White 2 or Black One nor the transcendent overpowered amorphousness of Boris' Pink or Amplifier Worship. But it does speak of things to come, brave new directions for bands respectively referred to hitherto either as sheer sonic titans or on-off schizophrenics. Those descriptions are much too reductive, and such evidence is the onus and gift of Altar."

Sloan

A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005

Rock

Marc Hogan

It may be hard to believe in these days of Arcade Fires, Broken Social Scenes, New Pornographers, Constantines, Black Mountains, and, yes, Avrils, but in the mid-1990s, being Canadian and not named Alanis or Shania was enough to get you dropped from your label. Playing quintessential power-pop while signed to grunge-oriented major Geffen didn't help. At any rate, Sloan's lack of U.S. commercial success in the 1990s represents the nadir of U.S.-Canuck relations between "54 40 or Fight!" and that government official calling Dubya a "moron" in 2002-- yeah, I'm including "Informer". A Sides Win captures most of the high points along this Halifax, Nova Scotia-based quartet's career arc and adds two adequate new songs, all in the blessedly sensible chronological order too many singles comps eschew. Representing 1993 debut Smeared, the ambitiously geeky "Underwhelmed" and dreamy "500 Up" open the record, distending the band's typical hook-filled melodies with swirling guitars that hint at both Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. 1994 follow-up Twice Removed yields the concentrated melodic O.J. of "Coax Me"-- "it's not the band I hate, it's their fans!"-- and dull post-shoegaze "People of the Sky". This is where Sloan began to carve out their niche as a power-pop band, and also where their chances for American stardom were squandered amid Geffen's lack of marketing support. Sloan's crowning achievement remains 1996's gloriously catchy One Chord to Another, which fulfilled its predecessor's promise with punchy tunes indebted to Graham Nash-era Hollies and, of course, that Fabbest of Fours. Unsurprisingly, tracks from that album are A Sides Win's peak. "The Lines You Amend" jangles like "The Ballad of John & Yoko" while name-dropping Ringo. "Everything You've Done Wrong" skips along to handclaps and trumpets far sunnier than its title. "The Good in Everyone" concisely summarizes Sloan's style, anchoring sunny British Invasion harmonies in crunchy power chords. While most of the tracks taken from Sloan's subsequent four studio albums reflect the band's descent into clunky riff-rock that owes as much to AC/DC and KISS as to power-pop icons like Big Star or Zumpano, Pretty Together's "The Other Man" is a glistening alt-rocker supposedly inspired by bassist Chris Murphy's inserting himself (ahem) between Broken Social Scene's Andrew Whiteman and Canadian songstress Feist. O indie Canada! Sloan are a better singles band than an albums band, so A Sides Win all but atones for their sometimes underwhelming (ha!) latter-day failings. Even 2003's Action Pact sounds brilliant when its sole inclusion is jaunty, contemplative "The Rest of My Life". The two new songs don't exactly hint at a renaissance, but at least they show a band still rummaging for new classic rock inspiration-- the Cars-like palm-muting and synths of "Try to Make It", the can't-drive-just-55 riff-churner "All Used Up". All that said, listeners just discovering Sloan would still be better off buying One Chord to Another.

Artist: Sloan, Album: A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "It may be hard to believe in these days of Arcade Fires, Broken Social Scenes, New Pornographers, Constantines, Black Mountains, and, yes, Avrils, but in the mid-1990s, being Canadian and not named Alanis or Shania was enough to get you dropped from your label. Playing quintessential power-pop while signed to grunge-oriented major Geffen didn't help. At any rate, Sloan's lack of U.S. commercial success in the 1990s represents the nadir of U.S.-Canuck relations between "54 40 or Fight!" and that government official calling Dubya a "moron" in 2002-- yeah, I'm including "Informer". A Sides Win captures most of the high points along this Halifax, Nova Scotia-based quartet's career arc and adds two adequate new songs, all in the blessedly sensible chronological order too many singles comps eschew. Representing 1993 debut Smeared, the ambitiously geeky "Underwhelmed" and dreamy "500 Up" open the record, distending the band's typical hook-filled melodies with swirling guitars that hint at both Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. 1994 follow-up Twice Removed yields the concentrated melodic O.J. of "Coax Me"-- "it's not the band I hate, it's their fans!"-- and dull post-shoegaze "People of the Sky". This is where Sloan began to carve out their niche as a power-pop band, and also where their chances for American stardom were squandered amid Geffen's lack of marketing support. Sloan's crowning achievement remains 1996's gloriously catchy One Chord to Another, which fulfilled its predecessor's promise with punchy tunes indebted to Graham Nash-era Hollies and, of course, that Fabbest of Fours. Unsurprisingly, tracks from that album are A Sides Win's peak. "The Lines You Amend" jangles like "The Ballad of John & Yoko" while name-dropping Ringo. "Everything You've Done Wrong" skips along to handclaps and trumpets far sunnier than its title. "The Good in Everyone" concisely summarizes Sloan's style, anchoring sunny British Invasion harmonies in crunchy power chords. While most of the tracks taken from Sloan's subsequent four studio albums reflect the band's descent into clunky riff-rock that owes as much to AC/DC and KISS as to power-pop icons like Big Star or Zumpano, Pretty Together's "The Other Man" is a glistening alt-rocker supposedly inspired by bassist Chris Murphy's inserting himself (ahem) between Broken Social Scene's Andrew Whiteman and Canadian songstress Feist. O indie Canada! Sloan are a better singles band than an albums band, so A Sides Win all but atones for their sometimes underwhelming (ha!) latter-day failings. Even 2003's Action Pact sounds brilliant when its sole inclusion is jaunty, contemplative "The Rest of My Life". The two new songs don't exactly hint at a renaissance, but at least they show a band still rummaging for new classic rock inspiration-- the Cars-like palm-muting and synths of "Try to Make It", the can't-drive-just-55 riff-churner "All Used Up". All that said, listeners just discovering Sloan would still be better off buying One Chord to Another."

The Antlers

Hospice

Experimental,Rock

Brian Howe

Who could've guessed that SNMNMNM were ahead of the curve? In 2009, you kind of need to know some C++ just to talk about bands. The trend began in dreamy California, which gave us the skuzzy-sweet Nodzzz and Wavves, and then migrated as far as Nebraska (UUVVWWZ) and Glasgow (Dananananaykroyd). Meanwhile, in serious Brooklyn, the Antlers were quietly working on a coincidental antithesis to this fad. Hospice answers silliness with solemnity, jitters with nerve. Their band name simply describes their music: a delicately branching instrument of force. Not that the Antlers are startlingly original-- they're just swinging for the bleachers at a time when it seems fashionable to bunt, or put your forehead on the bat and spin until you get dizzy. Their widescreen sentimentality comes with an equally familiar back-story. You remember the Bon Iver beat: Sad, bearded dude emerges from self-imposed exile with batch of urgently intimate songs; recruits band; self-releases album that earns surprise web-buzz and gets picked up by venerable indie label. Well, the Antlers used to be the solo project of Peter Silberman, who wrote Hospice while emerging from a period of "social isolation." During the bedroom recording process, two guest musicians (drummer Michael Lerner and multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci) became permanent members. They self-released Hospice in March, and Frenchkiss picked it up after web- and NPR-praise helped sell out its first pressing. The Antlers' skyscraping blend of the ambient and the anthemic is a far cry from Bon Iver's subtle folksiness, but Silberman and Justin Vernon emerged from their traumas seeming equally scoured and eager to reconnect. Hospice is bereft of irony and cynicism, as befits a rather ghastly narrative that feels, perhaps deceptively, autobiographical. Centered around a relationship with a terminally ill child, and evocatively spun from eerie hospital scenery, snippets of conversations with doctors, terrifying dreams, and the periodic intrusions of Sylvia Plath, it becomes a broad meditation on guilt, duty, mortality, and hope in the face of hopelessness. The emotional payload, while artfully couched, is fervent and bleeding. Silberman's affecting earnestness, not to mention his sweet voice, allows him to pull off lines like, "All the while I know we're fucked/ And not getting un-fucked soon," while sounding more prayerful than cynical. Given the bluster of the music and its fixation on death and illness (not to mention Silberman's creaky diction and fluttery falsetto), it's impossible not to be reminded of Arcade Fire's Funeral. You could even fix Hospice's precedent a bit earlier-- its starry atmosphere and bludgeoning tenderness evoke Cursive's Domestica with a pop-noise sheen. Like these groups, the Antlers plumb that elusive place where the personally specific becomes universal. They achieve this by keeping the human frailty of the singer intact while inflating his feelings to mythological proportions. You can imagine Silberman, in his isolation, growing world-sized and full; how the emotional forces he grappled with came to seem meteorological. This sense of the boundary between self and world-at-large collapsing permeates Hospice. The lyrics cover shades of emotion from despairing persistence ("Kettering") to desperate joy (the 21st-birthday fantasia "Bear"); the music tells the same story, through quicksilver currents of tension and tranquility. "Sylvia" alternates between acute frailty and Queen-caliber bravado, guided by the sort of gnarled electronic line the Antlers love (see also the monotonous buzz whipping around the corners of chipper guitar chords on "Two"). But what’s really great is how these modulations of weight are integrated into an album-long sweep, with crescendos nested inside decrescendos, coiling surges inside lengthy unwinding passages. It's as vast and empathetic as loneliness itself, a generous framework through which Silberman can show us almost everything: The tiny figure on the horizon and his huge shadow on the mountain, the extreme weathers roiling about him at once symbolic and real.

Artist: The Antlers, Album: Hospice, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.5 Album review: "Who could've guessed that SNMNMNM were ahead of the curve? In 2009, you kind of need to know some C++ just to talk about bands. The trend began in dreamy California, which gave us the skuzzy-sweet Nodzzz and Wavves, and then migrated as far as Nebraska (UUVVWWZ) and Glasgow (Dananananaykroyd). Meanwhile, in serious Brooklyn, the Antlers were quietly working on a coincidental antithesis to this fad. Hospice answers silliness with solemnity, jitters with nerve. Their band name simply describes their music: a delicately branching instrument of force. Not that the Antlers are startlingly original-- they're just swinging for the bleachers at a time when it seems fashionable to bunt, or put your forehead on the bat and spin until you get dizzy. Their widescreen sentimentality comes with an equally familiar back-story. You remember the Bon Iver beat: Sad, bearded dude emerges from self-imposed exile with batch of urgently intimate songs; recruits band; self-releases album that earns surprise web-buzz and gets picked up by venerable indie label. Well, the Antlers used to be the solo project of Peter Silberman, who wrote Hospice while emerging from a period of "social isolation." During the bedroom recording process, two guest musicians (drummer Michael Lerner and multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci) became permanent members. They self-released Hospice in March, and Frenchkiss picked it up after web- and NPR-praise helped sell out its first pressing. The Antlers' skyscraping blend of the ambient and the anthemic is a far cry from Bon Iver's subtle folksiness, but Silberman and Justin Vernon emerged from their traumas seeming equally scoured and eager to reconnect. Hospice is bereft of irony and cynicism, as befits a rather ghastly narrative that feels, perhaps deceptively, autobiographical. Centered around a relationship with a terminally ill child, and evocatively spun from eerie hospital scenery, snippets of conversations with doctors, terrifying dreams, and the periodic intrusions of Sylvia Plath, it becomes a broad meditation on guilt, duty, mortality, and hope in the face of hopelessness. The emotional payload, while artfully couched, is fervent and bleeding. Silberman's affecting earnestness, not to mention his sweet voice, allows him to pull off lines like, "All the while I know we're fucked/ And not getting un-fucked soon," while sounding more prayerful than cynical. Given the bluster of the music and its fixation on death and illness (not to mention Silberman's creaky diction and fluttery falsetto), it's impossible not to be reminded of Arcade Fire's Funeral. You could even fix Hospice's precedent a bit earlier-- its starry atmosphere and bludgeoning tenderness evoke Cursive's Domestica with a pop-noise sheen. Like these groups, the Antlers plumb that elusive place where the personally specific becomes universal. They achieve this by keeping the human frailty of the singer intact while inflating his feelings to mythological proportions. You can imagine Silberman, in his isolation, growing world-sized and full; how the emotional forces he grappled with came to seem meteorological. This sense of the boundary between self and world-at-large collapsing permeates Hospice. The lyrics cover shades of emotion from despairing persistence ("Kettering") to desperate joy (the 21st-birthday fantasia "Bear"); the music tells the same story, through quicksilver currents of tension and tranquility. "Sylvia" alternates between acute frailty and Queen-caliber bravado, guided by the sort of gnarled electronic line the Antlers love (see also the monotonous buzz whipping around the corners of chipper guitar chords on "Two"). But what’s really great is how these modulations of weight are integrated into an album-long sweep, with crescendos nested inside decrescendos, coiling surges inside lengthy unwinding passages. It's as vast and empathetic as loneliness itself, a generous framework through which Silberman can show us almost everything: The tiny figure on the horizon and his huge shadow on the mountain, the extreme weathers roiling about him at once symbolic and real."

Krieg

Transient

Grayson Haver Currin

Neill Jameson ranks among the great defenders of and disciples for United States Black Metal. He’s been making and refining his own antagonistic strain since the mid-1990s, leading Krieg through some of the most important, compelling and twisted stateside versions of the form. He’s run a label and become a crucial distribution point for many acts, welcomed outsiders into the dark fold, publicly defended the acquisition of Thurston Moore by his supergroup Twilight, and dismissed insider and old friend Blake Judd as an expression of the genre at its solipsistic worst. He’s advocated for progression in the form by endorsing the firebrands of Liturgy while maintaining that the genre must stay tough and unruly unless it wants to become as weak as water. “I have boots that are older than most of these people’s interest in black metal,” he once said, swiftly encapsulating his admixture of old-school aggression and excitable acceptance. “I figure black metal is probably just a curiosity for the white-belt crowd.… I’m not as bothered by it as some people are; it’s just the evolution of things.” Transient is Krieg’s first album in four years, second since a necessary hiatus, and first featuring Jameson surrounded by a new quartet. Moreover, it’s an hour-long expression of Jameson’s defensive and defiant attitude, as it sprawls from a base of recalcitrant black metal in intriguing, unexpected directions. A uniformly desolate album, Transient is a claustrophobic listen that provides the illusion of walls closing in and ceilings coming down, even as its sound opens wider. Though the core of Krieg and these 11 songs remains primitive black metal, epitomized by mid-album melee “Atlas with a Broken Arm”, the album serves as a reminder that Jameson has never been one for stasis. He’s shifted Krieg’s lineup between most albums, covered the Velvet Underground in a croaking acoustic guise, and massaged a broad spectrum of influences into this band. Transient leans hard into those outlier aims: Some moments shimmer with the pop-metal buoyancy that temporarily worked as Nachtmystium’s calling card, while others burrow into slow, strong doom wallops. There are orchestrated power electronics interludes and hardcore stomp-alongs, solemn spoken-word passages and taut post-punk counter-riffs. Jameson’s boots are ostensibly meant for hiking. But credit goes to Jameson’s irascible voice—here, the best it’s ever been—for threading together these disparate musical thoughts and giving the record its overriding sense of desperation. No matter the particular song’s style or structure, he plays the part of the reprobate. He bellows like a bully during the hardcore half of “Return Fire” and screams in agony when it downshifts in the back, a madman melting in his own sweat. Krieg recorded Transient at the Rhode Island studio Machines with Magnets, a room perhaps best known for its work with The Body. You can hear that duo’s echoes during the brilliant cover of Amebix’s “Winter”, which pivots from brief black metal builds into bottomless doom tirades. Above a rhythm section that suggests orchestrated artillery fire, Jameson lashes out as though he’s being interred by the force of his own band. In fact, he delivers much of Transient as though he’s singing beneath the outfit, fighting to be heard among the din of guitars and drums. That choice makes Transient both bleak and beguiling; Jameson sounds trapped, but you want to lean in close, dangerously so, to hear what he has to yell. Even during “Walk With Them Unnoticed,” that particularly upbeat and racing number, his hoarse tone comes tucked just beneath the lip of the lead, making even the album’s most breathless and accessible bit feel hazardous. Though Jameson emerged as a one-man black metal band, first under the name Imperial and later as Krieg, he’s a rich collaborator, too. His roster of past alliances and collaborations is the length of a few paragraphs, and he’s one of only two people to appear on every Twilight album. He’s made doom with March into the Sea and tortured prismatic weirdness with N.I.L., and his willingness to work with others is a crucial component of Transient, a record that benefits from pulling Jameson out of his own head. Opener “Order of the Solitary Road” starts slow, turns into a sprint, manages to pick up the pace yet again and ultimately staggers off into the distance; it’s a full-band feat, motivated by the drums but pulled along by Alex Poole’s spectacularly assorted riffs. In the span of six minutes, he lands a perfectly slow, steely melody at the start and, near the middle, a grim, low-lying theme. And then there’s “Home”, a long spoken-word cold stare and the sort of oddity that provides a welcome stopgap before the record’s charged finale. Over eerie, failed-transmission electronics, Integrity’s Dwid Hellion and Thurston Moore trade stanzas about absence and loneliness. “The only home I know anymore is that of discomfort,” Moore reads, “a feeling of displacement which resides inside of me wherever I go.” The plainspoken text reinforces the album’s depressive atmosphere, which can be intuited but, thanks to Jameson’s delivery, never quite confirmed or dissected. It gives more breadth to those feelings, providing what started as solitary laments from a one-man band the benefit of misery in good company.

Artist: Krieg, Album: Transient, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Neill Jameson ranks among the great defenders of and disciples for United States Black Metal. He’s been making and refining his own antagonistic strain since the mid-1990s, leading Krieg through some of the most important, compelling and twisted stateside versions of the form. He’s run a label and become a crucial distribution point for many acts, welcomed outsiders into the dark fold, publicly defended the acquisition of Thurston Moore by his supergroup Twilight, and dismissed insider and old friend Blake Judd as an expression of the genre at its solipsistic worst. He’s advocated for progression in the form by endorsing the firebrands of Liturgy while maintaining that the genre must stay tough and unruly unless it wants to become as weak as water. “I have boots that are older than most of these people’s interest in black metal,” he once said, swiftly encapsulating his admixture of old-school aggression and excitable acceptance. “I figure black metal is probably just a curiosity for the white-belt crowd.… I’m not as bothered by it as some people are; it’s just the evolution of things.” Transient is Krieg’s first album in four years, second since a necessary hiatus, and first featuring Jameson surrounded by a new quartet. Moreover, it’s an hour-long expression of Jameson’s defensive and defiant attitude, as it sprawls from a base of recalcitrant black metal in intriguing, unexpected directions. A uniformly desolate album, Transient is a claustrophobic listen that provides the illusion of walls closing in and ceilings coming down, even as its sound opens wider. Though the core of Krieg and these 11 songs remains primitive black metal, epitomized by mid-album melee “Atlas with a Broken Arm”, the album serves as a reminder that Jameson has never been one for stasis. He’s shifted Krieg’s lineup between most albums, covered the Velvet Underground in a croaking acoustic guise, and massaged a broad spectrum of influences into this band. Transient leans hard into those outlier aims: Some moments shimmer with the pop-metal buoyancy that temporarily worked as Nachtmystium’s calling card, while others burrow into slow, strong doom wallops. There are orchestrated power electronics interludes and hardcore stomp-alongs, solemn spoken-word passages and taut post-punk counter-riffs. Jameson’s boots are ostensibly meant for hiking. But credit goes to Jameson’s irascible voice—here, the best it’s ever been—for threading together these disparate musical thoughts and giving the record its overriding sense of desperation. No matter the particular song’s style or structure, he plays the part of the reprobate. He bellows like a bully during the hardcore half of “Return Fire” and screams in agony when it downshifts in the back, a madman melting in his own sweat. Krieg recorded Transient at the Rhode Island studio Machines with Magnets, a room perhaps best known for its work with The Body. You can hear that duo’s echoes during the brilliant cover of Amebix’s “Winter”, which pivots from brief black metal builds into bottomless doom tirades. Above a rhythm section that suggests orchestrated artillery fire, Jameson lashes out as though he’s being interred by the force of his own band. In fact, he delivers much of Transient as though he’s singing beneath the outfit, fighting to be heard among the din of guitars and drums. That choice makes Transient both bleak and beguiling; Jameson sounds trapped, but you want to lean in close, dangerously so, to hear what he has to yell. Even during “Walk With Them Unnoticed,” that particularly upbeat and racing number, his hoarse tone comes tucked just beneath the lip of the lead, making even the album’s most breathless and accessible bit feel hazardous. Though Jameson emerged as a one-man black metal band, first under the name Imperial and later as Krieg, he’s a rich collaborator, too. His roster of past alliances and collaborations is the length of a few paragraphs, and he’s one of only two people to appear on every Twilight album. He’s made doom with March into the Sea and tortured prismatic weirdness with N.I.L., and his willingness to work with others is a crucial component of Transient, a record that benefits from pulling Jameson out of his own head. Opener “Order of the Solitary Road” starts slow, turns into a sprint, manages to pick up the pace yet again and ultimately staggers off into the distance; it’s a full-band feat, motivated by the drums but pulled along by Alex Poole’s spectacularly assorted riffs. In the span of six minutes, he lands a perfectly slow, steely melody at the start and, near the middle, a grim, low-lying theme. And then there’s “Home”, a long spoken-word cold stare and the sort of oddity that provides a welcome stopgap before the record’s charged finale. Over eerie, failed-transmission electronics, Integrity’s Dwid Hellion and Thurston Moore trade stanzas about absence and loneliness. “The only home I know anymore is that of discomfort,” Moore reads, “a feeling of displacement which resides inside of me wherever I go.” The plainspoken text reinforces the album’s depressive atmosphere, which can be intuited but, thanks to Jameson’s delivery, never quite confirmed or dissected. It gives more breadth to those feelings, providing what started as solitary laments from a one-man band the benefit of misery in good company."

Mndsgn

Body Wash

Electronic

Nate Patrin

Ringgo Ancheta’s come-up story is an increasingly familiar type—the independently educated bedroom producer, influenced by friends and family, whose DIY approach led him towards Los Angeles’ beat scene. What might make that story a bit more curious than others’ is that Ancheta’s path began on a rural New Jersey commune, where he grew up in the ’90s. And in the late ’00s, it brought him to run in a crew called Klipm0de alongside future Kendrick Lamar producer/collaborator Knxwledge. The intrigue of those formative experiences is borne out clearly in his music. Mndsgn’s releases, from his contributions to 2011’s Bitches Brew-mutating compilation Blasphemous Jazz to his 2014 headswimmer of a Stones Throw breakthrough Yawn Zen, have darted from reference to reference in a way that would make his next move unpredictable, but he ties them all together in a way that makes perfect sense. Perhaps due to a healthy dose of L.A. sunshine, Body Wash has Mndsgn engaging with classic ’80s R&B and boogie funk. At some points, it sounds as if he’s channelling the synthesized soul of SOLAR Records in-house producer, Leon Sylvers III. It might seem like a big leap from the gleaming, crackling FlyLo-isms of his clanky 2014 work, but Ancheta’s curious, philosophical approach is more than ready for it. Mndsgn emerges here as a sort of koan-dispensing, prog-funk astronaut, and it’s made some of his more tenuous strengths feel a lot more natural. That starts with his voice, typically a restrained, almost introverted murmur that often sounds like he’s scanning for something far on the horizon. Accordingly, Ancheta tends to lean towards themes of self-actualization and human connection in his lyrics. “Cosmic Perspective” and its references to “searching for the right way” and heading for “the land of music” are vintage Zen funk worthy of mid ’70s Lonnie Liston Smith. Even at its clearest, Mndsgn’s voice is an almost detached entity that expresses these realizations as they happen. (When he multitracks his own voice, it sounds like the “ohhhhh” of a person finally getting it.) A running theme, to paraphrase “Ya Own Way,” is getting from where you’re at to where you’re going, whether chronologically, mentally, or geographically. Ancheta holds fast to this idea, offering a means of connection and solidarity through uncertainty. Pairing that sense of direction-seeking with a deep dive into West Coast funk is a natural fit. But Body Wash also refocuses some of his familiar tendencies into new modes. As someone young enough to have dreamed of contributing to Stones Throw before even thinking it was possible, Mndsgn makes clear his debt to the label’s mid-to-late-’00s adventurousness, even as he recombines their sounds into his own thing. Think of the slightly-off-kilter, human-touch rhythms of Dilla, only rerouted to little chirpy synth riffs instead of the drums—or Dâm-Funk with the extended-voyage drifting drawn into more concise sketches. Half the cuts here don’t make it to three minutes, but they still drill into your mind with ease. There’s a three-part “Searchin” suite that runs through a “Shalamar goes to the Moon” masterclass in neo-boogie—you can hear it shift from disco to g-funk to Jam/Lewis while still cohering as its own thing—in less than seven minutes. If the elusive destination that Ancheta’s music has been trying to reach turns out to be a 1981 roller-rink party, it’s been a journey well-spent, and only makes the next destination more eagerly anticipated.

Artist: Mndsgn, Album: Body Wash, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Ringgo Ancheta’s come-up story is an increasingly familiar type—the independently educated bedroom producer, influenced by friends and family, whose DIY approach led him towards Los Angeles’ beat scene. What might make that story a bit more curious than others’ is that Ancheta’s path began on a rural New Jersey commune, where he grew up in the ’90s. And in the late ’00s, it brought him to run in a crew called Klipm0de alongside future Kendrick Lamar producer/collaborator Knxwledge. The intrigue of those formative experiences is borne out clearly in his music. Mndsgn’s releases, from his contributions to 2011’s Bitches Brew-mutating compilation Blasphemous Jazz to his 2014 headswimmer of a Stones Throw breakthrough Yawn Zen, have darted from reference to reference in a way that would make his next move unpredictable, but he ties them all together in a way that makes perfect sense. Perhaps due to a healthy dose of L.A. sunshine, Body Wash has Mndsgn engaging with classic ’80s R&B and boogie funk. At some points, it sounds as if he’s channelling the synthesized soul of SOLAR Records in-house producer, Leon Sylvers III. It might seem like a big leap from the gleaming, crackling FlyLo-isms of his clanky 2014 work, but Ancheta’s curious, philosophical approach is more than ready for it. Mndsgn emerges here as a sort of koan-dispensing, prog-funk astronaut, and it’s made some of his more tenuous strengths feel a lot more natural. That starts with his voice, typically a restrained, almost introverted murmur that often sounds like he’s scanning for something far on the horizon. Accordingly, Ancheta tends to lean towards themes of self-actualization and human connection in his lyrics. “Cosmic Perspective” and its references to “searching for the right way” and heading for “the land of music” are vintage Zen funk worthy of mid ’70s Lonnie Liston Smith. Even at its clearest, Mndsgn’s voice is an almost detached entity that expresses these realizations as they happen. (When he multitracks his own voice, it sounds like the “ohhhhh” of a person finally getting it.) A running theme, to paraphrase “Ya Own Way,” is getting from where you’re at to where you’re going, whether chronologically, mentally, or geographically. Ancheta holds fast to this idea, offering a means of connection and solidarity through uncertainty. Pairing that sense of direction-seeking with a deep dive into West Coast funk is a natural fit. But Body Wash also refocuses some of his familiar tendencies into new modes. As someone young enough to have dreamed of contributing to Stones Throw before even thinking it was possible, Mndsgn makes clear his debt to the label’s mid-to-late-’00s adventurousness, even as he recombines their sounds into his own thing. Think of the slightly-off-kilter, human-touch rhythms of Dilla, only rerouted to little chirpy synth riffs instead of the drums—or Dâm-Funk with the extended-voyage drifting drawn into more concise sketches. Half the cuts here don’t make it to three minutes, but they still drill into your mind with ease. There’s a three-part “Searchin” suite that runs through a “Shalamar goes to the Moon” masterclass in neo-boogie—you can hear it shift from disco to g-funk to Jam/Lewis while still cohering as its own thing—in less than seven minutes. If the elusive destination that Ancheta’s music has been trying to reach turns out to be a 1981 roller-rink party, it’s been a journey well-spent, and only makes the next destination more eagerly anticipated."

The Strokes

Future Present Past EP

Rock

Jeremy Gordon

Although the Strokes are of the same era as once-flashpoint NYC guitar bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, the National, and the Walkmen, they’ve become something their peers haven’t: classic rock. Tumble down enough comment threads, or check out the audience demographics at their infrequent shows—there are many listeners who idolize the Strokes as an actual first-generation 21st century NYC cool band, something like the aging, disheveled downtown '70s and '80s hipsters the band idolized in their youth. Becoming classic rock means a band can recycle their iconography without losing their edge, as far as casual and younger listeners are concerned. (Officially, the Strokes began their slow journey toward oldies stations when Shia LaBeouf wore their shirt in Transformers.) It also means, weirdly, that they’re no longer expected to be good. A bad record wouldn’t diminish the enduring power of singles like “Last Nite.” In 2014, I met a person who said the Strokes were their favorite band. When I asked how they liked 2013’s Comedown Machine, the answer was “What’s that?” So it ends up being sort of nice that Future Present Past, their first new release in three years and first EP since 2001’s scene-starting The Modern Age, is only so long as an EP. On 2011's Angles and Comedown Machine, there was too much going on—and, quite simply, too much. Here, there’s just enough to think about without getting fatigued, as the Strokes continue to toy with the sound of their late period. The concept is present in the title: Here’s what the Strokes do sound like, here’s what they did sound like, and here’s what they will sound like. The signposts of that classic “Strokes” sound are visible on “OBLIVIUS,” the EP’s immediate stand out: a guitar that sounds like a synth (but isn’t), intertwined with a guitar that sounds like a guitar (and is), backed by precise percussion and knitted together by Julian Casablancas’ bleary, strained voice. There are lyrics about alienation, a maybe semi-intentional, faux-deep *Wolf of Wall Street *ad lib, and a straining chorus vocal that cannot possibly have been delivered by someone who’s smoked as many cigarettes as Casablancas. (There’s also a remix from the band’s Fab Moretti, which is totally listenable.) “What side are you standing on?” Casablancas sings, which sounds like a challenge to anyone who might pretend the band hasn’t earned its right to screw around. The benefits of screwing around, of course, could be challenged. “Drag Queen” is the so-called “future”—a more self-consciously “mature” song that opens with a ominous, decayed smear of guitars and continues with the high-concept of Casablancas singing to himself in dueling voices, sort of sounding like a hungover Phantom of the Opera. Halfway through, a Strokes-sian guitar refrain is copy-and-pasted into the flow. It’s a mess, but it’s an interesting mess. “Threat of Joy,” meanwhile, stretches all the way to their pre-fame days, when they sounded just bored and arrogant enough to be sexy. It’s an alternative universe take on what “The Modern Age” might have sounded like if they’d taken a record executive’s advice to slow it down, get a better studio, and play it straight. It’s not as good, of course, but it’s still charming, and has Casablancas’ most charismatic vocal performance. At the very least, all three songs will fit seamlessly into their live show. In 2015, I saw the Strokes play a headlining set at Primavera Sound for a rabid crowd who ate up every song, even “Machu Picchu.” The band was just as well-dressed than they’d been in the early ’00s (except for Casablancas, who was cosplaying as a Planeteer, but hey, it’s a look), and they didn’t miss a note, even as I don’t think a single member came within ten feet of another during the entire set. They didn’t play “12:51” at 12:51 a.m., because fuck coincidences. A credible source told me their fee for the 90-minute set was more than the cost of your dad’s mortgage. If their solo dalliances in the last half-decade have given weight to the idea that the Strokes are more of a business than a living, breathing band, it's still been fascinating to watch them shed their skin and become whatever it is they'll be for the rest of their career. And with the pivot of Casablancas’ Cult Records to functioning as a gatekeeper for the living, breathing culture that helped birth the band, they seem like a band that’s very aware of their legacy… as well as how easy it would be for that to stop mattering, should the context no longer exist. Maybe they didn’t mean to become iconic, but it happened, and there are still people who want to see what happens next.

Artist: The Strokes, Album: Future Present Past EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "Although the Strokes are of the same era as once-flashpoint NYC guitar bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, the National, and the Walkmen, they’ve become something their peers haven’t: classic rock. Tumble down enough comment threads, or check out the audience demographics at their infrequent shows—there are many listeners who idolize the Strokes as an actual first-generation 21st century NYC cool band, something like the aging, disheveled downtown '70s and '80s hipsters the band idolized in their youth. Becoming classic rock means a band can recycle their iconography without losing their edge, as far as casual and younger listeners are concerned. (Officially, the Strokes began their slow journey toward oldies stations when Shia LaBeouf wore their shirt in Transformers.) It also means, weirdly, that they’re no longer expected to be good. A bad record wouldn’t diminish the enduring power of singles like “Last Nite.” In 2014, I met a person who said the Strokes were their favorite band. When I asked how they liked 2013’s Comedown Machine, the answer was “What’s that?” So it ends up being sort of nice that Future Present Past, their first new release in three years and first EP since 2001’s scene-starting The Modern Age, is only so long as an EP. On 2011's Angles and Comedown Machine, there was too much going on—and, quite simply, too much. Here, there’s just enough to think about without getting fatigued, as the Strokes continue to toy with the sound of their late period. The concept is present in the title: Here’s what the Strokes do sound like, here’s what they did sound like, and here’s what they will sound like. The signposts of that classic “Strokes” sound are visible on “OBLIVIUS,” the EP’s immediate stand out: a guitar that sounds like a synth (but isn’t), intertwined with a guitar that sounds like a guitar (and is), backed by precise percussion and knitted together by Julian Casablancas’ bleary, strained voice. There are lyrics about alienation, a maybe semi-intentional, faux-deep *Wolf of Wall Street *ad lib, and a straining chorus vocal that cannot possibly have been delivered by someone who’s smoked as many cigarettes as Casablancas. (There’s also a remix from the band’s Fab Moretti, which is totally listenable.) “What side are you standing on?” Casablancas sings, which sounds like a challenge to anyone who might pretend the band hasn’t earned its right to screw around. The benefits of screwing around, of course, could be challenged. “Drag Queen” is the so-called “future”—a more self-consciously “mature” song that opens with a ominous, decayed smear of guitars and continues with the high-concept of Casablancas singing to himself in dueling voices, sort of sounding like a hungover Phantom of the Opera. Halfway through, a Strokes-sian guitar refrain is copy-and-pasted into the flow. It’s a mess, but it’s an interesting mess. “Threat of Joy,” meanwhile, stretches all the way to their pre-fame days, when they sounded just bored and arrogant enough to be sexy. It’s an alternative universe take on what “The Modern Age” might have sounded like if they’d taken a record executive’s advice to slow it down, get a better studio, and play it straight. It’s not as good, of course, but it’s still charming, and has Casablancas’ most charismatic vocal performance. At the very least, all three songs will fit seamlessly into their live show. In 2015, I saw the Strokes play a headlining set at Primavera Sound for a rabid crowd who ate up every song, even “Machu Picchu.” The band was just as well-dressed than they’d been in the early ’00s (except for Casablancas, who was cosplaying as a Planeteer, but hey, it’s a look), and they didn’t miss a note, even as I don’t think a single member came within ten feet of another during the entire set. They didn’t play “12:51” at 12:51 a.m., because fuck coincidences. A credible source told me their fee for the 90-minute set was more than the cost of your dad’s mortgage. If their solo dalliances in the last half-decade have given weight to the idea that the Strokes are more of a business than a living, breathing band, it's still been fascinating to watch them shed their skin and become whatever it is they'll be for the rest of their career. And with the pivot of Casablancas’ Cult Records to functioning as a gatekeeper for the living, breathing culture that helped birth the band, they seem like a band that’s very aware of their legacy… as well as how easy it would be for that to stop mattering, should the context no longer exist. Maybe they didn’t mean to become iconic, but it happened, and there are still people who want to see what happens next."

Eminem

Recovery

Rap

Jayson Greene

Watching Eminem attempt to re-situate himself in the pop landscape the past year or so has been a bizarre spectacle. He roared out of his post-Encore slumber in early 2009 seeming almost puppyishly eager to rap again, spitting verses for anyone who put him in front of a mic with a desperation that suggested he was making up for lost time. Relapse, his 2009 comeback album, found him trying to scratch and claw his way back into the body of 1999-era Slim Shady, but the effect was similar to Metallica trying to revisit their thrash years with 2008's Death Magnetic: The sound was there; the fury, long gone. No matter how many starlets he tortured and killed in his lyrics, Em couldn't rewrite the intervening years and the enervating effect they've had on his spirit. So now he's back again, with the follow-up to Relapse, and as its title suggests, Recovery is meant to be triumphant, tracing Em's journey out of depression and drug addiction and back into the peak of his powers. Out of all the depressing aspects of Recovery, the worst is the realization that for listeners the album takes the opposite arc-- the more he motors on about having reclaimed his passion for hip-hop and finally figured out who he is, the more draining the album becomes. Eminem has never really known who he is, which has resulted in one of the most wildly erratic discographies of any major rap artist; at this point, the number of times he's sounded rudderless on record are catching up to the times he's sounded alive. At his best, he has always made a fascinating scramble of his internal turmoil, but the guy rapping on Recovery just sounds devoid of any noticeable joy, personality, or wit. Not that he's not trying. As on Relapse, Em almost passes out showing us he's still got it, rapping in double and triple time, piling tricky syncopations on top of each other, constructing whole verses with end rhymes buried in the middle of phrases-- basically any kind of pyrotechnical trick he can think of to wow the kind of rap listeners who venerate technical skill above all else. And yet for all the rattling-around-inside-the-beat syllable pileups here, there is almost nothing worth quoting. He reels off an astonishing amount of cringe-worthy lines, on the order of, "Girl, shake that ass like a donkey with Parkinson's." On the menopausal, Diane Warren-esque uplift anthem "Not Afraid", he actually strings together the excruciating lines, "Okay, stop playin' with the scissors and shit, and cut the crap/ I shouldn't have to rhyme these words in a rhythm for you to know it's a wrap." Eminem spends nearly half of Recovery insisting he's the best rapper alive, but for the first time in his career, he actually sounds clumsy. He can't even coexist meaningfully with a beat-- every producer he works with seems to give him the most attenuated version of their signature sound possible and back away carefully. The liner notes will tell you that Recovery features production by Boi-1DA, Jim Jonsin, DJ Khalil, and Just Blaze along with the usual suspects Mr. Porter and Dre. But your ears will tell you it's the same click track Em's been rapping over since time immemorial-- the only times the beats elbow to the fore are with DJ Khalil's characteristically chunky and unwieldy rap-rock hybrids. Em just sort of drifts through these productions, as haunted and disembodied a presence as 2Pac on a posthumous release. The only winning moment on the record comes early, with "Talkin' 2 Myself", where Em admits he contemplated dissing Kanye and Lil Wayne out of jealousy. "Thank god that I didn't do it-- I'd have had my ass handed to me," he raps, in a rare moment of wry honesty. The climax of the song sees him shouting out Wayne, Kanye, and T.I. in a show of solidarity, but the truth is Em doesn't even inhabit the same universe as these guys. He lives in a world all his own, and for the most part, that world doesn't allow for visitors. When Wayne shows up on "No Love", a po-faced duet built on a sample of Haddaway's "What Is Love", the point is hammered home-- the two rappers' verses don't even seem to belong to the same song. Marshall has never played all that comfortably or well with others, but here his solipsism is so overwhelming it negates whoever or whatever else is going on around him. He sucks the air out of the room just by stepping into it.

Artist: Eminem, Album: Recovery, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 2.8 Album review: "Watching Eminem attempt to re-situate himself in the pop landscape the past year or so has been a bizarre spectacle. He roared out of his post-Encore slumber in early 2009 seeming almost puppyishly eager to rap again, spitting verses for anyone who put him in front of a mic with a desperation that suggested he was making up for lost time. Relapse, his 2009 comeback album, found him trying to scratch and claw his way back into the body of 1999-era Slim Shady, but the effect was similar to Metallica trying to revisit their thrash years with 2008's Death Magnetic: The sound was there; the fury, long gone. No matter how many starlets he tortured and killed in his lyrics, Em couldn't rewrite the intervening years and the enervating effect they've had on his spirit. So now he's back again, with the follow-up to Relapse, and as its title suggests, Recovery is meant to be triumphant, tracing Em's journey out of depression and drug addiction and back into the peak of his powers. Out of all the depressing aspects of Recovery, the worst is the realization that for listeners the album takes the opposite arc-- the more he motors on about having reclaimed his passion for hip-hop and finally figured out who he is, the more draining the album becomes. Eminem has never really known who he is, which has resulted in one of the most wildly erratic discographies of any major rap artist; at this point, the number of times he's sounded rudderless on record are catching up to the times he's sounded alive. At his best, he has always made a fascinating scramble of his internal turmoil, but the guy rapping on Recovery just sounds devoid of any noticeable joy, personality, or wit. Not that he's not trying. As on Relapse, Em almost passes out showing us he's still got it, rapping in double and triple time, piling tricky syncopations on top of each other, constructing whole verses with end rhymes buried in the middle of phrases-- basically any kind of pyrotechnical trick he can think of to wow the kind of rap listeners who venerate technical skill above all else. And yet for all the rattling-around-inside-the-beat syllable pileups here, there is almost nothing worth quoting. He reels off an astonishing amount of cringe-worthy lines, on the order of, "Girl, shake that ass like a donkey with Parkinson's." On the menopausal, Diane Warren-esque uplift anthem "Not Afraid", he actually strings together the excruciating lines, "Okay, stop playin' with the scissors and shit, and cut the crap/ I shouldn't have to rhyme these words in a rhythm for you to know it's a wrap." Eminem spends nearly half of Recovery insisting he's the best rapper alive, but for the first time in his career, he actually sounds clumsy. He can't even coexist meaningfully with a beat-- every producer he works with seems to give him the most attenuated version of their signature sound possible and back away carefully. The liner notes will tell you that Recovery features production by Boi-1DA, Jim Jonsin, DJ Khalil, and Just Blaze along with the usual suspects Mr. Porter and Dre. But your ears will tell you it's the same click track Em's been rapping over since time immemorial-- the only times the beats elbow to the fore are with DJ Khalil's characteristically chunky and unwieldy rap-rock hybrids. Em just sort of drifts through these productions, as haunted and disembodied a presence as 2Pac on a posthumous release. The only winning moment on the record comes early, with "Talkin' 2 Myself", where Em admits he contemplated dissing Kanye and Lil Wayne out of jealousy. "Thank god that I didn't do it-- I'd have had my ass handed to me," he raps, in a rare moment of wry honesty. The climax of the song sees him shouting out Wayne, Kanye, and T.I. in a show of solidarity, but the truth is Em doesn't even inhabit the same universe as these guys. He lives in a world all his own, and for the most part, that world doesn't allow for visitors. When Wayne shows up on "No Love", a po-faced duet built on a sample of Haddaway's "What Is Love", the point is hammered home-- the two rappers' verses don't even seem to belong to the same song. Marshall has never played all that comfortably or well with others, but here his solipsism is so overwhelming it negates whoever or whatever else is going on around him. He sucks the air out of the room just by stepping into it."

UNKLE

Never Never Land

Electronic,Jazz

Scott Plagenhoef

Six years on from its release, Psyence Fiction-- the long-simmering pet project of Mo'Wax founder James Lavelle and his then-UNKLE co-conspirator/meal ticket DJ Shadow-- still ranks as one of the most anti-climactic and jaw-dropping disappointments of recent years. Seemingly powered by Lavelle's own sense of self-satisfaction, the record pulled off an odd triple crown: it was overcooked, half-baked, and underdone all at the same time. An epochal mix of atmospheric, experimental hip-hop and soul-stirring rock, Psyence Fiction was an unapologetic attempt to create an epic Statement of a record, but while long on star power and ambition, it came up short on little things like, oh, vitality, restraint, emotional resonance, and tunes. From the go, Psyence Fiction was highly anticipated by writers who assumed it would produce greatness. Instead, they got lazy Hello Nasty melodies, Entroducing-outtake breakbeats, and guest spots that seemed mismatched with the project itself. Despite Mike D's phoned-in wisp of a cameo, the biggest raspberries must go to the always punchable Richard Ashcroft whose "Lonely Soul" is so seeped in new age pandering and the drive to be Very, Very Important that, were compact discs not limited to 80 minutes, it would probably still be teasing us with false stops and pointlessly unspooling to this day. Lavelle's decision to follow with another UNKLE record is laudable for its gumption if not its wisdom, but it's no surprise that, as much as the four-years-in-the-making Psyence Fiction was anticipated, Never Never Land was ignored (even by your pals at Pitchfork-- after all, the record was released in the UK more than four months ago). After mostly handling the conceptual and marketing details of the first UNKLE record, Lavelle took a greater role in the musical conception of this disc. DJ Shadow is out as Lavelle's right-hand man, now replaced by the largely unknown Richard File (though it might have been wiser, if only for publicity, to bring back the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy, an original UNKLE member from the pre-Shadow days). And the new roster of guest stars-- among them, Stone Roses vocalist Ian Brown, Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, and Massive Attack's 3D, plus uncredited appearances from Brian Eno and Jarvis Cocker-- doesn't have the same sort of A-list ring offered by the first record. And yet, in spite (or because?) of all this, it's an improvement on the past. Never Never Land seems to address its predecessors' failure and Lavelle's own spiraling career right from the start, as a spoken-word sample (rather wince-inducingly) describes life as a series of peaks and valleys. Lavelle's basic approach to music-making hasn't changed. He still trades in texture and atmosphere, favoring sweeping strings, cinematic grandeur, a mix of pop sensibilities with downtempo music, and an obsession with science fiction. The addition of File lends a more human quality to the tracks, largely because his hand guides a series of voices whereas Psyence Fiction had Shadow dealing more with a series of personalities or stars. File's arid singer/songwriter approach and wistful vocals lend Never Never Land a breezy quality, but also little to pin down or ground the tracks. Rhythm is almost completely replaced here by often drifting atmospherics, and of File's key contributions, only the graceful "What Are You to Me?" really shines. When beats are central to the tracks-- as on the Joy Division-sampling paranoia of "Panic Attack"-- they're oddly compelling. Of the guests, 3D's "Invasion" chides Bush and Blair (a theme also hinted at on the Temptations-quoting "Eye for an Eye") but pulls too few punches, Homme's "Safe in Mind" is spacious but forgettable, and Cocker and Eno lend a couple of hands to a sleepy ambient exercise. Oddly, Ian Brown's batty echo chamber "Reign" is appropriate spliff-casualty stuff and among the album's strongest tracks. So Never Never Land is far from being either vindicating or enthralling. It's sometimes paranoid, sometimes aimless head music. This time, there weren't any UNKLE action figures or other branding attempts, just a quiet record that was quietly released and has (already) quietly slipped away. It's just as well: Considering the buildup to, quality of, and career fallout following Psyence Fiction, anonymity may suit Lavelle. It at least positions him to regroup, crawl out of his valley, and aim once again for those peaks.

Artist: UNKLE, Album: Never Never Land, Genre: Electronic,Jazz, Score (1-10): 5.0 Album review: "Six years on from its release, Psyence Fiction-- the long-simmering pet project of Mo'Wax founder James Lavelle and his then-UNKLE co-conspirator/meal ticket DJ Shadow-- still ranks as one of the most anti-climactic and jaw-dropping disappointments of recent years. Seemingly powered by Lavelle's own sense of self-satisfaction, the record pulled off an odd triple crown: it was overcooked, half-baked, and underdone all at the same time. An epochal mix of atmospheric, experimental hip-hop and soul-stirring rock, Psyence Fiction was an unapologetic attempt to create an epic Statement of a record, but while long on star power and ambition, it came up short on little things like, oh, vitality, restraint, emotional resonance, and tunes. From the go, Psyence Fiction was highly anticipated by writers who assumed it would produce greatness. Instead, they got lazy Hello Nasty melodies, Entroducing-outtake breakbeats, and guest spots that seemed mismatched with the project itself. Despite Mike D's phoned-in wisp of a cameo, the biggest raspberries must go to the always punchable Richard Ashcroft whose "Lonely Soul" is so seeped in new age pandering and the drive to be Very, Very Important that, were compact discs not limited to 80 minutes, it would probably still be teasing us with false stops and pointlessly unspooling to this day. Lavelle's decision to follow with another UNKLE record is laudable for its gumption if not its wisdom, but it's no surprise that, as much as the four-years-in-the-making Psyence Fiction was anticipated, Never Never Land was ignored (even by your pals at Pitchfork-- after all, the record was released in the UK more than four months ago). After mostly handling the conceptual and marketing details of the first UNKLE record, Lavelle took a greater role in the musical conception of this disc. DJ Shadow is out as Lavelle's right-hand man, now replaced by the largely unknown Richard File (though it might have been wiser, if only for publicity, to bring back the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy, an original UNKLE member from the pre-Shadow days). And the new roster of guest stars-- among them, Stone Roses vocalist Ian Brown, Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, and Massive Attack's 3D, plus uncredited appearances from Brian Eno and Jarvis Cocker-- doesn't have the same sort of A-list ring offered by the first record. And yet, in spite (or because?) of all this, it's an improvement on the past. Never Never Land seems to address its predecessors' failure and Lavelle's own spiraling career right from the start, as a spoken-word sample (rather wince-inducingly) describes life as a series of peaks and valleys. Lavelle's basic approach to music-making hasn't changed. He still trades in texture and atmosphere, favoring sweeping strings, cinematic grandeur, a mix of pop sensibilities with downtempo music, and an obsession with science fiction. The addition of File lends a more human quality to the tracks, largely because his hand guides a series of voices whereas Psyence Fiction had Shadow dealing more with a series of personalities or stars. File's arid singer/songwriter approach and wistful vocals lend Never Never Land a breezy quality, but also little to pin down or ground the tracks. Rhythm is almost completely replaced here by often drifting atmospherics, and of File's key contributions, only the graceful "What Are You to Me?" really shines. When beats are central to the tracks-- as on the Joy Division-sampling paranoia of "Panic Attack"-- they're oddly compelling. Of the guests, 3D's "Invasion" chides Bush and Blair (a theme also hinted at on the Temptations-quoting "Eye for an Eye") but pulls too few punches, Homme's "Safe in Mind" is spacious but forgettable, and Cocker and Eno lend a couple of hands to a sleepy ambient exercise. Oddly, Ian Brown's batty echo chamber "Reign" is appropriate spliff-casualty stuff and among the album's strongest tracks. So Never Never Land is far from being either vindicating or enthralling. It's sometimes paranoid, sometimes aimless head music. This time, there weren't any UNKLE action figures or other branding attempts, just a quiet record that was quietly released and has (already) quietly slipped away. It's just as well: Considering the buildup to, quality of, and career fallout following Psyence Fiction, anonymity may suit Lavelle. It at least positions him to regroup, crawl out of his valley, and aim once again for those peaks."

Chuck Johnson

Balsams

Experimental

Marc Masters

Pedal steel guitar is such an evocative instrument that just one chord emanating from its strings can suggest entire worlds. Often that’s exactly how it is used: one chord at a time, doled out sparingly to enhance moods already established by other instruments. But what if you give pedal steel guitar the starring role? That’s what Chuck Johnson does on Balsams, an album that’s drowning in waves of pedal steel, accompanied only by sparse, time-marking bass tones. It’s a simple formula, but Johnson mines it for rich music that feels infinitely expressive. This isn’t exactly a shock, given that Johnson was already pretty great at creating moods with a guitar. He’s made three previous albums of subtle finger-picked acoustic work, as well as a full-band effort—last year’s Velvet Arc—that used pedal steel more traditionally. But there’s something singular about what he’s done on Balsams. It feels like a universe unto itself, one where each slow, patient strain of pedal steel builds on the previous one. Individually, none of the album’s six tracks sounds very different from each other, but as a whole they create a three-dimensional sonic space that expands and evolves. In that sense, Balsams is more an ambient album than a folk-based guitar record. Think of it as country post-rock: Johnson’s hypnotic music conjures cinematic landscapes as strong as those evoked by Stars of the Lid or Flying Saucer Attack, but his guitar’s gentle twang sounds more like a desert with wafting tumbleweeds than a sky with drifting clouds. Whatever images the album might inspire, there is definitely a lot of weather happening in Balsams’ widescreen scenes. You can feel air moving, sand sifting, and sun baking as Johnson’s guitar chords gradually stretch across the horizon. In the album’s best moments, those chords regenerate and deepen, making it hard to tell where one sound begins and another ends. During “Riga Black,” guitar tones continually emerge and fade in overlapping circles; in “Moonstone,” rising chords spawn textures that trail each other. At times, Johnson’s sounds transcend standard associations with the pedal steel guitar, as on opener “Calamus,” whose long echoes resemble a bowed violin or a soaring synth as much as metal sliding across strings. Within this guitar-heavy environment, Johnson’s bass notes at first feel like afterthoughts, but they turn out to be crucial. Often they provide steps for the pedal steel to climb, their short durations propelling longer atmospherics that climb higher with each passing tone. This recalls the way Labradford often used simple notes to carve a path for grander tones, and Johnson proves just as adept at that move. His approach shines most vividly during “Labrodite Eye,” where the up-and-down crests of pedal steel are pulled by bass like gravity tugging at tides. It’s a supporting role, akin to the reassuring tick of a clock, but once you’ve let Balsams fully mesmerize you, it’s hard to imagine any of Johnson’s songs without that transfixing metronome. It seems that Johnson’s main goal here is to transfix—perhaps not just the listener but himself as well. It must have been tempting for him to swerve from his devout sonic path, adding a drumbeat hear or a voice there, or even just a three-note guitar solo somewhere. But part of the beauty of Balsams is that it entrances not in spite of its homogeneity, but because of it. In one sense, it’s an experiment to see what pedal steel guitar can do when it’s asked to do it all. But the results make Balsams more than that: a fully realized sonic world, and one worth visiting for a long time.

Artist: Chuck Johnson, Album: Balsams, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "Pedal steel guitar is such an evocative instrument that just one chord emanating from its strings can suggest entire worlds. Often that’s exactly how it is used: one chord at a time, doled out sparingly to enhance moods already established by other instruments. But what if you give pedal steel guitar the starring role? That’s what Chuck Johnson does on Balsams, an album that’s drowning in waves of pedal steel, accompanied only by sparse, time-marking bass tones. It’s a simple formula, but Johnson mines it for rich music that feels infinitely expressive. This isn’t exactly a shock, given that Johnson was already pretty great at creating moods with a guitar. He’s made three previous albums of subtle finger-picked acoustic work, as well as a full-band effort—last year’s Velvet Arc—that used pedal steel more traditionally. But there’s something singular about what he’s done on Balsams. It feels like a universe unto itself, one where each slow, patient strain of pedal steel builds on the previous one. Individually, none of the album’s six tracks sounds very different from each other, but as a whole they create a three-dimensional sonic space that expands and evolves. In that sense, Balsams is more an ambient album than a folk-based guitar record. Think of it as country post-rock: Johnson’s hypnotic music conjures cinematic landscapes as strong as those evoked by Stars of the Lid or Flying Saucer Attack, but his guitar’s gentle twang sounds more like a desert with wafting tumbleweeds than a sky with drifting clouds. Whatever images the album might inspire, there is definitely a lot of weather happening in Balsams’ widescreen scenes. You can feel air moving, sand sifting, and sun baking as Johnson’s guitar chords gradually stretch across the horizon. In the album’s best moments, those chords regenerate and deepen, making it hard to tell where one sound begins and another ends. During “Riga Black,” guitar tones continually emerge and fade in overlapping circles; in “Moonstone,” rising chords spawn textures that trail each other. At times, Johnson’s sounds transcend standard associations with the pedal steel guitar, as on opener “Calamus,” whose long echoes resemble a bowed violin or a soaring synth as much as metal sliding across strings. Within this guitar-heavy environment, Johnson’s bass notes at first feel like afterthoughts, but they turn out to be crucial. Often they provide steps for the pedal steel to climb, their short durations propelling longer atmospherics that climb higher with each passing tone. This recalls the way Labradford often used simple notes to carve a path for grander tones, and Johnson proves just as adept at that move. His approach shines most vividly during “Labrodite Eye,” where the up-and-down crests of pedal steel are pulled by bass like gravity tugging at tides. It’s a supporting role, akin to the reassuring tick of a clock, but once you’ve let Balsams fully mesmerize you, it’s hard to imagine any of Johnson’s songs without that transfixing metronome. It seems that Johnson’s main goal here is to transfix—perhaps not just the listener but himself as well. It must have been tempting for him to swerve from his devout sonic path, adding a drumbeat hear or a voice there, or even just a three-note guitar solo somewhere. But part of the beauty of Balsams is that it entrances not in spite of its homogeneity, but because of it. In one sense, it’s an experiment to see what pedal steel guitar can do when it’s asked to do it all. But the results make Balsams more than that: a fully realized sonic world, and one worth visiting for a long time."

Sunburned Hand of the Man

The Mylar Tantrum

Experimental,Rock

Matthew Murphy

The arrival of a new release from Sunburned Hand of the Man is hardly an uncommon event, but seldom is it an unwelcome one. Consisting of one uninterrupted performance, The Mylar Tantrum is far from the collective's bulkiest document, yet it still appears as a noteworthy addition to their sprawling catalog. The piece was created as an alternate soundtrack to Ira Cohen's legendary 1968 psychedelic film The Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda. On the album the Sunburned crew take a few cues from the film's original soundtrack, which was performed by a pioneering drone/trance ensemble that featured Angus MacLise, Tony Conrad, and Henry Flynt. Despite these few respectful allusions, however, SHotM manage to quickly to fill the room with their own peculiar and addictive form of oxygen, shaping The Mylar Tantrum with exactly the sort of casual economy that suggests an endless beatific abundance. For the occasion, Sunburned have assembled themselves as a streamlined septet, although with their free-flowing assortment of wheezing keys and ceremonial percussion, it becomes pretty impossible (and ultimately immaterial) to determine who is playing what. The album's title makes reference to Cohen's extensive use of reflective Mylar in his sets and photography, a production design that helped give his film its distinctive refracted shimmer. Although Sunburned's soundtrack suitably matches the film's opiated, image-splitting bacchanalia, several passages also seem fit to accompany more traditional narrative structures as well. In fact, the opening sequence of melodic harmonium and guitar sounds like it could be an appropriate backdrop for any suspense-filled European crime caper, the ominous heartbeat of the drums punctuating the tension with a quickening pulse as the whole savage gang assembles at the docks to prepare for one final score. It isn't long, however, before a primal cry is heard from the wilderness, triggering the group to immediately lumber into an ecstatic, closely woven percussive trance. As with MacLise's work on the original Thunderbolt Pagoda soundtrack, Sunburned's polyrhythmic improvisations here seem to be issued from some indefinite exotic source, with pan-ethnic echoes volleying invisibly between rural New England, Morocco, and the Himalayas. And while the men of Sunburned are certainly no strangers to free-form drum-circle jams, here their communal playing sounds precise and controlled, their increased focus giving these rituals an added degree of seismic density. Soon this central pulse too dissolves away into an extended outro of disembodied chanting and fluttering hand percussion, with a stray guitar quietly scavenging through the tribal wreckage in search of any stray fuel that might keep the fading embers aflame. Compared to epic-length albums like 2005's Wedlock, the 22-minute running time of The Mylar Tantrum might make it seem rather skimpy. This music is also available on the Bastet label's recent DVD release of Thunderbolt Pagoda, so perhaps it might be most sensible to experience this work in its full multi-media splendor. But even when taken on its own, The Mylar Tantrum can serve as an extra-potent distillation of Sunburned Hand of the Man's nefarious black arts, with a shamanic utility too broad to be restricted to any one film's soundtrack.

Artist: Sunburned Hand of the Man, Album: The Mylar Tantrum, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "The arrival of a new release from Sunburned Hand of the Man is hardly an uncommon event, but seldom is it an unwelcome one. Consisting of one uninterrupted performance, The Mylar Tantrum is far from the collective's bulkiest document, yet it still appears as a noteworthy addition to their sprawling catalog. The piece was created as an alternate soundtrack to Ira Cohen's legendary 1968 psychedelic film The Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda. On the album the Sunburned crew take a few cues from the film's original soundtrack, which was performed by a pioneering drone/trance ensemble that featured Angus MacLise, Tony Conrad, and Henry Flynt. Despite these few respectful allusions, however, SHotM manage to quickly to fill the room with their own peculiar and addictive form of oxygen, shaping The Mylar Tantrum with exactly the sort of casual economy that suggests an endless beatific abundance. For the occasion, Sunburned have assembled themselves as a streamlined septet, although with their free-flowing assortment of wheezing keys and ceremonial percussion, it becomes pretty impossible (and ultimately immaterial) to determine who is playing what. The album's title makes reference to Cohen's extensive use of reflective Mylar in his sets and photography, a production design that helped give his film its distinctive refracted shimmer. Although Sunburned's soundtrack suitably matches the film's opiated, image-splitting bacchanalia, several passages also seem fit to accompany more traditional narrative structures as well. In fact, the opening sequence of melodic harmonium and guitar sounds like it could be an appropriate backdrop for any suspense-filled European crime caper, the ominous heartbeat of the drums punctuating the tension with a quickening pulse as the whole savage gang assembles at the docks to prepare for one final score. It isn't long, however, before a primal cry is heard from the wilderness, triggering the group to immediately lumber into an ecstatic, closely woven percussive trance. As with MacLise's work on the original Thunderbolt Pagoda soundtrack, Sunburned's polyrhythmic improvisations here seem to be issued from some indefinite exotic source, with pan-ethnic echoes volleying invisibly between rural New England, Morocco, and the Himalayas. And while the men of Sunburned are certainly no strangers to free-form drum-circle jams, here their communal playing sounds precise and controlled, their increased focus giving these rituals an added degree of seismic density. Soon this central pulse too dissolves away into an extended outro of disembodied chanting and fluttering hand percussion, with a stray guitar quietly scavenging through the tribal wreckage in search of any stray fuel that might keep the fading embers aflame. Compared to epic-length albums like 2005's Wedlock, the 22-minute running time of The Mylar Tantrum might make it seem rather skimpy. This music is also available on the Bastet label's recent DVD release of Thunderbolt Pagoda, so perhaps it might be most sensible to experience this work in its full multi-media splendor. But even when taken on its own, The Mylar Tantrum can serve as an extra-potent distillation of Sunburned Hand of the Man's nefarious black arts, with a shamanic utility too broad to be restricted to any one film's soundtrack."

Channels

Waiting for the Next End of the World

Metal

Jason Crock

If only J. Robbins could find a band that works as hard as he does. After Jawbox called it quits, Burning Airlines made one incredible record-- a near-perfect balance between musicianship and satisfying hooks-- and one confused one, a sophomore slump from a shifting lineup that may have eventually found its footing. Instead, band members keep evaporating on Robbins, leaving him to do decidedly un-punk-rock things like have families and hold down 9-to-5 jobs. Robbins, however, has done them one better by starting his own family while staying active as a prolific producer and an occasional musician. Slow on the heels of a 2004 EP is Waiting for the Next End of the World, the first full-length from Robbins in five years and the first from Channels, a trio featuring co-vocalist Janet Morgan (aka Mrs. Robbins) from Shonben and drummer Darren Zentek of Oswego and Kerosene 454. Robbins' time spent behind the production boards rather than in front of them pays off here: Channels' LP is an immaculate-sounding rock record, flipping through a library of hair-raising sci-fi guitar tones over an ever-crisp rhythm section. The guitar in "Licensee" alone stings like a toothache and then slides backward on its heels in the chorus. The bass work on this record, heavier than Robbins is used to while still remaining limber, is nothing to sneeze at, but Morgan is more a backup singer than a real songwriting foil-- a role Robbins benefits from. (See: The difference between the first and second BA records.) Still, Robbins deserves credit for upping his lyrical game by more than a few notches. He's been prone to abstraction, but now Channels' songs are political without being topical, and paranoid without being heavy-handed, with far more pithy one-liners per capita (e.g. on "Mayday" he quips, "Every survivor story reeks of alibis"). It's a shame that all of that is applied to songs that sound mannered at best, and often clunky. "Savory" aside, Robbins' has never been a murderer at midtempo, and very few of these songs pick up the pace, bogged down by meandering melodies and hooks too obtuse to really land. The best moments are those that have the slightest trace of sweat: The trade off between he and Morgan over Morse-code bursts of distortion in "Licnesee", the landmine bob of "Mayday", the very-BA "Chivaree", or the floating near-psychedelia of "Helen Mirren". Not a bad batting average, but even the blistering "$99.99" seems buttoned-up somehow, and everything else is aimed straight into Robbins' comfort zone. Waiting for the Next End of the World has all the trademarks of his previous projects, excepting the melody or the bite. There's nothing here that'll disappoint his well-earned fanbase, but that's all he's playing to as that section of the populace slowly dwindles with each year in between projects. If only he'd book a few less mediocre emo bands and put the baby down on the boards; we could always use more of Robbins' A-game.

Artist: Channels, Album: Waiting for the Next End of the World, Genre: Metal, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "If only J. Robbins could find a band that works as hard as he does. After Jawbox called it quits, Burning Airlines made one incredible record-- a near-perfect balance between musicianship and satisfying hooks-- and one confused one, a sophomore slump from a shifting lineup that may have eventually found its footing. Instead, band members keep evaporating on Robbins, leaving him to do decidedly un-punk-rock things like have families and hold down 9-to-5 jobs. Robbins, however, has done them one better by starting his own family while staying active as a prolific producer and an occasional musician. Slow on the heels of a 2004 EP is Waiting for the Next End of the World, the first full-length from Robbins in five years and the first from Channels, a trio featuring co-vocalist Janet Morgan (aka Mrs. Robbins) from Shonben and drummer Darren Zentek of Oswego and Kerosene 454. Robbins' time spent behind the production boards rather than in front of them pays off here: Channels' LP is an immaculate-sounding rock record, flipping through a library of hair-raising sci-fi guitar tones over an ever-crisp rhythm section. The guitar in "Licensee" alone stings like a toothache and then slides backward on its heels in the chorus. The bass work on this record, heavier than Robbins is used to while still remaining limber, is nothing to sneeze at, but Morgan is more a backup singer than a real songwriting foil-- a role Robbins benefits from. (See: The difference between the first and second BA records.) Still, Robbins deserves credit for upping his lyrical game by more than a few notches. He's been prone to abstraction, but now Channels' songs are political without being topical, and paranoid without being heavy-handed, with far more pithy one-liners per capita (e.g. on "Mayday" he quips, "Every survivor story reeks of alibis"). It's a shame that all of that is applied to songs that sound mannered at best, and often clunky. "Savory" aside, Robbins' has never been a murderer at midtempo, and very few of these songs pick up the pace, bogged down by meandering melodies and hooks too obtuse to really land. The best moments are those that have the slightest trace of sweat: The trade off between he and Morgan over Morse-code bursts of distortion in "Licnesee", the landmine bob of "Mayday", the very-BA "Chivaree", or the floating near-psychedelia of "Helen Mirren". Not a bad batting average, but even the blistering "$99.99" seems buttoned-up somehow, and everything else is aimed straight into Robbins' comfort zone. Waiting for the Next End of the World has all the trademarks of his previous projects, excepting the melody or the bite. There's nothing here that'll disappoint his well-earned fanbase, but that's all he's playing to as that section of the populace slowly dwindles with each year in between projects. If only he'd book a few less mediocre emo bands and put the baby down on the boards; we could always use more of Robbins' A-game."

Lightning Dust

Lightning Dust

Folk/Country

Adam Moerder

Bummer alert! For those half-to-fully-baked music fans who gloriously tripped on Mr. Stephen McBean's wild retro-rock ride, Black Mountain, don't go expecting a similar buzz from sobering side project Lightning Dust. Sure, they sound like they're named after a volatile drug combination (PCP and pop rocks?), but as Lightning Dust, Black Mountaineers Amber Webber and Joshua Wells seek better living through histrionics, not chemistry. Fortunately, they didn't also kick their awesomely nasty late 60s/early 70s rock habit, making their self-titled debut just as potent a blast from the past as their full-time band. Webber's dour vocals attracted some criticism on Black Mountain, and in the context of that free-wheelin' album, the gripes are somewhat fair. However, with opening track "Listening On", Webber and Wells make no bones about the pall cast over their new incarnation. Like nearly every track on the LP, you can count the total instrument and vocal parts on one hand, a compositional illusion that seems to catapult Webber's stark quivering wails out of your speakers. Even ghostlier, the absence of percussion and other auxiliary touches helps to create ephemeral melodies that materialize briefly, only to vanish at the delicate touch of an organ key. As sparse as the duo's toolbox appears, their album has a pronounced dramatic landscape of suspenseful highs and tranquilized lows, thanks both to Webber's powerful emoting and Wells' ivory-tickling flair. "Castles and Caves", the album's five-and-a-half minute centerpiece, consists only of piano, vocals and a brief cello part, but when those left-hand keys are pounded during the final chorus, they pack the gravitas of a full-blown orchestra. It doesn't hurt that the piano riff lifts King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King", though, as so many Black Mountain reviews point out in nauseating detail, these guys clearly aren't afraid of walking the line between artistic gesturing and flat-out mimicry. However, while very transparent influences sometimes hamper Black Mountain's music, Lightning Dust racks up a much smaller tab borrowing classic rock ideas. Instead, sheer paucity, a typical symptom of side projects, plagues the duo. With ten tracks clocking just over a half-hour, the debut whets the palette but fails to satiate the stomach, instead leaving us with brief, majestic tracks that hint at something more epic. Although catchy, haunting three-minute howls like "Highway" or "Breathe" come as second nature to the duo, their attempts at curveballs and changeups miss the mark, as drab hoedown "Wind Me Up" and gooey FM ballad "When You Go" respectively show. Still, when these two stick to their comfort zone, they make magic happen, proving Lightning Dust to be another crag on Black Mountain worth scaling.

Artist: Lightning Dust, Album: Lightning Dust, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Bummer alert! For those half-to-fully-baked music fans who gloriously tripped on Mr. Stephen McBean's wild retro-rock ride, Black Mountain, don't go expecting a similar buzz from sobering side project Lightning Dust. Sure, they sound like they're named after a volatile drug combination (PCP and pop rocks?), but as Lightning Dust, Black Mountaineers Amber Webber and Joshua Wells seek better living through histrionics, not chemistry. Fortunately, they didn't also kick their awesomely nasty late 60s/early 70s rock habit, making their self-titled debut just as potent a blast from the past as their full-time band. Webber's dour vocals attracted some criticism on Black Mountain, and in the context of that free-wheelin' album, the gripes are somewhat fair. However, with opening track "Listening On", Webber and Wells make no bones about the pall cast over their new incarnation. Like nearly every track on the LP, you can count the total instrument and vocal parts on one hand, a compositional illusion that seems to catapult Webber's stark quivering wails out of your speakers. Even ghostlier, the absence of percussion and other auxiliary touches helps to create ephemeral melodies that materialize briefly, only to vanish at the delicate touch of an organ key. As sparse as the duo's toolbox appears, their album has a pronounced dramatic landscape of suspenseful highs and tranquilized lows, thanks both to Webber's powerful emoting and Wells' ivory-tickling flair. "Castles and Caves", the album's five-and-a-half minute centerpiece, consists only of piano, vocals and a brief cello part, but when those left-hand keys are pounded during the final chorus, they pack the gravitas of a full-blown orchestra. It doesn't hurt that the piano riff lifts King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King", though, as so many Black Mountain reviews point out in nauseating detail, these guys clearly aren't afraid of walking the line between artistic gesturing and flat-out mimicry. However, while very transparent influences sometimes hamper Black Mountain's music, Lightning Dust racks up a much smaller tab borrowing classic rock ideas. Instead, sheer paucity, a typical symptom of side projects, plagues the duo. With ten tracks clocking just over a half-hour, the debut whets the palette but fails to satiate the stomach, instead leaving us with brief, majestic tracks that hint at something more epic. Although catchy, haunting three-minute howls like "Highway" or "Breathe" come as second nature to the duo, their attempts at curveballs and changeups miss the mark, as drab hoedown "Wind Me Up" and gooey FM ballad "When You Go" respectively show. Still, when these two stick to their comfort zone, they make magic happen, proving Lightning Dust to be another crag on Black Mountain worth scaling."

Concentrik

Lucid Dreaming

Brad Haywood

Tim Green started off the part of his life relevant to this review playing guitar for the now-legendary Dischord outfit Nation of Ulysses. After having his fill of D.C. hardcore, Green moved his skinny ass to San Francisco, met a couple of dyed-in-the-wool metalheads (one with actual long hair), and formed the Champs, an instrumental metal trio (later-modified to the more popular naughty name, The Fucking Champs). It was these Fucking Champs who would be heralded for the purest metal fervor. Little did the heralders know, but behind guitar number two stood a total wuss. For alas, Green, fucking champion of metal, masqueraded as Concentrick, a fucking champion of "lucid dreaming". I know what you're thinking: "Pussy." Had these "lucid dreams" been revolting nightmares, Green might still be in business. But listening to Concentrick's third album, one realizes that they surely are not. They are sweet dreams-- the product not of a metal rampage, but of a soothing lullaby. Addressing the oft-cited metal inquiry, "Do they kick ass?"-- well, not in the conventional sense, no. Perhaps if you could construe meditation as "kicking ass" (as in "man, that prayer circle kicked ass") then Lucid Dreaming would kick ass. But better adjectives exist for this, Green's ambient electronic alter-ego. Like these adjectives, for example: droning, palliative, supple, futuristic, sedate, assuaging, mellifluous, elysian, balmy, resplendent. All in a Buck Rodgers sort of way. Strings and a Mellotron get the album kicking on "Lucid Moments". Imagine if Buck Rodgers had his own romantic chamber orchestra, and you have the idea exactly. "Behind the Trees" takes Buck out of his cozy space cabin and finds him wandering a spooky, uncharted space planet, replete with big orange boulders, space trees, and an atmosphere of pure cyanide gas. Buck would feel anxious, yes? So will you. "Secret in the Shallows and the Sky" plays like the steel drum band at a tropical island space-resort for Buck and his friends (like the totally hot Wilma Deering, aka the Ricker's dad's girlfriend on "Silver Spoons", aka Erin Gray). They take Buck to new, soothing adventures in his mind, as waves of liquid nitrogen splash up against his rocket-fueled titanium catamaran. "Somnambulant" sounds like you might reckon if your vocabulary is big enough. "Soft Place" keeps with the accurate descriptive naming trend, providing a downy-soft place for your ears. This soft place might be particularly welcome for burnt-out Champs fans. It drones like a coma. Concentrick evokes strange comparisons, but this does not alter the fact that Green's effort here is pretty damn super. A delightful mix of sleepy ambient elements with a futuristic touch. Relax to it, fall asleep to it, or fantasize about Wilma Deering to it. The choice is yours.

Artist: Concentrik, Album: Lucid Dreaming, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Tim Green started off the part of his life relevant to this review playing guitar for the now-legendary Dischord outfit Nation of Ulysses. After having his fill of D.C. hardcore, Green moved his skinny ass to San Francisco, met a couple of dyed-in-the-wool metalheads (one with actual long hair), and formed the Champs, an instrumental metal trio (later-modified to the more popular naughty name, The Fucking Champs). It was these Fucking Champs who would be heralded for the purest metal fervor. Little did the heralders know, but behind guitar number two stood a total wuss. For alas, Green, fucking champion of metal, masqueraded as Concentrick, a fucking champion of "lucid dreaming". I know what you're thinking: "Pussy." Had these "lucid dreams" been revolting nightmares, Green might still be in business. But listening to Concentrick's third album, one realizes that they surely are not. They are sweet dreams-- the product not of a metal rampage, but of a soothing lullaby. Addressing the oft-cited metal inquiry, "Do they kick ass?"-- well, not in the conventional sense, no. Perhaps if you could construe meditation as "kicking ass" (as in "man, that prayer circle kicked ass") then Lucid Dreaming would kick ass. But better adjectives exist for this, Green's ambient electronic alter-ego. Like these adjectives, for example: droning, palliative, supple, futuristic, sedate, assuaging, mellifluous, elysian, balmy, resplendent. All in a Buck Rodgers sort of way. Strings and a Mellotron get the album kicking on "Lucid Moments". Imagine if Buck Rodgers had his own romantic chamber orchestra, and you have the idea exactly. "Behind the Trees" takes Buck out of his cozy space cabin and finds him wandering a spooky, uncharted space planet, replete with big orange boulders, space trees, and an atmosphere of pure cyanide gas. Buck would feel anxious, yes? So will you. "Secret in the Shallows and the Sky" plays like the steel drum band at a tropical island space-resort for Buck and his friends (like the totally hot Wilma Deering, aka the Ricker's dad's girlfriend on "Silver Spoons", aka Erin Gray). They take Buck to new, soothing adventures in his mind, as waves of liquid nitrogen splash up against his rocket-fueled titanium catamaran. "Somnambulant" sounds like you might reckon if your vocabulary is big enough. "Soft Place" keeps with the accurate descriptive naming trend, providing a downy-soft place for your ears. This soft place might be particularly welcome for burnt-out Champs fans. It drones like a coma. Concentrick evokes strange comparisons, but this does not alter the fact that Green's effort here is pretty damn super. A delightful mix of sleepy ambient elements with a futuristic touch. Relax to it, fall asleep to it, or fantasize about Wilma Deering to it. The choice is yours."

The Chills

Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills

Rock

Joshua Klein

For a while there, nearly the entire Flying Nun stable made it all look so easy. Album after album of perfect antipodean indie-pop, the product of fertile imaginations and far too much free time in a country that hadn't really shown up on the Western radar since tiny New Zealand lost more fighter pilots per capita during World War II than any other nation in the British Commonwealth. For a minute even the major labels were interested, snatching up acts like the Bats, Straightjacket Fits, the Verlaines, and the Chills before realizing that signing them was a lot easier than selling them. The Chills' Martin Phillipps was among the most idiosyncratic of the batch, capable of both rousing rock and breathtaking beauty. Maybe he understood that best of all, which explains why the 1990 album Submarine Bells led with the facetiously titled "Heavenly Pop Hit", which was certainly two of those things. As for being a hit, well, it never stood a chance. "It's a heavenly pop hit, if anyone wants it," Phillipps sang almost offhandedly, over music so wonderful it's no wonder no radio station dared touch it: it would have made nearly everything else sound bad by comparison. Still, as the closest thing Phillipps ever came to a hit, "Heavenly Pop Hit" was, of course, the track pegged to start this 1995 best-of, released on Flying Nun as a stopgap while Phillipps was between international record labels. But there was plenty more where that song came from-- Phillipps was full of them-- and Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills rounds up many of them for those who may not have any of the band's previous albums or collections, and who may be dismayed at the difficulty of procuring said out of print or domestically unreleased albums in the States (as of this writing, the impeccable early singles comp Kaleidoscope World was going for nearly $70 on Amazon). Also from Submarine Bells there's the majestic "Part Past Part Fiction", while from the Chills' early days the set draws the irresistible shuffling tribute to a late friend "I Love My Leather Jacket", the piano-lead "House with 100 Rooms", the charming love letter "Wet Blanket", the catchy but bleak punch-the-clock welfare anti-anthem "Doledrums", and the ever-ghostly "Pink Frost". All these tracks feature Phillipps' uncanny instinct for chiming guitars, humming organ, beguiling melodies, and mournful lyrics often utterly at odds with all the former elements. Lest you forget Phillipps, like nearly every songwriter of his generation, was a punk at heart, this comp tosses in "I'll Only See You Alone Again", "Look for the Good in Others and They'll See the Good in You", and "Never Never Go", three pounding, fuzzy garage-psych nuggets. As for the inevitable missing stuff, where's "Effloresce and Deliquesce" and the gorgeous title track from Submarine Bells? Or "Background Affair", from Soft Bomb? Or, hell, where's that disc's "Song for Randy Newman, etc.", which name-checks Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Scott Walker, and Nick Drake as Phillipps documents the trials of the cult artist who dares tilt at windmills. "People take so much then leave you lean," Phillipps sings, wistfully, at once in awe of his idols and all too aware that he will likely share the same critics-darling fate. "Patrons will not feed you longer than they need to/ Your all-consuming passion will leave you craving love." OK, to be fair, Phillipps isn't entirely blameless when it comes to his own fate. He had trouble keeping the same band line-up intact from disc to disc, and drug problems played a recurrent role impairing his progress. But he had a point: music this perfect doesn't come for free, and seeing his heart and soul spilled out get him nowhere no doubt wore at Phillipps. Hopefully one day he'll get his due-- a new incarnation of the Chills has been up and running for a bit now-- but in the meantime, the best we'll get is documents like this one, sad reminders of what so many missed out on the first time around. Heavenly pop hits indeed.

Artist: The Chills, Album: Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.6 Album review: "For a while there, nearly the entire Flying Nun stable made it all look so easy. Album after album of perfect antipodean indie-pop, the product of fertile imaginations and far too much free time in a country that hadn't really shown up on the Western radar since tiny New Zealand lost more fighter pilots per capita during World War II than any other nation in the British Commonwealth. For a minute even the major labels were interested, snatching up acts like the Bats, Straightjacket Fits, the Verlaines, and the Chills before realizing that signing them was a lot easier than selling them. The Chills' Martin Phillipps was among the most idiosyncratic of the batch, capable of both rousing rock and breathtaking beauty. Maybe he understood that best of all, which explains why the 1990 album Submarine Bells led with the facetiously titled "Heavenly Pop Hit", which was certainly two of those things. As for being a hit, well, it never stood a chance. "It's a heavenly pop hit, if anyone wants it," Phillipps sang almost offhandedly, over music so wonderful it's no wonder no radio station dared touch it: it would have made nearly everything else sound bad by comparison. Still, as the closest thing Phillipps ever came to a hit, "Heavenly Pop Hit" was, of course, the track pegged to start this 1995 best-of, released on Flying Nun as a stopgap while Phillipps was between international record labels. But there was plenty more where that song came from-- Phillipps was full of them-- and Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of the Chills rounds up many of them for those who may not have any of the band's previous albums or collections, and who may be dismayed at the difficulty of procuring said out of print or domestically unreleased albums in the States (as of this writing, the impeccable early singles comp Kaleidoscope World was going for nearly $70 on Amazon). Also from Submarine Bells there's the majestic "Part Past Part Fiction", while from the Chills' early days the set draws the irresistible shuffling tribute to a late friend "I Love My Leather Jacket", the piano-lead "House with 100 Rooms", the charming love letter "Wet Blanket", the catchy but bleak punch-the-clock welfare anti-anthem "Doledrums", and the ever-ghostly "Pink Frost". All these tracks feature Phillipps' uncanny instinct for chiming guitars, humming organ, beguiling melodies, and mournful lyrics often utterly at odds with all the former elements. Lest you forget Phillipps, like nearly every songwriter of his generation, was a punk at heart, this comp tosses in "I'll Only See You Alone Again", "Look for the Good in Others and They'll See the Good in You", and "Never Never Go", three pounding, fuzzy garage-psych nuggets. As for the inevitable missing stuff, where's "Effloresce and Deliquesce" and the gorgeous title track from Submarine Bells? Or "Background Affair", from Soft Bomb? Or, hell, where's that disc's "Song for Randy Newman, etc.", which name-checks Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Scott Walker, and Nick Drake as Phillipps documents the trials of the cult artist who dares tilt at windmills. "People take so much then leave you lean," Phillipps sings, wistfully, at once in awe of his idols and all too aware that he will likely share the same critics-darling fate. "Patrons will not feed you longer than they need to/ Your all-consuming passion will leave you craving love." OK, to be fair, Phillipps isn't entirely blameless when it comes to his own fate. He had trouble keeping the same band line-up intact from disc to disc, and drug problems played a recurrent role impairing his progress. But he had a point: music this perfect doesn't come for free, and seeing his heart and soul spilled out get him nowhere no doubt wore at Phillipps. Hopefully one day he'll get his due-- a new incarnation of the Chills has been up and running for a bit now-- but in the meantime, the best we'll get is documents like this one, sad reminders of what so many missed out on the first time around. Heavenly pop hits indeed."

Masami Akita, Russell Haswell

Satanstornade

Experimental

Kim Fing Shannon

Despite a deluge of recordings that might suggest otherwise, Merzbow did not invent noise. What he is responsible for is an incredible insight, a leveling glare into our perceptions of musical functionality: Merzbow's music intrinsically refutes academic hierarchies, self-important artistry, mindless fluff, fame, and craft. His work is, in a grand sense, about the mass proliferation of sound in our lives, the morbidity of our culture's regurgitation and recycling of aesthetics, and of course, a fundamental disagreement with thoughtless complacency. The very essence of this-- the need to represent, or in some way possess the constant influx of cultural trash-- merits Merzbow's rigorous release schedule. Even at their most aurally identical, each release is a different approach to Merzbow's preoccupations, be it bondage (which, for those who thought Merzbow was a one-trick pony, seems to be mysteriously absent in his work as of late), or jazz drumming. In the past 25 years, it's pretty doubtless that these releases have finally started to epitomize that endless cultural subconscious that Merzbow set out to recreate. Yet, describing this work in strictly academic or critical language undermines the sheer velocity and disruption a listener might feel, having never heard anything along these lines before. No Merzbow fan will ever be able to relive that initial shock, torment, and displeasure, that moral incongruence, or the satisfaction that someone finally took that extra step they always anticipated. At least not until they stumble onto Whitehouse. Warp Records have just released a new Merzbow record. Not to be filed under Merzbow proper, it's attributed to Merzbow's human incarnation, Masami Akita, who appears here alongside equally disruptive experimentalist Russell Haswell. Due to labelmates like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, this will be the most widely distributed Merzbow album. Whether or not you're looking for a place to start, Satanstornade will be the one in your local record store. Perhaps there's been a climate change; maybe those pissed-off rap-rock kids in bubble coats are going to get even angrier when they get drafted. Maybe they'll need something more substantial to pump out of their subwoofers while they do figure-eights in a mall parking lot. Hell, Merzbow isn't that inaccessible: There are basslines looping back and forth all through the album. In fact, the most emblematic feature of Merzbow's noise music of the past decade or so is the fact that he's largely abandoned the random household noise of his earliest experiments, as well as the tape-collage work it evolved into. The precipitous, unabashed searing rushes that followed-- and settled-- after some experimentation headed, in the past five years, toward the use of underlying loops. Maybe it has to do with his decision to integrate a laptop into what used to be such distinctly physical musical method, or maybe it's just another view into the way our cultural waste works. All of those albums released and recorded, all of the television, sharing the same general content, day in and day out, lulling in its calculated directness. Or maybe it's just that all of that trademarked feedback is just a tiny loop anyway, being picked up by a microphone which sends it to speakers that send it to the microphone, over and over again. Whatever is emblematic of Merzbow's work in and of itself has been offset fairly recently by his newfound enthusiasm for collaboration. Not that there weren't traces of it earlier in his work, but Zbigniew Karkowski, Ladybird, Kouhei Matsunaga, Otomo Yoshihide, and now, finally released-- despite being several years old-- a collaboration with Russell Haswell have come to be a major factor in deciphering Merzbow's work. Merzbow's conceptual approach and aesthetics seem to dominate any situation heenters, however. Junk, waste, the violent cascades of sound, are mixed with Haswell's particularly digital-based aesthetics. The sounds of CD errors, binary yelps, and tinny crunches barrage Merzbow's typical noisy landscape. Considering Haswell's Live Salvage: 1997-2000 collection on MEGO, perhaps it's not even a question of Merzbow battling for dominance, but rather two artists reaching for similar territory. Live Salvage had a twist somewhat absent from Merzbow's work, though. There was a sense of location-specificity, a keen ability to integrate the physical, concrete nature of his noise into the space he was playing it in. Haswell has been looking for new ground after people like Merzbow have already staked their claims, and to shy away from a collaborative effort with such a central figure would've been absurd. Unfortunately, two men brandishing their laptops in public seems a little bit weak, a bit too hasty for either artist to make much of a dent. It's not a failure-- it fits neatly into Merzbow'slongstanding theories, and even serves as a bit of a challenge for him considering the collaborative aspect-- but the promise of Haswell's creativity is too quickly usurped. Hopefully this collaboration will be a bit more than a one-off, and the two can find a stronger equilibrium.

Artist: Masami Akita, Russell Haswell, Album: Satanstornade, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 5.9 Album review: "Despite a deluge of recordings that might suggest otherwise, Merzbow did not invent noise. What he is responsible for is an incredible insight, a leveling glare into our perceptions of musical functionality: Merzbow's music intrinsically refutes academic hierarchies, self-important artistry, mindless fluff, fame, and craft. His work is, in a grand sense, about the mass proliferation of sound in our lives, the morbidity of our culture's regurgitation and recycling of aesthetics, and of course, a fundamental disagreement with thoughtless complacency. The very essence of this-- the need to represent, or in some way possess the constant influx of cultural trash-- merits Merzbow's rigorous release schedule. Even at their most aurally identical, each release is a different approach to Merzbow's preoccupations, be it bondage (which, for those who thought Merzbow was a one-trick pony, seems to be mysteriously absent in his work as of late), or jazz drumming. In the past 25 years, it's pretty doubtless that these releases have finally started to epitomize that endless cultural subconscious that Merzbow set out to recreate. Yet, describing this work in strictly academic or critical language undermines the sheer velocity and disruption a listener might feel, having never heard anything along these lines before. No Merzbow fan will ever be able to relive that initial shock, torment, and displeasure, that moral incongruence, or the satisfaction that someone finally took that extra step they always anticipated. At least not until they stumble onto Whitehouse. Warp Records have just released a new Merzbow record. Not to be filed under Merzbow proper, it's attributed to Merzbow's human incarnation, Masami Akita, who appears here alongside equally disruptive experimentalist Russell Haswell. Due to labelmates like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, this will be the most widely distributed Merzbow album. Whether or not you're looking for a place to start, Satanstornade will be the one in your local record store. Perhaps there's been a climate change; maybe those pissed-off rap-rock kids in bubble coats are going to get even angrier when they get drafted. Maybe they'll need something more substantial to pump out of their subwoofers while they do figure-eights in a mall parking lot. Hell, Merzbow isn't that inaccessible: There are basslines looping back and forth all through the album. In fact, the most emblematic feature of Merzbow's noise music of the past decade or so is the fact that he's largely abandoned the random household noise of his earliest experiments, as well as the tape-collage work it evolved into. The precipitous, unabashed searing rushes that followed-- and settled-- after some experimentation headed, in the past five years, toward the use of underlying loops. Maybe it has to do with his decision to integrate a laptop into what used to be such distinctly physical musical method, or maybe it's just another view into the way our cultural waste works. All of those albums released and recorded, all of the television, sharing the same general content, day in and day out, lulling in its calculated directness. Or maybe it's just that all of that trademarked feedback is just a tiny loop anyway, being picked up by a microphone which sends it to speakers that send it to the microphone, over and over again. Whatever is emblematic of Merzbow's work in and of itself has been offset fairly recently by his newfound enthusiasm for collaboration. Not that there weren't traces of it earlier in his work, but Zbigniew Karkowski, Ladybird, Kouhei Matsunaga, Otomo Yoshihide, and now, finally released-- despite being several years old-- a collaboration with Russell Haswell have come to be a major factor in deciphering Merzbow's work. Merzbow's conceptual approach and aesthetics seem to dominate any situation heenters, however. Junk, waste, the violent cascades of sound, are mixed with Haswell's particularly digital-based aesthetics. The sounds of CD errors, binary yelps, and tinny crunches barrage Merzbow's typical noisy landscape. Considering Haswell's Live Salvage: 1997-2000 collection on MEGO, perhaps it's not even a question of Merzbow battling for dominance, but rather two artists reaching for similar territory. Live Salvage had a twist somewhat absent from Merzbow's work, though. There was a sense of location-specificity, a keen ability to integrate the physical, concrete nature of his noise into the space he was playing it in. Haswell has been looking for new ground after people like Merzbow have already staked their claims, and to shy away from a collaborative effort with such a central figure would've been absurd. Unfortunately, two men brandishing their laptops in public seems a little bit weak, a bit too hasty for either artist to make much of a dent. It's not a failure-- it fits neatly into Merzbow'slongstanding theories, and even serves as a bit of a challenge for him considering the collaborative aspect-- but the promise of Haswell's creativity is too quickly usurped. Hopefully this collaboration will be a bit more than a one-off, and the two can find a stronger equilibrium. "

The Gris Gris

For the Season

Electronic,Rock

Adam Moerder

When will folks stop scouring Gris Gris albums, feverishly looking for some ace in the hole, some nuanced twist to psychedelic rock? Seriously, is a no-frills psych band from San Francisco such an oddity just because they don't associate themselves with the Dead or sing about drugs? Sorry, dude in the Warlocks shirt, Gris Gris piss on hyphenated Sam Goody mongrels like "psych-punk" or "trip-rock," but can I interest you in this poster with a marijuana leaf on it? At the same time, Gris Gris's sober take on the genre isn't exactly an intrepid musical statement. On For the Season, Frontman/songwriter Greg Ashley seems to acknowledge his own trope, and if he's slapping reverb and heady lyrics on tracks and calling them psych, why not come clean? Whereas their self-titled debut indulged in several lengthy anti-jams before finally locking into incense-laden melodies, For the Season cuts the fat, delivering more focused, tripartite song structures. To minimize rigidity, each track gradually bleeds into the next, segueing with blistering distortion squelches and/or barely audible echolalia. In a sense, For the Season resembles a subtle solidification of its predecessor's spiraling ideas. Ashley no longer hides behind layers of reverb, but rather challenges them with more pristine vocals and warmer instrumentation, often foregoing lysergic mysticism for clean campfire sing-alongs. Both "Pick Up Your Raygun" and "Medicine #4"-- respective spin-offs of earlier songs "Raygun" and "Medicine #3"-- outline the band's fine-tuned songwriting approach. The former shaves down its prototype's protracted kookiness and dives headfirst into rumbling toms and exotic Middle Eastern scales. "Medicine #4" sweetens the dusty acoustic strumming of #3, reversing the pop clock almost far enough back to resemble "Earth Angel" at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. Not to worry though psych purists, the Gris Gris aren't about to stray too far from 1967, for better or worse. Much like their first album, For the Season doesn't stir up much in regards to energy or emotion, and nothing's surprising. "Skin Mass Cat" and "Cuerpos Haran Amor Extrano" accurately rehash smokey van aesthetics to the point of Scooby Doo absurdity, and the title track's faux-sitar riffs practically proselytize on behalf of Buddhism. That said, the Gris Gris's finer attention to detail fills in the cracks where their debut stumbled. Lacking the emotional knack for jaw-dropping singles, the band succeeds in consistently churning out songs that would be solid filler on an amazing album-- a Magical Mystery Tour comprised solely of "Blue Jay Way"'s.

Artist: The Gris Gris, Album: For the Season, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "When will folks stop scouring Gris Gris albums, feverishly looking for some ace in the hole, some nuanced twist to psychedelic rock? Seriously, is a no-frills psych band from San Francisco such an oddity just because they don't associate themselves with the Dead or sing about drugs? Sorry, dude in the Warlocks shirt, Gris Gris piss on hyphenated Sam Goody mongrels like "psych-punk" or "trip-rock," but can I interest you in this poster with a marijuana leaf on it? At the same time, Gris Gris's sober take on the genre isn't exactly an intrepid musical statement. On For the Season, Frontman/songwriter Greg Ashley seems to acknowledge his own trope, and if he's slapping reverb and heady lyrics on tracks and calling them psych, why not come clean? Whereas their self-titled debut indulged in several lengthy anti-jams before finally locking into incense-laden melodies, For the Season cuts the fat, delivering more focused, tripartite song structures. To minimize rigidity, each track gradually bleeds into the next, segueing with blistering distortion squelches and/or barely audible echolalia. In a sense, For the Season resembles a subtle solidification of its predecessor's spiraling ideas. Ashley no longer hides behind layers of reverb, but rather challenges them with more pristine vocals and warmer instrumentation, often foregoing lysergic mysticism for clean campfire sing-alongs. Both "Pick Up Your Raygun" and "Medicine #4"-- respective spin-offs of earlier songs "Raygun" and "Medicine #3"-- outline the band's fine-tuned songwriting approach. The former shaves down its prototype's protracted kookiness and dives headfirst into rumbling toms and exotic Middle Eastern scales. "Medicine #4" sweetens the dusty acoustic strumming of #3, reversing the pop clock almost far enough back to resemble "Earth Angel" at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. Not to worry though psych purists, the Gris Gris aren't about to stray too far from 1967, for better or worse. Much like their first album, For the Season doesn't stir up much in regards to energy or emotion, and nothing's surprising. "Skin Mass Cat" and "Cuerpos Haran Amor Extrano" accurately rehash smokey van aesthetics to the point of Scooby Doo absurdity, and the title track's faux-sitar riffs practically proselytize on behalf of Buddhism. That said, the Gris Gris's finer attention to detail fills in the cracks where their debut stumbled. Lacking the emotional knack for jaw-dropping singles, the band succeeds in consistently churning out songs that would be solid filler on an amazing album-- a Magical Mystery Tour comprised solely of "Blue Jay Way"'s."

Anti-Pop Consortium

Fluorescent Black

Electronic,Rap

Jess Harvell

Even with the 10th anniversary of their debut album around the corner, it seems silly to ponder Anti-Pop Consortium's place in hip hop. Name, sound, rhyme style, lyrical content, release sleeve iconography: Anti-Pop were stylized (by the press as much as by themselves) as a fuck-you, a caustic riposte to a genre that had apparently taken every wrong turn possible in the 1990s. They likely give as much of a shit about how they "fit in" with rap in 2009 as they do about concepts like "limited appeal." Which is not to say the group doesn't have enough history behind them to be assessed on their own terms. They've gone from straight-up alienating to a somewhat reconciliatory place within the hip-hop nation. For an act usually classed with the late-90s mini-boom in indie-rap futurism, Anti-Pop's earliest 12"s sounded as if they were made with equipment as old as the printing press. A move to Warp for 2002's Arrythmia added a fresh coat of accessibility to Anti-Pop's antagonistic minimalism. Fluorescent Black-- their first non-collaborative album in seven years-- sounds like Anti-Pop spent their time away coming to grips with the implied-but-never-fully-embraced pleasure principle of Arrythmia via side projects and solo albums. The foursome's name only occasionally suits the music here, unless you take branding into consideration. Fluorescent Black won't blow up at a time when Rick Ross deigning to sound interested on his own album is considered a major step forward among hip-hop critics, but here Anti-Pop take a less partisan approach to fun. And so since we're talking party music: "NY to Tokyo"-- which sounds stitched from 21st-century De La Soul and Men At Work's melody library-- is chipper, about the last adjective I ever expected to use to describe an Anti-Pop record. And while Beans remains the Anti-Pop member you could best sell to rap fans who consider it music rather than some outlaw adjunct to poetry, even M. Sayyid and High Priest sound loosened up across the album, slowing down, using crowd-pleasing pacing, more willing to meet an audience raised on "Crank Dat"-grade rhymes halfway. "Goofy": there's another word you'd be more likely to slap on Soulja Boy than Anti-Pop. Ditto "playful." And yet here's "Born Electric", with a hammy piano intro and ludicrously straight-faced crooning, managing to evoke Journey, Derrick May, and Vanessa Carlton within its first minute. I'm not even sure if Mike Ladd at his most Infections/Majesticons promiscuous would put Detroit pads and AOR cheese-pomp in the same track, let alone as its appetizer. Fluorescent Black's backing tracks, in all their mutant techno overbrightness and zig-zagging detail, re-expand the indie hip-hop palette. Not always to the good, mind you. Is "The Solution" a Kanye/T-Pain robo-voice tribute or parody? Or just a lukewarm trend jack? So sometimes they may be winking too hard to sell certain songs as anything other than well-made gags-- Anti-Pop's button-pushing still makes a nice break from all the posthumous J Dilla fellatio going around. All this lightening up is probably good for the soul, but what of the Anti-Pop refuseniks first fell in love with? Sometimes it crops up in unexpected ways. I appreciate anyone with the balls to scatter fans and foes alike with an album-opening blast of fugly hair metal. But my favorite track here might be the shortest and most "traditionally Anti-Pop." Lasting 1:30, its foul synth lurch like real-deal Rotterdam rottenness, Beans rips through "Dragunov" without pause, hook for cover, or cop to, well, pop. Music stripped to blunt-rhythm-and-nothing-but, the rap an excuse to leave fans breathless over skills they don't possess, "Dragunov" is hip-hop as old west line-in-sand at high noon, half-steppers left outside to wonder what the fuss is about. These go-hard-or-go-home tracks are still sprinkled across Fluorescent Black-- dizzying first single "Capricorn One"; "End Game", a near-arrhythmic duel between gunshot-terse rhyme fragments and the beatbox it sounds like they're slowly killing; "Timpani"'s (yes, them again) Neubauten tribalism and pervy Martin Denny jungle howls. But those who've been along for the 10-plus year ride may be looking for more of them. No one could stay as intractable as early Anti-Pop forever-- who would want to, except maybe straight-up horse-corpse-beating nihilists?-- but this sort of delight in scrapping is still what APC do best. The idea of an Anti-Pop greatest hits may be anathema-- at least philosophically-- but the moments when they push the genre's boundaries, rather than just fan expectations, are the parts of the group's catalog that will endure.

Artist: Anti-Pop Consortium, Album: Fluorescent Black, Genre: Electronic,Rap, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "Even with the 10th anniversary of their debut album around the corner, it seems silly to ponder Anti-Pop Consortium's place in hip hop. Name, sound, rhyme style, lyrical content, release sleeve iconography: Anti-Pop were stylized (by the press as much as by themselves) as a fuck-you, a caustic riposte to a genre that had apparently taken every wrong turn possible in the 1990s. They likely give as much of a shit about how they "fit in" with rap in 2009 as they do about concepts like "limited appeal." Which is not to say the group doesn't have enough history behind them to be assessed on their own terms. They've gone from straight-up alienating to a somewhat reconciliatory place within the hip-hop nation. For an act usually classed with the late-90s mini-boom in indie-rap futurism, Anti-Pop's earliest 12"s sounded as if they were made with equipment as old as the printing press. A move to Warp for 2002's Arrythmia added a fresh coat of accessibility to Anti-Pop's antagonistic minimalism. Fluorescent Black-- their first non-collaborative album in seven years-- sounds like Anti-Pop spent their time away coming to grips with the implied-but-never-fully-embraced pleasure principle of Arrythmia via side projects and solo albums. The foursome's name only occasionally suits the music here, unless you take branding into consideration. Fluorescent Black won't blow up at a time when Rick Ross deigning to sound interested on his own album is considered a major step forward among hip-hop critics, but here Anti-Pop take a less partisan approach to fun. And so since we're talking party music: "NY to Tokyo"-- which sounds stitched from 21st-century De La Soul and Men At Work's melody library-- is chipper, about the last adjective I ever expected to use to describe an Anti-Pop record. And while Beans remains the Anti-Pop member you could best sell to rap fans who consider it music rather than some outlaw adjunct to poetry, even M. Sayyid and High Priest sound loosened up across the album, slowing down, using crowd-pleasing pacing, more willing to meet an audience raised on "Crank Dat"-grade rhymes halfway. "Goofy": there's another word you'd be more likely to slap on Soulja Boy than Anti-Pop. Ditto "playful." And yet here's "Born Electric", with a hammy piano intro and ludicrously straight-faced crooning, managing to evoke Journey, Derrick May, and Vanessa Carlton within its first minute. I'm not even sure if Mike Ladd at his most Infections/Majesticons promiscuous would put Detroit pads and AOR cheese-pomp in the same track, let alone as its appetizer. Fluorescent Black's backing tracks, in all their mutant techno overbrightness and zig-zagging detail, re-expand the indie hip-hop palette. Not always to the good, mind you. Is "The Solution" a Kanye/T-Pain robo-voice tribute or parody? Or just a lukewarm trend jack? So sometimes they may be winking too hard to sell certain songs as anything other than well-made gags-- Anti-Pop's button-pushing still makes a nice break from all the posthumous J Dilla fellatio going around. All this lightening up is probably good for the soul, but what of the Anti-Pop refuseniks first fell in love with? Sometimes it crops up in unexpected ways. I appreciate anyone with the balls to scatter fans and foes alike with an album-opening blast of fugly hair metal. But my favorite track here might be the shortest and most "traditionally Anti-Pop." Lasting 1:30, its foul synth lurch like real-deal Rotterdam rottenness, Beans rips through "Dragunov" without pause, hook for cover, or cop to, well, pop. Music stripped to blunt-rhythm-and-nothing-but, the rap an excuse to leave fans breathless over skills they don't possess, "Dragunov" is hip-hop as old west line-in-sand at high noon, half-steppers left outside to wonder what the fuss is about. These go-hard-or-go-home tracks are still sprinkled across Fluorescent Black-- dizzying first single "Capricorn One"; "End Game", a near-arrhythmic duel between gunshot-terse rhyme fragments and the beatbox it sounds like they're slowly killing; "Timpani"'s (yes, them again) Neubauten tribalism and pervy Martin Denny jungle howls. But those who've been along for the 10-plus year ride may be looking for more of them. No one could stay as intractable as early Anti-Pop forever-- who would want to, except maybe straight-up horse-corpse-beating nihilists?-- but this sort of delight in scrapping is still what APC do best. The idea of an Anti-Pop greatest hits may be anathema-- at least philosophically-- but the moments when they push the genre's boundaries, rather than just fan expectations, are the parts of the group's catalog that will endure."

Ty Dolla $ign, Jeremih

MihTy

Rap,Pop/R&B

Austin Brown

Jeremih and Ty Dolla $ign are unquestionably the natural successors to the figure of the of “R&B thug” that defined the R&B charts for most of the aughts. This seems self-evident and unproblematic—until you remember that the progenitor of the term is R. Kelly, whose legacy is now permanently marred by his misdeeds. But that now-instinctive aesthetic wince is exactly why the two artists’ careers have been so refreshing—they’ve proven to be experts at parsing the difference between charmingly rakish and disturbingly loutish that Kelly’s songcraft (and personal life) nearly always elided. Both artists often feel as if they’re singing about their loverman personas as much as they are inhabiting them. With Jeremih, the deconstruction is mostly musical, through the dubby, reflective negative space that the Late Nights mixtape and album both exuded. With Ty, it’s more often manifested in lyrical detail that provokes empathy even toward his most louche stories, especially on last year’s career peak, Beach House 3. On MihTy, their debut collaborative album, they’ve linked up with frequent collaborator Hitmaka and created a project so buttery smooth that you might not realize how much it’s at war with itself. The sound of MihTy is blockier and brighter than the usual palettes of either artist, often hearkening back to the chunky hip-hop soul of peak Puff Daddy and Jermaine Dupri—sometimes overtly, as in the R. Kelly-aping chorus of “FYT,” or the bassline borrowed from Mary J. Blige’s “Love No Limit” remix for “The Light.” To distinguish themselves, Hitmaka and co. bring neon synth pads and a dash of vaguely Balearic electronic sparkle to the proceedings, eschewing deference in favor of, oddly enough, a chillwave-y evocation of 1990s R&B. The general effect of the production’s geometric wobbliness is a woozy, classicist gilded cage in which Jeremih and Ty are set loose to ping-pong off each other. Accordingly, there’s something slightly anxious about the album, flitting lyrically as it does (often within the same song) between straightforward fuckbook braggadocio and nervous reflections on success—“You know this shit ain’t me/So you can’t blame me/If I act a little different these days,” croons Jeremih on the hypnagogic slow jam “These Days.” On standouts like that one, the MihTy project lays out a central driving conflict that’s classically hip-hop, with a twist: Rather than negotiating street authenticity, Ty and Jeremih instead unpack the post-fame viability of intimacy. The aforementioned “FYT” has some of Jeremih’s best lines here, as his honeyed vocal gently skewers his diva reputation right along with his lover’s apparent lack of taste: “I’m in Neiman Marcus throwing tantrums/You think you know high fashion/Just to take it off, babe.” Ty, meanwhile, demonstrates a more explicit neurosis, singing on “Perfect Timing,” “Wish that I could take it back/Said some things I shouldn’t have said/Meant it at the time/I know I take it way too far.” His gravelly “Meant it at the time” subtly percolates, until you suddenly realize that it’s a clever inversion of the classic line, “I didn’t mean it, baby!” Reading MihTy (and, by extension Jeremih and Ty Dolla $ign’s careers in general) as a critical take on R&B’s full-throated embrace of lust before all—“My mind is telling me no, but my body is telling me yes!”—is tempting, but it inevitably brushes against some annoying realities. Chris “ugh” Brown’s presence on this record is aggravating in a way his appearances usually aren’t—mostly because it’s harder to explain him away as a mere hook for hire. When Brown delivers his salacious lines on “Surrounded,” it inevitably draws attention to the incongruity of the song with the savvy, winning self-awareness of the rest of the album. As a result of that track, and a few emotionally one-note cuts in the middle stretch (“New Level” and “Take Your Time,” both of which feel like the result of perfectionism overwork), MihTy fails to shake its creators’ shared albatross of always almost making a classic record. But in general, MihTy gently gleams with a humanism that is equal parts existential and licentious. The delicate closing triptych of “Lie 2 Me,” “Ride It,” and “Imitate,” perhaps the album’s three best tracks, feels instructive. The first is a swaying ode to paranoia and loyalty. The second inhabits the anxiety of exhibitionism and then lullabies it to sleep. The third fears romantic loss with a choral intensity and seeks to bargain. Each song feels, at first, like it might be a goodbye, or a hello, or a c’mere. Each one is really all three.

Artist: Ty Dolla $ign, Jeremih, Album: MihTy, Genre: Rap,Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Jeremih and Ty Dolla $ign are unquestionably the natural successors to the figure of the of “R&B thug” that defined the R&B charts for most of the aughts. This seems self-evident and unproblematic—until you remember that the progenitor of the term is R. Kelly, whose legacy is now permanently marred by his misdeeds. But that now-instinctive aesthetic wince is exactly why the two artists’ careers have been so refreshing—they’ve proven to be experts at parsing the difference between charmingly rakish and disturbingly loutish that Kelly’s songcraft (and personal life) nearly always elided. Both artists often feel as if they’re singing about their loverman personas as much as they are inhabiting them. With Jeremih, the deconstruction is mostly musical, through the dubby, reflective negative space that the Late Nights mixtape and album both exuded. With Ty, it’s more often manifested in lyrical detail that provokes empathy even toward his most louche stories, especially on last year’s career peak, Beach House 3. On MihTy, their debut collaborative album, they’ve linked up with frequent collaborator Hitmaka and created a project so buttery smooth that you might not realize how much it’s at war with itself. The sound of MihTy is blockier and brighter than the usual palettes of either artist, often hearkening back to the chunky hip-hop soul of peak Puff Daddy and Jermaine Dupri—sometimes overtly, as in the R. Kelly-aping chorus of “FYT,” or the bassline borrowed from Mary J. Blige’s “Love No Limit” remix for “The Light.” To distinguish themselves, Hitmaka and co. bring neon synth pads and a dash of vaguely Balearic electronic sparkle to the proceedings, eschewing deference in favor of, oddly enough, a chillwave-y evocation of 1990s R&B. The general effect of the production’s geometric wobbliness is a woozy, classicist gilded cage in which Jeremih and Ty are set loose to ping-pong off each other. Accordingly, there’s something slightly anxious about the album, flitting lyrically as it does (often within the same song) between straightforward fuckbook braggadocio and nervous reflections on success—“You know this shit ain’t me/So you can’t blame me/If I act a little different these days,” croons Jeremih on the hypnagogic slow jam “These Days.” On standouts like that one, the MihTy project lays out a central driving conflict that’s classically hip-hop, with a twist: Rather than negotiating street authenticity, Ty and Jeremih instead unpack the post-fame viability of intimacy. The aforementioned “FYT” has some of Jeremih’s best lines here, as his honeyed vocal gently skewers his diva reputation right along with his lover’s apparent lack of taste: “I’m in Neiman Marcus throwing tantrums/You think you know high fashion/Just to take it off, babe.” Ty, meanwhile, demonstrates a more explicit neurosis, singing on “Perfect Timing,” “Wish that I could take it back/Said some things I shouldn’t have said/Meant it at the time/I know I take it way too far.” His gravelly “Meant it at the time” subtly percolates, until you suddenly realize that it’s a clever inversion of the classic line, “I didn’t mean it, baby!” Reading MihTy (and, by extension Jeremih and Ty Dolla $ign’s careers in general) as a critical take on R&B’s full-throated embrace of lust before all—“My mind is telling me no, but my body is telling me yes!”—is tempting, but it inevitably brushes against some annoying realities. Chris “ugh” Brown’s presence on this record is aggravating in a way his appearances usually aren’t—mostly because it’s harder to explain him away as a mere hook for hire. When Brown delivers his salacious lines on “Surrounded,” it inevitably draws attention to the incongruity of the song with the savvy, winning self-awareness of the rest of the album. As a result of that track, and a few emotionally one-note cuts in the middle stretch (“New Level” and “Take Your Time,” both of which feel like the result of perfectionism overwork), MihTy fails to shake its creators’ shared albatross of always almost making a classic record. But in general, MihTy gently gleams with a humanism that is equal parts existential and licentious. The delicate closing triptych of “Lie 2 Me,” “Ride It,” and “Imitate,” perhaps the album’s three best tracks, feels instructive. The first is a swaying ode to paranoia and loyalty. The second inhabits the anxiety of exhibitionism and then lullabies it to sleep. The third fears romantic loss with a choral intensity and seeks to bargain. Each song feels, at first, like it might be a goodbye, or a hello, or a c’mere. Each one is really all three."

Horseback

Half Blood

Metal,Rock

Jess Harvell

Here's a record that should not work. Its two main influences-- frostbitten Scandinavian black metal and rustic U.S. roots music-- should not combine, let alone gracefully. One is theatrical and expressionistic in its expression of nihilistic rage, almost claustrophobic in its pure form. The other is stripped-down and attempts to get at some ideal of emotional honesty, a sound that's loose and expansive in its evocation of American distances. And yet Horseback managed to intuit some kinship between them. (They also throw in a dose of horror-movie melodrama and experimental suites-instead-of-songs portentousness, just because it might not be an arty 21st-century metal album without them.) Instead of clashing, these two distinct modes harmonize on Half Blood into something dark and sweeping, where it all could have wound up a ridiculous failed experiment. Instead we get a why-didn't-anyone-think-of-this-sooner mix of metal ugliness and heartland beauty, post-rock at its most spartan and hard rock at its most out-there. Horseback have been plying this oddball-but-effective hybrid for a couple of years now. Half Blood is simply the strongest argument yet for just how effective it can be. They're still probably the only band in the world that makes a writer want to reference both weirder-than-weird black-metal band Necrofrost (those Tolkein orc vocals) and the lonesome cowboy epics of Calexico (those mournful guitars and weighted-by-heartbreak drums). Earlier albums, like 2010's The Invisible Mountain, proved their point with gusto, namely that a band could evoke the sad, wide-open spaces of American roots music while suggesting the screams and riffs of black metal could be equally (and not dissimilarly) affecting. Drunken ballads about losing everything aren't a million miles from drinking blood and wailing about how you wish everything would just stop already. Certain moments on Half Blood suggest a metal band covering Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas score, or maybe a Crazy Horse helmed soundtack to a suppressed Kris Kristofferson film about a guitar-toting truck driver in post-apocalyptic 1970s America. So when I say "country" you should probably know I mean the loose, electrified, booming groove that resulted when hairy dudes with big amps and Bonham-grade drumming took a shine to Opry-approved stuff. And if most post-metal acts take cues from the already metal-indebted dynamics of Mogwai, the early tracks on Half Blood more recall the more clearly American sturm-und-twang of Spiderland, if Slint had been as into bar-band boogie as they were into King Crimson. Other bands have attempted to merge highway romanticism and extreme brutality, of course. The reunited Earth have almost completely transmogrified from an experimental doom act into a bleak roots unit. Late-period Neurosis offered oppressive sludge and spacious twang in equal amounts, birthing the whole post-metal thing in the process. And the latest iteration of Swans is kind of the gold-standard for crushing heaviness, blackened blues, and emotional violence, all in one unstable package. But Horseback are the only band that's mined similar territory while risking the potential silliness of extracting corpse-painted wails from their native context of epically grumpy one-man-band isolation and plunking them into a world more typically influenced by Merle Haggard, Marshall stacks, and crying in your Wild Turkey. All that said, I don't want to make too much of the "Hank meets Euronymous" thing. There are moves Horseback make here-- like the Omen-grade liturgical hooey on "Inheritance (the Changeling)"-- that have no precedent in any context other than metal. (And horror movies, I guess.) And as stunningly well-realized as some of this stuff is, I can't pretend that the psychedelic excesses of the album-closing trilogy entirely work, even though excess and song trilogies are both metal staples, so Horseback's reach occasionally exceeding their grasp doesn't sore-thumb as much as it might if their big influence were the Ramones. If anything it's kinda inspiring to see guys stretch out, get loose, scramble up the mountain of art, when they could have just driven a unique-to-say-the-least sound into dullness. And as for that signature combo, you still want to ask: How does all that tortured (and affected) monster grunting and groaning not puncture the austere gorgeousness of the low-key moments and the thunderousness of the climaxes? Maybe it's because-- and here those with a phobia toward metal vocals will have to take a leap of faith-- tortured (and affected) monster grunts are no more ridiculous, or any less potentially moving, than indie whispering or canyon-troubadour crooning or drunken party-dude bellowing. Speaking of Slint, I'm reminded here of Steve Albini's admission that, on his first few listens to Spiderland, he went from being embarrassed by the singing and the lyrics to being deeply moved by them. It might be a stretch to say metal-resistant listeners will have a similar reaction to the singing on Half Blood. But it's not out of the realm of possibility. I was certainly moved by the combination, at times, but then I've also been moved by the shrieking renunciation of all human values in Striborg songs.

Artist: Horseback, Album: Half Blood, Genre: Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "Here's a record that should not work. Its two main influences-- frostbitten Scandinavian black metal and rustic U.S. roots music-- should not combine, let alone gracefully. One is theatrical and expressionistic in its expression of nihilistic rage, almost claustrophobic in its pure form. The other is stripped-down and attempts to get at some ideal of emotional honesty, a sound that's loose and expansive in its evocation of American distances. And yet Horseback managed to intuit some kinship between them. (They also throw in a dose of horror-movie melodrama and experimental suites-instead-of-songs portentousness, just because it might not be an arty 21st-century metal album without them.) Instead of clashing, these two distinct modes harmonize on Half Blood into something dark and sweeping, where it all could have wound up a ridiculous failed experiment. Instead we get a why-didn't-anyone-think-of-this-sooner mix of metal ugliness and heartland beauty, post-rock at its most spartan and hard rock at its most out-there. Horseback have been plying this oddball-but-effective hybrid for a couple of years now. Half Blood is simply the strongest argument yet for just how effective it can be. They're still probably the only band in the world that makes a writer want to reference both weirder-than-weird black-metal band Necrofrost (those Tolkein orc vocals) and the lonesome cowboy epics of Calexico (those mournful guitars and weighted-by-heartbreak drums). Earlier albums, like 2010's The Invisible Mountain, proved their point with gusto, namely that a band could evoke the sad, wide-open spaces of American roots music while suggesting the screams and riffs of black metal could be equally (and not dissimilarly) affecting. Drunken ballads about losing everything aren't a million miles from drinking blood and wailing about how you wish everything would just stop already. Certain moments on Half Blood suggest a metal band covering Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas score, or maybe a Crazy Horse helmed soundtack to a suppressed Kris Kristofferson film about a guitar-toting truck driver in post-apocalyptic 1970s America. So when I say "country" you should probably know I mean the loose, electrified, booming groove that resulted when hairy dudes with big amps and Bonham-grade drumming took a shine to Opry-approved stuff. And if most post-metal acts take cues from the already metal-indebted dynamics of Mogwai, the early tracks on Half Blood more recall the more clearly American sturm-und-twang of Spiderland, if Slint had been as into bar-band boogie as they were into King Crimson. Other bands have attempted to merge highway romanticism and extreme brutality, of course. The reunited Earth have almost completely transmogrified from an experimental doom act into a bleak roots unit. Late-period Neurosis offered oppressive sludge and spacious twang in equal amounts, birthing the whole post-metal thing in the process. And the latest iteration of Swans is kind of the gold-standard for crushing heaviness, blackened blues, and emotional violence, all in one unstable package. But Horseback are the only band that's mined similar territory while risking the potential silliness of extracting corpse-painted wails from their native context of epically grumpy one-man-band isolation and plunking them into a world more typically influenced by Merle Haggard, Marshall stacks, and crying in your Wild Turkey. All that said, I don't want to make too much of the "Hank meets Euronymous" thing. There are moves Horseback make here-- like the Omen-grade liturgical hooey on "Inheritance (the Changeling)"-- that have no precedent in any context other than metal. (And horror movies, I guess.) And as stunningly well-realized as some of this stuff is, I can't pretend that the psychedelic excesses of the album-closing trilogy entirely work, even though excess and song trilogies are both metal staples, so Horseback's reach occasionally exceeding their grasp doesn't sore-thumb as much as it might if their big influence were the Ramones. If anything it's kinda inspiring to see guys stretch out, get loose, scramble up the mountain of art, when they could have just driven a unique-to-say-the-least sound into dullness. And as for that signature combo, you still want to ask: How does all that tortured (and affected) monster grunting and groaning not puncture the austere gorgeousness of the low-key moments and the thunderousness of the climaxes? Maybe it's because-- and here those with a phobia toward metal vocals will have to take a leap of faith-- tortured (and affected) monster grunts are no more ridiculous, or any less potentially moving, than indie whispering or canyon-troubadour crooning or drunken party-dude bellowing. Speaking of Slint, I'm reminded here of Steve Albini's admission that, on his first few listens to Spiderland, he went from being embarrassed by the singing and the lyrics to being deeply moved by them. It might be a stretch to say metal-resistant listeners will have a similar reaction to the singing on Half Blood. But it's not out of the realm of possibility. I was certainly moved by the combination, at times, but then I've also been moved by the shrieking renunciation of all human values in Striborg songs."

Lonesome Organist

Forms and Follies

Bill Morris

Writing up an original review for any Lonesome Organist release might be best described as playing a solitary game of critical Taboo: it's instantly apparent that there exists a specific set of unavoidable descriptive clichés and overly pitched idiosyncrasies chaperoning all previous and current press for this band-- often due to an inability to creatively parallel the level of the phenomenon: the more unique the spectacle, the less inventive the appraisal. So, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Milton Bradley game of terminological no-no, I've drawn up a shortlist of words and terms to sidestep for the rest of this review. I will be given five words and phrases, along with ninety seconds on the timer. Start the clock... now. My buzzwords are (as determined by highest journalistic prevalence): multi-instrumentalist, novelty (act), vaudevillian, simultaneous (ly), and one-man. Forms and Follies is the third full-length player recorded by Chicagoan Jeremy Jacobsen (better known as The Lonesome Organist) as well as his first release since the turn of the century. Though it's not at all uncommon for a solo artist to release material under a distinct bandname or even play all of the instruments on an album, it is slightly more atypical for the artist to play them all simul- er, all at the same time, as does Mr. Jacobsen. For his latest release, he had as many as eight tracks available to him, which is considerably more than he had at his disposal for previous albums, but only rarely did he utilize more than a few. For several songs he played drums, guitar, keys and sang; all jointly. The formula alone is cause enough for concern and admittedly makes me a touch anxious. It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. The result is an eclectic, curious, seething mass of sound, sometimes delicate, often garbled and rough, and frequently meandering to the point of disenfranchisement. That he's a singular musical talent with a unique vision isn't debatable. The payoff, however, is. A large portion of the disc, though interesting and tastefully unconventional, is devoid of any real compulsion or atmospheric engagement, and is rendered a mere curiosity with multiple listens. Songs like "The Multiplier", a two-minute, frenetic organ-driven track, feel like thirty second interludes gone a minute-and-a-half too long. In fact, much of the material on the disc feels a bit too much like filler. The album's more structurally cognizant moments, such as the jazzy, upbeat "The Moped", reminiscent of his earlier, more (comparatively) inhibited work with 5ive Style and Euphone, provide the strongest material. The above track is marked by a compelling series of track-long drum rolls and fills and a frugal bassline, and is abetted by digressive but nifty keys and fulgent chimes. A few tracks have vocals, and two are actually sans-instrumentation altogether; Doo-wop tributes that hearken back to a time more suited to our anachronistic Lonesome Organist. Just as Les Miserables is far better served by the stage then as a cinematic vehicle for Claire Danes, The Lonesome Organist can be most appreciated in a live setting where his physical urgency and arresting compositions are best underscored. His one-m, his, uh... his unaccompanied live performances have received widespread encomium and are said to be the best judge of his musical merit. Unfortunately, you can't burn visceral engrossment or artistic perspiration on to a compact disc, and for this, Forms and Follies suffers.

Artist: Lonesome Organist, Album: Forms and Follies, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "Writing up an original review for any Lonesome Organist release might be best described as playing a solitary game of critical Taboo: it's instantly apparent that there exists a specific set of unavoidable descriptive clichés and overly pitched idiosyncrasies chaperoning all previous and current press for this band-- often due to an inability to creatively parallel the level of the phenomenon: the more unique the spectacle, the less inventive the appraisal. So, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Milton Bradley game of terminological no-no, I've drawn up a shortlist of words and terms to sidestep for the rest of this review. I will be given five words and phrases, along with ninety seconds on the timer. Start the clock... now. My buzzwords are (as determined by highest journalistic prevalence): multi-instrumentalist, novelty (act), vaudevillian, simultaneous (ly), and one-man. Forms and Follies is the third full-length player recorded by Chicagoan Jeremy Jacobsen (better known as The Lonesome Organist) as well as his first release since the turn of the century. Though it's not at all uncommon for a solo artist to release material under a distinct bandname or even play all of the instruments on an album, it is slightly more atypical for the artist to play them all simul- er, all at the same time, as does Mr. Jacobsen. For his latest release, he had as many as eight tracks available to him, which is considerably more than he had at his disposal for previous albums, but only rarely did he utilize more than a few. For several songs he played drums, guitar, keys and sang; all jointly. The formula alone is cause enough for concern and admittedly makes me a touch anxious. It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. The result is an eclectic, curious, seething mass of sound, sometimes delicate, often garbled and rough, and frequently meandering to the point of disenfranchisement. That he's a singular musical talent with a unique vision isn't debatable. The payoff, however, is. A large portion of the disc, though interesting and tastefully unconventional, is devoid of any real compulsion or atmospheric engagement, and is rendered a mere curiosity with multiple listens. Songs like "The Multiplier", a two-minute, frenetic organ-driven track, feel like thirty second interludes gone a minute-and-a-half too long. In fact, much of the material on the disc feels a bit too much like filler. The album's more structurally cognizant moments, such as the jazzy, upbeat "The Moped", reminiscent of his earlier, more (comparatively) inhibited work with 5ive Style and Euphone, provide the strongest material. The above track is marked by a compelling series of track-long drum rolls and fills and a frugal bassline, and is abetted by digressive but nifty keys and fulgent chimes. A few tracks have vocals, and two are actually sans-instrumentation altogether; Doo-wop tributes that hearken back to a time more suited to our anachronistic Lonesome Organist. Just as Les Miserables is far better served by the stage then as a cinematic vehicle for Claire Danes, The Lonesome Organist can be most appreciated in a live setting where his physical urgency and arresting compositions are best underscored. His one-m, his, uh... his unaccompanied live performances have received widespread encomium and are said to be the best judge of his musical merit. Unfortunately, you can't burn visceral engrossment or artistic perspiration on to a compact disc, and for this, Forms and Follies suffers."

Herman Dune

I Wish That I Could See You Soon EP

Stephen M. Deusner

Herman Düne's clip for "I Wish That I Could See You Soon", a perfect little puff pastry of a song, was one of the best and most criminally under-viewed videos of 2007. Featuring some green-screen shots that were all the more charming for being unfinished, it was the perfect mesh of visuals and music: puppets and moppets running around to a modestly arranged, enormously catchy folk-pop ditty complete with horns, angelic back-up singers, and vocalist David-Ivar Herman Dune's direct exhortations to the listener. Sporting a pink furry hoodie over his full beard, he came across like the greatest camp counselor ever, Raffi for twentysomething hipsters-- except, you know, bearable. More than bearable, actually. After about a decade together, Herman Dune-- which consists of Franco-Swedish singer David-Ivar Herman Dune and drummer Neman-- have sharpened their craft without becoming overly professional or disingenuous. On the band's new EP, I Wish That I Could See You Soon, they play deceptively simple folk-based compositions with flashes of electric guitars, horns, mouth harp, and bowed saw. Each song has a similar structure: a few short lines followed by the title phrase capping each stanza. A full album of songs with this structure might grow repetitive, but on this five-track EP, it sounds like a songwriterly signature. If the music sounds upbeat and whimsical, the subject matter very rarely is. David-Ivar writes about the confusions and frustrated yearnings of long-distance relationships, and the fact that the band is based in New York-- thousands of miles from home-- only reinforces the sense of isolation and longing. "Take Him Back to New York City" relates the pains of a bi-coastal relationship, as a transplanted West Coaster pines for an East Coast lover and, consequently, for the city they once shared. "I Wish I Had Someone That I Loved Well", with its Greek chorus of horns, follows an émigré around Coney Island as he tries half-heartedly to assimilate. On the other hand, the downtempo "When the Water Gets Cold (And Freezes on the Lake)" twists the formula slightly, describing lovers separated not only by geography, but by betrayal. "Right now I need to stay home, and I don't need your company," sings David-Ivar. "Right now I need to be alone, and I need you to stay away from me." Distance can be therapeutic. As a singer, David-Ivar knows his limitations but refuses to work around or disguise them. Instead, he embraces them, devising an idiosyncratic approach to pop songwriting. Emphasizing his slight range (just four or five notes, it seems), he sings in a loose and talky style, becoming increasingly conversational as he addresses the horns, back-up singers, characters, and even you, the listener. "And we all go woo woo," he declares on "Take Him Back to New York City", right before the back-up singers coo the easy-listening bridge. He's not just warning you that the woo woo's are coming up, but also inviting you to sing along. All that's missing is a campfire.

Artist: Herman Dune, Album: I Wish That I Could See You Soon EP, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "Herman Düne's clip for "I Wish That I Could See You Soon", a perfect little puff pastry of a song, was one of the best and most criminally under-viewed videos of 2007. Featuring some green-screen shots that were all the more charming for being unfinished, it was the perfect mesh of visuals and music: puppets and moppets running around to a modestly arranged, enormously catchy folk-pop ditty complete with horns, angelic back-up singers, and vocalist David-Ivar Herman Dune's direct exhortations to the listener. Sporting a pink furry hoodie over his full beard, he came across like the greatest camp counselor ever, Raffi for twentysomething hipsters-- except, you know, bearable. More than bearable, actually. After about a decade together, Herman Dune-- which consists of Franco-Swedish singer David-Ivar Herman Dune and drummer Neman-- have sharpened their craft without becoming overly professional or disingenuous. On the band's new EP, I Wish That I Could See You Soon, they play deceptively simple folk-based compositions with flashes of electric guitars, horns, mouth harp, and bowed saw. Each song has a similar structure: a few short lines followed by the title phrase capping each stanza. A full album of songs with this structure might grow repetitive, but on this five-track EP, it sounds like a songwriterly signature. If the music sounds upbeat and whimsical, the subject matter very rarely is. David-Ivar writes about the confusions and frustrated yearnings of long-distance relationships, and the fact that the band is based in New York-- thousands of miles from home-- only reinforces the sense of isolation and longing. "Take Him Back to New York City" relates the pains of a bi-coastal relationship, as a transplanted West Coaster pines for an East Coast lover and, consequently, for the city they once shared. "I Wish I Had Someone That I Loved Well", with its Greek chorus of horns, follows an émigré around Coney Island as he tries half-heartedly to assimilate. On the other hand, the downtempo "When the Water Gets Cold (And Freezes on the Lake)" twists the formula slightly, describing lovers separated not only by geography, but by betrayal. "Right now I need to stay home, and I don't need your company," sings David-Ivar. "Right now I need to be alone, and I need you to stay away from me." Distance can be therapeutic. As a singer, David-Ivar knows his limitations but refuses to work around or disguise them. Instead, he embraces them, devising an idiosyncratic approach to pop songwriting. Emphasizing his slight range (just four or five notes, it seems), he sings in a loose and talky style, becoming increasingly conversational as he addresses the horns, back-up singers, characters, and even you, the listener. "And we all go woo woo," he declares on "Take Him Back to New York City", right before the back-up singers coo the easy-listening bridge. He's not just warning you that the woo woo's are coming up, but also inviting you to sing along. All that's missing is a campfire."

Metric

Old World Underground, Where Are You Now

Rock

Rollie Pemberton

When your band is best known for sharing an apartment with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, there's clearly a lot of room for the development of a slightly more personal hype. Such is the case with Metric. Reportedly starting their band based on a mutual distaste for white Toronto funk bands, Metric melds together the usual suspects (The Cure, XTC, The Velvet Underground, New Order) for a new wave-tinged exploration of off-kilter indie rock. You may remember frontwoman Emily Haines from her work with Broken Social Scene and Stars. Here, she seldom attempts the kind of mesmerizing, super-hushed whispers of BSS's "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl", instead showing off a nicely breathy sing/talk and a clear affinity for vocal fluctuations and cadence changes. The subject matter is even more varied than her vocal range: spanning topics as diverse as a friend's altered clothing aesthetic ("On a Slow Night"), to the importance of social status ("The List"), to the inquiry of whether it's "wrong to want more than a folk song" ("Wet Blanket"), Haines has an array of lyrical targets on display and she, more or less, handles the shooting range. One of the most stunning successes on Old World Underground, "Succexy" takes issue with the political agenda of the U.S. government from a more creative stance than the indie world's typical anti-Bush rhetoric and generalizations. Instead of placing the blame purely on the government, Haines claims, "All we do is talk, sit, switch screens/ As the homeland plans enemies." Slipping between power chords and her own serpentine synth lines, Haines juxtaposes sex and war without sounding lost in her own thoughts. Metric aren't overly adept from a technical standpoint, and their melodies sometimes feel a bit too simplistic, but, in attempting a mix between accessible dance-punk and new wave, they do deliver where it counts: their rhythm section is incredibly tight, and drummer Joules Scott-Key's delightfully funky meter is particularly notable. Still, the band rarely attempts anything out of the ordinary, and their lack of innovative arrangements often translates to a tendency for existing ideas to overstay their welcome. With Emily Haines' previous work as a frame of reference, you'd be right to assume that Metric does maintain an aura of talent, with the band serving as a hard melodic edge to her serene, plaintive vocal. Though still searching for their place in the ever-evolving world of indie rock, Metric, in their current incarnation, promise great things sooner rather than later.

Artist: Metric, Album: Old World Underground, Where Are You Now, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "When your band is best known for sharing an apartment with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, there's clearly a lot of room for the development of a slightly more personal hype. Such is the case with Metric. Reportedly starting their band based on a mutual distaste for white Toronto funk bands, Metric melds together the usual suspects (The Cure, XTC, The Velvet Underground, New Order) for a new wave-tinged exploration of off-kilter indie rock. You may remember frontwoman Emily Haines from her work with Broken Social Scene and Stars. Here, she seldom attempts the kind of mesmerizing, super-hushed whispers of BSS's "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl", instead showing off a nicely breathy sing/talk and a clear affinity for vocal fluctuations and cadence changes. The subject matter is even more varied than her vocal range: spanning topics as diverse as a friend's altered clothing aesthetic ("On a Slow Night"), to the importance of social status ("The List"), to the inquiry of whether it's "wrong to want more than a folk song" ("Wet Blanket"), Haines has an array of lyrical targets on display and she, more or less, handles the shooting range. One of the most stunning successes on Old World Underground, "Succexy" takes issue with the political agenda of the U.S. government from a more creative stance than the indie world's typical anti-Bush rhetoric and generalizations. Instead of placing the blame purely on the government, Haines claims, "All we do is talk, sit, switch screens/ As the homeland plans enemies." Slipping between power chords and her own serpentine synth lines, Haines juxtaposes sex and war without sounding lost in her own thoughts. Metric aren't overly adept from a technical standpoint, and their melodies sometimes feel a bit too simplistic, but, in attempting a mix between accessible dance-punk and new wave, they do deliver where it counts: their rhythm section is incredibly tight, and drummer Joules Scott-Key's delightfully funky meter is particularly notable. Still, the band rarely attempts anything out of the ordinary, and their lack of innovative arrangements often translates to a tendency for existing ideas to overstay their welcome. With Emily Haines' previous work as a frame of reference, you'd be right to assume that Metric does maintain an aura of talent, with the band serving as a hard melodic edge to her serene, plaintive vocal. Though still searching for their place in the ever-evolving world of indie rock, Metric, in their current incarnation, promise great things sooner rather than later."

Robert Pollard

Blazing Gentlemen

Rock

Paul Thompson

If there's anything like a normal year for Bob Pollard fans, 2013 wasn't it. These past 12 months did offer a fine new EP and an okay-enough album—their fourth since early 2012—from the reunited Guided by Voices. But it's become increasingly clear that a classic on par with the lo-fi legends' peak-era material might've been a little too much to ask for. Then there was the late-summer tiff between Pollard and drummer Kevin Fennell, whose unsuccessful attempt to peddle the beaten-to-shit drumkit he'd recorded many GBV classics on got him publicly shamed and subsequently fired by his old pal Bob. Bursts of drama notwithstanding, shows were few and far between, and side-hustles have been scant and largely of little consequence. The lone bright spot came this summer, when Pollard issued the rich, graceful Honey Locust Honky Tonk, instantly cementing itself as one of the best records under his own name. Now, Pollard's closing out this weird year with Blazing Gentlemen, a headier, rockier counterpoint to the unfailingly sweet Honey Locust. For a guy who's made records every which way, the approach Pollard took with Gentlemen's construction is especially peculiar. Instead of appliquéing words onto melodies, he built these songs from the lyrics up, scouring his notebooks line-by-line for titles and lyrics, then writing melodies—and then chords—around those. Pollard's always been a collagist—sometimes quite literally—but this method feels especially piecemeal; every few lines, the underriding melody seems to shift, leaving behind any sense of continuity. Much of Pollard's best work has taken a similarly attention-deficient tack, although Gentlemen's disjointment is at the micro level, all mismatched segments and jarring transitions. And, given the wide range in quality between one segment to the next, your time with Gentlemen's spent waiting around for the good part, only to find it gone before you've been properly introduced. Ramrodding through 16 songs in 32 minutes and change, Gentlemen may be the least classically pretty Pollard in ages; ballads are scant, distortion's applied liberally, and while the fidelity's fairly high and the instrumentation consistent, the collection—throwing Honey Locust's carefully considered lushness in stark relief—opts for the quick and dirty. Pollard and Gentlemen cohort Todd Tobias—together, responsible for every sound you hear on the record—have certainly arranged a plaintive melody or two in their day, but Gentlemen largely leaves these overexcitable songs to their own devices. Opener "Magic Man Hype" is held together by sheer inertia, rumbling through chord after oddball chord. The title track matches a sludgy verse to a towering chorus, which would be fine, if an out-from-nowhere bridge didn't pop up to derail the forward motion. "His passionless kisses are real hits and misses," Pollard sings on "Blazing Gentlemen", and that pretty much sums it up: song for song, Pollard records are typically a hodgepodge, but the eternally jumpy Gentlemen whittles that inconsistency down to a second-by-second basis. Whenever Pollard can keep an idea in his head for more than a minute at a time, Gentlemen starts to click. The cowbell-imbued "Faking the Boy Scouts" sports the set's stickiest hook; sure, its verses are a tad on the jittery side, but unlike much of Blazing Gentlemen, they at least seem to be acquainted with the chorus that follows. "Tea People" is one of those effortlessly catchy, totally stupid stompers only Pollard can get away with, and again, its verse and chorus seem to have been in the same room before. But for every song that seems to have been conceived as a piece, there are two more assembled from whatever they had lying around. "Tonight's the Rodeo" is elegant enough at first, but its chorus—all three seconds of it—is given neither time nor space to develop itself as anything but a nuisance. The lyrics are just as scatterbrained as the music, notebook dumps turned not-so-exquisite corpses; Pollard-logic is never an easy path to follow, but Gentlemen gets your head spinning in a fashion that'll have you swearing off the stuff the next morning. Are two half-formed ideas as good as one complete thought? Gentlemen seems to think so. But, for all of Gentlemen's nervy shapeshifting, its fitful thrills never quite make for a satisfying whole; it's too restless, too scattered, too gangly. Even the record's more-consistent-than-usual sound can't help hold these spasmodic, shapeshifting songs together for more than a couple minutes at a time. Some fans will no doubt revel in Gentlemen's endless discrepancies; after all, part of being a Pollard obsessive is learning to take the bad with the good. But, on Gentlemen, the bad and the good are so manically intertwined, it gets to be a little tough telling them apart. Gentlemen's about as interesting as middling Pollard records get, but it's middling all the same, a fittingly abnormal end to a most unusual year.

Artist: Robert Pollard, Album: Blazing Gentlemen, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "If there's anything like a normal year for Bob Pollard fans, 2013 wasn't it. These past 12 months did offer a fine new EP and an okay-enough album—their fourth since early 2012—from the reunited Guided by Voices. But it's become increasingly clear that a classic on par with the lo-fi legends' peak-era material might've been a little too much to ask for. Then there was the late-summer tiff between Pollard and drummer Kevin Fennell, whose unsuccessful attempt to peddle the beaten-to-shit drumkit he'd recorded many GBV classics on got him publicly shamed and subsequently fired by his old pal Bob. Bursts of drama notwithstanding, shows were few and far between, and side-hustles have been scant and largely of little consequence. The lone bright spot came this summer, when Pollard issued the rich, graceful Honey Locust Honky Tonk, instantly cementing itself as one of the best records under his own name. Now, Pollard's closing out this weird year with Blazing Gentlemen, a headier, rockier counterpoint to the unfailingly sweet Honey Locust. For a guy who's made records every which way, the approach Pollard took with Gentlemen's construction is especially peculiar. Instead of appliquéing words onto melodies, he built these songs from the lyrics up, scouring his notebooks line-by-line for titles and lyrics, then writing melodies—and then chords—around those. Pollard's always been a collagist—sometimes quite literally—but this method feels especially piecemeal; every few lines, the underriding melody seems to shift, leaving behind any sense of continuity. Much of Pollard's best work has taken a similarly attention-deficient tack, although Gentlemen's disjointment is at the micro level, all mismatched segments and jarring transitions. And, given the wide range in quality between one segment to the next, your time with Gentlemen's spent waiting around for the good part, only to find it gone before you've been properly introduced. Ramrodding through 16 songs in 32 minutes and change, Gentlemen may be the least classically pretty Pollard in ages; ballads are scant, distortion's applied liberally, and while the fidelity's fairly high and the instrumentation consistent, the collection—throwing Honey Locust's carefully considered lushness in stark relief—opts for the quick and dirty. Pollard and Gentlemen cohort Todd Tobias—together, responsible for every sound you hear on the record—have certainly arranged a plaintive melody or two in their day, but Gentlemen largely leaves these overexcitable songs to their own devices. Opener "Magic Man Hype" is held together by sheer inertia, rumbling through chord after oddball chord. The title track matches a sludgy verse to a towering chorus, which would be fine, if an out-from-nowhere bridge didn't pop up to derail the forward motion. "His passionless kisses are real hits and misses," Pollard sings on "Blazing Gentlemen", and that pretty much sums it up: song for song, Pollard records are typically a hodgepodge, but the eternally jumpy Gentlemen whittles that inconsistency down to a second-by-second basis. Whenever Pollard can keep an idea in his head for more than a minute at a time, Gentlemen starts to click. The cowbell-imbued "Faking the Boy Scouts" sports the set's stickiest hook; sure, its verses are a tad on the jittery side, but unlike much of Blazing Gentlemen, they at least seem to be acquainted with the chorus that follows. "Tea People" is one of those effortlessly catchy, totally stupid stompers only Pollard can get away with, and again, its verse and chorus seem to have been in the same room before. But for every song that seems to have been conceived as a piece, there are two more assembled from whatever they had lying around. "Tonight's the Rodeo" is elegant enough at first, but its chorus—all three seconds of it—is given neither time nor space to develop itself as anything but a nuisance. The lyrics are just as scatterbrained as the music, notebook dumps turned not-so-exquisite corpses; Pollard-logic is never an easy path to follow, but Gentlemen gets your head spinning in a fashion that'll have you swearing off the stuff the next morning. Are two half-formed ideas as good as one complete thought? Gentlemen seems to think so. But, for all of Gentlemen's nervy shapeshifting, its fitful thrills never quite make for a satisfying whole; it's too restless, too scattered, too gangly. Even the record's more-consistent-than-usual sound can't help hold these spasmodic, shapeshifting songs together for more than a couple minutes at a time. Some fans will no doubt revel in Gentlemen's endless discrepancies; after all, part of being a Pollard obsessive is learning to take the bad with the good. But, on Gentlemen, the bad and the good are so manically intertwined, it gets to be a little tough telling them apart. Gentlemen's about as interesting as middling Pollard records get, but it's middling all the same, a fittingly abnormal end to a most unusual year."

Skream

Outside the Box

Electronic

Nate Patrin

If you're Ollie Jones, a musician who's made his pseudonym on pushing an underground dance sound further into the mainstream without compromising its strengths, what do you do when it's time for a straight-up pop move? Maybe you drop a free mixtape or two (like his Freeizm releases) that stick to the formula that made you a dubstep champion, with the side effect that if the Big Album flops the longtime diehards will still have something to retreat to. Maybe you look back to a previous breakthrough-- something like 2005's definitive "Midnight Request Line"-- and extrapolate just how far out an idea like that should sound five years later. And maybe you take a shot at building off the momentum of your last and possibly biggest pop turn, the slow-burn magnificence of last year's remix of La Roux's "In for the Kill", and try to figure out how much of that there is to spread across an hour's worth of new music. What you don't do is crank everything up to desperate look-at-me extremes, and remembering that is what makes Outside the Box smarter than your typical underground-goes-pop set. From the outset, Skream's best music worked in a modular, easily graspable way that helped it click with both neophytes and early adopters. And he did it by creating unlikely hybrids of mood: late-night gloom and enthusiastic cheer, sweat-soaked dread and childlike giddiness, snarling aggression and light fragility. By balancing these tones, Skream could stretch in two different emotional directions without going overboard, and he continues that trend admirably on this album. The more pop-friendly moments nail this split-personality approach, where tracks like "Where You Should Be" and "How Real" simultaneously bring heavy, frame-rattling basslines for the steppers and wistful pop-R&B vocals for the lover's-rock crowd. The former track filters vocalist Sam Frank through a phalanx of overdubs, Auto-Tuning, and reverb, while the latter chops Freckles' voice up into a hiccupy, almost Todd Edwards-style Macintalk splice job. But the singers are manipulated into digital unreality in stirring ways that bristle with the same energy as rest of the production. And when La Roux reprises her famous remix team-up on "Finally", the thin shakiness of her voice is integrated into the beat in a way that makes it sound like an advantage, creating an atmosphere of delicate strength as it's engulfed by the rest of the melody. A jaded eye might look at all the "feat." parentheticals and cringe a bit; in the case of "8 Bit Baby", a plinky showcase for Murs' corniest tendencies, they'd be right to. But there's still smart production beneath all the guest vocals. Skream knows what pleases crowds, which accounts for some tracks' idea of heaviness being a wobble bass that sounds like the turbines of an obese helicopter ("Wibbler") or a hissing, spitting Atari gone rogue ("CPU"). But he also goes for carefully layered component building instead of just constantly cranking up one prominent element of his sound. That's how he gets the same expressive resonance out of instrumental tracks like "Fields of Emotion" and "Perferated" as he does out of the vocal showcases, leaning on subtle but evocative melodic keyboard progressions and basslines so sturdy you could bounce to them without drums. And if you had any other doubts as to what kind of pop move this is, keep in mind that Skream's efforts to please all sorts of crowds also skews toward the ones who remember and/or revere the sounds of the early-to-mid 1990s. "I Love the Way" features prominent rave-diva vocals via a Jocelyn Brown sample, floating over a shuddering dubstep throb that waits until the last 90 seconds to shatter into breakbeat. "Metamorphosis" strips the droning ambience of prime Photek and Dillinja for parts, tearing out the frenetic drums and refitting it with a restrained pulse punctuated by the occasional massive snare hit. And the drums from the infamous jungle-birthing "Amen" break actually show up twice, underpinning the trilling dial tone melodies of "Listenin' to the Records on My Wall" and rattling through the euphoric drum'n'bass revivalism of "The Epic Last Song". Of all the contradictions Skream has somehow managed to reconcile, a crossover bid that doubles as a back-to-the-roots move might be the most audacious.

Artist: Skream, Album: Outside the Box, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "If you're Ollie Jones, a musician who's made his pseudonym on pushing an underground dance sound further into the mainstream without compromising its strengths, what do you do when it's time for a straight-up pop move? Maybe you drop a free mixtape or two (like his Freeizm releases) that stick to the formula that made you a dubstep champion, with the side effect that if the Big Album flops the longtime diehards will still have something to retreat to. Maybe you look back to a previous breakthrough-- something like 2005's definitive "Midnight Request Line"-- and extrapolate just how far out an idea like that should sound five years later. And maybe you take a shot at building off the momentum of your last and possibly biggest pop turn, the slow-burn magnificence of last year's remix of La Roux's "In for the Kill", and try to figure out how much of that there is to spread across an hour's worth of new music. What you don't do is crank everything up to desperate look-at-me extremes, and remembering that is what makes Outside the Box smarter than your typical underground-goes-pop set. From the outset, Skream's best music worked in a modular, easily graspable way that helped it click with both neophytes and early adopters. And he did it by creating unlikely hybrids of mood: late-night gloom and enthusiastic cheer, sweat-soaked dread and childlike giddiness, snarling aggression and light fragility. By balancing these tones, Skream could stretch in two different emotional directions without going overboard, and he continues that trend admirably on this album. The more pop-friendly moments nail this split-personality approach, where tracks like "Where You Should Be" and "How Real" simultaneously bring heavy, frame-rattling basslines for the steppers and wistful pop-R&B vocals for the lover's-rock crowd. The former track filters vocalist Sam Frank through a phalanx of overdubs, Auto-Tuning, and reverb, while the latter chops Freckles' voice up into a hiccupy, almost Todd Edwards-style Macintalk splice job. But the singers are manipulated into digital unreality in stirring ways that bristle with the same energy as rest of the production. And when La Roux reprises her famous remix team-up on "Finally", the thin shakiness of her voice is integrated into the beat in a way that makes it sound like an advantage, creating an atmosphere of delicate strength as it's engulfed by the rest of the melody. A jaded eye might look at all the "feat." parentheticals and cringe a bit; in the case of "8 Bit Baby", a plinky showcase for Murs' corniest tendencies, they'd be right to. But there's still smart production beneath all the guest vocals. Skream knows what pleases crowds, which accounts for some tracks' idea of heaviness being a wobble bass that sounds like the turbines of an obese helicopter ("Wibbler") or a hissing, spitting Atari gone rogue ("CPU"). But he also goes for carefully layered component building instead of just constantly cranking up one prominent element of his sound. That's how he gets the same expressive resonance out of instrumental tracks like "Fields of Emotion" and "Perferated" as he does out of the vocal showcases, leaning on subtle but evocative melodic keyboard progressions and basslines so sturdy you could bounce to them without drums. And if you had any other doubts as to what kind of pop move this is, keep in mind that Skream's efforts to please all sorts of crowds also skews toward the ones who remember and/or revere the sounds of the early-to-mid 1990s. "I Love the Way" features prominent rave-diva vocals via a Jocelyn Brown sample, floating over a shuddering dubstep throb that waits until the last 90 seconds to shatter into breakbeat. "Metamorphosis" strips the droning ambience of prime Photek and Dillinja for parts, tearing out the frenetic drums and refitting it with a restrained pulse punctuated by the occasional massive snare hit. And the drums from the infamous jungle-birthing "Amen" break actually show up twice, underpinning the trilling dial tone melodies of "Listenin' to the Records on My Wall" and rattling through the euphoric drum'n'bass revivalism of "The Epic Last Song". Of all the contradictions Skream has somehow managed to reconcile, a crossover bid that doubles as a back-to-the-roots move might be the most audacious."

Roscoe Mitchell

Bells for the South Side

Jazz

Daniel Martin-McCormick

“Music is 50% sound and 50% silence,” said Roscoe Mitchell in a 2005 interview. On his new double album Bells for the South Side, this may be an understatement. The record opens with a pause, a lingering moment of space which is then patiently ornamented by figures that seem to emerge from and dissolve back into the void. Mitchell stretches his improviser, composer, and conductor chops throughout, leading 12 musicians through two hours of heady dissonance, zig-zagging structures, and austere avant-jazz. But even at their most rip-roaring, you can feel the silence looming in the background. It’s always there. Bells was recorded live at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the pioneering avant-garde collective of which Mitchell was an early member. This might suggest a tidy career retrospective, a cheery lifetime achievement award ceremony for one of the few left standing of a generation of iconoclasts. Yes, it’s true the museum was hosting an exhibition that celebrates and reinterprets Mitchell and his peers’ legacy. And yes, the ensembles on Bells pulled old percussion rigs used by Mitchell’s most famous group, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, out from cold storage. And yes, there’s a lovely performance of the AEOC’s “Odwalla,” from 1973. But Bells feels utterly contemporary, the work of a master, aged but energized, still pushing forward into the unknown. If you’ve never heard of Mitchell, the AACM or the AEOC, well, Bells may not be the best place to start. It’s not for lack of quality, it’s just that Mitchell has been running circles around many of his contemporaries for half a century, building a unique musical language that’s as rewarding for devotees as it is impenetrable for noobs. His career began in the wake of the early free jazz trailblazers like Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and John Coltrane, taking the raw possibilities of ’60s fire music in bold new directions. With the doors blown open and the rule book ripped up, there was the question of where to go next with all this freedom. Mitchell and co. answered it with a rich, exploratory body of work that combined jazz idioms, cutting edge experimentalism, global instrumentation, graphic scores and, in the case of AEOC, lots of face paint. Five decades later and Bells is a sink-or-swim kind of work, two hours of an uncompromising experimentalism that’s been developed, honed, and sharpened to an atomically fine point. Difficult though it may be, it is also great. The pieces explore the various corners of Mitchell’s work, and the scope of his vision is impressive. Opener “Spatial Aspects of the Sound” could be mistaken for one of Morton Feldman’s earlier pieces in its soft, murmuring dissonance, while “Panoply” rides waves of rippling free jazz. “Prelude to the Card Game, Cards for Drums, and the Final Hand” has the type of somber bowed strings that Ligeti would admire, but they’re soon swapped out for an extended section of tumbling, swinging drums. Fluttering, miasmic drones (maybe a bass sax, or perhaps electronics, it’s hard to say) steal the show on the title track, answering an opening of peeling reeds with creepy, oscillating groans. The clean, linear horn lines on top are like arrows shot over a battlefield. Busy but unadorned, most of the players sit back as the percussion quietly explodes all around you, half chorus-of-church-bells, half gamelan-ensemble-falling-down-a-carpeted-stairwell. Without dedicated players, this approach would fall flat on its face, but Mitchell’s devotees are fully up to the task. The performances are uniformly excellent—listen to the way the ensemble builds up the middle of “The Last Chord,” thwacking drums like exclamation marks in a wheezing, darting exhortation before exhaling into a tumbling groove that then drops into a perfectly timed sax solo. It’s the kind of liftoff-and-divebomb that countless improvisers dream of pulling off. But Bells is only tangentially related to the average skronk session. Rather, it explores the raw qualities of sound, its material essence more than its symbolic, storytelling qualities. Though a mournful, expressive mood pervades, Mitchell seems fascinated to the point of obsession with the revelatory aspects of the unexpected. Over the years he’s opted for a difficult, occasionally ugly palette. His aim, however, hardly feels confrontational or antagonistic. Rather, these 11 pieces, like all of Mitchell’s work, are genuinely experimental, wringing affecting work from unexpected combinations, structures, harmonies. When the group wraps up with the smoky, catchy melodies of “Odwalla,” it’s not nearly as contrasting as you might think. Sure, it’s a gimme of a closer, but it serves to underscore Mitchell’s fundamentally expansive approach. No matter how far out he goes, it’s all part of the same musical whole.

Artist: Roscoe Mitchell, Album: Bells for the South Side, Genre: Jazz, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "“Music is 50% sound and 50% silence,” said Roscoe Mitchell in a 2005 interview. On his new double album Bells for the South Side, this may be an understatement. The record opens with a pause, a lingering moment of space which is then patiently ornamented by figures that seem to emerge from and dissolve back into the void. Mitchell stretches his improviser, composer, and conductor chops throughout, leading 12 musicians through two hours of heady dissonance, zig-zagging structures, and austere avant-jazz. But even at their most rip-roaring, you can feel the silence looming in the background. It’s always there. Bells was recorded live at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the pioneering avant-garde collective of which Mitchell was an early member. This might suggest a tidy career retrospective, a cheery lifetime achievement award ceremony for one of the few left standing of a generation of iconoclasts. Yes, it’s true the museum was hosting an exhibition that celebrates and reinterprets Mitchell and his peers’ legacy. And yes, the ensembles on Bells pulled old percussion rigs used by Mitchell’s most famous group, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, out from cold storage. And yes, there’s a lovely performance of the AEOC’s “Odwalla,” from 1973. But Bells feels utterly contemporary, the work of a master, aged but energized, still pushing forward into the unknown. If you’ve never heard of Mitchell, the AACM or the AEOC, well, Bells may not be the best place to start. It’s not for lack of quality, it’s just that Mitchell has been running circles around many of his contemporaries for half a century, building a unique musical language that’s as rewarding for devotees as it is impenetrable for noobs. His career began in the wake of the early free jazz trailblazers like Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and John Coltrane, taking the raw possibilities of ’60s fire music in bold new directions. With the doors blown open and the rule book ripped up, there was the question of where to go next with all this freedom. Mitchell and co. answered it with a rich, exploratory body of work that combined jazz idioms, cutting edge experimentalism, global instrumentation, graphic scores and, in the case of AEOC, lots of face paint. Five decades later and Bells is a sink-or-swim kind of work, two hours of an uncompromising experimentalism that’s been developed, honed, and sharpened to an atomically fine point. Difficult though it may be, it is also great. The pieces explore the various corners of Mitchell’s work, and the scope of his vision is impressive. Opener “Spatial Aspects of the Sound” could be mistaken for one of Morton Feldman’s earlier pieces in its soft, murmuring dissonance, while “Panoply” rides waves of rippling free jazz. “Prelude to the Card Game, Cards for Drums, and the Final Hand” has the type of somber bowed strings that Ligeti would admire, but they’re soon swapped out for an extended section of tumbling, swinging drums. Fluttering, miasmic drones (maybe a bass sax, or perhaps electronics, it’s hard to say) steal the show on the title track, answering an opening of peeling reeds with creepy, oscillating groans. The clean, linear horn lines on top are like arrows shot over a battlefield. Busy but unadorned, most of the players sit back as the percussion quietly explodes all around you, half chorus-of-church-bells, half gamelan-ensemble-falling-down-a-carpeted-stairwell. Without dedicated players, this approach would fall flat on its face, but Mitchell’s devotees are fully up to the task. The performances are uniformly excellent—listen to the way the ensemble builds up the middle of “The Last Chord,” thwacking drums like exclamation marks in a wheezing, darting exhortation before exhaling into a tumbling groove that then drops into a perfectly timed sax solo. It’s the kind of liftoff-and-divebomb that countless improvisers dream of pulling off. But Bells is only tangentially related to the average skronk session. Rather, it explores the raw qualities of sound, its material essence more than its symbolic, storytelling qualities. Though a mournful, expressive mood pervades, Mitchell seems fascinated to the point of obsession with the revelatory aspects of the unexpected. Over the years he’s opted for a difficult, occasionally ugly palette. His aim, however, hardly feels confrontational or antagonistic. Rather, these 11 pieces, like all of Mitchell’s work, are genuinely experimental, wringing affecting work from unexpected combinations, structures, harmonies. When the group wraps up with the smoky, catchy melodies of “Odwalla,” it’s not nearly as contrasting as you might think. Sure, it’s a gimme of a closer, but it serves to underscore Mitchell’s fundamentally expansive approach. No matter how far out he goes, it’s all part of the same musical whole."

Fujiya & Miyagi

Lightbulbs

Electronic,Rock

Adam Moerder

Fujiya & Miyagi get off on the subtlest kinds of bait and switch. They're not Japanese, they're English. They're not a duo, they're a quartet. They're not really a krautrock band either, they just play danceable pop music with one hell of a deadpan expression. In that sense, they're basically a Hot Chip that impishly cribs the most stoic of musical styles, and fittingly their punchline hits with a lot less precision. Transparent Things succeeded by keeping a particularly unflappable poker face and not letting the calcified rhythms sound like a "Sprockets"-style send-up of German art culture. Lightbulbs doesn't exactly flash a "LAUGH" sign to its audience, but its constant tongue-in-cheekiness is kind of like Andy Kaufman's Great Gatsby gag-- funny in the abstract but frustrating to actually sit through. Like Transparent Things, the track list here reads like a mix of medical charts and warehouse inventory reports, but the fusion of technology and biology is heavier on the flesh this time around. David Best's vocals drip with breathy overdubs and long, whispered phrases, a significant change from the staccato, almost robotic delivery on past releases. If gasps of falsetto and an increasingly throbbing rhythm make "Dishwasher" sound like Serge Gainsbourg making love to a kitchen appliance, what chance at chastity do songs with sultry titles like "Uh" and "Goosebumps" have? F&M's dance credentials have always been iffy, and despite playing up their hushed lothario act here, the most kinetic tracks on Lightbulbs tend to be the most boring and predictable. The naughty "Uh" comes closest to capturing the hip irony of LCD Soundsystem or !!!, but its garden-variety bassline and melody gets hemmed and hewed for repeated use on "Pussyfooting", a barely memorable song except for its post-chorus scat transition. This isn't to say F&M don't have a dance track in them, but Lightbulbs's slick production is offset by an anticlimactic detachment from the band, who can only show us the dancefloor by filtering it through the stubborn wallflower's vantage point. A few of these tracks find that sweet spot where fun and krautrock intersect, and predictably these are the bright spots. Opener "Knickerbocker" chugs along the same motorik beat as earlier single "Ankle Injuries", though Best hams it up quite a bit, spouting off non sequiturs about ice cream flavors, Lena Zavaroni, and Dietrich Knickerbocker in a catchy rave-up that feels like a thought experiment combining Neu! and "Love Shack". "Pickpocket" and "Pterodactyls" both lyrically and musically veer into the chill, winking dance territory ruled by artists like Hot Chip and White Williams, while instrumental closer "Hundreds & Thousands" recalls the opener's steady four-on-the-floor heartbeat, this time with a dramatic (at least for these guys) farewell flourish added by the keyboards. While not guilty of carrying any true bombs, Lightbulbs does reveal how the band's stand-offish approach can serve as both a safety net and an anchor. F&M have yet to write a song that evokes any sort of melancholy, or really any kind of emotion for that matter. Even Can had stuff like "Sing Swan Song". Until then, though, the band seems content giving listeners blue balls and their songs ironic names and austere backdrops. I just hope that if or when they ever do decide to deliver the payoff to these dry setups, audiences are still interested enough to listen.

Artist: Fujiya & Miyagi, Album: Lightbulbs, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "Fujiya & Miyagi get off on the subtlest kinds of bait and switch. They're not Japanese, they're English. They're not a duo, they're a quartet. They're not really a krautrock band either, they just play danceable pop music with one hell of a deadpan expression. In that sense, they're basically a Hot Chip that impishly cribs the most stoic of musical styles, and fittingly their punchline hits with a lot less precision. Transparent Things succeeded by keeping a particularly unflappable poker face and not letting the calcified rhythms sound like a "Sprockets"-style send-up of German art culture. Lightbulbs doesn't exactly flash a "LAUGH" sign to its audience, but its constant tongue-in-cheekiness is kind of like Andy Kaufman's Great Gatsby gag-- funny in the abstract but frustrating to actually sit through. Like Transparent Things, the track list here reads like a mix of medical charts and warehouse inventory reports, but the fusion of technology and biology is heavier on the flesh this time around. David Best's vocals drip with breathy overdubs and long, whispered phrases, a significant change from the staccato, almost robotic delivery on past releases. If gasps of falsetto and an increasingly throbbing rhythm make "Dishwasher" sound like Serge Gainsbourg making love to a kitchen appliance, what chance at chastity do songs with sultry titles like "Uh" and "Goosebumps" have? F&M's dance credentials have always been iffy, and despite playing up their hushed lothario act here, the most kinetic tracks on Lightbulbs tend to be the most boring and predictable. The naughty "Uh" comes closest to capturing the hip irony of LCD Soundsystem or !!!, but its garden-variety bassline and melody gets hemmed and hewed for repeated use on "Pussyfooting", a barely memorable song except for its post-chorus scat transition. This isn't to say F&M don't have a dance track in them, but Lightbulbs's slick production is offset by an anticlimactic detachment from the band, who can only show us the dancefloor by filtering it through the stubborn wallflower's vantage point. A few of these tracks find that sweet spot where fun and krautrock intersect, and predictably these are the bright spots. Opener "Knickerbocker" chugs along the same motorik beat as earlier single "Ankle Injuries", though Best hams it up quite a bit, spouting off non sequiturs about ice cream flavors, Lena Zavaroni, and Dietrich Knickerbocker in a catchy rave-up that feels like a thought experiment combining Neu! and "Love Shack". "Pickpocket" and "Pterodactyls" both lyrically and musically veer into the chill, winking dance territory ruled by artists like Hot Chip and White Williams, while instrumental closer "Hundreds & Thousands" recalls the opener's steady four-on-the-floor heartbeat, this time with a dramatic (at least for these guys) farewell flourish added by the keyboards. While not guilty of carrying any true bombs, Lightbulbs does reveal how the band's stand-offish approach can serve as both a safety net and an anchor. F&M have yet to write a song that evokes any sort of melancholy, or really any kind of emotion for that matter. Even Can had stuff like "Sing Swan Song". Until then, though, the band seems content giving listeners blue balls and their songs ironic names and austere backdrops. I just hope that if or when they ever do decide to deliver the payoff to these dry setups, audiences are still interested enough to listen."

Moonface

City Wrecker EP

Rock

Jason Heller

Spencer Krug’s songwriting is elastic. In the past, his sumptuous, warbling melodrama has been able to serve as the framework for larger arrangements, as in his prior outfits Wolf Parade and Swan Lake, as well as the minimalism sprinkled in his sometimes-solo projects Sunset Rubdown and Moonface. Like Sunset Rubdown, Moonface began as Krug alone and eventually expanded to an entire band. After Moonface’s 2012 LP With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery (which, as advertised, was made with the Finnish band Siinai), the project was scaled back for 2013’s lonesome, voice-and-piano album Julia With Blue Jeans On. Krug’s follow-up to Julia is the five-song EP City Wrecker, and it operates along the same compositional lines as its immediate predecessor. It was also, like Julia, written and recorded in his temporarily adopted home of Helsinki, and it reflects that same sense of frigid displacement. Krug has the ability to stretch himself, but here, he’s chosen not to, and it sounds like a certain stiffness has set in with regards to his songwriting. Nonetheless, City Wrecker puts Krug through his paces. The most demanding of the EP’s five songs, “Daughter of a Dove”, is nearly 11 minutes long; the song right before it, “Helsinki Winter 2013”, clocks in at over eight. “Daughter” is the showpiece of the EP, a marathon of cascading runs on the keys broken up by clusters of chords that attack and decay in rapid cycles. Still, he plays with an audible slouch, as if entire galaxies of regret rest on his shoulders: “There is a fallen tree against a perfect January snow/ And that’s as spiritual as I need to be.” Just as it seems Krug is taking the Scandinavian pagan black-metal route, he adds, “So when they said turn up the kick drum, turn up the snare/ I turned away to see my baby put a flower in her hair.” “Daughter” is also City Wrecker’s most embroidered track; in addition to piano, the song’s slow crescendo is built on a flood of crystalline synths, like water swirling under the ice. “Helsinki Winter 2013” is more delicate and less bombastic, a demonstration of Krug’s classical prowess in which he sings, “You belong where you are found/ Overseas, underground.” Coming from a Finland-residing Canadian transplant, it’s a little on the nose, but no less arresting because of it. “The Fog” doesn’t do much to help dispel the “cold album made in a cold place” cliché that City Wrecker evokes, but Krug, as always, is self-aware to the point of pain. The song trembles and reverberates, with synths that erupt and flutter like blossoms bursting out of a snowfall; it’s vague, without dramatic chord changes or much of a vocal dynamic, and as such cultivates too much of a sedative numbness. Unlike Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas, who has struck gold in the past with the same implements used on City Wrecker, Krug doesn’t insert enough tonal distance between his instrument and his voice, which is evident on “Running in Place With Everyone”. The tune resembles a finger exercise mashed up with monotone poetry; it’s pretty, but when Krug coos the song’s title in the chorus, his energy level sounds less kinetic than it does spent. “The city fell into a sort of boring ruin,” Krug confesses on City Wrecker’s title track. He’s singing about Montreal, his longtime home, and the lassitude of guilt and longing practically leaks from his lungs. It’s an anthem for burned bridges and scorched earth, as well as the warmest, most flesh-and-blood moment of the EP. His melody is limited, but it makes the most of its cramped, claustrophobic clutch of notes. Where Julia filled almost every available space with either emotional fullness or palpable absence, City Wrecker feels pinched and constrained; the former was a drain to listen to in the best possible way, while this new one only occasionally breaks the skin.

Artist: Moonface, Album: City Wrecker EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "Spencer Krug’s songwriting is elastic. In the past, his sumptuous, warbling melodrama has been able to serve as the framework for larger arrangements, as in his prior outfits Wolf Parade and Swan Lake, as well as the minimalism sprinkled in his sometimes-solo projects Sunset Rubdown and Moonface. Like Sunset Rubdown, Moonface began as Krug alone and eventually expanded to an entire band. After Moonface’s 2012 LP With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery (which, as advertised, was made with the Finnish band Siinai), the project was scaled back for 2013’s lonesome, voice-and-piano album Julia With Blue Jeans On. Krug’s follow-up to Julia is the five-song EP City Wrecker, and it operates along the same compositional lines as its immediate predecessor. It was also, like Julia, written and recorded in his temporarily adopted home of Helsinki, and it reflects that same sense of frigid displacement. Krug has the ability to stretch himself, but here, he’s chosen not to, and it sounds like a certain stiffness has set in with regards to his songwriting. Nonetheless, City Wrecker puts Krug through his paces. The most demanding of the EP’s five songs, “Daughter of a Dove”, is nearly 11 minutes long; the song right before it, “Helsinki Winter 2013”, clocks in at over eight. “Daughter” is the showpiece of the EP, a marathon of cascading runs on the keys broken up by clusters of chords that attack and decay in rapid cycles. Still, he plays with an audible slouch, as if entire galaxies of regret rest on his shoulders: “There is a fallen tree against a perfect January snow/ And that’s as spiritual as I need to be.” Just as it seems Krug is taking the Scandinavian pagan black-metal route, he adds, “So when they said turn up the kick drum, turn up the snare/ I turned away to see my baby put a flower in her hair.” “Daughter” is also City Wrecker’s most embroidered track; in addition to piano, the song’s slow crescendo is built on a flood of crystalline synths, like water swirling under the ice. “Helsinki Winter 2013” is more delicate and less bombastic, a demonstration of Krug’s classical prowess in which he sings, “You belong where you are found/ Overseas, underground.” Coming from a Finland-residing Canadian transplant, it’s a little on the nose, but no less arresting because of it. “The Fog” doesn’t do much to help dispel the “cold album made in a cold place” cliché that City Wrecker evokes, but Krug, as always, is self-aware to the point of pain. The song trembles and reverberates, with synths that erupt and flutter like blossoms bursting out of a snowfall; it’s vague, without dramatic chord changes or much of a vocal dynamic, and as such cultivates too much of a sedative numbness. Unlike Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas, who has struck gold in the past with the same implements used on City Wrecker, Krug doesn’t insert enough tonal distance between his instrument and his voice, which is evident on “Running in Place With Everyone”. The tune resembles a finger exercise mashed up with monotone poetry; it’s pretty, but when Krug coos the song’s title in the chorus, his energy level sounds less kinetic than it does spent. “The city fell into a sort of boring ruin,” Krug confesses on City Wrecker’s title track. He’s singing about Montreal, his longtime home, and the lassitude of guilt and longing practically leaks from his lungs. It’s an anthem for burned bridges and scorched earth, as well as the warmest, most flesh-and-blood moment of the EP. His melody is limited, but it makes the most of its cramped, claustrophobic clutch of notes. Where Julia filled almost every available space with either emotional fullness or palpable absence, City Wrecker feels pinched and constrained; the former was a drain to listen to in the best possible way, while this new one only occasionally breaks the skin."

Wadada Leo Smith

America's National Parks

Jazz

Seth Colter Walls

Though trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is a leading maestro of abstraction, he loves a straightforward concept as much as anyone else. Over the last decade, he’s composed The Great Lakes Suites, as well as the expansive Civil Rights-themed project Ten Freedom Summers (which drew from avant-jazz and modern-classical languages). For his 2016 album with pianist Vijay Iyer, Smith wrote a tribute to the African American contralto Marian Anderson. Musical dedications are now as much a part of Smith’s process as the experimental nature of his fiery improvisations. But these historical shout-outs are not just creative prompts that he uses to get his writing hand going. Smith’s monuments often develop into sly editorials. When the composer extends his Civil Rights-era meditation to include 21st-century events, it’s his way of diagnosing the lingering nature of vintage prejudices. America’s National Parks clearly fits in among these trends in Smith’s latter-day output. The double-album contains the veteran jazz quartet that helped power Summers, and adds in the impressive cello work of Ashley Walters. While the ensemble’s size is smaller than that of the group that recorded Summers, this lineup has the same jazz-plus-classical range of instrumental attack. And Smith’s commentary resides in his choices of grounds to celebrate. These include national parks already in operation—like Yellowstone—but also hallowed cultural zones not yet recognized by government decree. The title of the opening movement, “New Orleans: The National Culture Park USA 1718,” references the pre-American nature of the city’s founding by the French Mississippi Company. Yet the loping quality of the opening groove shows that Smith is commending this location as a potential national park on the basis of its relationship to jazz. The tempo is slow, and sometimes makes way for beat-free stretches of sound. But overall, it still has a finger-snapping, swinging feel—thanks to the way bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan akLaff emphasize the underlying pulse. At first, the mood occupies a middle ground between celebration and solemn observation—as Smith’s trumpet switches from bright lines of heraldry to subtler harmonizing with Walters’ bowed cello lines. Then, a few minutes in, a faster beat arrives. Smith responds with a muted-trumpet solo full of pristine, bluesy poise. Eventually, the pianist (and excellent composer) Anthony Davis gets a lengthy feature that closes with an impressionistic, dreamy cadenza. At this juncture, the opening track is barely half over—and it’s already given listeners a trio of distinct, memorable worlds. As with other ambitious projects from Smith, America’s National Parks wants your focused attention, and your time. But the rewards it offers can make those substantial requests feel justified. The most dramatic mix of styles comes during the half-hour piece “The Mississippi River: Dark and Deep Dreams Flow the River—a National Memorial Park c. 5000 BC.” Grim piano chords and ominously bowed strings suggest a potential for violence, before the album’s most powerful stretches of free-improv bashing make good on the threat. (Smith describes this “park” as “a memorial site which was used as a dumping place for black bodies by hostile forces in Mississippi.”) Elsewhere, the stark, sometimes violent majesty of the natural world is conjured by imposing blocks of atonal modernism, during “Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks: The Giant Forest, Great Canyon, Cliffs, Peaks, Waterfalls and Cave Systems 1890.” And a tender beauty is fostered in the chamber music writing of Smith’s most abstract, conceptual idea in this series: “Eileen Jackson Southern, 1920-2002: A Literary National Park.” (Southern was the Harvard musicologist who wrote The Music of Black Americans, among other important works.) The album isn’t quite the overwhelming achievement that Ten Freedom Summers was, though the refined ensemble playing of Smith’s newly convened “Golden Quintet” is consistently ravishing. And the duration of the set gradually proposes a unique charm. Once you travel all the way to a monument, you don’t take a quick look and then leave. In similar fashion, these extended tributes create a persuasive argument regarding the attention still due to a nation’s history, and its cultural variety.

Artist: Wadada Leo Smith, Album: America's National Parks, Genre: Jazz, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Though trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is a leading maestro of abstraction, he loves a straightforward concept as much as anyone else. Over the last decade, he’s composed The Great Lakes Suites, as well as the expansive Civil Rights-themed project Ten Freedom Summers (which drew from avant-jazz and modern-classical languages). For his 2016 album with pianist Vijay Iyer, Smith wrote a tribute to the African American contralto Marian Anderson. Musical dedications are now as much a part of Smith’s process as the experimental nature of his fiery improvisations. But these historical shout-outs are not just creative prompts that he uses to get his writing hand going. Smith’s monuments often develop into sly editorials. When the composer extends his Civil Rights-era meditation to include 21st-century events, it’s his way of diagnosing the lingering nature of vintage prejudices. America’s National Parks clearly fits in among these trends in Smith’s latter-day output. The double-album contains the veteran jazz quartet that helped power Summers, and adds in the impressive cello work of Ashley Walters. While the ensemble’s size is smaller than that of the group that recorded Summers, this lineup has the same jazz-plus-classical range of instrumental attack. And Smith’s commentary resides in his choices of grounds to celebrate. These include national parks already in operation—like Yellowstone—but also hallowed cultural zones not yet recognized by government decree. The title of the opening movement, “New Orleans: The National Culture Park USA 1718,” references the pre-American nature of the city’s founding by the French Mississippi Company. Yet the loping quality of the opening groove shows that Smith is commending this location as a potential national park on the basis of its relationship to jazz. The tempo is slow, and sometimes makes way for beat-free stretches of sound. But overall, it still has a finger-snapping, swinging feel—thanks to the way bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan akLaff emphasize the underlying pulse. At first, the mood occupies a middle ground between celebration and solemn observation—as Smith’s trumpet switches from bright lines of heraldry to subtler harmonizing with Walters’ bowed cello lines. Then, a few minutes in, a faster beat arrives. Smith responds with a muted-trumpet solo full of pristine, bluesy poise. Eventually, the pianist (and excellent composer) Anthony Davis gets a lengthy feature that closes with an impressionistic, dreamy cadenza. At this juncture, the opening track is barely half over—and it’s already given listeners a trio of distinct, memorable worlds. As with other ambitious projects from Smith, America’s National Parks wants your focused attention, and your time. But the rewards it offers can make those substantial requests feel justified. The most dramatic mix of styles comes during the half-hour piece “The Mississippi River: Dark and Deep Dreams Flow the River—a National Memorial Park c. 5000 BC.” Grim piano chords and ominously bowed strings suggest a potential for violence, before the album’s most powerful stretches of free-improv bashing make good on the threat. (Smith describes this “park” as “a memorial site which was used as a dumping place for black bodies by hostile forces in Mississippi.”) Elsewhere, the stark, sometimes violent majesty of the natural world is conjured by imposing blocks of atonal modernism, during “Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks: The Giant Forest, Great Canyon, Cliffs, Peaks, Waterfalls and Cave Systems 1890.” And a tender beauty is fostered in the chamber music writing of Smith’s most abstract, conceptual idea in this series: “Eileen Jackson Southern, 1920-2002: A Literary National Park.” (Southern was the Harvard musicologist who wrote The Music of Black Americans, among other important works.) The album isn’t quite the overwhelming achievement that Ten Freedom Summers was, though the refined ensemble playing of Smith’s newly convened “Golden Quintet” is consistently ravishing. And the duration of the set gradually proposes a unique charm. Once you travel all the way to a monument, you don’t take a quick look and then leave. In similar fashion, these extended tributes create a persuasive argument regarding the attention still due to a nation’s history, and its cultural variety."

The Orwells

Terrible Human Beings

Rock

Ian Cohen

The Orwells are five dudes from the suburbs of Chicago playing a codified style of garage rock, like so many suburban dudes before them. But despite what you may have read about the impending obsolescence of groups exactly like this one, the Orwells signed to a major label before they turned 21 and were quickly thrust towards enviable font size on festival lineups and a career-making performance on “Late Show With David Letterman.” There’s clearly an under-served audience for a band like the Orwells, and Terrible Human Beings caters to their needs and lets everyone else know they can fuck right off. These guys wisely recognize the need for a space where the ground rules of Weezer’s “In the Garage” still have merit, where knucklehead behavior is allowed and encouraged, so long as no one gets hurt. “Told me ‘Act your age’/That’s why she’s underage,” Mario Cuomo shouts on “They Put a Body in the Bayou,” which will only raise an eyebrow if you’ve never read a single thing about the Orwells up to this point. The two things most people know about the Orwells is that they are young and they like to start shit, twin concerns summed up nicely on the chorus: “Good boys come in last/Bad girl by my side/Poppin’ pills on the fly/Cold grave when I die.” Considering their sound, their look, their name, the zippy hooks and laddish malfeasance—and not even counting the BBC and NME namedrops on “Ring Pop”—the Orwells probably would’ve been called rock’n’roll’s new saviors at least twice over by this point if they were British. They might as well be, with Jim Abbiss behind the boards here. He was one of the three heavyweights responsible for producing their 2014 album Disgraceland**, along with TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek and Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands). Abbiss, meanwhile is best known for helming the Arctic Monkeys’ canonical debut, as well as Kasabian and Editors albums you probably haven’t heard if you’re American. He knows how to get a song to sound like it belongs on satellite radio, but this just leaves Terrible Human Beings in a netherworld between the Black Lips pisstakes of their earliest work and the Black Keys commercial ambitions of their present. Terrible Human Beings can still be cherry-picked for catchy singles bound for algorithmic playlists, but  it’s impossible to overlook how much of the Orwells’ appeal is bundled into their persona as enfants terribles. And since there’s absolutely no way for them to generate the violent potential of their live shows here, Cuomo has to bring it second-hand: “Heavy Head” is a weirdly sanitized hostage narrative, and the song called “Black Francis” includes a nod to California street gangs plucked directly from Pixies’ “No. 13 Baby.” The borrowed menace is awkward on many levels, but it mostly underlines how wholesome these guys feel in 2017. This is an album called Terrible Human Beings with a naked woman on the cover, but like so much of what lies herein, they suggest malevolence without much to show for it. Rock music doesn't have to be “dangerous” to be thrilling, of course. Rock music is still relevant, in large part because it can do other things besides conveying suburban angst—it can comfort, confound, speak for marginalized voices or give people the energy to get the fuck out of bed. But the Orwells aren’t here for any of that. “I don’t think it’s going to bring rock back,” guitarist Matt O’Keefe said about the record. “I just think it’s a rock record that maybe some people will enjoy.” It’s best to take O’Keefe at his word—if you don’t expect too much from them, you might not be let down.

Artist: The Orwells, Album: Terrible Human Beings, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.8 Album review: "The Orwells are five dudes from the suburbs of Chicago playing a codified style of garage rock, like so many suburban dudes before them. But despite what you may have read about the impending obsolescence of groups exactly like this one, the Orwells signed to a major label before they turned 21 and were quickly thrust towards enviable font size on festival lineups and a career-making performance on “Late Show With David Letterman.” There’s clearly an under-served audience for a band like the Orwells, and Terrible Human Beings caters to their needs and lets everyone else know they can fuck right off. These guys wisely recognize the need for a space where the ground rules of Weezer’s “In the Garage” still have merit, where knucklehead behavior is allowed and encouraged, so long as no one gets hurt. “Told me ‘Act your age’/That’s why she’s underage,” Mario Cuomo shouts on “They Put a Body in the Bayou,” which will only raise an eyebrow if you’ve never read a single thing about the Orwells up to this point. The two things most people know about the Orwells is that they are young and they like to start shit, twin concerns summed up nicely on the chorus: “Good boys come in last/Bad girl by my side/Poppin’ pills on the fly/Cold grave when I die.” Considering their sound, their look, their name, the zippy hooks and laddish malfeasance—and not even counting the BBC and NME namedrops on “Ring Pop”—the Orwells probably would’ve been called rock’n’roll’s new saviors at least twice over by this point if they were British. They might as well be, with Jim Abbiss behind the boards here. He was one of the three heavyweights responsible for producing their 2014 album Disgraceland**, along with TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek and Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands). Abbiss, meanwhile is best known for helming the Arctic Monkeys’ canonical debut, as well as Kasabian and Editors albums you probably haven’t heard if you’re American. He knows how to get a song to sound like it belongs on satellite radio, but this just leaves Terrible Human Beings in a netherworld between the Black Lips pisstakes of their earliest work and the Black Keys commercial ambitions of their present. Terrible Human Beings can still be cherry-picked for catchy singles bound for algorithmic playlists, but  it’s impossible to overlook how much of the Orwells’ appeal is bundled into their persona as enfants terribles. And since there’s absolutely no way for them to generate the violent potential of their live shows here, Cuomo has to bring it second-hand: “Heavy Head” is a weirdly sanitized hostage narrative, and the song called “Black Francis” includes a nod to California street gangs plucked directly from Pixies’ “No. 13 Baby.” The borrowed menace is awkward on many levels, but it mostly underlines how wholesome these guys feel in 2017. This is an album called Terrible Human Beings with a naked woman on the cover, but like so much of what lies herein, they suggest malevolence without much to show for it. Rock music doesn't have to be “dangerous” to be thrilling, of course. Rock music is still relevant, in large part because it can do other things besides conveying suburban angst—it can comfort, confound, speak for marginalized voices or give people the energy to get the fuck out of bed. But the Orwells aren’t here for any of that. “I don’t think it’s going to bring rock back,” guitarist Matt O’Keefe said about the record. “I just think it’s a rock record that maybe some people will enjoy.” It’s best to take O’Keefe at his word—if you don’t expect too much from them, you might not be let down."

St. Vincent

MassEducation

Rock

Arielle Gordon

The acoustic album is a rite of passage. It marks a period when the tour, the band, and the press has left an artist yearning to be seen in a soft new light: For Nirvana, their MTV Unplugged performance was a middle finger to the hype machine—one of the biggest, loudest rock bands on earth settling in for some quiet covers and deep cuts. Mariah Carey’s 1992 acoustic EP set out to disprove naysayers who claimed her lack of touring equated to lack of talent. For St. Vincent, whose promotional circuit for 2017’s Masseduction featured latex accessories, pop-up art galleries, and interviews given from inside a hot-pink cube, an intimate, no-frills album is a welcome antidote to a career defined by cult and concept. Masseduction used locomotive synths and schoolyard call-and-responses to project an image of manic sensuality, while Annie Clark took on the public persona of “dominatrix at the mental institution.” It was a vision that deferred and distracted from questions of a more personal nature, perhaps a defense mechanism following her whirlwind year in the spotlight with her relationship with model and actress Cara Delevingne. But behind all the leopard print and leather, the record was a romantic opus filled with simple melodrama: “You and me, we’re not meant for this world,” she sang on “Hang on Me,” as if starring in her own John Hughes movie. Recorded over two days at Manhattan’s Reservoir Studios studios, MassEducation strips its hypersexual, neon-clad predecessor for parts, exposing its songs as tales of longing and nostalgia. Clark seemed to always know that her record contained two lives: “This needs to be something people can really dance to,” she said of a song on her last album, “until they listen to the words and then they’re crying.” Hiding melancholy behind pop production is nothing new, but on an album so saturated with sadness, these pared-down renderings give Clark a chance to indulge in their underlying sentiments. Accompanied by longtime friend Thomas Bartlett (a frequent producer for Sufjan Stevens) on the piano, Clark’s voice expands and contracts, varyingly snarky and flat, honeyed and affectionate, husky and sensual. On “Slow Disco,” her voice wells up, rich and velvetine, as she muses, “Am I thinking what everybody’s thinking?” On an earlier club remix of the same track, dubbed “Fast Slow Disco,” the line is more of a wink towards promiscuity. Here, the same lyrics come off as a desperate cry for connection. “Young Lover,” a tragic depiction of drug addiction that once masked itself behind triumphant electric guitars, reveals the frustration and pain in her voice, an almost uncomfortably close portrayal of a disastrous relationship. The record also gives Clark room to be completely vulnerable—on Masseduction’s “Sugarboy,” the closing refrain of “Boys! Girls!” sounds like an industrial machine running out of juice. Here, Clark embodies this exhaustion, as if fatigued by her own sexual intensity. Bartlett recontextualizes Clark’s delivery throughout the record via his reinventions of the piano. It builds tension and foreboding in the maudlin dance-with-death “Smoking Section,” punctuating the air between Clark’s increasingly morbid verses. On “Savior,” Bartlett plays the inner strings of his instrument like a violin, the staccato notes fighting against Clark’s drawn-out vocals. The high-octave, mile-a-minute progressions on “Sugarboy” lend a strikingly expressive counterpart to her animalistic, baritone interpretation of the song’s chorus. It might not sound as alien as Clark’s glam guitars, but it makes room for the otherworldly range of emotions in her voice. On “Fear the Future,” the wailing of electric guitars is replaced by maximalist, thundering crashes on the piano, turning an apocalyptic screed into a frenetic fear of the unknown. Of course, there are natural limits to the acoustic format. Without the sleek production posse of Jack Antonoff and Sounwave, prosaic lyricism has nowhere to hide. The already saccharine chorus of “Pills” sounds like the theatrical performance of a junk food jingle here. Similarly, her thinly veiled criticism of image-obsessed Angelinos on “Los Ageless” loses its sexiness and sheen, leaving in its wake a smokey, hollow cabaret crooner. “Hang on Me,” a woozy post-club comedown, takes on a second life as a kind of modern lullaby, one with a bit of added schmaltz but no less flair than the original, a rendition that wouldn’t feel out of place over a tender familial flashback from “This Is Us.” For Clark, the intimacy of MassEducation is the natural conclusion to nearly a decade of life behind rotating personas: a jealous, pill-popping housewife, a self-described “near-future cult leader,” and most recently, a sexed-up, technicolor seductress. But on the cover of this record, all we see is Annie Clark: blurry, yes, but also literally laid bare. She has discussed the idea of songs having multiple lives, and that people, too, can live more than one existence in parallel, always aware of their diametric opposite. These songs bridge the gap between the two, exposing the overwhelming darkness that unifies her eclectic output along the way.

Artist: St. Vincent, Album: MassEducation, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "The acoustic album is a rite of passage. It marks a period when the tour, the band, and the press has left an artist yearning to be seen in a soft new light: For Nirvana, their MTV Unplugged performance was a middle finger to the hype machine—one of the biggest, loudest rock bands on earth settling in for some quiet covers and deep cuts. Mariah Carey’s 1992 acoustic EP set out to disprove naysayers who claimed her lack of touring equated to lack of talent. For St. Vincent, whose promotional circuit for 2017’s Masseduction featured latex accessories, pop-up art galleries, and interviews given from inside a hot-pink cube, an intimate, no-frills album is a welcome antidote to a career defined by cult and concept. Masseduction used locomotive synths and schoolyard call-and-responses to project an image of manic sensuality, while Annie Clark took on the public persona of “dominatrix at the mental institution.” It was a vision that deferred and distracted from questions of a more personal nature, perhaps a defense mechanism following her whirlwind year in the spotlight with her relationship with model and actress Cara Delevingne. But behind all the leopard print and leather, the record was a romantic opus filled with simple melodrama: “You and me, we’re not meant for this world,” she sang on “Hang on Me,” as if starring in her own John Hughes movie. Recorded over two days at Manhattan’s Reservoir Studios studios, MassEducation strips its hypersexual, neon-clad predecessor for parts, exposing its songs as tales of longing and nostalgia. Clark seemed to always know that her record contained two lives: “This needs to be something people can really dance to,” she said of a song on her last album, “until they listen to the words and then they’re crying.” Hiding melancholy behind pop production is nothing new, but on an album so saturated with sadness, these pared-down renderings give Clark a chance to indulge in their underlying sentiments. Accompanied by longtime friend Thomas Bartlett (a frequent producer for Sufjan Stevens) on the piano, Clark’s voice expands and contracts, varyingly snarky and flat, honeyed and affectionate, husky and sensual. On “Slow Disco,” her voice wells up, rich and velvetine, as she muses, “Am I thinking what everybody’s thinking?” On an earlier club remix of the same track, dubbed “Fast Slow Disco,” the line is more of a wink towards promiscuity. Here, the same lyrics come off as a desperate cry for connection. “Young Lover,” a tragic depiction of drug addiction that once masked itself behind triumphant electric guitars, reveals the frustration and pain in her voice, an almost uncomfortably close portrayal of a disastrous relationship. The record also gives Clark room to be completely vulnerable—on Masseduction’s “Sugarboy,” the closing refrain of “Boys! Girls!” sounds like an industrial machine running out of juice. Here, Clark embodies this exhaustion, as if fatigued by her own sexual intensity. Bartlett recontextualizes Clark’s delivery throughout the record via his reinventions of the piano. It builds tension and foreboding in the maudlin dance-with-death “Smoking Section,” punctuating the air between Clark’s increasingly morbid verses. On “Savior,” Bartlett plays the inner strings of his instrument like a violin, the staccato notes fighting against Clark’s drawn-out vocals. The high-octave, mile-a-minute progressions on “Sugarboy” lend a strikingly expressive counterpart to her animalistic, baritone interpretation of the song’s chorus. It might not sound as alien as Clark’s glam guitars, but it makes room for the otherworldly range of emotions in her voice. On “Fear the Future,” the wailing of electric guitars is replaced by maximalist, thundering crashes on the piano, turning an apocalyptic screed into a frenetic fear of the unknown. Of course, there are natural limits to the acoustic format. Without the sleek production posse of Jack Antonoff and Sounwave, prosaic lyricism has nowhere to hide. The already saccharine chorus of “Pills” sounds like the theatrical performance of a junk food jingle here. Similarly, her thinly veiled criticism of image-obsessed Angelinos on “Los Ageless” loses its sexiness and sheen, leaving in its wake a smokey, hollow cabaret crooner. “Hang on Me,” a woozy post-club comedown, takes on a second life as a kind of modern lullaby, one with a bit of added schmaltz but no less flair than the original, a rendition that wouldn’t feel out of place over a tender familial flashback from “This Is Us.” For Clark, the intimacy of MassEducation is the natural conclusion to nearly a decade of life behind rotating personas: a jealous, pill-popping housewife, a self-described “near-future cult leader,” and most recently, a sexed-up, technicolor seductress. But on the cover of this record, all we see is Annie Clark: blurry, yes, but also literally laid bare. She has discussed the idea of songs having multiple lives, and that people, too, can live more than one existence in parallel, always aware of their diametric opposite. These songs bridge the gap between the two, exposing the overwhelming darkness that unifies her eclectic output along the way."

J. Tillman

Year in the Kingdom

Rock

Paul Thompson

J. Tillman's got one a hell of a voice, of course: The newest Fleet Foxes member wasn't just plopped down behind the drumkit post-Sun Giant 'cuz he gives good beard. It merits mention that Tillman's been crafting hushed folk yearners for years, and that Year in the Kingdom is Tillman's second LP of 2009. And it's right around here that we can stop bringing up those other dudes; whereas Foxes trade in the precise and the pristine, Tillman's songs drift along like a piece of ragged wood in the river, a little gnarled but easygoing nevertheless. He's also dealing in a much more contemporary style of folk, kinda, taking plenty of cues from Mark Kozelek's placidly expansive work with Sun Kil Moon and even more recently Bon Iver's ambient whirl. Tillman's records-- and there's no shortage-- are quiet, pensive, unassuming things, Sunday morning kick-around music. And, while the loose, oft-airy tunes can occasionally feel inexact, when cloaked in that voice and a few inspired rattletrap arrangements, you'll barely register the deficit. Year in the Kingdom kicks off with its tidy title track, a strummy, stripped-way-back affair with nothing more than Tillman and his guitar. It's a pleasant enough intro, but I'd have gone with the significantly more adorned "Crosswinds" to kick things off. Tarting Tillman's tune up is a touch of banjo and a few woos while the whistling of the wind teases out the nooks and crannies of its central melody; the effect is not unlike Jim O'Rourke's crackling but never overdone production on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, with a relatively straightaway song taking on new dimension with the addition of a few key elements. Tillman's long been good at coloring in his compositions on wax; his partiality to slow and steady song structure and his avoidance of most vocals besides his own does leave plenty of room to screw around, but there's an incidental feel to the extraneous noise here, in service of the song rather than some kind [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| of cloak. As a lyricist, not unlike Foxes' Robin Pecknold, he leans on the pastoral pretty hard, and there's some references to laying a lamb on somebody I suspect might just be biblical. But even when they fail to connect on their own terms, there's a journeyman feel to his words as they unspool (helped along by his lived-in pipes) that conveys meaning even when it's not necessarily there, evoking images of long walks under the stars and that sort of thing. That, plus Tillman's intimate, close-miced voice, does lend Year in the Kingdom a lonesome, somber tone, one Tillman-- a funny, amicable dude, if you've ever heard him clowning on himself at a Fleet Foxes gig-- would do well to shake on occasion. Next time, maybe; for now, the stout, supine Year in the Kingdom, Tillman's second fine record of the year, will certainly do.

Artist: J. Tillman, Album: Year in the Kingdom, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "J. Tillman's got one a hell of a voice, of course: The newest Fleet Foxes member wasn't just plopped down behind the drumkit post-Sun Giant 'cuz he gives good beard. It merits mention that Tillman's been crafting hushed folk yearners for years, and that Year in the Kingdom is Tillman's second LP of 2009. And it's right around here that we can stop bringing up those other dudes; whereas Foxes trade in the precise and the pristine, Tillman's songs drift along like a piece of ragged wood in the river, a little gnarled but easygoing nevertheless. He's also dealing in a much more contemporary style of folk, kinda, taking plenty of cues from Mark Kozelek's placidly expansive work with Sun Kil Moon and even more recently Bon Iver's ambient whirl. Tillman's records-- and there's no shortage-- are quiet, pensive, unassuming things, Sunday morning kick-around music. And, while the loose, oft-airy tunes can occasionally feel inexact, when cloaked in that voice and a few inspired rattletrap arrangements, you'll barely register the deficit. Year in the Kingdom kicks off with its tidy title track, a strummy, stripped-way-back affair with nothing more than Tillman and his guitar. It's a pleasant enough intro, but I'd have gone with the significantly more adorned "Crosswinds" to kick things off. Tarting Tillman's tune up is a touch of banjo and a few woos while the whistling of the wind teases out the nooks and crannies of its central melody; the effect is not unlike Jim O'Rourke's crackling but never overdone production on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, with a relatively straightaway song taking on new dimension with the addition of a few key elements. Tillman's long been good at coloring in his compositions on wax; his partiality to slow and steady song structure and his avoidance of most vocals besides his own does leave plenty of room to screw around, but there's an incidental feel to the extraneous noise here, in service of the song rather than some kind [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| of cloak. As a lyricist, not unlike Foxes' Robin Pecknold, he leans on the pastoral pretty hard, and there's some references to laying a lamb on somebody I suspect might just be biblical. But even when they fail to connect on their own terms, there's a journeyman feel to his words as they unspool (helped along by his lived-in pipes) that conveys meaning even when it's not necessarily there, evoking images of long walks under the stars and that sort of thing. That, plus Tillman's intimate, close-miced voice, does lend Year in the Kingdom a lonesome, somber tone, one Tillman-- a funny, amicable dude, if you've ever heard him clowning on himself at a Fleet Foxes gig-- would do well to shake on occasion. Next time, maybe; for now, the stout, supine Year in the Kingdom, Tillman's second fine record of the year, will certainly do."

Hooray For Earth

True Loves

Rock

Ian Cohen

Hooray For Earth must've looked like party crashers when they opened for Surfer Blood and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart last year. Though they've staked out in different territories in terms of both production and influence, both headliners embody an ideal of what indie rock meant in the 1990s. Pains and Surfer Blood are heavy on the guitars, with songs written and recorded by four or five people in a room, each of whom has an easily identifiable job-- essentially a scrappier version of the "alternative rock" on the radio back in the day. Meanwhile, Hooray For Earth are what people are thinking of right now: songs composed on synthesizers that take cues from dance and psychedelia, fluidity between the roles of the players. But all in all, game recognized game, for on True Loves, Hooray For Earth also display a precocious knack for massive, major-key hooks that are "indie rock" in name only. As you could probably guess from the preceding description, advance singles "True Loves" and "Sails" placed the New York quartet in the packed house of bands often tagged with "what we wished Congratulations sounded like." It's unfair on both counts, robbing MGMT of some sort of agency in their artistic trajectory and limiting Hooray For Earth in terms of scope. With its candy-coated vocals and fluorescent production, True Loves siphons color from all points on the synth-pop spectrum. The spiky arpeggios of "Realize It's Not the Sun" and "Sails" pay homage to the Knife as well as Depeche Mode's arena-ready 90s, but each employs them for divergent purposes. And the title track offers upstroked, ska-rhythm guitars and Noel Heroux's dexterous falsetto run, along with dub-like painting around the edges with eerie, desiccated sound effects. Though sounding more like a singles collection than a coherent album-length vision, True Loves seems to unfold in a way that shows Hooray For Earth steadily accruing melodic confidence. While the six minutes of electro-tribal mantras on closer "Black Trees" recall earlier Yeasayer, the nervy palm-muted guitars and bold synth-horn charts of "No Love" and "Bring Us Closer Together" easily top Odd Blood's attempts at Trevor Horn-styled 80s chartbusters. But the sequencing isn't perfect: In between the killer bookends, serviceable mid-album palate cleansers "Same" and "Hotel" form a 10-minute stretch that roams a bit too far off course before the big reveals. The lull in momentum is more pronounced since the lyrics can be simultaneously too plainspoken and standoffish: As extroverted as these songs sound, you really never get a full sense of Hooray For Earth's personality. Still, it's no slight to say they've allowed themselves room for growth after True Loves, and there's little reason to believe their name won't be at the top of the marquee on the next go-round.

Artist: Hooray For Earth, Album: True Loves, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Hooray For Earth must've looked like party crashers when they opened for Surfer Blood and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart last year. Though they've staked out in different territories in terms of both production and influence, both headliners embody an ideal of what indie rock meant in the 1990s. Pains and Surfer Blood are heavy on the guitars, with songs written and recorded by four or five people in a room, each of whom has an easily identifiable job-- essentially a scrappier version of the "alternative rock" on the radio back in the day. Meanwhile, Hooray For Earth are what people are thinking of right now: songs composed on synthesizers that take cues from dance and psychedelia, fluidity between the roles of the players. But all in all, game recognized game, for on True Loves, Hooray For Earth also display a precocious knack for massive, major-key hooks that are "indie rock" in name only. As you could probably guess from the preceding description, advance singles "True Loves" and "Sails" placed the New York quartet in the packed house of bands often tagged with "what we wished Congratulations sounded like." It's unfair on both counts, robbing MGMT of some sort of agency in their artistic trajectory and limiting Hooray For Earth in terms of scope. With its candy-coated vocals and fluorescent production, True Loves siphons color from all points on the synth-pop spectrum. The spiky arpeggios of "Realize It's Not the Sun" and "Sails" pay homage to the Knife as well as Depeche Mode's arena-ready 90s, but each employs them for divergent purposes. And the title track offers upstroked, ska-rhythm guitars and Noel Heroux's dexterous falsetto run, along with dub-like painting around the edges with eerie, desiccated sound effects. Though sounding more like a singles collection than a coherent album-length vision, True Loves seems to unfold in a way that shows Hooray For Earth steadily accruing melodic confidence. While the six minutes of electro-tribal mantras on closer "Black Trees" recall earlier Yeasayer, the nervy palm-muted guitars and bold synth-horn charts of "No Love" and "Bring Us Closer Together" easily top Odd Blood's attempts at Trevor Horn-styled 80s chartbusters. But the sequencing isn't perfect: In between the killer bookends, serviceable mid-album palate cleansers "Same" and "Hotel" form a 10-minute stretch that roams a bit too far off course before the big reveals. The lull in momentum is more pronounced since the lyrics can be simultaneously too plainspoken and standoffish: As extroverted as these songs sound, you really never get a full sense of Hooray For Earth's personality. Still, it's no slight to say they've allowed themselves room for growth after True Loves, and there's little reason to believe their name won't be at the top of the marquee on the next go-round."

Makers

Strangest Parade

Rock

Alison Fields

At a seedy roadhouse three miles off the interstate, a scruffy assembly of skinny boys and girls in tight blue jeans, skinny ties, and bright red lipstick gathered for one final night to raise hell with hard liquor and filtered cigarettes, and bid farewell to the garage/surf revival that had sustained them. When the evening was over, the crowd dispersed via classic car or motorcycle, or passed out cold in the gravel parking lot. The last word came from a staggering DJ, who, while clumsily loading old Sonics albums into the back of his vintage Camaro, reputedly uttered: "They say electronica is the next big thing. I guess that's the end of us." Many of the evening's attendees took this prophetic line too much to heart, and went home to sell their guitars and invest in expensive music software. Or in the case of Spokane, Washington's The Makers, grew out their hair, changed their names, and started talking concept albums. As it happened, the whole 'garage rock is dead' bit was at best a gross exaggeration, or at worst a vicious rumor started by an enterprising couple from Detroit who aimed to capitalize on the gullibility of their peers. It's no secret that anything bearing a remote resemblance to garage rock is huge right now, and despite marginal accolades for their new, improved glam rock personas, The Makers got the shit end of the deal. Which brings us, in a round about way, to Strangest Parade. A flawed follow-up to the flawed concept album that was the preceding Rock Star God, Strangest Parade shows the Makers 'maturing' from full-on glam rock excess into ordinary rock excess with little of the attitude, and less of the energy, that made them even remotely appealing in the first place. Yes, it's dark and serious and musically competent, but why should that be a recommendation of a band once known for their snarling, no-holds-barred noise and the somewhat mythical badassitude they derived from their skid row storyline and predilection for onstage anarchy. The only evidence of a sense of fun or humor on this album are the band's clothes, which, if the album cover's any indication, may have been purchased at a combination Rod Stewart/Queen garage sale circa '77. Strangest Parade is basically devised as a two-part concept album, separated into a long first half and a shorter second half by two short creatively titled introductions (respectively "An Eternal Climb" and "Death and the Mad Heroine"), and a simplistic stylistic division-- the first part tends to drag anthemically; the second half comes closer to straightforward rock 'n' roll. The album is set up as a mock concert, concluding with "Wide Wide World of Girls"-- a largely acoustic, almost Neil Young-inspired ballad complete with harmonica, dobro, and twang-- an interactive encore, wherein the music is overlaid with periodic stadium-sized audience applause and band introduction. Though this conceit irritates me as a rule, it's only a mild violation when compared to the over-the-top Bowie-aping that dominates the bulk of the album. With moments of cribbed "Space Oddity" (the acoustic segue "Wild Gray Wonder") and such blatant examples of ersatz Ziggy Stardust as the anthemic "Calling Elvis, John and Jesus" with its falsetto backup choirs and spacy guitar lines, or the whacked out confessional piano ballad "Calling My Name," it's awfully hard to lend them credence that they're anything other than a veiled tribute band-- let alone that they wrote these songs. The best moments on the album recall The Makers' more raucous past. Sometimes these occur almost inconspicuously: the unabashed crunch of the guitar on parts of "Hard to Be Human," is nearly lost in the glam theatrics and sound effects. Likewise, the great Nuggets-era pop of "Suicide Blues" is hampered by the bizarre inclusion of what sounds like a children's choir at the chorus. Other tracks show the initial energy of what could be wild ass rock 'n' roll (the build-up alone on "Addicted to Dying" raised my heart rate), but draw back abruptly as if weighted by the maintenance of the album's conceit. I respect The Makers' desire to grow and evolve as musicians, even if-- in fact, especially if-- it seems both aesthetically and economically ill-advised to do so. But ask yourself: do we really need another uninspired T.Rex retread, and if so, do you really want the Makers to be the ones doing it? Me neither.

Artist: Makers, Album: Strangest Parade, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 3.5 Album review: "At a seedy roadhouse three miles off the interstate, a scruffy assembly of skinny boys and girls in tight blue jeans, skinny ties, and bright red lipstick gathered for one final night to raise hell with hard liquor and filtered cigarettes, and bid farewell to the garage/surf revival that had sustained them. When the evening was over, the crowd dispersed via classic car or motorcycle, or passed out cold in the gravel parking lot. The last word came from a staggering DJ, who, while clumsily loading old Sonics albums into the back of his vintage Camaro, reputedly uttered: "They say electronica is the next big thing. I guess that's the end of us." Many of the evening's attendees took this prophetic line too much to heart, and went home to sell their guitars and invest in expensive music software. Or in the case of Spokane, Washington's The Makers, grew out their hair, changed their names, and started talking concept albums. As it happened, the whole 'garage rock is dead' bit was at best a gross exaggeration, or at worst a vicious rumor started by an enterprising couple from Detroit who aimed to capitalize on the gullibility of their peers. It's no secret that anything bearing a remote resemblance to garage rock is huge right now, and despite marginal accolades for their new, improved glam rock personas, The Makers got the shit end of the deal. Which brings us, in a round about way, to Strangest Parade. A flawed follow-up to the flawed concept album that was the preceding Rock Star God, Strangest Parade shows the Makers 'maturing' from full-on glam rock excess into ordinary rock excess with little of the attitude, and less of the energy, that made them even remotely appealing in the first place. Yes, it's dark and serious and musically competent, but why should that be a recommendation of a band once known for their snarling, no-holds-barred noise and the somewhat mythical badassitude they derived from their skid row storyline and predilection for onstage anarchy. The only evidence of a sense of fun or humor on this album are the band's clothes, which, if the album cover's any indication, may have been purchased at a combination Rod Stewart/Queen garage sale circa '77. Strangest Parade is basically devised as a two-part concept album, separated into a long first half and a shorter second half by two short creatively titled introductions (respectively "An Eternal Climb" and "Death and the Mad Heroine"), and a simplistic stylistic division-- the first part tends to drag anthemically; the second half comes closer to straightforward rock 'n' roll. The album is set up as a mock concert, concluding with "Wide Wide World of Girls"-- a largely acoustic, almost Neil Young-inspired ballad complete with harmonica, dobro, and twang-- an interactive encore, wherein the music is overlaid with periodic stadium-sized audience applause and band introduction. Though this conceit irritates me as a rule, it's only a mild violation when compared to the over-the-top Bowie-aping that dominates the bulk of the album. With moments of cribbed "Space Oddity" (the acoustic segue "Wild Gray Wonder") and such blatant examples of ersatz Ziggy Stardust as the anthemic "Calling Elvis, John and Jesus" with its falsetto backup choirs and spacy guitar lines, or the whacked out confessional piano ballad "Calling My Name," it's awfully hard to lend them credence that they're anything other than a veiled tribute band-- let alone that they wrote these songs. The best moments on the album recall The Makers' more raucous past. Sometimes these occur almost inconspicuously: the unabashed crunch of the guitar on parts of "Hard to Be Human," is nearly lost in the glam theatrics and sound effects. Likewise, the great Nuggets-era pop of "Suicide Blues" is hampered by the bizarre inclusion of what sounds like a children's choir at the chorus. Other tracks show the initial energy of what could be wild ass rock 'n' roll (the build-up alone on "Addicted to Dying" raised my heart rate), but draw back abruptly as if weighted by the maintenance of the album's conceit. I respect The Makers' desire to grow and evolve as musicians, even if-- in fact, especially if-- it seems both aesthetically and economically ill-advised to do so. But ask yourself: do we really need another uninspired T.Rex retread, and if so, do you really want the Makers to be the ones doing it? Me neither."

Sunset Rubdown

Sunset Rubdown EP

Experimental,Rock

Brandon Stosuy

More than a side project or vanity excursion, Sunset Rubdown offers Wolf Parade co-frontman Spencer Krug the opportunity to air his uncorked ambitions and compositional eccentricities. To my ears, the tracks he wrote and sang on Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary-- "I'll Believe in Anything, You'll Believe in Anything", "Grounds for Divorce", "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"-- are the album's emotionally soaring, crushed-velvet best. However, like his longtime pal and occasional bandmate, Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer, Krug's raw, claustrophobically cracked vocal style can be a dealbreaker, and as such, some shunned Sunset Rubdown's lo-fi debut, Snake's Got a Leg, upon its release last year. I'm sort of addicted to Krug's manic vocal tendencies and off-kilter rhythmic patterns, though-- I'd listen to the guy sing karaoke all night. Minimizing the echo and cleaning up the production, Sunset Rubdown's self-titled EP continues where Snake's closed. The five songs here are firmly grounded; there's no GBV-style "Hey You Handsome Vulture" snippet or toy-box fuzz like on "Snake's Got a Leg II". Still, each piece is stuffed to the resonating brim. Krug seems to be a fan of windswept, melancholic keyboard lurches, and oddly, of recycling his own catalogue. For instance, before the definitive version of "I'll Believe in Anything" was released on Queen Mary, it appeared on Snake's Got a Leg. Similarly, this five-song set includes "Three Colours" and "Three Colours II", in addition to two takes on "A Day in the Graveyard". The rehashing works to create pretty resonances-- it's as though he could spend an entire career reframing the same few songs ad infinitum, and continually expose newer and more elegant angles. Fittingly, the EP opens with guitar repetitions redolent of Sunset Rubdown's earlier take on "I'll Believe in Anything". On "Three Colors", though, a slightly ominous Krug asks, "Do you believe that you belong to someone?/ I can't believe that I belong to no one." His queries are backed by psychedelic organ ministrations (often shadowed by guitar), droning vocal harmonies (a choir of Spencers, if you will), and a slight flange. This thread is picked-up by the final, flanged track, "Three Colors II", which goes for the manic Frog Eyes treatment and spirals into repetition of the line, "You should hear the wind at my window." Belief is also the subject of "Jason Believe Me, You Can't Trust Your Dreams". I have yet to put my finger on specifics, but the tinny organ reminds me of Bach on harpsichord. Singing about femurs and skulls and encouraging someone to "sleep with your eyes open," Krug's vocals are doubled up, and the atmosphere is punctuated with lilting, but downcast whistles. The highlight of the EP is the combination of "A Day in the Graveyard" and "A Day in the Graveyard II". The first is a sort of sunny throwaway instrumental with gently pretty arpeggios, tap dancing claps, loose fur snare, and tambourine-- the way it builds into part deux is rather glorious, seemingly expanding the latter's reach. After a brief ascension, that "gentle arpeggio" hook comes back as a steel drum sound. We get some words this time, too: a "rose pedal bed," "sun on my shoes," and the sinking feeling that "if you could make another one of you/ Then you wouldn't give the other one to me." It's really beautiful. Another full-length from Sunset Rubdown is set for release in May. For that effort, Klug manages to keep things quiet and spacious, despite showing up with a bona fide band. If he continues to increase the fidelity and go the "November Rain" route, I may have to take a flight to Montreal and crack the recording equipment. But okay, that's jumping the gun. These days, he's still tinkering in his basement and creating moonstruck pop songs that emit the feel of a boat slowly sinking; Krug glug-glugging his Hunky Dory loveliness from a tiny radio and going down with the ship.

Artist: Sunset Rubdown, Album: Sunset Rubdown EP, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "More than a side project or vanity excursion, Sunset Rubdown offers Wolf Parade co-frontman Spencer Krug the opportunity to air his uncorked ambitions and compositional eccentricities. To my ears, the tracks he wrote and sang on Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary-- "I'll Believe in Anything, You'll Believe in Anything", "Grounds for Divorce", "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"-- are the album's emotionally soaring, crushed-velvet best. However, like his longtime pal and occasional bandmate, Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer, Krug's raw, claustrophobically cracked vocal style can be a dealbreaker, and as such, some shunned Sunset Rubdown's lo-fi debut, Snake's Got a Leg, upon its release last year. I'm sort of addicted to Krug's manic vocal tendencies and off-kilter rhythmic patterns, though-- I'd listen to the guy sing karaoke all night. Minimizing the echo and cleaning up the production, Sunset Rubdown's self-titled EP continues where Snake's closed. The five songs here are firmly grounded; there's no GBV-style "Hey You Handsome Vulture" snippet or toy-box fuzz like on "Snake's Got a Leg II". Still, each piece is stuffed to the resonating brim. Krug seems to be a fan of windswept, melancholic keyboard lurches, and oddly, of recycling his own catalogue. For instance, before the definitive version of "I'll Believe in Anything" was released on Queen Mary, it appeared on Snake's Got a Leg. Similarly, this five-song set includes "Three Colours" and "Three Colours II", in addition to two takes on "A Day in the Graveyard". The rehashing works to create pretty resonances-- it's as though he could spend an entire career reframing the same few songs ad infinitum, and continually expose newer and more elegant angles. Fittingly, the EP opens with guitar repetitions redolent of Sunset Rubdown's earlier take on "I'll Believe in Anything". On "Three Colors", though, a slightly ominous Krug asks, "Do you believe that you belong to someone?/ I can't believe that I belong to no one." His queries are backed by psychedelic organ ministrations (often shadowed by guitar), droning vocal harmonies (a choir of Spencers, if you will), and a slight flange. This thread is picked-up by the final, flanged track, "Three Colors II", which goes for the manic Frog Eyes treatment and spirals into repetition of the line, "You should hear the wind at my window." Belief is also the subject of "Jason Believe Me, You Can't Trust Your Dreams". I have yet to put my finger on specifics, but the tinny organ reminds me of Bach on harpsichord. Singing about femurs and skulls and encouraging someone to "sleep with your eyes open," Krug's vocals are doubled up, and the atmosphere is punctuated with lilting, but downcast whistles. The highlight of the EP is the combination of "A Day in the Graveyard" and "A Day in the Graveyard II". The first is a sort of sunny throwaway instrumental with gently pretty arpeggios, tap dancing claps, loose fur snare, and tambourine-- the way it builds into part deux is rather glorious, seemingly expanding the latter's reach. After a brief ascension, that "gentle arpeggio" hook comes back as a steel drum sound. We get some words this time, too: a "rose pedal bed," "sun on my shoes," and the sinking feeling that "if you could make another one of you/ Then you wouldn't give the other one to me." It's really beautiful. Another full-length from Sunset Rubdown is set for release in May. For that effort, Klug manages to keep things quiet and spacious, despite showing up with a bona fide band. If he continues to increase the fidelity and go the "November Rain" route, I may have to take a flight to Montreal and crack the recording equipment. But okay, that's jumping the gun. These days, he's still tinkering in his basement and creating moonstruck pop songs that emit the feel of a boat slowly sinking; Krug glug-glugging his Hunky Dory loveliness from a tiny radio and going down with the ship."

Various Artists

Street Sounds Electro: The Ultimate Boxed Set

Nate Patrin

In one sense, you could call Morgan Khan an importer. That's basically what he did when he set up Street Sounds, the subsidiary to his dance label Streetwave, and released the first Street Sounds Electro compilation in 1983: here were eight tracks out of the United States that would've cost a couple of dozen quid for a UK buyer to import, all collected together for a price under five pounds. As a business decision, it was pretty shrewd, but as a scene-maker it was flat-out seismic: Thanks to the budget pricing and each volume's two sides of tight, continuous mixing from the likes of Herbie Laidley and the Mastermind sound system, the 22-volume Street Sounds Electro series-- later Street Sounds Hip Hop Electro and finally just Street Sounds Hip Hop-- was a major factor in defining what UK B-boys caught on to in the hip-hop world between 1983 and 1988. Street Sounds Electro: The Ultimate Boxed Set includes all 22 volumes of this influential series collected in mp3 form on two CD-Rs, preserving the DJ mixes as they initially appeared on the original vinyl. In many ways, it's a fortunate time capsule that hits on a lot of the now-iconic electro and rap classics of the mid-late 1980s and what sort of context they came from. Yet it also offers a deeper, messier variation on the evolution of hip-hop, one that covers most of the major bases between the old school and the sample era-- Grandmaster Flash, Run-D.M.C., the Roxanne wars, the dawn of golden age icons like BDP and Eric B. & Rakim and EPMD-- then complicates it all by throwing in a lot of strange stuff that history completely forgot, for reasons both unfair and justified. Just to give you a quick rundown of what was included in initial 11 volumes: Three cuts from West Coast electro master Egyptian Lover, including a 10:21 remix of 1985's all-kinds-of-nasty "Girls", five tracks from the B-Boys of "Two, Three, Break" fame, Cybotron's 1984 genre-name progenitor "Techno City", and the infamous Herbie Hancock "Megamix" put together by Grandmixer D.St. Then, of course, there are the anthems: Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel's "White Lines", Freestyle's "Don't Stop the Rock", Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three's "The Roof Is on Fire", West Street Mob's "Break Dance - Electric Boogie", Mantronix's "Needle to the Groove", Hashim's "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", and Arthur Baker's "Breakers Revenge", just for starters. With the exception of the largely overlooked Afrika Bambaataa, whose only appearance in the entire series is a two-minute fragment of "Bambaataa's Theme (Assault on Precinct 13)" in Volume 13's clusterbomb of a mix, this is one of the more complete collections of electro and dance-provoking rap out there. While the significant presence of classic early-mid 80s rap integrated itself into the tenor of each Street Sounds edition-- or sometimes clashed against it, like the slow, wobbly dubbed-out strut-bounce of Rammellzee vs. K-Rob's "Beat Bop" did amongst the otherwise uptempo pop-and-lock fodder of 1983's Volume 2-- it started to gradually dominate the series as a whole, swapping out the vocoders-and-Kraftwerk vibe of classic electro for the harder, sparser sounds of hip hop's first hardcore phase. The second disc, covering Volumes 12-22, bears this out over time. The aforementioned Volume 13 megamix (originally released in 1986) reduces 21 tracks to a fragment of their original lengths-- typically between 90 seconds and three and a half minutes-- and streams them together in a largely seamless two-side blend of rap, r&b, and even synthpop: one stretch features the early (and ridiculous) Sir Mix-a-Lot single "Square Dance Rap", electro favorite Captain Rock's "Return of Capt. Rock", and a remix of the Information Society single "Running", before later going on to drop hip-hop classics like "Pee-Wee's Dance" and "Eric B. Is President". By 1987, the word "Electro" started disappearing from the compilation's now "Hip Hop"-focused titles, the 808s slowed down drastically and sample-based cuts by the Ultramagnetic MCs ("Traveling at the Speed of Thought"; "Funky") and J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E. ("Strong Island"; "Doing Damage") started making their way into the mix. By '88, the last year of the Street Sounds Electro series, the closest it got to uptempo electro-rap was Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock's "It Takes Two"-- by which time it was on its way to bypassing the whole "electro" thing entirely and getting identified as "hip-house." It's an illuminating history, an evolution of sound in a sort of beyond-canonical macrocosm. And by "beyond-canonical macrocosm", I mean there's a lot of extraneous crap. Some of it's fascinating, like Levi 167's "Something Fresh to Swing To", which shows up on 1988's Volume 20, builds up this monster drum machine rhythm and then sneaks in this occasional recurring sequence of Casio notes that sounds like the kind of melody the RZA would build a Bobby Digital track around 10 years later. And there's a good number of obscure mid-late 80s get-drunk-and-yell party anthems, like Bay Area crew A.T.C.'s "This Beat is Def" (featuring production from a young Paris) and the Almighty El-Cee's hard-hitting motormouth showcase "We Have Risen". But with a collection like this that was compiled as the scene actually happened and developed, there's no 20/20 hindsight to keep the mediocrities out, and there's plenty of them-- ranging from the Packman's grating Volume 1 opener "I'm the Packman (Eat Everything I Can)" to the Diaz Brothers' mostly-useless Dirty Harry-quoting "It Takes Two" megamix/knockoff "Here We Go Again" on Volume 22. In between there's Newcleus' godawful corny "Huxtable House Party" (which I'd like to think is what turned Bill Cosby against rap in the first place), CIA's bizarre Beastie Boys ripoff "My Posse" (written by Ice Cube and produced by Dr. Dre! In 1988!), Exhibit A against the idea of swing rap in The Jury's "The Cotton Club", the gooey, cloying saxophones all over Key-Matic's "Breakin' in Space", and a whole lot of stuff that sounds a bit like Arthur Baker only with fewer ideas. This is one of those collections where you take the bad with the good, and there's more than enough of both. Given how limited a pressing this collection is, your chances of being able to find this for yourself are fairly slim, and between the cost ($80+ American) and the headache of trying to find it anywhere, it might not necessarily be worth the effort, especially with many of the more desirable rarities included in mixed, cut, re-edited, and otherwise incomplete form. But when it works, it's definitely worth hearing. There's a thir

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Street Sounds Electro: The Ultimate Boxed Set, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "In one sense, you could call Morgan Khan an importer. That's basically what he did when he set up Street Sounds, the subsidiary to his dance label Streetwave, and released the first Street Sounds Electro compilation in 1983: here were eight tracks out of the United States that would've cost a couple of dozen quid for a UK buyer to import, all collected together for a price under five pounds. As a business decision, it was pretty shrewd, but as a scene-maker it was flat-out seismic: Thanks to the budget pricing and each volume's two sides of tight, continuous mixing from the likes of Herbie Laidley and the Mastermind sound system, the 22-volume Street Sounds Electro series-- later Street Sounds Hip Hop Electro and finally just Street Sounds Hip Hop-- was a major factor in defining what UK B-boys caught on to in the hip-hop world between 1983 and 1988. Street Sounds Electro: The Ultimate Boxed Set includes all 22 volumes of this influential series collected in mp3 form on two CD-Rs, preserving the DJ mixes as they initially appeared on the original vinyl. In many ways, it's a fortunate time capsule that hits on a lot of the now-iconic electro and rap classics of the mid-late 1980s and what sort of context they came from. Yet it also offers a deeper, messier variation on the evolution of hip-hop, one that covers most of the major bases between the old school and the sample era-- Grandmaster Flash, Run-D.M.C., the Roxanne wars, the dawn of golden age icons like BDP and Eric B. & Rakim and EPMD-- then complicates it all by throwing in a lot of strange stuff that history completely forgot, for reasons both unfair and justified. Just to give you a quick rundown of what was included in initial 11 volumes: Three cuts from West Coast electro master Egyptian Lover, including a 10:21 remix of 1985's all-kinds-of-nasty "Girls", five tracks from the B-Boys of "Two, Three, Break" fame, Cybotron's 1984 genre-name progenitor "Techno City", and the infamous Herbie Hancock "Megamix" put together by Grandmixer D.St. Then, of course, there are the anthems: Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel's "White Lines", Freestyle's "Don't Stop the Rock", Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three's "The Roof Is on Fire", West Street Mob's "Break Dance - Electric Boogie", Mantronix's "Needle to the Groove", Hashim's "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", and Arthur Baker's "Breakers Revenge", just for starters. With the exception of the largely overlooked Afrika Bambaataa, whose only appearance in the entire series is a two-minute fragment of "Bambaataa's Theme (Assault on Precinct 13)" in Volume 13's clusterbomb of a mix, this is one of the more complete collections of electro and dance-provoking rap out there. While the significant presence of classic early-mid 80s rap integrated itself into the tenor of each Street Sounds edition-- or sometimes clashed against it, like the slow, wobbly dubbed-out strut-bounce of Rammellzee vs. K-Rob's "Beat Bop" did amongst the otherwise uptempo pop-and-lock fodder of 1983's Volume 2-- it started to gradually dominate the series as a whole, swapping out the vocoders-and-Kraftwerk vibe of classic electro for the harder, sparser sounds of hip hop's first hardcore phase. The second disc, covering Volumes 12-22, bears this out over time. The aforementioned Volume 13 megamix (originally released in 1986) reduces 21 tracks to a fragment of their original lengths-- typically between 90 seconds and three and a half minutes-- and streams them together in a largely seamless two-side blend of rap, r&b, and even synthpop: one stretch features the early (and ridiculous) Sir Mix-a-Lot single "Square Dance Rap", electro favorite Captain Rock's "Return of Capt. Rock", and a remix of the Information Society single "Running", before later going on to drop hip-hop classics like "Pee-Wee's Dance" and "Eric B. Is President". By 1987, the word "Electro" started disappearing from the compilation's now "Hip Hop"-focused titles, the 808s slowed down drastically and sample-based cuts by the Ultramagnetic MCs ("Traveling at the Speed of Thought"; "Funky") and J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E. ("Strong Island"; "Doing Damage") started making their way into the mix. By '88, the last year of the Street Sounds Electro series, the closest it got to uptempo electro-rap was Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock's "It Takes Two"-- by which time it was on its way to bypassing the whole "electro" thing entirely and getting identified as "hip-house." It's an illuminating history, an evolution of sound in a sort of beyond-canonical macrocosm. And by "beyond-canonical macrocosm", I mean there's a lot of extraneous crap. Some of it's fascinating, like Levi 167's "Something Fresh to Swing To", which shows up on 1988's Volume 20, builds up this monster drum machine rhythm and then sneaks in this occasional recurring sequence of Casio notes that sounds like the kind of melody the RZA would build a Bobby Digital track around 10 years later. And there's a good number of obscure mid-late 80s get-drunk-and-yell party anthems, like Bay Area crew A.T.C.'s "This Beat is Def" (featuring production from a young Paris) and the Almighty El-Cee's hard-hitting motormouth showcase "We Have Risen". But with a collection like this that was compiled as the scene actually happened and developed, there's no 20/20 hindsight to keep the mediocrities out, and there's plenty of them-- ranging from the Packman's grating Volume 1 opener "I'm the Packman (Eat Everything I Can)" to the Diaz Brothers' mostly-useless Dirty Harry-quoting "It Takes Two" megamix/knockoff "Here We Go Again" on Volume 22. In between there's Newcleus' godawful corny "Huxtable House Party" (which I'd like to think is what turned Bill Cosby against rap in the first place), CIA's bizarre Beastie Boys ripoff "My Posse" (written by Ice Cube and produced by Dr. Dre! In 1988!), Exhibit A against the idea of swing rap in The Jury's "The Cotton Club", the gooey, cloying saxophones all over Key-Matic's "Breakin' in Space", and a whole lot of stuff that sounds a bit like Arthur Baker only with fewer ideas. This is one of those collections where you take the bad with the good, and there's more than enough of both. Given how limited a pressing this collection is, your chances of being able to find this for yourself are fairly slim, and between the cost ($80+ American) and the headache of trying to find it anywhere, it might not necessarily be worth the effort, especially with many of the more desirable rarities included in mixed, cut, re-edited, and otherwise incomplete form. But when it works, it's definitely worth hearing. There's a thir"

Painted Palms

Canopy EP

Electronic,Rock

Ian Cohen

Painted Palms' debut EP Canopy feels instantly nostalgic, and I realize that's about as helpfully descriptive in 2011 as saying "it has keyboards." If only it were merely the typically fond recollection of Toejam & Earl or Kid and Play's filmography or some other token of childhood ephemera. Nah, Painted Palms get me thinking more existentially-- is it possible to be nostalgic for something that's not even really over? Or, to put it another way, is the churn for subgenres so incessant that Painted Palms' "psych-pop collage" is already second-gen while the likes of Keepaway and Sun Airway have achieved the role of elder statesmen? Hell, the Bay Area duo probably just wanted to make a breezy and listenable EP, which they've done to a certain extent. But dig their turquoise and gold-lashed cover art, whimsical name, and an admirable if not particularly achievable promise of "Brill Building pop, buoyant electronics, and encompassing textural experimentation." I doubt Painted Palms had their "burning bush" moment immediately after hearing "Lion in a Coma" for the first time, but it's in the dead center of the post-Merriweather Post Pavilion status quo: jangly guitars replaced by swirling sampler emission, verses and choruses traded for alternating chants, bummed indifference scrapped in favor of wonderment at our own functionality. Meanwhile, all space filled with so much aquatic burbling that hydrogen and oxygen deserve songwriting credits. It's the same old vanilla indie rock, albeit dipped in rainbow sprinkles. But just because Painted Palms don't really do anything new doesn't mean they can't do it well. They're definitely not trying to come off like some lo-fi bedroom act with a Korg and a dream, and the production is slick, loud, and full-bodied. The same goes for Reese Donohue's vocals, undeniably derivative but nonetheless committed to its swooping derring-do without using reverb or dulling overdubs as a safety net. On the summer-lovin' title track, Donohue sings, "We climbed up to the rooftops so we could feel the air... your hand was touching mine but I barely felt it at all," making sure you can still feel the butterflies. Painted Palms are catchy enough to grab your attention within the first minute during your daily mp3 blog recon, but they lack the personality to really stick. This is particularly true of "Falling Asleep", which introduces an instantly likeable melody before quickly getting distracted by strings of spangly electro baubles, while "Water Hymn" and the title track simply tread in whirlpools of squishy atmopsherics. I mean, I know it's also reductive to say that the vocal triggers and thumping house beat of "All of Us" really hope you haven't heard Delorean's "Seasun" while Donohue's vocals sound exactly like Panda Bear to the point where ignoring it is lying by omission. But all you're really left with here are the RIYLs instead of an identity Painted Palms can call their own.

Artist: Painted Palms, Album: Canopy EP, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "Painted Palms' debut EP Canopy feels instantly nostalgic, and I realize that's about as helpfully descriptive in 2011 as saying "it has keyboards." If only it were merely the typically fond recollection of Toejam & Earl or Kid and Play's filmography or some other token of childhood ephemera. Nah, Painted Palms get me thinking more existentially-- is it possible to be nostalgic for something that's not even really over? Or, to put it another way, is the churn for subgenres so incessant that Painted Palms' "psych-pop collage" is already second-gen while the likes of Keepaway and Sun Airway have achieved the role of elder statesmen? Hell, the Bay Area duo probably just wanted to make a breezy and listenable EP, which they've done to a certain extent. But dig their turquoise and gold-lashed cover art, whimsical name, and an admirable if not particularly achievable promise of "Brill Building pop, buoyant electronics, and encompassing textural experimentation." I doubt Painted Palms had their "burning bush" moment immediately after hearing "Lion in a Coma" for the first time, but it's in the dead center of the post-Merriweather Post Pavilion status quo: jangly guitars replaced by swirling sampler emission, verses and choruses traded for alternating chants, bummed indifference scrapped in favor of wonderment at our own functionality. Meanwhile, all space filled with so much aquatic burbling that hydrogen and oxygen deserve songwriting credits. It's the same old vanilla indie rock, albeit dipped in rainbow sprinkles. But just because Painted Palms don't really do anything new doesn't mean they can't do it well. They're definitely not trying to come off like some lo-fi bedroom act with a Korg and a dream, and the production is slick, loud, and full-bodied. The same goes for Reese Donohue's vocals, undeniably derivative but nonetheless committed to its swooping derring-do without using reverb or dulling overdubs as a safety net. On the summer-lovin' title track, Donohue sings, "We climbed up to the rooftops so we could feel the air... your hand was touching mine but I barely felt it at all," making sure you can still feel the butterflies. Painted Palms are catchy enough to grab your attention within the first minute during your daily mp3 blog recon, but they lack the personality to really stick. This is particularly true of "Falling Asleep", which introduces an instantly likeable melody before quickly getting distracted by strings of spangly electro baubles, while "Water Hymn" and the title track simply tread in whirlpools of squishy atmopsherics. I mean, I know it's also reductive to say that the vocal triggers and thumping house beat of "All of Us" really hope you haven't heard Delorean's "Seasun" while Donohue's vocals sound exactly like Panda Bear to the point where ignoring it is lying by omission. But all you're really left with here are the RIYLs instead of an identity Painted Palms can call their own."

NHK yx koyxen

Exit Entrance

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

A clinical, almost scientific air hangs over the work of Japan’s Kouhei Matsunaga, aka NHK yx koyxen. He makes experimental electronic music that sounds like it is the result of an actual laboratory experiment. His textures crackle with electrical charge; his rhythms morph and multiply like bacteria. You imagine him pulling his beats from test tubes. His rickety structures are part Frankenstein’s monster, part Rube Goldberg contraption—rave heaters fueled by Bunsen burner. But unlike most products of the scientific method, Matsunaga’s music often seems deliberately inscrutable. In place of conventional titles, many of the releases in his voluminous discography make do with numerals. Whatever meaning names like “236,” “190409,” or “7” might have (to say nothing of “1057_S” or “862” or “Y”)—are they file names, parameters, snippets of code?—is left unsaid. If there’s an encryption key to his work, he’s hidden it safely away—soldered to the corroded guts of a malfunctioning Casio keyboard, maybe. That Matsunaga trained as an architect might not be surprising. No matter how chaotic his music, at its base lies a lattice of intersecting vectors, like a crumpled blueprint. For 20 years, he has orbited the fringes of electronic music, recording for labels like Mille Plateaux and Important, and collaborating with musicians like Merzbow and Mika Vainio. But in the past few years he has come inching in from the cold. After the rhythmic free-for-all of his Dance Classics EPs for the PAN label, last year’s Doom Steppy Reverb, for Oscar Powell’s Diagonal imprint, was his most “techno” record yet. Now he turns up on DFA, of all places. Exit Entrance is hardly a dance-punk or a disco record. But it is a little less hermetic, a little less airless, than his previous recordings. (He has even shifted to word-based titles.) The beats are crisper, the structures marginally closer to traditional dance music. You can imagine DJs playing many of these tracks. The pastel thunder of “Outset” sounds like a Jeff Mills set heard from the alley behind the nightclub; the sludgy “Dignity” could pass for an electro track played back on a turntable with a 16 RPM setting. The opening “Meeting” sets the record’s tone: As a chintzy keyboard melody plinks away, synthesizers drip like leaky faucets, and a syncopated beat crunches like boots in snow. Cautiously emotive, it is simultaneously playful and distant; it doesn’t quite pass the Turing test. The sequences evolve in such a way that it’s hard to put your finger on what the musician is doing to them; subtle tweaks make frequencies squirm as though alive. Driven by a bruising kick drum and nervous shakers, “Finding” barrels ahead at 140 beats per minute, its rhythm constantly reshaping itself, with no two bars exactly alike. Despite the heavy drums and the open throttle, there’s something coy about its rubbery plucks that sets it apart from most straight-ahead club fare. A similarly toy-like quality infuses the pinging “Intention,” which suggests a breakbeat rave tune modeled in Erector Set, while the drifting acid of “Mutually” conveys a kind of accidental whimsy. Over a scratchy, bare-bones beat, the arpeggio gradually comes unstuck from the scale and blossoms into unexpectedly beautiful harmonies that disappear before anything like sentimentality can settle in. If you told me that a randomized algorithm were responsible for 90% of the composition, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Even “Dented,” the 12-minute rave maelstrom that closes the album, has this simulacral sensibility: It bangs, but something about its squelch feels not quite right, and the longer it goes on, the more claustrophobic it begins to feel. That’s not to say that everything on the album is so tricky: The short, sketch-like “Notice” offers an oasis of blissful feeling. Rich synthesizer chords glisten like dewdrops and thick, humid reverb drifts upward; it all unrolls as calmly as a stroll in a glassed-in atrium. It’s tempting to hear it as an echo of Japanese environmental music, the ambient subgenre in which atmospheric music is composed with specific spaces—shopping malls, offices, etc.—in mind. In an album full of maze-like rhythms and trapdoors, our architect has penciled in a space of total serenity, one that makes the rest of the album seem all the more dynamic in comparison.

Artist: NHK yx koyxen, Album: Exit Entrance, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "A clinical, almost scientific air hangs over the work of Japan’s Kouhei Matsunaga, aka NHK yx koyxen. He makes experimental electronic music that sounds like it is the result of an actual laboratory experiment. His textures crackle with electrical charge; his rhythms morph and multiply like bacteria. You imagine him pulling his beats from test tubes. His rickety structures are part Frankenstein’s monster, part Rube Goldberg contraption—rave heaters fueled by Bunsen burner. But unlike most products of the scientific method, Matsunaga’s music often seems deliberately inscrutable. In place of conventional titles, many of the releases in his voluminous discography make do with numerals. Whatever meaning names like “236,” “190409,” or “7” might have (to say nothing of “1057_S” or “862” or “Y”)—are they file names, parameters, snippets of code?—is left unsaid. If there’s an encryption key to his work, he’s hidden it safely away—soldered to the corroded guts of a malfunctioning Casio keyboard, maybe. That Matsunaga trained as an architect might not be surprising. No matter how chaotic his music, at its base lies a lattice of intersecting vectors, like a crumpled blueprint. For 20 years, he has orbited the fringes of electronic music, recording for labels like Mille Plateaux and Important, and collaborating with musicians like Merzbow and Mika Vainio. But in the past few years he has come inching in from the cold. After the rhythmic free-for-all of his Dance Classics EPs for the PAN label, last year’s Doom Steppy Reverb, for Oscar Powell’s Diagonal imprint, was his most “techno” record yet. Now he turns up on DFA, of all places. Exit Entrance is hardly a dance-punk or a disco record. But it is a little less hermetic, a little less airless, than his previous recordings. (He has even shifted to word-based titles.) The beats are crisper, the structures marginally closer to traditional dance music. You can imagine DJs playing many of these tracks. The pastel thunder of “Outset” sounds like a Jeff Mills set heard from the alley behind the nightclub; the sludgy “Dignity” could pass for an electro track played back on a turntable with a 16 RPM setting. The opening “Meeting” sets the record’s tone: As a chintzy keyboard melody plinks away, synthesizers drip like leaky faucets, and a syncopated beat crunches like boots in snow. Cautiously emotive, it is simultaneously playful and distant; it doesn’t quite pass the Turing test. The sequences evolve in such a way that it’s hard to put your finger on what the musician is doing to them; subtle tweaks make frequencies squirm as though alive. Driven by a bruising kick drum and nervous shakers, “Finding” barrels ahead at 140 beats per minute, its rhythm constantly reshaping itself, with no two bars exactly alike. Despite the heavy drums and the open throttle, there’s something coy about its rubbery plucks that sets it apart from most straight-ahead club fare. A similarly toy-like quality infuses the pinging “Intention,” which suggests a breakbeat rave tune modeled in Erector Set, while the drifting acid of “Mutually” conveys a kind of accidental whimsy. Over a scratchy, bare-bones beat, the arpeggio gradually comes unstuck from the scale and blossoms into unexpectedly beautiful harmonies that disappear before anything like sentimentality can settle in. If you told me that a randomized algorithm were responsible for 90% of the composition, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Even “Dented,” the 12-minute rave maelstrom that closes the album, has this simulacral sensibility: It bangs, but something about its squelch feels not quite right, and the longer it goes on, the more claustrophobic it begins to feel. That’s not to say that everything on the album is so tricky: The short, sketch-like “Notice” offers an oasis of blissful feeling. Rich synthesizer chords glisten like dewdrops and thick, humid reverb drifts upward; it all unrolls as calmly as a stroll in a glassed-in atrium. It’s tempting to hear it as an echo of Japanese environmental music, the ambient subgenre in which atmospheric music is composed with specific spaces—shopping malls, offices, etc.—in mind. In an album full of maze-like rhythms and trapdoors, our architect has penciled in a space of total serenity, one that makes the rest of the album seem all the more dynamic in comparison."

Diplo

Favela Strikes Back

Electronic

Nick Sylvester

I haven't done the first graf kinda-sorta relevant anecdote bit in a while (or the meta thing), so forgive me: During my two month riff in Rome, I sacked the eternal city for the real what have you's-- what real Italians wear, where real Italians hang out at night, how real Italians ride real Italian scooters. Three-button collared party shirts are the hot shit, but one arm in I realized I didn't have the chest hair. So the rest of the summer I stuck to wearing "I Survived the Pantheon" tees and having my wallet stolen-- tourist stuff, comfortable but me. Diplo does the tourist thing too-- obviously there's some give/take w/r/t how much control he has over that-- but beginning-to-end he approaches baile funk with, vaguely we'll say, hip-hop sensibilities. (Or better, Hollertronix sensibilities, where bass, Dirty South, Baltimore, and "Sweet Dreams", among others, peacefully co-exist.) Baile funk aka favela funk aka funk has been doing the crazy Portuguese screaming over Miami bass and U.S. pop kitsch thing for decades now-- we're just finding out about it. The tracks we're hearing on Diplo's through-the-backdoor mixes (his first trip to Brazil yielded last year's Favela On Blast) aren't necessarily groundbreaking or definitive for the genre (how would we know?), just the ones off Diplo's Rio-bought comps he thought people'd dig. He liked the stuff simply by how it sounded-- imagine that. Track 5 (no song titles; more re: that in a sec) snatches something from Grease, I think, and throws it back hi-ho silver digital cowboy, etc. Then there's a part where all these dogs start barking-- always glad to hear some of that. The sixth track has James Brown breaks, which I don't remember from the other comps, so that's cool, and track 11 has a Prodigy line on it. Track 15 samples a song I'm probably supposed to know; it's OK. Other songs you may have heard in parts on Diplo's criminally overlooked Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol. 1 mixtape, which he put together with Sri Lankan-via-London artist-singer M.I.A.. Which makes me wonder: If there are baile tracks that we're hearing and saying "Oh, this is an old one," I can only imagine how these tracks fit into a current Rio set. Elsewhere there's all the hora, rinkydink Italian wedding carmina, and crazy sing-scream MCs whose sound falls somewhere between dancehall toasters and the grime kids. Baile funk is "make do with what you got" music-- it's a fun dance at best (and worst), hardly self-conscious to my ears, raw and celebratory in that amateur talent/lotta heart way whose spirit-- kill me-- I find strangely kin to the good-precious side of American indie. And god I hate to bring this up but: While there's some dubiously transferrable hip-hop morality at work here with mixtapes copping songs that themselves copped songs, Diplo's on some honest-to-badness culture-vulture shit that understandably rubs dudes the wrong way. Worse, his no artist/no song title thing might trick people into thinking "It all sounds the same to Diplo, he's overgeneralizing!", which I think reflects more on the accuser than the accused. But 10 wrongs do make five rights, and if Diplo's shtick is bringing this shanty to the world in a way they might respond to and ultimately might take vested interest in (read: $$$), then let's drop the charges for now and indulge the music as wide-eyed as he does.

Artist: Diplo, Album: Favela Strikes Back, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "I haven't done the first graf kinda-sorta relevant anecdote bit in a while (or the meta thing), so forgive me: During my two month riff in Rome, I sacked the eternal city for the real what have you's-- what real Italians wear, where real Italians hang out at night, how real Italians ride real Italian scooters. Three-button collared party shirts are the hot shit, but one arm in I realized I didn't have the chest hair. So the rest of the summer I stuck to wearing "I Survived the Pantheon" tees and having my wallet stolen-- tourist stuff, comfortable but me. Diplo does the tourist thing too-- obviously there's some give/take w/r/t how much control he has over that-- but beginning-to-end he approaches baile funk with, vaguely we'll say, hip-hop sensibilities. (Or better, Hollertronix sensibilities, where bass, Dirty South, Baltimore, and "Sweet Dreams", among others, peacefully co-exist.) Baile funk aka favela funk aka funk has been doing the crazy Portuguese screaming over Miami bass and U.S. pop kitsch thing for decades now-- we're just finding out about it. The tracks we're hearing on Diplo's through-the-backdoor mixes (his first trip to Brazil yielded last year's Favela On Blast) aren't necessarily groundbreaking or definitive for the genre (how would we know?), just the ones off Diplo's Rio-bought comps he thought people'd dig. He liked the stuff simply by how it sounded-- imagine that. Track 5 (no song titles; more re: that in a sec) snatches something from Grease, I think, and throws it back hi-ho silver digital cowboy, etc. Then there's a part where all these dogs start barking-- always glad to hear some of that. The sixth track has James Brown breaks, which I don't remember from the other comps, so that's cool, and track 11 has a Prodigy line on it. Track 15 samples a song I'm probably supposed to know; it's OK. Other songs you may have heard in parts on Diplo's criminally overlooked Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol. 1 mixtape, which he put together with Sri Lankan-via-London artist-singer M.I.A.. Which makes me wonder: If there are baile tracks that we're hearing and saying "Oh, this is an old one," I can only imagine how these tracks fit into a current Rio set. Elsewhere there's all the hora, rinkydink Italian wedding carmina, and crazy sing-scream MCs whose sound falls somewhere between dancehall toasters and the grime kids. Baile funk is "make do with what you got" music-- it's a fun dance at best (and worst), hardly self-conscious to my ears, raw and celebratory in that amateur talent/lotta heart way whose spirit-- kill me-- I find strangely kin to the good-precious side of American indie. And god I hate to bring this up but: While there's some dubiously transferrable hip-hop morality at work here with mixtapes copping songs that themselves copped songs, Diplo's on some honest-to-badness culture-vulture shit that understandably rubs dudes the wrong way. Worse, his no artist/no song title thing might trick people into thinking "It all sounds the same to Diplo, he's overgeneralizing!", which I think reflects more on the accuser than the accused. But 10 wrongs do make five rights, and if Diplo's shtick is bringing this shanty to the world in a way they might respond to and ultimately might take vested interest in (read: $$$), then let's drop the charges for now and indulge the music as wide-eyed as he does."

Herbert

Part 8 EP

Electronic

Nick Neyland

House music has been occupying much of Matthew Herbert’s time recently. In 2014, the British producer dipped back into the genre by reactivating an EP series he started in the mid-'90s, of which Part 8 is supposedly the final entry. (Like most things Herbert, his words probably shouldn’t be trusted, marking this as neither an end or a beginning). It’s art, put out into the world, given a life that either makes total sense or is mildly baffling, depending on your vantage point. Digging beyond the straight lines of the house workouts spread over these four tracks may not lead to much insight into what Herbert’s trying to do conceptually, but it’s clear he still retains a skill and fondness for the style—it’s all there in the immaculately sheared beats, the waxy synth lines, the tastefully worked samples, the exquisite way he has for working with vocalists. Herbert’s name might not be as prominent as it once was, perhaps due to the deluge of wildly differing music he releases into the world. But he often crops up, sometimes in unexpected places: Björk talked of his value as a collaborator recently, the London Sinfonietta extended an invitation for him to work with them in 2010, and his work as Creative Director of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop has led him into unexplored pastures. It makes sense that Herbert can connect to so many disparate sources—his ability to diversify within his own musical range is largely unparalleled. Part 7 of this series touched on a contemporary feeling, via the PC Music referencing "Bumps", but for Part 8 he’s taken a straighter path, working in allusions to skittish pop ("The Wrong Place") and even going the full torch song route ("Remember Ken"). If there is a single element that binds Herbert’s recordings, it’s in his ability to metaphorically tie his feet together to prevent himself ending up in the space where he seems to be heading. So "The Wrong Place" lands somewhere far heavier than its lighter beginnings, with a pile of digital interference swamping the track in a blocky, malfunctioning tone. "Ticket" falls just the right side of irritating, using the mind-numbing repetition of its title in a manner close to the novelty gabber hit "Poing" by Rotterdam Termination Source, but with Herbert upping the mania by driving it to a point that’s simultaneously fascinating and mind-bending. He’s having fun here, clearly, although it often feels like he’s lost in conversation with himself, not digging deep enough into one of house/techno’s most powerful properties—the ability to connect with an audience—especially in the overly earnest "Her Face". The highlights of recent installments in Herbert’s Parts series have mostly come through his work with vocalists, and Part 8 is no exception. "Remember Ken" draws a soulful vocal out of Ade Omotayo (who has worked with both Kindness and Amy Winehouse) and matches it to strings and handclaps that sound so plastic it’s like hearing a demo of the cheapest Casio keyboard ever unleashed on the market. It hits on something Herbert always does so well, where he finds a natural join between earthly and fabricated sources, creating space for the most artificial of pop gestures and a sort of rootsy authenticity. Taking beautifully climbing vocal passages and matching them to instrumentation that, while skillfully played, sounds like it cost about 50 cents from a local junk store—these are things that make a charming kind of sense in his world.

Artist: Herbert, Album: Part 8 EP, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "House music has been occupying much of Matthew Herbert’s time recently. In 2014, the British producer dipped back into the genre by reactivating an EP series he started in the mid-'90s, of which Part 8 is supposedly the final entry. (Like most things Herbert, his words probably shouldn’t be trusted, marking this as neither an end or a beginning). It’s art, put out into the world, given a life that either makes total sense or is mildly baffling, depending on your vantage point. Digging beyond the straight lines of the house workouts spread over these four tracks may not lead to much insight into what Herbert’s trying to do conceptually, but it’s clear he still retains a skill and fondness for the style—it’s all there in the immaculately sheared beats, the waxy synth lines, the tastefully worked samples, the exquisite way he has for working with vocalists. Herbert’s name might not be as prominent as it once was, perhaps due to the deluge of wildly differing music he releases into the world. But he often crops up, sometimes in unexpected places: Björk talked of his value as a collaborator recently, the London Sinfonietta extended an invitation for him to work with them in 2010, and his work as Creative Director of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop has led him into unexplored pastures. It makes sense that Herbert can connect to so many disparate sources—his ability to diversify within his own musical range is largely unparalleled. Part 7 of this series touched on a contemporary feeling, via the PC Music referencing "Bumps", but for Part 8 he’s taken a straighter path, working in allusions to skittish pop ("The Wrong Place") and even going the full torch song route ("Remember Ken"). If there is a single element that binds Herbert’s recordings, it’s in his ability to metaphorically tie his feet together to prevent himself ending up in the space where he seems to be heading. So "The Wrong Place" lands somewhere far heavier than its lighter beginnings, with a pile of digital interference swamping the track in a blocky, malfunctioning tone. "Ticket" falls just the right side of irritating, using the mind-numbing repetition of its title in a manner close to the novelty gabber hit "Poing" by Rotterdam Termination Source, but with Herbert upping the mania by driving it to a point that’s simultaneously fascinating and mind-bending. He’s having fun here, clearly, although it often feels like he’s lost in conversation with himself, not digging deep enough into one of house/techno’s most powerful properties—the ability to connect with an audience—especially in the overly earnest "Her Face". The highlights of recent installments in Herbert’s Parts series have mostly come through his work with vocalists, and Part 8 is no exception. "Remember Ken" draws a soulful vocal out of Ade Omotayo (who has worked with both Kindness and Amy Winehouse) and matches it to strings and handclaps that sound so plastic it’s like hearing a demo of the cheapest Casio keyboard ever unleashed on the market. It hits on something Herbert always does so well, where he finds a natural join between earthly and fabricated sources, creating space for the most artificial of pop gestures and a sort of rootsy authenticity. Taking beautifully climbing vocal passages and matching them to instrumentation that, while skillfully played, sounds like it cost about 50 cents from a local junk store—these are things that make a charming kind of sense in his world."

Wolfmother

Wolfmother

Rock

Cory D. Byrom

Australia's Wolfmother are one of a handful of bands hell-bent on making heavy rock a sizable force in 2006. Their sound is a throwback to 1970s hard rock-- miles of galloping riffs, noodling organ, and guitar fuzz-- but what makes their self-titled debut rise above mere pastiche is how capably they strike a balance between meaty vintage metal and crisp, stoner-rock melodies. Typically, Wolfmother plays it straight, employing the raw materials of some of the original prog/metal bands signed to England's Vertigo Records during the label's 1969-71 prime: "Colossal" booms with heavy power chords and woozy riffing, while frontman Andrew Stockdale's crisp vocals soar through the rhythm's open spaces, while "Woman" is a driving, upbeat monster with spacey prog-inflected keyboards. But they also test their limits on tracks like "The White Unicorn". Its opening bars recall Led Zeppelin's gentler side with clean-strummed guitar chords and Stockdale putting on his best Robert Plant, but tumbling drumfills inevitably welcome back the rock, leading up to a blissed-out, psychedelic bridge. "Where Eagles Have Been" best spans the album's breadth: clean guitars turn dirty, organs wail during the transitions, and the slow and intense rhythm becomes upbeat and explosive just in time for the guitar solo. On "Witchcraft", the band evokes Jethro Tull with a Canterbury flute solo that ought to sound forced or hokey, but context is everything, and set against Wolfmother's wallop, it's a natural fit. Of course, not all their risks return rewards as worthwhile: The obnoxious three-and-a-half-minute garage-punk blast "Apple Tree" features the album's most uninspired songwriting and laziest delivery. Fortunately, they manage to take things out on a high note with the swampy "Vegabond", a track that, like much of this record's other material, authentically emulates a classic sound with the conviction and hunger of a young band on their way to finding a more singular voice.

Artist: Wolfmother, Album: Wolfmother, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Australia's Wolfmother are one of a handful of bands hell-bent on making heavy rock a sizable force in 2006. Their sound is a throwback to 1970s hard rock-- miles of galloping riffs, noodling organ, and guitar fuzz-- but what makes their self-titled debut rise above mere pastiche is how capably they strike a balance between meaty vintage metal and crisp, stoner-rock melodies. Typically, Wolfmother plays it straight, employing the raw materials of some of the original prog/metal bands signed to England's Vertigo Records during the label's 1969-71 prime: "Colossal" booms with heavy power chords and woozy riffing, while frontman Andrew Stockdale's crisp vocals soar through the rhythm's open spaces, while "Woman" is a driving, upbeat monster with spacey prog-inflected keyboards. But they also test their limits on tracks like "The White Unicorn". Its opening bars recall Led Zeppelin's gentler side with clean-strummed guitar chords and Stockdale putting on his best Robert Plant, but tumbling drumfills inevitably welcome back the rock, leading up to a blissed-out, psychedelic bridge. "Where Eagles Have Been" best spans the album's breadth: clean guitars turn dirty, organs wail during the transitions, and the slow and intense rhythm becomes upbeat and explosive just in time for the guitar solo. On "Witchcraft", the band evokes Jethro Tull with a Canterbury flute solo that ought to sound forced or hokey, but context is everything, and set against Wolfmother's wallop, it's a natural fit. Of course, not all their risks return rewards as worthwhile: The obnoxious three-and-a-half-minute garage-punk blast "Apple Tree" features the album's most uninspired songwriting and laziest delivery. Fortunately, they manage to take things out on a high note with the swampy "Vegabond", a track that, like much of this record's other material, authentically emulates a classic sound with the conviction and hunger of a young band on their way to finding a more singular voice."

Carla Bley

Andando el Tiempo

Jazz

Seth Colter Walls

Bandleader, pianist, and composer Carla Bley’s prowess isn’t difficult to identify or appreciate. From the outset of her long career, she has created memorable tunes like “Ida Lupino”—a song that appeared on an early album by her onetime husband Paul Bley (and which also appeared on avant-guitarist Mary Halvorson’s recent set of covers). Though when it comes to her full-album statements, she's more difficult to pin down. Her humor can move between the slapstick and the wry. She may stage a straightforwardly goofy album cover, or else use musical quotations in performance in a manner that feels both knowing and politically sincere—as with her work in the late Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. That mixture of immediacy and mystery quickly earned Bley a following in the worlds of jazz and new composition, one that has remained ardent over the decades. On 2013’s Trios, Bley took the step of letting in an outside producer—Manfred Eicher, the head of ECM Records (which has distributed Bley’s independent label offerings). That album looked back at some of Bley’s past compositional work with a trio that included her longtime bassist and partner Steve Swallow, as well as saxophonist Andy Sheppard. The same players and producer come together again for Andando el Tiempo, this time to tackle an all-new program of music by Bley, with most of the set devoted to the three-movement composition that gives the album its title. The pianist’s liner notes tell us that sections of this work each “represent stages of recovery from addiction.” Opening track “Sin Fin” finds Bley’s piano spiraling through abstracted tango riffs, her harmonic interplay with the other instruments occupying a frustrated-sounding middle ground, never sounding either totally ebullient or fully despondent. Keening, sorrowful phrases set the tone for a slower middle section, “Potación de Guaya.” The third movement launches with a striking bit of contrast: a joyous sweep of the piano’s keys, suggesting a strutting exit from the world of addiction. (Bley writes that this bit represents a return to “a healthy and sustainable life”). But all is not automatically set to rights by virtue of the narrative arc; staggered bits of phrases, repeated with a stubbornness, suggest the effort that goes into Bley’s happy ending. Not everything on the album is this weighty. When titling “Saints Alive!,” Bley says she was inspired by the “expression used by old ladies sitting on the porch in the cool of the evening when they exchanged especially juicy gossip.” The gently swaying piece doesn’t seem particularly scandalized—instead sounding warmly conversational (especially in the communion between Bley’s chords and Swallow’s tender, high-register bass playing). It seems like a song that might be destined to reach “jazz standard” status, alongside “Ida Lupino,” a few decades down the road. Even when she’s not throttling into avant-garde theatrics (as on her early-career highlight Escalator Over the Hill) or writing music for Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, the casual strangeness of Bley’s aesthetic has been a constant. At 80 years of age, she remains an individual—and still composes like a born melodist, too.

Artist: Carla Bley, Album: Andando el Tiempo, Genre: Jazz, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "Bandleader, pianist, and composer Carla Bley’s prowess isn’t difficult to identify or appreciate. From the outset of her long career, she has created memorable tunes like “Ida Lupino”—a song that appeared on an early album by her onetime husband Paul Bley (and which also appeared on avant-guitarist Mary Halvorson’s recent set of covers). Though when it comes to her full-album statements, she's more difficult to pin down. Her humor can move between the slapstick and the wry. She may stage a straightforwardly goofy album cover, or else use musical quotations in performance in a manner that feels both knowing and politically sincere—as with her work in the late Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. That mixture of immediacy and mystery quickly earned Bley a following in the worlds of jazz and new composition, one that has remained ardent over the decades. On 2013’s Trios, Bley took the step of letting in an outside producer—Manfred Eicher, the head of ECM Records (which has distributed Bley’s independent label offerings). That album looked back at some of Bley’s past compositional work with a trio that included her longtime bassist and partner Steve Swallow, as well as saxophonist Andy Sheppard. The same players and producer come together again for Andando el Tiempo, this time to tackle an all-new program of music by Bley, with most of the set devoted to the three-movement composition that gives the album its title. The pianist’s liner notes tell us that sections of this work each “represent stages of recovery from addiction.” Opening track “Sin Fin” finds Bley’s piano spiraling through abstracted tango riffs, her harmonic interplay with the other instruments occupying a frustrated-sounding middle ground, never sounding either totally ebullient or fully despondent. Keening, sorrowful phrases set the tone for a slower middle section, “Potación de Guaya.” The third movement launches with a striking bit of contrast: a joyous sweep of the piano’s keys, suggesting a strutting exit from the world of addiction. (Bley writes that this bit represents a return to “a healthy and sustainable life”). But all is not automatically set to rights by virtue of the narrative arc; staggered bits of phrases, repeated with a stubbornness, suggest the effort that goes into Bley’s happy ending. Not everything on the album is this weighty. When titling “Saints Alive!,” Bley says she was inspired by the “expression used by old ladies sitting on the porch in the cool of the evening when they exchanged especially juicy gossip.” The gently swaying piece doesn’t seem particularly scandalized—instead sounding warmly conversational (especially in the communion between Bley’s chords and Swallow’s tender, high-register bass playing). It seems like a song that might be destined to reach “jazz standard” status, alongside “Ida Lupino,” a few decades down the road. Even when she’s not throttling into avant-garde theatrics (as on her early-career highlight Escalator Over the Hill) or writing music for Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, the casual strangeness of Bley’s aesthetic has been a constant. At 80 years of age, she remains an individual—and still composes like a born melodist, too."

Steve Hauschildt

Strands

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

You don’t come to one of Steve Hauschildt’s records expecting, or even hoping, to be surprised. The Cleveland electronic musician's consistency is one of his great strengths: His synthesizers ripple like a mountain stream at peak snowmelt, and his frictionless pulses represent only the finest qualities of electricity itself. They feel like dreams of a coal- and hydraulic-free future, when mammoth wind turbines and sparkling solar arrays offer the promise of a guilt-free grid. That’s not to say Hauschildt’s sounds or techniques are necessarily very original; he makes no attempt to disguise his debt to artists like Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese, and Manuel Göttsching. But, much as his former band Emeralds did, he has succeeded in taking those influences and spinning them into a fusion that is his alone. Over the course of several albums for Kranky and a handful of CDR and cassette releases, he has channeled those spinning arpeggios into an unmistakable signature. Throughout his solo career, Hauschildt has signaled his disinterest in strictly repeating himself—thus the Vocoder and new wave experiments of Sequitur, and the occasional detour into ambient techno on Where All Is Fled. But it’s worth bearing in mind that Emeralds’ breakup, whatever its ultimate causes, was presaged by the radical shift in sound they took with their final album, 2012’s Just to Feel Anything. And what keeps many listeners coming back to Hauschildt’s records is precisely the promise that each album will sound practically interchangeable with the one that came before—just, perhaps, marginally better. On both of those counts, Strands succeeds, yet it also marks a shift in tone: At just eight tracks and 43 minutes long, it is noticeably more restrained. A few songs could have come from any of his earlier albums: “Same River Twice,” whose title goes to the heart of Hauschildt’s approach, unleashes a dizzying moiré of overlapping pulses—eighth notes, 16th notes, 32nd notes, all spinning like pinwheels whose tips are fixed with tinier pinwheels ad infinitum. But five tracks feature no arpeggios at all, which, given Hauschildt’s previous work, is a little like imagining a Four Tet record with no samples, or an Aphex Twin record with no drum machines. “Transience of Earthly Joys,” in which piano and pipe organ transmute into feedback-ripped synth squalls, has a quiet, blurry calm that's reminiscent of the most ambient moments on Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd’s The Moon and the Melodies. The rich, augmented chords and faintly detuned oscillator voices of “A False Seeming” and the slow, string-like passages of “Time We Have” also recall the The Moon and the Melodies, along with another 4AD album of a similar vintage: Michael Brook and Pieter Nooten’s 1987 album Sleeps With the Fishes, which framed melancholy pop melodies in velvety synthesizers and echoing guitar. In its slowest moments, Hauschildt’s album exudes the same sort of narcotic bliss. At points, it barely resists tipping into the maudlin, but that resistance, that willingness to inch right up to the edge of bathos without falling into it, is part of what makes it so captivating. It’s a bold move, slowing down like he has here. But by taking the emphasis off of rhythm, he allows us to focus instead on the texture of the sounds themselves. His patches are so physical—rasping, buzzing, peeling off like metal shavings—that you can imagine holding them in your hand. They feel like direct extensions of the silicon in the machines that produced them, like the transfiguration of sand into sound.

Artist: Steve Hauschildt, Album: Strands, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "You don’t come to one of Steve Hauschildt’s records expecting, or even hoping, to be surprised. The Cleveland electronic musician's consistency is one of his great strengths: His synthesizers ripple like a mountain stream at peak snowmelt, and his frictionless pulses represent only the finest qualities of electricity itself. They feel like dreams of a coal- and hydraulic-free future, when mammoth wind turbines and sparkling solar arrays offer the promise of a guilt-free grid. That’s not to say Hauschildt’s sounds or techniques are necessarily very original; he makes no attempt to disguise his debt to artists like Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese, and Manuel Göttsching. But, much as his former band Emeralds did, he has succeeded in taking those influences and spinning them into a fusion that is his alone. Over the course of several albums for Kranky and a handful of CDR and cassette releases, he has channeled those spinning arpeggios into an unmistakable signature. Throughout his solo career, Hauschildt has signaled his disinterest in strictly repeating himself—thus the Vocoder and new wave experiments of Sequitur, and the occasional detour into ambient techno on Where All Is Fled. But it’s worth bearing in mind that Emeralds’ breakup, whatever its ultimate causes, was presaged by the radical shift in sound they took with their final album, 2012’s Just to Feel Anything. And what keeps many listeners coming back to Hauschildt’s records is precisely the promise that each album will sound practically interchangeable with the one that came before—just, perhaps, marginally better. On both of those counts, Strands succeeds, yet it also marks a shift in tone: At just eight tracks and 43 minutes long, it is noticeably more restrained. A few songs could have come from any of his earlier albums: “Same River Twice,” whose title goes to the heart of Hauschildt’s approach, unleashes a dizzying moiré of overlapping pulses—eighth notes, 16th notes, 32nd notes, all spinning like pinwheels whose tips are fixed with tinier pinwheels ad infinitum. But five tracks feature no arpeggios at all, which, given Hauschildt’s previous work, is a little like imagining a Four Tet record with no samples, or an Aphex Twin record with no drum machines. “Transience of Earthly Joys,” in which piano and pipe organ transmute into feedback-ripped synth squalls, has a quiet, blurry calm that's reminiscent of the most ambient moments on Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd’s The Moon and the Melodies. The rich, augmented chords and faintly detuned oscillator voices of “A False Seeming” and the slow, string-like passages of “Time We Have” also recall the The Moon and the Melodies, along with another 4AD album of a similar vintage: Michael Brook and Pieter Nooten’s 1987 album Sleeps With the Fishes, which framed melancholy pop melodies in velvety synthesizers and echoing guitar. In its slowest moments, Hauschildt’s album exudes the same sort of narcotic bliss. At points, it barely resists tipping into the maudlin, but that resistance, that willingness to inch right up to the edge of bathos without falling into it, is part of what makes it so captivating. It’s a bold move, slowing down like he has here. But by taking the emphasis off of rhythm, he allows us to focus instead on the texture of the sounds themselves. His patches are so physical—rasping, buzzing, peeling off like metal shavings—that you can imagine holding them in your hand. They feel like direct extensions of the silicon in the machines that produced them, like the transfiguration of sand into sound."

David Grubbs, Mats Gustafsson

Off-Road

Experimental,Jazz

Chris Dahlen

The day Grubbs and Gustafsson spent recording this album must have been like watching kids at a fancy imports-only toy store, playing with high-concept Legos and fragile Scandinavian toys, their heads bowed over the colorful pieces as they studiously assemble warships and dream homes. There's so much concentration on this record, because the musicians don't stop to smile: the six improvised pieces are impressively inventive, yet distractedly serious. This partnership started in the late nineties, when Chicagoan Grubbs met Gustafsson at a Gastr del Sol show. A high-power reedsman from Sweden's AALY Trio, Gustafsson runs with a pack of heavy European players who make regular trips to the Midwest's mecca; as opposed to his rigorously-trained partner, Grubbs is known for playing post-rock, avant-folk and other off-shoots of "rock." The two men recorded an album together in 1999, called Apertura; it was a spontaneous, enraptured hour-long session of slow droning music, and they went on to play gigs that proved haphazard dissections of both resumes. To quote their record label, the shows "wandered from song to free-jazz freakout to tunnel of drone to digital collage to mouthless saxophone and brainless, bruising guitar." You can characterize Off-Road simply as an effort to capture all the facets of the duo's performances, from drawn-out to curious to explosive, every instrument at their disposal thoroughly studied and reinvented. The album starts with its only pure virtuoso moment, Gustafsson putting his tenor through a post-Ayler duck-raping workout. He doesn't so much play as experiment with instruments, using contact mikes to get a stethescope-like view inside his horns. The best example of this closeness is "Dystopian Turboprop", with its elephantine breaths followed by sampled clicking and fluttering-- the clacking of the keys?-- assembled into a sound that, going with the title, resembles a flapping balsa airplane powered by a rubber band. Working on laptop in addition to guitar, Grubbs dominates the samples and processing. Even when they bring in turntablist Henry Moore Selder, he only adds moaning tonearm rumbles; his best work here may be the maracas he plays on "Pumpkin Creek", a simple, tuneful piece built around a folky guitar line. The noises, voices and found sounds that litter the rest of the album come to a head in "Back Off", a dryly humorous freak-out during which a meowing cat and an opera singer face off, as Grubbs and Gustafsson run it across downed power-lines, interjecting tinny drum machines and feedback samples. Still, most of the random sounds on Off-Road are balanced by structure, Grubbs often setting up moods or simple figures they can build on. Off-Road is short, and other improvisers would probably spend three times as long covering the same ground; this probably represents "the best bits" of their work on that one day in the studio, and even though each piece is improvised, they're well defined and separated. On the other hand, without the development that led up to these discoveries, we're missing some important context; the tone falls somewhere between the rigorous studies of a Keith Rowe and the bring-your-flak-jacket playfulness of a Han Bennick. Stuck in the middle, it lacks mood; even as you dig through its nuances, you may appreciate it more than enjoy it, but fans of either performer could find it rewarding. Off-Road isn't a defining statement, but it's a great index to the encyclopedic sound-world of Grubbs and Gustafsson.

Artist: David Grubbs, Mats Gustafsson, Album: Off-Road, Genre: Experimental,Jazz, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "The day Grubbs and Gustafsson spent recording this album must have been like watching kids at a fancy imports-only toy store, playing with high-concept Legos and fragile Scandinavian toys, their heads bowed over the colorful pieces as they studiously assemble warships and dream homes. There's so much concentration on this record, because the musicians don't stop to smile: the six improvised pieces are impressively inventive, yet distractedly serious. This partnership started in the late nineties, when Chicagoan Grubbs met Gustafsson at a Gastr del Sol show. A high-power reedsman from Sweden's AALY Trio, Gustafsson runs with a pack of heavy European players who make regular trips to the Midwest's mecca; as opposed to his rigorously-trained partner, Grubbs is known for playing post-rock, avant-folk and other off-shoots of "rock." The two men recorded an album together in 1999, called Apertura; it was a spontaneous, enraptured hour-long session of slow droning music, and they went on to play gigs that proved haphazard dissections of both resumes. To quote their record label, the shows "wandered from song to free-jazz freakout to tunnel of drone to digital collage to mouthless saxophone and brainless, bruising guitar." You can characterize Off-Road simply as an effort to capture all the facets of the duo's performances, from drawn-out to curious to explosive, every instrument at their disposal thoroughly studied and reinvented. The album starts with its only pure virtuoso moment, Gustafsson putting his tenor through a post-Ayler duck-raping workout. He doesn't so much play as experiment with instruments, using contact mikes to get a stethescope-like view inside his horns. The best example of this closeness is "Dystopian Turboprop", with its elephantine breaths followed by sampled clicking and fluttering-- the clacking of the keys?-- assembled into a sound that, going with the title, resembles a flapping balsa airplane powered by a rubber band. Working on laptop in addition to guitar, Grubbs dominates the samples and processing. Even when they bring in turntablist Henry Moore Selder, he only adds moaning tonearm rumbles; his best work here may be the maracas he plays on "Pumpkin Creek", a simple, tuneful piece built around a folky guitar line. The noises, voices and found sounds that litter the rest of the album come to a head in "Back Off", a dryly humorous freak-out during which a meowing cat and an opera singer face off, as Grubbs and Gustafsson run it across downed power-lines, interjecting tinny drum machines and feedback samples. Still, most of the random sounds on Off-Road are balanced by structure, Grubbs often setting up moods or simple figures they can build on. Off-Road is short, and other improvisers would probably spend three times as long covering the same ground; this probably represents "the best bits" of their work on that one day in the studio, and even though each piece is improvised, they're well defined and separated. On the other hand, without the development that led up to these discoveries, we're missing some important context; the tone falls somewhere between the rigorous studies of a Keith Rowe and the bring-your-flak-jacket playfulness of a Han Bennick. Stuck in the middle, it lacks mood; even as you dig through its nuances, you may appreciate it more than enjoy it, but fans of either performer could find it rewarding. Off-Road isn't a defining statement, but it's a great index to the encyclopedic sound-world of Grubbs and Gustafsson."

Matthew Dear

Leave Luck to Heaven

Electronic

Scott Plagenhoef

Matthew Dear has proven himself one of the more prolific new artists of the year. In 2003 alone, he's released a pair of EPs on Spectral Sound (the more house-oriented arm of Ann Arbor's Ghostly International label), recorded for Richie Hawtin's Plus 8 imprint (as False) and Markus Nikolai's Berlin-based Perlon label (as Jabberjaw), and now finally delivers his debut full-length, Leave Luck to Heaven. It's no wonder that Dear allows his work to be represented by a wide range of labels, from Ghostly's electro-pop, to Plus 8's minimal techno, to Perlon's tech-house-- his music blends elements of each of those genres. So, yeah, more eclecticism, then? Not really, Leave Luck to Heaven is more like alchemy. Instead of genre-hopping from track to track-- substituting some sort of focused vision and sound for a lack of ideas dressed up as a surfeit of them-- Dear boils down his wide-ranging influences and combines elements of his own more catagorizable work. The result is his most satisfying release to date and (along with Ricardo Villalobos' Alcachofa) another techno-dub record that deftly straddles the line between home listening and the dancefloor. Comparisons to Hawtin and Villalobos arguably flatter to deceive at this point in Dear's career, but they're far from unfounded. In a sense, Dear is creating sounds that blend the same elements that Hawtin used as building blocks on his Final Scratch-assisted mix CD Decks, EFX & 909. And, like the Chilean Villalobos, Dear takes cues from the Teutonic trends toward mixing the spatial qualities of dub with traditional house beats while retaining an outsider's ear. As a result, Leave Luck to Heaven is an attractive listen for causal electronic listeners. Its ebb and flow of soothing melodies and lubbing beats-- and its blend of vocal and instrumental tracks-- keeps things lively and creates a sense of balance and dynamics. When the record peaks it's often when Dear stays closer to Detroit techno roots such as the invigorating stripped-and-clipped jaunt of "Just Us Now" or minimal second-wave melody of "The Crush". Elsewhere, gently snapping beats and gracious stabs and eerie washes of synths color Dear's deceptively complex rhythms, creating palpable sensations of tension and release on tracks such as "An Unending" and "You're Fucking Crazy", each of which twitch and hum with hollowed-out nervous energy. The vocal tracks, sung in gentle falsetto, veer closest to machine-age electro and the deep, rolling basslines of Detroit's second-wave techno. They also provide the highlights of the record: "It's Over Now" and "Dog Days". The former brings life during wartime to the disco. It takes the infectious repetition and sense of communality of the dancefloor, and alternates between sarcastically joining calls to arms ("I don't want to feel left out") and hoping that that isn't the bomb that brings us together ("Why can't we work it out?"). "Dog Days" is better still, a flat-out infectious electro-pop gem, a rope-skipping sing-song of synthetic horns, Dear's cyclical vocals and a see-saw of pulsating tones and beats. "Tell another story," Dear repeats, enthusing the beat to go on and on-- which it does for six head-bobbing minutes. It could have gone on for another six. In a year in which Dear has written his share of stories, "Dog Days" is the standout chapter.

Artist: Matthew Dear, Album: Leave Luck to Heaven, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "Matthew Dear has proven himself one of the more prolific new artists of the year. In 2003 alone, he's released a pair of EPs on Spectral Sound (the more house-oriented arm of Ann Arbor's Ghostly International label), recorded for Richie Hawtin's Plus 8 imprint (as False) and Markus Nikolai's Berlin-based Perlon label (as Jabberjaw), and now finally delivers his debut full-length, Leave Luck to Heaven. It's no wonder that Dear allows his work to be represented by a wide range of labels, from Ghostly's electro-pop, to Plus 8's minimal techno, to Perlon's tech-house-- his music blends elements of each of those genres. So, yeah, more eclecticism, then? Not really, Leave Luck to Heaven is more like alchemy. Instead of genre-hopping from track to track-- substituting some sort of focused vision and sound for a lack of ideas dressed up as a surfeit of them-- Dear boils down his wide-ranging influences and combines elements of his own more catagorizable work. The result is his most satisfying release to date and (along with Ricardo Villalobos' Alcachofa) another techno-dub record that deftly straddles the line between home listening and the dancefloor. Comparisons to Hawtin and Villalobos arguably flatter to deceive at this point in Dear's career, but they're far from unfounded. In a sense, Dear is creating sounds that blend the same elements that Hawtin used as building blocks on his Final Scratch-assisted mix CD Decks, EFX & 909. And, like the Chilean Villalobos, Dear takes cues from the Teutonic trends toward mixing the spatial qualities of dub with traditional house beats while retaining an outsider's ear. As a result, Leave Luck to Heaven is an attractive listen for causal electronic listeners. Its ebb and flow of soothing melodies and lubbing beats-- and its blend of vocal and instrumental tracks-- keeps things lively and creates a sense of balance and dynamics. When the record peaks it's often when Dear stays closer to Detroit techno roots such as the invigorating stripped-and-clipped jaunt of "Just Us Now" or minimal second-wave melody of "The Crush". Elsewhere, gently snapping beats and gracious stabs and eerie washes of synths color Dear's deceptively complex rhythms, creating palpable sensations of tension and release on tracks such as "An Unending" and "You're Fucking Crazy", each of which twitch and hum with hollowed-out nervous energy. The vocal tracks, sung in gentle falsetto, veer closest to machine-age electro and the deep, rolling basslines of Detroit's second-wave techno. They also provide the highlights of the record: "It's Over Now" and "Dog Days". The former brings life during wartime to the disco. It takes the infectious repetition and sense of communality of the dancefloor, and alternates between sarcastically joining calls to arms ("I don't want to feel left out") and hoping that that isn't the bomb that brings us together ("Why can't we work it out?"). "Dog Days" is better still, a flat-out infectious electro-pop gem, a rope-skipping sing-song of synthetic horns, Dear's cyclical vocals and a see-saw of pulsating tones and beats. "Tell another story," Dear repeats, enthusing the beat to go on and on-- which it does for six head-bobbing minutes. It could have gone on for another six. In a year in which Dear has written his share of stories, "Dog Days" is the standout chapter."

Tom Waits

Used Songs: 1973-1980

Rock

Luke Buckman

So, here's the question: how do you go from James Taylor comparisons to being mentioned in the same breath as weirdos Harry Partch, Captain Beefheart and William S. Burroughs? And the answer is: I don't know. Ask Tom Waits. He'd probably tip his hat back, mumble some lengthy convoluted story about how he was born in the back of a cab, and go straight into how he was hired for his first paying gig based solely on the shoes he was wearing. After which, he'll most likely break into a wide, toothy grin, scoop up some confetti from his coat pocket and sprinkle it over his head before he vanishes in a cloud of sawdust and smoke. Back before his days as demented carnival barker and the macabre stories of butchers, German dwarves and the Eyeball Kid, Tom Waits was plying his craft as a gravel voiced faux-beat singer plink-plonking his way around a piano and writing songs about hookers, hobos and gangsters. Come to think of it, Waits has been dancing around the same ideas, updating variations on the same characters in his own twisted, offbeat mythologies since the mid-70s. It's just that when 1983 and Swordfishtrombones rolled around the songs transformed into something much more carnival-esque, while the music drifted into the sphere of Partch-like percussion and disjointed guitar riffs. Up to that point, he'd (for the most part) been working with mainly conventional melodies and dipping his fingers into folk, rock and jazz. During that early time, he had a musical persona that was street-smart swagger mixed with affection for all the losers and down-and-outs. Throughout three decades of writing songs, he's always been in touch with society's seedy underbelly, reserving a place in his songs for the downtrodden and the beat. Whether you belong to an underground civilization of dwarves or you're a down-on-his-luck bum sitting in a puddle of rain, you've got a place in Waits' world. What with the drastic musical makeover and label jump in the 80s, a distinctive line was drawn between the later work and the 70s stuff. Ask pretty much any longtime Waits fan what their favorite album is and they might just give you two: one from his early drunken-lounge-singer years and one from his post-1983-metamorphosis into ghoulish Vaudevillian ringleader. All this shifting and change makes it frustratingly impossible to put together a career-spanning single disc retrospective, so what Rhino and Mr. Waits have put together instead is a hodgepodge of tracks from the Elektra/Asylum years. Enough with the introduction, then. Let's get to the meat of the matter. What's the track selection like? Are there rarities? Outtakes and demos? Live obscurities? Well, as the title suggests, Used Songs is an assortment of 16 tracks spanning from Waits' first album, Closing Time, to 1980's Heartattack and Vine. Everything that's to be had here is available on the official releases from the period and much of it's been collected previously on two separate anthologies. So everyone out there holding their breath for unreleased tracks and live-only gems like "Hokey Pokey" and "Trash Day" can keep their fingers crossed for next time. What's obvious on first glance at the song selection is the lack of very early material. Only three tracks from the first three albums appear, while the later albums often get three or four tracks apiece. "Ol' 55," made famous by the Eagles, is the only track on here from Closing Time and it's drastically different than anything else, even though it might be the most recognizable to the Waits novice. It captures Waits in his early years, his voice still smooth, and the comparisons to James Taylor and the singer/songwriters of the period still apt. By the time he'd recorded the rambling small-town beauty of "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night" Waits' voice was already exhibiting signs of the gravel voice that would become so signature to his later sound. The only live track available here is from Nighthawks at the Diner, the in-studio recording documenting Waits' inclination to rambling offbeat stories, which eventually segue into tracks like "Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)." And then, somewhere around 1976, Waits found a new distinctive voice that blended the sprawling myths of American culture and city life with the poetry and swagger of beats like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. If you add to the mix his ability to turn a line, an offbeat sense of humor and an increasing musical vocabulary, the result was something completely enchanting. Tracks like the Elvis-inspired strut of "Burma Shave" or the heartbreaking pair "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" and "Blue Valentines" are windows into American life akin to the heartbreak, desolation and simple warmth of an Edward Hopper painting. In the jazz-poetry goof on the sleazy-salesman's "Step Right Up," Waits spits out a sequence of hilarious one-liners: "It gives you an erection/ It wins the election" or "Change your shorts/ Change your life/ Change your life/ Change into a nine-year old Hindu boy/ Get rid of your wife." An odd inclusion here is the duet with Bette Midler, "I Never Talk to Strangers," from 1977's Foreign Affairs. The track itself is a pretty standard jazz duet, with banter between the two singers exchanged throughout. Even though they're not included here, Waits went on to offer much more successful duets on record, with Crystal Gayle (an even odder choice?) on the soundtrack to One from the Heart. By the time Waits recorded his last album for Asylum in 1980 (Heartattack and Vine), rock was his primary musical influence and he'd almost abandoned the neo-beat persona completely. Bruce Springsteen would later take the sha-la-la's and tenderness of "Jersey Girl" and turn them into a hit. Notice the trend in artists turning Waits-penned tunes into hits. "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" closes the disc. Taken from 1976's Small Change, it's the perfect closer to the album and, in my opinion, the best track available here. A downtrodden tale full of woe and misfortune, it's one of those tracks that puts you right on the barstool, fifth beer in front of you-- a portrait of loneliness and bleakness. It's a harrowing romance from probably the greatest album of Waits' early years, which brings me to my problem with the collection. Small Change is sadly under-represented here, with only the amazing "Step Right Up" and "Tom Traubert's Blues" on the roll call. So, my only complaint about this record is the questionable absence of the gorgeous "Invitation to the Blues." Other than t

Artist: Tom Waits, Album: Used Songs: 1973-1980, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.8 Album review: "So, here's the question: how do you go from James Taylor comparisons to being mentioned in the same breath as weirdos Harry Partch, Captain Beefheart and William S. Burroughs? And the answer is: I don't know. Ask Tom Waits. He'd probably tip his hat back, mumble some lengthy convoluted story about how he was born in the back of a cab, and go straight into how he was hired for his first paying gig based solely on the shoes he was wearing. After which, he'll most likely break into a wide, toothy grin, scoop up some confetti from his coat pocket and sprinkle it over his head before he vanishes in a cloud of sawdust and smoke. Back before his days as demented carnival barker and the macabre stories of butchers, German dwarves and the Eyeball Kid, Tom Waits was plying his craft as a gravel voiced faux-beat singer plink-plonking his way around a piano and writing songs about hookers, hobos and gangsters. Come to think of it, Waits has been dancing around the same ideas, updating variations on the same characters in his own twisted, offbeat mythologies since the mid-70s. It's just that when 1983 and Swordfishtrombones rolled around the songs transformed into something much more carnival-esque, while the music drifted into the sphere of Partch-like percussion and disjointed guitar riffs. Up to that point, he'd (for the most part) been working with mainly conventional melodies and dipping his fingers into folk, rock and jazz. During that early time, he had a musical persona that was street-smart swagger mixed with affection for all the losers and down-and-outs. Throughout three decades of writing songs, he's always been in touch with society's seedy underbelly, reserving a place in his songs for the downtrodden and the beat. Whether you belong to an underground civilization of dwarves or you're a down-on-his-luck bum sitting in a puddle of rain, you've got a place in Waits' world. What with the drastic musical makeover and label jump in the 80s, a distinctive line was drawn between the later work and the 70s stuff. Ask pretty much any longtime Waits fan what their favorite album is and they might just give you two: one from his early drunken-lounge-singer years and one from his post-1983-metamorphosis into ghoulish Vaudevillian ringleader. All this shifting and change makes it frustratingly impossible to put together a career-spanning single disc retrospective, so what Rhino and Mr. Waits have put together instead is a hodgepodge of tracks from the Elektra/Asylum years. Enough with the introduction, then. Let's get to the meat of the matter. What's the track selection like? Are there rarities? Outtakes and demos? Live obscurities? Well, as the title suggests, Used Songs is an assortment of 16 tracks spanning from Waits' first album, Closing Time, to 1980's Heartattack and Vine. Everything that's to be had here is available on the official releases from the period and much of it's been collected previously on two separate anthologies. So everyone out there holding their breath for unreleased tracks and live-only gems like "Hokey Pokey" and "Trash Day" can keep their fingers crossed for next time. What's obvious on first glance at the song selection is the lack of very early material. Only three tracks from the first three albums appear, while the later albums often get three or four tracks apiece. "Ol' 55," made famous by the Eagles, is the only track on here from Closing Time and it's drastically different than anything else, even though it might be the most recognizable to the Waits novice. It captures Waits in his early years, his voice still smooth, and the comparisons to James Taylor and the singer/songwriters of the period still apt. By the time he'd recorded the rambling small-town beauty of "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night" Waits' voice was already exhibiting signs of the gravel voice that would become so signature to his later sound. The only live track available here is from Nighthawks at the Diner, the in-studio recording documenting Waits' inclination to rambling offbeat stories, which eventually segue into tracks like "Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)." And then, somewhere around 1976, Waits found a new distinctive voice that blended the sprawling myths of American culture and city life with the poetry and swagger of beats like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. If you add to the mix his ability to turn a line, an offbeat sense of humor and an increasing musical vocabulary, the result was something completely enchanting. Tracks like the Elvis-inspired strut of "Burma Shave" or the heartbreaking pair "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" and "Blue Valentines" are windows into American life akin to the heartbreak, desolation and simple warmth of an Edward Hopper painting. In the jazz-poetry goof on the sleazy-salesman's "Step Right Up," Waits spits out a sequence of hilarious one-liners: "It gives you an erection/ It wins the election" or "Change your shorts/ Change your life/ Change your life/ Change into a nine-year old Hindu boy/ Get rid of your wife." An odd inclusion here is the duet with Bette Midler, "I Never Talk to Strangers," from 1977's Foreign Affairs. The track itself is a pretty standard jazz duet, with banter between the two singers exchanged throughout. Even though they're not included here, Waits went on to offer much more successful duets on record, with Crystal Gayle (an even odder choice?) on the soundtrack to One from the Heart. By the time Waits recorded his last album for Asylum in 1980 (Heartattack and Vine), rock was his primary musical influence and he'd almost abandoned the neo-beat persona completely. Bruce Springsteen would later take the sha-la-la's and tenderness of "Jersey Girl" and turn them into a hit. Notice the trend in artists turning Waits-penned tunes into hits. "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" closes the disc. Taken from 1976's Small Change, it's the perfect closer to the album and, in my opinion, the best track available here. A downtrodden tale full of woe and misfortune, it's one of those tracks that puts you right on the barstool, fifth beer in front of you-- a portrait of loneliness and bleakness. It's a harrowing romance from probably the greatest album of Waits' early years, which brings me to my problem with the collection. Small Change is sadly under-represented here, with only the amazing "Step Right Up" and "Tom Traubert's Blues" on the roll call. So, my only complaint about this record is the questionable absence of the gorgeous "Invitation to the Blues." Other than t"

Dead Can Dance

Memento

Experimental

Mark Richardson

The much-maligned category "World Music" seems to have been invented for Dead Can Dance. From the beginning, Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard thought of their work in global terms, as music from any latitude and any era was fair game for appropriation and assimilation into their distinctive musical vision. Somehow, because they never lost sight of core aesthetic principals that began with their dark self-titled debut in 1984, their borrowing never seemed displeasingly imperialistic or slanted toward cultural tourism. They cared about the music that interested them and they had an intuitive understanding of how it would fit into the Dead Can Dance project. Representative samples of almost every Dead Can Dance style can be found on this, the fourth Dead Can Dance collection and third since Perry and Gerrard parted ways in 1999. There's the soft, ethereal ambience of "Ariadne" which would really begin to flower when Gerrard turned her attention to film soundtracks. There's the intense, ritualistic Near East vocalizations on "Cantara", which finds Gerrard unleashing the full power of her amazing voice in a cavernous Wall of Sound production driven by tribal drums. "Enigma of the Absolute" from 1985's Spleen and Ideal is an excellent showcase of the band at its most gothic, with the deeply echoing production conjuring images of a medieval cathedral as dusk. Other tracks impress simply with the strength of the tunes. On "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove" Perry seamlessly blends instruments from a handful of different cultures-- sitar, antara, guitar, synth, violin-- and make them work together in a conventionally Western songwriting style that could easily be translated to a rock context. Further into the pure singer-songwriter direction is Perry's voice-and-guitar showcase "American Dreaming", which I remember being on regular rotation on post-Nirvana "alternative" radio in 1995. Though the sonic experience of the band was a large part of their appeal, Dead Can Dance didn't need exotic production to get over. Memento is the fourth Dead Can Dance compilation and the third since Perry and Gerrard parted ways in 1999, but it's the only single-disc set spanning their entire career. Actually, "entire career" is not quite accurate, since it avoids the classically Goth debut album completely and focuses heavily on two early '90s albums that coincided with the band's breakthrough in the United States. Such a focus makes sense considering that Memento was conceived partly as a souvenir for those who came out for their recent reunion tour. Dead Can Dance was an intense band requiring a certain commitment, and for a lot a lot of people 70 minutes of prime music is all they will really need. For them this is definitely the place to start.

Artist: Dead Can Dance, Album: Memento, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "The much-maligned category "World Music" seems to have been invented for Dead Can Dance. From the beginning, Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard thought of their work in global terms, as music from any latitude and any era was fair game for appropriation and assimilation into their distinctive musical vision. Somehow, because they never lost sight of core aesthetic principals that began with their dark self-titled debut in 1984, their borrowing never seemed displeasingly imperialistic or slanted toward cultural tourism. They cared about the music that interested them and they had an intuitive understanding of how it would fit into the Dead Can Dance project. Representative samples of almost every Dead Can Dance style can be found on this, the fourth Dead Can Dance collection and third since Perry and Gerrard parted ways in 1999. There's the soft, ethereal ambience of "Ariadne" which would really begin to flower when Gerrard turned her attention to film soundtracks. There's the intense, ritualistic Near East vocalizations on "Cantara", which finds Gerrard unleashing the full power of her amazing voice in a cavernous Wall of Sound production driven by tribal drums. "Enigma of the Absolute" from 1985's Spleen and Ideal is an excellent showcase of the band at its most gothic, with the deeply echoing production conjuring images of a medieval cathedral as dusk. Other tracks impress simply with the strength of the tunes. On "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove" Perry seamlessly blends instruments from a handful of different cultures-- sitar, antara, guitar, synth, violin-- and make them work together in a conventionally Western songwriting style that could easily be translated to a rock context. Further into the pure singer-songwriter direction is Perry's voice-and-guitar showcase "American Dreaming", which I remember being on regular rotation on post-Nirvana "alternative" radio in 1995. Though the sonic experience of the band was a large part of their appeal, Dead Can Dance didn't need exotic production to get over. Memento is the fourth Dead Can Dance compilation and the third since Perry and Gerrard parted ways in 1999, but it's the only single-disc set spanning their entire career. Actually, "entire career" is not quite accurate, since it avoids the classically Goth debut album completely and focuses heavily on two early '90s albums that coincided with the band's breakthrough in the United States. Such a focus makes sense considering that Memento was conceived partly as a souvenir for those who came out for their recent reunion tour. Dead Can Dance was an intense band requiring a certain commitment, and for a lot a lot of people 70 minutes of prime music is all they will really need. For them this is definitely the place to start."

Kara-Lis Coverdale

Grafts

Electronic

Thea Ballard

Montreal-based composer Kara-Lis Coverdale’s output exists somewhere between computer music and the understated acoustic melancholy of Erik Satie. Trained as a classical pianist, Coverdale began incorporating electronics into her practice while studying music in Ontario, and has since worked with artists including Tim Hecker and LXV. Her music is process-minded but accessible, too, with a habit of remaining understated as it transports the listener to sometimes-dramatic interior landscapes. Though she’s put out a handful of EPs, Grafts feels like a continuation of Coverdale’s 2014 cassette A 480. The five tracks on A 480 were built from a limited library of vocal samples, which were processed and looped into modal compositions—cool, melodic, and structurally simple, but occasionally plunging into extended contemplative passages. Even at its most immersive, that release seemed notable for its boundaries: each track discrete, possessing its own architecture. While nodding back to A 480’s icy samples, the three sections that make up Grafts take a more fluid shape, bleeding into one another to form an arc. The keyboard phrase that opens the release establishes a sober calm, warmed by a border of machine fuzz. It gently stutters as it loops, a base for the wandering free associations of a harpsichord-like sound. Gradually, the piece thickens; the keyboards establish a more insistent pace as other melodic elements wander in and out. Among these are futuristic glitches and shimmers that aren’t far off from the sounds favored by musicians who use computer music to think through digital realities. But Coverdale approaches such elements with an assimilative touch. There’s no novelty in her application of technology, and in particular no sense of detachment about her compositions, however chilled their aesthetics. Indeed, Grafts’ second phase has an aching quality, a rippling sample holding ground while faraway piano chords produce a sort of celestial drama. Coverdale’s music is sometimes described as ambient or drone, but this narrative dynamism suggests otherwise; her sound feels indebted more to an older generation of minimalist composers. Still, the final and longest phase is restful, lingering unhurried on a mellifluous passage. Opening up rather than illustrating as it cycles, it ambivalently taps into internal space. Coverdale has worked as an organist at a handful of churches, including a recent stint at St. John Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Montreal. Her electronics contain shades of the devotional. Some passages—particularly in the first two parts of Grafts—nod to the sweeping tendencies of church music, while others hold space for a more atemporal and vaguely new age-y meditation. With Grafts, Coverdale seems to propose a decidedly agnostic vision of what devotional electronics could mean in our contemporary moment, folding a natural awareness of technology’s forms into music that feels insistently about being present.

Artist: Kara-Lis Coverdale, Album: Grafts, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Montreal-based composer Kara-Lis Coverdale’s output exists somewhere between computer music and the understated acoustic melancholy of Erik Satie. Trained as a classical pianist, Coverdale began incorporating electronics into her practice while studying music in Ontario, and has since worked with artists including Tim Hecker and LXV. Her music is process-minded but accessible, too, with a habit of remaining understated as it transports the listener to sometimes-dramatic interior landscapes. Though she’s put out a handful of EPs, Grafts feels like a continuation of Coverdale’s 2014 cassette A 480. The five tracks on A 480 were built from a limited library of vocal samples, which were processed and looped into modal compositions—cool, melodic, and structurally simple, but occasionally plunging into extended contemplative passages. Even at its most immersive, that release seemed notable for its boundaries: each track discrete, possessing its own architecture. While nodding back to A 480’s icy samples, the three sections that make up Grafts take a more fluid shape, bleeding into one another to form an arc. The keyboard phrase that opens the release establishes a sober calm, warmed by a border of machine fuzz. It gently stutters as it loops, a base for the wandering free associations of a harpsichord-like sound. Gradually, the piece thickens; the keyboards establish a more insistent pace as other melodic elements wander in and out. Among these are futuristic glitches and shimmers that aren’t far off from the sounds favored by musicians who use computer music to think through digital realities. But Coverdale approaches such elements with an assimilative touch. There’s no novelty in her application of technology, and in particular no sense of detachment about her compositions, however chilled their aesthetics. Indeed, Grafts’ second phase has an aching quality, a rippling sample holding ground while faraway piano chords produce a sort of celestial drama. Coverdale’s music is sometimes described as ambient or drone, but this narrative dynamism suggests otherwise; her sound feels indebted more to an older generation of minimalist composers. Still, the final and longest phase is restful, lingering unhurried on a mellifluous passage. Opening up rather than illustrating as it cycles, it ambivalently taps into internal space. Coverdale has worked as an organist at a handful of churches, including a recent stint at St. John Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Montreal. Her electronics contain shades of the devotional. Some passages—particularly in the first two parts of Grafts—nod to the sweeping tendencies of church music, while others hold space for a more atemporal and vaguely new age-y meditation. With Grafts, Coverdale seems to propose a decidedly agnostic vision of what devotional electronics could mean in our contemporary moment, folding a natural awareness of technology’s forms into music that feels insistently about being present."

Kenge Kenge

Introducing Kenge Kenge

Joe Tangari

The Kenyan octet Kenge Kenge makes music that sounds thrillingly new, but it's really as old as the hills of Kenya, or at least the people who live in those hills, the Luo. The band's name is a Luo expression that roughly means "fusion of small, exhilarating instruments," and you have to love any language that has a colloquial expression for something like that. This music sounds for all the world as though it's being created at least partially by electronic means, but there's actually not an electric instrument in earshot on the band's debut album (apart from a bit of bass), which finds them plying a style similar to the driving benga sound that's dominated Kenyan pop music since Daniel Owino Misiani's Shirati Jazz band brought it to national prominence in the late 1960s. The twist here, though, is that benga, which developed over a roughly twenty-year period before becoming a mainstream force, is an electric form centered on the guitar. What the members of Kenge Kenge have done is look at benga, which is still a very popular style in East Africa, and subtract many of the foreign elements that influenced its evolution, including Congolese soukous and South African kwela. That means no electric guitars, or even acoustic guitars. Kenge Kenge have brought out the genre's Luo cultural roots by playing it on traditional regional instruments, including an eight-stringed lyre, a "sound box," a small gong called a nyangile, assorted tuned percussion instruments, and a one-stringed fiddle. The driving rhythm of benga, with all four beats of the measure fully accented, is very much here, but the implication is that the pulse is one part of the overall benga sound that was supplied by traditional Kenyan styles. The lyrics, all in Luo, frequently deal with the subject of dancing, but love songs and praise songs (for both people and animals) are also on tap, and "Piny Agonda" is social commentary to dance to. If the great African styles-- benga, highlife, soukous, kwela, mbalax, juju, apala, Afrobeat, mbaqanga, local hip-hop subgenres, and others-- have much in common, it's probably the tendency to get people dancing to music that tells a story or comments on a the social condition, a descendant of oral history traditions such as West African griots and Ethiopian azmari. This music follows that tendency. The disc's opener, "Kenge Kenge", begins with a modal flute solo before the percussion enters; when the drums do arrive, it's like aliens landing in your Western ears. These drums have extremely distinct pitch and musical tone-- the underlying rhythm of the song is as much a melody as what the fiddle snaking around the vocals plays. The "sound box," as it's credited, produces a piercing tone similar to striking metal with a mallet-- it also calls to mind the amplification of the thumb piano with which DR Congo's Konono No. 1 stormed the world a couple years ago. Lead singer George Achieng sings a series of cascading, fluid phrases over the beat, backed by a constantly repeating, three-part harmony recitation of the title. The beat on "Anyango Mbeo" sounds like a slow drum machine program until you listen closely and realize the subtle differences in each percussive sound and the spaciousness of the recording. Audio illusions such as this abound to tease our rock 'n' roll-trained ears. "Otenga" is a surging dance track that uses the flute as a rhythm instrument and features an odd horn that resembles a distorted percussion instrument. Western listeners accustomed to deliberate variety and song structures shaped by recording formats and commercial radio airplay concerns may find it somewhat difficult to sit still through the disc's full 70 minutes, but it's important to realize that Kenge Kenge are working with a completely different paradigm. With no verse/chorus structure and a tendency toward hypnotic stasis, this is somehow simultaneously folk music and melodic pop music that functions in much the same way that a lot of club music does: It aims to move you and keep you moving, and wants to tell you a story in the bargain. Whatever its musicological place, it does its job well, returning a popular style to its roots and making something new and fresh in the process.

Artist: Kenge Kenge, Album: Introducing Kenge Kenge, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "The Kenyan octet Kenge Kenge makes music that sounds thrillingly new, but it's really as old as the hills of Kenya, or at least the people who live in those hills, the Luo. The band's name is a Luo expression that roughly means "fusion of small, exhilarating instruments," and you have to love any language that has a colloquial expression for something like that. This music sounds for all the world as though it's being created at least partially by electronic means, but there's actually not an electric instrument in earshot on the band's debut album (apart from a bit of bass), which finds them plying a style similar to the driving benga sound that's dominated Kenyan pop music since Daniel Owino Misiani's Shirati Jazz band brought it to national prominence in the late 1960s. The twist here, though, is that benga, which developed over a roughly twenty-year period before becoming a mainstream force, is an electric form centered on the guitar. What the members of Kenge Kenge have done is look at benga, which is still a very popular style in East Africa, and subtract many of the foreign elements that influenced its evolution, including Congolese soukous and South African kwela. That means no electric guitars, or even acoustic guitars. Kenge Kenge have brought out the genre's Luo cultural roots by playing it on traditional regional instruments, including an eight-stringed lyre, a "sound box," a small gong called a nyangile, assorted tuned percussion instruments, and a one-stringed fiddle. The driving rhythm of benga, with all four beats of the measure fully accented, is very much here, but the implication is that the pulse is one part of the overall benga sound that was supplied by traditional Kenyan styles. The lyrics, all in Luo, frequently deal with the subject of dancing, but love songs and praise songs (for both people and animals) are also on tap, and "Piny Agonda" is social commentary to dance to. If the great African styles-- benga, highlife, soukous, kwela, mbalax, juju, apala, Afrobeat, mbaqanga, local hip-hop subgenres, and others-- have much in common, it's probably the tendency to get people dancing to music that tells a story or comments on a the social condition, a descendant of oral history traditions such as West African griots and Ethiopian azmari. This music follows that tendency. The disc's opener, "Kenge Kenge", begins with a modal flute solo before the percussion enters; when the drums do arrive, it's like aliens landing in your Western ears. These drums have extremely distinct pitch and musical tone-- the underlying rhythm of the song is as much a melody as what the fiddle snaking around the vocals plays. The "sound box," as it's credited, produces a piercing tone similar to striking metal with a mallet-- it also calls to mind the amplification of the thumb piano with which DR Congo's Konono No. 1 stormed the world a couple years ago. Lead singer George Achieng sings a series of cascading, fluid phrases over the beat, backed by a constantly repeating, three-part harmony recitation of the title. The beat on "Anyango Mbeo" sounds like a slow drum machine program until you listen closely and realize the subtle differences in each percussive sound and the spaciousness of the recording. Audio illusions such as this abound to tease our rock 'n' roll-trained ears. "Otenga" is a surging dance track that uses the flute as a rhythm instrument and features an odd horn that resembles a distorted percussion instrument. Western listeners accustomed to deliberate variety and song structures shaped by recording formats and commercial radio airplay concerns may find it somewhat difficult to sit still through the disc's full 70 minutes, but it's important to realize that Kenge Kenge are working with a completely different paradigm. With no verse/chorus structure and a tendency toward hypnotic stasis, this is somehow simultaneously folk music and melodic pop music that functions in much the same way that a lot of club music does: It aims to move you and keep you moving, and wants to tell you a story in the bargain. Whatever its musicological place, it does its job well, returning a popular style to its roots and making something new and fresh in the process."

Two Gallants

Two Gallants

Rock

Amanda Petrusich

In 2006, Two Gallants caught a load of shit for re-appropriating "Long Summer Day", an impassioned work-song likely hollered by Texas slaves in the early 20th century and ultimately anthologized in the late 1950s by famed folklorist Alan Lomax. Nothing on the duo's third full-length is as overtly controversial, but there's still plenty of righteous anger. Vocalist/guitarist Adam Stephens' lyrics are ambitious, heady, and riddled with histrionics: Check his earnest references to self-crucifixion, face- and eye-clawing, broken hearts, exploding beauty, tears, drinking, dreams, "boys like me," and, in true emo fashion, dangerous girls: In "Despite What You've Been Told", Stephens perversely declares, "I should set the steel trap of your thighs/ And dive right in." Emo's casual, inadvertent misogyny is well-documented, but Stephens' desperate screeds aren't so much hazardous to women as they are self-flagellating. On paper, Two Gallants is a breakup record of epic proportions, a collection of folk-rock songs exploring the awkward, agonizing aftermath of failed love. It's hard not to cringe when Stephens caws things like, "I'm just as full of hate as I used to be/ But in the hour of my demise/ I'll recall your empty eyes/ You know I died the day you set me free"-- although, truth be told, these are the exact sorts of overblown proclamations that make perfect, stupid sense when you're on the business end of a relationship-ending chat. The sprightly "Miss Meri" indicts grand American hubris, with Stephens spitting caustic barbs ("Same old story, blood, sweat, glory... So-called country men who bless this stolen ground") before chomping down on a harmonica, the classic vehicle for working-class, campfire laments. For the most part, "Miss Meri" summarizes Two Gallants' general approach to music-making: Stephens (oddly credited as Adam Brinkman Stephens Fontaine) bellows impassioned screeds while partner and childhood pal Tyson Vogel (see also: Tyson Dillingham Corvidae) beats perfect rhythms on his drum kit, solemn, intense, and impossibly strident. Musically, Two Gallants offers the same blend of pseudo-Americana the band built its reputation on: a grainy mix of classic blues, folk, and electric guitar. Vocals are mixed high and loud, and Stephens' caterwauls are the most prominent sound here. Opener "The Deader" sees Stephens shouting over curly guitar and some unexpected rhythms; "Despite What You've Been Told" is so comparably spare that it almost feels a capella. There's a certain vocal cadence inherent to the genre that can start to feel awfully repetitive over the course of a full-length LP-- the lyrics never stop, and words keep piling up on top of each other, barely punctuated by instrumentation. The bitterness doesn't help: On "Reflections of the Marionette", Stephens declares, "I don't want to see you fall/ I just want to see you fail," before continuing to chastise his unnamed nemesis for invading his hometown. It's tempting to write Stephens off as self-obsessed (which, in all fairness, places him in a long line of beloved singer-songwriters, from Bob Dylan on), but nonetheless, there are some compelling melodies here and more than enough commitment.

Artist: Two Gallants, Album: Two Gallants, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "In 2006, Two Gallants caught a load of shit for re-appropriating "Long Summer Day", an impassioned work-song likely hollered by Texas slaves in the early 20th century and ultimately anthologized in the late 1950s by famed folklorist Alan Lomax. Nothing on the duo's third full-length is as overtly controversial, but there's still plenty of righteous anger. Vocalist/guitarist Adam Stephens' lyrics are ambitious, heady, and riddled with histrionics: Check his earnest references to self-crucifixion, face- and eye-clawing, broken hearts, exploding beauty, tears, drinking, dreams, "boys like me," and, in true emo fashion, dangerous girls: In "Despite What You've Been Told", Stephens perversely declares, "I should set the steel trap of your thighs/ And dive right in." Emo's casual, inadvertent misogyny is well-documented, but Stephens' desperate screeds aren't so much hazardous to women as they are self-flagellating. On paper, Two Gallants is a breakup record of epic proportions, a collection of folk-rock songs exploring the awkward, agonizing aftermath of failed love. It's hard not to cringe when Stephens caws things like, "I'm just as full of hate as I used to be/ But in the hour of my demise/ I'll recall your empty eyes/ You know I died the day you set me free"-- although, truth be told, these are the exact sorts of overblown proclamations that make perfect, stupid sense when you're on the business end of a relationship-ending chat. The sprightly "Miss Meri" indicts grand American hubris, with Stephens spitting caustic barbs ("Same old story, blood, sweat, glory... So-called country men who bless this stolen ground") before chomping down on a harmonica, the classic vehicle for working-class, campfire laments. For the most part, "Miss Meri" summarizes Two Gallants' general approach to music-making: Stephens (oddly credited as Adam Brinkman Stephens Fontaine) bellows impassioned screeds while partner and childhood pal Tyson Vogel (see also: Tyson Dillingham Corvidae) beats perfect rhythms on his drum kit, solemn, intense, and impossibly strident. Musically, Two Gallants offers the same blend of pseudo-Americana the band built its reputation on: a grainy mix of classic blues, folk, and electric guitar. Vocals are mixed high and loud, and Stephens' caterwauls are the most prominent sound here. Opener "The Deader" sees Stephens shouting over curly guitar and some unexpected rhythms; "Despite What You've Been Told" is so comparably spare that it almost feels a capella. There's a certain vocal cadence inherent to the genre that can start to feel awfully repetitive over the course of a full-length LP-- the lyrics never stop, and words keep piling up on top of each other, barely punctuated by instrumentation. The bitterness doesn't help: On "Reflections of the Marionette", Stephens declares, "I don't want to see you fall/ I just want to see you fail," before continuing to chastise his unnamed nemesis for invading his hometown. It's tempting to write Stephens off as self-obsessed (which, in all fairness, places him in a long line of beloved singer-songwriters, from Bob Dylan on), but nonetheless, there are some compelling melodies here and more than enough commitment."

Carter Tutti

Carter Tutti Plays Chris & Cosey

Experimental

Nick Neyland

The past is so present in today's musical landscape that you can easily connect the dots when an artist looks backwards. A greatest-hits tour on its third go-around or a lengthy set of dates performing a single album from start to finish—both reek of good ideas gone stale, or some form of stasis winning out over creative urges. The difference between a cash grab and a victory lap feels ever more slight. Of course, it’s not always that way. There’s even something to be said for artists approaching their back catalog with a sort of humorous disdain. In the late 1980s, art-punks Wire reformed, only to announce they wouldn’t play any of their older material, instead hiring a cover band, the Ex-Lion Tamers, to perform that function in the opening slot of their shows. The approach Wire took for those concerts—essentially not giving fans what they want, even actively antagonizing them—is a feeling with which Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, founding members of industrial behemoths Throbbing Gristle, are acutely familiar. These are people, after all, who were once deemed the "wreckers of civilisation." Carter Tutti have been addressing their past, in various tours and reissue programs, for more than 10 years at this point. Their path through it is often inspired, with the dissolution of the reunited Throbbing Gristle leading to the excellent X-TG album. In tandem, their brittle electronic music as Chris & Cosey began to cast a long influence over body music-inspired artists such as Factory Floor, culminating in a fully energized collaboration with that band’s Nik Colk Void. Since 2011, the pair have been sporadically playing dates where they take a fresh approach to the Chris & Cosey material, stripping it of the production trappings of the various eras they draw on, instead replacing it with something tougher and far more impactful. This is the recorded document to accompany those shows, put together in Carter Tutti’s studio in the English countryside. It’s a sound that meshes elements of their past lives—the fussy electronics speak of Carter’s career as a synth boffin and TV sound engineer, while the pulsing backing and breathy vocals hark to Tutti’s work as a stripper. Tutti even recalled as much in a recent Wire interview. "I was bringing back things like Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder from my stripping," she said, of Throbbing Gristle’s attempted turn to that sound. Carter Tutti Plays Chris & Cosey illustrates the extent to which Carter Tutti are still enamored with dousing raw electronics in a seedy, heavily sexualized tone. Much of the album moves at a trance-like pace, strung somewhere between something you can either dance to or zone out on. The opening "Lost Bliss" (from Megatropolis) and "Driving Blind" (from Songs of Love & Lust) are highlights, bringing in a pop edge and much fuller production than the originals—a signature strung throughout most of these reworkings. It’s possible to hear legions of electronic acts from the past decade or so in here, including Zola Jesus, Ladytron, even Fischerspooner, making it easy to conclude that Tutti’s vocal style—masterfully disengaged no matter what the subject matter—might be one of the great unheralded influences of the 2000s. It’s not hard to see why the Carter Tutti/Factory Floor relationship flourished so fruitfully when working through this material. Both work from a starting point that’s largely unmoveable—rippling Moroder electronics, a pinch of dance culture that’s more observatory than participatory—and drive their point into the ground over the course of an album. The shift from "Beatbeatbeat" (from Exotica) to "Workout" (a 1987 single) highlights how they build with remarkably similar tools then subtly corrupt the formula from within. "Workout" is wonderfully obliterated by Tutti’s railroad guitar lines, which butt up against chunky synth patterns that divert close to the whiteout assault of 808 State’s "In Yer Face" (a track actually released a few years after "Workout"). Overhauling prior work may not be the most unique tool in the backward facing bandwagon of old lags giving the circuit one last run-around. But the difference with Plays Chris & Cosey is of a duo pushing beyond what came before instead of resting too heavily on things that already exist, in much the same way as it was in the general atmosphere of the X-TG album. They make revisiting the past sound like a creative place to be, where latent potential is given some room to breathe in the noxious, leather-fueled atmosphere of these songs. An important aspect, perhaps, is that Carter Tutti have myriad contemporary projects they’re working on at the same time as addressing material like this. As such, this record reads like an object lesson in how former glories are sometime best served by becoming a malleable part of the present.

Artist: Carter Tutti, Album: Carter Tutti Plays Chris & Cosey, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "The past is so present in today's musical landscape that you can easily connect the dots when an artist looks backwards. A greatest-hits tour on its third go-around or a lengthy set of dates performing a single album from start to finish—both reek of good ideas gone stale, or some form of stasis winning out over creative urges. The difference between a cash grab and a victory lap feels ever more slight. Of course, it’s not always that way. There’s even something to be said for artists approaching their back catalog with a sort of humorous disdain. In the late 1980s, art-punks Wire reformed, only to announce they wouldn’t play any of their older material, instead hiring a cover band, the Ex-Lion Tamers, to perform that function in the opening slot of their shows. The approach Wire took for those concerts—essentially not giving fans what they want, even actively antagonizing them—is a feeling with which Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, founding members of industrial behemoths Throbbing Gristle, are acutely familiar. These are people, after all, who were once deemed the "wreckers of civilisation." Carter Tutti have been addressing their past, in various tours and reissue programs, for more than 10 years at this point. Their path through it is often inspired, with the dissolution of the reunited Throbbing Gristle leading to the excellent X-TG album. In tandem, their brittle electronic music as Chris & Cosey began to cast a long influence over body music-inspired artists such as Factory Floor, culminating in a fully energized collaboration with that band’s Nik Colk Void. Since 2011, the pair have been sporadically playing dates where they take a fresh approach to the Chris & Cosey material, stripping it of the production trappings of the various eras they draw on, instead replacing it with something tougher and far more impactful. This is the recorded document to accompany those shows, put together in Carter Tutti’s studio in the English countryside. It’s a sound that meshes elements of their past lives—the fussy electronics speak of Carter’s career as a synth boffin and TV sound engineer, while the pulsing backing and breathy vocals hark to Tutti’s work as a stripper. Tutti even recalled as much in a recent Wire interview. "I was bringing back things like Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder from my stripping," she said, of Throbbing Gristle’s attempted turn to that sound. Carter Tutti Plays Chris & Cosey illustrates the extent to which Carter Tutti are still enamored with dousing raw electronics in a seedy, heavily sexualized tone. Much of the album moves at a trance-like pace, strung somewhere between something you can either dance to or zone out on. The opening "Lost Bliss" (from Megatropolis) and "Driving Blind" (from Songs of Love & Lust) are highlights, bringing in a pop edge and much fuller production than the originals—a signature strung throughout most of these reworkings. It’s possible to hear legions of electronic acts from the past decade or so in here, including Zola Jesus, Ladytron, even Fischerspooner, making it easy to conclude that Tutti’s vocal style—masterfully disengaged no matter what the subject matter—might be one of the great unheralded influences of the 2000s. It’s not hard to see why the Carter Tutti/Factory Floor relationship flourished so fruitfully when working through this material. Both work from a starting point that’s largely unmoveable—rippling Moroder electronics, a pinch of dance culture that’s more observatory than participatory—and drive their point into the ground over the course of an album. The shift from "Beatbeatbeat" (from Exotica) to "Workout" (a 1987 single) highlights how they build with remarkably similar tools then subtly corrupt the formula from within. "Workout" is wonderfully obliterated by Tutti’s railroad guitar lines, which butt up against chunky synth patterns that divert close to the whiteout assault of 808 State’s "In Yer Face" (a track actually released a few years after "Workout"). Overhauling prior work may not be the most unique tool in the backward facing bandwagon of old lags giving the circuit one last run-around. But the difference with Plays Chris & Cosey is of a duo pushing beyond what came before instead of resting too heavily on things that already exist, in much the same way as it was in the general atmosphere of the X-TG album. They make revisiting the past sound like a creative place to be, where latent potential is given some room to breathe in the noxious, leather-fueled atmosphere of these songs. An important aspect, perhaps, is that Carter Tutti have myriad contemporary projects they’re working on at the same time as addressing material like this. As such, this record reads like an object lesson in how former glories are sometime best served by becoming a malleable part of the present."

Pixies

Complete B-Sides

Rock

Ryan Kearney

This review was as good as written ten years ago, since by then, all of these songs had already entered the short canon of music memorized by my adolescent mind. As I acquired every new piece of Pixies material, I saw songs by other bands expunged from my cramped brain. As I absorbed "In Heaven", Big Black's "The Model" all but disappeared; "Into the White" burst in, Dinosaur Jr's "Freak Scene" ran screaming. I distinctly remember R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" getting the boot from, of all songs, "Winterlong". And these are just the b-sides. I think it goes without saying that the Pixies' b-sides don't make for an average, run-of-the-mill outtakes compilation, as many of the songs are almost or equally as radiant as the more fortunate tracks that made it to the five classics between 1987 and 1991. And if nothing else, this release proves that, like Dylan in the 60s and Brian Eno in the 70s, the Pixies were the blinding visionaries of the 80s. Virtually everything they touched was groundbreaking and revelatory, leaving one to wish they could only have touched more. Although Complete B-Sides isn't actually totally complete, leaving out live versions of "Planet of Sound" and "Tame" from an alternate "Alec Eiffel" single, everything else is here: 19 tracks, amounting to 48 minutes of music. The disc also features classic videos of "Here Comes Your Man" and "Allison" (though the wind-tunneled "Alec Eiffel" is curiously absent), as well as enlightening, albeit short liner notes for each song. And because 4AD is an intelligent label, Complete B-Sides is sequenced chronologically. The tracklist is exactly what you'd get if you burned the singles for "Gigantic", "Monkey Gone to Heaven", "Here Comes Your Man", "Velouria", "Dig for Fire", "Planet of Sound", and "Alec Eiffel" to CDR, in that exact order, minus the album track that opens each disc. An alternate take of Surfer Rosa's "River Euphrates" opens the record with nearly a minute of Joey Santiago's guitar antics, as well as a dynamic ending which replaces the fade-out of the original. "Vamos", which appeared on both Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, was always a live favorite and usually their set closer: between lead singer Black Francis' yelping and Santiago's brutal guitar torturing, this live version is as explosive as they come. But Complete B-Sides truly takes off with one of the best under-two-minute songs ever: a live cover of "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)" from David Lynch's Eraserhead. Often their encore, the song grows gradually louder and louder, ending with one of the band's most cathartic moments on record. The disc moves from Surfer Rosa-era to Doolittle with "Manta Ray", a classic Pixies head-bobber boasting Mexican-style guitar strumming and quick, two-note drumming. "Weird at My School", as Black accurately notes, spotlight the "hyperness" that defined so much of the Pixies' work. "Dancing the Manta Ray", meanwhile, shows the band's surf-rock tendencies, as does the sublime "Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)". "Into the White" follows with a killer bassline and Kim Deal's breathy vocals; the perfect balance of tension and release, and one of the real standouts here. The Doolittle era concludes with "Bailey's Walk", one of the Pixies' slowest and weirdest songs, featuring Black Francis in fractured and tortured yowls. The Bossanova b-sides open with drummer David Lovering's tepid ode to Debbie Gibson, "Make Believe", followed by Deal's beautiful cover of Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting for You". After "The Thing" (essentially an outtake from a section of "The Happening"), we're offered a driving instrumental Frank Black wrote at 15. And the era's rounded out by another gorgeous Neil Young cover ("Winterlong") and "Santo", another slow, chanty number straight out of a bar scene in El Paso, 1864. "Theme from 'Narc'", the first track from the Trompe le Monde years, is just that-- a cover of the theme song from the "Narc" video game. It's another adrenaline-pumping instrumental, displaying the raw, interstellar quality that characterized Trompe le Monde. "Build High" works as a kind of south-of-the-border space-jam, and on the Spanish-sung Graham Gouldman cover, "Evil Hearted You"-- as with the instrumental version of "Letter to Memphis", which closes the record-- the guitar mimics the lyrics so well you can almost hear the ghost of Black Francis departing. When I bought this album the other day, wearing my Pixies shirt by coincidence (I swear!), the shave-headed girl behind the counter said, "Nice shirt. I love the Pixies." I told her that I already owned all these songs, but just had to buy the album, anyway. "Oh, really," she said cautiously, as though there were something pathetic about that. "Maybe there is," I later thought to myself. But then I looked at my tattered Pixies shirt, so beaten and worn it was practically falling off my body, and I thought otherwise. Like the music itself, which remains as vital and exciting as it was upon the day of its release, I'll never let this shirt go. Some things you just keep around to remind you of your first true love.

Artist: Pixies, Album: Complete B-Sides, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 9.6 Album review: "This review was as good as written ten years ago, since by then, all of these songs had already entered the short canon of music memorized by my adolescent mind. As I acquired every new piece of Pixies material, I saw songs by other bands expunged from my cramped brain. As I absorbed "In Heaven", Big Black's "The Model" all but disappeared; "Into the White" burst in, Dinosaur Jr's "Freak Scene" ran screaming. I distinctly remember R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" getting the boot from, of all songs, "Winterlong". And these are just the b-sides. I think it goes without saying that the Pixies' b-sides don't make for an average, run-of-the-mill outtakes compilation, as many of the songs are almost or equally as radiant as the more fortunate tracks that made it to the five classics between 1987 and 1991. And if nothing else, this release proves that, like Dylan in the 60s and Brian Eno in the 70s, the Pixies were the blinding visionaries of the 80s. Virtually everything they touched was groundbreaking and revelatory, leaving one to wish they could only have touched more. Although Complete B-Sides isn't actually totally complete, leaving out live versions of "Planet of Sound" and "Tame" from an alternate "Alec Eiffel" single, everything else is here: 19 tracks, amounting to 48 minutes of music. The disc also features classic videos of "Here Comes Your Man" and "Allison" (though the wind-tunneled "Alec Eiffel" is curiously absent), as well as enlightening, albeit short liner notes for each song. And because 4AD is an intelligent label, Complete B-Sides is sequenced chronologically. The tracklist is exactly what you'd get if you burned the singles for "Gigantic", "Monkey Gone to Heaven", "Here Comes Your Man", "Velouria", "Dig for Fire", "Planet of Sound", and "Alec Eiffel" to CDR, in that exact order, minus the album track that opens each disc. An alternate take of Surfer Rosa's "River Euphrates" opens the record with nearly a minute of Joey Santiago's guitar antics, as well as a dynamic ending which replaces the fade-out of the original. "Vamos", which appeared on both Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, was always a live favorite and usually their set closer: between lead singer Black Francis' yelping and Santiago's brutal guitar torturing, this live version is as explosive as they come. But Complete B-Sides truly takes off with one of the best under-two-minute songs ever: a live cover of "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)" from David Lynch's Eraserhead. Often their encore, the song grows gradually louder and louder, ending with one of the band's most cathartic moments on record. The disc moves from Surfer Rosa-era to Doolittle with "Manta Ray", a classic Pixies head-bobber boasting Mexican-style guitar strumming and quick, two-note drumming. "Weird at My School", as Black accurately notes, spotlight the "hyperness" that defined so much of the Pixies' work. "Dancing the Manta Ray", meanwhile, shows the band's surf-rock tendencies, as does the sublime "Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)". "Into the White" follows with a killer bassline and Kim Deal's breathy vocals; the perfect balance of tension and release, and one of the real standouts here. The Doolittle era concludes with "Bailey's Walk", one of the Pixies' slowest and weirdest songs, featuring Black Francis in fractured and tortured yowls. The Bossanova b-sides open with drummer David Lovering's tepid ode to Debbie Gibson, "Make Believe", followed by Deal's beautiful cover of Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting for You". After "The Thing" (essentially an outtake from a section of "The Happening"), we're offered a driving instrumental Frank Black wrote at 15. And the era's rounded out by another gorgeous Neil Young cover ("Winterlong") and "Santo", another slow, chanty number straight out of a bar scene in El Paso, 1864. "Theme from 'Narc'", the first track from the Trompe le Monde years, is just that-- a cover of the theme song from the "Narc" video game. It's another adrenaline-pumping instrumental, displaying the raw, interstellar quality that characterized Trompe le Monde. "Build High" works as a kind of south-of-the-border space-jam, and on the Spanish-sung Graham Gouldman cover, "Evil Hearted You"-- as with the instrumental version of "Letter to Memphis", which closes the record-- the guitar mimics the lyrics so well you can almost hear the ghost of Black Francis departing. When I bought this album the other day, wearing my Pixies shirt by coincidence (I swear!), the shave-headed girl behind the counter said, "Nice shirt. I love the Pixies." I told her that I already owned all these songs, but just had to buy the album, anyway. "Oh, really," she said cautiously, as though there were something pathetic about that. "Maybe there is," I later thought to myself. But then I looked at my tattered Pixies shirt, so beaten and worn it was practically falling off my body, and I thought otherwise. Like the music itself, which remains as vital and exciting as it was upon the day of its release, I'll never let this shirt go. Some things you just keep around to remind you of your first true love."

Various Artists

Dreamville II: Revenge of the Dreamers

Paul A. Thompson

If nothing else, J. Cole has made it abundantly clear that he wants to be judged alongside rap's all-time greats. So let's do that: Revenge of the Dreamers II, the new nine-song compilation from his Interscope imprint, Dreamville Records, is not The *Dynasty—*it doesn't have the color, the heart-wrenching personal asides, the 1-900 numbers that teach you how to sell crack. Nor does it have the slick condescension of any Bad Boy collaboration, the virtuosity of Soundbombing, the knowing sneer of anything the Diplomats made on their worst day. The problem with Revenge of the Dreamers II, beyond the absence of a "This Can't Be Life" or a "Dipset Anthem," is the same as the problem with much of Cole's solo catalog: In his desperation to be canonized beside his idols, he shies away from the risks they took to earn those spots. His performance on a song-by-song basis from his debut, Cole World: The Sideline Story, to last December's 2014 Forest Hills Drive oscillates wildly, but never shakes the feeling that it's checking boxes, doing X because Kanye did and Y because Pac did. Take the opener, "Folgers Crystals," where Cole compares himself to Bob Marley and Nat Turner in the first handful of bars. In many ways, his background is remarkable; the Fayetteville, N.C. native has detailed his experiences in schools with various socioeconomic makeups, including his time at St. John's University in New York. (As always, his rapping on Revenge owes more to the latter locale.) His plan to turn his childhood home—on Forest Hills Drive—into a shelter where single mothers can live rent-free is not just admirable, but is a sincere, inspired way to alleviate the conditions he grew up in and around. But in Cole's more serious writing, most of that personal touch is filtered out, replaced by blunt aphorisms: "'Cause still I rise, it's ill-advised to bet against him/ Raised in hell but heaven sent him/ Let 'em diss him." That kind of toothless penmanship might slide if it weren't delivered so deliberately. Cole's always been at his best when the stakes are low, or at least self-contained; when he's rapping for its own sake, or reveling in the fact that he signed his friends ("Night Job"), he can be a well above-average technician. (To be fair, that song is nearly derailed when he says he's "Horny like that Coltrane album," one of a handful of sex-centric bars that he and his Queens-bred signee Bas inexplicably cling to.) But when he's moralizing or getting somber, it's robotic, as with "Caged Bird"'s refrain, "Freedom's just an illusion/ That's my conclusion." On "Crystals," he punctuates a particularly intense, clumsy passage with, "So you can take my cock and chew on it," a line that needs a wink or some levity to redeem itself, but is given neither. Fumbled legacy-building though it is, Dreamers is not without its bright spots. The tape introduces the label's two newest signees: the Washington, D.C.-bred singer Ari Lennox and lute, a rapper from Charlotte who joins Cole in representing North Carolina. Each artist contributes one song here, both of which are among the best on the tape; lute's Dilla-cribbing "Still Slummin" in particular is superb, throwing you immediately into his world ("Took off my work badge, realized I'm back in the hood") and dispensing plaintive, delightfully un-cinematic notes: "Lost more friends to bullshit than a bullet." Lennox's introduction comes in the form of "Backseat," a song that racked up tens of thousands of plays between its October 2014 release and when it was scrubbed from the Internet last month. It's a knowing, slinking cut that succeeds on almost every front: fun, warm, a little sleazy. Cozz, the Los Angeles rapper who inked his Dreamville deal last year, updates the single with an uncharacteristically flat verse; fortunately, his later contributions to the tape, "Tabs" and especially the introspective closer "Grow," are excellent. (His pre-Interscope singles "Dreams" and "I Need That" remain two of the most delightfully menacing street rap songs of the past several years.) Bas—whose braying "Housewives" is the weakest cut by a country mile—is joined in Dreamville's relative old guard by Omen, a Chicago native. He and Cole mostly sleepwalk through "Caged Bird," but his headlining song, the Donnie Trumpet-assisted "48 Laws," is a welcome contrast; Omen finds the kind of pocket that always seems to elude his more famous partner, and it makes for a sleek, collected track that feels immediately more vibrant than any of the tape's weightier material. And that, in many respects, is Revenge of the Dreamers II: compelling when its focus is at its most narrow, leaden and impersonal when it reaches for the Very Serious and Very Important. It's like Bleek said: "The strong move quiet, the weak start riots/ We know you got a brick but sell 'em 20s 'til they tired."

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Dreamville II: Revenge of the Dreamers, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "If nothing else, J. Cole has made it abundantly clear that he wants to be judged alongside rap's all-time greats. So let's do that: Revenge of the Dreamers II, the new nine-song compilation from his Interscope imprint, Dreamville Records, is not The *Dynasty—*it doesn't have the color, the heart-wrenching personal asides, the 1-900 numbers that teach you how to sell crack. Nor does it have the slick condescension of any Bad Boy collaboration, the virtuosity of Soundbombing, the knowing sneer of anything the Diplomats made on their worst day. The problem with Revenge of the Dreamers II, beyond the absence of a "This Can't Be Life" or a "Dipset Anthem," is the same as the problem with much of Cole's solo catalog: In his desperation to be canonized beside his idols, he shies away from the risks they took to earn those spots. His performance on a song-by-song basis from his debut, Cole World: The Sideline Story, to last December's 2014 Forest Hills Drive oscillates wildly, but never shakes the feeling that it's checking boxes, doing X because Kanye did and Y because Pac did. Take the opener, "Folgers Crystals," where Cole compares himself to Bob Marley and Nat Turner in the first handful of bars. In many ways, his background is remarkable; the Fayetteville, N.C. native has detailed his experiences in schools with various socioeconomic makeups, including his time at St. John's University in New York. (As always, his rapping on Revenge owes more to the latter locale.) His plan to turn his childhood home—on Forest Hills Drive—into a shelter where single mothers can live rent-free is not just admirable, but is a sincere, inspired way to alleviate the conditions he grew up in and around. But in Cole's more serious writing, most of that personal touch is filtered out, replaced by blunt aphorisms: "'Cause still I rise, it's ill-advised to bet against him/ Raised in hell but heaven sent him/ Let 'em diss him." That kind of toothless penmanship might slide if it weren't delivered so deliberately. Cole's always been at his best when the stakes are low, or at least self-contained; when he's rapping for its own sake, or reveling in the fact that he signed his friends ("Night Job"), he can be a well above-average technician. (To be fair, that song is nearly derailed when he says he's "Horny like that Coltrane album," one of a handful of sex-centric bars that he and his Queens-bred signee Bas inexplicably cling to.) But when he's moralizing or getting somber, it's robotic, as with "Caged Bird"'s refrain, "Freedom's just an illusion/ That's my conclusion." On "Crystals," he punctuates a particularly intense, clumsy passage with, "So you can take my cock and chew on it," a line that needs a wink or some levity to redeem itself, but is given neither. Fumbled legacy-building though it is, Dreamers is not without its bright spots. The tape introduces the label's two newest signees: the Washington, D.C.-bred singer Ari Lennox and lute, a rapper from Charlotte who joins Cole in representing North Carolina. Each artist contributes one song here, both of which are among the best on the tape; lute's Dilla-cribbing "Still Slummin" in particular is superb, throwing you immediately into his world ("Took off my work badge, realized I'm back in the hood") and dispensing plaintive, delightfully un-cinematic notes: "Lost more friends to bullshit than a bullet." Lennox's introduction comes in the form of "Backseat," a song that racked up tens of thousands of plays between its October 2014 release and when it was scrubbed from the Internet last month. It's a knowing, slinking cut that succeeds on almost every front: fun, warm, a little sleazy. Cozz, the Los Angeles rapper who inked his Dreamville deal last year, updates the single with an uncharacteristically flat verse; fortunately, his later contributions to the tape, "Tabs" and especially the introspective closer "Grow," are excellent. (His pre-Interscope singles "Dreams" and "I Need That" remain two of the most delightfully menacing street rap songs of the past several years.) Bas—whose braying "Housewives" is the weakest cut by a country mile—is joined in Dreamville's relative old guard by Omen, a Chicago native. He and Cole mostly sleepwalk through "Caged Bird," but his headlining song, the Donnie Trumpet-assisted "48 Laws," is a welcome contrast; Omen finds the kind of pocket that always seems to elude his more famous partner, and it makes for a sleek, collected track that feels immediately more vibrant than any of the tape's weightier material. And that, in many respects, is Revenge of the Dreamers II: compelling when its focus is at its most narrow, leaden and impersonal when it reaches for the Very Serious and Very Important. It's like Bleek said: "The strong move quiet, the weak start riots/ We know you got a brick but sell 'em 20s 'til they tired.""

Alan Sparhawk

Solo Guitar

Rock

Jason Crock

All great guitarists obviously go to hell. Robert Johnson set the precedent. You thought Steve Vai was acting in Crossroads? He's recording a tribute album for displaced Sudanese right this second to try and stave off the inevitable. In the pit, down there, in a room with no light, Django Reinhardt is forced to play non-stop while a drop of water falls on his forehead every other minute, for the rest of eternity. Link Wray is being flagellated with his guitar still in hand, while hundreds of expired Gen-X-ers clamor from all sides, begging him to him play the "Pulp Fiction Song" one more time. And Alan Sparhawk can hear all of it. Calling your record Solo Guitar calls some unfortunate and maybe indulgent preconceptions to mind, but if you recognize Sparhawk's name from his day job as frontman for the infamously minimal Low, all those notions fall away. There's no noodling to be heard here, despite calling one track "Eruption by Eddie Van Halen". (Let no one accuse Sparhawk of lacking a sense of humor.) It's a little more like the finale to Low's "Do You Know How to Waltz?" stretched for 45 minutes-- and much, much scarier. Solo Guitar has less in common with Van Halen than it does with Drum's Not Dead, as Sparhawk tries to move past where music pokes at well-worn emotional centers within us and starts shifting the physical space around us. Since it's just one man on guitar (in case the title didn't clue you in), that's quite the uphill crawl. Every note has a precedent, has been played a thousand different ways through a thousand different pedals-- getting a "new" sound is hard. But, to hammer a cliche, it's the space around the notes: all the dark, industrial corners of Sparhawk's sweetest Low songs take full court, like the dream of his band evaporating into the blackness of sleep. Any note Sparhawk hits is just to shove at that blackness, pushing it into an interesting corner. "How the Weather Comes Over the Central Hillside" starts with a few discernible chords and what almost sounds like a bow hitting the strings, but the fog of distortion and reverb drown out any traces of a corporeal trigger. Sparhawk mostly aims for a sound bigger than himself. Later, the 13-minute "Sagrado Corazon de Jesu (second attempt)"-- the first attempt being much more brief-- will spiral out of his hands as three distorted notes are plucked, looped, echoed, and eventually pierced by what sounds like high-pitched surf guitar with its flesh torn off in its final minutes. He imitates more recognizable (but no less abrasive) sounds with the grinding metal screech of "How the Weather Hits the Freighter..." and the rattling reverberation of "How the Engine Room Sounds". The cheekily-titled "Eruption" brings it back to man-with-guitar as Sparhawk makes the same spastic fretboard leaps of Van Halen without any of the discernible space between notes. The Low frontman's played disembodied-force-of-nature pretty well thus far, but it's not hard to project a more human smirk on him here. Everything Sparhawk tries is pretty successful with a pretty constrained pallette of sounds, from the screeching of "Frieghter" to the more watery Low-friendly tones of "How It Ends", and not much in between. Don't play it at your next party, but put it on it if you want to feel something else immediately: like, uncomfortable. Or overwhelmed. Or whatever Sparhawk felt when he thought this needed to be communicated to others. Something big is coming through these speakers, twisting at the most unexpected moments and changing the air just enough for you to notice.

Artist: Alan Sparhawk, Album: Solo Guitar, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "All great guitarists obviously go to hell. Robert Johnson set the precedent. You thought Steve Vai was acting in Crossroads? He's recording a tribute album for displaced Sudanese right this second to try and stave off the inevitable. In the pit, down there, in a room with no light, Django Reinhardt is forced to play non-stop while a drop of water falls on his forehead every other minute, for the rest of eternity. Link Wray is being flagellated with his guitar still in hand, while hundreds of expired Gen-X-ers clamor from all sides, begging him to him play the "Pulp Fiction Song" one more time. And Alan Sparhawk can hear all of it. Calling your record Solo Guitar calls some unfortunate and maybe indulgent preconceptions to mind, but if you recognize Sparhawk's name from his day job as frontman for the infamously minimal Low, all those notions fall away. There's no noodling to be heard here, despite calling one track "Eruption by Eddie Van Halen". (Let no one accuse Sparhawk of lacking a sense of humor.) It's a little more like the finale to Low's "Do You Know How to Waltz?" stretched for 45 minutes-- and much, much scarier. Solo Guitar has less in common with Van Halen than it does with Drum's Not Dead, as Sparhawk tries to move past where music pokes at well-worn emotional centers within us and starts shifting the physical space around us. Since it's just one man on guitar (in case the title didn't clue you in), that's quite the uphill crawl. Every note has a precedent, has been played a thousand different ways through a thousand different pedals-- getting a "new" sound is hard. But, to hammer a cliche, it's the space around the notes: all the dark, industrial corners of Sparhawk's sweetest Low songs take full court, like the dream of his band evaporating into the blackness of sleep. Any note Sparhawk hits is just to shove at that blackness, pushing it into an interesting corner. "How the Weather Comes Over the Central Hillside" starts with a few discernible chords and what almost sounds like a bow hitting the strings, but the fog of distortion and reverb drown out any traces of a corporeal trigger. Sparhawk mostly aims for a sound bigger than himself. Later, the 13-minute "Sagrado Corazon de Jesu (second attempt)"-- the first attempt being much more brief-- will spiral out of his hands as three distorted notes are plucked, looped, echoed, and eventually pierced by what sounds like high-pitched surf guitar with its flesh torn off in its final minutes. He imitates more recognizable (but no less abrasive) sounds with the grinding metal screech of "How the Weather Hits the Freighter..." and the rattling reverberation of "How the Engine Room Sounds". The cheekily-titled "Eruption" brings it back to man-with-guitar as Sparhawk makes the same spastic fretboard leaps of Van Halen without any of the discernible space between notes. The Low frontman's played disembodied-force-of-nature pretty well thus far, but it's not hard to project a more human smirk on him here. Everything Sparhawk tries is pretty successful with a pretty constrained pallette of sounds, from the screeching of "Frieghter" to the more watery Low-friendly tones of "How It Ends", and not much in between. Don't play it at your next party, but put it on it if you want to feel something else immediately: like, uncomfortable. Or overwhelmed. Or whatever Sparhawk felt when he thought this needed to be communicated to others. Something big is coming through these speakers, twisting at the most unexpected moments and changing the air just enough for you to notice."

Boduf Songs

This Alone Above All Else in Spite of Everything

Folk/Country

Amy Granzin

"My hammer feels the urge/ To nail you to the ground/ To smash one through your cheek." So begins another Boduf Songs LP (the fourth), with another deadpan fantasy about grievous bodily harm. If you're already acquainted with the project, welcome back to doom-folk machine Mat Sweet's morally ambivalent universe of violence, despair, and, not incidentally, loveliness. And if you're new to these parts... hope you're not squeamish about blood. That's (mostly) a joke. Sweet's rarely macabre for macabre's sake; there's a ritualistic aspect to his recurring lyrical motifs and iterative acoustic arpeggios that suggests the Southampton, England home recorder calls up death and darkness in pursuit of life and light. Never was this more apparent than on Boduf Songs' last record, How Shadows Chase the Balance, where ever-bleak themes were bleached by shimmering melodies, swifter tempos, and cautiously optimistic soundscapes. Compared with Shadows, This Alone Above All Else in Spite of Everything's relative sobriety initially suggests Sweet's retreated to his full-bore brooding ways. In addition to the aforequoted opener, there's the haunted trudge of "Absolutely Null and Utterly Void", and purgatorial plod of "The Giant Umbilical Cord That Connects Your Brain to the Centre". Don't get me wrong: Those are good songs. Sweet's got a sneaky gift for composition and a rare talent for selling material that in lesser hands would probably flop. But it's great to find that Boduf Songs have expanded their palette and accepted a few new risks, too. That's an honest-to-god backbeat in "They Get on Slowly"'s mix, and Sweet switches out his standard library hush for actual singing on Radiohead-reminiscent "I Have Decided to Pass Through Matter" (he should sing like that more often). But the real revelation here is "Decapitation Blues", a zombie tale that winningly segues from Pantha du Prince-flavored oscillating bell tones to funky dance figure to post-rock jam. Such minor change-ups might seem ho-hum coming from a four-member band of cross-pollinating players working with different producers on every new release. But Boduf Songs is real home-grown, small-budget solo stuff. And considering Sweet has carved an interesting, comfortable niche for himself, it's pretty amazing that he hasn't painted himself into a solipsistic corner. As long as he's okay sharing space with demons, so are we.

Artist: Boduf Songs, Album: This Alone Above All Else in Spite of Everything, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: ""My hammer feels the urge/ To nail you to the ground/ To smash one through your cheek." So begins another Boduf Songs LP (the fourth), with another deadpan fantasy about grievous bodily harm. If you're already acquainted with the project, welcome back to doom-folk machine Mat Sweet's morally ambivalent universe of violence, despair, and, not incidentally, loveliness. And if you're new to these parts... hope you're not squeamish about blood. That's (mostly) a joke. Sweet's rarely macabre for macabre's sake; there's a ritualistic aspect to his recurring lyrical motifs and iterative acoustic arpeggios that suggests the Southampton, England home recorder calls up death and darkness in pursuit of life and light. Never was this more apparent than on Boduf Songs' last record, How Shadows Chase the Balance, where ever-bleak themes were bleached by shimmering melodies, swifter tempos, and cautiously optimistic soundscapes. Compared with Shadows, This Alone Above All Else in Spite of Everything's relative sobriety initially suggests Sweet's retreated to his full-bore brooding ways. In addition to the aforequoted opener, there's the haunted trudge of "Absolutely Null and Utterly Void", and purgatorial plod of "The Giant Umbilical Cord That Connects Your Brain to the Centre". Don't get me wrong: Those are good songs. Sweet's got a sneaky gift for composition and a rare talent for selling material that in lesser hands would probably flop. But it's great to find that Boduf Songs have expanded their palette and accepted a few new risks, too. That's an honest-to-god backbeat in "They Get on Slowly"'s mix, and Sweet switches out his standard library hush for actual singing on Radiohead-reminiscent "I Have Decided to Pass Through Matter" (he should sing like that more often). But the real revelation here is "Decapitation Blues", a zombie tale that winningly segues from Pantha du Prince-flavored oscillating bell tones to funky dance figure to post-rock jam. Such minor change-ups might seem ho-hum coming from a four-member band of cross-pollinating players working with different producers on every new release. But Boduf Songs is real home-grown, small-budget solo stuff. And considering Sweet has carved an interesting, comfortable niche for himself, it's pretty amazing that he hasn't painted himself into a solipsistic corner. As long as he's okay sharing space with demons, so are we."

Various Artists

Clicks + Cuts 2

Mark Richard-San

Three CDs clocking in at over an hour a piece, 36 different artists from all over the world-- how could I possibly sum up Clicks & Cuts 2 in just 700 short words? There is no way, hombre. But I have an idea; let me just take a suitably minimal approach and sum it up in two: It's excellent. Notice I didn't say, "It's fantastic." I reserve that two-word review for Mille Plateaux's Modulation and Transformation 4. That 3-CD set, released in 1999, turned my head all the way 'round when I heard it. This was back when Mille Plateaux had a roster that ranged from the sine wave tones of Ryoji Ikeda to the comparatively thick drill-n-bass of Panacea, from the vast spaciousness of Terre Thaemlitz to the microscopic fixations of Curd Duca. What an incredibly varied field of music that comp contained, something for the curious in every subgenre of experimental electronics. No, Clicks and Cuts 2 can't quite compare to that. Notice also that I didn't say, "It's okay." That was my two-word assessment of the first Clicks + Cuts compilation, released at the time that Mille Plateaux realized there was a revolution afoot, and that it had done as much as any other single label (if you include their associated Force Inc and Force Trax imprints) to set it in motion. That compilation was not a statement about the label per se, but a presentation about a very narrowly defined permutation: the world of glitch techno. The variety the label is known for wasn't relevant to that particular statement, which explains why artists who'd released brilliant work on Mille Plateaux (Gas, Thaemlitz, Oval), but didn't fit in with this aesthetic were omitted. Clicks & Cuts 2 far surpasses its predecessor, primarily because this compilation is open to a much greater variety of sounds. The focus here, in both the music and the MP-standard expository liner notes, is on making music from botched transmissions. A fine image from the liner notes comes from Philip Sherburne, who says, "The pearl is an error, a glitch in response to impurity." He's right, of course. A shard of something winds up inside the shell of an oyster and the creature goes to work on it, smoothing out the harsh edges to avoid irritation of its muscle. To my ears, it's not so far from this image to the music of Jan Jelinek (who chips in here with an incredible track called "The Videoage [re-edit]," possibly a remix of "Rock in the Video Age," though it sounds new to me). Unlike the first volume, not all the tracks are minimal; in fact, the rhythms and styles are all over the place. Hell, to my ears, a good percentage of the music here even borders on pop, with relatively conventional melodies and instrumentation. Here is a true blueprint for one possible music future, not the dry, academic lecture that was the first Clicks + Cuts compilation. In addition to summing up the glitch genre thus far for the acolytes, Clicks & Cuts 2 also serves as a perfect introduction to this world. It's accessible, and yes, even fun (you just know if Matmos is invited to the symposium there are going to be a few giggles). I have to think anyone with open ears would find something here to love. Take Frank Bretschneider's "Walking on Ice," for example. Though it does indeed have a few snaps and pops, this track is, in fact, a dead ringer for Boards of Canada! It would be impossible to imagine such a warm, snaking synth melody and hip-hop inspired beats fitting in with earlier incarnations of the Mille Plateaux theory. It's applying the glitch to the song, which seems a natural progression. Coming from another sphere completely is Austrian guitar genius Fennesz, who contributes "Menthol," a jittery dissection of processed harmonics with gurgling melody bubbling beneath. It's the kind of track that seems completely random at first blush, but reveals careful, intricate patterning upon closer listening, and it makes me salivate for his latest Endless Summer. Of course, there's not a 4/4 rhythm in sight. The ever-mischievous DAT Politics offers the distorted, fucked up (but funky!) bubblegum tune, "Hardwai." It's like a fax of Alvin the Chipmunk stuck in a blender with Alan Sutherland and uploaded to a Linux server. And Rude Solo gets all toyland electro with the fantastic "Tight," complete with a killer vocal sample, not at all far from the best of Two Lone Swordsman's Tiny Reminders. There are, of course, a fair number of 4/4 techno bits with clicks and so forth-- this isn't a complete departure from the first collection. But these tracks, which can seem ho-hum when stacked back to back, blend nicely with the more experimental work (the choppy beat static by Thomas Brinkmann on "0100" is particularly striking) and the aforementioned poppier material. The sequencing is exceptional, the tracks first rate, and the working thesis of the label is becoming clearer. Clicks & Cuts 2 is a vital compilation that shows where this strand of electronic music has been and where it might go.

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Clicks + Cuts 2, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 8.3 Album review: "Three CDs clocking in at over an hour a piece, 36 different artists from all over the world-- how could I possibly sum up Clicks & Cuts 2 in just 700 short words? There is no way, hombre. But I have an idea; let me just take a suitably minimal approach and sum it up in two: It's excellent. Notice I didn't say, "It's fantastic." I reserve that two-word review for Mille Plateaux's Modulation and Transformation 4. That 3-CD set, released in 1999, turned my head all the way 'round when I heard it. This was back when Mille Plateaux had a roster that ranged from the sine wave tones of Ryoji Ikeda to the comparatively thick drill-n-bass of Panacea, from the vast spaciousness of Terre Thaemlitz to the microscopic fixations of Curd Duca. What an incredibly varied field of music that comp contained, something for the curious in every subgenre of experimental electronics. No, Clicks and Cuts 2 can't quite compare to that. Notice also that I didn't say, "It's okay." That was my two-word assessment of the first Clicks + Cuts compilation, released at the time that Mille Plateaux realized there was a revolution afoot, and that it had done as much as any other single label (if you include their associated Force Inc and Force Trax imprints) to set it in motion. That compilation was not a statement about the label per se, but a presentation about a very narrowly defined permutation: the world of glitch techno. The variety the label is known for wasn't relevant to that particular statement, which explains why artists who'd released brilliant work on Mille Plateaux (Gas, Thaemlitz, Oval), but didn't fit in with this aesthetic were omitted. Clicks & Cuts 2 far surpasses its predecessor, primarily because this compilation is open to a much greater variety of sounds. The focus here, in both the music and the MP-standard expository liner notes, is on making music from botched transmissions. A fine image from the liner notes comes from Philip Sherburne, who says, "The pearl is an error, a glitch in response to impurity." He's right, of course. A shard of something winds up inside the shell of an oyster and the creature goes to work on it, smoothing out the harsh edges to avoid irritation of its muscle. To my ears, it's not so far from this image to the music of Jan Jelinek (who chips in here with an incredible track called "The Videoage [re-edit]," possibly a remix of "Rock in the Video Age," though it sounds new to me). Unlike the first volume, not all the tracks are minimal; in fact, the rhythms and styles are all over the place. Hell, to my ears, a good percentage of the music here even borders on pop, with relatively conventional melodies and instrumentation. Here is a true blueprint for one possible music future, not the dry, academic lecture that was the first Clicks + Cuts compilation. In addition to summing up the glitch genre thus far for the acolytes, Clicks & Cuts 2 also serves as a perfect introduction to this world. It's accessible, and yes, even fun (you just know if Matmos is invited to the symposium there are going to be a few giggles). I have to think anyone with open ears would find something here to love. Take Frank Bretschneider's "Walking on Ice," for example. Though it does indeed have a few snaps and pops, this track is, in fact, a dead ringer for Boards of Canada! It would be impossible to imagine such a warm, snaking synth melody and hip-hop inspired beats fitting in with earlier incarnations of the Mille Plateaux theory. It's applying the glitch to the song, which seems a natural progression. Coming from another sphere completely is Austrian guitar genius Fennesz, who contributes "Menthol," a jittery dissection of processed harmonics with gurgling melody bubbling beneath. It's the kind of track that seems completely random at first blush, but reveals careful, intricate patterning upon closer listening, and it makes me salivate for his latest Endless Summer. Of course, there's not a 4/4 rhythm in sight. The ever-mischievous DAT Politics offers the distorted, fucked up (but funky!) bubblegum tune, "Hardwai." It's like a fax of Alvin the Chipmunk stuck in a blender with Alan Sutherland and uploaded to a Linux server. And Rude Solo gets all toyland electro with the fantastic "Tight," complete with a killer vocal sample, not at all far from the best of Two Lone Swordsman's Tiny Reminders. There are, of course, a fair number of 4/4 techno bits with clicks and so forth-- this isn't a complete departure from the first collection. But these tracks, which can seem ho-hum when stacked back to back, blend nicely with the more experimental work (the choppy beat static by Thomas Brinkmann on "0100" is particularly striking) and the aforementioned poppier material. The sequencing is exceptional, the tracks first rate, and the working thesis of the label is becoming clearer. Clicks & Cuts 2 is a vital compilation that shows where this strand of electronic music has been and where it might go."

Lemonade

Lemonade

Rock

Stuart Berman

Lemonade, so the old saying goes, is what you make when life serves you lemons. But for the three San Franciscans-cum-Brooklynites in the band Lemonade, it's what you get when music blogs serve a new dance-music subgenre, umpteenth post-punk revival, and hot world-music trend on a weekly basis-- you process the best bits into something practical and satisfying. The six extended tracks on the band's self-titled debut are rife with rhythmic density and intensity, but smartly sequenced into two halves that each follow the peak/valley/peak arc that rock listeners demand of Proper Albums.  Lemonade seem especially aware of this conversion process: Their record vividly replicates that first sensation of losing yourself in a peak-hour, strobe-lit reverie, where the communal act of dancing teeters between liberation and disorientation. Evocative opener "Big Weekend" establishes the theme, luring you in with familiar devices: drummer Alex Pasternak lays down a kick-drum thump and cowbell clatter that approximates the polyrhythimic pulse of Liquid Liquid, while a 303 synth riff and frontman Callan Clendenin's Ibiza-evoking lyrics further enhance the 80s flashback. But following a mid-song breakdown, Pasternak's drumming turns more fiercely tribal and Clendenin's voice is refashioned into a stream of distorted and mutated squeals, providing an early indication that Lemonade's definition of dancefloor abandon also includes the bad-trip flipside, further revealed by the industrialized schaffel swing of "Unreal". The spastic, devolutionary disco of "Real Slime" provides a more explicit affront to ecstasy-induced enlightenment, with Clendenin admonishing his hippy-dippy target to "scrape the fluoride out of your encrusted third eye." With their muscular, aggressive approach to dance music, Lemonade operate from a similar base as other percussive post-punk new-schoolers, from party-starting outfits like !!! and Professor Murder to more abrasive acts like Aa and Liars. But the trio strike a singular balance between weird and wired: eight-minute centerpiece "Nasifon" finds Clendenin's voice sliding further into indecipherability-- imagine Metal Box-era John Lydon bellowing out Sigur Rós' Hopelandic lyric sheet-- but layers it with Arabic-accented melodies, machine-gunned synths and a pounding 4/4 beat that would go over both in Williamsburg warehouse parties and Dubai super clubs. And if the queasy, grime grind of "Sunchips" sputters on about twice as long as it needs to, it makes the arrival of spectacular closer "Blissout" all the more rewarding. On an album that's been mostly concerned with the feeling of losing control, "Blissout" provides Lemonade with a hard-earned moment clarity: Clendenin's uncharacteristically stoic vocal calmly rides atop a cheery hi-NRG beat and acid-soaked synths, before a twinkling piano refrain and chopped-up vocals announcing the band's name trigger a big-beat blowout, with Clendenin's ecstatic, echo-laden exclamations summoning the break of dawn. As the track fades, it's overcome by a chorus of sampled voices all uttering the same statement: "we're all having a good time." Given Clendenin's cryptic, fragmented approach to singing, you can't fault Lemonade for using these dying seconds to state the obvious.

Artist: Lemonade, Album: Lemonade, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.3 Album review: "Lemonade, so the old saying goes, is what you make when life serves you lemons. But for the three San Franciscans-cum-Brooklynites in the band Lemonade, it's what you get when music blogs serve a new dance-music subgenre, umpteenth post-punk revival, and hot world-music trend on a weekly basis-- you process the best bits into something practical and satisfying. The six extended tracks on the band's self-titled debut are rife with rhythmic density and intensity, but smartly sequenced into two halves that each follow the peak/valley/peak arc that rock listeners demand of Proper Albums.  Lemonade seem especially aware of this conversion process: Their record vividly replicates that first sensation of losing yourself in a peak-hour, strobe-lit reverie, where the communal act of dancing teeters between liberation and disorientation. Evocative opener "Big Weekend" establishes the theme, luring you in with familiar devices: drummer Alex Pasternak lays down a kick-drum thump and cowbell clatter that approximates the polyrhythimic pulse of Liquid Liquid, while a 303 synth riff and frontman Callan Clendenin's Ibiza-evoking lyrics further enhance the 80s flashback. But following a mid-song breakdown, Pasternak's drumming turns more fiercely tribal and Clendenin's voice is refashioned into a stream of distorted and mutated squeals, providing an early indication that Lemonade's definition of dancefloor abandon also includes the bad-trip flipside, further revealed by the industrialized schaffel swing of "Unreal". The spastic, devolutionary disco of "Real Slime" provides a more explicit affront to ecstasy-induced enlightenment, with Clendenin admonishing his hippy-dippy target to "scrape the fluoride out of your encrusted third eye." With their muscular, aggressive approach to dance music, Lemonade operate from a similar base as other percussive post-punk new-schoolers, from party-starting outfits like !!! and Professor Murder to more abrasive acts like Aa and Liars. But the trio strike a singular balance between weird and wired: eight-minute centerpiece "Nasifon" finds Clendenin's voice sliding further into indecipherability-- imagine Metal Box-era John Lydon bellowing out Sigur Rós' Hopelandic lyric sheet-- but layers it with Arabic-accented melodies, machine-gunned synths and a pounding 4/4 beat that would go over both in Williamsburg warehouse parties and Dubai super clubs. And if the queasy, grime grind of "Sunchips" sputters on about twice as long as it needs to, it makes the arrival of spectacular closer "Blissout" all the more rewarding. On an album that's been mostly concerned with the feeling of losing control, "Blissout" provides Lemonade with a hard-earned moment clarity: Clendenin's uncharacteristically stoic vocal calmly rides atop a cheery hi-NRG beat and acid-soaked synths, before a twinkling piano refrain and chopped-up vocals announcing the band's name trigger a big-beat blowout, with Clendenin's ecstatic, echo-laden exclamations summoning the break of dawn. As the track fades, it's overcome by a chorus of sampled voices all uttering the same statement: "we're all having a good time." Given Clendenin's cryptic, fragmented approach to singing, you can't fault Lemonade for using these dying seconds to state the obvious."

The Angels of Light

How I Loved You

Rich Juzwiak

If my 22 years of pop culture consumption have taught me anything, it's that clichés are the vertebrae of our language. Mainstream media perpetuates the sad state of our communication as a society-- our tendency to say what we believe is true because we've heard it so many times on television or from Hollywood or on Top 40 radio. This cycle that produces, nurtures, and transforms our interaction undermines individuality. And yet, there's something comforting in using stock phrases to help us express our feelings; if we are to believe in a construct like "the human condition," it might as well follow that there are only a handful of ways to express our state(s) lucidly. Certainly, the bombardment of triteness simply can't hypnotize all of us all of the time. We who wear the badge of "cynic" proudly do our best to develop linguistic calluses and shun clichés as much as possible. M. Gira, the mastermind of the Angels of Light and formerly of the Swans, is one such cynic who does his damnedest to thwart all things trite in his art. Odds are that he should fail on his newest record, How I Loved You, since he's singing mostly about the most potentially insipid subject: love. Generally, Gira is successful in sounding at least somewhat fresh in his amorous lyrical approach. The problem is, he seems so afraid of rehashing that he ends up utterly obtuse (those who read criticism in The Village Voice are all too familiar with this unfortunate phenomenon). A line like, "The red sea is raging/ With my coughing and spitting/ My love is bitter sulpher [sic] burning" (from "My True Body"), is too preoccupied with flowery, unlikely imagery to even make sense. And in "Song for Nico," he comes closer to "gross" than "provocative" when he sings, "I am the reason your legs are apart/ Mother, come into my heart." Though Gira and his Angels are less cautious musically, they don't necessarily fare better in that department than they do lyrically. With two songs clocking in around eight minutes, and two more pushing the 12-minute mark, the Angels of Light are clearly attempting Gladiator-scale epics. But these songs (along with most of the others on How I Loved You) are bereft of a sense of experimentation. The drab, forgettable songwriting and acoustic folk framework is rarely altered over the course of the record, save in terms of texture. The ubiquitous crescendos and sparse-to-large-to-sparse dynamic become too predictable to sustain interest for more than three minutes, let alone an entire hour. The space between the pedestrian and the abstract is a dubious void that only the most skilled lyricists and musicians can squeeze down. The fact that Gira attempts the monumental, snug fit is admirable. Sure, he sounds like he means what he's saying, but his esoteric words seem born more out of self-satisfaction than pleasing listeners. Ultimately, conviction does not compensate for inaccessibility; Gira's calluses, you see, sound much more like warts.

Artist: The Angels of Light, Album: How I Loved You, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 4.8 Album review: "If my 22 years of pop culture consumption have taught me anything, it's that clichés are the vertebrae of our language. Mainstream media perpetuates the sad state of our communication as a society-- our tendency to say what we believe is true because we've heard it so many times on television or from Hollywood or on Top 40 radio. This cycle that produces, nurtures, and transforms our interaction undermines individuality. And yet, there's something comforting in using stock phrases to help us express our feelings; if we are to believe in a construct like "the human condition," it might as well follow that there are only a handful of ways to express our state(s) lucidly. Certainly, the bombardment of triteness simply can't hypnotize all of us all of the time. We who wear the badge of "cynic" proudly do our best to develop linguistic calluses and shun clichés as much as possible. M. Gira, the mastermind of the Angels of Light and formerly of the Swans, is one such cynic who does his damnedest to thwart all things trite in his art. Odds are that he should fail on his newest record, How I Loved You, since he's singing mostly about the most potentially insipid subject: love. Generally, Gira is successful in sounding at least somewhat fresh in his amorous lyrical approach. The problem is, he seems so afraid of rehashing that he ends up utterly obtuse (those who read criticism in The Village Voice are all too familiar with this unfortunate phenomenon). A line like, "The red sea is raging/ With my coughing and spitting/ My love is bitter sulpher [sic] burning" (from "My True Body"), is too preoccupied with flowery, unlikely imagery to even make sense. And in "Song for Nico," he comes closer to "gross" than "provocative" when he sings, "I am the reason your legs are apart/ Mother, come into my heart." Though Gira and his Angels are less cautious musically, they don't necessarily fare better in that department than they do lyrically. With two songs clocking in around eight minutes, and two more pushing the 12-minute mark, the Angels of Light are clearly attempting Gladiator-scale epics. But these songs (along with most of the others on How I Loved You) are bereft of a sense of experimentation. The drab, forgettable songwriting and acoustic folk framework is rarely altered over the course of the record, save in terms of texture. The ubiquitous crescendos and sparse-to-large-to-sparse dynamic become too predictable to sustain interest for more than three minutes, let alone an entire hour. The space between the pedestrian and the abstract is a dubious void that only the most skilled lyricists and musicians can squeeze down. The fact that Gira attempts the monumental, snug fit is admirable. Sure, he sounds like he means what he's saying, but his esoteric words seem born more out of self-satisfaction than pleasing listeners. Ultimately, conviction does not compensate for inaccessibility; Gira's calluses, you see, sound much more like warts."

Tanya Morgan

Brooklynati

Pop/R&B,Rap

Ian Cohen

A lot of people were excited for the 40th Anniversary Woodstock boxed set, but not exactly for the most wholesome reasons-- as undoubtedly the final time that these recordings will see a physical reissue, it was seen by many as a sign that we might start to free ourselves from the pervasive tyranny of Summer of Love boosterism, with all of its self-righteous back-patting and errant historical recounts. (As Douglas Wolk put it in his Pitchfork review, "the forgotten secret of Woodstock is that it kinda sucked.") Personally, I don't see any sign of abatement on that front, since around the same time, Tanya Morgan's new album taught me that misconstrued nostalgia is pretty much part and parcel of any span of time where great music and worthy ideals intersect: damn if the praise of Brooklynati has me wondering if I've got a faulty memory too. This indie hip-hop group has been lauded as a flamekeeper for a certain time in the early 1990s when the Native Tongues held down New York with a sound that was less overtly Afrocentric but more commercially successful. But didn't Q-Tip appear on a Mobb Deep track? Didn't Phife Dawg threaten to ejaculate on someone in at least two of Tribe's most beloved singles? Wasn't De La Soul Is Dead a pitch-black rejection of the hip-hop hippie aesthetic foisted upon them by rock fans and critics? Couldn't Busta Rhymes and Redman, even at their most rah-rah, come and go as they please? Well, you all know that's true, but Brooklynati instead coasts by on a revisionist historical perspective where Tribe, De La et. al were at the forefront fighting gangsta rap not with innovation or originality, but with common decency. It's a shame too-- I can't remember the last time a record this innocuous and well-meaning irked me so much. Well, maybe I can-- it was either eMC's The Show or the self-titled Slaughterhouse album from earlier this year, both motley supergroups of talented but commercially waning MCs who do a nice rendering of the kind of mid-90s NYC records that they don't have to compete against any more. Fortunately, Tanya Morgan (a partnership of Cincy's Ilyas and Donwill and Brooklyn rapper/producer Von Pea, formed on the Okayplayer message board) brings out the best in each MC-- "Bang & Boogie" is an unrelentingly good-natured ode to promiscuity, and I suppose the major difference separating them from their easiest comparisons is that Tanya Morgan has a discernable sense of humor. As such, it's difficult to imagine the good vibes here fucking up any barbecue. But scattin' off soft-ass beats, Tanya Morgan raps happily-- tragically, that style deteriorates rapidly over the span of an hour of Von Pea and Brickbeats' loungy neo-soul. The three have a good rapport with each other, mostly spitting the kind of craft-minded raps ("I wanna be self assured... I did the right thing, following my dream and tightening my writing") that are considered intelligent because they're not overtly stupid. But too often, these three like-voiced rappers are too genial to step on each other's toes every once in a while or even play too much off each other-- even the most telepathic partnerships in hip-hop need someone to take the lead every now and again, and only guest spots from Blu and Phonte rank as standouts. As with The Show, Brooklynati is most affecting when it finds some sort of purpose in the mundane workings of minor hip-hop celebrity. "Don't U Holla" all but begs to be called "Rap Promoter 2009", and "Plan B" is like some sort of tragic alternate ending to Kanye West's "Spaceship". And while there's thankfully little in the way of grumpy complaint rap, after gaining a bit of momentum, Brooklynati throws "She's Gone (aka Without You)" at us, assuming what the rap game really needs in 2009 is yet another "I Used To Love H.E.R." It just further to illustrate the philosophical dead end Brooklynati seems more than content to head towards: The album spends nearly its entirety trying to revive a sound prevalent in 1994, the same year when Common dropped the original, and the same year where hip-hop was so shamefully out of touch with its artistic roots that it only managed to produce Ready to Die, Illmatic, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, Tical, Hard to Earn, Dare Iz a Darkside... So it's only fair that if Tanya Morgan is willing to use the clichéd, borderline misogynist personification of hip-hop as an easily cowed woman with a good heart who can't keep her legs closed, Brooklynati embodies the overused romantic foil: It's hardworking, reliable, sincere, kind-hearted and wouldn't do anything to hurt her. It's the sort you're supposed to settle with after spending one's youth going through exciting yet ultimately "unrewarding" flings. But hell, you've seen those divorce rates.

Artist: Tanya Morgan, Album: Brooklynati, Genre: Pop/R&B,Rap, Score (1-10): 5.8 Album review: "A lot of people were excited for the 40th Anniversary Woodstock boxed set, but not exactly for the most wholesome reasons-- as undoubtedly the final time that these recordings will see a physical reissue, it was seen by many as a sign that we might start to free ourselves from the pervasive tyranny of Summer of Love boosterism, with all of its self-righteous back-patting and errant historical recounts. (As Douglas Wolk put it in his Pitchfork review, "the forgotten secret of Woodstock is that it kinda sucked.") Personally, I don't see any sign of abatement on that front, since around the same time, Tanya Morgan's new album taught me that misconstrued nostalgia is pretty much part and parcel of any span of time where great music and worthy ideals intersect: damn if the praise of Brooklynati has me wondering if I've got a faulty memory too. This indie hip-hop group has been lauded as a flamekeeper for a certain time in the early 1990s when the Native Tongues held down New York with a sound that was less overtly Afrocentric but more commercially successful. But didn't Q-Tip appear on a Mobb Deep track? Didn't Phife Dawg threaten to ejaculate on someone in at least two of Tribe's most beloved singles? Wasn't De La Soul Is Dead a pitch-black rejection of the hip-hop hippie aesthetic foisted upon them by rock fans and critics? Couldn't Busta Rhymes and Redman, even at their most rah-rah, come and go as they please? Well, you all know that's true, but Brooklynati instead coasts by on a revisionist historical perspective where Tribe, De La et. al were at the forefront fighting gangsta rap not with innovation or originality, but with common decency. It's a shame too-- I can't remember the last time a record this innocuous and well-meaning irked me so much. Well, maybe I can-- it was either eMC's The Show or the self-titled Slaughterhouse album from earlier this year, both motley supergroups of talented but commercially waning MCs who do a nice rendering of the kind of mid-90s NYC records that they don't have to compete against any more. Fortunately, Tanya Morgan (a partnership of Cincy's Ilyas and Donwill and Brooklyn rapper/producer Von Pea, formed on the Okayplayer message board) brings out the best in each MC-- "Bang & Boogie" is an unrelentingly good-natured ode to promiscuity, and I suppose the major difference separating them from their easiest comparisons is that Tanya Morgan has a discernable sense of humor. As such, it's difficult to imagine the good vibes here fucking up any barbecue. But scattin' off soft-ass beats, Tanya Morgan raps happily-- tragically, that style deteriorates rapidly over the span of an hour of Von Pea and Brickbeats' loungy neo-soul. The three have a good rapport with each other, mostly spitting the kind of craft-minded raps ("I wanna be self assured... I did the right thing, following my dream and tightening my writing") that are considered intelligent because they're not overtly stupid. But too often, these three like-voiced rappers are too genial to step on each other's toes every once in a while or even play too much off each other-- even the most telepathic partnerships in hip-hop need someone to take the lead every now and again, and only guest spots from Blu and Phonte rank as standouts. As with The Show, Brooklynati is most affecting when it finds some sort of purpose in the mundane workings of minor hip-hop celebrity. "Don't U Holla" all but begs to be called "Rap Promoter 2009", and "Plan B" is like some sort of tragic alternate ending to Kanye West's "Spaceship". And while there's thankfully little in the way of grumpy complaint rap, after gaining a bit of momentum, Brooklynati throws "She's Gone (aka Without You)" at us, assuming what the rap game really needs in 2009 is yet another "I Used To Love H.E.R." It just further to illustrate the philosophical dead end Brooklynati seems more than content to head towards: The album spends nearly its entirety trying to revive a sound prevalent in 1994, the same year when Common dropped the original, and the same year where hip-hop was so shamefully out of touch with its artistic roots that it only managed to produce Ready to Die, Illmatic, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, Tical, Hard to Earn, Dare Iz a Darkside... So it's only fair that if Tanya Morgan is willing to use the clichéd, borderline misogynist personification of hip-hop as an easily cowed woman with a good heart who can't keep her legs closed, Brooklynati embodies the overused romantic foil: It's hardworking, reliable, sincere, kind-hearted and wouldn't do anything to hurt her. It's the sort you're supposed to settle with after spending one's youth going through exciting yet ultimately "unrewarding" flings. But hell, you've seen those divorce rates."

FIDLAR

Too

Rock

Zach Kelly

For a band like FIDLAR, the idea of artistic growth seems kind of oxymoronic, or for anyone familiar with the L.A.-based punk dirtbags, maybe just plain moronic. On the jokily earnest, chillaxed last few strummed seconds of "Punks", the second track from their sophomore LP Too, frontman Zac Carper muses, "Relationships are fucking wack/ They make me want to smoke crack/ And girlfriend or boyfriend can suck my dick/ Masturbate, let's make it quick." It's a perfect encapsulation of FIDLAR's outlook (the band name is an acronym for Fuck It, Dog, Life's A Risk), one that they already cemented on their enjoyably party-hardy self-titled debut, a hormonal love letter to getting fucked up and fucking up. And while a title like Too might lead you to believe that FIDLAR are wisely committed to not fixing what isn't broke— there are more scuzzy guitars and songs about bad medicine, bad habits, and stupid decisions (all of which happen to be song titles)— it seems to have bigger things in mind for itself. FIDLAR were initially met with the obvious-but-apt comparison to kindred West Coast spirits Wavves, and Too seems to greatly admire Nathan Williams' transition from disaffected skate rat to pop-punk Beach King. It's a crisper, almost radio-friendly effort that's feels slightly jarring in comparison to FIDLAR. Part of this shift can be chalked up to the fact that in the past two years, FIDLAR have made a concerted effort to clean up, as Carper has since kicked everything from heroin to booze after a band intervention. The result is a more levelheaded FIDLAR, an incarnation that likely won't scare away too many fans as it aims to convert new ones. Gone is the feral scrap and the forays into sunburnt surfabilly, replaced by a more MTVU-friendly approach that only feels "grown-up" in the sense that it's graduated from 40s in the high-school parking lot to Smirnoff in the frat house basement. It's too bad Too doesn't boast more numbers like highlight "West Coast", a song about getting wasted on the road. But FIDLAR aim a little lower, offering dated-sounding blues stompers ("Punks"),  Black Lips-lite junkie laments ("Overdose"), interminably bratty nose-thumbing ("Sober"), questionable arena rock ("Bad Habits") and a weird little detour into the British Invasion ("Why Generation", which is hopefully supposed to be taken as tongue-in-cheek). The hooks feel forced this time, a byproduct of their desire for a broader audience that dilute the essence of what made them appealing to begin with. But it's undeniable that Too comes from a good place. Most of the record revolves around Carper's road to sobriety, and the many inherent pitfalls and setbacks faced along the way. "I figured out when I got sober that life just sucks when you get older," he sings on "Sober", and it's a brief but affecting peek inside the head of a guy on the other side of addiction and staring down his thirties. A song like "Leave Me Alone" carries more weight when you realize it's about Carper's intervention, but too often, the songs break down into digestible little nuggets of stoner wisdom. So while Too is at times brave, that doesn't necessarily make it compelling.

Artist: FIDLAR, Album: Too, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.8 Album review: "For a band like FIDLAR, the idea of artistic growth seems kind of oxymoronic, or for anyone familiar with the L.A.-based punk dirtbags, maybe just plain moronic. On the jokily earnest, chillaxed last few strummed seconds of "Punks", the second track from their sophomore LP Too, frontman Zac Carper muses, "Relationships are fucking wack/ They make me want to smoke crack/ And girlfriend or boyfriend can suck my dick/ Masturbate, let's make it quick." It's a perfect encapsulation of FIDLAR's outlook (the band name is an acronym for Fuck It, Dog, Life's A Risk), one that they already cemented on their enjoyably party-hardy self-titled debut, a hormonal love letter to getting fucked up and fucking up. And while a title like Too might lead you to believe that FIDLAR are wisely committed to not fixing what isn't broke— there are more scuzzy guitars and songs about bad medicine, bad habits, and stupid decisions (all of which happen to be song titles)— it seems to have bigger things in mind for itself. FIDLAR were initially met with the obvious-but-apt comparison to kindred West Coast spirits Wavves, and Too seems to greatly admire Nathan Williams' transition from disaffected skate rat to pop-punk Beach King. It's a crisper, almost radio-friendly effort that's feels slightly jarring in comparison to FIDLAR. Part of this shift can be chalked up to the fact that in the past two years, FIDLAR have made a concerted effort to clean up, as Carper has since kicked everything from heroin to booze after a band intervention. The result is a more levelheaded FIDLAR, an incarnation that likely won't scare away too many fans as it aims to convert new ones. Gone is the feral scrap and the forays into sunburnt surfabilly, replaced by a more MTVU-friendly approach that only feels "grown-up" in the sense that it's graduated from 40s in the high-school parking lot to Smirnoff in the frat house basement. It's too bad Too doesn't boast more numbers like highlight "West Coast", a song about getting wasted on the road. But FIDLAR aim a little lower, offering dated-sounding blues stompers ("Punks"),  Black Lips-lite junkie laments ("Overdose"), interminably bratty nose-thumbing ("Sober"), questionable arena rock ("Bad Habits") and a weird little detour into the British Invasion ("Why Generation", which is hopefully supposed to be taken as tongue-in-cheek). The hooks feel forced this time, a byproduct of their desire for a broader audience that dilute the essence of what made them appealing to begin with. But it's undeniable that Too comes from a good place. Most of the record revolves around Carper's road to sobriety, and the many inherent pitfalls and setbacks faced along the way. "I figured out when I got sober that life just sucks when you get older," he sings on "Sober", and it's a brief but affecting peek inside the head of a guy on the other side of addiction and staring down his thirties. A song like "Leave Me Alone" carries more weight when you realize it's about Carper's intervention, but too often, the songs break down into digestible little nuggets of stoner wisdom. So while Too is at times brave, that doesn't necessarily make it compelling."

Com Truise

Wave 1

Electronic

Paul Thompson

In 2011, Seth Haley's Com Truise couldn't have been more of-the-moment. A vintage-synth freak with a nostalgic moniker diving headlong into the sounds of 1983? In that long, hazy comedown from 2009's summer of chillwave, Haley was practically popping a wheelie on the zeitgeist. He took full advantage, too, offering up the superb Cyanide Sisters EP and the almost-as-good Galactic Melt LP in the same calendar year. But, apart from 2012's soggy early-days comp In Decay, we've heard next to nothing from him in the interim. Wave 1, Com Truise's new seven-song EP, is the first in a planned series that, as Haley told DazedDigital, concerns "the world’s first Synthetic Astronaut on this journey to a planet—each release represents the next stage in his journey." The chrome-plated, pristine Wave 1 plants itself at the intersection of synth-funk, electro, and fussy 80s computer-pop. Haley, returning from a two-year absence, seems content to reemerge as a man out of time: unconcerned with the trends of the day, blissfully mining Reagan-era pop at its most meticulous. Opener "Wasat" whirrs to a start like a spaceship preparing for hyperdrive. Just 15 seconds in, and it's all systems go: a punctilious synth stutters like a long-lost Bambaataa track while a couple more streak past in a flash of light. The needly high-register synth and burbling bass at the center of "Mind" are almost conversant, trading garbled interstellar transmissions atop the crackling of the drum machine. Haley's fastidious—forever searching for the perfect beat—and even his fizziest synth never seems to trail too far afield. In the past, his exacting approach has occasionally tipped over into rigidity. But on Wave 1, his chosen sonic touchstones—whether it's pre-Purple Rain Prince or Cupid and Psyche-era Scritti Politti—share his fondness for clean lines, sharp edges, and inorganic rhythms. Haley's fussiness persists, but on Wave 1, he comes by it honestly. Wave 1 peaks with "Declination", a slick, bright-as-the-sun pop deconstruction with vocals from Ford & Lopatin's Joel Ford. Haley's never quite known what to do with vocals, but Ford's an ideal fit for the otherwise all-instrumental Wave 1, his roboticized falsetto sliding its way into the nooks and crannies of the bustling track, bringing some curious new shades to the all-pastel palette. Haley's never seemed particularly concerned with innovation; as Andrew Gaerig wrote in his review of In Decay, he's a "grid-worshipping…pure stylist," more interested in playing within the lines than expanding on them. By injecting a little human warmth into this carefully delineated, fiercely technical music, Ford does as much to push Wave 1's sound forward as Haley himself. Apart from the the splattering "I Would Die 4 U" drum patterns sitting underneath "Miserere Mei", Wave 1's post-"Declination" tracks find Haley retreating into the tried-and-true: burbling bass, squelchy zero-gravity synths, blunt-ride rhythms. These songs are sleek and glorious-sounding, each squiggle and thump given its own space. But, by leaving no space for error, Haley also doesn't allow much room for feeling, and after a half an hour of vaccum-sealed rhythms, a skipped beat or a flubbed intro never sounded so right. After a few years of silence, Haley's still a stickler for detail, still more concerned with perfection than innovation, still mixing up "crisp" and "mechanical." But by burrowing down into a few key sounds rather than stiffly approximating a dozen-plus, the intermittently funky, unshakably finicky Wave 1 is a mostly welcome return.

Artist: Com Truise, Album: Wave 1, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "In 2011, Seth Haley's Com Truise couldn't have been more of-the-moment. A vintage-synth freak with a nostalgic moniker diving headlong into the sounds of 1983? In that long, hazy comedown from 2009's summer of chillwave, Haley was practically popping a wheelie on the zeitgeist. He took full advantage, too, offering up the superb Cyanide Sisters EP and the almost-as-good Galactic Melt LP in the same calendar year. But, apart from 2012's soggy early-days comp In Decay, we've heard next to nothing from him in the interim. Wave 1, Com Truise's new seven-song EP, is the first in a planned series that, as Haley told DazedDigital, concerns "the world’s first Synthetic Astronaut on this journey to a planet—each release represents the next stage in his journey." The chrome-plated, pristine Wave 1 plants itself at the intersection of synth-funk, electro, and fussy 80s computer-pop. Haley, returning from a two-year absence, seems content to reemerge as a man out of time: unconcerned with the trends of the day, blissfully mining Reagan-era pop at its most meticulous. Opener "Wasat" whirrs to a start like a spaceship preparing for hyperdrive. Just 15 seconds in, and it's all systems go: a punctilious synth stutters like a long-lost Bambaataa track while a couple more streak past in a flash of light. The needly high-register synth and burbling bass at the center of "Mind" are almost conversant, trading garbled interstellar transmissions atop the crackling of the drum machine. Haley's fastidious—forever searching for the perfect beat—and even his fizziest synth never seems to trail too far afield. In the past, his exacting approach has occasionally tipped over into rigidity. But on Wave 1, his chosen sonic touchstones—whether it's pre-Purple Rain Prince or Cupid and Psyche-era Scritti Politti—share his fondness for clean lines, sharp edges, and inorganic rhythms. Haley's fussiness persists, but on Wave 1, he comes by it honestly. Wave 1 peaks with "Declination", a slick, bright-as-the-sun pop deconstruction with vocals from Ford & Lopatin's Joel Ford. Haley's never quite known what to do with vocals, but Ford's an ideal fit for the otherwise all-instrumental Wave 1, his roboticized falsetto sliding its way into the nooks and crannies of the bustling track, bringing some curious new shades to the all-pastel palette. Haley's never seemed particularly concerned with innovation; as Andrew Gaerig wrote in his review of In Decay, he's a "grid-worshipping…pure stylist," more interested in playing within the lines than expanding on them. By injecting a little human warmth into this carefully delineated, fiercely technical music, Ford does as much to push Wave 1's sound forward as Haley himself. Apart from the the splattering "I Would Die 4 U" drum patterns sitting underneath "Miserere Mei", Wave 1's post-"Declination" tracks find Haley retreating into the tried-and-true: burbling bass, squelchy zero-gravity synths, blunt-ride rhythms. These songs are sleek and glorious-sounding, each squiggle and thump given its own space. But, by leaving no space for error, Haley also doesn't allow much room for feeling, and after a half an hour of vaccum-sealed rhythms, a skipped beat or a flubbed intro never sounded so right. After a few years of silence, Haley's still a stickler for detail, still more concerned with perfection than innovation, still mixing up "crisp" and "mechanical." But by burrowing down into a few key sounds rather than stiffly approximating a dozen-plus, the intermittently funky, unshakably finicky Wave 1 is a mostly welcome return."

Stephen Emmer

Recitement

Experimental,Jazz,Pop/R&B,Rock

Brian Howe

On Recitement, the Dutch composer Stephen Emmer builds music around spoken literary texts. Because of that sentence alone, I'd wager that some of you are aiming for your browser's back arrow. Spoken word gets a bad rap in part because of a hoary yet persistent caricature: the finger-snapping, beret-wearing, boho poet who declaims jive over noodly jazz or po-faced folk. This straw man is so pervasive in popular culture-- it gave us Maynard G. Krebs, Cool Cat, and Shaggy from "Scooby-Doo"-- that it's easy to forget the beatnik way isn't the only way. Recitement, which features Emmer's music supporting poems and stories of different eras, some of which are read by their original authors, does occasionally flirt with stereotype. Sometimes the results are enchanting anyway-- you can practically smell the clove smoke wafting through the smooth horns of "Mondo Sparito", which features Andrea Piovan reading from Alessandro Baricco's novel City-- and sometimes they're off-putting. Emmer courts pigeonholing when he backs a reading by Beat archetype Allen Ginsberg with bombastic folk-rock on "Disconnected", and Michael Parkinson hams up a lovely Thomas Hardy poem on "Invergence of the Twain". These few missteps emphasize how admirably Emmer succeeds in avoiding cliché on most of the tracks, which are mainly arranged and played by the composer himself (with a bit of help from auxiliary musicians), and bolstered by Tony Visconti's limpid production. Emmer's miscellaneous musical career, which encompasses free jazz, rock, electronic noise (he was a member of the Factory-signed band Minny Pops), and points outlying, is reflected in the startlingly diverse music on Recitement. This breadth of capability allows him to achieve the most difficult trick of spoken word music: symmetry of form and content, with neither feeling subordinate to the other. So Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow is Falling" (sung by Blonde Redhead's Kazu Makino) gets arctic drone-rock that accentuates its stateliness; Lou Reed's humble rendition of an excerpt from Paul Theroux's travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar gets elegiac piano and strings that conjure stations streaming across train windows; Kurt Schwitters's seminal sound poem "Ursonate" gets syncopated avant-jazz that draws out his nonsense language's decorative, expressive quality. Elsewhere, Emmer avails himself of hip-hop, ambient, chamber music, and techno influences, always keeping his sights on the twin goals of sounding good and drawing out the resonance of his selected texts and voices. The best compositions create harmonious interplay between the various tiers that spoken word music contains: The sound of the voice, the sound of the words, the images the words embody, and the images the music embodies all dissolve into one boundless mass. On "The Leaden Echo", the late Welsh actor Richard Burton draws out the fleet rhythms of a stunning poem by the experimental Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins; Burton's crisp, theatrical diction blends into a haze of swirling strings with a few subtle voice manipulations at certain enjambments. On "Absolutely Grey", jazz wordsmith Ken Nordine's rich baritone echoes itself in whispers amid camera whirs, sonar blips, and shifting percussion that helps him hover or surge without changing his inflection. The balance of poppy, purely musical tracks and esoteric, more sculptural ones keeps the record lively, and it has considerable archival value as well: For book lovers, the drowsy lounge-music strains of "Everness" are almost beside the point; to hear the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges reading in his native tongue is sufficient. Song lyrics are not poetry and poems are not songs, but that doesn't mean poetry and music can't agreeably coexist-- even, in the right hands, enhance each other-- as Emmer so convincingly asserts on Recitement.

Artist: Stephen Emmer, Album: Recitement, Genre: Experimental,Jazz,Pop/R&B,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "On Recitement, the Dutch composer Stephen Emmer builds music around spoken literary texts. Because of that sentence alone, I'd wager that some of you are aiming for your browser's back arrow. Spoken word gets a bad rap in part because of a hoary yet persistent caricature: the finger-snapping, beret-wearing, boho poet who declaims jive over noodly jazz or po-faced folk. This straw man is so pervasive in popular culture-- it gave us Maynard G. Krebs, Cool Cat, and Shaggy from "Scooby-Doo"-- that it's easy to forget the beatnik way isn't the only way. Recitement, which features Emmer's music supporting poems and stories of different eras, some of which are read by their original authors, does occasionally flirt with stereotype. Sometimes the results are enchanting anyway-- you can practically smell the clove smoke wafting through the smooth horns of "Mondo Sparito", which features Andrea Piovan reading from Alessandro Baricco's novel City-- and sometimes they're off-putting. Emmer courts pigeonholing when he backs a reading by Beat archetype Allen Ginsberg with bombastic folk-rock on "Disconnected", and Michael Parkinson hams up a lovely Thomas Hardy poem on "Invergence of the Twain". These few missteps emphasize how admirably Emmer succeeds in avoiding cliché on most of the tracks, which are mainly arranged and played by the composer himself (with a bit of help from auxiliary musicians), and bolstered by Tony Visconti's limpid production. Emmer's miscellaneous musical career, which encompasses free jazz, rock, electronic noise (he was a member of the Factory-signed band Minny Pops), and points outlying, is reflected in the startlingly diverse music on Recitement. This breadth of capability allows him to achieve the most difficult trick of spoken word music: symmetry of form and content, with neither feeling subordinate to the other. So Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow is Falling" (sung by Blonde Redhead's Kazu Makino) gets arctic drone-rock that accentuates its stateliness; Lou Reed's humble rendition of an excerpt from Paul Theroux's travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar gets elegiac piano and strings that conjure stations streaming across train windows; Kurt Schwitters's seminal sound poem "Ursonate" gets syncopated avant-jazz that draws out his nonsense language's decorative, expressive quality. Elsewhere, Emmer avails himself of hip-hop, ambient, chamber music, and techno influences, always keeping his sights on the twin goals of sounding good and drawing out the resonance of his selected texts and voices. The best compositions create harmonious interplay between the various tiers that spoken word music contains: The sound of the voice, the sound of the words, the images the words embody, and the images the music embodies all dissolve into one boundless mass. On "The Leaden Echo", the late Welsh actor Richard Burton draws out the fleet rhythms of a stunning poem by the experimental Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins; Burton's crisp, theatrical diction blends into a haze of swirling strings with a few subtle voice manipulations at certain enjambments. On "Absolutely Grey", jazz wordsmith Ken Nordine's rich baritone echoes itself in whispers amid camera whirs, sonar blips, and shifting percussion that helps him hover or surge without changing his inflection. The balance of poppy, purely musical tracks and esoteric, more sculptural ones keeps the record lively, and it has considerable archival value as well: For book lovers, the drowsy lounge-music strains of "Everness" are almost beside the point; to hear the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges reading in his native tongue is sufficient. Song lyrics are not poetry and poems are not songs, but that doesn't mean poetry and music can't agreeably coexist-- even, in the right hands, enhance each other-- as Emmer so convincingly asserts on Recitement."

GoGoGo Airheart

Exitheuxa

Chris Dahlen

So listen, it would bore both of us for me to run through the canon of British post-punk and 70s NYC rock bands to whom San Diego's GoGoGo Airheart owes some debts. The other day, I was reading a music magazine that actually started comparing new bands to the Liars, that new act has suffered under so much namedropping that you can now use them as shorthand for a whole bunch of other bands: PiL, Gang of Four, etc, etc, etc. So rather than play rock paleontologist and dig up old bands that GoGoGo Airheart reminds us of, let's look at what makes them different. You can hear echoes of many styles in Exitheuxa, their fourth full-length, but nothing undercuts their own sound. Michael Vermillion and bassist Ashish Vyas swap lead vocals; Benjamin White plays lead guitar, sometimes joined by Vermillion; and J Frederic Hough plays drums. The overall impression is of loose, easy-paced rock, back from the beach but ready for business, and injected with some post-punk to make it more jagged. It's not uptight enough to sound spastic or jittery, but at times it gets squirrely-- for example, in both singers' wavery, twisted vocals that occasionally (but only occasionally) break or yelp. And there are the guitars, ragged and raucous but locked in a firm power-sharing arrangement with a stand-up rhythm section. The album's greatest strength is its easy inventiveness. The songs go from a reggae beat on "Witch Hunt" to minute-and-a-half rock blasts like "Sit and Stare"; Jason Crane's trumpet rings over the sparse guitars and bass of "Nice Up the Dance", and the organ on "Meet Me at the Movies" pastes an accordion-like sound on the song's exotic slow pace. Taken apart, it's surprising how different each of the tracks seem, and more surprising, that they fit together seamlessly: instead of throwing a dozen influences in your face, the band seems to ease into new tactics and make themselves at home. All that keeps Exitheuxa from being exceptional is that the songwriting, while solid, could use more stand-out hooks. "Here Comes Attack" and "Sincerely P.S." include some great riffs, "When the Flesh Hits" has a casual but catchy dance beat, and Vyas doesn't play a single dull bassline: many of his parts are insidious, especially on "Nice Up the Dance" and "My Baby Has a Gang (Sign Our Hearts)". But it's the album as a whole that sticks in your mind. It's extremely cohesive and assured-- the kind of rare disc that can justify every strange direction it takes.

Artist: GoGoGo Airheart, Album: Exitheuxa, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "So listen, it would bore both of us for me to run through the canon of British post-punk and 70s NYC rock bands to whom San Diego's GoGoGo Airheart owes some debts. The other day, I was reading a music magazine that actually started comparing new bands to the Liars, that new act has suffered under so much namedropping that you can now use them as shorthand for a whole bunch of other bands: PiL, Gang of Four, etc, etc, etc. So rather than play rock paleontologist and dig up old bands that GoGoGo Airheart reminds us of, let's look at what makes them different. You can hear echoes of many styles in Exitheuxa, their fourth full-length, but nothing undercuts their own sound. Michael Vermillion and bassist Ashish Vyas swap lead vocals; Benjamin White plays lead guitar, sometimes joined by Vermillion; and J Frederic Hough plays drums. The overall impression is of loose, easy-paced rock, back from the beach but ready for business, and injected with some post-punk to make it more jagged. It's not uptight enough to sound spastic or jittery, but at times it gets squirrely-- for example, in both singers' wavery, twisted vocals that occasionally (but only occasionally) break or yelp. And there are the guitars, ragged and raucous but locked in a firm power-sharing arrangement with a stand-up rhythm section. The album's greatest strength is its easy inventiveness. The songs go from a reggae beat on "Witch Hunt" to minute-and-a-half rock blasts like "Sit and Stare"; Jason Crane's trumpet rings over the sparse guitars and bass of "Nice Up the Dance", and the organ on "Meet Me at the Movies" pastes an accordion-like sound on the song's exotic slow pace. Taken apart, it's surprising how different each of the tracks seem, and more surprising, that they fit together seamlessly: instead of throwing a dozen influences in your face, the band seems to ease into new tactics and make themselves at home. All that keeps Exitheuxa from being exceptional is that the songwriting, while solid, could use more stand-out hooks. "Here Comes Attack" and "Sincerely P.S." include some great riffs, "When the Flesh Hits" has a casual but catchy dance beat, and Vyas doesn't play a single dull bassline: many of his parts are insidious, especially on "Nice Up the Dance" and "My Baby Has a Gang (Sign Our Hearts)". But it's the album as a whole that sticks in your mind. It's extremely cohesive and assured-- the kind of rare disc that can justify every strange direction it takes."

Figurines

When the Deer Wore Blue

Rock

Brian Howe

An action figure is usually jointed, thus capable of various dynamic poses. A figurine, meanwhile, is typically frozen into a single pose. It might enjoy an exquisite level of detail, might be nice to look at for awhile. But in the end, it isn't meant to be engaged with-- it sits idly on the mantle, gathering dust, its inflexibility limiting its imaginative potential. So it goes with the Danish indie band Figurines' third effort. For an album that ostensibly covers so many styles-- from garage psychedelia to pastoral pop to blues-rock-- it's remarkably static. Tempos and structures change, but the mood-- like a bright but overcast day, hard and flat-- is so unremitting as to render these various styles homogeneous. Christian Hjelm's reedy vocals don't spice things up; while winning in spurts, they sag over the course of the album. And its pillaging of influences, most egregiously Brian Wilson and the Zombies, makes it even harder to find anything that feels fresh amid the nostalgia. Figurines still falls somewhere between Built to Spill's indie/classic rock and Modest Mouse's glassy sheen (or maybe Rogue Wave doing garage rock instead of soft rock), but the smoothing process that unfolded over the first two is still in progress. While it still contains its share of the angles and edges on which the band made their name, a lot of the twangs and yelps are spitted down like errant hairs, making for a largely frictionless glide. The album's ceramic frangibility is sometimes lovely, especially on more retiring songs like "Good Old Friends", but doesn't invite excessive handling. These criticisms are tempered by the album's handful of captivating moments and overall pleasantness: Nothing about it inspires hostility, only boredom. A few bits stand up next to most anything from Skeleton, Figurines' widely praised sophomore album. "Let's Head Out", wreathed in a fog of spectral harmonies, manages to float and swing simultaneously (the swing is especially important for breaking up the album's overarching stride). Hjelm tends to move between his natural singing voice and falsetto in broad arcs, which doesn't help to make the music dynamic, but here he nimbly condenses the distance between the two, making it more engaging and less belabored. The haunting "Good Old Friends" rides minimal percussion and humming synths toward a terse shimmy, flecked with piano and guitar. It's quiet and distinctive, decked out with some neat lyrics ("It arrived when the deer wore blue," sings Hjelm, presumably concocting a striking ESL metaphor for nighttime). And "Drunkard's Dream", while perhaps overly long at seven and a half minutes, is a tangle of tight, whizzing blues-rock licks that sound inspired, vocals climbing them like a ladder. But elsewhere, When the Deer Wore Blue suffers from a case of the doldrums. "Childhood Verse" keeps interrupting its rolling harmonies and twinkling breaks with crunchy garage bits that are unpleasantly antic. "The Air We Breathe" is an loving paean to Brian Wilson, replete with bang-on wafting harmonies and falsetto lead vocals-- it improves when Hjelm abandons this deeply derivative sound and sings naturalistically over dreamy piano. The twinkling rock creeper "Drove You Miles" is inoffensive but profoundly whatevs. So is "Half Awake, Half Aware", which lacks a remotely memorable melody-- and memorable melody is where this band lives or dies. A meandering vocal line fails to make much of the garage psych licks of "Angels of the Bayou", and another whizzy blues-rocker, "Bee Dee", is too manic to engage with the raucous precision of "Drunkard's Dream". Pitchfork's review of Skeleton went out of its way to make something special of its hooks, which were in fact its best quality. This is a tough sell, though, because every pop song has hooks, and the difference between a good hook and a bad one is tough to pin down. It seems to have more to do with the hook's context than its actual content-- how it explodes from, settles into, or otherwise complicates the arrangement-- that makes it burn into our memories. Hookiness is still Figurines' defining quality, and there are some good ones here, but in couched in music that doesn't stray outside of the borders of its influences, it's a case of diminishing returns. Unless you're a diehard retro-rock fan, you might want to leave this figurine in its natural environment: on the shelf.

Artist: Figurines, Album: When the Deer Wore Blue, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.8 Album review: "An action figure is usually jointed, thus capable of various dynamic poses. A figurine, meanwhile, is typically frozen into a single pose. It might enjoy an exquisite level of detail, might be nice to look at for awhile. But in the end, it isn't meant to be engaged with-- it sits idly on the mantle, gathering dust, its inflexibility limiting its imaginative potential. So it goes with the Danish indie band Figurines' third effort. For an album that ostensibly covers so many styles-- from garage psychedelia to pastoral pop to blues-rock-- it's remarkably static. Tempos and structures change, but the mood-- like a bright but overcast day, hard and flat-- is so unremitting as to render these various styles homogeneous. Christian Hjelm's reedy vocals don't spice things up; while winning in spurts, they sag over the course of the album. And its pillaging of influences, most egregiously Brian Wilson and the Zombies, makes it even harder to find anything that feels fresh amid the nostalgia. Figurines still falls somewhere between Built to Spill's indie/classic rock and Modest Mouse's glassy sheen (or maybe Rogue Wave doing garage rock instead of soft rock), but the smoothing process that unfolded over the first two is still in progress. While it still contains its share of the angles and edges on which the band made their name, a lot of the twangs and yelps are spitted down like errant hairs, making for a largely frictionless glide. The album's ceramic frangibility is sometimes lovely, especially on more retiring songs like "Good Old Friends", but doesn't invite excessive handling. These criticisms are tempered by the album's handful of captivating moments and overall pleasantness: Nothing about it inspires hostility, only boredom. A few bits stand up next to most anything from Skeleton, Figurines' widely praised sophomore album. "Let's Head Out", wreathed in a fog of spectral harmonies, manages to float and swing simultaneously (the swing is especially important for breaking up the album's overarching stride). Hjelm tends to move between his natural singing voice and falsetto in broad arcs, which doesn't help to make the music dynamic, but here he nimbly condenses the distance between the two, making it more engaging and less belabored. The haunting "Good Old Friends" rides minimal percussion and humming synths toward a terse shimmy, flecked with piano and guitar. It's quiet and distinctive, decked out with some neat lyrics ("It arrived when the deer wore blue," sings Hjelm, presumably concocting a striking ESL metaphor for nighttime). And "Drunkard's Dream", while perhaps overly long at seven and a half minutes, is a tangle of tight, whizzing blues-rock licks that sound inspired, vocals climbing them like a ladder. But elsewhere, When the Deer Wore Blue suffers from a case of the doldrums. "Childhood Verse" keeps interrupting its rolling harmonies and twinkling breaks with crunchy garage bits that are unpleasantly antic. "The Air We Breathe" is an loving paean to Brian Wilson, replete with bang-on wafting harmonies and falsetto lead vocals-- it improves when Hjelm abandons this deeply derivative sound and sings naturalistically over dreamy piano. The twinkling rock creeper "Drove You Miles" is inoffensive but profoundly whatevs. So is "Half Awake, Half Aware", which lacks a remotely memorable melody-- and memorable melody is where this band lives or dies. A meandering vocal line fails to make much of the garage psych licks of "Angels of the Bayou", and another whizzy blues-rocker, "Bee Dee", is too manic to engage with the raucous precision of "Drunkard's Dream". Pitchfork's review of Skeleton went out of its way to make something special of its hooks, which were in fact its best quality. This is a tough sell, though, because every pop song has hooks, and the difference between a good hook and a bad one is tough to pin down. It seems to have more to do with the hook's context than its actual content-- how it explodes from, settles into, or otherwise complicates the arrangement-- that makes it burn into our memories. Hookiness is still Figurines' defining quality, and there are some good ones here, but in couched in music that doesn't stray outside of the borders of its influences, it's a case of diminishing returns. Unless you're a diehard retro-rock fan, you might want to leave this figurine in its natural environment: on the shelf."

Seiichi Yamamoto

Nu Frequency

Dominique Leone

Too much information doesn't have to result in an overdriven feedback of static and confusion, though in music, it often does. Representing the onslaught of global culture, media and technology invite temptation to over-saturate, and though that may be one accurate portrait of the (post) modern world, I'm not sure it's the most realistic. Artists like John Oswald, John Zorn and Otomo Yoshihide have specialized in a kind of caricature of this world in their music: taking bits and pieces of information and entertainment around them, they pieced together rather intimidating documents of what would be a disorientating environment to say the least. Flashes of light, shrieks, blasts of electricity, jagged, jump-cut samples racing by before we know what hit us: if every night were New Years' Eve in Times Square, and all the while murder, childbirth and war were raging in the streets, this would be the perfect soundtrack. But every day is not like this. Former Boredoms' guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto seems to recognize the space in between the chaos. It's not for lack of activity in his world: in addition to 15-year stint with Boredoms, he has led his own bands Omoide Hatoba, Rashinban and Akabushi, and performed with Rovo, Most, Novo Tono and Ontoko. He also owns the influential Osaka club Bears where scores of hopeful young noise-addicts try to prove their dissonance on a nightly basis. Furthermore, Yamamoto has released a handful of solo guitar albums, wherein he joins the scratching-and-clawing ranks of fellow improvisers Fred Frith and Eugene Chadbourne. His musical experience is as varied as it is longstanding, and I wouldn't blame him for turning to skronk now and again. Nu Frequency, Yamamoto's fourth solo release, demonstrates that you don't need to explode into schizophrenic noise to run the gamut of lively sensations. Working with the excellent female drummer China, Yamamoto concocts a sprawling mix of free jazz-informed ensemble interaction, post-rock production (think To Rococo Rot, not Sigur Ros) and his own shimmering, restless guitar. Whenever a melody appears, it's quickly obscured by rogue percussion or a sudden bass spike. Throughout, rather than emphasize the traditional, he opts for the extreme, but instead of amounting to an hour of pummeling hysterics, Nu Frequency is a sustained journey into the unresolved and mundane. The "frequency" may be at times piercing, rumbling or soothing, but taken as a whole, Yamamoto's spectrum of sound is even-keeled and non-confrontational. After the short, shiny introduction of "Convergence", "Acceleration" comes on like a small orchestra of contemporary jazz spirits. China's ever-tapping cymbals propose a meter that isn't restricted by actual time, while multiple guitars noodle away in the distance. Synthesized flutes cry over deep, repetitive bass lines, both of which give way to Yamamoto's chord clusters. If it sounds like a mess, it's probably more than you think. Still, it strikes me as a perfectly natural distillation of just about everything the composer has been doing musically over the past few years, only all at once. "Seed" continues the off-kilter mix, but does offer a passive melody via guitars and a piano line that is somewhere between counterpoint and just being lost. Flighty, top-heavy percussion makes things seem more disorganized than they really are, and much in the same way Scott LaFaro's basslines gave Bill Evans room to stretch, Yamamoto offers himself ample canvas over which to splatter. There are moments of eclectic beauty, as on "Yarn", wherein the composer uses only a guitar to create a faint, calm tonality under which clicks, sputters and reverberated feedback dance like the last sparks of dying fire. In other hands, the balance of ambience and experimentalism might not hold, but here it's the model of poignancy. And of course, the album ends on a kinetic, drum-led track that wouldn't sound out of place on a Rovo disc-- I guess there's no accounting for flow. Nevertheless, for most of the album, you'll probably be able to drift off into near-trance without fear of reproach or noise explosions. Nice and uneasy.

Artist: Seiichi Yamamoto, Album: Nu Frequency, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Too much information doesn't have to result in an overdriven feedback of static and confusion, though in music, it often does. Representing the onslaught of global culture, media and technology invite temptation to over-saturate, and though that may be one accurate portrait of the (post) modern world, I'm not sure it's the most realistic. Artists like John Oswald, John Zorn and Otomo Yoshihide have specialized in a kind of caricature of this world in their music: taking bits and pieces of information and entertainment around them, they pieced together rather intimidating documents of what would be a disorientating environment to say the least. Flashes of light, shrieks, blasts of electricity, jagged, jump-cut samples racing by before we know what hit us: if every night were New Years' Eve in Times Square, and all the while murder, childbirth and war were raging in the streets, this would be the perfect soundtrack. But every day is not like this. Former Boredoms' guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto seems to recognize the space in between the chaos. It's not for lack of activity in his world: in addition to 15-year stint with Boredoms, he has led his own bands Omoide Hatoba, Rashinban and Akabushi, and performed with Rovo, Most, Novo Tono and Ontoko. He also owns the influential Osaka club Bears where scores of hopeful young noise-addicts try to prove their dissonance on a nightly basis. Furthermore, Yamamoto has released a handful of solo guitar albums, wherein he joins the scratching-and-clawing ranks of fellow improvisers Fred Frith and Eugene Chadbourne. His musical experience is as varied as it is longstanding, and I wouldn't blame him for turning to skronk now and again. Nu Frequency, Yamamoto's fourth solo release, demonstrates that you don't need to explode into schizophrenic noise to run the gamut of lively sensations. Working with the excellent female drummer China, Yamamoto concocts a sprawling mix of free jazz-informed ensemble interaction, post-rock production (think To Rococo Rot, not Sigur Ros) and his own shimmering, restless guitar. Whenever a melody appears, it's quickly obscured by rogue percussion or a sudden bass spike. Throughout, rather than emphasize the traditional, he opts for the extreme, but instead of amounting to an hour of pummeling hysterics, Nu Frequency is a sustained journey into the unresolved and mundane. The "frequency" may be at times piercing, rumbling or soothing, but taken as a whole, Yamamoto's spectrum of sound is even-keeled and non-confrontational. After the short, shiny introduction of "Convergence", "Acceleration" comes on like a small orchestra of contemporary jazz spirits. China's ever-tapping cymbals propose a meter that isn't restricted by actual time, while multiple guitars noodle away in the distance. Synthesized flutes cry over deep, repetitive bass lines, both of which give way to Yamamoto's chord clusters. If it sounds like a mess, it's probably more than you think. Still, it strikes me as a perfectly natural distillation of just about everything the composer has been doing musically over the past few years, only all at once. "Seed" continues the off-kilter mix, but does offer a passive melody via guitars and a piano line that is somewhere between counterpoint and just being lost. Flighty, top-heavy percussion makes things seem more disorganized than they really are, and much in the same way Scott LaFaro's basslines gave Bill Evans room to stretch, Yamamoto offers himself ample canvas over which to splatter. There are moments of eclectic beauty, as on "Yarn", wherein the composer uses only a guitar to create a faint, calm tonality under which clicks, sputters and reverberated feedback dance like the last sparks of dying fire. In other hands, the balance of ambience and experimentalism might not hold, but here it's the model of poignancy. And of course, the album ends on a kinetic, drum-led track that wouldn't sound out of place on a Rovo disc-- I guess there's no accounting for flow. Nevertheless, for most of the album, you'll probably be able to drift off into near-trance without fear of reproach or noise explosions. Nice and uneasy."

Portastatic

Bright Ideas

Experimental,Rock

Brandon Stosuy

In one sense, Mac McCaughan's repetitions are a key to his longevity. Structurally, he makes excellent use of run-on sentences for exclamatory emphasis; doubled lines (or more often quadrupled hiccups) propel his best songs. The oldie "My Noise" jumps with a row of fluctuating "It"'s: "It rides beside me/ It has no choice/ It's my life/ It is my voice/ It is stupid/ It is my noise." This sort of stutter pops up time and again in McCaughan's back catalogue, and judging from Bright Ideas, the sixth Portastatic full-length in 13 years, he wisely avoids a Mouldian aim at mid-career eclecticism, and continues the practice. The title track's opening lines hinge on their reps: McCaughan adopts an airy Elliott Smith, stuck awhile in clusters of "I thought"'s so multitudinous they'd take up too much space for me to quote. Here, as is often the Portastatic case, the point isn't rock catharsis. Superchunk remains that predominant space for songs that make you bounce on your bed, with Portastatic more about introspection. "Bright Ideas" fits that low-key template perfectly, the protagonist resting his head on a pillow rather than using it as a soft weapon at a high-spirited slumber party. McCaughan shakes things up a bit (but just a bit) the rest of the way. In indie rock years, McCaughan's approximately 100. Between Merge, which he operates with Superchunk bassist Laura Ballance and various high and low-profile musical projects the North Carolina icon's rarely out of sight. How does a centurion maintain musical vitality? One approach is to get Conor Oberst to pen your overstated press release. The more valiant option: experiment tastefully and within your limitations. Doing just that on Bright Ideas, McCaughan plays Portastatic for the first time with a full band. Sure, past offerings have included guest spots by Sleater-Kinney's Janet Weiss and Tony Crow of Lambchop, but this is McCaughan's most realized rock affair. As one would expect with the fuller instrumentation, Bright Ideas is McCaughan's most Superchunk-friendly Portastatic collection. Though with Portastatic dispatches arriving at more regular intervals than rockers from those slack motherfuckers, the difference feels more like semantics than anything else. Unexpectedly, the album features a flurry of decently energized fist-pumpers-- "Through With People", "The Soft Rewind", and standout "White Waves". Each is enjoyable in its way. When McCaughan grows too chill ("Truckstop Cassettes"), tiptoes into country ("Little Fern"), or lulls a la mid-tempo Neil Diamond/Crooked Fingers (much of "I Wanna Know Girls" ), he drops his raw nasal register, losing what makes his work compelling. Bright Ideas is more pleasant than kick-ass or inspired. But for an album this deep into his career, at a time when he could start growing aesthetically antsy, McCaughan sticks to a blueprint that works best: He shifts things enough to let us know he's still breathing, avoiding the desperate genre-jumping that often afflicts musicians of a certain age.

Artist: Portastatic, Album: Bright Ideas, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "In one sense, Mac McCaughan's repetitions are a key to his longevity. Structurally, he makes excellent use of run-on sentences for exclamatory emphasis; doubled lines (or more often quadrupled hiccups) propel his best songs. The oldie "My Noise" jumps with a row of fluctuating "It"'s: "It rides beside me/ It has no choice/ It's my life/ It is my voice/ It is stupid/ It is my noise." This sort of stutter pops up time and again in McCaughan's back catalogue, and judging from Bright Ideas, the sixth Portastatic full-length in 13 years, he wisely avoids a Mouldian aim at mid-career eclecticism, and continues the practice. The title track's opening lines hinge on their reps: McCaughan adopts an airy Elliott Smith, stuck awhile in clusters of "I thought"'s so multitudinous they'd take up too much space for me to quote. Here, as is often the Portastatic case, the point isn't rock catharsis. Superchunk remains that predominant space for songs that make you bounce on your bed, with Portastatic more about introspection. "Bright Ideas" fits that low-key template perfectly, the protagonist resting his head on a pillow rather than using it as a soft weapon at a high-spirited slumber party. McCaughan shakes things up a bit (but just a bit) the rest of the way. In indie rock years, McCaughan's approximately 100. Between Merge, which he operates with Superchunk bassist Laura Ballance and various high and low-profile musical projects the North Carolina icon's rarely out of sight. How does a centurion maintain musical vitality? One approach is to get Conor Oberst to pen your overstated press release. The more valiant option: experiment tastefully and within your limitations. Doing just that on Bright Ideas, McCaughan plays Portastatic for the first time with a full band. Sure, past offerings have included guest spots by Sleater-Kinney's Janet Weiss and Tony Crow of Lambchop, but this is McCaughan's most realized rock affair. As one would expect with the fuller instrumentation, Bright Ideas is McCaughan's most Superchunk-friendly Portastatic collection. Though with Portastatic dispatches arriving at more regular intervals than rockers from those slack motherfuckers, the difference feels more like semantics than anything else. Unexpectedly, the album features a flurry of decently energized fist-pumpers-- "Through With People", "The Soft Rewind", and standout "White Waves". Each is enjoyable in its way. When McCaughan grows too chill ("Truckstop Cassettes"), tiptoes into country ("Little Fern"), or lulls a la mid-tempo Neil Diamond/Crooked Fingers (much of "I Wanna Know Girls" ), he drops his raw nasal register, losing what makes his work compelling. Bright Ideas is more pleasant than kick-ass or inspired. But for an album this deep into his career, at a time when he could start growing aesthetically antsy, McCaughan sticks to a blueprint that works best: He shifts things enough to let us know he's still breathing, avoiding the desperate genre-jumping that often afflicts musicians of a certain age."

Neil Young

Tonight's the Night

Rock

Mark Richardson

In February 1972, Neil Young put out an album called Harvest and it became massive, going platinum and becoming the best-selling album of the year. In addition to changing Young’s position in the marketplace, the album’s runaway success made a mark on record shopping for years to come. Anyone who went to a store before the vinyl revival began in earnest can tell you that used copies of Harvest were utterly ubiquitous—like Cat Stevens’ Teaser and the Firecat and Carole King’s Tapestry, there was seemingly no thrift shop or garage sale without one. With Harvest, Young built on the commercial breakthrough of his work with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, mixing two sounds beloved by aging baby boomers—rootsy country-rock and intimate singer/songwriter folk. Harvest was the right record for this weird, post-‘60s moment, and a shaggy Canadian singer-songwriter with the shaky voice was suddenly something approaching a pop star. Harvest had its share of wistful and breezy songs, but a number on the second side called “The Needle and the Damage Done” was a sign of things to come. It was a song, in part, about guitarist, singer, and songwriter Danny Whitten, Young’s friend and a member of his frequent backing band, Crazy Horse, specifically Whitten’s addiction to heroin. “The Needle and the Damage Done,” recorded live in concert and solo, set a template for a certain kind of song about drug abuse: It’s beautiful, elegiac, precise—a focused lament written with a great deal of craft, like Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” or U2's "Running to Stand Still." While he always excelled at this style, Young’s approach to songwriting was about to shift drastically. “‘Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road,” he famously wrote of Harvest’s big single in the liner notes to his 1977 collection Decade, perhaps thinking of his album in the bins next to those by massive sellers by Cat Stevens and Carole King. “Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch.” Tonight’s the Night, a noisy, harrowing scrape along the guardrail that sends sparks flying upward, was Young’s most moving dispatch from his chosen place. As summer turned to fall in 1973, 18 months after Harvest hit stores, Neil Young was 27 years old. He was learning that bad things can start to happen when you reach your late twenties, especially when you’re drinking too much and doing too many drugs and are hanging around people who do the same. Your late twenties is when you might find that certain people who once seemed like “they like to party” are going much further, and the situation is getting dangerous. Bodies that seemed indestructible in youth start to give out; good times suddenly aren’t so good anymore. In August of ’73, when Young started the sessions that produced the bulk of Tonight’s the Night, he found himself in the heart of such a scene, and the center could not hold. Two events in the previous 10 months had shaken Young to his core, and they shaped how this album came to be and how it was heard. In November 1972, Young was rehearsing the band he dubbed the Stray Gators to take them on tour in support of Harvest. Whitten was asked to join the group but it quickly became clear that his addiction had advanced to the point where playing shows was impossible, so Young fired him and gave him $50 and a plane ticket back to Los Angeles. Whitten died of an overdose of valium and alcohol within a day, and Young was overcome with guilt about his friend’s death. In June of ’73, two months before the Tonight’s the Night sessions, Bruce Berry, a roadie for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and beloved member of Young’s particular L.A. scene, died of an overdose of heroin. So Tonight’s the Night comes freighted with a certain amount of legend, and people generally encounter it now through the lens of 40 years of rock writing. If you’ve read enough about music, you’ve read the above “ditch” comment, and you’ll have it somewhere in your mind the first time you press “play” or lower the turntable arm. The general understanding on Tonight’s the Night is that it’s dark, it’s depressing, a record about loss and destruction and the end. If you listen to it knowing these things, you’re in for a surprise. Because it is those things, but it’s also so much more. Tonight’s the Night is shocking the first time you hear it because for a record on the receiving end of so much first-generation rock criticism focusing on its sorrow and grief, it often sounds like a raucous party being thrown by a bunch of lovable knuckleheads having the time of their life. After the repetition of the opening “tonight’s the night” refrain on the opening title track, the first two words on the album are “Bruce Berry,” and the album’s connection to Young’s deceased friend go deeper. In August ’73, after some sessions at the L.A.’s Sunset Sound, Young decided a proper studio wasn’t the right setting for the album he had in mind. So Young’s producer David Briggs had the idea to record at a Studio Instrument Rentals, which was started by Bruce Berry and his brother Ken. In addition to renting equipment, S.I.R. had a small practice space in the back with an elevated stage. A mobile recording truck was parked behind the building and a hole was knocked in the wall to run cable to the truck. Young’s band now consisted of the Crazy Horse rhythm section of Billy Talbot on bass and Ralph Molina on drums, young guitarist and sometime Crazy Horse member Nils Lofgren, and steel guitar player Ben Keith, who had worked with Young in Nashville on Harvest. Over the course of a month, they’d assemble in the evening with Briggs at S.I.R. to drink and do drugs and play pool and shoot the shit until they were ready to climb onstage and make music. The Tonight’s the Night songs recorded in the practice space were cut live in this fashion, with no overdubs and minimal editing, and the album itself is one of the most sonically raw albums ever released by a major artist. The band is loose and well-oiled. At times Young is too close or too far away from the microphone, and his voice is often straining at the upper end of his range. Young was recording the month after Steely Dan had released Countdown to Ecstasy, and the rich possibilities of the recording studio were reaching a zenith, but he was recording in a dimly-lit room with a drunk band in the back of a retail store, noisily banging into microphone stands on takes that would eventually be used on an album by a label owned by Warner Brothers. This off-the-cuff feel defines the album. Working with Young, producer David Briggs was about

Artist: Neil Young, Album: Tonight's the Night, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 10.0 Album review: "In February 1972, Neil Young put out an album called Harvest and it became massive, going platinum and becoming the best-selling album of the year. In addition to changing Young’s position in the marketplace, the album’s runaway success made a mark on record shopping for years to come. Anyone who went to a store before the vinyl revival began in earnest can tell you that used copies of Harvest were utterly ubiquitous—like Cat Stevens’ Teaser and the Firecat and Carole King’s Tapestry, there was seemingly no thrift shop or garage sale without one. With Harvest, Young built on the commercial breakthrough of his work with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, mixing two sounds beloved by aging baby boomers—rootsy country-rock and intimate singer/songwriter folk. Harvest was the right record for this weird, post-‘60s moment, and a shaggy Canadian singer-songwriter with the shaky voice was suddenly something approaching a pop star. Harvest had its share of wistful and breezy songs, but a number on the second side called “The Needle and the Damage Done” was a sign of things to come. It was a song, in part, about guitarist, singer, and songwriter Danny Whitten, Young’s friend and a member of his frequent backing band, Crazy Horse, specifically Whitten’s addiction to heroin. “The Needle and the Damage Done,” recorded live in concert and solo, set a template for a certain kind of song about drug abuse: It’s beautiful, elegiac, precise—a focused lament written with a great deal of craft, like Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” or U2's "Running to Stand Still." While he always excelled at this style, Young’s approach to songwriting was about to shift drastically. “‘Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road,” he famously wrote of Harvest’s big single in the liner notes to his 1977 collection Decade, perhaps thinking of his album in the bins next to those by massive sellers by Cat Stevens and Carole King. “Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch.” Tonight’s the Night, a noisy, harrowing scrape along the guardrail that sends sparks flying upward, was Young’s most moving dispatch from his chosen place. As summer turned to fall in 1973, 18 months after Harvest hit stores, Neil Young was 27 years old. He was learning that bad things can start to happen when you reach your late twenties, especially when you’re drinking too much and doing too many drugs and are hanging around people who do the same. Your late twenties is when you might find that certain people who once seemed like “they like to party” are going much further, and the situation is getting dangerous. Bodies that seemed indestructible in youth start to give out; good times suddenly aren’t so good anymore. In August of ’73, when Young started the sessions that produced the bulk of Tonight’s the Night, he found himself in the heart of such a scene, and the center could not hold. Two events in the previous 10 months had shaken Young to his core, and they shaped how this album came to be and how it was heard. In November 1972, Young was rehearsing the band he dubbed the Stray Gators to take them on tour in support of Harvest. Whitten was asked to join the group but it quickly became clear that his addiction had advanced to the point where playing shows was impossible, so Young fired him and gave him $50 and a plane ticket back to Los Angeles. Whitten died of an overdose of valium and alcohol within a day, and Young was overcome with guilt about his friend’s death. In June of ’73, two months before the Tonight’s the Night sessions, Bruce Berry, a roadie for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and beloved member of Young’s particular L.A. scene, died of an overdose of heroin. So Tonight’s the Night comes freighted with a certain amount of legend, and people generally encounter it now through the lens of 40 years of rock writing. If you’ve read enough about music, you’ve read the above “ditch” comment, and you’ll have it somewhere in your mind the first time you press “play” or lower the turntable arm. The general understanding on Tonight’s the Night is that it’s dark, it’s depressing, a record about loss and destruction and the end. If you listen to it knowing these things, you’re in for a surprise. Because it is those things, but it’s also so much more. Tonight’s the Night is shocking the first time you hear it because for a record on the receiving end of so much first-generation rock criticism focusing on its sorrow and grief, it often sounds like a raucous party being thrown by a bunch of lovable knuckleheads having the time of their life. After the repetition of the opening “tonight’s the night” refrain on the opening title track, the first two words on the album are “Bruce Berry,” and the album’s connection to Young’s deceased friend go deeper. In August ’73, after some sessions at the L.A.’s Sunset Sound, Young decided a proper studio wasn’t the right setting for the album he had in mind. So Young’s producer David Briggs had the idea to record at a Studio Instrument Rentals, which was started by Bruce Berry and his brother Ken. In addition to renting equipment, S.I.R. had a small practice space in the back with an elevated stage. A mobile recording truck was parked behind the building and a hole was knocked in the wall to run cable to the truck. Young’s band now consisted of the Crazy Horse rhythm section of Billy Talbot on bass and Ralph Molina on drums, young guitarist and sometime Crazy Horse member Nils Lofgren, and steel guitar player Ben Keith, who had worked with Young in Nashville on Harvest. Over the course of a month, they’d assemble in the evening with Briggs at S.I.R. to drink and do drugs and play pool and shoot the shit until they were ready to climb onstage and make music. The Tonight’s the Night songs recorded in the practice space were cut live in this fashion, with no overdubs and minimal editing, and the album itself is one of the most sonically raw albums ever released by a major artist. The band is loose and well-oiled. At times Young is too close or too far away from the microphone, and his voice is often straining at the upper end of his range. Young was recording the month after Steely Dan had released Countdown to Ecstasy, and the rich possibilities of the recording studio were reaching a zenith, but he was recording in a dimly-lit room with a drunk band in the back of a retail store, noisily banging into microphone stands on takes that would eventually be used on an album by a label owned by Warner Brothers. This off-the-cuff feel defines the album. Working with Young, producer David Briggs was about "

The Intelligence

Everybody's Got It Easy But Me

Electronic,Rock

Stuart Berman

At a recent Beach Boys concert I attended, the most enthusiastic crowd response-- measured by the number of couples dancing romantically, dudes in Hawaiian shirts bro-ing down, and solo hippie wig-outs-- came not for "Good Vibrations", "Wouldn't It Be Nice", or even "California Girls". No, it was for fuckin' "Kokomo". No doubt, the sight of 20- and 60-year-olds alike happily groovin' to the same escapist, bourgeoise-fantasy jingle would've mortified Lars Finberg; the thirtysomething brainstrust of the Intelligence seems to hold boomers and Millennials with equal contempt, if only because both groups appear to be having more fun than him. Over the course of seven albums and countless sideline releases as the Intelligence, Finberg has couched his various complaints in cryptic, cheeky wordplay, and a fractious sound that hotwires the hormonal abandon of 1960s garage-rock to the intellectualized anarchy of post-punk and robotic spaziness of new wave. But his new album, Everybody's Got It Easy But Me, comes wrapped in such a self-explanatory mission statement, it might was well come with a cover photo of Larry David. Everybody's Got It Easy But Me is at once the Intelligence's most lyrically direct and musically exploratory album to date, introducing pastoral psychedelia, space-age bachelor-pad vibes, and at least one proper ballad to the mix. Fittingly for a record that likes to pull you in two different directions at once, Finberg recorded it with two separate supporting casts in his hometown of Seattle and his new base of operations, Los Angeles, a city that tends to elicit extreme love/hate reactions. Finberg, however, opens the album with the suitably blasé sentiment of "I Like L.A.", on which he essentially plays the opening act to himself, itemizing his anxieties over a tinker-toy beat and grinding acoustic riff-- like something Graham Coxon might come up with in his bedroom when in a Wire-y mood-- before a patience-testing count up to 44 and a thoroughly unexcited announcement of "ladies and gentlemen, the band" introduces a full-group rock-out rendition. Of course, the Intelligence are hardly the first band to explore the fallacy of the California dream, but rather than deal in a trite fallen-angel narrative, "I Like L.A." keys in on the day-to-day monotony of artists struggling to make ends meet in the shadow of the entertainment-industrial complex; what it captures is the very despairing sound of countless nights spent playing for the bar staff and their friends. But Everybody's Got It Easy But Me answers Finberg's ever-withering worldview with playful, rambunctious performances, enhancing the I-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times pathos of his lyrics by essentially making him sound like an outcast within his own songs. On "Hippy Provider", he rolls his eyes at the sound of "freedom rock" even though his exuberant backing chorus of female singers seem eager to keep on chooglin'. "Reading and Writing About Partying", meanwhile, is a raucous rallying cry for frustrated concert-goers who can't enjoy their favorite band because everyone's holding up their goddamn cameraphones, and for those left aghast at how the think-for-yourself ethos of punk and first-wave indie rock has degenerated into a social-media hivemind. If Finberg's crankiness starts to grate on the demented six-minute squeal "Sunny Backyard", Everybody's Got It Easy But Me also yields surprising moments of sweetness and delicacy: "Little Town Flirt" is a faithful cover of the 1962 Del Shannon hit that sees Finberg trading lines with another Shannon (Shaw, of Oakland garage outfit Shannon and the Clams), while the downcast acoustic closer "Fidelty" sees a straight-faced Finberg dropping disarmingly candid confessions-- "If you really scrape for the truth/ Every part of me has died"-- over a melody that echoes Pulp's "Razzamatazz", before yielding to a teary chorus of harmonies straight outta "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". It's always been easy to smirk along to Finberg's lyrics and deadpan, detached delivery, but in its dying minutes, Everybody's Got It Easy But Me emphasizes a quality that often gets lost in the conversational crossfire: He's a professional cynic only because he cares.

Artist: The Intelligence, Album: Everybody's Got It Easy But Me, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "At a recent Beach Boys concert I attended, the most enthusiastic crowd response-- measured by the number of couples dancing romantically, dudes in Hawaiian shirts bro-ing down, and solo hippie wig-outs-- came not for "Good Vibrations", "Wouldn't It Be Nice", or even "California Girls". No, it was for fuckin' "Kokomo". No doubt, the sight of 20- and 60-year-olds alike happily groovin' to the same escapist, bourgeoise-fantasy jingle would've mortified Lars Finberg; the thirtysomething brainstrust of the Intelligence seems to hold boomers and Millennials with equal contempt, if only because both groups appear to be having more fun than him. Over the course of seven albums and countless sideline releases as the Intelligence, Finberg has couched his various complaints in cryptic, cheeky wordplay, and a fractious sound that hotwires the hormonal abandon of 1960s garage-rock to the intellectualized anarchy of post-punk and robotic spaziness of new wave. But his new album, Everybody's Got It Easy But Me, comes wrapped in such a self-explanatory mission statement, it might was well come with a cover photo of Larry David. Everybody's Got It Easy But Me is at once the Intelligence's most lyrically direct and musically exploratory album to date, introducing pastoral psychedelia, space-age bachelor-pad vibes, and at least one proper ballad to the mix. Fittingly for a record that likes to pull you in two different directions at once, Finberg recorded it with two separate supporting casts in his hometown of Seattle and his new base of operations, Los Angeles, a city that tends to elicit extreme love/hate reactions. Finberg, however, opens the album with the suitably blasé sentiment of "I Like L.A.", on which he essentially plays the opening act to himself, itemizing his anxieties over a tinker-toy beat and grinding acoustic riff-- like something Graham Coxon might come up with in his bedroom when in a Wire-y mood-- before a patience-testing count up to 44 and a thoroughly unexcited announcement of "ladies and gentlemen, the band" introduces a full-group rock-out rendition. Of course, the Intelligence are hardly the first band to explore the fallacy of the California dream, but rather than deal in a trite fallen-angel narrative, "I Like L.A." keys in on the day-to-day monotony of artists struggling to make ends meet in the shadow of the entertainment-industrial complex; what it captures is the very despairing sound of countless nights spent playing for the bar staff and their friends. But Everybody's Got It Easy But Me answers Finberg's ever-withering worldview with playful, rambunctious performances, enhancing the I-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times pathos of his lyrics by essentially making him sound like an outcast within his own songs. On "Hippy Provider", he rolls his eyes at the sound of "freedom rock" even though his exuberant backing chorus of female singers seem eager to keep on chooglin'. "Reading and Writing About Partying", meanwhile, is a raucous rallying cry for frustrated concert-goers who can't enjoy their favorite band because everyone's holding up their goddamn cameraphones, and for those left aghast at how the think-for-yourself ethos of punk and first-wave indie rock has degenerated into a social-media hivemind. If Finberg's crankiness starts to grate on the demented six-minute squeal "Sunny Backyard", Everybody's Got It Easy But Me also yields surprising moments of sweetness and delicacy: "Little Town Flirt" is a faithful cover of the 1962 Del Shannon hit that sees Finberg trading lines with another Shannon (Shaw, of Oakland garage outfit Shannon and the Clams), while the downcast acoustic closer "Fidelty" sees a straight-faced Finberg dropping disarmingly candid confessions-- "If you really scrape for the truth/ Every part of me has died"-- over a melody that echoes Pulp's "Razzamatazz", before yielding to a teary chorus of harmonies straight outta "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". It's always been easy to smirk along to Finberg's lyrics and deadpan, detached delivery, but in its dying minutes, Everybody's Got It Easy But Me emphasizes a quality that often gets lost in the conversational crossfire: He's a professional cynic only because he cares."

Fang Island

Fang Island

Rock

Ian Cohen

Brooklyn's Fang Island describe their aesthetic as "everyone high-fiving everyone." So it's appropriate that the band's website features a video of them jamming out with kindergartners and another with Andrew WK-- people so caught up in having a good time that you sometimes wonder if they're bullshitting you. What helps Fang Island steamroll past cynicism is how "fun" isn't just an ornament for them, it's embedded in the band's musical DNA. Fang Island's self-titled second album is joyous despite its general lack of verses or choruses. It's fractured like any post-punk record while also speaking the language of classic rock, yet often feels like an intricate collage pieced together from elements that make songs memorable-- palm-muted power chords following wide-open intros, blistering solos, double-time outros. Pretty much all of that is crammed into the deleriously infectious "Daisy", an emphatic crossbreed of the Go! Team and the Promise Ring's "Is This Thing On?" The dance routine in the song's video feels like the only natural reaction to hearing it. As Fang Island's entry point, "Daisy" might come on a bit strong, but what precedes it sets the tone perfectly. The record opens with fireworks (literally), before an armada of severely EQ'd guitar harmonics swoop in like fighter jets. The band then bursts into a dense chorus of four-part harmonies, earnestly intoning the WK-ish positive mantra: "They are all within my reach. They are free." Next comes "Careful Crossers", which has no words but would be shortchanged by being called an "instrumental" when such lyrical riffs pop up every eight bars. Fang Island aren't total deconstructionists-- the see-sawing rhythms and stutter-step cadence of songs like "Life Coach" and "Treeton" wouldn't be out of place on a Spoon or Modest Mouse album. But unlike other pop craftsmen, Fang Island rarely give you any indication of what direction they might take. "Sideswiper" appears to settle into a Ted Leo-ish 12/8 stomper after its darting intro, until a sudden acoustic guitar and high-wire leads hints that the whole thing might just be one big riff on "Jack and Diane". The music coordinators at MTV recently tapped "Daisy" to soundtrack a series of commercials for the reality show The Buried Life. The premise of the show-- "What do you want to do before you die?"-- is pretty corny, but Fang Island's exuberance is perfect for chasing dreams. While their manic musicianship and group-hug vibe may inspire more than a few comparisons to the badly missed Mae Shi, they aren't about proselytizing. This music is just honest and life-affirming and infectious, and it's that rare concentration of directness and simplicity that makes Fang Island so uniquely and wonderfully inclusive.

Artist: Fang Island, Album: Fang Island, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.3 Album review: "Brooklyn's Fang Island describe their aesthetic as "everyone high-fiving everyone." So it's appropriate that the band's website features a video of them jamming out with kindergartners and another with Andrew WK-- people so caught up in having a good time that you sometimes wonder if they're bullshitting you. What helps Fang Island steamroll past cynicism is how "fun" isn't just an ornament for them, it's embedded in the band's musical DNA. Fang Island's self-titled second album is joyous despite its general lack of verses or choruses. It's fractured like any post-punk record while also speaking the language of classic rock, yet often feels like an intricate collage pieced together from elements that make songs memorable-- palm-muted power chords following wide-open intros, blistering solos, double-time outros. Pretty much all of that is crammed into the deleriously infectious "Daisy", an emphatic crossbreed of the Go! Team and the Promise Ring's "Is This Thing On?" The dance routine in the song's video feels like the only natural reaction to hearing it. As Fang Island's entry point, "Daisy" might come on a bit strong, but what precedes it sets the tone perfectly. The record opens with fireworks (literally), before an armada of severely EQ'd guitar harmonics swoop in like fighter jets. The band then bursts into a dense chorus of four-part harmonies, earnestly intoning the WK-ish positive mantra: "They are all within my reach. They are free." Next comes "Careful Crossers", which has no words but would be shortchanged by being called an "instrumental" when such lyrical riffs pop up every eight bars. Fang Island aren't total deconstructionists-- the see-sawing rhythms and stutter-step cadence of songs like "Life Coach" and "Treeton" wouldn't be out of place on a Spoon or Modest Mouse album. But unlike other pop craftsmen, Fang Island rarely give you any indication of what direction they might take. "Sideswiper" appears to settle into a Ted Leo-ish 12/8 stomper after its darting intro, until a sudden acoustic guitar and high-wire leads hints that the whole thing might just be one big riff on "Jack and Diane". The music coordinators at MTV recently tapped "Daisy" to soundtrack a series of commercials for the reality show The Buried Life. The premise of the show-- "What do you want to do before you die?"-- is pretty corny, but Fang Island's exuberance is perfect for chasing dreams. While their manic musicianship and group-hug vibe may inspire more than a few comparisons to the badly missed Mae Shi, they aren't about proselytizing. This music is just honest and life-affirming and infectious, and it's that rare concentration of directness and simplicity that makes Fang Island so uniquely and wonderfully inclusive."

Trae tha Truth

Tha Truth

Rap

Matthew Ramirez

There's a run on great rap voices in Houston—Bun B's crisp baritone, Z-Ro's bluesy bounce, Scarface's bellow. But Trae tha Truth's might be the most unique—a rasp carrying so much weight he might be Houston's version of Big Rube, if Rube decided to rhyme. He's also never really broke all the way through like his contemporaries from the class of 2005, or escaped the local hub of the Screwed Up Click. There is a darkness to his music that might put off outsiders. Sometimes he even discomfits his own city: He was banned by Houston's most-recognizable hip-hop station for a sustained period of time because of an inane allegation he incited violence via his annual Trae Day, a local, charitable holiday (officially recognized by the mayor!). In other words, his art is so gut-level effective it nearly blacklisted him from a city he has represented tirelessly for over a decade. No one's realer than Trae. However, true to Houston form, he can't quite sustain a full-length album. Between a solo run and his work with ABN, Trae's established a personal canon, but you'll be hard-pressed to hear a song of his after Fat Pat's "Tops Drop" and Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" during a best-of-Houston playlist: he's so prolific that in recent years he's spread his catalog thin. That there's no strong Houston presence on Tha Truth, Trae's first record in four years, is not a surprise, because he's always been the odd-man-out of the nationally-recognized Houston crew, and his affiliation with T.I.'s Hustle Gang makes some locals bristle. But it unfortunately lends a major-label-rap sameness to Tha Truth, his seventh official studio album, that is kryptonite to someone as unique as Trae. Some moments work better than others, but the album feels shuffled rather than sequenced.  Problem, a good rapper, is sorely mismatched with Lil Boss, one of the few features (and only local one) to leave a mark, on solid first single "Yeah Hoe." Trae lets DeJ Loaf get the last word on this record, on the excellent closer "Realigion," and the fit makes sense: DeJ works the same anti-social angle Trae has trafficked in for years. Surprisingly, the J. Cole collaboration is the most affecting song. Cole's strained gravitas works in small doses, and it does on "Children of Men," a soulful lament that runs through familiar themes of violence and poverty but manages to twist them afresh in Trae's husky presence. When not basking in the highs of "Children of Men" or the lows of ill-advised sex jam "Late Night King" (with a badly Auto-Tuned Jeremih on the hook), Tha Truth just hovers in the Houston-street-rap middle. On the intro, Lil Duval insists, "ain't no music out here for the struggle right now...that's what the people need." And Trae stays to true to his word. "Why" is a somber reflection on gang violence, but it doesn't resonate after it's over. "Tricken Every Car I Get" with Future and Boosie, is a good single, but it's mostly telling  for how hungry Boosie sounds: "Spray that thing candy but might wreck the whip the next day/Peanut butter insides covered up in plastic/stash spots everywhere, ride fly everywhere." These are fun lines that stick in your head on first listen, and they capture more vitality in a few seconds than Trae does for the entire record. Showmanship has never been Trae's trademark, and that can be an issue. He's still rapping well enough over good beats, and he earns points for not shoehorning a Kirko Bangz hook or Travis Scott verse in somewhere. Yet Tha Truth doesn't feel vital, and, at his peak, Trae was arguably the most vital Houston rapper—anchoring a scene that featured the antics of Mike Jones and Paul Wall, he was the lyricist's lyricist, the conscience of the underground. Trae doesn't have to prove to anyone he's a necessary voice in hip-hop, but between Slim Thug's surprisingly solid twin Hogg Life records from this year, or the consistently mellow output from fellow ABN member Z-Ro, for now anyway, he's been outpaced.

Artist: Trae tha Truth, Album: Tha Truth, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "There's a run on great rap voices in Houston—Bun B's crisp baritone, Z-Ro's bluesy bounce, Scarface's bellow. But Trae tha Truth's might be the most unique—a rasp carrying so much weight he might be Houston's version of Big Rube, if Rube decided to rhyme. He's also never really broke all the way through like his contemporaries from the class of 2005, or escaped the local hub of the Screwed Up Click. There is a darkness to his music that might put off outsiders. Sometimes he even discomfits his own city: He was banned by Houston's most-recognizable hip-hop station for a sustained period of time because of an inane allegation he incited violence via his annual Trae Day, a local, charitable holiday (officially recognized by the mayor!). In other words, his art is so gut-level effective it nearly blacklisted him from a city he has represented tirelessly for over a decade. No one's realer than Trae. However, true to Houston form, he can't quite sustain a full-length album. Between a solo run and his work with ABN, Trae's established a personal canon, but you'll be hard-pressed to hear a song of his after Fat Pat's "Tops Drop" and Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" during a best-of-Houston playlist: he's so prolific that in recent years he's spread his catalog thin. That there's no strong Houston presence on Tha Truth, Trae's first record in four years, is not a surprise, because he's always been the odd-man-out of the nationally-recognized Houston crew, and his affiliation with T.I.'s Hustle Gang makes some locals bristle. But it unfortunately lends a major-label-rap sameness to Tha Truth, his seventh official studio album, that is kryptonite to someone as unique as Trae. Some moments work better than others, but the album feels shuffled rather than sequenced.  Problem, a good rapper, is sorely mismatched with Lil Boss, one of the few features (and only local one) to leave a mark, on solid first single "Yeah Hoe." Trae lets DeJ Loaf get the last word on this record, on the excellent closer "Realigion," and the fit makes sense: DeJ works the same anti-social angle Trae has trafficked in for years. Surprisingly, the J. Cole collaboration is the most affecting song. Cole's strained gravitas works in small doses, and it does on "Children of Men," a soulful lament that runs through familiar themes of violence and poverty but manages to twist them afresh in Trae's husky presence. When not basking in the highs of "Children of Men" or the lows of ill-advised sex jam "Late Night King" (with a badly Auto-Tuned Jeremih on the hook), Tha Truth just hovers in the Houston-street-rap middle. On the intro, Lil Duval insists, "ain't no music out here for the struggle right now...that's what the people need." And Trae stays to true to his word. "Why" is a somber reflection on gang violence, but it doesn't resonate after it's over. "Tricken Every Car I Get" with Future and Boosie, is a good single, but it's mostly telling  for how hungry Boosie sounds: "Spray that thing candy but might wreck the whip the next day/Peanut butter insides covered up in plastic/stash spots everywhere, ride fly everywhere." These are fun lines that stick in your head on first listen, and they capture more vitality in a few seconds than Trae does for the entire record. Showmanship has never been Trae's trademark, and that can be an issue. He's still rapping well enough over good beats, and he earns points for not shoehorning a Kirko Bangz hook or Travis Scott verse in somewhere. Yet Tha Truth doesn't feel vital, and, at his peak, Trae was arguably the most vital Houston rapper—anchoring a scene that featured the antics of Mike Jones and Paul Wall, he was the lyricist's lyricist, the conscience of the underground. Trae doesn't have to prove to anyone he's a necessary voice in hip-hop, but between Slim Thug's surprisingly solid twin Hogg Life records from this year, or the consistently mellow output from fellow ABN member Z-Ro, for now anyway, he's been outpaced."

Mice Parade

Bem-Vinda Vontade

Electronic,Rock

Mark Richardson

Over their first five albums, Adam Pierce's Mice Parade maintained an almost unnerving consistency. Not only are these records roughly comparable in terms of quality, but across any individual album few tracks stand out as failures, just as few are so great they dwarf the music surrounding them. The Mice Parade sound-- a mixture of ringing acoustic guitars layered in Reichian fashion, kinetic drumming, vibes, and assorted non-Western instruments for flavoring-- has in a sense been immune to composition. No matter how Pierce stretches and shapes the pieces, it always sounds like Mice Parade and it always sounds good. Recommending this band to somebody has always been cake: Just pick one of the first five records at random and, if you like it, keep exploring from there. I wouldn't tell them to pick up the sixth album, however. In a sense Bem-Vinda Vontade is easily comparable to its predecessors, with the same instruments beautifully recorded and repetitive songs that swell and contract horizontally rather than using chords to develop. But Bem-Vinda Vontade expands on the use of voice introduced in 2004 on Obrigado Saudade to the point where singing now a centerpiece of the sound. And the vocals, mostly by Pierce and Kristín Anna Valt\xFDsdótti (of Múm), are sure to be divisive. I know Múm's more song-oriented direction has its fans, but for my part Valt\xFDsdótti's singing is completely unlistenable, a tuneless whisper/shriek that seems to exist only as a twee placeholder without having any content on its own. When she comes in on "Night's Wave" and "The Boat Room" she completely pulls me out of whatever reverie the music inspires. Here is an example of when indie's DIY inclusiveness goes too far. Pierce's singing is spotty but sometimes works. He's only got a few notes to choose from, so the main problem is that pickings are so slim in terms of melody. He duets with Valt\xFDsdótti on "Night's Wave" and the music is actually quite good, a thick acoustic stew with furiously strummed guitars, accordion, and Doug Scharin's ever-propulsive drumming, but the actual tune is no match for what surrounds it. But then "Night's Wave" ends as Dylan Christie's gorgeous cloud of vibes span the threshold to "Passing and Galloping" (as ever, the editing is excellent as one song into the next) and all of a sudden Pierce's vocals fit. The music on "Passing and Galloping" is just a shoegazy overdriven guitar atop a bed of endless tom rolls and Pierce's simple vocal lament is an effectively gentle contrast. Nothing wrong with formerly instrumental bands wanting to experiment with songs but it makes sense to recruit singers and songwriters that approach the skill of the music that surrounds them. So much of Bem-Vinda Vontade sounds so nice, with guitar and drum textures as lovely as anything the band has attempted. But the singing seems tacked on and the music suffers, resulting in Mice Parade's least consistent album.

Artist: Mice Parade, Album: Bem-Vinda Vontade, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Over their first five albums, Adam Pierce's Mice Parade maintained an almost unnerving consistency. Not only are these records roughly comparable in terms of quality, but across any individual album few tracks stand out as failures, just as few are so great they dwarf the music surrounding them. The Mice Parade sound-- a mixture of ringing acoustic guitars layered in Reichian fashion, kinetic drumming, vibes, and assorted non-Western instruments for flavoring-- has in a sense been immune to composition. No matter how Pierce stretches and shapes the pieces, it always sounds like Mice Parade and it always sounds good. Recommending this band to somebody has always been cake: Just pick one of the first five records at random and, if you like it, keep exploring from there. I wouldn't tell them to pick up the sixth album, however. In a sense Bem-Vinda Vontade is easily comparable to its predecessors, with the same instruments beautifully recorded and repetitive songs that swell and contract horizontally rather than using chords to develop. But Bem-Vinda Vontade expands on the use of voice introduced in 2004 on Obrigado Saudade to the point where singing now a centerpiece of the sound. And the vocals, mostly by Pierce and Kristín Anna Valt\xFDsdótti (of Múm), are sure to be divisive. I know Múm's more song-oriented direction has its fans, but for my part Valt\xFDsdótti's singing is completely unlistenable, a tuneless whisper/shriek that seems to exist only as a twee placeholder without having any content on its own. When she comes in on "Night's Wave" and "The Boat Room" she completely pulls me out of whatever reverie the music inspires. Here is an example of when indie's DIY inclusiveness goes too far. Pierce's singing is spotty but sometimes works. He's only got a few notes to choose from, so the main problem is that pickings are so slim in terms of melody. He duets with Valt\xFDsdótti on "Night's Wave" and the music is actually quite good, a thick acoustic stew with furiously strummed guitars, accordion, and Doug Scharin's ever-propulsive drumming, but the actual tune is no match for what surrounds it. But then "Night's Wave" ends as Dylan Christie's gorgeous cloud of vibes span the threshold to "Passing and Galloping" (as ever, the editing is excellent as one song into the next) and all of a sudden Pierce's vocals fit. The music on "Passing and Galloping" is just a shoegazy overdriven guitar atop a bed of endless tom rolls and Pierce's simple vocal lament is an effectively gentle contrast. Nothing wrong with formerly instrumental bands wanting to experiment with songs but it makes sense to recruit singers and songwriters that approach the skill of the music that surrounds them. So much of Bem-Vinda Vontade sounds so nice, with guitar and drum textures as lovely as anything the band has attempted. But the singing seems tacked on and the music suffers, resulting in Mice Parade's least consistent album."

Harry Bertoia

Clear Sounds/Perfetta

Experimental

Marc Masters

Lots of drone musicians have been called sound sculptors, but Harry Bertoia literally was one. The Italian-born American artist, who passed away in 1978 at age 63, remains well-known today as a sculptor and designer. In the last decade of his life, though, he also became a musician, pretty much by chance. While building large metal sculptures—mostly collections of tall rods standing upright on square bases—he discovered that they generated long, rich tones when struck. Enthralled by these sounds, he remodeled a barn in rural Pennsylvania to house over 90 of the pieces and began obsessively playing and recording them. A series of 11 privately-pressed LPs—released on Bertoia’s own Sonambient label—became highly sought-after among experimental music aficionados. Last year, John Brien of Massachusetts label Important Records collected all of Bertoia’s albums in a CD box set, and began combing through the unreleased recordings that Bertoia left behind. In keeping with the format of the original LPs, Brien’s first release on the relaunched Sonambient label, Clear Sounds/Perfetta, is titled after single, uninterrupted tracks that appear on each side. And just like the very first Bertoia LP—1970’s *Bellissima Bellissima Bellissima / Nova—*this new record features a performance by Harry Bertoia on Side A and one by his brother Oreste (who assisted Harry in much of his playing and recording) on Side B. The legend of the original Sonambient albums looms so large in sound-art circles that choosing their successor comes with some pressure. But Brien was up to the task, as *Clear Sounds/Perfetta *holds up well next to Bertoia’s previous releases, sharing their unique combination of tactile realism and otherworldly abstraction. Often the clanging and crashing of the metal is so tangible you can practically see Bertoia’s sculptures swaying and vibrating. But just as frequently, his massive sounds feel utterly removed from time and space—alien tones that have no real parallel in any music generated by conventional instruments. Bertoia’s work reaches a frightening pitch in “Clear Sounds,” a recording he made in June of 1973. Amid a wealth of high-end ringing, sounds emerge that could be repurposed for a horror film, including buzzsaw-like noise mirrored by cavernous echoes and distant gong-like rumbles. There is a terrifying moment at the 12-minute mark that must be the disembodied cries of tortured ghosts. Yet “Clear Sounds” is also imbued with a calm, meditative tone, which persists even through the piece’s loudest, most skin-raising stretches. Recorded in June of 1971, Oreste Bertoia’s contribution, “Perfetta,” is not as immediately striking or oddly intriguing as “Clear Sounds.” But Oreste’s style is busier and more tonally varied, and there’s much to be hypnotized by in his rippling static and quiet-to-loud drones. Whether you actually are hypnotized by this music or simply find it a neat sonic curiosity seems on the surface like an either/or question. But one of the attractions in Harry Bertoia’s work—and perhaps what makes it still sound so alive 40 years later—is that it's simultaneously a creative marvel and a captivating experience. Clear Sounds/Perfetta continues and extends that multi-layered effect, while stoking the fires of anticipation for what’s still to come from Bertoia’s archives.

Artist: Harry Bertoia, Album: Clear Sounds/Perfetta, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Lots of drone musicians have been called sound sculptors, but Harry Bertoia literally was one. The Italian-born American artist, who passed away in 1978 at age 63, remains well-known today as a sculptor and designer. In the last decade of his life, though, he also became a musician, pretty much by chance. While building large metal sculptures—mostly collections of tall rods standing upright on square bases—he discovered that they generated long, rich tones when struck. Enthralled by these sounds, he remodeled a barn in rural Pennsylvania to house over 90 of the pieces and began obsessively playing and recording them. A series of 11 privately-pressed LPs—released on Bertoia’s own Sonambient label—became highly sought-after among experimental music aficionados. Last year, John Brien of Massachusetts label Important Records collected all of Bertoia’s albums in a CD box set, and began combing through the unreleased recordings that Bertoia left behind. In keeping with the format of the original LPs, Brien’s first release on the relaunched Sonambient label, Clear Sounds/Perfetta, is titled after single, uninterrupted tracks that appear on each side. And just like the very first Bertoia LP—1970’s *Bellissima Bellissima Bellissima / Nova—*this new record features a performance by Harry Bertoia on Side A and one by his brother Oreste (who assisted Harry in much of his playing and recording) on Side B. The legend of the original Sonambient albums looms so large in sound-art circles that choosing their successor comes with some pressure. But Brien was up to the task, as *Clear Sounds/Perfetta *holds up well next to Bertoia’s previous releases, sharing their unique combination of tactile realism and otherworldly abstraction. Often the clanging and crashing of the metal is so tangible you can practically see Bertoia’s sculptures swaying and vibrating. But just as frequently, his massive sounds feel utterly removed from time and space—alien tones that have no real parallel in any music generated by conventional instruments. Bertoia’s work reaches a frightening pitch in “Clear Sounds,” a recording he made in June of 1973. Amid a wealth of high-end ringing, sounds emerge that could be repurposed for a horror film, including buzzsaw-like noise mirrored by cavernous echoes and distant gong-like rumbles. There is a terrifying moment at the 12-minute mark that must be the disembodied cries of tortured ghosts. Yet “Clear Sounds” is also imbued with a calm, meditative tone, which persists even through the piece’s loudest, most skin-raising stretches. Recorded in June of 1971, Oreste Bertoia’s contribution, “Perfetta,” is not as immediately striking or oddly intriguing as “Clear Sounds.” But Oreste’s style is busier and more tonally varied, and there’s much to be hypnotized by in his rippling static and quiet-to-loud drones. Whether you actually are hypnotized by this music or simply find it a neat sonic curiosity seems on the surface like an either/or question. But one of the attractions in Harry Bertoia’s work—and perhaps what makes it still sound so alive 40 years later—is that it's simultaneously a creative marvel and a captivating experience. Clear Sounds/Perfetta continues and extends that multi-layered effect, while stoking the fires of anticipation for what’s still to come from Bertoia’s archives."

The Underachievers

Indigoism

Rap

Craig Jenkins

The Brainfeeder-affiliated Brooklyn rap duo the Underachievers are part of New York City's loose knit Beast Coast collective, which counts Joey Bada$$ and his Pro Era crew along with Flatbush Zombies among its membership, and the A$AP Mob as friends. But the Underachievers are a singular presence within the new New York scene. They're not retro-leaning traditionalists like Bada$$, whose 1999 mixtape studiously replicated the vibe of classic 90s New York rap. They're not as aggressively weird as the Flatbush Zombies, and their seriousness of purpose sets them apart from the A$AP Mob's faded party rap. And while many of their contemporaries subscribe to a school of rap that extols the joys of drug use, gleefully cataloguing chemicals consumed, the Underachievers' Issa Dash and Ak treat mind-altering substances like sacraments, like battering rams at the doors of perception. Their debut mixtape, Indigoism, is druggy, but aesthetically so; beneath the surface lies a work of art-damaged mysticism and pyrotechnic wordplay. Indigoism derives many of its psychedelic properties from its production team, the Entreproducers, whose broad palette supplies Issa and Ak with bountiful and bizarre sounds. "Herb Shuttles" and "T.A.D.E.D" affix spectral keys to the skittering hi-hats and 808s of modern Southern rap. "So Devilish" and "New New York" are built around menacing psych rock grooves. "Revelations" seamlessly marries elements of blues and reggae to trap. Indigoism covers a lot of ground, and there is as much movement within songs as there is between them. "Leopard Shepard" chops a muted horn sample no less than three different ways, and songs like "Gold Soul Theory" and opener "Philanthropist" modulate between divergent verse and chorus sections like a live band would. Even meat-and-potatoes boom bap numbers "6th Sense" and "The Madhi" sneakily shift melodic elements in and out of the mix as they progress. Indigoism's one relative constant on the production front is a tendency toward a low BPM. Slower beats are the perfect launchpad for the breakneck doubletime raps and stop-on-a-dime flow shifts that are the Underachievers' calling card. Indigoism's dizzying flurry of internal rhymes matches California rap luminaries Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul at their most switched on, but where the Black Hippy crew likes to slow things down periodically to air out the rhyme schemes, the Underachievers rarely let up. It's as if they have too much to say without the time to get it all out. The fury of their lyricism also calls back to unsung technicians of 90s rap like Freestyle Fellowship and Organized Konfusion, acts possessed of an almost intimidatingly masterful command of words. This isn't to say that Underachievers' ability to rap very well is a liability, but Issa and Ak's battery of lyrical speed trials occasionally feels one-note when spread over 16 songs. Indigoism clocks in at under an hour, but it feels longer than it is, and is probably most effectively ingested in smaller doses. After more than a year of sporadic live shows and piecemeal track releases, this full reveal of Underachievers' vision shows a group that's thick with promise. Issa Dash and Ak are intriguing thinkers with formidable mic skills and a team of producers challenging them with moving, breathing soundscapes. In an era rife with aesthetes playing dress up with rap and auteurs who treasure texture and feel over good old-fashioned musicality, the Underachievers are a monument to the complex lyricism and drug-friendly experimentation of Souls of Mischief and the offbeat spirituality of the mystics in the Dungeon Family. But Indigoism isn't really about showing off a good record collection; it's about digesting influences and turning out something vaguely familiar but somehow brand new.

Artist: The Underachievers, Album: Indigoism, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "The Brainfeeder-affiliated Brooklyn rap duo the Underachievers are part of New York City's loose knit Beast Coast collective, which counts Joey Bada$$ and his Pro Era crew along with Flatbush Zombies among its membership, and the A$AP Mob as friends. But the Underachievers are a singular presence within the new New York scene. They're not retro-leaning traditionalists like Bada$$, whose 1999 mixtape studiously replicated the vibe of classic 90s New York rap. They're not as aggressively weird as the Flatbush Zombies, and their seriousness of purpose sets them apart from the A$AP Mob's faded party rap. And while many of their contemporaries subscribe to a school of rap that extols the joys of drug use, gleefully cataloguing chemicals consumed, the Underachievers' Issa Dash and Ak treat mind-altering substances like sacraments, like battering rams at the doors of perception. Their debut mixtape, Indigoism, is druggy, but aesthetically so; beneath the surface lies a work of art-damaged mysticism and pyrotechnic wordplay. Indigoism derives many of its psychedelic properties from its production team, the Entreproducers, whose broad palette supplies Issa and Ak with bountiful and bizarre sounds. "Herb Shuttles" and "T.A.D.E.D" affix spectral keys to the skittering hi-hats and 808s of modern Southern rap. "So Devilish" and "New New York" are built around menacing psych rock grooves. "Revelations" seamlessly marries elements of blues and reggae to trap. Indigoism covers a lot of ground, and there is as much movement within songs as there is between them. "Leopard Shepard" chops a muted horn sample no less than three different ways, and songs like "Gold Soul Theory" and opener "Philanthropist" modulate between divergent verse and chorus sections like a live band would. Even meat-and-potatoes boom bap numbers "6th Sense" and "The Madhi" sneakily shift melodic elements in and out of the mix as they progress. Indigoism's one relative constant on the production front is a tendency toward a low BPM. Slower beats are the perfect launchpad for the breakneck doubletime raps and stop-on-a-dime flow shifts that are the Underachievers' calling card. Indigoism's dizzying flurry of internal rhymes matches California rap luminaries Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul at their most switched on, but where the Black Hippy crew likes to slow things down periodically to air out the rhyme schemes, the Underachievers rarely let up. It's as if they have too much to say without the time to get it all out. The fury of their lyricism also calls back to unsung technicians of 90s rap like Freestyle Fellowship and Organized Konfusion, acts possessed of an almost intimidatingly masterful command of words. This isn't to say that Underachievers' ability to rap very well is a liability, but Issa and Ak's battery of lyrical speed trials occasionally feels one-note when spread over 16 songs. Indigoism clocks in at under an hour, but it feels longer than it is, and is probably most effectively ingested in smaller doses. After more than a year of sporadic live shows and piecemeal track releases, this full reveal of Underachievers' vision shows a group that's thick with promise. Issa Dash and Ak are intriguing thinkers with formidable mic skills and a team of producers challenging them with moving, breathing soundscapes. In an era rife with aesthetes playing dress up with rap and auteurs who treasure texture and feel over good old-fashioned musicality, the Underachievers are a monument to the complex lyricism and drug-friendly experimentation of Souls of Mischief and the offbeat spirituality of the mystics in the Dungeon Family. But Indigoism isn't really about showing off a good record collection; it's about digesting influences and turning out something vaguely familiar but somehow brand new."

Booka Shade

Movements

Electronic

Tim Finney

Two years ago Berlin-based Get Physical was belatedly recognised as the label for voluptuous, hook-heavy electro-house, but by this point it was already moving on. Booka Shade's "Mandarine Girl", issued last May, announced a paradigm shift, its sheets of noise and spiralling synth riffs reaching out to both the most stentorian minimal and the most epic trance. Other artists have followed in the duo's wake, crafting records that perversely treat "minimal" as a license to create grooves of impossible largesse. In the process, Get Physical has become a byword for arty-but-populist records with crossover potential-- from one genre enclave to another and from cult status to mass consumption. Booka Shade are perfectly placed to capitalize on this unexpected ubiquity, and while their 2004 debut Memento surprised many with its noirish, claustrophobic vibe, Movements is the gregarious corrective: not only the better record, but friendlier, larger, and more epochal in its survey of the varied delights of German house and techno. And at times it does feel like a survey, moving from rumbling Metro Area disco ("Night Falls") to fluttering Isolée falter-funk ("The Birds and the Beats") to beautiful Kompakt techno-pop ("Wasting Time") with an unselfconscious grace the belies the album's range. If Get Physical increasingly resembles early Warp in its elevation of club dynamics to a steely artform, Movements might be its equivalent of LFO's Frequencies-- a record whose state of the art grooves were equally suited to sweaty dancefloors and the close intimacy of headphones. Indeed, while some grooves are more physical than others, everything about Movements seems deliberately designed to subvert the usual inverse relationship between a dance record's club-readiness and home-friendliness: "Darko" might boast heart-tugging synth melodies worthy of Boards of Canada, but its cavernous, bass-heavy production begs to be showcased over huge speakers in a rammed warehouse. Likewise, the duo's "interpretation" of "Body Language", their 2005 hit with M.A.N.D.Y., begins with a meandering guitar and reggae lilt intro perversely playing cat and mouse with a mnemonic bassline hook, but it soon builds into a sultry house groove whose brazen physicality leaves the original resembling a wallflower. But Booka Shade's dab hand with a groove should hardly surprise-- after all, as backroom producers for DJ T and M.A.N.D.Y., they've been partly responsible for most of the music on the most reliable dance music label of the past four years. Rather, it's the unexpected emotive quality to the music on Movements that entrances. "In White Rooms", the album's simplest moment, is also its best: A succession of ascending trance-like riffs over a straightforward house groove, with no other purpose than to lay claim to your heart and your tear-ducts. It feels intensely nostalgic, even if, like me, you're too young and/or too far from Germany to actually appreciate its evocation of early 90s trance parties. The nostalgia is not merely for a particular sound or moment, but for the youthful conviction that music can change the world, can change us, merely by its astonishing power and newness. But I swear there is a moment only 30 seconds before the end of this (rather cruelly foreshortened) track where it feels like the duo are actually inventing new emotionsÉso maybe their nostalgia is premature. Booka Shade will never achieve the auteur status of figures like Ricardo Villalobos, and I suspect they prefer it that way-- after all, these are the guys who ghost-produce records for their labelmates, and make their money from writing nifty tunes for commercials. Rather than seduce with ostentatious artistry, what they offer is a superlative functionalism: Dance music so perfect it can't help but move you.

Artist: Booka Shade, Album: Movements, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.6 Album review: "Two years ago Berlin-based Get Physical was belatedly recognised as the label for voluptuous, hook-heavy electro-house, but by this point it was already moving on. Booka Shade's "Mandarine Girl", issued last May, announced a paradigm shift, its sheets of noise and spiralling synth riffs reaching out to both the most stentorian minimal and the most epic trance. Other artists have followed in the duo's wake, crafting records that perversely treat "minimal" as a license to create grooves of impossible largesse. In the process, Get Physical has become a byword for arty-but-populist records with crossover potential-- from one genre enclave to another and from cult status to mass consumption. Booka Shade are perfectly placed to capitalize on this unexpected ubiquity, and while their 2004 debut Memento surprised many with its noirish, claustrophobic vibe, Movements is the gregarious corrective: not only the better record, but friendlier, larger, and more epochal in its survey of the varied delights of German house and techno. And at times it does feel like a survey, moving from rumbling Metro Area disco ("Night Falls") to fluttering Isolée falter-funk ("The Birds and the Beats") to beautiful Kompakt techno-pop ("Wasting Time") with an unselfconscious grace the belies the album's range. If Get Physical increasingly resembles early Warp in its elevation of club dynamics to a steely artform, Movements might be its equivalent of LFO's Frequencies-- a record whose state of the art grooves were equally suited to sweaty dancefloors and the close intimacy of headphones. Indeed, while some grooves are more physical than others, everything about Movements seems deliberately designed to subvert the usual inverse relationship between a dance record's club-readiness and home-friendliness: "Darko" might boast heart-tugging synth melodies worthy of Boards of Canada, but its cavernous, bass-heavy production begs to be showcased over huge speakers in a rammed warehouse. Likewise, the duo's "interpretation" of "Body Language", their 2005 hit with M.A.N.D.Y., begins with a meandering guitar and reggae lilt intro perversely playing cat and mouse with a mnemonic bassline hook, but it soon builds into a sultry house groove whose brazen physicality leaves the original resembling a wallflower. But Booka Shade's dab hand with a groove should hardly surprise-- after all, as backroom producers for DJ T and M.A.N.D.Y., they've been partly responsible for most of the music on the most reliable dance music label of the past four years. Rather, it's the unexpected emotive quality to the music on Movements that entrances. "In White Rooms", the album's simplest moment, is also its best: A succession of ascending trance-like riffs over a straightforward house groove, with no other purpose than to lay claim to your heart and your tear-ducts. It feels intensely nostalgic, even if, like me, you're too young and/or too far from Germany to actually appreciate its evocation of early 90s trance parties. The nostalgia is not merely for a particular sound or moment, but for the youthful conviction that music can change the world, can change us, merely by its astonishing power and newness. But I swear there is a moment only 30 seconds before the end of this (rather cruelly foreshortened) track where it feels like the duo are actually inventing new emotionsÉso maybe their nostalgia is premature. Booka Shade will never achieve the auteur status of figures like Ricardo Villalobos, and I suspect they prefer it that way-- after all, these are the guys who ghost-produce records for their labelmates, and make their money from writing nifty tunes for commercials. Rather than seduce with ostentatious artistry, what they offer is a superlative functionalism: Dance music so perfect it can't help but move you."

Thomas Fehlmann

Gute Luft

Electronic

Larry Fitzmaurice

Thomas Fehlmann's Gute Luft is both a new album and also a companion to the 24-hour-long television documentary series 24h Berlin, which follows a handful of Berliners' lives over a one-day period. Fehlmann composed music for the project separately from fellow musical contributor Maurus Ronner, and much of Fehlmann's work didn't make the documentary. So the re-edited and refined material presented here is more of an imagined soundtrack than a definitive one, even though a few of its tracks make regular appearances throughout the series. Due to its cut-and-paste nature, Gute Luft lacks the sonic uniformity of previous Fehlmann releases, especially 2007's luxurious career-high Honigpumpe; this absence of a defining musical idea, where sounds and moods range from Detroit techno's insistent thump to post-rock drone to ambient drift to spacey dub, when coupled with the record's 70-minute runtime, is at first overwhelming. But the big-tent approach also connects the music to the film that inspired it, Berlin being a cosmopolition and culturally diverse city. Gute Luft works as a survey of everything Fehlmann does well. He's stated that while putting the album together, he "brought in elements from tunes from my previous albums," and anyone with a working knowledge of his solo work (not to mention his contributions to the Orb) will recognize where he's drawing from. The spiraling build of opener "Alles, Immer" and the more amorphous "Von Oben" recall Honigpumpe's epic-stuffed back half, while the hiccupped tones and static wash of "Berliner Luftikus" resembles that record's swampy front end. Elsewhere, the glitchy, funk-strewn tech-house of 2004's Lowflow is distantly echoed in the jittery "Cityscape", while the shimmering piano that closes out "Permanent Touch" directly lifts the same figure that opens one of Fehlmann's more notable achievements with the Orb, 2005's Okie Dokie It's the Orb on Kompakt. The most obvious forebear throughout Gute Left is Fehlmann's groove-heavy Kompakt debut, 2002's Visions of Blah, from the circular beats on "Wasser im Fluss" (and its counterpart, "Fluss im Wasser") to the heady, laser-guided highs of "Permanent Touch". The most arresting moments come when Fehlmann explores post-rock's cinematic terrain. "Darkspark" menacingly drones with a booming thud, while the minimalist blips that open "Falling into Your Eyes" dissolve into mournful horns and stretched-out orchestral sighs. These sounds are nothing new for anyone with a passing familiarity with Fehlmann's catalog, but when they're executed by someone with his ear and sense of structure, the results still feel fresh. Even the ostensibly incidental music here rewards close attention, and the whole is striking enough to make you wonder which direction Fehlmann will take next.

Artist: Thomas Fehlmann, Album: Gute Luft, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Thomas Fehlmann's Gute Luft is both a new album and also a companion to the 24-hour-long television documentary series 24h Berlin, which follows a handful of Berliners' lives over a one-day period. Fehlmann composed music for the project separately from fellow musical contributor Maurus Ronner, and much of Fehlmann's work didn't make the documentary. So the re-edited and refined material presented here is more of an imagined soundtrack than a definitive one, even though a few of its tracks make regular appearances throughout the series. Due to its cut-and-paste nature, Gute Luft lacks the sonic uniformity of previous Fehlmann releases, especially 2007's luxurious career-high Honigpumpe; this absence of a defining musical idea, where sounds and moods range from Detroit techno's insistent thump to post-rock drone to ambient drift to spacey dub, when coupled with the record's 70-minute runtime, is at first overwhelming. But the big-tent approach also connects the music to the film that inspired it, Berlin being a cosmopolition and culturally diverse city. Gute Luft works as a survey of everything Fehlmann does well. He's stated that while putting the album together, he "brought in elements from tunes from my previous albums," and anyone with a working knowledge of his solo work (not to mention his contributions to the Orb) will recognize where he's drawing from. The spiraling build of opener "Alles, Immer" and the more amorphous "Von Oben" recall Honigpumpe's epic-stuffed back half, while the hiccupped tones and static wash of "Berliner Luftikus" resembles that record's swampy front end. Elsewhere, the glitchy, funk-strewn tech-house of 2004's Lowflow is distantly echoed in the jittery "Cityscape", while the shimmering piano that closes out "Permanent Touch" directly lifts the same figure that opens one of Fehlmann's more notable achievements with the Orb, 2005's Okie Dokie It's the Orb on Kompakt. The most obvious forebear throughout Gute Left is Fehlmann's groove-heavy Kompakt debut, 2002's Visions of Blah, from the circular beats on "Wasser im Fluss" (and its counterpart, "Fluss im Wasser") to the heady, laser-guided highs of "Permanent Touch". The most arresting moments come when Fehlmann explores post-rock's cinematic terrain. "Darkspark" menacingly drones with a booming thud, while the minimalist blips that open "Falling into Your Eyes" dissolve into mournful horns and stretched-out orchestral sighs. These sounds are nothing new for anyone with a passing familiarity with Fehlmann's catalog, but when they're executed by someone with his ear and sense of structure, the results still feel fresh. Even the ostensibly incidental music here rewards close attention, and the whole is striking enough to make you wonder which direction Fehlmann will take next."

The Dirtbombs

Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey

Electronic,Rock

Douglas Wolk

As fantastic a live band as the Dirtbombs are, their recordings often seem like an excuse for Mick Collins to demonstrate how broad his taste is. ("You like Soft Cell and Flipper and Carl Craig? I thought I was the only one!") Around 10 years ago, Collins started talking about making a bubblegum album with the group; now that they've made their garage-covers-of-Detroit-techno album and their garage-covers-of-Sparks single and their garage-covers-of-INXS single, they've finally gotten around to it. Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey!, it turns out, isn't garage covers of bubblegum hits, or even bubblegum obscurities: it's 10 new, original bubblegum songs (rendered, of course, into the Dirtbombs' fuzzed-out two-drummer, two-bassist garage-rock idiom). It's a strange, awkward record, hampered by irreconcilable incompatibilities between its genre and its presentation. For one thing, bubblegum is a one-song-at-a-time form—it's very hard to take an entire 1910 Fruitgum Company album, say—and, although Ooey Gooey is only half an hour long, it feels like eating dessert for half an hour straight. For another, trying to impose an artistic personality on performing bubblegum is a historical anomaly. The initial wave of bubblegum music was about as far from artist-driven as pop can be. It was the creation of producers and songwriters (the key figures included Jerry Kasenetz, Jeffrey Katz, and Joey Levine, among others), and the singers and musicians were interchangeable to the point that four entirely different lineups of Ohio Express had hit singles between 1967 and 1969. This record, though, is about the band, not the material: Collins' rough, drawling voice is right up front, and despite production flourishes here and there, the Dirtbombs always sound like themselves, wearing Halloween "sexy bubblegum studio group" outfits that don't fit them particularly well. The real failure of Ooey Gooey, though, is that these songs aren't particularly good pastiches. They're formally accurate: dumbed-down riffs, hippie tropes, easy rhymes, references to candy. But stupidity alone doesn't make for wonderful bubblegum. The hits by the Archies and the Lemon Pipers and the Kasenetz-Katz bands were great pop music for five-year-olds, which isn't an insult—five-year-olds have serious bullshit detectors. "Sugar Sugar" and "Yummy Yummy Yummy" are fine-tuned machines, stripped of everything that doesn't instantly give pleasure, and graced with detailed, constantly shifting arrangements to hold their intended audience's attention. The Dirtbombs' songs here, though, generally have one really good idea apiece: the cowbell tattoo that runs through "Sugar on Top", say, or the innocent/lascivious conceit of "Girl on the Carousel". That's not enough for what they're trying to pull off. To be fair, it would have been easy for Collins and company to have made Ooey Gooey's songs smirkier, or to play up the dessert/oral sex metaphors more than they do (only "Hey! Cookie" really falls into that trap: "Ooh, such a groovy scene/ Gonna make sure I lick the plate clean"). There are a handful of very clever gestures scattered across the album, too, especially its closing track "We Come in the Sunshine", a homage to 60s song-mills' habit of carbon-copying hits. (Its verses are Collins' approximation of "Good Vibrations".) Mostly, though, Ooey Gooey is a proof-of-concept album—yes, the Dirtbombs can Dirtbombify this ordinarily unscuzzy genre, too—rather than one that plays to the band's considerable strengths.

Artist: The Dirtbombs, Album: Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "As fantastic a live band as the Dirtbombs are, their recordings often seem like an excuse for Mick Collins to demonstrate how broad his taste is. ("You like Soft Cell and Flipper and Carl Craig? I thought I was the only one!") Around 10 years ago, Collins started talking about making a bubblegum album with the group; now that they've made their garage-covers-of-Detroit-techno album and their garage-covers-of-Sparks single and their garage-covers-of-INXS single, they've finally gotten around to it. Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey!, it turns out, isn't garage covers of bubblegum hits, or even bubblegum obscurities: it's 10 new, original bubblegum songs (rendered, of course, into the Dirtbombs' fuzzed-out two-drummer, two-bassist garage-rock idiom). It's a strange, awkward record, hampered by irreconcilable incompatibilities between its genre and its presentation. For one thing, bubblegum is a one-song-at-a-time form—it's very hard to take an entire 1910 Fruitgum Company album, say—and, although Ooey Gooey is only half an hour long, it feels like eating dessert for half an hour straight. For another, trying to impose an artistic personality on performing bubblegum is a historical anomaly. The initial wave of bubblegum music was about as far from artist-driven as pop can be. It was the creation of producers and songwriters (the key figures included Jerry Kasenetz, Jeffrey Katz, and Joey Levine, among others), and the singers and musicians were interchangeable to the point that four entirely different lineups of Ohio Express had hit singles between 1967 and 1969. This record, though, is about the band, not the material: Collins' rough, drawling voice is right up front, and despite production flourishes here and there, the Dirtbombs always sound like themselves, wearing Halloween "sexy bubblegum studio group" outfits that don't fit them particularly well. The real failure of Ooey Gooey, though, is that these songs aren't particularly good pastiches. They're formally accurate: dumbed-down riffs, hippie tropes, easy rhymes, references to candy. But stupidity alone doesn't make for wonderful bubblegum. The hits by the Archies and the Lemon Pipers and the Kasenetz-Katz bands were great pop music for five-year-olds, which isn't an insult—five-year-olds have serious bullshit detectors. "Sugar Sugar" and "Yummy Yummy Yummy" are fine-tuned machines, stripped of everything that doesn't instantly give pleasure, and graced with detailed, constantly shifting arrangements to hold their intended audience's attention. The Dirtbombs' songs here, though, generally have one really good idea apiece: the cowbell tattoo that runs through "Sugar on Top", say, or the innocent/lascivious conceit of "Girl on the Carousel". That's not enough for what they're trying to pull off. To be fair, it would have been easy for Collins and company to have made Ooey Gooey's songs smirkier, or to play up the dessert/oral sex metaphors more than they do (only "Hey! Cookie" really falls into that trap: "Ooh, such a groovy scene/ Gonna make sure I lick the plate clean"). There are a handful of very clever gestures scattered across the album, too, especially its closing track "We Come in the Sunshine", a homage to 60s song-mills' habit of carbon-copying hits. (Its verses are Collins' approximation of "Good Vibrations".) Mostly, though, Ooey Gooey is a proof-of-concept album—yes, the Dirtbombs can Dirtbombify this ordinarily unscuzzy genre, too—rather than one that plays to the band's considerable strengths."

Nozinja

Nozinja Lodge

Electronic,Global

Louis Pattison

Shangaan Electro is the sort of genre that you’d assume cultural imperialism would have long ago rendered obsolete: a quirky, hyperlocal sound that’s nothing much like anything else around it or before it. You can attribute its singular nature to the fact it’s, in large part, the creation of one man—Richard Mthethwa, aka Nozinja. A large, avuncular businessman who formerly ran a successful mobile phone repair store in South Africa’s poor, rural Limpopo province, as the story goes, Nozinja heard the music being made by his peers and spied an opportunity. An electronic, MIDI-powered take on local Shangaan folk traditions, kwaito, and South African house, Nozinja’s productions—which have been the engine of a number of artists and groups, including Tshetsha Boys, B.B.C., and Zinja Hlungwani—sit somewhere between the naïve and the visionary: catchy constructions of synthesized flute and marimba, dotty drum machine, and soulful romantic entreaties dialed up to the speed of an agitated hummingbird. Even in South Africa, Shangaan Electro appears to have been relatively obscure, a localized sound made for communities, not clubs. But thanks to the support of the Brooklyn documentarian Wills Glasspiegel, Shangaan Electro found its way out of South Africa in 2010, with releases on the London-based Honest Jon's label, remixes from respected producers such as DJ Rashad and Ricardo Villalobos, and Nozinja helming a travelling Shangaan Electro roadshow, performing with Shangaan dancers: men in clown masks and bright orange jumpsuits, women shaking their rumps in big floaty dresses. Nozinja’s leap to a label such as Warp Records feels significant, to see how Nozinja Lodge might advance its maker’s vision. The sound is slightly more polished—although that might largely be the consequence of a good mastering job—while keyboards add a bit of body, lending a reggae skank to "Baby Do U Feel Me", and lacing plaintive descending melodies amongst the freeform snare eruptions of "Xihukwani". If Nozinja Lodge proves anything, it’s that Shangaan Electro’s sense of twitchy acceleration remains fundamental. Playing live, Nozinja gradually tweaks his music faster and faster, introducing each lift in tempo with the booming gusto of a carnival master. Much like footwork, you get the impression his music evolved to cater to the demands of athletic dancing bodies. Consequently, it makes a certain sense that attempts here to temper Shangaan Electro’s frenetic pace don’t always come off. "Mitshetsho We Zindaba", a 120BPM bounce, holds its own thanks to a bright palette of bendy keyboards and the hearty call-and-response of a female Shangaan choir. By contrast, album closer "Wo Va Jaha", plodding along at ballad tempo, feels somewhat ordinary by comparison. Broadly, Nozinja Lodge’s finest moments—the spry, insistent "Tsekeleke", the frenetic pointillism of "N'wanga I Jesu"—adhere pretty closely to their maker’s celebrated original 180BPM template. That Shangaan Electro has made waves outside of South Africa feels to be a lot to do with its weird collision of signifiers: lo-fi electronic sounds that Western listeners might consider tacky or tinpot, fused to an African singing style that speaks of love, yearning, and other matters of the heart with earnest sincerity. Post-Diplo, the modern DJ set can feel like a finger smeared across borders, cultural forms dissolved into beige global mulch. But unlike, say, footwork, Nozinja’s music defies such easy assimilation. Almost devoid of low-end, and presented with a sunny spirit generally incompatible with gangsta posturing, it’s a sound that—in unremixed form, at least—amiably refuses to be absorbed. Consequently, it remains hard to determine Shangaan Electro’s significance to dance music at large. Who could copy it, without sounding absurd? Of course, in the context of Nozinja Lodge as a self-contained "artist" album, all that hardly matters. Instead, it serves as a reminder we should treasure these rare outliers wherever we find them.

Artist: Nozinja, Album: Nozinja Lodge, Genre: Electronic,Global, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "Shangaan Electro is the sort of genre that you’d assume cultural imperialism would have long ago rendered obsolete: a quirky, hyperlocal sound that’s nothing much like anything else around it or before it. You can attribute its singular nature to the fact it’s, in large part, the creation of one man—Richard Mthethwa, aka Nozinja. A large, avuncular businessman who formerly ran a successful mobile phone repair store in South Africa’s poor, rural Limpopo province, as the story goes, Nozinja heard the music being made by his peers and spied an opportunity. An electronic, MIDI-powered take on local Shangaan folk traditions, kwaito, and South African house, Nozinja’s productions—which have been the engine of a number of artists and groups, including Tshetsha Boys, B.B.C., and Zinja Hlungwani—sit somewhere between the naïve and the visionary: catchy constructions of synthesized flute and marimba, dotty drum machine, and soulful romantic entreaties dialed up to the speed of an agitated hummingbird. Even in South Africa, Shangaan Electro appears to have been relatively obscure, a localized sound made for communities, not clubs. But thanks to the support of the Brooklyn documentarian Wills Glasspiegel, Shangaan Electro found its way out of South Africa in 2010, with releases on the London-based Honest Jon's label, remixes from respected producers such as DJ Rashad and Ricardo Villalobos, and Nozinja helming a travelling Shangaan Electro roadshow, performing with Shangaan dancers: men in clown masks and bright orange jumpsuits, women shaking their rumps in big floaty dresses. Nozinja’s leap to a label such as Warp Records feels significant, to see how Nozinja Lodge might advance its maker’s vision. The sound is slightly more polished—although that might largely be the consequence of a good mastering job—while keyboards add a bit of body, lending a reggae skank to "Baby Do U Feel Me", and lacing plaintive descending melodies amongst the freeform snare eruptions of "Xihukwani". If Nozinja Lodge proves anything, it’s that Shangaan Electro’s sense of twitchy acceleration remains fundamental. Playing live, Nozinja gradually tweaks his music faster and faster, introducing each lift in tempo with the booming gusto of a carnival master. Much like footwork, you get the impression his music evolved to cater to the demands of athletic dancing bodies. Consequently, it makes a certain sense that attempts here to temper Shangaan Electro’s frenetic pace don’t always come off. "Mitshetsho We Zindaba", a 120BPM bounce, holds its own thanks to a bright palette of bendy keyboards and the hearty call-and-response of a female Shangaan choir. By contrast, album closer "Wo Va Jaha", plodding along at ballad tempo, feels somewhat ordinary by comparison. Broadly, Nozinja Lodge’s finest moments—the spry, insistent "Tsekeleke", the frenetic pointillism of "N'wanga I Jesu"—adhere pretty closely to their maker’s celebrated original 180BPM template. That Shangaan Electro has made waves outside of South Africa feels to be a lot to do with its weird collision of signifiers: lo-fi electronic sounds that Western listeners might consider tacky or tinpot, fused to an African singing style that speaks of love, yearning, and other matters of the heart with earnest sincerity. Post-Diplo, the modern DJ set can feel like a finger smeared across borders, cultural forms dissolved into beige global mulch. But unlike, say, footwork, Nozinja’s music defies such easy assimilation. Almost devoid of low-end, and presented with a sunny spirit generally incompatible with gangsta posturing, it’s a sound that—in unremixed form, at least—amiably refuses to be absorbed. Consequently, it remains hard to determine Shangaan Electro’s significance to dance music at large. Who could copy it, without sounding absurd? Of course, in the context of Nozinja Lodge as a self-contained "artist" album, all that hardly matters. Instead, it serves as a reminder we should treasure these rare outliers wherever we find them."

Tim Gane, Sean O'Hagan

La Vie d'Artiste OST

Electronic,Rock

Nitsuh Abebe

Here are two things you will never hear any sane person say about Sean O'Hagan: That he doesn't have a singular musical vision, and that he's not committed to it. For nearly two decades, O'Hagan has been busily hollowing out a nook that's all his, both with his own High Llamas and as an adjunct contributor to Stereolab. You could call his work a pastiche of retro sounds-- Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, Tin Pan Alley, bossa nova, 1950s exotica, 60s soundtracks. Then again, anyone familiar with his signature twinkle-and-bounce can spot one of his arrangements within three chords, unless you trick them with the theme from "The Odd Couple" TV series. And for a good while, those arrangements provided exactly what a lot of 90s listeners seemed to look for: the creation, on CD, of other little worlds, sunnier or trippier or just quainter than our own. Listeners in the new millennium seem to like things a lot less escapist-- music that's social and fiery and engaged-- and it's only this year that the High Llamas have gotten some praise for breaking a few steps off the old O'Hagan script. When it comes to film soundtracks, though, creating hermetic little worlds is precisely the idea, and it's incredibly wise for director Marc Fittousi to have tapped O'Hagan and Stereolab partner Tim Gane to score a comedy like La Vie d'Artiste. Clever indie folks may hear these strings lilt and think more O'Hagan-- and this is surely O'Hagan's world, more than Gane's. All those who step into this film fresh, on the other hand, will leave with this sound printed in their brains as the world of this film and this film alone-- never mind that this music could have done an awfully similar job for Amelie or The Science of Sleep. And they'll appreciate it, one imagines: these two discs of short cues work pretty well as a sort of Pocket O'Hagan. The brevity of the cues lets him do what he does best, setting up some new reconfiguration of quaint, light 60s bounce, shooting it through with string colorations and soft horns and harpsichord melodies, and then brushing onward before your brain objects that it gets the picture. Their range also lets him pull in directions he otherwise might not: shades of John Barry's James Bond music in dangerous moments, or doo-wop idylls that could be Françoise Hardy backing tracks. The value of a soundtrack, though, is different from the value of the actual discs you might take home, and some logistical problems weigh this stuff down pretty heavily. The cues are short, which forestalls any kind of steady, close attention to this stuff; they also circle around melodic themes, something that's grand when you're watching a film, but can make home listeners feel like they left the disc on repeat. It's also an open question how many O'Hagan devotees need the bite-size sampler or the pocket edition; High Llamas records probably aren't as good for walking around pretending you're in a charming French comedy, but they also won't give you two-minute mood shifts on the subway. It might be best to leave this one to the people it's for: the lovers of this film who'll get to carry a signature sound around as a reminder of it.

Artist: Tim Gane, Sean O'Hagan, Album: La Vie d'Artiste OST, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.4 Album review: "Here are two things you will never hear any sane person say about Sean O'Hagan: That he doesn't have a singular musical vision, and that he's not committed to it. For nearly two decades, O'Hagan has been busily hollowing out a nook that's all his, both with his own High Llamas and as an adjunct contributor to Stereolab. You could call his work a pastiche of retro sounds-- Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, Tin Pan Alley, bossa nova, 1950s exotica, 60s soundtracks. Then again, anyone familiar with his signature twinkle-and-bounce can spot one of his arrangements within three chords, unless you trick them with the theme from "The Odd Couple" TV series. And for a good while, those arrangements provided exactly what a lot of 90s listeners seemed to look for: the creation, on CD, of other little worlds, sunnier or trippier or just quainter than our own. Listeners in the new millennium seem to like things a lot less escapist-- music that's social and fiery and engaged-- and it's only this year that the High Llamas have gotten some praise for breaking a few steps off the old O'Hagan script. When it comes to film soundtracks, though, creating hermetic little worlds is precisely the idea, and it's incredibly wise for director Marc Fittousi to have tapped O'Hagan and Stereolab partner Tim Gane to score a comedy like La Vie d'Artiste. Clever indie folks may hear these strings lilt and think more O'Hagan-- and this is surely O'Hagan's world, more than Gane's. All those who step into this film fresh, on the other hand, will leave with this sound printed in their brains as the world of this film and this film alone-- never mind that this music could have done an awfully similar job for Amelie or The Science of Sleep. And they'll appreciate it, one imagines: these two discs of short cues work pretty well as a sort of Pocket O'Hagan. The brevity of the cues lets him do what he does best, setting up some new reconfiguration of quaint, light 60s bounce, shooting it through with string colorations and soft horns and harpsichord melodies, and then brushing onward before your brain objects that it gets the picture. Their range also lets him pull in directions he otherwise might not: shades of John Barry's James Bond music in dangerous moments, or doo-wop idylls that could be Françoise Hardy backing tracks. The value of a soundtrack, though, is different from the value of the actual discs you might take home, and some logistical problems weigh this stuff down pretty heavily. The cues are short, which forestalls any kind of steady, close attention to this stuff; they also circle around melodic themes, something that's grand when you're watching a film, but can make home listeners feel like they left the disc on repeat. It's also an open question how many O'Hagan devotees need the bite-size sampler or the pocket edition; High Llamas records probably aren't as good for walking around pretending you're in a charming French comedy, but they also won't give you two-minute mood shifts on the subway. It might be best to leave this one to the people it's for: the lovers of this film who'll get to carry a signature sound around as a reminder of it."

Bibi Bourelly

Free the Real (Pt. 2)

Pop/R&B

Katherine St. Asaph

The music industry is rarely generous with fairytale successes, but the closest thing to one was bequeathed last year upon 22-year-old German-Haitian songwriter Bibi Bourelly. Discovered on Instagram, Bourelly was introduced to Kanye West and, more broadly, to the songwriting industry in perpetual need of young creatives to lend the stars some trickle-up swag. After some abortive writing for Usher, Bourelly found a taker in Rihanna, whose albums are a pretty reliable microcosm of songwriting trends; of her prolific output, Rih cut the brash pre-*Anti** *single “Bitch Better Have My Money” and the sloshed torch song “Higher.” The songs could scarcely be different in production—the former set to grinding trap by Travis Scott, the latter to relatively tranquil soul—but Bourelly’s influence is stark and clear. Where former Rih surrogates like Ester Dean assembled songs explicitly around hooks, retrofitting words and meaning later, Bourelly’s approach is more that of an open-mic songwriter: sprawling, unfiltered, every lyric sung to the breaking point. The Rihanna stint turned into a deal with Def Jam and several solo singles, compiled on an EP this May: the on-the-nose Free the Real (Pt. 1). Unfiltered was certainly the aim, or at least a version of authenticity filtered through folk and acoustic rock. Single “Sally” is a bluesy ruckus of handclaps and scuzzed-up guitar, “Ego” twangy and stalking, “What If” almost grunge. Though the EP perhaps demonstrated more promise than mastery, it was certainly her own. Pt. 2 is much of the same: more notebook sketches of titles: (“Poet,” “Untitled”) and more acoustic cuts that bear little resemblance to pop, R&B, or—refreshingly—the vast swath of alt-pop artists tipped as her peers. Bourelly’s age and pop gigs have saddled her with comparisons to precocious pop quirkers like Alessia Cara and Lorde, but they’re a poor fit. Her actual predecessors are closer to PJ Harvey or Janis Joplin, and—for better and worse—she comes off less as a pre-branded star and more as a writer finding her voice in real time. Her literal voice is unsurprisingly strong and versatile: sometimes zero-fucks blasé, sometimes scratchy and vulnerable, and sometimes—as on her Rihanna ballads—a confrontational belt. But her writing voice is the main draw: the voice of a girl who grew up on hip-hop and saw no reason why it couldn’t coexist with folk-rock or country. There’s perennial talk, of course, about young artists growing up in the streaming era being unbound by genres; in particular, 2016 has found almost every pop star dabbling in acoustic genres (cynically, perhaps driven by Top 40’s playlists shrinking and the increasing dominance of country and AC formats). Bourelly sounds like it was her idea all along. The downside to being unformed is there’s still a lot you’ve got to get out of your system. On this EP, that’s “Poet.” It’s got the slickest production on the album: rock-radio sheen, with precisely timed strings and backing-singer interjections. But it’s also got the hook “you’re my Kurt Cobain,” and its other metaphors—cocaine, rock’n’roll—aren’t much better. Bourelly’s other material, thankfully, is far more compelling: the prickly guitar intro and plainspoken disses of “Flowers” (“I may smoke a lot of marijuana/But I’m not your little whore”); the assured stomp of “Fool,” and especially the single “Ballin.” It’s the best song written to date about the precarious quasi-fame one can fall into as a rising artist, where you can write multiple Rihanna hits, make the magazine rounds and 25 Under 25 roundups, sing on Colbert, be highly Googleable, and yet still be broke as fuck. Bourelly begins the track by announcing, as casually as you’d mention a papercut, getting fired from Old Navy; then, with this-too-will-pass assurance, she continues through the details: dodging landlords, jumping subway turnstiles, living off ramen and hot sauce, feeling ambivalent about the paparazzi who are one degree of separation away. As a montage of the music-industry fairytale as it looks to those living it, it’s striking. But as a snapshot of Bibi Bourelly’s career, judging by her material it may soon prove itself quite modest.

Artist: Bibi Bourelly, Album: Free the Real (Pt. 2), Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "The music industry is rarely generous with fairytale successes, but the closest thing to one was bequeathed last year upon 22-year-old German-Haitian songwriter Bibi Bourelly. Discovered on Instagram, Bourelly was introduced to Kanye West and, more broadly, to the songwriting industry in perpetual need of young creatives to lend the stars some trickle-up swag. After some abortive writing for Usher, Bourelly found a taker in Rihanna, whose albums are a pretty reliable microcosm of songwriting trends; of her prolific output, Rih cut the brash pre-*Anti** *single “Bitch Better Have My Money” and the sloshed torch song “Higher.” The songs could scarcely be different in production—the former set to grinding trap by Travis Scott, the latter to relatively tranquil soul—but Bourelly’s influence is stark and clear. Where former Rih surrogates like Ester Dean assembled songs explicitly around hooks, retrofitting words and meaning later, Bourelly’s approach is more that of an open-mic songwriter: sprawling, unfiltered, every lyric sung to the breaking point. The Rihanna stint turned into a deal with Def Jam and several solo singles, compiled on an EP this May: the on-the-nose Free the Real (Pt. 1). Unfiltered was certainly the aim, or at least a version of authenticity filtered through folk and acoustic rock. Single “Sally” is a bluesy ruckus of handclaps and scuzzed-up guitar, “Ego” twangy and stalking, “What If” almost grunge. Though the EP perhaps demonstrated more promise than mastery, it was certainly her own. Pt. 2 is much of the same: more notebook sketches of titles: (“Poet,” “Untitled”) and more acoustic cuts that bear little resemblance to pop, R&B, or—refreshingly—the vast swath of alt-pop artists tipped as her peers. Bourelly’s age and pop gigs have saddled her with comparisons to precocious pop quirkers like Alessia Cara and Lorde, but they’re a poor fit. Her actual predecessors are closer to PJ Harvey or Janis Joplin, and—for better and worse—she comes off less as a pre-branded star and more as a writer finding her voice in real time. Her literal voice is unsurprisingly strong and versatile: sometimes zero-fucks blasé, sometimes scratchy and vulnerable, and sometimes—as on her Rihanna ballads—a confrontational belt. But her writing voice is the main draw: the voice of a girl who grew up on hip-hop and saw no reason why it couldn’t coexist with folk-rock or country. There’s perennial talk, of course, about young artists growing up in the streaming era being unbound by genres; in particular, 2016 has found almost every pop star dabbling in acoustic genres (cynically, perhaps driven by Top 40’s playlists shrinking and the increasing dominance of country and AC formats). Bourelly sounds like it was her idea all along. The downside to being unformed is there’s still a lot you’ve got to get out of your system. On this EP, that’s “Poet.” It’s got the slickest production on the album: rock-radio sheen, with precisely timed strings and backing-singer interjections. But it’s also got the hook “you’re my Kurt Cobain,” and its other metaphors—cocaine, rock’n’roll—aren’t much better. Bourelly’s other material, thankfully, is far more compelling: the prickly guitar intro and plainspoken disses of “Flowers” (“I may smoke a lot of marijuana/But I’m not your little whore”); the assured stomp of “Fool,” and especially the single “Ballin.” It’s the best song written to date about the precarious quasi-fame one can fall into as a rising artist, where you can write multiple Rihanna hits, make the magazine rounds and 25 Under 25 roundups, sing on Colbert, be highly Googleable, and yet still be broke as fuck. Bourelly begins the track by announcing, as casually as you’d mention a papercut, getting fired from Old Navy; then, with this-too-will-pass assurance, she continues through the details: dodging landlords, jumping subway turnstiles, living off ramen and hot sauce, feeling ambivalent about the paparazzi who are one degree of separation away. As a montage of the music-industry fairytale as it looks to those living it, it’s striking. But as a snapshot of Bibi Bourelly’s career, judging by her material it may soon prove itself quite modest."

Sigur Rós

Svefn-G-Englar EP

Rock

Ryan Kearney

I don't envy Boston's meteorologists. Not only do they cover most of New England, but they're facing a climate that's notoriously unpredictable and severe, running the gamut from incapacitating heat to marrow-freezing cold, from nor'easters to hurricanes. Under a hovering deadline, they must assess their data using experience, education, and intuition, and then reach a conclusion. And all for what? So that their audience is-- as one media catchphrase goes-- "in the know?" Hmm... these responsibilities sound strikingly familiar. After all, music critics also throw their opinions out to the world and pray that history doesn't ruin their credibility. Recently, drastic weather patterns headed for the northeast U.S. had meteorologists hailing the "storm of the half-century." As the predictions became increasingly dramatic, so too did the public's panic. By the time the storm was supposed to hit, everyone was too busy closing schools and buying emergency supplies to notice that nothing had happened yet. And when the storm finally arrived, it wasn't even the storm of the decade. Sure, it dumped an inordinate amount of snow. But, in my town alone, the 'perfect storm' of 1991 sucked a house out to sea, sent forty-foot walls of seawater into the air, and threw boulders the size of Geo Metros onto the causeway. And that was supposed to be a routine storm. But that's just the way it is with storms. And rock bands. Some hit without warning, like Nirvana, and others are boosted as much by prehype as by the music itself-- like Reykjavik, Iceland's Sigur Rós. Since reading our own Brent DiCrescenzo's review of \xC1gætis Byrjun-- in which he called them "the first vital band of the 21st Century"-- you've probably seen the hype swell, like a beached whale in summer, from indie publications all the way to Spin's Top 20 of 2000. Not that I think the hype is unwarranted: I was among all but two Pitchfork critics to have \xC1gætis Byrjun in my Top 20. While history has yet to fully validate DiCrescenzo et. al., the Svefn-G-Englar EP-- originally released in 1999, but just reissued by the UK indie Fat Cat-- is additional proof of Sigur Rós' immense talent. The disc's first two songs also appear on \xC1gætis Byrjun: with its rumbling skies, wailing sirens, and a distant toll, the nine-minute title track builds like a scene out of The Odyssey, then clears in a flash. A calming organ sets the foundation for an onslaught of searing guitar notes and Jon Thor Birgisson's alien vocals-- a Joycean concoction of Icelandic and the band's fabricated patois 'Hopelandish.' Aside from the awesome descent at the three-minute mark, the song's movements are subtle; one must patiently wade through them to feel the swirl of conflicting emotion. "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" is a decidedly different piece, opening with a plaintive piano and romantic swells of strings. While not carrying as much emotional depth, this song is decidedly more uplifting-- even teetering, at times, on the level of a dramatic Hollywood film score. But just before reaching maudlin proportions, it either pulls back, turns to orchestral chaos, or is torn open by a guitar wielded like a power saw. The two tracks that comprise the second half of the EP were recorded live at the Icelandic Opera House in 1999. "N\xFDja lagið", a previously unreleased number, opens at a turtle's pace with casual kickdrums, a snare, light strumming, and a feedback-laden guitar. When Birgisson's demanding voice enters, it doesn't sound nearly as feminine or foreign: he actually sounds like a male, and one feels as though, with enough concentration, the lyrics are almost decipherable. While the inhuman nature of Birgisson's wails is one of Sigur Rós' most compelling and unique traits, these more hominine vocals work well here, particularly during the descending moments when Sigur Rós are at their darkest and most poignant. "Syndir Guðs", an alternate version of a cut from 1997's Von, is equally slow, but more melancholy than funereal. The trademark guitar streaks are held to a minimum (except at the end) and the rest of the instruments are unobtrusive for the song's entirety. This places the emphasis fully on Birgisson's voice, which vaults into the stratosphere like Neil Young and Elizabeth Fraser performing a duet on helium. For those who don't own any Sigur Rós material, this EP is a good introduction to the band. Those of you who already own \xC1gætis Byrjun are understandably concerned about the 1:1 ratio of songs you have and have not heard. But the two live tracks make this disc worthwhile for at least the addicted fan, of which there are more every day. So is Sigur Rós "the first vital band of the 21st Century?" I'm not venturing a guess. But they are, without a doubt, a vital band. There's no risk on my part in saying that.

Artist: Sigur Rós, Album: Svefn-G-Englar EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "I don't envy Boston's meteorologists. Not only do they cover most of New England, but they're facing a climate that's notoriously unpredictable and severe, running the gamut from incapacitating heat to marrow-freezing cold, from nor'easters to hurricanes. Under a hovering deadline, they must assess their data using experience, education, and intuition, and then reach a conclusion. And all for what? So that their audience is-- as one media catchphrase goes-- "in the know?" Hmm... these responsibilities sound strikingly familiar. After all, music critics also throw their opinions out to the world and pray that history doesn't ruin their credibility. Recently, drastic weather patterns headed for the northeast U.S. had meteorologists hailing the "storm of the half-century." As the predictions became increasingly dramatic, so too did the public's panic. By the time the storm was supposed to hit, everyone was too busy closing schools and buying emergency supplies to notice that nothing had happened yet. And when the storm finally arrived, it wasn't even the storm of the decade. Sure, it dumped an inordinate amount of snow. But, in my town alone, the 'perfect storm' of 1991 sucked a house out to sea, sent forty-foot walls of seawater into the air, and threw boulders the size of Geo Metros onto the causeway. And that was supposed to be a routine storm. But that's just the way it is with storms. And rock bands. Some hit without warning, like Nirvana, and others are boosted as much by prehype as by the music itself-- like Reykjavik, Iceland's Sigur Rós. Since reading our own Brent DiCrescenzo's review of \xC1gætis Byrjun-- in which he called them "the first vital band of the 21st Century"-- you've probably seen the hype swell, like a beached whale in summer, from indie publications all the way to Spin's Top 20 of 2000. Not that I think the hype is unwarranted: I was among all but two Pitchfork critics to have \xC1gætis Byrjun in my Top 20. While history has yet to fully validate DiCrescenzo et. al., the Svefn-G-Englar EP-- originally released in 1999, but just reissued by the UK indie Fat Cat-- is additional proof of Sigur Rós' immense talent. The disc's first two songs also appear on \xC1gætis Byrjun: with its rumbling skies, wailing sirens, and a distant toll, the nine-minute title track builds like a scene out of The Odyssey, then clears in a flash. A calming organ sets the foundation for an onslaught of searing guitar notes and Jon Thor Birgisson's alien vocals-- a Joycean concoction of Icelandic and the band's fabricated patois 'Hopelandish.' Aside from the awesome descent at the three-minute mark, the song's movements are subtle; one must patiently wade through them to feel the swirl of conflicting emotion. "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" is a decidedly different piece, opening with a plaintive piano and romantic swells of strings. While not carrying as much emotional depth, this song is decidedly more uplifting-- even teetering, at times, on the level of a dramatic Hollywood film score. But just before reaching maudlin proportions, it either pulls back, turns to orchestral chaos, or is torn open by a guitar wielded like a power saw. The two tracks that comprise the second half of the EP were recorded live at the Icelandic Opera House in 1999. "N\xFDja lagið", a previously unreleased number, opens at a turtle's pace with casual kickdrums, a snare, light strumming, and a feedback-laden guitar. When Birgisson's demanding voice enters, it doesn't sound nearly as feminine or foreign: he actually sounds like a male, and one feels as though, with enough concentration, the lyrics are almost decipherable. While the inhuman nature of Birgisson's wails is one of Sigur Rós' most compelling and unique traits, these more hominine vocals work well here, particularly during the descending moments when Sigur Rós are at their darkest and most poignant. "Syndir Guðs", an alternate version of a cut from 1997's Von, is equally slow, but more melancholy than funereal. The trademark guitar streaks are held to a minimum (except at the end) and the rest of the instruments are unobtrusive for the song's entirety. This places the emphasis fully on Birgisson's voice, which vaults into the stratosphere like Neil Young and Elizabeth Fraser performing a duet on helium. For those who don't own any Sigur Rós material, this EP is a good introduction to the band. Those of you who already own \xC1gætis Byrjun are understandably concerned about the 1:1 ratio of songs you have and have not heard. But the two live tracks make this disc worthwhile for at least the addicted fan, of which there are more every day. So is Sigur Rós "the first vital band of the 21st Century?" I'm not venturing a guess. But they are, without a doubt, a vital band. There's no risk on my part in saying that."

Various Artists

Horse Meat Disco Volume IV

Andy Beta

After decades of vilification, disco began to gain traction in the culture once again in the early 21st century. Thanks to the productions from the likes of Daniel Wang and Metro Area, a new wave of indie rock acts and DJs began to embrace the tropes of the genre. LCD Soundsystem, !!!, and Out Hud used those rubbery basslines and tireless drums for their own productions, as did folks like Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, and Todd Terje. But despite this renaissance for the hedonistic, dance-til-10 a.m. pleasures of the form, a crucial aspect was being whitewashed out of this nu-disco revival: its inherent queerness. Some nights out felt like the clubs depicted in Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco: straight, white, and well-lit, with very little dancing involved. Enter the four hirsute bears behind Horse Meat Disco: James Hillard, Jim Stanton, Severino, and Luke Howard, whose logo featured a five-legged horse and who have hosted a Sunday residency in south London once dubbed “the queer party for everyone.” That party has since expanded into residencies in other countries and there have been four compilations that have followed. The first, released in 2009, was a delirious mix of astral, flute-trilled beatitude from the likes of Karen Young’s “Deetour” and the Smokey Robinson track that got aired at Paradise Garage. Throughout the series, there’s been an emphasis on histrionic divas at their shrillest registers, polyester-bright synths, and symphonic strings so gaudy that Liberace might blush. More importantly, HMD helped move the disco appreciation away from rockists and back towards its guiltiest of pleasures. There’s little left for the DJ crew to prove with the fourth installment of their mix compilations for Strut, but that doesn’t mean that IV fails to please. If anything, it clarifies that when it comes to crafting dance mixes, Horse Meat Disco find a way to stretch out, queue up the campiest of disco cuts from their shelves and wring the most aural pleasure out of them, whether they’re from the dollar bin or in the triple digits. “Get yo hands off of my man!” a woman shrieks at the start of IV, and a steady tamborine rattle lead into Opal’s early '80s cut, “Ain’t No Way,” featuring two women fighting over their man. Cheesy, sure, but then the track suddenly reduces to an electronic trickle as a catfight breaks out and a bottle breaks, landing somewhere between boogie and acid house. A macho chant of “Misaluba” with an Italo backdrop rises next. In HMD's brawny hands, past and present slide together, but the DJs aren’t afraid to take detours and have the mix drop from a boil to simmer. Joey Negro’s Sunburst Band's tough yet funky “Taste the Groove” hails from 2013, complete with a sweet talkbox breakdown that takes its time gearing back up. Sometimes the segues are thematic rather than matched: when Valery Allington purrs “Stop”, she is answered by Ish’s “Don’t Stop”, and while that classic cosmic disco track (which sounds like Prince at his most delectably prissy) has been comped a few times of late, it still thrills. The octave-jumping synth line that keeps scaling higher and higher is near delirium on a dancefloor, and it makes sense as the mix segues into another rare TK Disco track, King Sporty & the Root Rockers’ “Get on Down,” a tribal boogie take on the better-known Connie Case version of the same. My favorite stretch on this mix is when Gwen Guthrie’s sampled voice coos “I’m in love with you” on Phreek Plus One’s “La Spirale”. Her voice—originally heard on the Padlock EP (mixed by Larry Levan and a staple of the Paradise Garage in the mid-'80s)—now appears as a 2012 nu-disco track by an Italian trio. Remixed by former !!!/Out Hud bassist/sound alchemist-turned-producer Justin Vandervolgen, it features eddies of echo and tingling windchimes, all of which leads into a dubbed-out horn line that seems to blare from "The Love Boat"’s white leather lounge. More recent delights follow from new artists like Chicago’s Shahid Mustaf MC and last year’s single from (deep breath) J. Boogie’s Dubtronic Science featuring the Pimps of Joytime. There are various iterations of “Love” that rise and fall in this mix, as well as a chorus that you can still hear at the Loft: “Get ready for the future.” Past or present, straight or gay, Horse Meat Disco makes sure that love is always the message.

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Horse Meat Disco Volume IV, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "After decades of vilification, disco began to gain traction in the culture once again in the early 21st century. Thanks to the productions from the likes of Daniel Wang and Metro Area, a new wave of indie rock acts and DJs began to embrace the tropes of the genre. LCD Soundsystem, !!!, and Out Hud used those rubbery basslines and tireless drums for their own productions, as did folks like Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, and Todd Terje. But despite this renaissance for the hedonistic, dance-til-10 a.m. pleasures of the form, a crucial aspect was being whitewashed out of this nu-disco revival: its inherent queerness. Some nights out felt like the clubs depicted in Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco: straight, white, and well-lit, with very little dancing involved. Enter the four hirsute bears behind Horse Meat Disco: James Hillard, Jim Stanton, Severino, and Luke Howard, whose logo featured a five-legged horse and who have hosted a Sunday residency in south London once dubbed “the queer party for everyone.” That party has since expanded into residencies in other countries and there have been four compilations that have followed. The first, released in 2009, was a delirious mix of astral, flute-trilled beatitude from the likes of Karen Young’s “Deetour” and the Smokey Robinson track that got aired at Paradise Garage. Throughout the series, there’s been an emphasis on histrionic divas at their shrillest registers, polyester-bright synths, and symphonic strings so gaudy that Liberace might blush. More importantly, HMD helped move the disco appreciation away from rockists and back towards its guiltiest of pleasures. There’s little left for the DJ crew to prove with the fourth installment of their mix compilations for Strut, but that doesn’t mean that IV fails to please. If anything, it clarifies that when it comes to crafting dance mixes, Horse Meat Disco find a way to stretch out, queue up the campiest of disco cuts from their shelves and wring the most aural pleasure out of them, whether they’re from the dollar bin or in the triple digits. “Get yo hands off of my man!” a woman shrieks at the start of IV, and a steady tamborine rattle lead into Opal’s early '80s cut, “Ain’t No Way,” featuring two women fighting over their man. Cheesy, sure, but then the track suddenly reduces to an electronic trickle as a catfight breaks out and a bottle breaks, landing somewhere between boogie and acid house. A macho chant of “Misaluba” with an Italo backdrop rises next. In HMD's brawny hands, past and present slide together, but the DJs aren’t afraid to take detours and have the mix drop from a boil to simmer. Joey Negro’s Sunburst Band's tough yet funky “Taste the Groove” hails from 2013, complete with a sweet talkbox breakdown that takes its time gearing back up. Sometimes the segues are thematic rather than matched: when Valery Allington purrs “Stop”, she is answered by Ish’s “Don’t Stop”, and while that classic cosmic disco track (which sounds like Prince at his most delectably prissy) has been comped a few times of late, it still thrills. The octave-jumping synth line that keeps scaling higher and higher is near delirium on a dancefloor, and it makes sense as the mix segues into another rare TK Disco track, King Sporty & the Root Rockers’ “Get on Down,” a tribal boogie take on the better-known Connie Case version of the same. My favorite stretch on this mix is when Gwen Guthrie’s sampled voice coos “I’m in love with you” on Phreek Plus One’s “La Spirale”. Her voice—originally heard on the Padlock EP (mixed by Larry Levan and a staple of the Paradise Garage in the mid-'80s)—now appears as a 2012 nu-disco track by an Italian trio. Remixed by former !!!/Out Hud bassist/sound alchemist-turned-producer Justin Vandervolgen, it features eddies of echo and tingling windchimes, all of which leads into a dubbed-out horn line that seems to blare from "The Love Boat"’s white leather lounge. More recent delights follow from new artists like Chicago’s Shahid Mustaf MC and last year’s single from (deep breath) J. Boogie’s Dubtronic Science featuring the Pimps of Joytime. There are various iterations of “Love” that rise and fall in this mix, as well as a chorus that you can still hear at the Loft: “Get ready for the future.” Past or present, straight or gay, Horse Meat Disco makes sure that love is always the message."

Karp

Action Chemistry

Experimental,Metal,Rock

Alison Fields

It's late 1995. You're a couple months shy of twenty years old, and though technically a college student, you can't remember the last time you attended a class. You spend your evenings driving back and forth to the well-known college town approximately 45 miles to the east of your current residence for name musical events, or attend loud, sloppy punk rock shows at a dilapidated house two blocks from your own mediocre state university. You know the place, right? Some fall-down joint with a rotting front porch overflowing with rusty bicycles and mildewed sofas. You're not really sure who's paying rent, or if anyone is paying rent at all. The place smells like shit, and the show attendees drive you crazy with their politics and gratuitous displays of testosterone (chances are, if you're female, you're the clear minority), but it's better than bickering with your roommate over rent, and every now and then you have a really great time. It's the messy nostalgia factor, and Karp's posthumous singles collection, Action Chemistry, reminds me of all the sweaty, drunken nights I spent trying like hell to not get trampled, and the times I surprised everyone (though mostly myself) when I loudly declared during the silence at the end of the show, "Goddamn, that fucking rocked." I didn't see Karp in 1995. The bands I saw then were usually loud, but lacking both musical proficiency and a sense of humor. Karp was endowed with an impressive amount of both. Much has been made of their metal influences-- think the bastard child of the Melvins and Black Sabbath, occasionally joined by a hardcore-loving session musician with an affinity for uppers, Black Flag, and Animal from "The Muppet Show"-- and as for the humor thing, well, it's hard not to like a band that adds a detail like this in the liner notes: "Recorded with a live bear in the studio. That was tough." In fact, disliking this band is difficult when you find yourself raising the devil horns and headbanging in earnest to "Turkey Named Brotherhood," with its dead-on fucking metal guitar line and unintelligible screamed vocals. It's hard not to laugh. And it's okay, because you know Karp is laughing with you. In their day, Karp were notorious for their wrestling-wear, and lyrical allusions to The Wizard of Oz and the roller derby. They recorded three full-lengths for K, attracted some rather high-profile fans within the music community (Built to Spill's Doug Martsch has been spotted wearing Karp t-shirts on numerous occasions), and allowed their fans the pleasure of balls-out rock and roll absurdity without having to prefix the pleasure with "guilty." Consider the opener, "Rowdy," the first track on Karp's last EP. A completely brutal, totally hilarious alcoholic older cousin of the Fucking Champs' progged-out meditations on the same genre, this track makes terrific use of its technical intricacy, never wiping the smirk off its face. With Karp, the silliness factor tempers the bombast just enough that you can sit back on second listen and enjoy the hodgepodge of sounds beneath the noise without feeling like too much of a hesher. Both "Dusk" and "Blue Blood" employ the dirge-to-explosion, quiet/loud dynamics of the artier set, but allow for all the strutting metal affectations to seep through. Likewise, the speed metal uproar of "Gauze" resolves itself into a raucous classic rock kind of conclusion, which would be completely preposterous if not for its defiantly lo-fi sound. The album fills out with a virtually unintelligible Black Flag cover, "Nothing Left Inside," and the terrifically titled "I'd Rather Be Clogging," with its slow-to-build, full-on guitar assault at the conclusion. Action Chemistry might lack subtlety, but that's sort of the point, isn't it? I mean, if you're looking for breezy, complex pop songs, this obviously isn't the place to go. This is not music for the Merlot crowd. It's loud and unruly, and if they ever invent scratch-and-sniff CDs, this one would smell like the interior of a shitty dive the morning after an amateur cock-rock show. But the damn thing charmed me. Something about undistilled rock without the bells and whistles. Something about being sure these guys had a lot of fun doing this. Something about the way it makes me want to stock my pockets with cheap beer and go to a bad house show just to make sure I'm not missing anything really great. Goddamn, that fucking rocked.

Artist: Karp, Album: Action Chemistry, Genre: Experimental,Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "It's late 1995. You're a couple months shy of twenty years old, and though technically a college student, you can't remember the last time you attended a class. You spend your evenings driving back and forth to the well-known college town approximately 45 miles to the east of your current residence for name musical events, or attend loud, sloppy punk rock shows at a dilapidated house two blocks from your own mediocre state university. You know the place, right? Some fall-down joint with a rotting front porch overflowing with rusty bicycles and mildewed sofas. You're not really sure who's paying rent, or if anyone is paying rent at all. The place smells like shit, and the show attendees drive you crazy with their politics and gratuitous displays of testosterone (chances are, if you're female, you're the clear minority), but it's better than bickering with your roommate over rent, and every now and then you have a really great time. It's the messy nostalgia factor, and Karp's posthumous singles collection, Action Chemistry, reminds me of all the sweaty, drunken nights I spent trying like hell to not get trampled, and the times I surprised everyone (though mostly myself) when I loudly declared during the silence at the end of the show, "Goddamn, that fucking rocked." I didn't see Karp in 1995. The bands I saw then were usually loud, but lacking both musical proficiency and a sense of humor. Karp was endowed with an impressive amount of both. Much has been made of their metal influences-- think the bastard child of the Melvins and Black Sabbath, occasionally joined by a hardcore-loving session musician with an affinity for uppers, Black Flag, and Animal from "The Muppet Show"-- and as for the humor thing, well, it's hard not to like a band that adds a detail like this in the liner notes: "Recorded with a live bear in the studio. That was tough." In fact, disliking this band is difficult when you find yourself raising the devil horns and headbanging in earnest to "Turkey Named Brotherhood," with its dead-on fucking metal guitar line and unintelligible screamed vocals. It's hard not to laugh. And it's okay, because you know Karp is laughing with you. In their day, Karp were notorious for their wrestling-wear, and lyrical allusions to The Wizard of Oz and the roller derby. They recorded three full-lengths for K, attracted some rather high-profile fans within the music community (Built to Spill's Doug Martsch has been spotted wearing Karp t-shirts on numerous occasions), and allowed their fans the pleasure of balls-out rock and roll absurdity without having to prefix the pleasure with "guilty." Consider the opener, "Rowdy," the first track on Karp's last EP. A completely brutal, totally hilarious alcoholic older cousin of the Fucking Champs' progged-out meditations on the same genre, this track makes terrific use of its technical intricacy, never wiping the smirk off its face. With Karp, the silliness factor tempers the bombast just enough that you can sit back on second listen and enjoy the hodgepodge of sounds beneath the noise without feeling like too much of a hesher. Both "Dusk" and "Blue Blood" employ the dirge-to-explosion, quiet/loud dynamics of the artier set, but allow for all the strutting metal affectations to seep through. Likewise, the speed metal uproar of "Gauze" resolves itself into a raucous classic rock kind of conclusion, which would be completely preposterous if not for its defiantly lo-fi sound. The album fills out with a virtually unintelligible Black Flag cover, "Nothing Left Inside," and the terrifically titled "I'd Rather Be Clogging," with its slow-to-build, full-on guitar assault at the conclusion. Action Chemistry might lack subtlety, but that's sort of the point, isn't it? I mean, if you're looking for breezy, complex pop songs, this obviously isn't the place to go. This is not music for the Merlot crowd. It's loud and unruly, and if they ever invent scratch-and-sniff CDs, this one would smell like the interior of a shitty dive the morning after an amateur cock-rock show. But the damn thing charmed me. Something about undistilled rock without the bells and whistles. Something about being sure these guys had a lot of fun doing this. Something about the way it makes me want to stock my pockets with cheap beer and go to a bad house show just to make sure I'm not missing anything really great. Goddamn, that fucking rocked."

Fugazi

Instrument Soundtrack

Rock

Brent DiCrescenzo

Long the lodestar of credibility in punk, Fugazi has steadily chiseled a dogma and oeuvre over the last 12 years that arguably makes them the most important band of the '90s. But what they really want the public to know more than anything is that they have a sense of humor. In their massive documentary, Instrument, Fugazi shows up on an eighth- grade video- project talk show wearing leather jackets and knit caps, answering the questions of a thoroughly nervous teen with notecards and a suburban church dress. Later, drummer Brendan Canty shares with his bandmates how his sister's boyfriend believes the urban legand of Fugazi living in a house without heat and subsisting on a steady diet of nothing but rice. They all have a chuckle. It's understandable how this folklore has been spread, since Fugazi's records and performances are caustic, stern, and cathartic. Yet Instrument Soundtrack, chock- a- block with demos and studio outtakes, sounds remarkably playful. Heavily instrumental, Instrument Soundtrack draws from the Red Medicine and End Hits sessions, their most eclectic and emotionally complex records. These versions decellerate. A haunted studio echo is infused throughout. For a hissing trip into dub, a watery reverb is thrown over the drumtrack from "Arpeggiator." The skeletal Fugazi relies mainly on groovy rhythm from Joe Lally and Brendan Canty. Their masterful intercourse is the backbone of Fugazi. At moments, the songs de-evolve into rumbling live drum-n-bass tracks. Call it analogica. On second thought, don't. A wonderfully surprising moment of the soundtrack is Ian McKaye's piano pop ditty, "I'm So Tired." Heart- breakingly beautiful (yes, beautiful), it shows that Fugazi have more talent than their genre can tolerate. Hopefully, the band will turn punk on punk itself and record more sweet pop songs. Like the Washington Monument that graces the cover of In On the Kill Taker, Fugazi's music towers, massive and elegant, over all of their peers. And just as the Washington Monument currently stands in repair, covered in scaffolding and tarps while still maintaining impressive form and artistic statement, so too does Fugazi's music continue to inspire awe in its constructive state. For all those who worry that the Fugazi story may be coming to an end, both "Instrument" and its soundtrack show a band still growing and, in some ways, just getting started.

Artist: Fugazi, Album: Instrument Soundtrack, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Long the lodestar of credibility in punk, Fugazi has steadily chiseled a dogma and oeuvre over the last 12 years that arguably makes them the most important band of the '90s. But what they really want the public to know more than anything is that they have a sense of humor. In their massive documentary, Instrument, Fugazi shows up on an eighth- grade video- project talk show wearing leather jackets and knit caps, answering the questions of a thoroughly nervous teen with notecards and a suburban church dress. Later, drummer Brendan Canty shares with his bandmates how his sister's boyfriend believes the urban legand of Fugazi living in a house without heat and subsisting on a steady diet of nothing but rice. They all have a chuckle. It's understandable how this folklore has been spread, since Fugazi's records and performances are caustic, stern, and cathartic. Yet Instrument Soundtrack, chock- a- block with demos and studio outtakes, sounds remarkably playful. Heavily instrumental, Instrument Soundtrack draws from the Red Medicine and End Hits sessions, their most eclectic and emotionally complex records. These versions decellerate. A haunted studio echo is infused throughout. For a hissing trip into dub, a watery reverb is thrown over the drumtrack from "Arpeggiator." The skeletal Fugazi relies mainly on groovy rhythm from Joe Lally and Brendan Canty. Their masterful intercourse is the backbone of Fugazi. At moments, the songs de-evolve into rumbling live drum-n-bass tracks. Call it analogica. On second thought, don't. A wonderfully surprising moment of the soundtrack is Ian McKaye's piano pop ditty, "I'm So Tired." Heart- breakingly beautiful (yes, beautiful), it shows that Fugazi have more talent than their genre can tolerate. Hopefully, the band will turn punk on punk itself and record more sweet pop songs. Like the Washington Monument that graces the cover of In On the Kill Taker, Fugazi's music towers, massive and elegant, over all of their peers. And just as the Washington Monument currently stands in repair, covered in scaffolding and tarps while still maintaining impressive form and artistic statement, so too does Fugazi's music continue to inspire awe in its constructive state. For all those who worry that the Fugazi story may be coming to an end, both "Instrument" and its soundtrack show a band still growing and, in some ways, just getting started."

The Hold Steady

Teeth Dreams

Rock

Paul Thompson

"I heard the Cityscape Skins are kinda kicking it again," Craig Finn blurts out at the beginning of Teeth Dreams, the sixth LP from the Hold Steady. Over the years, the Cityscape Skins—a fictional coterie of tattoo-emblazoned Twin Cities street toughs—have darkened the doorways of many a Hold Steady song. But, beyond a fleeting reference to a Skins-stocked Youth of Today show on "Barely Breathing"—from the faintly disastrous Heaven Is Whenever—it's been some time since Finn got the gang together. Teeth Dreams' opening line is a callback, a homing beacon to wayward fans left cold by the overblown, undercooked Heaven. That beautiful shit Finn used to talk? Those beer-battered barroom floors and sloppy upper-Midwestern hagiographies? That neurons-blazing, every line-better-than-the-last Minneapolis mythos? The gang's all here. After four good-to-fantastic records in five short years, the Hold Steady took their sweet time and returned with 2010's Heaven, a too-sleek, saccharine, cliché-mottled shrug of a record. Heaven's music felt bland and tentative, but its real crimes were strictly lyrical: Finn swapped out the character-defining specifics for faceless generalities and an all-too-sweet sincerity that effectively transplanted his lived-in Minneapolis-St. Paul mythologies to Anyplace USA. At his best, Finn wouldn't just set a scene, he'd introduce you around to the regulars. Those first few Hold Steady records still feel like a gathering of familiars, speaking a shared language. Heaven, then, was clearly the Hold Steady's attempt to cram a few more people into to the party. But, by swinging for the back rows, they seemed to neglect all those weird kids up front, the very ones who'd helped make their singalong songs into scriptures. From its opening line on, Teeth Dreams announces itself as a return to form, a righting of Heaven Is Whenever's manifold wrongs from the cold comfort of the upper Midwest. Squint a little, and the familiar scenery starts to take shape: the nitrous tanks under the overpasses, the Michelin in Bay City where Gideon's been working. "I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You" finds Finn offering a new love a guided tour of some old haunts; "The Ambassador" swings around a chorus of "you came back to us/ South Minneapolis." Even when they're not ticking off the hours in 3.2 bars, the people of Teeth Dreams are very recognizably denizens of the Hold Steady universe: "I'm pretty sure you recognize these guys," Finn shares on "The Ambassador". They're a little older now, but wiser? Well, they're still sorta working on that. They have their good days, their bad months, their off years. Oh, and they drink. Just maybe not quite so much as they used to. Produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Rush, Evanescence), Teeth Dreams is handily the Hold Steady's worst-sounding album. The muddy, hyperbolically compressed mix dies a thousand deaths through a couple of halfway decent speakers; it opens up a smidge in headphones, but it strangles most of Finn's exhortations and grounds Tad Kubler's skyscraping solos, casting everything in an ugly, nuance-deadening grey. Musically, Teeth Dreams is pretty much your standard-issue late-era Hold Steady LP: a post-Replacements hard-charger here, a swaying, Schlitzed-up ballad there, all of it sturdy, none of it remotely surprising. The hard edges of Separation Sunday have been sanded down; the soaring expanses of Boys & Girls in America have been dulled under Raskulinecz's heavy hand. Finn's delivery, in particular, gets swallowed up here: Raskulinecz buried his way back in the mix, forcing him to fight his way out of Kubler and new axeman Steve Selvidge's six-string entanglements. With so much of the music taking the path of least resistance—and without Finn up front, cracking wise to the clever kids—Raskulinecz's bizarre production seems hellbent on downplaying exactly what makes the Hold Steady the Hold Steady. Coming off a four-LP hot streak, Heaven Is Whenever was a tough record to hear. But Teeth Dreams, with its dishwater-dull, Finn-diminishing sonics, might be the harder album to actually listen to. The collection does find Finn back among the third-shifters and the bartender's friends he spent so much time with on those first few Hold Steady LPs. But things, as they'll do, have changed. For starters, he's no longer into naming names: Gideon and Holly—whose addled ambling make up most of the first three Hold Steady LPs—have quickly become "he" and "she," just a couple more pronouns in the crowd. Finn may not be writing about Holly and Gideon anymore, but he's clearly writing about people like them; they live in the same places, know the same people, favor some of the same streetcorners. Having an overarching plot to hinge these episodes around gave a record like Separation Sunday its novelistic depth; Teeth Dreams, comparatively, feels muddled, 10 thumbnail sketches of the down-and-out rather than one long, hard-fought journey towards redemption. Still, Teeth Dreams isn't meant as a redemption story; instead, it's a record about perseverance. Nameless or not, these people have clearly been through something; for the time being, they're trying to get over it without falling back under it. They find themselves in codependent relationships with complicated backstories, they take—and then try to shake—dope, and they're all stricken by what Finn, on "On With the Business," dubs "that American sadness." These are people who've been seriously rocked by life, but they're mostly past that now; they're taking it one day at a time, with a friendly assist from the "salted rims and frosted mugs." "Spinners" finds him advising a recent divorcee to get back out there; "it's a big city," he insists, and "there's a lot of love." But his sympathies get the better of him on the the faintly Dylanesque "Wait a While"; different woman, similar situation, yet—in an unchracteristically regressive turn—he's taken to calling this one "little girl" and reminding her "there's other words than yes." On "Big Cig," Finn conjures a pill-popping, mind-changing, value-minded chain-smoker of his recent acquaintence: it's an easy highlight, the kind of impossibly clever, unusually tender character study Finn's always excelled at. But for every "Big Cig", there's a "Runner's High",a half-told, half-remembered California-by-way-of-Texas dope deal gone horribly awry. Time was, you could hardly get through a Hold Steady song without an intimate knowledge of everybody's sister's names and what high school they dropped out of. But "High," like a lot of Teeth, plays things a littl

Artist: The Hold Steady, Album: Teeth Dreams, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: ""I heard the Cityscape Skins are kinda kicking it again," Craig Finn blurts out at the beginning of Teeth Dreams, the sixth LP from the Hold Steady. Over the years, the Cityscape Skins—a fictional coterie of tattoo-emblazoned Twin Cities street toughs—have darkened the doorways of many a Hold Steady song. But, beyond a fleeting reference to a Skins-stocked Youth of Today show on "Barely Breathing"—from the faintly disastrous Heaven Is Whenever—it's been some time since Finn got the gang together. Teeth Dreams' opening line is a callback, a homing beacon to wayward fans left cold by the overblown, undercooked Heaven. That beautiful shit Finn used to talk? Those beer-battered barroom floors and sloppy upper-Midwestern hagiographies? That neurons-blazing, every line-better-than-the-last Minneapolis mythos? The gang's all here. After four good-to-fantastic records in five short years, the Hold Steady took their sweet time and returned with 2010's Heaven, a too-sleek, saccharine, cliché-mottled shrug of a record. Heaven's music felt bland and tentative, but its real crimes were strictly lyrical: Finn swapped out the character-defining specifics for faceless generalities and an all-too-sweet sincerity that effectively transplanted his lived-in Minneapolis-St. Paul mythologies to Anyplace USA. At his best, Finn wouldn't just set a scene, he'd introduce you around to the regulars. Those first few Hold Steady records still feel like a gathering of familiars, speaking a shared language. Heaven, then, was clearly the Hold Steady's attempt to cram a few more people into to the party. But, by swinging for the back rows, they seemed to neglect all those weird kids up front, the very ones who'd helped make their singalong songs into scriptures. From its opening line on, Teeth Dreams announces itself as a return to form, a righting of Heaven Is Whenever's manifold wrongs from the cold comfort of the upper Midwest. Squint a little, and the familiar scenery starts to take shape: the nitrous tanks under the overpasses, the Michelin in Bay City where Gideon's been working. "I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You" finds Finn offering a new love a guided tour of some old haunts; "The Ambassador" swings around a chorus of "you came back to us/ South Minneapolis." Even when they're not ticking off the hours in 3.2 bars, the people of Teeth Dreams are very recognizably denizens of the Hold Steady universe: "I'm pretty sure you recognize these guys," Finn shares on "The Ambassador". They're a little older now, but wiser? Well, they're still sorta working on that. They have their good days, their bad months, their off years. Oh, and they drink. Just maybe not quite so much as they used to. Produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Rush, Evanescence), Teeth Dreams is handily the Hold Steady's worst-sounding album. The muddy, hyperbolically compressed mix dies a thousand deaths through a couple of halfway decent speakers; it opens up a smidge in headphones, but it strangles most of Finn's exhortations and grounds Tad Kubler's skyscraping solos, casting everything in an ugly, nuance-deadening grey. Musically, Teeth Dreams is pretty much your standard-issue late-era Hold Steady LP: a post-Replacements hard-charger here, a swaying, Schlitzed-up ballad there, all of it sturdy, none of it remotely surprising. The hard edges of Separation Sunday have been sanded down; the soaring expanses of Boys & Girls in America have been dulled under Raskulinecz's heavy hand. Finn's delivery, in particular, gets swallowed up here: Raskulinecz buried his way back in the mix, forcing him to fight his way out of Kubler and new axeman Steve Selvidge's six-string entanglements. With so much of the music taking the path of least resistance—and without Finn up front, cracking wise to the clever kids—Raskulinecz's bizarre production seems hellbent on downplaying exactly what makes the Hold Steady the Hold Steady. Coming off a four-LP hot streak, Heaven Is Whenever was a tough record to hear. But Teeth Dreams, with its dishwater-dull, Finn-diminishing sonics, might be the harder album to actually listen to. The collection does find Finn back among the third-shifters and the bartender's friends he spent so much time with on those first few Hold Steady LPs. But things, as they'll do, have changed. For starters, he's no longer into naming names: Gideon and Holly—whose addled ambling make up most of the first three Hold Steady LPs—have quickly become "he" and "she," just a couple more pronouns in the crowd. Finn may not be writing about Holly and Gideon anymore, but he's clearly writing about people like them; they live in the same places, know the same people, favor some of the same streetcorners. Having an overarching plot to hinge these episodes around gave a record like Separation Sunday its novelistic depth; Teeth Dreams, comparatively, feels muddled, 10 thumbnail sketches of the down-and-out rather than one long, hard-fought journey towards redemption. Still, Teeth Dreams isn't meant as a redemption story; instead, it's a record about perseverance. Nameless or not, these people have clearly been through something; for the time being, they're trying to get over it without falling back under it. They find themselves in codependent relationships with complicated backstories, they take—and then try to shake—dope, and they're all stricken by what Finn, on "On With the Business," dubs "that American sadness." These are people who've been seriously rocked by life, but they're mostly past that now; they're taking it one day at a time, with a friendly assist from the "salted rims and frosted mugs." "Spinners" finds him advising a recent divorcee to get back out there; "it's a big city," he insists, and "there's a lot of love." But his sympathies get the better of him on the the faintly Dylanesque "Wait a While"; different woman, similar situation, yet—in an unchracteristically regressive turn—he's taken to calling this one "little girl" and reminding her "there's other words than yes." On "Big Cig," Finn conjures a pill-popping, mind-changing, value-minded chain-smoker of his recent acquaintence: it's an easy highlight, the kind of impossibly clever, unusually tender character study Finn's always excelled at. But for every "Big Cig", there's a "Runner's High",a half-told, half-remembered California-by-way-of-Texas dope deal gone horribly awry. Time was, you could hardly get through a Hold Steady song without an intimate knowledge of everybody's sister's names and what high school they dropped out of. But "High," like a lot of Teeth, plays things a littl"

Ra Ra Riot

Beta Love

Rock

Harley Brown

Over the course of their seven-year career, Ra Ra Riot have, for better or worse, been known as the indie band with orchestral strings. It was a bit of a shock, then, when in 2010 the Antlers' Peter Silberman remixed short samples from their entire sophomore album, The Orchard, into a four-minute glitchy electronic track that by his admission sounded "pretty foreign from the source." He was actually remarkably prescient: for their third record, Beta Love, the quintet enlisted producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello) to help them move away from the bittersweet violin and cello they felt had come to pigeonhole them since their first release in 2006. Along with a lyrical focus inspired by Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near, which the band had been reading before they made the album, Ra Ra Riot incorporated more keyboards and synthesizers into many of the songs on Beta Love. This new technology-informed attitude represents a necessary change for a band known mostly for one thing. The group might have felt hemmed in by a formula, but it was one that worked for them. For instance  the deep cello moans that opened The Rhumb Line's "Ghost Under Rocks" are still viscerally affecting years and countless indie chamber-pop imitators later. The keyboards stabbing at Beta Love opener "Dance With Me" set the tone for the album's overall harder, faster tempos, which peaks during the machine-gun drums on "Binary Mind", one of the songs that speaks most directly to Ra Ra Riot's concern with Kurzweil's transhumanism: "Why, tell me why/ I want to read you with this binary mind/ 'Cause if I do/ I'm sure that we'll be complete." Later, "Angel, Please" picks up where that track's hi-NRG left off, bringing out singer Wesley Miles' similarity to Phil Collins in pitch, intonation, and the use of "angel" as romantic epithet (the tambourines and handclaps don't hurt, either). To his credit, Miles definitely pushes his vocal range higher on Beta Love, even if he strains it to Jemaine Clement levels of absurdity on the R&B-leaning slow jam "Wilderness". And Miles takes sexy too far on "What I Do For U", sinking his delicate vibrato behind bass hits so incongruously deep they sound poorly mixed. Ra Ra Riot are best when they stick with what they wanted to get away from. "Is It Too Much" pulses with a metronome tick, a slight piano melody nestling between violinist Rebecca Zeller's judicious peals. The track would slot perfectly next to Discovery, Miles' electronic side project with Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij. "When I Dream", the album's haunting high point, provides a template for how Beta Love could have worked. Instead of overcrowding with layers of instrumentation, Ra Ra Riot play off a similarly minimal heartbeat pulse, filling the spaces between with single piano chords as opposed to a continually bursting synthesizers. When they do build to the subtle climaxes, Zeller's violin swells and the finger snaps click into place at precisely the right time. But the moment is lost on the rabid drum fills on follower "That Much", which returns to the bombast that relentlessly drives the rest of the album. It's unclear where Ra Ra Riot will go from here. After some bad tours and the departure of cellist Alexandra Lawn, the brasher tracks on Beta Love come across  as cathartic, as though the band is doing a silly dance or yelling obscenities as a necessary release from a stagnant situation. If that is the case, then the album's understated moments are a reassuring reminder that Ra Ra Riot still have some of The Rhumb Line in them.

Artist: Ra Ra Riot, Album: Beta Love, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "Over the course of their seven-year career, Ra Ra Riot have, for better or worse, been known as the indie band with orchestral strings. It was a bit of a shock, then, when in 2010 the Antlers' Peter Silberman remixed short samples from their entire sophomore album, The Orchard, into a four-minute glitchy electronic track that by his admission sounded "pretty foreign from the source." He was actually remarkably prescient: for their third record, Beta Love, the quintet enlisted producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello) to help them move away from the bittersweet violin and cello they felt had come to pigeonhole them since their first release in 2006. Along with a lyrical focus inspired by Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near, which the band had been reading before they made the album, Ra Ra Riot incorporated more keyboards and synthesizers into many of the songs on Beta Love. This new technology-informed attitude represents a necessary change for a band known mostly for one thing. The group might have felt hemmed in by a formula, but it was one that worked for them. For instance  the deep cello moans that opened The Rhumb Line's "Ghost Under Rocks" are still viscerally affecting years and countless indie chamber-pop imitators later. The keyboards stabbing at Beta Love opener "Dance With Me" set the tone for the album's overall harder, faster tempos, which peaks during the machine-gun drums on "Binary Mind", one of the songs that speaks most directly to Ra Ra Riot's concern with Kurzweil's transhumanism: "Why, tell me why/ I want to read you with this binary mind/ 'Cause if I do/ I'm sure that we'll be complete." Later, "Angel, Please" picks up where that track's hi-NRG left off, bringing out singer Wesley Miles' similarity to Phil Collins in pitch, intonation, and the use of "angel" as romantic epithet (the tambourines and handclaps don't hurt, either). To his credit, Miles definitely pushes his vocal range higher on Beta Love, even if he strains it to Jemaine Clement levels of absurdity on the R&B-leaning slow jam "Wilderness". And Miles takes sexy too far on "What I Do For U", sinking his delicate vibrato behind bass hits so incongruously deep they sound poorly mixed. Ra Ra Riot are best when they stick with what they wanted to get away from. "Is It Too Much" pulses with a metronome tick, a slight piano melody nestling between violinist Rebecca Zeller's judicious peals. The track would slot perfectly next to Discovery, Miles' electronic side project with Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij. "When I Dream", the album's haunting high point, provides a template for how Beta Love could have worked. Instead of overcrowding with layers of instrumentation, Ra Ra Riot play off a similarly minimal heartbeat pulse, filling the spaces between with single piano chords as opposed to a continually bursting synthesizers. When they do build to the subtle climaxes, Zeller's violin swells and the finger snaps click into place at precisely the right time. But the moment is lost on the rabid drum fills on follower "That Much", which returns to the bombast that relentlessly drives the rest of the album. It's unclear where Ra Ra Riot will go from here. After some bad tours and the departure of cellist Alexandra Lawn, the brasher tracks on Beta Love come across  as cathartic, as though the band is doing a silly dance or yelling obscenities as a necessary release from a stagnant situation. If that is the case, then the album's understated moments are a reassuring reminder that Ra Ra Riot still have some of The Rhumb Line in them."

Valet

Naked Acid

Electronic

Grayson Currin

Calling Valet constant Honey Owens a Portland musician is a simplification: Aside from two LPs in two years as the spectral Valet, Owens has contributed to Jackie O-Motherfucker and Dark Yoga. She's a member of broken funk trio Nudge and the touring bassist for Kranky labelmate Atlas Sound. She also co-owns Rad Summer, a hand-me-down and homemade clothing store that sells local music, hangs local art, repurposes used bikes, and, of course, hosts shows. Owens also co-founded and booked Dunes, a music club that the Portland Mercury calls the city's "hippest dark hallway/dance club," and she runs the tiny Yarnlazer label with her longtime boyfriend, White Rainbow's Adam Forkner. Owens, if anything, is a Portland mixed-media outlet and conduit. Naked Acid, the follow-up to 2007's Valet debut Blood is Clean, functions with the same parts-into-a-whole synergy as its creator. The first five songs work almost exclusively through distended sounds, creeping up through patient drones, manipulated vocals, and echo-in-canyon drums to slow payoffs. The sixth song, "Fire", is a lovesick ballad, an elliptical guitar/voice/tape-hiss first-take that Owens admits is about giving up drugs. The final song explodes the sounds of the first five beneath a noisy, throbbing beat, like Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club ripping Valet apart and spinning everything back on the faster reel. On first listen, such a sequence may seem like a ruse or even an apology: After 35 minutes of long-form washes and only slightly comprehensible vocals, "Fire", the shortest thing here and the most straightforward Valet song released to date, could be an attempt at relief or a stab at a single (which it was, in 2007, as a 7" for Burnt Brown Sounds). The same goes for beat-and-synth closer "Streets", a track that could give attention-deficient mp3 bloggers a toe-tap inlet into a record they'd otherwise ignore. Or perhaps Owens is offering herself an outlet for how future Valet records may sound. But keep listening, and it seems that the album-length incorporation of three distinct Valet styles is more a reflection of individual tracks themselves than an attempt to find common ground with a new lot of Kranky converts (see also: Deerhunter/Atlas Sound patrons). The "ambient" songs aren't ambient at all. Nothing is played too straight on those first five, their textures teeming with variety: Over a matrix of manipulated chimes and bowls, Owens and Adrian Orange combine for a ghastly duet on opener "We Went There". Her acid guitar tone slowly spills over the singing before an enormous electronic wash supplants it, too, sustaining the mood but slowly fading away. "Kehaar" sounds like Delta blues choking on lithium pills, a direct beat pulsing behind one chord and Owens' wounded whisper. Over five minutes, sheets of noise appear from beneath, slowly drowning Owens. They're all that matter as the song peaks, as with album highlight "Fuck It": In five minutes, it goes from a dramatic poetry reading backed by ragged, glorious guitar into a restrained Magik Markers noize + drumz berating. Thing is, these layers aren't immediately apparent: Naked Acid is a well-conceived and executed album, all its variety sewn into a single quilt that's strangely comforting and surprisingly sensible. The advance of Naked Acid is substantial if subtle, as with most everything Owens has committed to tape. Owens has finally incorporated her varied musical interests into one record, something she implies with the first five tracks but explains with the last two. After all, she says these songs-- elliptical but elegant, woven from phrases like "trees susurration, influential lake" and "warm kept my future cat"-- were written about specific people and events in Portland. These are things she's seen and lived. Blood is Clean was a fine series of snapshots connected by poetic vagaries, warped tones, and low-lying dynamics. Naked Acid is that, too, but here, Owens' different ideas finally feel like one long thought from one highly engaged person.

Artist: Valet, Album: Naked Acid, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Calling Valet constant Honey Owens a Portland musician is a simplification: Aside from two LPs in two years as the spectral Valet, Owens has contributed to Jackie O-Motherfucker and Dark Yoga. She's a member of broken funk trio Nudge and the touring bassist for Kranky labelmate Atlas Sound. She also co-owns Rad Summer, a hand-me-down and homemade clothing store that sells local music, hangs local art, repurposes used bikes, and, of course, hosts shows. Owens also co-founded and booked Dunes, a music club that the Portland Mercury calls the city's "hippest dark hallway/dance club," and she runs the tiny Yarnlazer label with her longtime boyfriend, White Rainbow's Adam Forkner. Owens, if anything, is a Portland mixed-media outlet and conduit. Naked Acid, the follow-up to 2007's Valet debut Blood is Clean, functions with the same parts-into-a-whole synergy as its creator. The first five songs work almost exclusively through distended sounds, creeping up through patient drones, manipulated vocals, and echo-in-canyon drums to slow payoffs. The sixth song, "Fire", is a lovesick ballad, an elliptical guitar/voice/tape-hiss first-take that Owens admits is about giving up drugs. The final song explodes the sounds of the first five beneath a noisy, throbbing beat, like Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club ripping Valet apart and spinning everything back on the faster reel. On first listen, such a sequence may seem like a ruse or even an apology: After 35 minutes of long-form washes and only slightly comprehensible vocals, "Fire", the shortest thing here and the most straightforward Valet song released to date, could be an attempt at relief or a stab at a single (which it was, in 2007, as a 7" for Burnt Brown Sounds). The same goes for beat-and-synth closer "Streets", a track that could give attention-deficient mp3 bloggers a toe-tap inlet into a record they'd otherwise ignore. Or perhaps Owens is offering herself an outlet for how future Valet records may sound. But keep listening, and it seems that the album-length incorporation of three distinct Valet styles is more a reflection of individual tracks themselves than an attempt to find common ground with a new lot of Kranky converts (see also: Deerhunter/Atlas Sound patrons). The "ambient" songs aren't ambient at all. Nothing is played too straight on those first five, their textures teeming with variety: Over a matrix of manipulated chimes and bowls, Owens and Adrian Orange combine for a ghastly duet on opener "We Went There". Her acid guitar tone slowly spills over the singing before an enormous electronic wash supplants it, too, sustaining the mood but slowly fading away. "Kehaar" sounds like Delta blues choking on lithium pills, a direct beat pulsing behind one chord and Owens' wounded whisper. Over five minutes, sheets of noise appear from beneath, slowly drowning Owens. They're all that matter as the song peaks, as with album highlight "Fuck It": In five minutes, it goes from a dramatic poetry reading backed by ragged, glorious guitar into a restrained Magik Markers noize + drumz berating. Thing is, these layers aren't immediately apparent: Naked Acid is a well-conceived and executed album, all its variety sewn into a single quilt that's strangely comforting and surprisingly sensible. The advance of Naked Acid is substantial if subtle, as with most everything Owens has committed to tape. Owens has finally incorporated her varied musical interests into one record, something she implies with the first five tracks but explains with the last two. After all, she says these songs-- elliptical but elegant, woven from phrases like "trees susurration, influential lake" and "warm kept my future cat"-- were written about specific people and events in Portland. These are things she's seen and lived. Blood is Clean was a fine series of snapshots connected by poetic vagaries, warped tones, and low-lying dynamics. Naked Acid is that, too, but here, Owens' different ideas finally feel like one long thought from one highly engaged person."

Sinoia Caves

Beyond the Black Rainbow OST

Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

As a kid growing growing up on Vancouver Island, Panos Cosmatos spent hours at his local video store, which was then still a new kind of business in North American suburbia. He would browse the endless racks of VHS boxes, especially curious about the fantastical illustrations that lined the horror and science fiction sections. His mother and father (a cinematographer and director whose most famous credits are Rambo: First Blood Part II and Tombstone) wouldn’t let him watch scary movies, but as Cosmatos told Filmmaker Magazine, he would “spend hours looking at the box covers… just imagining my own versions of them.” Decades later, those made-up stories would eventually coalesce into his first feature-length film, 2010’s Beyond the Black Rainbow, a mesmerizing period-piece headtrip sci-fi horror thriller that inevitably became a cult favorite. As origin stories go, that’s a good one. And it’s borne out by the film itself, which borrows liberally from the past but proves less specifically referential than, say, any Tarantino flick. On first viewing Beyond the Black Rainbow seems visually arresting yet thematically vacuous: The story crawls, yet (or because) each frame is meticulously composed and shot. There’s a strange doctor treating a young woman who is so sedated she can barely speak and whose long, black hair obscures her face to give her the appearance of a j-horror wraith. There’s the suspicious Arboria Institute, straight out of a Cronenberg flick; there are red stormtroopers called sentionauts, two doomed heshers, and the coolest Lotus Esprit since The Spy Who Loved Me. On repeated viewings, however, all of these fantastical elements begin to push forward certain themes—generally, an older generation preying on a younger one. More specifically, it seems to locate the roots of the present generation’s addiction to mood-altering drugs in the Baby Boomer’s pursuit of enlightenment through mind-altering hallucinogens. Because the film delivers so much of its information visually rather than through expository dialogue—a trick more filmmakers should try—the music must be both bold and nonintrusive, gingerly reinforcing the imaginary 1983 milieu without rendering it as novelty. Working under his Sinoia Caves alias, Jeremy Schmidt has crafted a soundtrack that nods to the early VHS era but is never too specific in its nostalgia; this is music made to tell a story, or at least part of one. Schmidt, a member of the Canadian indie-prog outfit Black Mountain, knows this territory well: In 2002 he released his Sinoia Caves debut, The Enchanter Persuaded, which expertly mixed cosmic synths and kosmische sequencers. Schmidt took a few years to subtly and meticulously rearrange the major suites from his Black Rainbow score into a work that alludes to the movie but should work for people who’ve never even heard of Panos Cosmatos. In doing so, he has done what neither Daft Punk nor M83 could pull off: He has created a soundtrack that works as an imaginative and often moving standalone album. Just as Cosmatos drew from his own memory to craft the movie, Schmidt seems to have composed this music based on hazy memories of old soundtracks. There are sly nods to John Carpenter and Goblin, Jan Hammer and Jon McCallum. He uses voices well, an old trope that horror flicks have used to imply some ritualistic terror but here sounds more benign—as though Schmidt is peopling Cosmatos’ often empty frames. On opener “Forever Dilating Eye”, a bodiless choir sings the wordless theme, then fades into a quick pulse of dwindling syllables. The effect is that of humans being broadcast via unreliable technology. Those strange vocals reappear at times throughout the album, until they are finally answered by a mechanistic monotone from the movie about better living through chemistry. “Elena’s Sound-World” recalls Giorgio Moroder’s work for Oliver Stone, but what’s more impressive is how sympathetic the song is toward the title character, imprisoned in the weird Arboria Institute. The pulsing sequencers and bodiless choir of voices not only sound startlingly tender (echoing the sensitivity with which Cosmatos finally shows her face), but the song grows larger with each measure, as though imagining a wide world beyond the confining walls. On the other hand, “Run Program: Sentionauts”, with its towering organ riffs and prismatic synthesizers, conveys nothing but danger and dread as it reimagines a Popol Vuh Herzog score as a teen slasher soundtrack. In other words, this is music that tells a story—that, crucially, makes its own powerful statement—even when detached from Beyond the Black Rainbow. It ebbs and flows in dramatic arcs, from the fluttery hush of “Arboria Tapes – Award Winning Gardens” to the foreboding synths of “1983 – Main Titles.” The album builds as it proceeds, such that the errant drones and earth-rattling chords of the seventeen-minute “1966 – Let the New Age of Enlightenment Begin” supply rising action and the eerie prog bombast of closer “Sentionauts II” creates a climactic conclusion. In both the film and its soundtrack, there is a constant sense of opening out: Elena’s world grows larger and larger as she ventures from her cell into the wide world, while Schmidt’s score similarly sounds like it is forever dilating, at least until the last synthburst fades.

Artist: Sinoia Caves, Album: Beyond the Black Rainbow OST, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "As a kid growing growing up on Vancouver Island, Panos Cosmatos spent hours at his local video store, which was then still a new kind of business in North American suburbia. He would browse the endless racks of VHS boxes, especially curious about the fantastical illustrations that lined the horror and science fiction sections. His mother and father (a cinematographer and director whose most famous credits are Rambo: First Blood Part II and Tombstone) wouldn’t let him watch scary movies, but as Cosmatos told Filmmaker Magazine, he would “spend hours looking at the box covers… just imagining my own versions of them.” Decades later, those made-up stories would eventually coalesce into his first feature-length film, 2010’s Beyond the Black Rainbow, a mesmerizing period-piece headtrip sci-fi horror thriller that inevitably became a cult favorite. As origin stories go, that’s a good one. And it’s borne out by the film itself, which borrows liberally from the past but proves less specifically referential than, say, any Tarantino flick. On first viewing Beyond the Black Rainbow seems visually arresting yet thematically vacuous: The story crawls, yet (or because) each frame is meticulously composed and shot. There’s a strange doctor treating a young woman who is so sedated she can barely speak and whose long, black hair obscures her face to give her the appearance of a j-horror wraith. There’s the suspicious Arboria Institute, straight out of a Cronenberg flick; there are red stormtroopers called sentionauts, two doomed heshers, and the coolest Lotus Esprit since The Spy Who Loved Me. On repeated viewings, however, all of these fantastical elements begin to push forward certain themes—generally, an older generation preying on a younger one. More specifically, it seems to locate the roots of the present generation’s addiction to mood-altering drugs in the Baby Boomer’s pursuit of enlightenment through mind-altering hallucinogens. Because the film delivers so much of its information visually rather than through expository dialogue—a trick more filmmakers should try—the music must be both bold and nonintrusive, gingerly reinforcing the imaginary 1983 milieu without rendering it as novelty. Working under his Sinoia Caves alias, Jeremy Schmidt has crafted a soundtrack that nods to the early VHS era but is never too specific in its nostalgia; this is music made to tell a story, or at least part of one. Schmidt, a member of the Canadian indie-prog outfit Black Mountain, knows this territory well: In 2002 he released his Sinoia Caves debut, The Enchanter Persuaded, which expertly mixed cosmic synths and kosmische sequencers. Schmidt took a few years to subtly and meticulously rearrange the major suites from his Black Rainbow score into a work that alludes to the movie but should work for people who’ve never even heard of Panos Cosmatos. In doing so, he has done what neither Daft Punk nor M83 could pull off: He has created a soundtrack that works as an imaginative and often moving standalone album. Just as Cosmatos drew from his own memory to craft the movie, Schmidt seems to have composed this music based on hazy memories of old soundtracks. There are sly nods to John Carpenter and Goblin, Jan Hammer and Jon McCallum. He uses voices well, an old trope that horror flicks have used to imply some ritualistic terror but here sounds more benign—as though Schmidt is peopling Cosmatos’ often empty frames. On opener “Forever Dilating Eye”, a bodiless choir sings the wordless theme, then fades into a quick pulse of dwindling syllables. The effect is that of humans being broadcast via unreliable technology. Those strange vocals reappear at times throughout the album, until they are finally answered by a mechanistic monotone from the movie about better living through chemistry. “Elena’s Sound-World” recalls Giorgio Moroder’s work for Oliver Stone, but what’s more impressive is how sympathetic the song is toward the title character, imprisoned in the weird Arboria Institute. The pulsing sequencers and bodiless choir of voices not only sound startlingly tender (echoing the sensitivity with which Cosmatos finally shows her face), but the song grows larger with each measure, as though imagining a wide world beyond the confining walls. On the other hand, “Run Program: Sentionauts”, with its towering organ riffs and prismatic synthesizers, conveys nothing but danger and dread as it reimagines a Popol Vuh Herzog score as a teen slasher soundtrack. In other words, this is music that tells a story—that, crucially, makes its own powerful statement—even when detached from Beyond the Black Rainbow. It ebbs and flows in dramatic arcs, from the fluttery hush of “Arboria Tapes – Award Winning Gardens” to the foreboding synths of “1983 – Main Titles.” The album builds as it proceeds, such that the errant drones and earth-rattling chords of the seventeen-minute “1966 – Let the New Age of Enlightenment Begin” supply rising action and the eerie prog bombast of closer “Sentionauts II” creates a climactic conclusion. In both the film and its soundtrack, there is a constant sense of opening out: Elena’s world grows larger and larger as she ventures from her cell into the wide world, while Schmidt’s score similarly sounds like it is forever dilating, at least until the last synthburst fades."

The 6ths

Wasps’ Nests

Rock

Robert Ham

To the world at large, Stephin Merritt was born in 1999. It was in those waning days of the 20th century that his band the Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs, the 3xCD opus that delivered exactly what its title promised, and did so with such diversity and brilliance that it was deemed an instant classic. From that point, the audience for Merritt’s music grew and he was afforded the opportunities that budding songwriters can only dream of. (Interviews with Terry Gross! Volvo ads! A major label deal!) But Merritt’s template had already been in place for about a decade. His work up to that point—lush synthpop recorded for indie labels like Feel Good All Over and Merge—demonstrated his unparalleled ability to write devilishly catchy melodies and lyrics as cloudy and sweet as a Manhattan. But even before his current deal with Nonesuch Records, Merritt spent some time with a major label. Wooed by A&R man and avowed fan Ken Friedman, the songwriter inked a one-off deal with the Polygram subsidiary London Records. True to his contrarian nature, he didn’t produce a new Magnetic Fields album. Instead, Merritt inaugurated the 6ths, a side project for which he writes all the songs but lets other folks handle the vocals. The resulting album was Wasps’ Nests, released first in 1995 but now available as a single LP via Captured Tracks. It is a fine, quaintly flawed collection of bubblegummy synthpop that now feels like something of a blip among the more well-known projects he’s done since. But within his creative history, it represents a marker of Merritt’s time within the underground scene, a community that he happily moved past as quickly as he could (“I have no interest in remaining in the indie rock ghetto,” he told the Village Voice in late ’99). That mainly has to do with the singers conscripted to participate in this first 6ths album (a follow-up called Hyacinths and Thistles came out in 2000). The roster reads like a lineup for a great ’90s music festival: Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs, Barbara Manning, Anna Domino, and Yo La Tengo drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley among them. The supposition is that everyone involved was brought in on the strength or distinctiveness of their vocals, but by and large, Merritt tamps those qualities down. The record is mixed so that the singing is almost overtaken by the burbling synthesizers, reverb-charged guitar lines, and drum machines. Many of the guests also do their best to match the downcast tone of Merritt’s baritone vocals. Some make it work, like Barlow who brings a nice whispery croon to the ballad “In the City in the Rain.” Galaxie 500 leader Dean Wareham takes on the weathered tone of his idol Lou Reed on the swinging gem “Falling Out of Love (With You).” Others, though, including Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, Knox, and Honeybunch member Jeffrey Underhill, feel like they’re straining to keep from soaring. It’s the women on Wasps’ Nests that are given the real showcase. Unable to hit Merritt’s low notes, they stay true to their own vocal range and the songs delight as a result. Domino’s turn on “Here in My Heart” is a perfect compliment to the Moroder-meets-folk reel that swirls around her. Helium/Ex Hex head Mary Timony uses her bittersweet tone well to go along with the sad sentiments and chirpy music of “All Dressed Up in Dreams.” Lyrically, Wasps’ Nests has all the highs and lows of Merritt’s non-conceptual work. The good outweighs the blunders here, but for every fine-tuned verse (“I was happy, which is not like me at all/For an hour I was feeling 10 feet tall”), there are others that stumble. Some are caught up in wordsmithery, or pith, or a tendency to just run through lists in place of sentiment—as with the array of possible lovers he spells out in “When I’m Out of Town” (“The butcher, the baker/The thin undertaker”). At the time of its release, Wasps’ Nests felt like another victory for a songwriter already on one hell of a winning streak, a feeling only amplified by the release of Get Lost six months later. But listened to now, some two decades later, it’s clear that Merritt was gathering his strength as a songwriter and a producer, which he would soon turn into a full-on torrent of genius.

Artist: The 6ths, Album: Wasps’ Nests, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.5 Album review: "To the world at large, Stephin Merritt was born in 1999. It was in those waning days of the 20th century that his band the Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs, the 3xCD opus that delivered exactly what its title promised, and did so with such diversity and brilliance that it was deemed an instant classic. From that point, the audience for Merritt’s music grew and he was afforded the opportunities that budding songwriters can only dream of. (Interviews with Terry Gross! Volvo ads! A major label deal!) But Merritt’s template had already been in place for about a decade. His work up to that point—lush synthpop recorded for indie labels like Feel Good All Over and Merge—demonstrated his unparalleled ability to write devilishly catchy melodies and lyrics as cloudy and sweet as a Manhattan. But even before his current deal with Nonesuch Records, Merritt spent some time with a major label. Wooed by A&R man and avowed fan Ken Friedman, the songwriter inked a one-off deal with the Polygram subsidiary London Records. True to his contrarian nature, he didn’t produce a new Magnetic Fields album. Instead, Merritt inaugurated the 6ths, a side project for which he writes all the songs but lets other folks handle the vocals. The resulting album was Wasps’ Nests, released first in 1995 but now available as a single LP via Captured Tracks. It is a fine, quaintly flawed collection of bubblegummy synthpop that now feels like something of a blip among the more well-known projects he’s done since. But within his creative history, it represents a marker of Merritt’s time within the underground scene, a community that he happily moved past as quickly as he could (“I have no interest in remaining in the indie rock ghetto,” he told the Village Voice in late ’99). That mainly has to do with the singers conscripted to participate in this first 6ths album (a follow-up called Hyacinths and Thistles came out in 2000). The roster reads like a lineup for a great ’90s music festival: Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs, Barbara Manning, Anna Domino, and Yo La Tengo drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley among them. The supposition is that everyone involved was brought in on the strength or distinctiveness of their vocals, but by and large, Merritt tamps those qualities down. The record is mixed so that the singing is almost overtaken by the burbling synthesizers, reverb-charged guitar lines, and drum machines. Many of the guests also do their best to match the downcast tone of Merritt’s baritone vocals. Some make it work, like Barlow who brings a nice whispery croon to the ballad “In the City in the Rain.” Galaxie 500 leader Dean Wareham takes on the weathered tone of his idol Lou Reed on the swinging gem “Falling Out of Love (With You).” Others, though, including Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, Knox, and Honeybunch member Jeffrey Underhill, feel like they’re straining to keep from soaring. It’s the women on Wasps’ Nests that are given the real showcase. Unable to hit Merritt’s low notes, they stay true to their own vocal range and the songs delight as a result. Domino’s turn on “Here in My Heart” is a perfect compliment to the Moroder-meets-folk reel that swirls around her. Helium/Ex Hex head Mary Timony uses her bittersweet tone well to go along with the sad sentiments and chirpy music of “All Dressed Up in Dreams.” Lyrically, Wasps’ Nests has all the highs and lows of Merritt’s non-conceptual work. The good outweighs the blunders here, but for every fine-tuned verse (“I was happy, which is not like me at all/For an hour I was feeling 10 feet tall”), there are others that stumble. Some are caught up in wordsmithery, or pith, or a tendency to just run through lists in place of sentiment—as with the array of possible lovers he spells out in “When I’m Out of Town” (“The butcher, the baker/The thin undertaker”). At the time of its release, Wasps’ Nests felt like another victory for a songwriter already on one hell of a winning streak, a feeling only amplified by the release of Get Lost six months later. But listened to now, some two decades later, it’s clear that Merritt was gathering his strength as a songwriter and a producer, which he would soon turn into a full-on torrent of genius."

Landing

Seasons

Rock

Mark Richard-San

I had a small epiphany last week. On a Monday morning I was walking the two blocks to catch the bus to work. It was raining hard, I was trudging along under my umbrella, and it felt great. It's the driest year this area has had in many years, and I realized while walking that I hadn't used an umbrella even once in six months or more. On my discman was the new record by Connecticut's Landing, a loose concept album about cycles and weather called Seasons. The song playing was "Encircled (Through Falling Leaves)." In the second stanza of "Encircled," the words "rain... comes... falling... down..." are sung in a whisper next to the wet, resonant picking of an acoustic guitar. The only thing that could have possibly sounded better at that moment would have been The Clientele, but they wouldn't have had the element of surprise because every damn song of theirs is about the rain. Landing caught me off guard and made me smile to myself on a dark, wet morning. It's dry again now. I'm listening to Landing in the air-conditioned comfort of my living room, and something is missing. Of course, Seasons isn't having the chill-inducing effect it did when the weather seemed orchestrated for the theme, but in truth, I just don't like this album as much as either Oceanless or the Centrefuge EP. To the band's credit, they're stretching out on Seasons and trying things only hinted at before. Where Oceanless was comprised of lengthy, mindbending excursions into shoegaze psychedelia, on Seasons, Landing become a song-oriented band, crafting comparatively short, spare tunes that showcase the vocals of husband-and-wife co-leaders Aaron and Adrienne Snow. Befitting the music, Mr. and Mrs. Snow sing in hushed whispers, where melodies are given gentle prodding and encouragement rather than being shoved into the cold world on their own. The aforementioned "Encircled" is unusual for the record in how folky it sounds, with a plucked acoustic and vocals high in the mix. It actually has something of a 70s singer/songwriter vibe to it, suggesting something quiet by Cat Stevens. I prefer this acoustic tunefulness to the indie slowcore of "Clarke Street," where Landing clearly strive for Low territory, but unfortunately lack the singing ability required of something so clear and direct. I much prefer the longer, more experimental tracks on Seasons to the more conventional songs. "First Snow" is by far my favorite, a slowly building wall of sound with tufts of guitar distortion gathering like white flakes in a pile of dead leaves. It's a song without verse or chorus featuring the pretty sound of Adrienne and Aaron harmonizing together, and it reminds me of something from Piano Magic's Low Birth Weight shorn of dark and gloomy edges. Also interesting is "Ruins of the Morning (So Cold)," which starts in a drifting, amorphous cloud of distortion, turns into a chiming, raga-like drone, and then transforms into a minimal slowcore track that seems like a completely different song, all in the span of eight minutes. "Blue Sky Away" closes the album on an up note, with an open, sunny vibe that feels looser and more relaxed than anything preceding it. Landing have serious gifts with mood and texture and the move toward song structures is an interesting one, but at this point, their songwriting chops don't measure up to their way with sound. Perhaps this effort, coming relatively quickly after Oceanless and their Surface of Eceon project with Adam Forkner of Yume Bitsu, was just a bit rushed.

Artist: Landing, Album: Seasons, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "I had a small epiphany last week. On a Monday morning I was walking the two blocks to catch the bus to work. It was raining hard, I was trudging along under my umbrella, and it felt great. It's the driest year this area has had in many years, and I realized while walking that I hadn't used an umbrella even once in six months or more. On my discman was the new record by Connecticut's Landing, a loose concept album about cycles and weather called Seasons. The song playing was "Encircled (Through Falling Leaves)." In the second stanza of "Encircled," the words "rain... comes... falling... down..." are sung in a whisper next to the wet, resonant picking of an acoustic guitar. The only thing that could have possibly sounded better at that moment would have been The Clientele, but they wouldn't have had the element of surprise because every damn song of theirs is about the rain. Landing caught me off guard and made me smile to myself on a dark, wet morning. It's dry again now. I'm listening to Landing in the air-conditioned comfort of my living room, and something is missing. Of course, Seasons isn't having the chill-inducing effect it did when the weather seemed orchestrated for the theme, but in truth, I just don't like this album as much as either Oceanless or the Centrefuge EP. To the band's credit, they're stretching out on Seasons and trying things only hinted at before. Where Oceanless was comprised of lengthy, mindbending excursions into shoegaze psychedelia, on Seasons, Landing become a song-oriented band, crafting comparatively short, spare tunes that showcase the vocals of husband-and-wife co-leaders Aaron and Adrienne Snow. Befitting the music, Mr. and Mrs. Snow sing in hushed whispers, where melodies are given gentle prodding and encouragement rather than being shoved into the cold world on their own. The aforementioned "Encircled" is unusual for the record in how folky it sounds, with a plucked acoustic and vocals high in the mix. It actually has something of a 70s singer/songwriter vibe to it, suggesting something quiet by Cat Stevens. I prefer this acoustic tunefulness to the indie slowcore of "Clarke Street," where Landing clearly strive for Low territory, but unfortunately lack the singing ability required of something so clear and direct. I much prefer the longer, more experimental tracks on Seasons to the more conventional songs. "First Snow" is by far my favorite, a slowly building wall of sound with tufts of guitar distortion gathering like white flakes in a pile of dead leaves. It's a song without verse or chorus featuring the pretty sound of Adrienne and Aaron harmonizing together, and it reminds me of something from Piano Magic's Low Birth Weight shorn of dark and gloomy edges. Also interesting is "Ruins of the Morning (So Cold)," which starts in a drifting, amorphous cloud of distortion, turns into a chiming, raga-like drone, and then transforms into a minimal slowcore track that seems like a completely different song, all in the span of eight minutes. "Blue Sky Away" closes the album on an up note, with an open, sunny vibe that feels looser and more relaxed than anything preceding it. Landing have serious gifts with mood and texture and the move toward song structures is an interesting one, but at this point, their songwriting chops don't measure up to their way with sound. Perhaps this effort, coming relatively quickly after Oceanless and their Surface of Eceon project with Adam Forkner of Yume Bitsu, was just a bit rushed."

Morningwood

Morningwood

Electronic,Rock

Adam Moerder

Haters seeking a new target for bilious, fire-bellied screeds are going to love Morningwood: They're yet another NYC retro-rock retread, their bassist used to drum for the Wallflowers, and, yes, of all the possible bandnames in the whole entire world, they chose "Morningwood." If taking swings at them seems easy, it ought to. In the aftermath of late-70s garage-rock hangovers, they sound exactly as you'd expect-- hints of new wave crossing paths with uninspired power-pop and jackleg dance-rock. And yet, despite their readymade niche, their hype's been tepid in a post-holiday indie rock market blue-balled by a disappointing Strokes album. Morningwood pride themselves as a "fun" band by infusing their music with energy and sexuality. The reality is, cutting a decent record takes more than a kooky stageshow and an insatiable urge to embarrass yourself. It also takes more than handclaps, call-and-response vocals, and dumb cheerleader cadences-- which, incidentally, just about sums up Morningwood's current single "Nth Degree", a kind of theme song the band is pushing as a means of introducing themselves to an apathetic public. Where better throwbacks such as Brooklyn-based Blood on the Wall overcome their heavily earmarked influences, Morningwood don't even try to put a unique spin on their pilfering: Their tracklist reads like an AudioScrobbler profile, systematically tallying new wave and glam ingredients in ways only machines and computerbrains can. Like many style-over-substance rockers before them, Morningwood sink or swim largely on the strength of its frontperson, in this case Chantel Claret, an ingenue undeservedly netting comparisons to Karen O and Siouxsie Sioux. Though a touch of early Pretenders or Runaways may occasionally poke through for necessary grit, Claret snags more persona and influence from pop princesses past and present: "Nth Degree" is a poor woman's Gwen Stefani rapping on Franz Ferdinand demos, replacing the now-legendary "B-A-N-A-N-A-S" chant with the vastly more mindless "M-O/ M-O-R/ M-O-R-N-I-N-G/ W-O-O-D." Similarly, "New York Girls" spoils the album's best bassline with a shoutout straight from Bring It On: "N-N-N-New York girls, come on, you know you're hot/ A-A-A-Attitude, and that's what makes you rock!!" That attitude carries over to Claret's lyrics: "Take Off Your Clothes" painfully xeroxes "Smells Like Teen Spirit", subbing teen angst for locker room hormones as she gasps, "Your happy trail, it's in my happy trail/ And your treasure trial, let's see what goes down!" until ex-Spacehog guitarist Richard Steel ejaculates an imitation Joey Santiago riff for the chorus. Here and elsewhere, producer Gil Norton immaculately regenerates his past work for Pixies and Echo & the Bunnymen, though even occasionally recycling those great old sonics can't rescue these songs. As if the songwriting didn't show its wires enough, "Nth Degree" invites you to "rock n' roll," "disco," and "turn up the radio," but does so with tongue-in-cheek instead of fists in the air. So not even Morningwood take themselves too seriously, but instead of offering playful, engaging pop music, we get new wave retreads and a couple of rock journeymen and the whole thing comes off like an overgrown episode of MTV's "Making the Band".

Artist: Morningwood, Album: Morningwood, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 3.9 Album review: "Haters seeking a new target for bilious, fire-bellied screeds are going to love Morningwood: They're yet another NYC retro-rock retread, their bassist used to drum for the Wallflowers, and, yes, of all the possible bandnames in the whole entire world, they chose "Morningwood." If taking swings at them seems easy, it ought to. In the aftermath of late-70s garage-rock hangovers, they sound exactly as you'd expect-- hints of new wave crossing paths with uninspired power-pop and jackleg dance-rock. And yet, despite their readymade niche, their hype's been tepid in a post-holiday indie rock market blue-balled by a disappointing Strokes album. Morningwood pride themselves as a "fun" band by infusing their music with energy and sexuality. The reality is, cutting a decent record takes more than a kooky stageshow and an insatiable urge to embarrass yourself. It also takes more than handclaps, call-and-response vocals, and dumb cheerleader cadences-- which, incidentally, just about sums up Morningwood's current single "Nth Degree", a kind of theme song the band is pushing as a means of introducing themselves to an apathetic public. Where better throwbacks such as Brooklyn-based Blood on the Wall overcome their heavily earmarked influences, Morningwood don't even try to put a unique spin on their pilfering: Their tracklist reads like an AudioScrobbler profile, systematically tallying new wave and glam ingredients in ways only machines and computerbrains can. Like many style-over-substance rockers before them, Morningwood sink or swim largely on the strength of its frontperson, in this case Chantel Claret, an ingenue undeservedly netting comparisons to Karen O and Siouxsie Sioux. Though a touch of early Pretenders or Runaways may occasionally poke through for necessary grit, Claret snags more persona and influence from pop princesses past and present: "Nth Degree" is a poor woman's Gwen Stefani rapping on Franz Ferdinand demos, replacing the now-legendary "B-A-N-A-N-A-S" chant with the vastly more mindless "M-O/ M-O-R/ M-O-R-N-I-N-G/ W-O-O-D." Similarly, "New York Girls" spoils the album's best bassline with a shoutout straight from Bring It On: "N-N-N-New York girls, come on, you know you're hot/ A-A-A-Attitude, and that's what makes you rock!!" That attitude carries over to Claret's lyrics: "Take Off Your Clothes" painfully xeroxes "Smells Like Teen Spirit", subbing teen angst for locker room hormones as she gasps, "Your happy trail, it's in my happy trail/ And your treasure trial, let's see what goes down!" until ex-Spacehog guitarist Richard Steel ejaculates an imitation Joey Santiago riff for the chorus. Here and elsewhere, producer Gil Norton immaculately regenerates his past work for Pixies and Echo & the Bunnymen, though even occasionally recycling those great old sonics can't rescue these songs. As if the songwriting didn't show its wires enough, "Nth Degree" invites you to "rock n' roll," "disco," and "turn up the radio," but does so with tongue-in-cheek instead of fists in the air. So not even Morningwood take themselves too seriously, but instead of offering playful, engaging pop music, we get new wave retreads and a couple of rock journeymen and the whole thing comes off like an overgrown episode of MTV's "Making the Band"."

Charles Bradley

Victim of Love

Pop/R&B

Dean Van Nguyen

With a roster that has boasted singers like Sharon Jones, Lee Fields, Naomi Shelton and the sadly departed Joseph Henry, Brooklyn-based label Daptone Records have forged their retro soul ethos for a decade now with a very calculated method: correcting history’s mistakes by signing aging soul starlets who have fallen through the cracks of time. So how label co-founder Gabriel Roth must have fussed when he came across Charles Bradley, a James Brown impersonator with a harrowing backstory. Enduring homelessness, extreme illness and the murder of his brother (all of which are outlined in the festival circuit documentary Charles Bradley: Soul of America), Bradley came with a marketable narrative and a dynamic stage presence. Most importantly, his voice gives Daptone’s house musicians a leading man who can channel not just Brown, but Otis Redding, Al Green, and Teddy Pendergrass to boot. To both Bradley and Daptone’s credit, the singer’s first album, No Time for Dreaming, didn't cash in on his distressing life story, but world-weariness did seep into his songwriting. It was as though harsh life lessons had taught Bradley not to expect a great deal from his apparent "big break." The love songs weren’t so much passionate romantic odes as they were desperate declarations of reliance, while the record’s marquee song, “Why Is It So Hard”, offered a cold flipside to the American dream. But what a voice. This wasn’t revivalism for revivalisms sake (a sneer sometimes made at Daptone), but a collection of songs sung with earnestness and authority that it trumped any such criticism. Two years on, Victim of Love is a more optimistic record, from the Motown-inspired catchy pop-soul number “You Put the Flame on It” to the gorgeous “Through the Storm”, a quiet elegy to bury his past traumas. But these fuzzy moments are offset by new forays into more coarse instrumentation. “You Put the Fame on It” aside, producer Thomas Brenneck pushes his artist from the 1960s into more 70s R&B than he’s previously been accustomed to. Think Curtis Mayfield’s transition from the swinging doo-wop of the Impressions to his solo, psychedelic blues of the early 70s. “Hurricane” trods much the same path as “Freddy’s Dead”, albeit replacing Mayfield’s drugged out nightmare with an environmental warning, while his handprint is all over the sizzling funk workout “Confusion”. Elsewhere, “Strictly Reserved For You” could easily slide into Al Green’s golden 1972-1975 run, and the chipped guitar lines that recall his great collaborator “Teenie” Hodges are matched with some fuzzy Sly Stone-esque axe. But Victim of Love is ultimately a less successful record than No Time for Dreaming. For one, Bradley seems less connected with this set. “Love Bug Blues” offers him some blaxplotiation-style cool to ride on-- all nasty guitar lines, fluttering jazz flutes, and forceful horn stabs-- but the lyrics uncomfortably cast him as a horny singleton who has caught glimpse of a potential new conquest. His major flaw, however, has been and continues to be his lack of ability to interact with his band. At times, like on overwrought ballad “Let Love Stand a Chance", he sounds completely detached from what’s going on around him, as if he cut his vocal a capella in studio far away from his collaborators. This isn’t helped by Brenneck, who turns Bradley’s voice way up in the mix. Considering the singer’s sheer power it’s sometimes an imbalance. For example, the title track is a bare acoustic jam only backed up with some soft background “oohs” and “ahs”, yet Bradley attacks the arrangement with full speed gusto and his potent voice begins to overwhelm. These blemishes underline that Bradley is still something of a novice to professional recording and requires guidance to funnel his talents onto wax. That’s the job of Brenneck and the Daptone hierarchy, who are probably calling the shots when it comes to his evolving sound. But Bradley has a rare gift of being a singer worth hearing regardless of the material, and this alone is worth the price of admission.

Artist: Charles Bradley, Album: Victim of Love, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "With a roster that has boasted singers like Sharon Jones, Lee Fields, Naomi Shelton and the sadly departed Joseph Henry, Brooklyn-based label Daptone Records have forged their retro soul ethos for a decade now with a very calculated method: correcting history’s mistakes by signing aging soul starlets who have fallen through the cracks of time. So how label co-founder Gabriel Roth must have fussed when he came across Charles Bradley, a James Brown impersonator with a harrowing backstory. Enduring homelessness, extreme illness and the murder of his brother (all of which are outlined in the festival circuit documentary Charles Bradley: Soul of America), Bradley came with a marketable narrative and a dynamic stage presence. Most importantly, his voice gives Daptone’s house musicians a leading man who can channel not just Brown, but Otis Redding, Al Green, and Teddy Pendergrass to boot. To both Bradley and Daptone’s credit, the singer’s first album, No Time for Dreaming, didn't cash in on his distressing life story, but world-weariness did seep into his songwriting. It was as though harsh life lessons had taught Bradley not to expect a great deal from his apparent "big break." The love songs weren’t so much passionate romantic odes as they were desperate declarations of reliance, while the record’s marquee song, “Why Is It So Hard”, offered a cold flipside to the American dream. But what a voice. This wasn’t revivalism for revivalisms sake (a sneer sometimes made at Daptone), but a collection of songs sung with earnestness and authority that it trumped any such criticism. Two years on, Victim of Love is a more optimistic record, from the Motown-inspired catchy pop-soul number “You Put the Flame on It” to the gorgeous “Through the Storm”, a quiet elegy to bury his past traumas. But these fuzzy moments are offset by new forays into more coarse instrumentation. “You Put the Fame on It” aside, producer Thomas Brenneck pushes his artist from the 1960s into more 70s R&B than he’s previously been accustomed to. Think Curtis Mayfield’s transition from the swinging doo-wop of the Impressions to his solo, psychedelic blues of the early 70s. “Hurricane” trods much the same path as “Freddy’s Dead”, albeit replacing Mayfield’s drugged out nightmare with an environmental warning, while his handprint is all over the sizzling funk workout “Confusion”. Elsewhere, “Strictly Reserved For You” could easily slide into Al Green’s golden 1972-1975 run, and the chipped guitar lines that recall his great collaborator “Teenie” Hodges are matched with some fuzzy Sly Stone-esque axe. But Victim of Love is ultimately a less successful record than No Time for Dreaming. For one, Bradley seems less connected with this set. “Love Bug Blues” offers him some blaxplotiation-style cool to ride on-- all nasty guitar lines, fluttering jazz flutes, and forceful horn stabs-- but the lyrics uncomfortably cast him as a horny singleton who has caught glimpse of a potential new conquest. His major flaw, however, has been and continues to be his lack of ability to interact with his band. At times, like on overwrought ballad “Let Love Stand a Chance", he sounds completely detached from what’s going on around him, as if he cut his vocal a capella in studio far away from his collaborators. This isn’t helped by Brenneck, who turns Bradley’s voice way up in the mix. Considering the singer’s sheer power it’s sometimes an imbalance. For example, the title track is a bare acoustic jam only backed up with some soft background “oohs” and “ahs”, yet Bradley attacks the arrangement with full speed gusto and his potent voice begins to overwhelm. These blemishes underline that Bradley is still something of a novice to professional recording and requires guidance to funnel his talents onto wax. That’s the job of Brenneck and the Daptone hierarchy, who are probably calling the shots when it comes to his evolving sound. But Bradley has a rare gift of being a singer worth hearing regardless of the material, and this alone is worth the price of admission."

Venetian Snares

The Chocolate Wheelchair Album

Electronic

Dan Lett

Aaron Funk (aka Venetian Snares) claims his first musical experience was attending an in utero Mike Oldfield session courtesy of his pregnant mother. Funk has since revisited his sonic initiation in the womb with the eponymous Nymphomatriarch release, sourced entirely from mid-coitus, "internal" samples of he and partner Rachael Kozak (aka Hecate). That he describes himself as a combination of Lee Perry, Stockhausen, and contemporary drum-n-bass pioneer Squarepusher-- all subject to "gasoline enemas"-- may seem both egocentric and anally preoccupied enough to encourage further Freudian character analysis. But however (un)justified you judge his self-opinion to be, Funk is currently producing some of the most challenging compositions on electronica veteran Mike "\xB5-Ziq" Paradinas' Planet Mu label. His frantic production schedule has seen him messily hemorrhaging at least two full-lengths of chaotic, genre-devouring work each year-- with the emphasis often on shock and sensation. And this year's The Chocolate Wheelchair Album won't likely disappoint his audience, containing variations on the crazy-paving soundscapes with which Funk has become synonymous. But: Does it suggest enough of a progression to substantiate Funk's lofty allusions to the pioneers mentioned above? Rumor has it that Funk's original title for this album was The Stupid Chocolate Wheelchair Album, an idea quashed by a disapproving Paradinas. That didn't stop Funk taking a black marker to pre-release copies distributed at promotional gigs last year and "correcting" the tamed album title. You see, Funk does whatever the hell he wants-- a philosophy that thrives unchecked in the studio. Ever since the gorgeous fusion of opera, eruptive break beats, and a cappella melodic phrasing on "Dance Like You're Selling Nails" (from 2002's Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972-2006), Venetian Snares has deserved some indulgence of his attention-seeking musical tendencies. And if this album fails to capture the originality of his best work, it at least captures a similar spirit. "Einstein-Rosen Bridge" vibrates with funky guitars channeled into revisionist techno mockery set to trademark hectic beats. The overall effect is surging and rampant; Funk camps it up with throwaway vocal samples and something akin to game-show style orchestral hits. This track obliterates the immediately forgettable glitch noodling of "Langside", a piece made obsolete by Funk's own superior past efforts in this area. "Handthrow" starts out, worryingly enough, like an early jungle track, merely accelerated and panned about with nothing resembling innovation; its distortion-happy, shoot-'em-up descent into monotonous snare button-hammering isn't much better, either. Despite The Chocolate Wheelchair Album's intriguingly perverse wackiness, a weakness begins to emerge as it plays. Funk has always flitted between styles, making each track a microcosm of multiple genres. The riotous pastiche that has served Funk so well in the past here threatens to deaden one's senses to the individual moments of inspiration. When psychotic mood swings and jaw-dropping reversals are this ubiquitous, they lose their ability to shock, and, criminally, they almost lull. Funk packs so much processed pandemonium into each song that you can't help thinking that a dozen or more of those rapid-fire ideas could have been set aside and nurtured over their own four minutes. Still, even within this dense barrage of skewered noise, there lies a handful of intriguing moments to snap listeners to attention: Standout tracks "Herbie Goes Ballistic" and "Marty's Tardis"-- the latter featuring an affectionate reworking of the Doctor Who theme-- see ideas and form presented in equal measure. And if nothing else, the record is more accessible than 2001's boisterous Songs About My Cat. Of course, none of this changes that notion that Funk is suffering the plight of many an electronic composer-- a limitless availability of sonic tools and the fetishistic desire to push each one to the limit. Like an electronic magpie, Funk surrounds himself with all that glisters. Thankfully, half the time he produces gold.

Artist: Venetian Snares, Album: The Chocolate Wheelchair Album, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "Aaron Funk (aka Venetian Snares) claims his first musical experience was attending an in utero Mike Oldfield session courtesy of his pregnant mother. Funk has since revisited his sonic initiation in the womb with the eponymous Nymphomatriarch release, sourced entirely from mid-coitus, "internal" samples of he and partner Rachael Kozak (aka Hecate). That he describes himself as a combination of Lee Perry, Stockhausen, and contemporary drum-n-bass pioneer Squarepusher-- all subject to "gasoline enemas"-- may seem both egocentric and anally preoccupied enough to encourage further Freudian character analysis. But however (un)justified you judge his self-opinion to be, Funk is currently producing some of the most challenging compositions on electronica veteran Mike "\xB5-Ziq" Paradinas' Planet Mu label. His frantic production schedule has seen him messily hemorrhaging at least two full-lengths of chaotic, genre-devouring work each year-- with the emphasis often on shock and sensation. And this year's The Chocolate Wheelchair Album won't likely disappoint his audience, containing variations on the crazy-paving soundscapes with which Funk has become synonymous. But: Does it suggest enough of a progression to substantiate Funk's lofty allusions to the pioneers mentioned above? Rumor has it that Funk's original title for this album was The Stupid Chocolate Wheelchair Album, an idea quashed by a disapproving Paradinas. That didn't stop Funk taking a black marker to pre-release copies distributed at promotional gigs last year and "correcting" the tamed album title. You see, Funk does whatever the hell he wants-- a philosophy that thrives unchecked in the studio. Ever since the gorgeous fusion of opera, eruptive break beats, and a cappella melodic phrasing on "Dance Like You're Selling Nails" (from 2002's Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972-2006), Venetian Snares has deserved some indulgence of his attention-seeking musical tendencies. And if this album fails to capture the originality of his best work, it at least captures a similar spirit. "Einstein-Rosen Bridge" vibrates with funky guitars channeled into revisionist techno mockery set to trademark hectic beats. The overall effect is surging and rampant; Funk camps it up with throwaway vocal samples and something akin to game-show style orchestral hits. This track obliterates the immediately forgettable glitch noodling of "Langside", a piece made obsolete by Funk's own superior past efforts in this area. "Handthrow" starts out, worryingly enough, like an early jungle track, merely accelerated and panned about with nothing resembling innovation; its distortion-happy, shoot-'em-up descent into monotonous snare button-hammering isn't much better, either. Despite The Chocolate Wheelchair Album's intriguingly perverse wackiness, a weakness begins to emerge as it plays. Funk has always flitted between styles, making each track a microcosm of multiple genres. The riotous pastiche that has served Funk so well in the past here threatens to deaden one's senses to the individual moments of inspiration. When psychotic mood swings and jaw-dropping reversals are this ubiquitous, they lose their ability to shock, and, criminally, they almost lull. Funk packs so much processed pandemonium into each song that you can't help thinking that a dozen or more of those rapid-fire ideas could have been set aside and nurtured over their own four minutes. Still, even within this dense barrage of skewered noise, there lies a handful of intriguing moments to snap listeners to attention: Standout tracks "Herbie Goes Ballistic" and "Marty's Tardis"-- the latter featuring an affectionate reworking of the Doctor Who theme-- see ideas and form presented in equal measure. And if nothing else, the record is more accessible than 2001's boisterous Songs About My Cat. Of course, none of this changes that notion that Funk is suffering the plight of many an electronic composer-- a limitless availability of sonic tools and the fetishistic desire to push each one to the limit. Like an electronic magpie, Funk surrounds himself with all that glisters. Thankfully, half the time he produces gold."

Various Artists

Eccentric Soul: The Bandit Label

Joe Tangari

At 4114 S. Martin Luther King Drive in Chicago sits the specter of a building, a crumbling greystone indistinguishable from the thousands like it that litter the city's South Side. But this house has a unique and bizarre history as the focal point of one the strangest chapters in Chicago's musical history, that of Arrow Brown and his Bandit label. It's a chapter that's been mostly skipped over to this point, but that shouldn't obscure the fact that Brown's completely under-the-table recording company/commune/harem produced a clutch of impressive, honey-drenched soul tracks in its 12 years of operation. The late Arrow Brown was by all accounts a shady character, a Mississippi boy who transplanted to Chicago during the Great Migration and in his early adulthood looked to be living the American dream, with a family and a steady job at a soup cannery. But somewhere in the 1960s, he veered onto a different path, leaving his family behind for the seedy underground of the Second City, finally emerging in 1969 in that greystone, subsisting off the welfare checks of the nearly one dozen women he lived and likely consorted with. The Bandit story begins here, as Brown's wild weekend parties gave way to recording sessions featuring a huge cast of inspired amateurs and moonlighting professionals, who played uncredited to skirt musicians' union rules. In spite of the less-than-official arrangement, these are some truly hi-fi recordings, full of incredible string and horn arrangements, inventive backing vocals and funky rhythm sections that don't miss a Motown-inspired note. Though Brown used the singers at his disposal almost interchangeably, a few stand out as huge talents, including Brown's own daughter, Tridia. She was a member, such as one could be, of the label's flagship group, the Arrows, later the Majestic Arrows, and she was a great foil for the magnificent, sweet soul falsetto of Larry Johnson, a hugely talented singer who certainly could have gone places had he recorded for a label with the means to get him there. The two of them trade verses on the Majestic Arrows' "Another Day", a sweeping soul ballad that typifies Bandit's sweet, orchestral r&b; aesthetic. Another would-be star is Linda Balintine, whose two tracks are tough and funky, but the most tragic loss unearthed here is Johnny Davis. Davis was a powerful soul crooner with an especially commanding low range\xD1on the evidence of the few tracks he recorded, he had huge potential, but was the victim of a brutal murder in 1972 before he ever had a chance to truly blossom. Still, "You've Got to Crawl to Me" is a darkly funky tour de force, similar to something a pre-Superfly Curtis Mayfield might have cooked up. Given the paltry promotion clout of a label like Bandit, it's easy to understand why none of these songs-- released with their crudely drawn yellow labels-- ever became a hit, but there's no doubt several of them could have with the right push. "One More Time Around" has an urgent bounce, with a great bassline, ultra-catchy backing vocals, a strange, almost David Axelrod-ish violin arrangement and impassioned lead vocals, possibly by Tridia Brown. "We Have Love" is a scorching r&b; ballad, while "Doing it For Us" puts the majestic in Majestic Arrows with a massive flute-and-strings intro, couching Larry Johnson's amazing vocal in a bed of Baldwin organ and velvety orchestration. The man responsible for the crazy string parts and fractured rhythms that open "Love Is All I Need", Benjamin Wright, later did arrangements for Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. Brown actually attempted to make his son Altyrone Deno Brown into a sort of answer to Michael Jackson, recording his son at age seven belting a couple of monster soul tunes, "Sweet Pea" and "If You Love Me". The bottom line is that Brown's faith in his son's talent was not misplaced-- the kid sings his ass off-- but it may have been too early. As much as he really could sing, he sounds like you'd expect a seven-year old to sound, and his two songs on this compilation are really more useful for the sake of posterity (though not novelty, oddly enough) than for listening. The younger Brown did appear in several movies, including the Blues Brothers and won a Tony Award for his role in and off-Broadway musical version of A Raisin in the Sun, but when the Bandit label died in the early 80s and Arrow Brown's commune collapsed along with his health, he turned his back on show business and understandably gravitated toward a normal, stable life. Though it ended ignominiously, the Bandit story is a truly fascinating one, an extraordinary validation of the theory that truth is a great deal stranger than fiction and the kind of thing that's naturally intriguing to record buffs. As reissues go, this is in line with the Numero Group's other releases to date: meticulously researched, lovingly compiled, painstakingly remastered (sometimes from vinyl, by the sound of it) and uncommonly focused, and that's a big part of its appeal to collectors as well-- it tells the whole story and pulls no punches. All that's left to do is listen.

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Eccentric Soul: The Bandit Label, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "At 4114 S. Martin Luther King Drive in Chicago sits the specter of a building, a crumbling greystone indistinguishable from the thousands like it that litter the city's South Side. But this house has a unique and bizarre history as the focal point of one the strangest chapters in Chicago's musical history, that of Arrow Brown and his Bandit label. It's a chapter that's been mostly skipped over to this point, but that shouldn't obscure the fact that Brown's completely under-the-table recording company/commune/harem produced a clutch of impressive, honey-drenched soul tracks in its 12 years of operation. The late Arrow Brown was by all accounts a shady character, a Mississippi boy who transplanted to Chicago during the Great Migration and in his early adulthood looked to be living the American dream, with a family and a steady job at a soup cannery. But somewhere in the 1960s, he veered onto a different path, leaving his family behind for the seedy underground of the Second City, finally emerging in 1969 in that greystone, subsisting off the welfare checks of the nearly one dozen women he lived and likely consorted with. The Bandit story begins here, as Brown's wild weekend parties gave way to recording sessions featuring a huge cast of inspired amateurs and moonlighting professionals, who played uncredited to skirt musicians' union rules. In spite of the less-than-official arrangement, these are some truly hi-fi recordings, full of incredible string and horn arrangements, inventive backing vocals and funky rhythm sections that don't miss a Motown-inspired note. Though Brown used the singers at his disposal almost interchangeably, a few stand out as huge talents, including Brown's own daughter, Tridia. She was a member, such as one could be, of the label's flagship group, the Arrows, later the Majestic Arrows, and she was a great foil for the magnificent, sweet soul falsetto of Larry Johnson, a hugely talented singer who certainly could have gone places had he recorded for a label with the means to get him there. The two of them trade verses on the Majestic Arrows' "Another Day", a sweeping soul ballad that typifies Bandit's sweet, orchestral r&b; aesthetic. Another would-be star is Linda Balintine, whose two tracks are tough and funky, but the most tragic loss unearthed here is Johnny Davis. Davis was a powerful soul crooner with an especially commanding low range\xD1on the evidence of the few tracks he recorded, he had huge potential, but was the victim of a brutal murder in 1972 before he ever had a chance to truly blossom. Still, "You've Got to Crawl to Me" is a darkly funky tour de force, similar to something a pre-Superfly Curtis Mayfield might have cooked up. Given the paltry promotion clout of a label like Bandit, it's easy to understand why none of these songs-- released with their crudely drawn yellow labels-- ever became a hit, but there's no doubt several of them could have with the right push. "One More Time Around" has an urgent bounce, with a great bassline, ultra-catchy backing vocals, a strange, almost David Axelrod-ish violin arrangement and impassioned lead vocals, possibly by Tridia Brown. "We Have Love" is a scorching r&b; ballad, while "Doing it For Us" puts the majestic in Majestic Arrows with a massive flute-and-strings intro, couching Larry Johnson's amazing vocal in a bed of Baldwin organ and velvety orchestration. The man responsible for the crazy string parts and fractured rhythms that open "Love Is All I Need", Benjamin Wright, later did arrangements for Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. Brown actually attempted to make his son Altyrone Deno Brown into a sort of answer to Michael Jackson, recording his son at age seven belting a couple of monster soul tunes, "Sweet Pea" and "If You Love Me". The bottom line is that Brown's faith in his son's talent was not misplaced-- the kid sings his ass off-- but it may have been too early. As much as he really could sing, he sounds like you'd expect a seven-year old to sound, and his two songs on this compilation are really more useful for the sake of posterity (though not novelty, oddly enough) than for listening. The younger Brown did appear in several movies, including the Blues Brothers and won a Tony Award for his role in and off-Broadway musical version of A Raisin in the Sun, but when the Bandit label died in the early 80s and Arrow Brown's commune collapsed along with his health, he turned his back on show business and understandably gravitated toward a normal, stable life. Though it ended ignominiously, the Bandit story is a truly fascinating one, an extraordinary validation of the theory that truth is a great deal stranger than fiction and the kind of thing that's naturally intriguing to record buffs. As reissues go, this is in line with the Numero Group's other releases to date: meticulously researched, lovingly compiled, painstakingly remastered (sometimes from vinyl, by the sound of it) and uncommonly focused, and that's a big part of its appeal to collectors as well-- it tells the whole story and pulls no punches. All that's left to do is listen."

Elephant Man

Monsters of Dancehall: The Energy God

Global

Dave Stelfox

Take a look at Elephant Man now and you'll see a manic dance instructor yelling "Pon Di River, Flowers a Bloom, Sunlight, Sunlight", a weddy-weddy-weddying Krusty the Klownalike driving the celebrations along with crazed bellowing and nonsense rhymes. It's all good clean fun, and there's no limit to Jamaican music's demand for party-starting voicings of the biggest riddims. He's certainly the right man for the job, too-- after all they don't call him "The Energy God" for nothing. But go back a few years and things were much more promising. From 2000 to 2002 the young O'Neil Bryant released three albums on Greensleeves: Comin' 4 U, Log On, and Higher Level. This is the period concentrated on by Monsters Of Dancehall: The Energy God. Right from the beginning, he was a Master of Ceremonies to be reckoned with, hyping crowds with streams of ass-shaking orders, but in amongst the hype-man routine lay a lyrical sophistication we simply don't see today. This ability to flip on a dime from badman badinage and menacingly precise chatting to resort-rep pep secured his place at the top of the tree for close on two full years-- no mean feat in dancehall, a music where careers are made, broken, and often resurrected again in less than one. Sadly it's tough to imagine he'll ever get back to such a point again, especially now that a major deal has been inked with P Diddy's Bad Boy Records. Always there with a snappy catchphrase-- "shizzle my nizzle," "run for cover, save your mama," and "bomb a drop!"-- Ele was never scared of appearing ridiculous, a fact largely responsible for his popularity and borne out by tracks including "On Line" and "Give Her It Good". However, he also knew when to play down the silliness and put on a serious face, as shown on "Bad Man a Bad Man" and "Replacement Killer". Featuring productions by Byron Murray, Donovan Bennett, King Jammys, Steven "Lenky" Marsden, Jeremy Harding, Stone Love's Winston "Wee Pow" Powell, and Cordel "Scatta" Burrell, this album also serves as a collection of some of the best riddims of the early millennial golden age of digital dancehall. Tide-turning instrumentals such as the Coolie Dance ("Genie Dance"), the Egyptian ("Egyptian Dance"), and the Diwali ("Elephant Message") are all present. Meanwhile, the 9/11-referencing "The Bombing" points at a certain naïve political consciousness. Unfortunately, this doesn't extend to "Log On"'s homophobic ranting. Still, if you can look past that, Monsters of Dancehall offers bittersweet thrills, both as a cracking retrospective of an artist's past glories and a suggestion that he'll never reach those heights again.

Artist: Elephant Man, Album: Monsters of Dancehall: The Energy God, Genre: Global, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "Take a look at Elephant Man now and you'll see a manic dance instructor yelling "Pon Di River, Flowers a Bloom, Sunlight, Sunlight", a weddy-weddy-weddying Krusty the Klownalike driving the celebrations along with crazed bellowing and nonsense rhymes. It's all good clean fun, and there's no limit to Jamaican music's demand for party-starting voicings of the biggest riddims. He's certainly the right man for the job, too-- after all they don't call him "The Energy God" for nothing. But go back a few years and things were much more promising. From 2000 to 2002 the young O'Neil Bryant released three albums on Greensleeves: Comin' 4 U, Log On, and Higher Level. This is the period concentrated on by Monsters Of Dancehall: The Energy God. Right from the beginning, he was a Master of Ceremonies to be reckoned with, hyping crowds with streams of ass-shaking orders, but in amongst the hype-man routine lay a lyrical sophistication we simply don't see today. This ability to flip on a dime from badman badinage and menacingly precise chatting to resort-rep pep secured his place at the top of the tree for close on two full years-- no mean feat in dancehall, a music where careers are made, broken, and often resurrected again in less than one. Sadly it's tough to imagine he'll ever get back to such a point again, especially now that a major deal has been inked with P Diddy's Bad Boy Records. Always there with a snappy catchphrase-- "shizzle my nizzle," "run for cover, save your mama," and "bomb a drop!"-- Ele was never scared of appearing ridiculous, a fact largely responsible for his popularity and borne out by tracks including "On Line" and "Give Her It Good". However, he also knew when to play down the silliness and put on a serious face, as shown on "Bad Man a Bad Man" and "Replacement Killer". Featuring productions by Byron Murray, Donovan Bennett, King Jammys, Steven "Lenky" Marsden, Jeremy Harding, Stone Love's Winston "Wee Pow" Powell, and Cordel "Scatta" Burrell, this album also serves as a collection of some of the best riddims of the early millennial golden age of digital dancehall. Tide-turning instrumentals such as the Coolie Dance ("Genie Dance"), the Egyptian ("Egyptian Dance"), and the Diwali ("Elephant Message") are all present. Meanwhile, the 9/11-referencing "The Bombing" points at a certain naïve political consciousness. Unfortunately, this doesn't extend to "Log On"'s homophobic ranting. Still, if you can look past that, Monsters of Dancehall offers bittersweet thrills, both as a cracking retrospective of an artist's past glories and a suggestion that he'll never reach those heights again."

Delroy Edwards

Hangin’ At the Beach

Marc Masters

Delroy Edwards has a knack for turning the past into the future. Through his label L.A. Club Resource and online store Gene’s Liquor, he unearths old underground rap and techno tapes that sound remarkably fresh, and his own music, be it his pumping house jams on L.I.E.S. or the cassette-sourced mixes he calls Slowed Down Funk, is drenched in a similar kind of creative nostalgia. His two proper LPs, 2014’s mini-album Teenage Tapes and now the 30-track Hangin’ at the Beach, both combine the faded ‘80s vibe of Ariel Pink and John Maus with a sharp eye toward what moves bodies on dance floors today. The retro aspect of Hangin’ at the Beach is refreshingly irony-free. Edwards’ songs, most of which run under two minutes, sound like muffled AM radio because he likes working with hissy cassette tapes, not because he’s making cultural commentary a la James Ferraro or Daniel Lopatin. “For us there’s no kitsch value, there’s no gimmick in it,” he has said of his label’s music. “If we put it out, it’s because we like it.” As a result, there’s an eager joy in many of Edwards’ songs, which can be as fun as a goofy ‘80s comedy and movement-inspiring as a sped-up workout video, while simultaneously rattling club walls. Not everything on Hangin’ at the Beach is simple and sunny, though. There are dark sounds here, and dense layers of lo-fi fuzz that reward repeat listens. The way Edwards weaves more abstract moments with passages of pure retro-pop gives the album the feel of a lost soundtrack. He can follow something as openly dramatic as “Brothers in Arms,” which could fit in a John Carpenter thriller, with the formless near-noise of “Tunnel Vision,” and make the two tracks feel like sides of a coin. He makes “Surf’s Up!” evoke waves crashing on Mars, and the electronic ripples of “Safe Places Pt. 1” sound like Fennesz in a basement closet. Tracks like those suggest that the beach at which Edwards hangs exists more in his mind than anywhere near his Los Angeles home. If Hangin’ at the Beach is indeed a mindscape, then it reveals Edwards’ musical imagination to be much wider than his main reputation as a house-music maven. That’s what makes it a thrilling listen, too: you get the sense that he can go pretty much anywhere sonically, and the brevity of each track combined with all the driving rhythms makes the record feel like a roller-coaster tour of his firing neurons. Ultimately, Edwards is at heart a beat-maker—he was classically trained in jazz drumming and explicitly says his music is “fueled for clubs”—but on Hangin’ at the Beach he treats those genre parameters not as lines to color inside, but barriers to obliterate.

Artist: Delroy Edwards, Album: Hangin’ At the Beach, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Delroy Edwards has a knack for turning the past into the future. Through his label L.A. Club Resource and online store Gene’s Liquor, he unearths old underground rap and techno tapes that sound remarkably fresh, and his own music, be it his pumping house jams on L.I.E.S. or the cassette-sourced mixes he calls Slowed Down Funk, is drenched in a similar kind of creative nostalgia. His two proper LPs, 2014’s mini-album Teenage Tapes and now the 30-track Hangin’ at the Beach, both combine the faded ‘80s vibe of Ariel Pink and John Maus with a sharp eye toward what moves bodies on dance floors today. The retro aspect of Hangin’ at the Beach is refreshingly irony-free. Edwards’ songs, most of which run under two minutes, sound like muffled AM radio because he likes working with hissy cassette tapes, not because he’s making cultural commentary a la James Ferraro or Daniel Lopatin. “For us there’s no kitsch value, there’s no gimmick in it,” he has said of his label’s music. “If we put it out, it’s because we like it.” As a result, there’s an eager joy in many of Edwards’ songs, which can be as fun as a goofy ‘80s comedy and movement-inspiring as a sped-up workout video, while simultaneously rattling club walls. Not everything on Hangin’ at the Beach is simple and sunny, though. There are dark sounds here, and dense layers of lo-fi fuzz that reward repeat listens. The way Edwards weaves more abstract moments with passages of pure retro-pop gives the album the feel of a lost soundtrack. He can follow something as openly dramatic as “Brothers in Arms,” which could fit in a John Carpenter thriller, with the formless near-noise of “Tunnel Vision,” and make the two tracks feel like sides of a coin. He makes “Surf’s Up!” evoke waves crashing on Mars, and the electronic ripples of “Safe Places Pt. 1” sound like Fennesz in a basement closet. Tracks like those suggest that the beach at which Edwards hangs exists more in his mind than anywhere near his Los Angeles home. If Hangin’ at the Beach is indeed a mindscape, then it reveals Edwards’ musical imagination to be much wider than his main reputation as a house-music maven. That’s what makes it a thrilling listen, too: you get the sense that he can go pretty much anywhere sonically, and the brevity of each track combined with all the driving rhythms makes the record feel like a roller-coaster tour of his firing neurons. Ultimately, Edwards is at heart a beat-maker—he was classically trained in jazz drumming and explicitly says his music is “fueled for clubs”—but on Hangin’ at the Beach he treats those genre parameters not as lines to color inside, but barriers to obliterate."

Laurel Halo

Dust

Electronic

Chal Ravens

Laurel Halo has taken a winding, unpredictable route to her third album for Hyperdub, and once again, her new record feels like a reaction against the last. The American-born, Berlin-based musician has consistently deflected interpretations of her music’s meaning, eluding attempts to classify her by genre, gender, or otherwise. While her club-focused EPs have been influenced by various foundational elements of Detroit techno, those same elements—jazz, funk, a certain sci-fi sensibility—have fused in entirely unexpected ways on her full-lengths. On her Hyperdub debut, Quarantine, her untreated vocals and intimate lyrics told a story which, though perhaps not entirely literal, seemed deeply personal. Yet on Chance of Rain, its 2013 follow-up, she abandoned vocals in favour of flickering, jazzy keys and iridescent synth baths—perhaps an escape route from being bracketed by gender. “People tend to heavily focus on female artists’ voices and define their work by it,” she argued in an interview with Truants last year, noting that her instrumental work had been interpreted as having “an ‘absence of authentic human presence’.” On the ferociously ambitious Dust, an album that feels like it was constructed in zero-gravity conditions, Halo has reached a kind of synthesis of all that came before. If, as she reminds us, her instrumental music is no less “authentically human” than her vocal music, then Dust sets out to show that the human voice is not much guarantee of authentic humanity either. The album opens with Halo’s voice on “Sun to Solar.” Over slippery rhythms and topsy-turvy keys (provided throughout by Shit and Shine’s Craig Clouse) she half-sings an adaptation of “Servidão de Passagem,” a 1962 work by Brazilian concrete poet Haroldo de Campos: “Stacked man, sacked man/Served and swallowed/Sun to salt, island man/Socko sick, who's hangman.” Halo processes her words beyond recognition, blurring them with the hyper-melismatic vocals of British singer and collage-pop artist Klein, one of the many guests on Dust. It’s a disorienting starting point on an album that revels in indeterminacy. The album’s graspable melodic moments come between longer expanses of confusing and chaotic sound; on “Nicht Ohne Risiko” and “Like an L,” instruments arrange themselves in abstract patterns, orbiting loosely like weightless space debris. “Arschkriecher” drifts toward mysticism as dissonant gong strikes are drowned in dub effects and ribbons of tenor saxophone float by. On “Koinos,” the gravitational pull is barely strong enough to hold the song together; a flurry of found sound is warped by transmission errors and Halo’s voice fades into a crackle, lost beneath percussion and glockenspiel from composer Eli Keszler, who contributes throughout the album. Concrete poets like de Campos were preoccupied with fusing text and image, often in purely visual or spatial ways, and their influence is tangible here. Halo treats her words in a similarly plastic fashion: dividing them between voices, breaking sentences into cryptic fragments, and using vocals to texture a broader lattice of bass, percussion, and keys. Rhythm, alliteration, and an ASMR-like sensitivity to mouth-made sounds seem to drive the lyrical content as much as any urge to tell a story: “Cancerous secrets like trails from Panama/Their thirst was once a mellow fantasma.” On the phenomenal “Jelly,” a surreal narrative is traced between Halo, Klein, and a third guest vocalist, the Warp-signed fantasy-pop artist Lafawndah. Their words seem snatched from the air, like an argument overheard accidentally: “You don't meet my ideal standards for a friend/And you are a thief,/And you drink too much!” Underneath, an oozing bassline recalls the hazy techno grooves of Theo Parrish, interrupted by tactile bursts of acoustic percussion from Keszler and cowbell from dreamy house producer Max D. “Moontalk” is the next most songlike track, fusing Latin percussion with highlife guitar and blinding synth bursts to build the album’s most addictive groove. Halo switches to Japanese for the chorus and heightens the mood of uncanny intrigue with lyrics served straight from the subconscious: “What if you slept/And what if in your sleep you dreamed/And what if in your dream/You went to heaven/And there thumbed a glasslit flower?” On “Who Won?,” she enlists artist and writer Michael Salu to deliver affectless phrasebook sentences like a gloomy male cyborg: “I'll call back later/I don't know/I'm single/No, this is the first time.” With this constant slippage between voices, Halo scuppers any attempt to read her lyrics as directly autobiographical—another way of wriggling free of “female songwriter” stereotypes. Far beyond a cut-and-paste collage of genres and moods, Dust is a thrilling attempt to escape all the usual points of classification, to collapse the primacy of the human voice, and to obscure and reveal at unexpected moments. It’s easy to feel a little lost in these conditions—Dust is a dense and heady record, and from certain angles can seem intimidating, even impenetrable. But between the clever track sequencing and a handful of irresistible outcrops of groove and melody, Halo provides plenty of footholds to cling onto while you acclimatise to her lawless universe.

Artist: Laurel Halo, Album: Dust, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "Laurel Halo has taken a winding, unpredictable route to her third album for Hyperdub, and once again, her new record feels like a reaction against the last. The American-born, Berlin-based musician has consistently deflected interpretations of her music’s meaning, eluding attempts to classify her by genre, gender, or otherwise. While her club-focused EPs have been influenced by various foundational elements of Detroit techno, those same elements—jazz, funk, a certain sci-fi sensibility—have fused in entirely unexpected ways on her full-lengths. On her Hyperdub debut, Quarantine, her untreated vocals and intimate lyrics told a story which, though perhaps not entirely literal, seemed deeply personal. Yet on Chance of Rain, its 2013 follow-up, she abandoned vocals in favour of flickering, jazzy keys and iridescent synth baths—perhaps an escape route from being bracketed by gender. “People tend to heavily focus on female artists’ voices and define their work by it,” she argued in an interview with Truants last year, noting that her instrumental work had been interpreted as having “an ‘absence of authentic human presence’.” On the ferociously ambitious Dust, an album that feels like it was constructed in zero-gravity conditions, Halo has reached a kind of synthesis of all that came before. If, as she reminds us, her instrumental music is no less “authentically human” than her vocal music, then Dust sets out to show that the human voice is not much guarantee of authentic humanity either. The album opens with Halo’s voice on “Sun to Solar.” Over slippery rhythms and topsy-turvy keys (provided throughout by Shit and Shine’s Craig Clouse) she half-sings an adaptation of “Servidão de Passagem,” a 1962 work by Brazilian concrete poet Haroldo de Campos: “Stacked man, sacked man/Served and swallowed/Sun to salt, island man/Socko sick, who's hangman.” Halo processes her words beyond recognition, blurring them with the hyper-melismatic vocals of British singer and collage-pop artist Klein, one of the many guests on Dust. It’s a disorienting starting point on an album that revels in indeterminacy. The album’s graspable melodic moments come between longer expanses of confusing and chaotic sound; on “Nicht Ohne Risiko” and “Like an L,” instruments arrange themselves in abstract patterns, orbiting loosely like weightless space debris. “Arschkriecher” drifts toward mysticism as dissonant gong strikes are drowned in dub effects and ribbons of tenor saxophone float by. On “Koinos,” the gravitational pull is barely strong enough to hold the song together; a flurry of found sound is warped by transmission errors and Halo’s voice fades into a crackle, lost beneath percussion and glockenspiel from composer Eli Keszler, who contributes throughout the album. Concrete poets like de Campos were preoccupied with fusing text and image, often in purely visual or spatial ways, and their influence is tangible here. Halo treats her words in a similarly plastic fashion: dividing them between voices, breaking sentences into cryptic fragments, and using vocals to texture a broader lattice of bass, percussion, and keys. Rhythm, alliteration, and an ASMR-like sensitivity to mouth-made sounds seem to drive the lyrical content as much as any urge to tell a story: “Cancerous secrets like trails from Panama/Their thirst was once a mellow fantasma.” On the phenomenal “Jelly,” a surreal narrative is traced between Halo, Klein, and a third guest vocalist, the Warp-signed fantasy-pop artist Lafawndah. Their words seem snatched from the air, like an argument overheard accidentally: “You don't meet my ideal standards for a friend/And you are a thief,/And you drink too much!” Underneath, an oozing bassline recalls the hazy techno grooves of Theo Parrish, interrupted by tactile bursts of acoustic percussion from Keszler and cowbell from dreamy house producer Max D. “Moontalk” is the next most songlike track, fusing Latin percussion with highlife guitar and blinding synth bursts to build the album’s most addictive groove. Halo switches to Japanese for the chorus and heightens the mood of uncanny intrigue with lyrics served straight from the subconscious: “What if you slept/And what if in your sleep you dreamed/And what if in your dream/You went to heaven/And there thumbed a glasslit flower?” On “Who Won?,” she enlists artist and writer Michael Salu to deliver affectless phrasebook sentences like a gloomy male cyborg: “I'll call back later/I don't know/I'm single/No, this is the first time.” With this constant slippage between voices, Halo scuppers any attempt to read her lyrics as directly autobiographical—another way of wriggling free of “female songwriter” stereotypes. Far beyond a cut-and-paste collage of genres and moods, Dust is a thrilling attempt to escape all the usual points of classification, to collapse the primacy of the human voice, and to obscure and reveal at unexpected moments. It’s easy to feel a little lost in these conditions—Dust is a dense and heady record, and from certain angles can seem intimidating, even impenetrable. But between the clever track sequencing and a handful of irresistible outcrops of groove and melody, Halo provides plenty of footholds to cling onto while you acclimatise to her lawless universe."

Bjørn Torske

Byen

Electronic

Andy Beta

A 2012 single from the mischievous Scandinavian dance label Sex Tags Mania came packaged with a shout-out: A message on the label of the 12" read, “Dedicated to Erot and Torske for giving Norway a true HOUSE era!” It was no exaggeration. At the turn of the millennium, in a country with no dance music tradition to call its own, Tore Andreas “Erot” Kroknes and Bjørn Torske hit upon a disco-indebted sound that would influence a wide range of their countrymen, from Röyksopp to Cashmere Cat, Annie to Todd Terje. Erot, who produced Annie’s breakout single “The Greatest Hit,” might have become a household name had he not tragically passed away in 2001, at just 23. For the better part of this century, Torske has turned his attention from leftfield disco to plain ol’ leftfield weirdness, as evidenced by the catholic giddiness of 2010’s Kokning and alien gurgle of his 2013 KokEP. After more than a decade up in the clouds, Torske has slowly come down to the dancefloor again with a string of bristling percussion workouts for Sex Tags as well as the Oslo label Smalltown Supersound. Byen marks his first solo album in eight years and his first record in ages to wholeheartedly embrace the space-disco sound he helped pioneer. But instead of crisp disco drums and claps that would immediately show his hand, what beguiles on Byen is Torske’s gentle way with other instruments. His keys shimmer on “First Movement,” drifting along with a walking bassline, then playfully flitting around the hand drums to give the track the feel of a spiritual jazz number until it slowly gives way to crashing waves and seagulls. These mellow sounds usher in the contemplative opening of “Clean Air”; for a moment, it seems like Torske might be venturing even deeper into ambient territory. But a bass throb, a conga beat, and a hi-hat pattern perk up after about a minute, and the track struts towards the stratosphere. This is the kind of streamlined space-disco beauty that Torske helped to export in the early 2000s, but “Clean Air” ascends beyond even those heights, as slowly unfurling piano fills and electric keyboard solos cast a pensive mood over the groove. It’s a rare composition that’s suited for both the club and for wistful daydreaming. Byen’s biggest surprise is not the range of sounds Torske brings in (fans of his previous efforts know eclecticism is his métier) so much as the fact that he remains firmly planted on the dancefloor throughout the whole album. Most of its tracks are DJ-friendly epics that hover around the eight-minute mark, perfect for unfurling slowly within a set. “Chord Control” offers some gentle deep house moments, and “Gata” harkens back to the heady early days of Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas, finding a sweet spot between prog, Italo, and moon-booted disco. But just when the track seems headed for deep space, Torske introduces some out-of-place chanting that starts to drag down the mood. Recent singles like 2016’s “Fuglekongen” and this year’s “Kickrock” signaled that Torske was returning to dance music: Both featured meatier drums and psychedelic touches that imparted dancefloor dizziness. But Byen feels a little safe and complacent by comparison. Perhaps because he has spent the past decade upending his listeners’ expectations, this largely successful attempt to string together a cohesive set of nu-disco tracks has the odd effect of making him seem kind of predictable. Although Byen came out of a recent burst of inspiration, with all seven tracks dating back to last year, its 11-minute centerpiece, “Night Call,” sounds like it could have been crafted at almost any point in Torske’s 20-year career. It’s a nimble disco number, full of relentless drums, rubber-band bass, spacey synths, clean guitar strokes, and jungle calls that resemble the cheeky disco and house edits that helped put Norway on the dance music map in the early aughts. Byen might be a decade removed from the form’s peak, and it might not break much new ground, but it does mark a welcome return to space disco for its creator. After years of wandering in the weeds, the idiosyncratic Torske has rediscovered his old path—yet he remains proudly out of step.

Artist: Bjørn Torske, Album: Byen, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "A 2012 single from the mischievous Scandinavian dance label Sex Tags Mania came packaged with a shout-out: A message on the label of the 12" read, “Dedicated to Erot and Torske for giving Norway a true HOUSE era!” It was no exaggeration. At the turn of the millennium, in a country with no dance music tradition to call its own, Tore Andreas “Erot” Kroknes and Bjørn Torske hit upon a disco-indebted sound that would influence a wide range of their countrymen, from Röyksopp to Cashmere Cat, Annie to Todd Terje. Erot, who produced Annie’s breakout single “The Greatest Hit,” might have become a household name had he not tragically passed away in 2001, at just 23. For the better part of this century, Torske has turned his attention from leftfield disco to plain ol’ leftfield weirdness, as evidenced by the catholic giddiness of 2010’s Kokning and alien gurgle of his 2013 KokEP. After more than a decade up in the clouds, Torske has slowly come down to the dancefloor again with a string of bristling percussion workouts for Sex Tags as well as the Oslo label Smalltown Supersound. Byen marks his first solo album in eight years and his first record in ages to wholeheartedly embrace the space-disco sound he helped pioneer. But instead of crisp disco drums and claps that would immediately show his hand, what beguiles on Byen is Torske’s gentle way with other instruments. His keys shimmer on “First Movement,” drifting along with a walking bassline, then playfully flitting around the hand drums to give the track the feel of a spiritual jazz number until it slowly gives way to crashing waves and seagulls. These mellow sounds usher in the contemplative opening of “Clean Air”; for a moment, it seems like Torske might be venturing even deeper into ambient territory. But a bass throb, a conga beat, and a hi-hat pattern perk up after about a minute, and the track struts towards the stratosphere. This is the kind of streamlined space-disco beauty that Torske helped to export in the early 2000s, but “Clean Air” ascends beyond even those heights, as slowly unfurling piano fills and electric keyboard solos cast a pensive mood over the groove. It’s a rare composition that’s suited for both the club and for wistful daydreaming. Byen’s biggest surprise is not the range of sounds Torske brings in (fans of his previous efforts know eclecticism is his métier) so much as the fact that he remains firmly planted on the dancefloor throughout the whole album. Most of its tracks are DJ-friendly epics that hover around the eight-minute mark, perfect for unfurling slowly within a set. “Chord Control” offers some gentle deep house moments, and “Gata” harkens back to the heady early days of Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas, finding a sweet spot between prog, Italo, and moon-booted disco. But just when the track seems headed for deep space, Torske introduces some out-of-place chanting that starts to drag down the mood. Recent singles like 2016’s “Fuglekongen” and this year’s “Kickrock” signaled that Torske was returning to dance music: Both featured meatier drums and psychedelic touches that imparted dancefloor dizziness. But Byen feels a little safe and complacent by comparison. Perhaps because he has spent the past decade upending his listeners’ expectations, this largely successful attempt to string together a cohesive set of nu-disco tracks has the odd effect of making him seem kind of predictable. Although Byen came out of a recent burst of inspiration, with all seven tracks dating back to last year, its 11-minute centerpiece, “Night Call,” sounds like it could have been crafted at almost any point in Torske’s 20-year career. It’s a nimble disco number, full of relentless drums, rubber-band bass, spacey synths, clean guitar strokes, and jungle calls that resemble the cheeky disco and house edits that helped put Norway on the dance music map in the early aughts. Byen might be a decade removed from the form’s peak, and it might not break much new ground, but it does mark a welcome return to space disco for its creator. After years of wandering in the weeds, the idiosyncratic Torske has rediscovered his old path—yet he remains proudly out of step."

Notekillers

We're Here to Help

Rock

Marc Masters

It's hard to think of a more surprising reunion than that of instrumental trio the Notekillers. The Philadelphia-based group skated on the edges of post-punk and no wave in the late 1970s, releasing just one 7" ("The Zipper" b/w "Clockwise") during a five-year career. What they didn't know when they broke up in 1981 was the single had a big effect on Thurston Moore and the band he was starting at the time, Sonic Youth. 20 years later, Moore cited that influence in Mojo magazine, sparking a renewal that led to an archival Notekillers release on his Ecstatic Peace label, and the reforming of the band, whose members were now split between Philly and NYC. Flash-forward another nine years, and the Notekillers have finally crafted their first album of new music since reuniting*.* That may seem like a long time, but it's understandable given how busy the three musicians are-- especially guitarist David First, who has forged a three-decade career as a minimalist composer and sound artist. Besides, time seems rather irrelevant for this band. The sound of the 10 chugging tracks on We're Here to Help is as vital and distinctive as those they originally crafted the first time around. It's a sound that's accessible and welcoming, but not easy to pin down. This is ostensibly structured punk rock, with melodic shapes that resemble verses and choruses. The closest reference point is another underappreciated instrumental outfit, Pell Mell. Some songs also recall the brain-vs-brawn math-metal of Don Caballero. But where both of those groups colored within their own designated lines, a good bit of Notekillers' appeal comes from their willingness to play rough and loose, and let their sounds spill around a bit. Sometimes they even stretch into feedback-drenched free jazz. And the band's melodic curves are deceptive-- often a catchy hook becomes a repetitive mantra before you know it, no doubt due to First's highly-developed feel for the powers of minimalism. If that sounds too theoretical or abstract, don't worry-- We're Here to Help is way more fun than educational. The Notekillers make energy and momentum their main priorities throughout, and every song-- even the loosest and noisiest-- has its share of head-nodding beats and air-guitar-worthy riffs. For me, the best tracks feature a wide range of twists, leaps, and crescendos. Take "Papers": opening with a snaky guitar line akin to Pete Townsend's wiry intro to the Who's version of "Shakin' All Over", the trio swerves from rising rave-ups, to hypnotic chord repetitions, to fiery noise, to even a bouncy middle section begging for hand-clap accompaniment. Such fresh diversity makes it seem like the Notekillers could-- and hopefully will-- keep churning out this ecstatic music for a long, long time.

Artist: Notekillers, Album: We're Here to Help, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "It's hard to think of a more surprising reunion than that of instrumental trio the Notekillers. The Philadelphia-based group skated on the edges of post-punk and no wave in the late 1970s, releasing just one 7" ("The Zipper" b/w "Clockwise") during a five-year career. What they didn't know when they broke up in 1981 was the single had a big effect on Thurston Moore and the band he was starting at the time, Sonic Youth. 20 years later, Moore cited that influence in Mojo magazine, sparking a renewal that led to an archival Notekillers release on his Ecstatic Peace label, and the reforming of the band, whose members were now split between Philly and NYC. Flash-forward another nine years, and the Notekillers have finally crafted their first album of new music since reuniting*.* That may seem like a long time, but it's understandable given how busy the three musicians are-- especially guitarist David First, who has forged a three-decade career as a minimalist composer and sound artist. Besides, time seems rather irrelevant for this band. The sound of the 10 chugging tracks on We're Here to Help is as vital and distinctive as those they originally crafted the first time around. It's a sound that's accessible and welcoming, but not easy to pin down. This is ostensibly structured punk rock, with melodic shapes that resemble verses and choruses. The closest reference point is another underappreciated instrumental outfit, Pell Mell. Some songs also recall the brain-vs-brawn math-metal of Don Caballero. But where both of those groups colored within their own designated lines, a good bit of Notekillers' appeal comes from their willingness to play rough and loose, and let their sounds spill around a bit. Sometimes they even stretch into feedback-drenched free jazz. And the band's melodic curves are deceptive-- often a catchy hook becomes a repetitive mantra before you know it, no doubt due to First's highly-developed feel for the powers of minimalism. If that sounds too theoretical or abstract, don't worry-- We're Here to Help is way more fun than educational. The Notekillers make energy and momentum their main priorities throughout, and every song-- even the loosest and noisiest-- has its share of head-nodding beats and air-guitar-worthy riffs. For me, the best tracks feature a wide range of twists, leaps, and crescendos. Take "Papers": opening with a snaky guitar line akin to Pete Townsend's wiry intro to the Who's version of "Shakin' All Over", the trio swerves from rising rave-ups, to hypnotic chord repetitions, to fiery noise, to even a bouncy middle section begging for hand-clap accompaniment. Such fresh diversity makes it seem like the Notekillers could-- and hopefully will-- keep churning out this ecstatic music for a long, long time."

Chief

Modern Rituals

Rock

Joshua Love

The guys in Chief grew up in California, but the band actually formed while three of them were attending NYU. That bicoastalism reveals itself neatly in the band's music. Modern Rituals, the group's full-length debut, blends NY backbeats and jaded vocals with woolly West Coast harmonies and mellow vibes, and it works in the sense that Chief don't sound explicitly beholden to any single sound or style. But having disparate influences is faint consolation when you're less than the sum of your parts, and Chief fail to be more than an amalgam of other, better bands. At heart, Chief seem more or less like a bunch of hippies. Almost every song on Modern Rituals evokes a band of longhairs, whether it's the close, CSNY harmonies of "The Minute I Saw It" and "This Land", the stoned Meat Puppets deadpan that lead singer Evan Koga temporarily adopts on "Breaking Walls" (complete with spiraling My Morning Jacket-styled guitar figure), or the album's largely dippy lyrics, which hit their nadir on "Summer's Day" with Koga opining, "I believe when I go/ You will cry tears of gold." Chief's one good trick is occasionally tethering these free-floating vibes to something moodier and more metropolitan. This is most often accomplished by Koga, who, when he's not channeling Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood, prefers to deliver a deep, half-slurred croon that's a polite approximation of the Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser. The hollow, lonely guitar lines and metronomic drumbeats of "Nothing's Wrong", "In the Valley", and "Night and Day" all balance out Chief's rootsy, Left-Coast somnolence with insistent NYC precision. Yet what appears to be Chief's greatest asset might actually be their Achilles heel. The transcontinental breadth of the band's influences keeps Chief from coming across as pallid piggybackers of any one scene, but for a group that hasn't yet demonstrated an ability to nail down a particular sound, keeping so many balls in the air could be stretching its talents too thin. Perhaps that explains why Chief are rarely better than competent at anything they try to do here.

Artist: Chief, Album: Modern Rituals, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "The guys in Chief grew up in California, but the band actually formed while three of them were attending NYU. That bicoastalism reveals itself neatly in the band's music. Modern Rituals, the group's full-length debut, blends NY backbeats and jaded vocals with woolly West Coast harmonies and mellow vibes, and it works in the sense that Chief don't sound explicitly beholden to any single sound or style. But having disparate influences is faint consolation when you're less than the sum of your parts, and Chief fail to be more than an amalgam of other, better bands. At heart, Chief seem more or less like a bunch of hippies. Almost every song on Modern Rituals evokes a band of longhairs, whether it's the close, CSNY harmonies of "The Minute I Saw It" and "This Land", the stoned Meat Puppets deadpan that lead singer Evan Koga temporarily adopts on "Breaking Walls" (complete with spiraling My Morning Jacket-styled guitar figure), or the album's largely dippy lyrics, which hit their nadir on "Summer's Day" with Koga opining, "I believe when I go/ You will cry tears of gold." Chief's one good trick is occasionally tethering these free-floating vibes to something moodier and more metropolitan. This is most often accomplished by Koga, who, when he's not channeling Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood, prefers to deliver a deep, half-slurred croon that's a polite approximation of the Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser. The hollow, lonely guitar lines and metronomic drumbeats of "Nothing's Wrong", "In the Valley", and "Night and Day" all balance out Chief's rootsy, Left-Coast somnolence with insistent NYC precision. Yet what appears to be Chief's greatest asset might actually be their Achilles heel. The transcontinental breadth of the band's influences keeps Chief from coming across as pallid piggybackers of any one scene, but for a group that hasn't yet demonstrated an ability to nail down a particular sound, keeping so many balls in the air could be stretching its talents too thin. Perhaps that explains why Chief are rarely better than competent at anything they try to do here."

Daniel Lanois

Shine

Rock

Brandon Stosuy

Daniel Lanois' third solo album Shine-- the first since his decade-old For The Beauty Of Wynona-- is difficult to swallow, and not because of any challenging experimentation, politics, or off-kilter production. None of that, nah. What got me nervous about this album is that, for his reputation, it's the most drab, adult-oriented product to make it to my stereo since some Starbucks-sipping visitor got sentimental about the Magnolia soundtrack. "Those frogs were symbolic!" he cried, and asked me to bow with him before his shrine to Aimee Mann. It's here we enter the world of the tame, a land where Sting is king and Phil Collins is raucous. It's the bottled atmosphere of Borders, the safety a slightly left-wing baby boomer craves as they sip tea and read bestsellers about other baby boomers. It's Jeff Healey. Lanois writes somewhat catchy, almost moody stuff, but when I say "moody" I mean like a CEO gets moody when there isn't enough whole milk in his latte. My dad's a nice man. I imagine him not only liking Shine, but also finding it soothing; he could downright chill to this. If pops and I were resting on his overstuffed couch, the few things on Shine I enjoyed-- faint bells during the first minute of "I Love You", off-key guitar, chimes, a pedal steel-- wouldn't make an impression on him, while the many things he'd love-- "This reminds me of a less crazy Astral Weeks!"-- would have me flashing back to the summer I interned at Musician Magazine, brewing weak coffee for Rush fans with fake tans and male-pattern-baldness ponytails. The production on Shine is beyond clean: slide guitar winds in like a coma, tumbleweeds bounce into the sky, a creepy voice exhales and makes me jump. Layers and distances are detailed, but nothing overlaps or crowds, always shiny. Anesthetic, like a commercial. Lanois produced the record himself, and if you don't know his name, he also produced Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, Peter Gabriel's So and Us, and U2's The Joshua Tree and All That You Can't Leave Behind, to list but a few of his credits. So no, I'm not talking DIY: his microphones probably cost more than my apartment. Maybe you're a better person than I am, maybe you can hurdle the squeaky-clean production. Answer me this: do you find the Counting Crows moving? If so, you're halfway there. Aside from the overproduction, the songwriting is pat: none of the tracks deviate from what's laid out in the first stanza: "No need to worry about surprises, sir/ Just sit back and relax, sir." Three of the four instrumentals are decent, clean versions of Will Oldham's Odes, while "Space Key" takes the ghostly atmospherics of "Transmitter" and "JJ Leaves L.A.", including a drum machine so crisp, it's as if you're forever riding into the sunset, leaving town on 70mm stock. What Lanois always has, no matter what he brings to the table personally, is star power. Emmylou Harris offers backup on the album opener, "I Love You", and Bono chimes in with a mellow vocal turn on the second track, "Pretty Falling At Your Feet". The sunglassed one wrote the track with Lanois during the All That You Can't Leave Behind sessions; for all his shallow pomposity, Bono can be tolerable-- even pretty-- when he isn't trying to pretend he's smarter than he is. What does Lanois himself sound like? He sounds like everyman-- he's French Canadian. No accent; he could be a newscaster in the Heartland. There's no doubt he's an accomplished producer, but he drops the ball trying to communicate anything other than light-weight, overextended metaphors: "My tremolo, you're my fire...what keeps me walking is your shine." His odd musings are especially grating because he mixes the vocals so high. Final litmus test: in the liner notes Lanois writes, "What a privilege to be able to make music.Here is a small portion of what's cooking in the kitchen. I hope that some piece of it will elevate your spirit. May we all touch a heart somewhere, sometime." Your gut reaction to his best wishes is a solid indication of how palatable you'll find Shine.

Artist: Daniel Lanois, Album: Shine, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.6 Album review: "Daniel Lanois' third solo album Shine-- the first since his decade-old For The Beauty Of Wynona-- is difficult to swallow, and not because of any challenging experimentation, politics, or off-kilter production. None of that, nah. What got me nervous about this album is that, for his reputation, it's the most drab, adult-oriented product to make it to my stereo since some Starbucks-sipping visitor got sentimental about the Magnolia soundtrack. "Those frogs were symbolic!" he cried, and asked me to bow with him before his shrine to Aimee Mann. It's here we enter the world of the tame, a land where Sting is king and Phil Collins is raucous. It's the bottled atmosphere of Borders, the safety a slightly left-wing baby boomer craves as they sip tea and read bestsellers about other baby boomers. It's Jeff Healey. Lanois writes somewhat catchy, almost moody stuff, but when I say "moody" I mean like a CEO gets moody when there isn't enough whole milk in his latte. My dad's a nice man. I imagine him not only liking Shine, but also finding it soothing; he could downright chill to this. If pops and I were resting on his overstuffed couch, the few things on Shine I enjoyed-- faint bells during the first minute of "I Love You", off-key guitar, chimes, a pedal steel-- wouldn't make an impression on him, while the many things he'd love-- "This reminds me of a less crazy Astral Weeks!"-- would have me flashing back to the summer I interned at Musician Magazine, brewing weak coffee for Rush fans with fake tans and male-pattern-baldness ponytails. The production on Shine is beyond clean: slide guitar winds in like a coma, tumbleweeds bounce into the sky, a creepy voice exhales and makes me jump. Layers and distances are detailed, but nothing overlaps or crowds, always shiny. Anesthetic, like a commercial. Lanois produced the record himself, and if you don't know his name, he also produced Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, Peter Gabriel's So and Us, and U2's The Joshua Tree and All That You Can't Leave Behind, to list but a few of his credits. So no, I'm not talking DIY: his microphones probably cost more than my apartment. Maybe you're a better person than I am, maybe you can hurdle the squeaky-clean production. Answer me this: do you find the Counting Crows moving? If so, you're halfway there. Aside from the overproduction, the songwriting is pat: none of the tracks deviate from what's laid out in the first stanza: "No need to worry about surprises, sir/ Just sit back and relax, sir." Three of the four instrumentals are decent, clean versions of Will Oldham's Odes, while "Space Key" takes the ghostly atmospherics of "Transmitter" and "JJ Leaves L.A.", including a drum machine so crisp, it's as if you're forever riding into the sunset, leaving town on 70mm stock. What Lanois always has, no matter what he brings to the table personally, is star power. Emmylou Harris offers backup on the album opener, "I Love You", and Bono chimes in with a mellow vocal turn on the second track, "Pretty Falling At Your Feet". The sunglassed one wrote the track with Lanois during the All That You Can't Leave Behind sessions; for all his shallow pomposity, Bono can be tolerable-- even pretty-- when he isn't trying to pretend he's smarter than he is. What does Lanois himself sound like? He sounds like everyman-- he's French Canadian. No accent; he could be a newscaster in the Heartland. There's no doubt he's an accomplished producer, but he drops the ball trying to communicate anything other than light-weight, overextended metaphors: "My tremolo, you're my fire...what keeps me walking is your shine." His odd musings are especially grating because he mixes the vocals so high. Final litmus test: in the liner notes Lanois writes, "What a privilege to be able to make music.Here is a small portion of what's cooking in the kitchen. I hope that some piece of it will elevate your spirit. May we all touch a heart somewhere, sometime." Your gut reaction to his best wishes is a solid indication of how palatable you'll find Shine."