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Okkyung Lee, C. Spencer Yeh, Lasse Marhaug

Wake Up Awesome

Electronic,Jazz,Experimental,Rock

Marc Masters

Most experimental music is at least a little absurd. Unlike conventional songwriting, whose intentions are usually pretty clear, the any-sound-goes approach often provokes the question “why are you doing this?” For some artists, seriousness of intent and dedication to craft are self-evident answers. But others also see the question as a chance to play, to be humorous or ridiculous or twisted or confusing. In other words, to laugh and make you ask again. At its most absurd, that kind of experimental music is like a trippy cartoon, dizzyingly unpredictable and fearlessly free. That’s why John Zorn found so much inspiration in Carl Stalling, whose zany mash-up compositions scored many Warner Brothers cartoons. Absurdity has shown up in the individual work of experimenters C. Spencer Yeh, Okkyung Lee, and Lasse Marhaug, so their collaboration as part of Software’s SSTUDIOS series seemed likely to spark humorous fireworks. It did: Wake Up Awesome is a bubbling, restless sonic fun house, filled with comic samples, oddball turns, surreal transitions, and enough activity to power a jet engine. It’s not novelty music—many moments, especially those involving Lee’s expressive cello improvisations, are as compelling as the gravest experimental music. But the trio is unafraid to sound novel, silly, or absurd—and that’s what makes listening to them so much fun. Their attitude is evident right on the surface, in tongue-in-cheek song titles like “Serious Cat’s Milk”, “The Mermaids of Extended Technique”, and “Tonight We Sleep Like Empty Hard Drives”. Those recall the goofy monikers of early Boredoms songs, and in fact some of the music evokes Boredoms too, minus the psycho shrieks of Yamataka Eye. Both groups create a sense that anything could happen, and that the participants are always eager to surprise. In the case of Yeh, Lee, and Marhaug, that eagerness creates moments that might make you laugh out loud. On “Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream”, a sample that sounds torn from a rickety player-piano loops around drools and gargling, while synth squiggles in “Mission: Possible” sound like Pac Man dying. Perhaps funniest is “Throw Down the Fishcake”, whose messy percussion is like a pile of overlapping punch lines. What makes Wake Up Awesome more than just a joke is the way the trio mixes laughs with tension and drama, sometimes simultaneously. That’s most evident in Lee’s cello, which seems able to emit any tone and convey any emotion imaginable. On the aforementioned “Mermaids,” she scrapes out chilly notes that match the grind of Ghil, her excellent solo album from earlier this year (which Marhaug helped conceive and record). On “Ophelia Gimme Shelter,” her slow lines are mournful, while on “Mission: Nothing” similar figures are majestically stoic. Cut those moments with Yeh and Marhaug’s punchy interruptions and jarring juxtapositions, and you get a record that can sound like multiple albums playing at once. That effect was one of the promises of sample-heavy experiments like turntablism, which seemed capable of smashing hundreds of styles into seconds of music. But outside of the hyper-cut "plunderphonics" of John Oswald, much of it stuck to a narrow sonic range, and got predictable pretty quick. Yeh, Marhaug, and Lee avoid that fate by leaning on their well-honed improvisational skills, injecting gravity into Wake Up Awesome’s airy playfulness. Thus an album spilling with ideas still manages some containment—though when the final track cuts off abruptly, you get the sense that, like kids at recess, this trio stopped playing only because they had to.

Artist: Okkyung Lee, C. Spencer Yeh, Lasse Marhaug, Album: Wake Up Awesome, Genre: Electronic,Jazz,Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Most experimental music is at least a little absurd. Unlike conventional songwriting, whose intentions are usually pretty clear, the any-sound-goes approach often provokes the question “why are you doing this?” For some artists, seriousness of intent and dedication to craft are self-evident answers. But others also see the question as a chance to play, to be humorous or ridiculous or twisted or confusing. In other words, to laugh and make you ask again. At its most absurd, that kind of experimental music is like a trippy cartoon, dizzyingly unpredictable and fearlessly free. That’s why John Zorn found so much inspiration in Carl Stalling, whose zany mash-up compositions scored many Warner Brothers cartoons. Absurdity has shown up in the individual work of experimenters C. Spencer Yeh, Okkyung Lee, and Lasse Marhaug, so their collaboration as part of Software’s SSTUDIOS series seemed likely to spark humorous fireworks. It did: Wake Up Awesome is a bubbling, restless sonic fun house, filled with comic samples, oddball turns, surreal transitions, and enough activity to power a jet engine. It’s not novelty music—many moments, especially those involving Lee’s expressive cello improvisations, are as compelling as the gravest experimental music. But the trio is unafraid to sound novel, silly, or absurd—and that’s what makes listening to them so much fun. Their attitude is evident right on the surface, in tongue-in-cheek song titles like “Serious Cat’s Milk”, “The Mermaids of Extended Technique”, and “Tonight We Sleep Like Empty Hard Drives”. Those recall the goofy monikers of early Boredoms songs, and in fact some of the music evokes Boredoms too, minus the psycho shrieks of Yamataka Eye. Both groups create a sense that anything could happen, and that the participants are always eager to surprise. In the case of Yeh, Lee, and Marhaug, that eagerness creates moments that might make you laugh out loud. On “Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream”, a sample that sounds torn from a rickety player-piano loops around drools and gargling, while synth squiggles in “Mission: Possible” sound like Pac Man dying. Perhaps funniest is “Throw Down the Fishcake”, whose messy percussion is like a pile of overlapping punch lines. What makes Wake Up Awesome more than just a joke is the way the trio mixes laughs with tension and drama, sometimes simultaneously. That’s most evident in Lee’s cello, which seems able to emit any tone and convey any emotion imaginable. On the aforementioned “Mermaids,” she scrapes out chilly notes that match the grind of Ghil, her excellent solo album from earlier this year (which Marhaug helped conceive and record). On “Ophelia Gimme Shelter,” her slow lines are mournful, while on “Mission: Nothing” similar figures are majestically stoic. Cut those moments with Yeh and Marhaug’s punchy interruptions and jarring juxtapositions, and you get a record that can sound like multiple albums playing at once. That effect was one of the promises of sample-heavy experiments like turntablism, which seemed capable of smashing hundreds of styles into seconds of music. But outside of the hyper-cut "plunderphonics" of John Oswald, much of it stuck to a narrow sonic range, and got predictable pretty quick. Yeh, Marhaug, and Lee avoid that fate by leaning on their well-honed improvisational skills, injecting gravity into Wake Up Awesome’s airy playfulness. Thus an album spilling with ideas still manages some containment—though when the final track cuts off abruptly, you get the sense that, like kids at recess, this trio stopped playing only because they had to."

Pinkish Black

Pinkish Black

Rock

Grayson Currin

Drummer Jon Teague and vocalist Daron Beck have been conjuring darkness together for years. After playing separately in a series of heavy Texas bands, they formed the fantastic shape-shifting doom-jazz group the Great Tyrant. The trio finished its sole album, There's a Man in the House, in 2008, but didn't unveil it until late last year via a largely overlooked limited vinyl release. That was too late for bassist Tommy Atkins, who killed himself in February 2010, leaving Teague and Beck to rearrange and relaunch their vicious blend of heavy metal and chamber rock as a duo. Pinkish Black is the debut from their new sans-bass duo of the same name, itself a tender if morbid tribute to the color of the blood-spattered bathroom walls where Atkins' body was found. Still, despite the long-running and tangled partnership of its makers, this seven-track LP feels like a fresh start-- for better and worse. Pinkish Black revolves around a convincing core identity of dense themes and dark imagery. At their best, these songs are thick, powerful thuds, with rubber band-like distorted bass from a keyboard growling between dynamic drums, teasing synthesizer lines, and vocals that push between operatic majesty and guttural infamy. "Fall Down" is the most systemic and convincing embrace of all of those features, with a sinister swing that recalls vintage Swans. The duo thrusts in the verses beneath lines about inevitable failure, appropriately delivered with the fervor of an apocalypse prophet. In the chorus, there's a sense of relief that borders on Walker Brothers grandiosity; Teague eases back against the drums, and Beck lifts his voice, like a young Bruce Dickinson calling for help from a basement. "Tell Her I'm Dead" evokes a similar whiplash, snapping time and again between a hypnotic, stoner-metal groove; spasmodic Naked City bursts; and a shrieking, knotty drone. Especially here, Teague and Beck sound impressively developed, especially for a relatively new duo. Their tones and timing are excellent, the work of two people who've collaborated long enough to know how they sound together in a room and, subsequently, on record. But Teague and Beck seem uncommitted to that aforementioned anchor, a symptom that's perhaps a holdover from the Great Tyrant's stylistic sprawls. They pepper these tracks with distractions, as if to provide either a little levity or disruption on a set of songs that gain the most ground when they grind a tempo and tune into it. "Tastes Like Blood", for instance, opens with a piano-and-voice dirge about giving up, creating an unnecessary impasse between the perfectly belligerent "Tell Her I'm Dead" and the song's massive, nearly symphonic coda. It professes Pinkish Black's Scott Walker adoration explicitly, even though the band remains more compelling when that's a surprising accent of prettiness within the mire, not a substitute for it. "Everything Went Dark" begins with a short tape collage-- perhaps a Frank Zappa nod, but nevertheless a pointless hindrance to the genuinely hooky two-minute hit that follows. If the interlude has a purpose, it must be to convince Pinkish Black newcomers that they're more than an Om cover band; the mantric march that opens the album, "Bodies in Tow", might have suggested otherwise. What's best about Pinkish Black, then, is also what's least successful about the record: It plays like a music-nerd game of Name That Influence, where the proper answers range from Suicide and Rapeman to Gary Numan and Throbbing Gristle. It's a good LP with a lot of great moments, then, an album by a band that exudes promise and, in just one attempt, almost fulfills it. Think of these 34 minutes as a first trip to a cool new friend's house. They try to impress you with their cared-for record collection. The thrill of hearing new sounds, however, will almost inevitably be beset when the new pal overreaches or undershoots, mixing some stuff that doesn't actually belong with songs you've already heard plenty. In the end, maybe it will finally be be the start of something great.

Artist: Pinkish Black, Album: Pinkish Black, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "Drummer Jon Teague and vocalist Daron Beck have been conjuring darkness together for years. After playing separately in a series of heavy Texas bands, they formed the fantastic shape-shifting doom-jazz group the Great Tyrant. The trio finished its sole album, There's a Man in the House, in 2008, but didn't unveil it until late last year via a largely overlooked limited vinyl release. That was too late for bassist Tommy Atkins, who killed himself in February 2010, leaving Teague and Beck to rearrange and relaunch their vicious blend of heavy metal and chamber rock as a duo. Pinkish Black is the debut from their new sans-bass duo of the same name, itself a tender if morbid tribute to the color of the blood-spattered bathroom walls where Atkins' body was found. Still, despite the long-running and tangled partnership of its makers, this seven-track LP feels like a fresh start-- for better and worse. Pinkish Black revolves around a convincing core identity of dense themes and dark imagery. At their best, these songs are thick, powerful thuds, with rubber band-like distorted bass from a keyboard growling between dynamic drums, teasing synthesizer lines, and vocals that push between operatic majesty and guttural infamy. "Fall Down" is the most systemic and convincing embrace of all of those features, with a sinister swing that recalls vintage Swans. The duo thrusts in the verses beneath lines about inevitable failure, appropriately delivered with the fervor of an apocalypse prophet. In the chorus, there's a sense of relief that borders on Walker Brothers grandiosity; Teague eases back against the drums, and Beck lifts his voice, like a young Bruce Dickinson calling for help from a basement. "Tell Her I'm Dead" evokes a similar whiplash, snapping time and again between a hypnotic, stoner-metal groove; spasmodic Naked City bursts; and a shrieking, knotty drone. Especially here, Teague and Beck sound impressively developed, especially for a relatively new duo. Their tones and timing are excellent, the work of two people who've collaborated long enough to know how they sound together in a room and, subsequently, on record. But Teague and Beck seem uncommitted to that aforementioned anchor, a symptom that's perhaps a holdover from the Great Tyrant's stylistic sprawls. They pepper these tracks with distractions, as if to provide either a little levity or disruption on a set of songs that gain the most ground when they grind a tempo and tune into it. "Tastes Like Blood", for instance, opens with a piano-and-voice dirge about giving up, creating an unnecessary impasse between the perfectly belligerent "Tell Her I'm Dead" and the song's massive, nearly symphonic coda. It professes Pinkish Black's Scott Walker adoration explicitly, even though the band remains more compelling when that's a surprising accent of prettiness within the mire, not a substitute for it. "Everything Went Dark" begins with a short tape collage-- perhaps a Frank Zappa nod, but nevertheless a pointless hindrance to the genuinely hooky two-minute hit that follows. If the interlude has a purpose, it must be to convince Pinkish Black newcomers that they're more than an Om cover band; the mantric march that opens the album, "Bodies in Tow", might have suggested otherwise. What's best about Pinkish Black, then, is also what's least successful about the record: It plays like a music-nerd game of Name That Influence, where the proper answers range from Suicide and Rapeman to Gary Numan and Throbbing Gristle. It's a good LP with a lot of great moments, then, an album by a band that exudes promise and, in just one attempt, almost fulfills it. Think of these 34 minutes as a first trip to a cool new friend's house. They try to impress you with their cared-for record collection. The thrill of hearing new sounds, however, will almost inevitably be beset when the new pal overreaches or undershoots, mixing some stuff that doesn't actually belong with songs you've already heard plenty. In the end, maybe it will finally be be the start of something great."

Various Artists

Better Than the Beatles: A Tribute to the Shaggs

Jason Nickey

Everyone from Led Zeppelin to Jandek has one, so why not the Shaggs? Why not? I imagine that must have been the response from most of the involved parties when asked to contribute to Better Than the Beatles: A Tribute to the Shaggs. Why not? I've never been a fan of tribute albums. They just seem gratuitous, and a way for bands (and labels) to gain notoriety through association-- a shortcut bypassing actual work. They're the equivalent of album filler in any CD collection, ranking just above soundtrack compilations in my book (hello, Batman Forever). But having heard of the Shaggs years ago, and actually hearing their music years later, I asked myself the same question: why not? After all, it's got an interesting line-up of off-kilter artists (Thinking Fellers, Danielson Famile, Optiganally Yours, etc.), and it's not like any of them are going to commit a sacrilegious travesty by ruining an original, or bore you to death with simple mimicry. Both would be nearly impossible.. But what kind of world do we live in where a trio of musically disinclined sisters from rural New Hampshire-- driven to practice and perform by a superstitious, and perhaps tyrannical, father who believed his mother foretold the group-- can cut an album full of what can only be called "attempted" pop songs, and thirty years later be subject of an honorary tribute? The answer: a strange and beautiful one, friends. And if that sounds naïvely optimistic, so be it. It comes from listening to the Shaggs' naïve stabs at musicianship. All the same, it's not an uncommon reaction to think a joke is being played on you when you listen to the Shaggs-- that's part of the appeal. "Who do these people think they are? What was going through their heads when they recorded this?" Trying to answer these questions is half the fun. Then there's the fact that the Shaggs seem to have single-handedly (though unwittingly) laid the groundwork for the faux-naivete of twee-pop and possibly K Records itself. And then there's the proclamation by legendary wise-ass Frank Zappa that the Shaggs were better than the Beatles, a statement so confounding of popular logic that it just adds more confusion and mystery to the mix. Although hated by many (and ignored by many more), few people argue that the Shaggs possessed no personality or spirit. The question is, did they have something else? Is there any merit to their songwriting? If so, it should shine through in the hands of able musicians, right? Well, right, but very unexpectedly, the problem here isn't with the material, it's with the "able musicians." Most of the participants choose to tip-toe around the songs, rarely cutting loose or experimenting, possibly for fear of accusations of trying to out-Shagg the Shaggs. True to tribute album custom, the Big Guns are put up front, as Ida starts the album off with "Philosophy of the World," the title track of the lone proper Shaggs album. The upbeat, ska-like rhythm of the original is traded in for what sounds like a Scottish dirge, proving Ida can sap the energy out of almost anything. Optiganally Yours is next with a slightly more interesting, but similarly drab "You're Something Special to Me." Of all the bands on this record, I had the biggest hopes for Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and their version of "Who are Parents," but they too take the catatonic route, risking little and turning in another disappointment. Mongrel breaks up the monotony with a somber but spirited rendition of "My Cutie," finally busting out an acoustic guitar in favor of organ. Bauer's "We have a Savior" returns to the keyboard (it's as though there's a timidity toward approaching the guitarwork of front-Shagg Dot Wiggin), but the inner creepiness comes through here, as well as on Joost Visser's Will Oldham-like treatment of "It's Halloween." Deerhoof takes on the quintessential Shaggs' song, "My Pal Foot Foot." Building on bouncy sound effects, they come away with the best song on the album. R. Stevie Moore & the Olsiewics-Chusid Ensemble, followed by Plastic Mastery, cling close to the originals of "My Companion" and "Shaggs' Own Thing" respectfully, while the Slot Racers do a folky medley of "Painful Memories" and "Wheels." Next up, the Danielson Famile take their shot at "Who are Parents," and come away with hilarious results, complete with lisping baby-talk vocals which erase the album's early disappointments. Later, the Furtips' "You're Something Special to Me" recalls the Modern Lovers, and the Double U finish things off with a more playful version of the opening song. Like most tribute albums, Better than the Beatles succeeds less as a cohesive statement than as way of piquing interest in lesser known artists. But wait a minute, didn't I come out against that kind of thing near the beginning of this review?

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Better Than the Beatles: A Tribute to the Shaggs, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "Everyone from Led Zeppelin to Jandek has one, so why not the Shaggs? Why not? I imagine that must have been the response from most of the involved parties when asked to contribute to Better Than the Beatles: A Tribute to the Shaggs. Why not? I've never been a fan of tribute albums. They just seem gratuitous, and a way for bands (and labels) to gain notoriety through association-- a shortcut bypassing actual work. They're the equivalent of album filler in any CD collection, ranking just above soundtrack compilations in my book (hello, Batman Forever). But having heard of the Shaggs years ago, and actually hearing their music years later, I asked myself the same question: why not? After all, it's got an interesting line-up of off-kilter artists (Thinking Fellers, Danielson Famile, Optiganally Yours, etc.), and it's not like any of them are going to commit a sacrilegious travesty by ruining an original, or bore you to death with simple mimicry. Both would be nearly impossible.. But what kind of world do we live in where a trio of musically disinclined sisters from rural New Hampshire-- driven to practice and perform by a superstitious, and perhaps tyrannical, father who believed his mother foretold the group-- can cut an album full of what can only be called "attempted" pop songs, and thirty years later be subject of an honorary tribute? The answer: a strange and beautiful one, friends. And if that sounds naïvely optimistic, so be it. It comes from listening to the Shaggs' naïve stabs at musicianship. All the same, it's not an uncommon reaction to think a joke is being played on you when you listen to the Shaggs-- that's part of the appeal. "Who do these people think they are? What was going through their heads when they recorded this?" Trying to answer these questions is half the fun. Then there's the fact that the Shaggs seem to have single-handedly (though unwittingly) laid the groundwork for the faux-naivete of twee-pop and possibly K Records itself. And then there's the proclamation by legendary wise-ass Frank Zappa that the Shaggs were better than the Beatles, a statement so confounding of popular logic that it just adds more confusion and mystery to the mix. Although hated by many (and ignored by many more), few people argue that the Shaggs possessed no personality or spirit. The question is, did they have something else? Is there any merit to their songwriting? If so, it should shine through in the hands of able musicians, right? Well, right, but very unexpectedly, the problem here isn't with the material, it's with the "able musicians." Most of the participants choose to tip-toe around the songs, rarely cutting loose or experimenting, possibly for fear of accusations of trying to out-Shagg the Shaggs. True to tribute album custom, the Big Guns are put up front, as Ida starts the album off with "Philosophy of the World," the title track of the lone proper Shaggs album. The upbeat, ska-like rhythm of the original is traded in for what sounds like a Scottish dirge, proving Ida can sap the energy out of almost anything. Optiganally Yours is next with a slightly more interesting, but similarly drab "You're Something Special to Me." Of all the bands on this record, I had the biggest hopes for Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and their version of "Who are Parents," but they too take the catatonic route, risking little and turning in another disappointment. Mongrel breaks up the monotony with a somber but spirited rendition of "My Cutie," finally busting out an acoustic guitar in favor of organ. Bauer's "We have a Savior" returns to the keyboard (it's as though there's a timidity toward approaching the guitarwork of front-Shagg Dot Wiggin), but the inner creepiness comes through here, as well as on Joost Visser's Will Oldham-like treatment of "It's Halloween." Deerhoof takes on the quintessential Shaggs' song, "My Pal Foot Foot." Building on bouncy sound effects, they come away with the best song on the album. R. Stevie Moore & the Olsiewics-Chusid Ensemble, followed by Plastic Mastery, cling close to the originals of "My Companion" and "Shaggs' Own Thing" respectfully, while the Slot Racers do a folky medley of "Painful Memories" and "Wheels." Next up, the Danielson Famile take their shot at "Who are Parents," and come away with hilarious results, complete with lisping baby-talk vocals which erase the album's early disappointments. Later, the Furtips' "You're Something Special to Me" recalls the Modern Lovers, and the Double U finish things off with a more playful version of the opening song. Like most tribute albums, Better than the Beatles succeeds less as a cohesive statement than as way of piquing interest in lesser known artists. But wait a minute, didn't I come out against that kind of thing near the beginning of this review?"

Lawrence English

Wilderness of Mirrors

Experimental

Brian Howe

Australian sound artist Lawrence English is responsible for the existence of a daunting number of recordings. As the founder of the Room40 label, he curates contemporary ambient and experimental music by the likes of Mike Cooper, Ben Frost, Grouper, Tim Hecker, Greg Davis, Oren Ambarchi, and David Toop, and English makes the same kind of music he releases—in abundance. The selected discography on his website runs to more than 30 items. Diving in at random, you could luck into the glittering electro-acoustic miniatures of A Path Less Travelled, his collaboration with Japanese group Minamo, or the brightly mottled drone of A Colour for Autumn, one of English's most fully realized works by the traditional album standards of variety and cohesion. But you could just as easily land in more of a niche taste, such as the fine but ascetic For/Not for John Cage or the crumbling edifice of organ chords on Lonely Women's Club. Save yourself some floundering, then, by starting with English's newest album, Wilderness of Mirrors. His first proper solo album since 2011's chorally inclined The Peregrine, it gins up infernos of harmonic distortion not unlike the heavier sides of Hecker and Frost. With a couple of minimalist exceptions—the winding gusts of "Guillotines and Kingmakers" hearken back to Cage, while low frequencies roil between ghost harmonies on "Wrapped in Skin"—this is a maximalist effort, smear-painted on an abyssal dynamic range in scintillating masses of slow-moving tone. English has said that the album is named after a line from T.S. Eliot's poem "Gerontion" and is conceptually based on Cold War misinformation campaigns—which, sure, why not? If abstract music has to be about something, that'll do. More meaningfully, English saw killer shows by Swans, Earth, and My Bloody Valentine while recording the album and was inspired to pump up the volume and density of his music, which is felt right away on "The Liquid Casket", a giant exhalation of thickly flexing drones that soon ignites in a radioactive mushroom cloud. English is an experienced technician, and his saturation of stereo space and tonality never grows murky—the songs make distinct impressions, from the backwards suck of the title track, like a foghorn tolling over heavy traffic, to the slowly subsiding muffled concussions of "Another Body" and the ritualistic cadence of "Hapless Gatherer". Consistently, English cannily weighs out sticky, swarming passages against smooth pearlescent lengths, often drawing one out of the other with magisterial patience. The compositions range from delicate to mighty, and always activate invigorating corporeal effects. Wilderness of Mirrors isn't groundbreaking in general, but it is new territory for the often-cerebral English, and he puts an engaging, commanding stamp on this style of ambient overdrive hymn.

Artist: Lawrence English, Album: Wilderness of Mirrors, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Australian sound artist Lawrence English is responsible for the existence of a daunting number of recordings. As the founder of the Room40 label, he curates contemporary ambient and experimental music by the likes of Mike Cooper, Ben Frost, Grouper, Tim Hecker, Greg Davis, Oren Ambarchi, and David Toop, and English makes the same kind of music he releases—in abundance. The selected discography on his website runs to more than 30 items. Diving in at random, you could luck into the glittering electro-acoustic miniatures of A Path Less Travelled, his collaboration with Japanese group Minamo, or the brightly mottled drone of A Colour for Autumn, one of English's most fully realized works by the traditional album standards of variety and cohesion. But you could just as easily land in more of a niche taste, such as the fine but ascetic For/Not for John Cage or the crumbling edifice of organ chords on Lonely Women's Club. Save yourself some floundering, then, by starting with English's newest album, Wilderness of Mirrors. His first proper solo album since 2011's chorally inclined The Peregrine, it gins up infernos of harmonic distortion not unlike the heavier sides of Hecker and Frost. With a couple of minimalist exceptions—the winding gusts of "Guillotines and Kingmakers" hearken back to Cage, while low frequencies roil between ghost harmonies on "Wrapped in Skin"—this is a maximalist effort, smear-painted on an abyssal dynamic range in scintillating masses of slow-moving tone. English has said that the album is named after a line from T.S. Eliot's poem "Gerontion" and is conceptually based on Cold War misinformation campaigns—which, sure, why not? If abstract music has to be about something, that'll do. More meaningfully, English saw killer shows by Swans, Earth, and My Bloody Valentine while recording the album and was inspired to pump up the volume and density of his music, which is felt right away on "The Liquid Casket", a giant exhalation of thickly flexing drones that soon ignites in a radioactive mushroom cloud. English is an experienced technician, and his saturation of stereo space and tonality never grows murky—the songs make distinct impressions, from the backwards suck of the title track, like a foghorn tolling over heavy traffic, to the slowly subsiding muffled concussions of "Another Body" and the ritualistic cadence of "Hapless Gatherer". Consistently, English cannily weighs out sticky, swarming passages against smooth pearlescent lengths, often drawing one out of the other with magisterial patience. The compositions range from delicate to mighty, and always activate invigorating corporeal effects. Wilderness of Mirrors isn't groundbreaking in general, but it is new territory for the often-cerebral English, and he puts an engaging, commanding stamp on this style of ambient overdrive hymn."

Belle and Sebastian

The Life Pursuit

Rock

Marc Hogan

Every religion began as a cult. In their early years, Belle and Sebastian possessed near-totemic powers for their small but impassioned band of disciples, as fervent as the followers of similarly wistful, self-deprecating, and sometimes sexually conflicted artists like the Smiths, Felt, and Orange Juice a decade prior. The common sacrament was pop, with true believers bearing witness in their communal alienation, badges, battered cassettes, and fanclub memberships. The Scottish group only heightened that devotion by shrouding themselves in mystery-- not answering questions, not appearing in proper photographs, not available in stores. On sixth proper album The Life Pursuit, Belle and Sebastian want to teach the world to sing, in however imperfect harmony. Where the recent live re-recording of 1996's If You're Feeling Sinister draped their most appealing songs in apposite finery, the band's latest extends their newfound confidence to content as well as delivery, and stands as the finest full-length by Stuart Murdoch and his shifting collaborators since that distant pinnacle. About his early-90s recovery from chronic fatigue, Murdoch told a recent interviewer, "Spirituality and songwriting were my crutches." Spanning glam, soul, country, and 70s AM rock, this record is a deceptively wry, wickedly tuneful testament to the fragile beauty of faith, in deities as well as in pop. Belle and Sebastian seem to have found new life in their evolution from shy bedsit savants to showy pop adepts. The Life Pursuit's lavishness renders the burgeoning bubblegum of 2003's Trevor Horn-produced Dear Catastrophe Waitress merely transitional, rewarding the Job-like righteous after the trials of the band's mid-career disappointments. Recorded in Los Angeles with Tony Hoffer, who oversaw Beck's divisive Midnite Vultures, the album runs over with flute, horns, call-and-response vocals, and even a funky clavinet (on soul survivor "Song for Sunshine"). The playing, meanwhile, is surprisingly chopsy, down to the breezy guitars and Hammond organs-- a far cry from the days when indie meant never having to say you tried. Faith, after all, takes work, and if in one sense The Life Pursuit is about belief in the redemptive power of music, it's also a manifestation thereof. On opener "Act of the Apostle, Part One", a girl with a seriously ill mother imagines an escape, plays the Cat Stevens hymn "Morning Has Broken", and contemplates an endless melody before stumbling upon the album's central question: "What would I do to believe?" Ostinato bass, splashy piano, and Sarah Martin's gentle harmonies point the way. Toward the end of the album's loose storyline, on "For the Price of a Cup of Tea", the heroine seeks solace in "soul black vinyl," as Murdoch channels an irrepressible Bee Gees falsetto. In between the opener and "Act of the Apostle, Part Two", nine tracks later, The Life Pursuit sets aside the nascent narrative to offer several of Belle and Sebastian's catchiest pop songs yet. "The Blues Are Still Blue" and "White Collar Boy" both incorporate glossy T. Rex boogie, Murdoch delivering one of his most indelible hooks on the former and uttering an uncharacteristically soulful "huh!" on the latter. Early mp3 preview "Another Sunny Day" sounds more like earlier Belle and Sebastian, setting country/western guitar licks to a sunny but sad love song that ambles past soccer, midges, Eskimos, and haunted hearts. First single "Funny Little Frog" slyly relates a love that turns out to be from afar, tellingly comparing the feeling to a sound from the narrator's "thro-at." Sharing its efficient Motown guitar style is the lone Stevie Jackson contribution, "To Be Myself Completely", which happily holds its own, observing, "To be myself completely/ I've just got to let you down." Still, there's little to fault about this album's songcraft, and Murdoch is also at his best detailing some of his famously quirky characters. "Sukie in the Graveyard" makes room for a pristine guitar solo, organs, and horns in a loose, animated tale of a runaway. On melancholic centerpiece "Dress Up in You", Murdoch at first seems to be describing an encounter with a groupie, but ultimately is revealed to be singing from the point of view of a woman to a former rival-turned-star. Of course, the album also wrestles with the struggle to have faith in God. To be sure, Murdoch's Christian beliefs have been central to his songs since long before you could say "Sufjan." The religious references here have more in common on their face with the Godspell gab of Waitress's "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love" than the sardonically wrought church scenes of "The State That I Am In" or "If You're Feeling Sinister". Amid atypically fancy guitarwork and Martin's breathless scat on "We Are the Sleepyheads", Murdoch recalls, "We talked about the things we read in Luke and John." With the feel of Paul McCartney doing Tin Pan Alley, "Act of the Apostles, Part Two" finds Murdoch returning to the girl from the introduction. "The bible's my tool/ There's no mention of school," he sighs, then merges the album's twin motifs: "My Damascan Road's my transistor radio." Converted to pop, she was converted to Jesus. Though the music may be even shinier and happier than on Waitress, the girl's religious impulses don't resolve themselves nearly so blithely. Midway through "Part Two", the album climaxes when she determines to find "the face behind the voice": Synths flutter like stomach butterflies as the melody from "Part One" returns and the young protagonist attempts to attend a church service, only to be told to "bugger off." Next she places her hopes in music alone, spending the night with a man who makes her "the village joke." Closer "Mornington Crescent"-- named for a London Underground stop and a laughably complex strategy game-- sketches a final fall from grace, giving itself to sin and countrified guitars out of "Wild Horses". Only a few bands have managed to successfully reinvent themselves a half-dozen or so albums into their careers. Granted, Murdoch's is a very different group today than the one that caught the ears and hearts of pop-music zealots a decade ago, with different members and a newly unrestrained sound. "Make a new cult every day," Murdoch once sang, but of course, Heaven's Gate and Waco compounds aren't for everyone. The Life Pursuit is a baroque pop cathedral, welcoming the faithful and newly converted alike.

Artist: Belle and Sebastian, Album: The Life Pursuit, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.5 Album review: "Every religion began as a cult. In their early years, Belle and Sebastian possessed near-totemic powers for their small but impassioned band of disciples, as fervent as the followers of similarly wistful, self-deprecating, and sometimes sexually conflicted artists like the Smiths, Felt, and Orange Juice a decade prior. The common sacrament was pop, with true believers bearing witness in their communal alienation, badges, battered cassettes, and fanclub memberships. The Scottish group only heightened that devotion by shrouding themselves in mystery-- not answering questions, not appearing in proper photographs, not available in stores. On sixth proper album The Life Pursuit, Belle and Sebastian want to teach the world to sing, in however imperfect harmony. Where the recent live re-recording of 1996's If You're Feeling Sinister draped their most appealing songs in apposite finery, the band's latest extends their newfound confidence to content as well as delivery, and stands as the finest full-length by Stuart Murdoch and his shifting collaborators since that distant pinnacle. About his early-90s recovery from chronic fatigue, Murdoch told a recent interviewer, "Spirituality and songwriting were my crutches." Spanning glam, soul, country, and 70s AM rock, this record is a deceptively wry, wickedly tuneful testament to the fragile beauty of faith, in deities as well as in pop. Belle and Sebastian seem to have found new life in their evolution from shy bedsit savants to showy pop adepts. The Life Pursuit's lavishness renders the burgeoning bubblegum of 2003's Trevor Horn-produced Dear Catastrophe Waitress merely transitional, rewarding the Job-like righteous after the trials of the band's mid-career disappointments. Recorded in Los Angeles with Tony Hoffer, who oversaw Beck's divisive Midnite Vultures, the album runs over with flute, horns, call-and-response vocals, and even a funky clavinet (on soul survivor "Song for Sunshine"). The playing, meanwhile, is surprisingly chopsy, down to the breezy guitars and Hammond organs-- a far cry from the days when indie meant never having to say you tried. Faith, after all, takes work, and if in one sense The Life Pursuit is about belief in the redemptive power of music, it's also a manifestation thereof. On opener "Act of the Apostle, Part One", a girl with a seriously ill mother imagines an escape, plays the Cat Stevens hymn "Morning Has Broken", and contemplates an endless melody before stumbling upon the album's central question: "What would I do to believe?" Ostinato bass, splashy piano, and Sarah Martin's gentle harmonies point the way. Toward the end of the album's loose storyline, on "For the Price of a Cup of Tea", the heroine seeks solace in "soul black vinyl," as Murdoch channels an irrepressible Bee Gees falsetto. In between the opener and "Act of the Apostle, Part Two", nine tracks later, The Life Pursuit sets aside the nascent narrative to offer several of Belle and Sebastian's catchiest pop songs yet. "The Blues Are Still Blue" and "White Collar Boy" both incorporate glossy T. Rex boogie, Murdoch delivering one of his most indelible hooks on the former and uttering an uncharacteristically soulful "huh!" on the latter. Early mp3 preview "Another Sunny Day" sounds more like earlier Belle and Sebastian, setting country/western guitar licks to a sunny but sad love song that ambles past soccer, midges, Eskimos, and haunted hearts. First single "Funny Little Frog" slyly relates a love that turns out to be from afar, tellingly comparing the feeling to a sound from the narrator's "thro-at." Sharing its efficient Motown guitar style is the lone Stevie Jackson contribution, "To Be Myself Completely", which happily holds its own, observing, "To be myself completely/ I've just got to let you down." Still, there's little to fault about this album's songcraft, and Murdoch is also at his best detailing some of his famously quirky characters. "Sukie in the Graveyard" makes room for a pristine guitar solo, organs, and horns in a loose, animated tale of a runaway. On melancholic centerpiece "Dress Up in You", Murdoch at first seems to be describing an encounter with a groupie, but ultimately is revealed to be singing from the point of view of a woman to a former rival-turned-star. Of course, the album also wrestles with the struggle to have faith in God. To be sure, Murdoch's Christian beliefs have been central to his songs since long before you could say "Sufjan." The religious references here have more in common on their face with the Godspell gab of Waitress's "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love" than the sardonically wrought church scenes of "The State That I Am In" or "If You're Feeling Sinister". Amid atypically fancy guitarwork and Martin's breathless scat on "We Are the Sleepyheads", Murdoch recalls, "We talked about the things we read in Luke and John." With the feel of Paul McCartney doing Tin Pan Alley, "Act of the Apostles, Part Two" finds Murdoch returning to the girl from the introduction. "The bible's my tool/ There's no mention of school," he sighs, then merges the album's twin motifs: "My Damascan Road's my transistor radio." Converted to pop, she was converted to Jesus. Though the music may be even shinier and happier than on Waitress, the girl's religious impulses don't resolve themselves nearly so blithely. Midway through "Part Two", the album climaxes when she determines to find "the face behind the voice": Synths flutter like stomach butterflies as the melody from "Part One" returns and the young protagonist attempts to attend a church service, only to be told to "bugger off." Next she places her hopes in music alone, spending the night with a man who makes her "the village joke." Closer "Mornington Crescent"-- named for a London Underground stop and a laughably complex strategy game-- sketches a final fall from grace, giving itself to sin and countrified guitars out of "Wild Horses". Only a few bands have managed to successfully reinvent themselves a half-dozen or so albums into their careers. Granted, Murdoch's is a very different group today than the one that caught the ears and hearts of pop-music zealots a decade ago, with different members and a newly unrestrained sound. "Make a new cult every day," Murdoch once sang, but of course, Heaven's Gate and Waco compounds aren't for everyone. The Life Pursuit is a baroque pop cathedral, welcoming the faithful and newly converted alike. "

Johan Agebjörn

Casablanca Nights

Electronic

Stephen M. Deusner

The title of producer Johan Agebjörn's new album isn't necessarily a reference to the 1942 Bogart-Bergman film or to the Moroccan city where it was set. Instead, it's almost certainly a nod to Casablanca Records, one of the most prominent labels of the 1970s. While it did sign the likes of Cher, Kiss, and Parliament, Casablanca was best known as a haven for disco artists, including Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Santa Esmeralda, Village People, and a deep roster of one- and no-hit wonders. It's even rumored that Steve Guttenberg's character in the Village People film Can't Stop the Music was based on Casablanca founder Neil Bogart (no relationship to Humphrey). It's no shock that Agebjörn would invoke this bellwether of pop history for his latest album. He is one of several Swedish producers enamored with various American and European strains of disco, and his two albums with Sally Shapiro reveal a steadfast belief that heartache is best conveyed via soft vocals, shimmery synths, modulated bass lines, and pulsating beats. Casablanca Nights is his chance to play curator as well as producer, hand-picking such acts as Shapiro, CFCF, Friday Bridge, and Le Prix. The album plays like a label sampler you might dig out of the dollar bin and wonder why none of the artists made it bigger. Despite that title, Agebjörn isn't abandoning his signature Italo disco-derived sound for a more American style. His production remains exquisitely lush and luxuriant. On "The Last Day of Summer", the relatively robust vocals by Queen of Hearts stand out on the album, and it's too bad she doesn't appear more often. Many of the vocalists blur together over the course of Casablanca Nights, although Shapiro remains Agebjörn's most captivating muse, her expressive vocals illuminating each one of her songs. Most of Agebjörn's songs create the same sort of yearning, thumping dancefloor melancholy, differentiated more by their lyrics than by their instrumentation or their tone. As Casablanca Nights makes its way to morning, he introduces a few new sounds and tricks, to varying degrees of success. "Alice", a collaboration with Le Prix, Fred Ventura, and Shapiro, is the most intriguing detour, drumming in some new wave influences from the early 1980s to counterbalance the 1970s sounds. Thanks to the halting chorus and the dynamic boy-girl vocals, the combination of styles is intriguing, not only because these two eras have such different concerns but mostly because similar experiments on Casablanca Nights prove much less compelling. By the time the requisite chill-out closer comes along-- "Stranger (Chill Remix)" with Halftone-- Agebjörn has already thoroughly chilled out to a sequence of downtempo songs like "Le Noir et le Blanc Sur le Piano" (where Shapiro sings in French) and "Memories of Satie" (with CFCF). Intriguing in their reach if not necessarily their execution, those two numbers weigh down the second half, such that "Stranger" doesn't sound like the sunrise to end Casablanca Nights, but an abrupt finale that plays to a long-empty dancefloor. Granted, Agebjörn's intention isn't historical re-creation or even dance-party endurance, but a kind of musical evocation that opens up more conceptual possibilities than perhaps he's willing to explore. Yet, this time-machine quality means the music serves similar purposes to its influences: The songs are meant to be immersive, enveloping, and most of all transportive. Where disco went far beyond mere escapism in the 1970s, Casablanca Nights only gets you out of 2011 for a few sweet minutes.

Artist: Johan Agebjörn, Album: Casablanca Nights, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "The title of producer Johan Agebjörn's new album isn't necessarily a reference to the 1942 Bogart-Bergman film or to the Moroccan city where it was set. Instead, it's almost certainly a nod to Casablanca Records, one of the most prominent labels of the 1970s. While it did sign the likes of Cher, Kiss, and Parliament, Casablanca was best known as a haven for disco artists, including Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Santa Esmeralda, Village People, and a deep roster of one- and no-hit wonders. It's even rumored that Steve Guttenberg's character in the Village People film Can't Stop the Music was based on Casablanca founder Neil Bogart (no relationship to Humphrey). It's no shock that Agebjörn would invoke this bellwether of pop history for his latest album. He is one of several Swedish producers enamored with various American and European strains of disco, and his two albums with Sally Shapiro reveal a steadfast belief that heartache is best conveyed via soft vocals, shimmery synths, modulated bass lines, and pulsating beats. Casablanca Nights is his chance to play curator as well as producer, hand-picking such acts as Shapiro, CFCF, Friday Bridge, and Le Prix. The album plays like a label sampler you might dig out of the dollar bin and wonder why none of the artists made it bigger. Despite that title, Agebjörn isn't abandoning his signature Italo disco-derived sound for a more American style. His production remains exquisitely lush and luxuriant. On "The Last Day of Summer", the relatively robust vocals by Queen of Hearts stand out on the album, and it's too bad she doesn't appear more often. Many of the vocalists blur together over the course of Casablanca Nights, although Shapiro remains Agebjörn's most captivating muse, her expressive vocals illuminating each one of her songs. Most of Agebjörn's songs create the same sort of yearning, thumping dancefloor melancholy, differentiated more by their lyrics than by their instrumentation or their tone. As Casablanca Nights makes its way to morning, he introduces a few new sounds and tricks, to varying degrees of success. "Alice", a collaboration with Le Prix, Fred Ventura, and Shapiro, is the most intriguing detour, drumming in some new wave influences from the early 1980s to counterbalance the 1970s sounds. Thanks to the halting chorus and the dynamic boy-girl vocals, the combination of styles is intriguing, not only because these two eras have such different concerns but mostly because similar experiments on Casablanca Nights prove much less compelling. By the time the requisite chill-out closer comes along-- "Stranger (Chill Remix)" with Halftone-- Agebjörn has already thoroughly chilled out to a sequence of downtempo songs like "Le Noir et le Blanc Sur le Piano" (where Shapiro sings in French) and "Memories of Satie" (with CFCF). Intriguing in their reach if not necessarily their execution, those two numbers weigh down the second half, such that "Stranger" doesn't sound like the sunrise to end Casablanca Nights, but an abrupt finale that plays to a long-empty dancefloor. Granted, Agebjörn's intention isn't historical re-creation or even dance-party endurance, but a kind of musical evocation that opens up more conceptual possibilities than perhaps he's willing to explore. Yet, this time-machine quality means the music serves similar purposes to its influences: The songs are meant to be immersive, enveloping, and most of all transportive. Where disco went far beyond mere escapism in the 1970s, Casablanca Nights only gets you out of 2011 for a few sweet minutes."

CFCF

Radiance and Submission

Electronic

Clayton Purdom

I never gave up on night bus. Along with glo-fi, seapunk, witch house, and a host of other disyllabic hashtags, "night bus" was derided during the great microgenre boom of the early 2010s—irrefutable evidence, it was thought, of the Internet's insistence upon inter-genre incest. But unlike a lot of its contemporaries, night bus was never as easy to define as influence + influence or adjective + genre. Named after a Burial track but as easily applied to the music of 50 Cent, Tim Hecker, the Eurythmics, the xx, and Vangelis, night bus was more a tone or a mood than a genre in and of itself. It was often categorized as midtempo, minimalist post-dubstep—trip-hop, sort of—but its proponents always stretched it to more disparate moods and eras. As someone drawn to those touchpoints, it was nice to finally have a name for it all, an easy-enough way to connect Björk, "Twin Peaks", and Birdman. The Canadian electronic producer CFCF, too, has always been attached to night bus—he was a frequent poster on the message boards that birthed the term, and his 2010 mix Do U Like Night Bus helped crystallize the breadth of music to which it might be applied. He has, in the intervening years, stretched that mixtape into a trilogy of nocturnal, reflective volumes, including last November's Night Bus 3, which was knowingly subtitled "Death of Night Bus", as if in acknowledgment that, yea, all microgenres must pass. This is probably just as well. A couple years after its invention, night bus is the last standing of its contemporaries—and yet CFCF will not let it go softly. Even his proper studio records can feel like academic experiments within the night bus aesthetic, further defying its easy categorization by leaning into its applications in quiet storm (Outside) or minimalism (Music for Objects). All of which is to say that, while the largely acoustic, ambient Radiance and Submission is the furthest afield CFCF's projects have ever gotten from his midtempo electronic roots, it still feels of a piece with his discography. The mood remains nocturnal, even if the bus has made its way out of the city and now rattles through a pitch-black desert. This is sparse, windswept music, full of warm, circling guitar plucks, gathering echoes, and long, slow fades. Like all of CFCF's music, it is exquisite in its details, as when the haze of cicadas buzzing throughout "Tethered in Dark" finds a rhythm in a palm-muted riff, all before receding back into the fog of circling insects. There are surprises, too, if subtle ones: "La Soufrière" begins with a similar naturalistic buzz, but halfway through blooms into something startlingly songlike. It's one of the shortest tracks on a short album, but, as with recent short-players by Earl Sweatshirt and Thundercat, Radiance and Submission holds together thanks to the clarity of its vision. This patient, almost painterly approach to songcraft has always defined CFCF's work, which might on other records have faded in instead with soft synthesizers before five minutes of smart, pulsing boom-bap. Over 60 minutes, this meticulousness could all feel a bit too polished, but Radiance and Submission bucks that by forming itself entirely out of the interstitial moments. The establishing shots and denouements of his compositions are here turned into the raw material for something strange and fascinating and (for him, at least) new. He has mentioned Chris Marker's indescribable film travelogue Sans Soleil as an influence in the past, and its compositional method—the reassemblage of the periphery into a focal point—could well be part of it. Night bus was always about intermediary spaces, anyway: a long trip home from a club, an overnight journey spent staring out the window. If there's a through line to the musical works we categorize with the term, it's their quiet ability to transform these lonely moments, to make a pair of headphones not a way of shutting out the world but of letting it in.

Artist: CFCF, Album: Radiance and Submission, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "I never gave up on night bus. Along with glo-fi, seapunk, witch house, and a host of other disyllabic hashtags, "night bus" was derided during the great microgenre boom of the early 2010s—irrefutable evidence, it was thought, of the Internet's insistence upon inter-genre incest. But unlike a lot of its contemporaries, night bus was never as easy to define as influence + influence or adjective + genre. Named after a Burial track but as easily applied to the music of 50 Cent, Tim Hecker, the Eurythmics, the xx, and Vangelis, night bus was more a tone or a mood than a genre in and of itself. It was often categorized as midtempo, minimalist post-dubstep—trip-hop, sort of—but its proponents always stretched it to more disparate moods and eras. As someone drawn to those touchpoints, it was nice to finally have a name for it all, an easy-enough way to connect Björk, "Twin Peaks", and Birdman. The Canadian electronic producer CFCF, too, has always been attached to night bus—he was a frequent poster on the message boards that birthed the term, and his 2010 mix Do U Like Night Bus helped crystallize the breadth of music to which it might be applied. He has, in the intervening years, stretched that mixtape into a trilogy of nocturnal, reflective volumes, including last November's Night Bus 3, which was knowingly subtitled "Death of Night Bus", as if in acknowledgment that, yea, all microgenres must pass. This is probably just as well. A couple years after its invention, night bus is the last standing of its contemporaries—and yet CFCF will not let it go softly. Even his proper studio records can feel like academic experiments within the night bus aesthetic, further defying its easy categorization by leaning into its applications in quiet storm (Outside) or minimalism (Music for Objects). All of which is to say that, while the largely acoustic, ambient Radiance and Submission is the furthest afield CFCF's projects have ever gotten from his midtempo electronic roots, it still feels of a piece with his discography. The mood remains nocturnal, even if the bus has made its way out of the city and now rattles through a pitch-black desert. This is sparse, windswept music, full of warm, circling guitar plucks, gathering echoes, and long, slow fades. Like all of CFCF's music, it is exquisite in its details, as when the haze of cicadas buzzing throughout "Tethered in Dark" finds a rhythm in a palm-muted riff, all before receding back into the fog of circling insects. There are surprises, too, if subtle ones: "La Soufrière" begins with a similar naturalistic buzz, but halfway through blooms into something startlingly songlike. It's one of the shortest tracks on a short album, but, as with recent short-players by Earl Sweatshirt and Thundercat, Radiance and Submission holds together thanks to the clarity of its vision. This patient, almost painterly approach to songcraft has always defined CFCF's work, which might on other records have faded in instead with soft synthesizers before five minutes of smart, pulsing boom-bap. Over 60 minutes, this meticulousness could all feel a bit too polished, but Radiance and Submission bucks that by forming itself entirely out of the interstitial moments. The establishing shots and denouements of his compositions are here turned into the raw material for something strange and fascinating and (for him, at least) new. He has mentioned Chris Marker's indescribable film travelogue Sans Soleil as an influence in the past, and its compositional method—the reassemblage of the periphery into a focal point—could well be part of it. Night bus was always about intermediary spaces, anyway: a long trip home from a club, an overnight journey spent staring out the window. If there's a through line to the musical works we categorize with the term, it's their quiet ability to transform these lonely moments, to make a pair of headphones not a way of shutting out the world but of letting it in."

The Whitest Boy Alive

Dreams

Electronic,Rock

Rob Mitchum

Those of you who have stayed up late watching ESPN2 may have stumbled across a very unusual bit of television: The Whitest Boy Alive competition. Contestants from around the globe (the middle latitudes, at least) battle in a series of events designed to judge the breadth and depth of their Caucasianness, facing off in contests like Quickest Sunburn, Jumping Inability, Lack of Rhythm, Star Trek Fan-Fiction Writing, NASCAR Identification Quiz, and, of course, hockey. Apparently I missed the season where Erlend Øye won the coveted golden-golf-ball belt of The Whitest Boy Alive, but apparently the musician is proud enough of his accomplishment to have named his latest project after the award. It's no surprise that Øye was such a formidable candidate; after all, he hails from notorious WBA powerhouse country Norway, and despite being quite poor in the Lack of Rhythm competition, his Nordic skin resembles an Atomic Fireball with the most miniscule of sunlight exposure, and he looks like he'd be an encyclopedia of TNG-era Trek facts. Øye's pride in his title might fool you into thinking the Whitest Boy Alive is, as the name would indicate, some kind of tee-hee ironic white-kid rap project; thankfully, it's not. After making delicate whisper-folk as half of the Kings of Convenience, a collaborative electronic solo record, and rechristening himself "The Singing DJ" for a well-received DJ-Kicks set, Øye now takes the step of making electric music, "rock," for lack of any better term. Hewing close to the soft side of the genre, Dreams presents a sound that invokes every Scandinavian stereotype not yet broached by this review: socialism-clean, winter-wind crisp, expensive-sounding, and unfailingly polite. Like the similarly fussy Phoenix, Øye applies each element of his four-piece band with obsessive meticulousness, creating a tight, rhythmic sound that is so unfunky it comes back around to funky again. Reflective of his DJ set's taste for Kompakt-style glossy house, TWBA's drumming is metronomic and efficient, while the bass, guitar, and keyboards gently entwine with drill-team precision, imagining if Kraftwerk had produced Fleetwood Mac. Whether you find this winterfresh concoction to be electrifying or sedative depends on your temperament, or your thoughts on previous Øye work; all the new-fangled amplification doesn't do much to raise the singer's library-voice volume. Øye attempts to mix things up by indulging a heretofore unknown taste for guitar solos, nothing too flashy, but still providing a bit of fang on an otherwise toothless record. When the guitar spotlights are kept at a messy-chord rhythm-guitar level (as on "Burning", or the nicely inverted progression of "Inflation"), they're satisfying, like intentionally making a mess of a neat freak's kitchen counter. When the solos turn to extended vamps, as on "Down with You", they only magnify the music's hypnotic qualities, for better or worse (mostly worse). Elsewhere, on "Above You", Øye tries to animate his stiff sound with playful keyboards: a crunchy clavinet that successfully adds some strut, and a bloopy synth that ruins the strut by making it sound like they're jamming with R2D2. Still, despite the stylistic embellishments, Øye can't completely escape his now well-established persona; that same restrained voice, those same detached melodies, the same room left for silence, no matter whether it's set against folk, electronic, or rock trappings. There's still life left in that formula, but transferring it from genre to genre must be getting exhausting-- Øye himself sounds a bit groggy by the drum-less closer "All Ears". The taut, prim pop of Dreams does revitalize Øye's approach for a time, but by the end of the album the novelty is somewhat lost, a promising sound extinguished by the singer's refusal to expand his vocal horizons. Blame it on a conflict of interest: The Whitest Boy Alive contest frowns upon excessive displays of vocal exuberance, and its champion and house band are obligated to comply.

Artist: The Whitest Boy Alive, Album: Dreams, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Those of you who have stayed up late watching ESPN2 may have stumbled across a very unusual bit of television: The Whitest Boy Alive competition. Contestants from around the globe (the middle latitudes, at least) battle in a series of events designed to judge the breadth and depth of their Caucasianness, facing off in contests like Quickest Sunburn, Jumping Inability, Lack of Rhythm, Star Trek Fan-Fiction Writing, NASCAR Identification Quiz, and, of course, hockey. Apparently I missed the season where Erlend Øye won the coveted golden-golf-ball belt of The Whitest Boy Alive, but apparently the musician is proud enough of his accomplishment to have named his latest project after the award. It's no surprise that Øye was such a formidable candidate; after all, he hails from notorious WBA powerhouse country Norway, and despite being quite poor in the Lack of Rhythm competition, his Nordic skin resembles an Atomic Fireball with the most miniscule of sunlight exposure, and he looks like he'd be an encyclopedia of TNG-era Trek facts. Øye's pride in his title might fool you into thinking the Whitest Boy Alive is, as the name would indicate, some kind of tee-hee ironic white-kid rap project; thankfully, it's not. After making delicate whisper-folk as half of the Kings of Convenience, a collaborative electronic solo record, and rechristening himself "The Singing DJ" for a well-received DJ-Kicks set, Øye now takes the step of making electric music, "rock," for lack of any better term. Hewing close to the soft side of the genre, Dreams presents a sound that invokes every Scandinavian stereotype not yet broached by this review: socialism-clean, winter-wind crisp, expensive-sounding, and unfailingly polite. Like the similarly fussy Phoenix, Øye applies each element of his four-piece band with obsessive meticulousness, creating a tight, rhythmic sound that is so unfunky it comes back around to funky again. Reflective of his DJ set's taste for Kompakt-style glossy house, TWBA's drumming is metronomic and efficient, while the bass, guitar, and keyboards gently entwine with drill-team precision, imagining if Kraftwerk had produced Fleetwood Mac. Whether you find this winterfresh concoction to be electrifying or sedative depends on your temperament, or your thoughts on previous Øye work; all the new-fangled amplification doesn't do much to raise the singer's library-voice volume. Øye attempts to mix things up by indulging a heretofore unknown taste for guitar solos, nothing too flashy, but still providing a bit of fang on an otherwise toothless record. When the guitar spotlights are kept at a messy-chord rhythm-guitar level (as on "Burning", or the nicely inverted progression of "Inflation"), they're satisfying, like intentionally making a mess of a neat freak's kitchen counter. When the solos turn to extended vamps, as on "Down with You", they only magnify the music's hypnotic qualities, for better or worse (mostly worse). Elsewhere, on "Above You", Øye tries to animate his stiff sound with playful keyboards: a crunchy clavinet that successfully adds some strut, and a bloopy synth that ruins the strut by making it sound like they're jamming with R2D2. Still, despite the stylistic embellishments, Øye can't completely escape his now well-established persona; that same restrained voice, those same detached melodies, the same room left for silence, no matter whether it's set against folk, electronic, or rock trappings. There's still life left in that formula, but transferring it from genre to genre must be getting exhausting-- Øye himself sounds a bit groggy by the drum-less closer "All Ears". The taut, prim pop of Dreams does revitalize Øye's approach for a time, but by the end of the album the novelty is somewhat lost, a promising sound extinguished by the singer's refusal to expand his vocal horizons. Blame it on a conflict of interest: The Whitest Boy Alive contest frowns upon excessive displays of vocal exuberance, and its champion and house band are obligated to comply."

Felt

Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez

Rap

Ian Cohen

"Your favorite group that wasn't even a group to start!" Murs makes this claim on "Protagonists", the leadoff track from his collaboration with fellow indie MC all-star Slug, Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez, and despite the humility this is more indie hip-hop supergroup than mere side project. With Aesop Rock on production, Felt becomes a triangulation that canvasses almost the entirety of U.S. undie rap in terms of geography and affiliation. So why is this thing kind of a bummer? It's got nothing to do with Aesop, whose beats go a long way toward invigorating Rosie Perez. Far from the gnarled and difficult production one might expect from a Def Jukie, Rosie Perez shows a good amount of sonic diversity while never straying too far from the sort of chunky, drum-knocking beats Murs and Slug typically rhyme over. You can't accuse Rosie Perez of being hookless: Even if Slug and Murs can't quite nail the double-time flows on "Felt Chewed Up", it's still nice to hear these guys do their own cheerleading over some pretty awesome turntable work, and the working man blues of "Like You" has an agile, back and forth vigor. The 21-deep tracklist is certainly foreboding, but the skit/interlude/instrumentals "Kevin Spacey" and "Get Cake" have a guileless charm that justify their inclusion. But you remember that Atmosphere album You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having? OK, good-- now imagine the exact opposite sentiment. I have no idea what put these guys in such a sourpuss mode, but the celebratory "we the best" boasting of "Protagonists" proves to be a red herring instead of a mood setter. The rest of the way we get to hear Murs and Slug swap out the kickin' back at the BBQ vibe of their previous releases and go off on so many archetypes/strawmen you wonder if they even think they have fans. Either way, it gets to be awfully oppressive over the span of Rosie Perez's hourlong runtime for anyone other than the most insatiable consumers of complaint rap. Hipsters, critics, "internet rappers," rappers who rap about violence ("Deathmurdermayhem") all get dealt with, but in a manner so vague that their dismissals become toothless. Come on, I'm wearing a cardigan as I type this review-- work with it! Instead they save specificity for tracks boasting the concerned but condescending attitudes towards women I expect from a Taking Back Sunday album. It's one thing to lack sympathy, but Slug and Murs crucially forgo empathy too often, and their subjects come off like set pieces rather than real people-- oddly enough, the fantastical fairy tale character portrait of "Henrietta Longbottom" comes off like the most intensely written song on the whole thing. Even if you can get past the unctuous self-satisfaction, the lyrics are as lame to hear as they are to read. "Bass for Your Truck" almost entirely negates the draw of its speaker-blast beat by dogging girls who "date losers 'cause it makes [them] feel superior." Though I suppose I'll take that over Slug's insanely obtuse diss that "the truth is just an excuse that you use to polish up a pair of selfish shoes." Meanwhile, "Permanent Standby" is something along the lines of "Welcome to the Jungle" in its cautionary rendering of two women trying to make it in the big city, but the whole thing feels preordained-- both get caught up in drugs, prostitution, and the like, with only a lyric about "dancing to some dubstep" standing out as something other than stock characterization. I dunno, isn't Felt supposed to be a way for Slug and Murs to blow off steam in contrast to their more intense solo albums? Even the old-school party rhymes of "Revisiting the Styleetron" are rapped with "I am being very, very serious" intonation, and ultimately denying any chance it has at being played at an actual party. At the end of "Paul Reubens", it's announced Felt 4 will be a tribute to Heidi Fleiss, so I can only hope it augurs a record where the guys are more inclined to, um, enjoy themselves.

Artist: Felt, Album: Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 5.8 Album review: ""Your favorite group that wasn't even a group to start!" Murs makes this claim on "Protagonists", the leadoff track from his collaboration with fellow indie MC all-star Slug, Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez, and despite the humility this is more indie hip-hop supergroup than mere side project. With Aesop Rock on production, Felt becomes a triangulation that canvasses almost the entirety of U.S. undie rap in terms of geography and affiliation. So why is this thing kind of a bummer? It's got nothing to do with Aesop, whose beats go a long way toward invigorating Rosie Perez. Far from the gnarled and difficult production one might expect from a Def Jukie, Rosie Perez shows a good amount of sonic diversity while never straying too far from the sort of chunky, drum-knocking beats Murs and Slug typically rhyme over. You can't accuse Rosie Perez of being hookless: Even if Slug and Murs can't quite nail the double-time flows on "Felt Chewed Up", it's still nice to hear these guys do their own cheerleading over some pretty awesome turntable work, and the working man blues of "Like You" has an agile, back and forth vigor. The 21-deep tracklist is certainly foreboding, but the skit/interlude/instrumentals "Kevin Spacey" and "Get Cake" have a guileless charm that justify their inclusion. But you remember that Atmosphere album You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having? OK, good-- now imagine the exact opposite sentiment. I have no idea what put these guys in such a sourpuss mode, but the celebratory "we the best" boasting of "Protagonists" proves to be a red herring instead of a mood setter. The rest of the way we get to hear Murs and Slug swap out the kickin' back at the BBQ vibe of their previous releases and go off on so many archetypes/strawmen you wonder if they even think they have fans. Either way, it gets to be awfully oppressive over the span of Rosie Perez's hourlong runtime for anyone other than the most insatiable consumers of complaint rap. Hipsters, critics, "internet rappers," rappers who rap about violence ("Deathmurdermayhem") all get dealt with, but in a manner so vague that their dismissals become toothless. Come on, I'm wearing a cardigan as I type this review-- work with it! Instead they save specificity for tracks boasting the concerned but condescending attitudes towards women I expect from a Taking Back Sunday album. It's one thing to lack sympathy, but Slug and Murs crucially forgo empathy too often, and their subjects come off like set pieces rather than real people-- oddly enough, the fantastical fairy tale character portrait of "Henrietta Longbottom" comes off like the most intensely written song on the whole thing. Even if you can get past the unctuous self-satisfaction, the lyrics are as lame to hear as they are to read. "Bass for Your Truck" almost entirely negates the draw of its speaker-blast beat by dogging girls who "date losers 'cause it makes [them] feel superior." Though I suppose I'll take that over Slug's insanely obtuse diss that "the truth is just an excuse that you use to polish up a pair of selfish shoes." Meanwhile, "Permanent Standby" is something along the lines of "Welcome to the Jungle" in its cautionary rendering of two women trying to make it in the big city, but the whole thing feels preordained-- both get caught up in drugs, prostitution, and the like, with only a lyric about "dancing to some dubstep" standing out as something other than stock characterization. I dunno, isn't Felt supposed to be a way for Slug and Murs to blow off steam in contrast to their more intense solo albums? Even the old-school party rhymes of "Revisiting the Styleetron" are rapped with "I am being very, very serious" intonation, and ultimately denying any chance it has at being played at an actual party. At the end of "Paul Reubens", it's announced Felt 4 will be a tribute to Heidi Fleiss, so I can only hope it augurs a record where the guys are more inclined to, um, enjoy themselves."

Trans Am

Futureworld

Metal,Rock

Brent DiCrescenzo

When I was a boy, I wanted to live in the movie Tron. Hell, I still want to live in Tron. Every object bathed in a blue glow, those suits made from mouse-pad material, killer frisbees and laser sails... Of course, at this point, I realize that technology will never bring my dream to fruition. But at the very least, I can listen to Trans Am's Futureworld and close my eyes. I nearly wept from nostalgia at the minimal Atari landscape cover of Futureworld. In this age of four million polygons per second, liquid animation, and "Quake II," the simple pixelized Atari grid takes on Zen-like qualities. Trans Am realize that the future is always better in our heads now than when we actually get there. I'd love to think that rock in the future all sounds like Trans Am. I'd also like to teleport and have robot pal. But really, music in the future will still just be some teen named Spunky Glee singing about crushes over Roni Size beats. Opening with distorted blasts of saxophone and droning frequencies, Futureworld flat out smokes. Drums relentlessly pummel away while blasts of incinerating keyboard melt neck- snapping basslines. Synthesizers drench the caustic crunch with melody and hooks. The echo of an infinite yellow on black matrix chimes throughout. Not since Brainiac has a band better fused crushing riffs with sinister computer effects and a tongue pressed slightly against the cheek. A robotic voice commands, "Come back to my house, baby" (in both English and German) in "Am Rhein." Then in the next track, "Cocaine Computer," the robot kicks out a nasty 80's funk jam after it has assumedly successfully seduced the character from "Am Rhein." Picture the droid from "Short Circuit" pulling a Barry White on Ally Sheedy in a scene of cyborg debauchery and crapulence. Futureworld is wonderfully lo-fi and direct, and the band's first cohesive album thus far. Trans Am craft "Pong" punk that somehow successfully fuses Shellac and Pan Sonic. Somewhere in a fantasy world, on green pastures of silicon motherboard, in clubs shaped liked RAM chips and transistors, Trans Am is the only rock band with soul, precision, licks, swagger, ambience, and good looks to boot.

Artist: Trans Am, Album: Futureworld, Genre: Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "When I was a boy, I wanted to live in the movie Tron. Hell, I still want to live in Tron. Every object bathed in a blue glow, those suits made from mouse-pad material, killer frisbees and laser sails... Of course, at this point, I realize that technology will never bring my dream to fruition. But at the very least, I can listen to Trans Am's Futureworld and close my eyes. I nearly wept from nostalgia at the minimal Atari landscape cover of Futureworld. In this age of four million polygons per second, liquid animation, and "Quake II," the simple pixelized Atari grid takes on Zen-like qualities. Trans Am realize that the future is always better in our heads now than when we actually get there. I'd love to think that rock in the future all sounds like Trans Am. I'd also like to teleport and have robot pal. But really, music in the future will still just be some teen named Spunky Glee singing about crushes over Roni Size beats. Opening with distorted blasts of saxophone and droning frequencies, Futureworld flat out smokes. Drums relentlessly pummel away while blasts of incinerating keyboard melt neck- snapping basslines. Synthesizers drench the caustic crunch with melody and hooks. The echo of an infinite yellow on black matrix chimes throughout. Not since Brainiac has a band better fused crushing riffs with sinister computer effects and a tongue pressed slightly against the cheek. A robotic voice commands, "Come back to my house, baby" (in both English and German) in "Am Rhein." Then in the next track, "Cocaine Computer," the robot kicks out a nasty 80's funk jam after it has assumedly successfully seduced the character from "Am Rhein." Picture the droid from "Short Circuit" pulling a Barry White on Ally Sheedy in a scene of cyborg debauchery and crapulence. Futureworld is wonderfully lo-fi and direct, and the band's first cohesive album thus far. Trans Am craft "Pong" punk that somehow successfully fuses Shellac and Pan Sonic. Somewhere in a fantasy world, on green pastures of silicon motherboard, in clubs shaped liked RAM chips and transistors, Trans Am is the only rock band with soul, precision, licks, swagger, ambience, and good looks to boot."

Dizzee Rascal

Boy in Da Corner

Rap

Scott Plagenhoef

Hip-hop, one of America's last bastions of regionalism, is threatening to exalt itself out of its local roots. Authenticity issues still insist the genre is tied to the street, but where a hip-hop province used to be as compressed as the South Bronx, it's now as sprawling as the Dirty South. Even during the dichotomy of the pre-Chronic days, when East almost never met West, entire coasts counted as local wards. Ten years later, hip-hop is pop music in America, and its global reach is arguably greater than rock's has ever been. From Missy and Timbaland's tabla to Jay-Z's bhangra beats, The Neptunes' Eastern flavor to dj/Rupture's ragga/Nubian/chart-hop mashups and the Diwali-led rise of Jamaican dancehall, U.S. hip-hop is finally engaged in a two-way dialogue with the rest of the world. On his debut album, Boy in Da Corner, 18 year-old Dizzee Rascal instantly stakes a claim that East London is hip-hop's next great international outpost. East London: Rascal's world is precisely that small, and it returns a sense of rueful perspective to hip-hop lost among the soundtrack tie-ins, Godzilla-aping Bone Crusher videos, and 50 Cent-style mixtape mythmaking. In basic ways, Rascal echoes the wish fulfillment of much of American hip-hop, but he's hardly mimicking their act. Rascal is at ground level, eyes trained on his immediate surroundings. His rhymes, and especially his beats, reflect his area's desperate social, economic and political landscape. Often, this desolation hardens an emcee's psyche (Styles gets high every day to combat his mental strain) or delivery: This summer's post-ecstasy swing toward punishing sounds and pugnacious looks threatens to bleed the personality, humor, and adventure out of hip-hop. But to wunderkind Rascal, the accelerated disintegration of his immediate world pains him-- absolutely wounds him-- and it's the Tupac-esque mix of brio and vulnerability, along with his dexterous cadence and gutter beats, that separates his rhymes from the typical money/cash/hoes triptych. On the opening track, "Sittin' Here", Rascal concludes, "I think I'm getting weak 'cause my thoughts are too strong." Over ambient sounds of sirens and guns, he laments, "It was only yesterday/ Life was a touch more sweet." Most people Rascal's age crave arrested development, but Dizzee already longs for the innocence of childhood. And yet, the boy in da corner's emergence from adolescence isn't the start of a self-imposed purgatory-- life on the dole, or at university-- it's spent cowering, crouching and ready to pounce, and most of all, watching. Little of what he sees is pleasant: a cycle of teenage pregnancy, police brutality, and friends lost to the lure of crime and cash (if they're still alive at all). What's perhaps worse: For all of his concern and meditation, Dizzee himself offers few suggestions and little hope. He can dish bravado with the best emcees, but despite the eloquent boasts, he remains fragile, apprehensive, and consumed by the possibility of failure. "I'll probably be doing this, probably forever" is as convincing a career boast as Dizzee can make. The hesitation and anxiety in that claim could also double as a question: whether Rascal will dabble in hostility forever. On "Brand New Day", he touchingly wonders if estate violence is youthful folly that he and his mates will outgrow. Over a bittersweet melody that sounds like a blend of an Asian music box and a Lali Puna lullaby, Dizzee asks, "When we ain't kids no more/ Will it still be about what it is right now?" For someone with enough of a big-picture grasp to announce that he's "a problem for Antony Blair," there's something tragic and poignant about Rascal wondering aloud if settling scores with organized violence is a mere child's game. Rascal's curiosity about adulthood and responsibility doesn't, however, extend to fatherhood. Although he has girls on his mind, they're approached with suspicion. "Love talks to everyone/ Money talks more," a female emcee insists on "Wot U On"; "Jezebel" laments the cycle of teen pregnancy, blaming a promiscuous girl for bringing other future Jezebels into the estate. And on "Round We Go", a ringing "hey" (borrowed, Just Blaze-style, from The More Fire Crew) echoes the repetition and similitude of a series of loveless romantic entanglements sexlessly listed by Dizzee. Most strikingly, his debut single "I Luv U"-- recorded at the age of 16-- is a he-said/she-said snipe between an unmoved could-be father and a friend of the girl that could be "juiced up." It's a harsh amalgam of atonal bleeps and blips, washes of gabba sound, and low, harsh bass, fitting for the track's ultimately selfish approach to the impending consequences ("Pregnant/ Whatya talkin' about?/ 15?/ She's underage/ That's raw/ And against the law/ Five years or more"). It's among the record's most captivating, visceral moments. It's on "I Luv U" that Rascal's sound most nods to the hollow shell of UK garage's end days, just before the champagne went dry and the world economy's bubble burst. UKG's move from feminized, R&B; club music to breakbeats and emcee bravado created a thrilling light/dark duality into which So Solid Crew stepped, and it seemed as if they'd be the ones to put South London on the international hip-hop map. When the press and record buyers began to ignore UKG in droves in 2001, SSC's strength in numbers (their crew has upwards of 20 members) seemed like an urgent plea for attention. They got it: "21 Seconds" shot to #1 on the UK charts, which secured for the collective a memorable Top of the Pops appearance, during which almost all of their members were crammed onto the BBC studio's bulging stage. Of course, they were aware that the sheer size of their group had benefits as well as limitations: The title "21 Seconds" referred to the maximum amount of time any one member could spend at the mic on any given track. This faceless, monolithic look and sound provided their music with a rare and unique power, but was eventually their undoing as well. With UKG seemingly left in tatters, Rascal and pirate radio cohorts crawled into the wreckage, reconstructing its grimiest bits and blending them with RZA's paranoid minor chords, some off-kilter electro-glitch, the low-rent nihilism of Cash Money and No Limit, and the ghosts of ragga-jungle. Sparse and ugly, Rascal's record is an icy orchestra of scavenger sounds, owing as much to video games and ringtones as it does to anything more overtly musical. The despairing beats make the lyrical push and pull that much more severe: When Dizzee is venomous, they sharpen

Artist: Dizzee Rascal, Album: Boy in Da Corner, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 9.4 Album review: "Hip-hop, one of America's last bastions of regionalism, is threatening to exalt itself out of its local roots. Authenticity issues still insist the genre is tied to the street, but where a hip-hop province used to be as compressed as the South Bronx, it's now as sprawling as the Dirty South. Even during the dichotomy of the pre-Chronic days, when East almost never met West, entire coasts counted as local wards. Ten years later, hip-hop is pop music in America, and its global reach is arguably greater than rock's has ever been. From Missy and Timbaland's tabla to Jay-Z's bhangra beats, The Neptunes' Eastern flavor to dj/Rupture's ragga/Nubian/chart-hop mashups and the Diwali-led rise of Jamaican dancehall, U.S. hip-hop is finally engaged in a two-way dialogue with the rest of the world. On his debut album, Boy in Da Corner, 18 year-old Dizzee Rascal instantly stakes a claim that East London is hip-hop's next great international outpost. East London: Rascal's world is precisely that small, and it returns a sense of rueful perspective to hip-hop lost among the soundtrack tie-ins, Godzilla-aping Bone Crusher videos, and 50 Cent-style mixtape mythmaking. In basic ways, Rascal echoes the wish fulfillment of much of American hip-hop, but he's hardly mimicking their act. Rascal is at ground level, eyes trained on his immediate surroundings. His rhymes, and especially his beats, reflect his area's desperate social, economic and political landscape. Often, this desolation hardens an emcee's psyche (Styles gets high every day to combat his mental strain) or delivery: This summer's post-ecstasy swing toward punishing sounds and pugnacious looks threatens to bleed the personality, humor, and adventure out of hip-hop. But to wunderkind Rascal, the accelerated disintegration of his immediate world pains him-- absolutely wounds him-- and it's the Tupac-esque mix of brio and vulnerability, along with his dexterous cadence and gutter beats, that separates his rhymes from the typical money/cash/hoes triptych. On the opening track, "Sittin' Here", Rascal concludes, "I think I'm getting weak 'cause my thoughts are too strong." Over ambient sounds of sirens and guns, he laments, "It was only yesterday/ Life was a touch more sweet." Most people Rascal's age crave arrested development, but Dizzee already longs for the innocence of childhood. And yet, the boy in da corner's emergence from adolescence isn't the start of a self-imposed purgatory-- life on the dole, or at university-- it's spent cowering, crouching and ready to pounce, and most of all, watching. Little of what he sees is pleasant: a cycle of teenage pregnancy, police brutality, and friends lost to the lure of crime and cash (if they're still alive at all). What's perhaps worse: For all of his concern and meditation, Dizzee himself offers few suggestions and little hope. He can dish bravado with the best emcees, but despite the eloquent boasts, he remains fragile, apprehensive, and consumed by the possibility of failure. "I'll probably be doing this, probably forever" is as convincing a career boast as Dizzee can make. The hesitation and anxiety in that claim could also double as a question: whether Rascal will dabble in hostility forever. On "Brand New Day", he touchingly wonders if estate violence is youthful folly that he and his mates will outgrow. Over a bittersweet melody that sounds like a blend of an Asian music box and a Lali Puna lullaby, Dizzee asks, "When we ain't kids no more/ Will it still be about what it is right now?" For someone with enough of a big-picture grasp to announce that he's "a problem for Antony Blair," there's something tragic and poignant about Rascal wondering aloud if settling scores with organized violence is a mere child's game. Rascal's curiosity about adulthood and responsibility doesn't, however, extend to fatherhood. Although he has girls on his mind, they're approached with suspicion. "Love talks to everyone/ Money talks more," a female emcee insists on "Wot U On"; "Jezebel" laments the cycle of teen pregnancy, blaming a promiscuous girl for bringing other future Jezebels into the estate. And on "Round We Go", a ringing "hey" (borrowed, Just Blaze-style, from The More Fire Crew) echoes the repetition and similitude of a series of loveless romantic entanglements sexlessly listed by Dizzee. Most strikingly, his debut single "I Luv U"-- recorded at the age of 16-- is a he-said/she-said snipe between an unmoved could-be father and a friend of the girl that could be "juiced up." It's a harsh amalgam of atonal bleeps and blips, washes of gabba sound, and low, harsh bass, fitting for the track's ultimately selfish approach to the impending consequences ("Pregnant/ Whatya talkin' about?/ 15?/ She's underage/ That's raw/ And against the law/ Five years or more"). It's among the record's most captivating, visceral moments. It's on "I Luv U" that Rascal's sound most nods to the hollow shell of UK garage's end days, just before the champagne went dry and the world economy's bubble burst. UKG's move from feminized, R&B; club music to breakbeats and emcee bravado created a thrilling light/dark duality into which So Solid Crew stepped, and it seemed as if they'd be the ones to put South London on the international hip-hop map. When the press and record buyers began to ignore UKG in droves in 2001, SSC's strength in numbers (their crew has upwards of 20 members) seemed like an urgent plea for attention. They got it: "21 Seconds" shot to #1 on the UK charts, which secured for the collective a memorable Top of the Pops appearance, during which almost all of their members were crammed onto the BBC studio's bulging stage. Of course, they were aware that the sheer size of their group had benefits as well as limitations: The title "21 Seconds" referred to the maximum amount of time any one member could spend at the mic on any given track. This faceless, monolithic look and sound provided their music with a rare and unique power, but was eventually their undoing as well. With UKG seemingly left in tatters, Rascal and pirate radio cohorts crawled into the wreckage, reconstructing its grimiest bits and blending them with RZA's paranoid minor chords, some off-kilter electro-glitch, the low-rent nihilism of Cash Money and No Limit, and the ghosts of ragga-jungle. Sparse and ugly, Rascal's record is an icy orchestra of scavenger sounds, owing as much to video games and ringtones as it does to anything more overtly musical. The despairing beats make the lyrical push and pull that much more severe: When Dizzee is venomous, they sharpen"

Portal

ION

Metal

Andy O'Connor

“Then I bid you farewell, and I fucking wish the best for you,” said ex-Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo as he concluded his introduction of the Australian death-metal band Portal at the 2014 edition of his Housecore Horror Festival in Austin. It’s not exactly the kind of stage banter likely to get a crowd pumped up for experimental death metal, yet there isn’t much else he could have said to prepare the audience for them. Portal, a nightmarish embodiment of figures that seem barely humanoid, have always been the abstract extension of Australia’s norm-obliterating, sometimes accidentally avant death-metal scene, which includes Sadistik Exekution, Bestial Warlust, and Impetuous Ritual (led by two Portal members, drummer Ignis Fatuus and bassist Omenous Fugue). Their fifth record, ION, dispenses with murk and brings their sound into the sunlight, letting it burn in agony. It is their clearest, and as a result, most terrifying effort. ION is non-linear death metal filtered through a necro black-metal screen, heavy on a high end that brings out every jagged turn of guitarists Horror Illogium and Aphotic Mote, whose playing resembles Morbid Angel’s Trey Azagthoth if he took guitar lessons from DNA’s Arto Lindsay. Turbulence has long been their forte, though now the choppier edges are much more prominent. They swarm and peck with a chaotic logic only they truly understand, not far off from Luc Lemay’s slashing cross-riffing method on Gorguts’ 1998 album Obscura. Since Portal aren’t submerged in bass as much as before (not that it was a detriment to them in the first place), the Curator’s vocals glide through, his whispers even more ominous. Though he’s the star of Portal’s live show, with his outrageous costumes—most recently his “Bride of Cthulu” getup—he serves a more supporting role on their records, a balm for the rest of the band’s spasmodic outbursts. ION also reveals what Portal take from modern classical, particularly repetition and atonality. Horror Illogium creates spirals of squalls. “Crone” takes a trance-inducing black-metal passage and strips any ambient pleasantries from it. “Phreqs” is a master class in tension; in the song’s second half, Horror Illogium’s lead floats behind Aphotic Mote’s escalating rhythm, a vocal-less howling driving it off a steep cliff. There aren’t many death-metal bands with that command of dynamics, and fewer who take them to such bizarre ends as Portal do. Portal are extreme beyond extreme, and they are also genuinely weirder than many of their Australian peers. The exception here is “Spores,” a short, nearly static wall of riff noise that is as close as they get to sounding straightforward. They stay in a consistent mode here, where the rest of ION shudders like a cosmic pinball machine where your brain is the ball. In unconventional metal, it’s often brief moments of familiarity that fuck with you the most. “Spores” makes you think Portal might let up, that they’ll throw in a classic, late-1980s death-metal riff for comfort. But Portal aren’t about reassurance. They are exploring death metal’s possibilities as unconventional and even uncomfortable music. Death metal’s beginnings lay in taking thrash to the next level; in that sense, ION both honors and transcends its origins.

Artist: Portal, Album: ION, Genre: Metal, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "“Then I bid you farewell, and I fucking wish the best for you,” said ex-Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo as he concluded his introduction of the Australian death-metal band Portal at the 2014 edition of his Housecore Horror Festival in Austin. It’s not exactly the kind of stage banter likely to get a crowd pumped up for experimental death metal, yet there isn’t much else he could have said to prepare the audience for them. Portal, a nightmarish embodiment of figures that seem barely humanoid, have always been the abstract extension of Australia’s norm-obliterating, sometimes accidentally avant death-metal scene, which includes Sadistik Exekution, Bestial Warlust, and Impetuous Ritual (led by two Portal members, drummer Ignis Fatuus and bassist Omenous Fugue). Their fifth record, ION, dispenses with murk and brings their sound into the sunlight, letting it burn in agony. It is their clearest, and as a result, most terrifying effort. ION is non-linear death metal filtered through a necro black-metal screen, heavy on a high end that brings out every jagged turn of guitarists Horror Illogium and Aphotic Mote, whose playing resembles Morbid Angel’s Trey Azagthoth if he took guitar lessons from DNA’s Arto Lindsay. Turbulence has long been their forte, though now the choppier edges are much more prominent. They swarm and peck with a chaotic logic only they truly understand, not far off from Luc Lemay’s slashing cross-riffing method on Gorguts’ 1998 album Obscura. Since Portal aren’t submerged in bass as much as before (not that it was a detriment to them in the first place), the Curator’s vocals glide through, his whispers even more ominous. Though he’s the star of Portal’s live show, with his outrageous costumes—most recently his “Bride of Cthulu” getup—he serves a more supporting role on their records, a balm for the rest of the band’s spasmodic outbursts. ION also reveals what Portal take from modern classical, particularly repetition and atonality. Horror Illogium creates spirals of squalls. “Crone” takes a trance-inducing black-metal passage and strips any ambient pleasantries from it. “Phreqs” is a master class in tension; in the song’s second half, Horror Illogium’s lead floats behind Aphotic Mote’s escalating rhythm, a vocal-less howling driving it off a steep cliff. There aren’t many death-metal bands with that command of dynamics, and fewer who take them to such bizarre ends as Portal do. Portal are extreme beyond extreme, and they are also genuinely weirder than many of their Australian peers. The exception here is “Spores,” a short, nearly static wall of riff noise that is as close as they get to sounding straightforward. They stay in a consistent mode here, where the rest of ION shudders like a cosmic pinball machine where your brain is the ball. In unconventional metal, it’s often brief moments of familiarity that fuck with you the most. “Spores” makes you think Portal might let up, that they’ll throw in a classic, late-1980s death-metal riff for comfort. But Portal aren’t about reassurance. They are exploring death metal’s possibilities as unconventional and even uncomfortable music. Death metal’s beginnings lay in taking thrash to the next level; in that sense, ION both honors and transcends its origins."

Jason Anderson, Wolf Colonel

Something/Everything

Electronic,Rock

Eric Carr

Perhaps because of sheer journalistic inertia, or because it's a description of few words and eerie (but superficial) accuracy, Jason Anderson's work is often described as sounding "like Guided by Voices." And yes, for what it's worth, Anderson sounds a little like a sober version of the Captain; Wolf Colonel also tends to cop the lo-res aesthetic of early GBV when they don't have any better ideas (which is often). Unfortunately, they both get panned for not sounding as earthshaking as one of the greatest independent rock acts of all time. It's enough to reduce more beneficent, egalitarian folks to tears. Because, you know, "It's all just indie rock!" as Anderson yelps with a despicably self-referential wink on "Jet Ski Accidents." Apparently, that's supposed to excuse an album's worth of knowingly awkward, slightly offbeat chord progressions, lyrics that practically wet their pants to be described as "quirky", and some of the grainiest bedroom recording that money can't buy. Screw holding Something/Everything up to the GBV measuring stick-- it can barely justify its own tired sound. The market on this brand of noise was cornered by its giants years ago, and to break in, it's going to take something truly special. Without staggering invention, craftsmanship, or anything particularly unique to it at all, Something/Everything is a lot more like a simpleminded retrospective of the "indie sound" and a lot less like an album to jockey for a position with dinner and a movie (and maybe an invitation back to your place). It isn't like this is an aural gum scraping; it's more of a painful duty, and sometimes it's not even that painful. Quality songwriting doesn't necessarily need to break any molds, and Something/Everything can occasionally make its presence felt with even-handed simplicity, as on "Astronaut, Astronaut" or the delightful, shaky cacophony of "Break the News". The synthetic, beat-driven "Citizen's Arrest" bears mention, simply because in context, it sounds genuine and original (the rhythms provoke some comparison to Radiohead's "Idioteque", but even on a bad day, that's a good thing). In fact, the sugary drone of "Citizen's Arrest" is one of the album's finest moments, and there even are some close runners-up. However, once (and only once) does Wolf Colonel really transcend the limitations of this sound, and that "once" comes with "The Sophomore". As one sterling counterpoint to refute anyone who claims there's no possibility of expanding lo-fidelity sound, "The Sophomore" makes a joke of most everything Wolf Colonel has done to date. It positively thunders from the speakers, rising to a towering, epic crescendo of hissing guitar and soaring choruses. It brilliantly illustrates the simultaneous intimacy and fuzzy grandeur that made this sound so classic. Why is the rest of Something/Everything content to remain average with this kind of potential going largely unrealized? The fruits of this stale guitar/drums formula are dubious, as is Anderson's forced lyrical quaintness and his best attempt at Pollard's raspy delivery. Yet, although it houses some enjoyable moments and one brush with greatness, the majority of Something/Everything is simply decent, unremarkable music coupled with god-awful lyrics. To wit: "The moon was up there/ Just hangin' in the sky/ Floating pretty high/ No one quite knows why/ I let out a sigh." Me too, Jason. Me too.

Artist: Jason Anderson, Wolf Colonel, Album: Something/Everything, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.8 Album review: "Perhaps because of sheer journalistic inertia, or because it's a description of few words and eerie (but superficial) accuracy, Jason Anderson's work is often described as sounding "like Guided by Voices." And yes, for what it's worth, Anderson sounds a little like a sober version of the Captain; Wolf Colonel also tends to cop the lo-res aesthetic of early GBV when they don't have any better ideas (which is often). Unfortunately, they both get panned for not sounding as earthshaking as one of the greatest independent rock acts of all time. It's enough to reduce more beneficent, egalitarian folks to tears. Because, you know, "It's all just indie rock!" as Anderson yelps with a despicably self-referential wink on "Jet Ski Accidents." Apparently, that's supposed to excuse an album's worth of knowingly awkward, slightly offbeat chord progressions, lyrics that practically wet their pants to be described as "quirky", and some of the grainiest bedroom recording that money can't buy. Screw holding Something/Everything up to the GBV measuring stick-- it can barely justify its own tired sound. The market on this brand of noise was cornered by its giants years ago, and to break in, it's going to take something truly special. Without staggering invention, craftsmanship, or anything particularly unique to it at all, Something/Everything is a lot more like a simpleminded retrospective of the "indie sound" and a lot less like an album to jockey for a position with dinner and a movie (and maybe an invitation back to your place). It isn't like this is an aural gum scraping; it's more of a painful duty, and sometimes it's not even that painful. Quality songwriting doesn't necessarily need to break any molds, and Something/Everything can occasionally make its presence felt with even-handed simplicity, as on "Astronaut, Astronaut" or the delightful, shaky cacophony of "Break the News". The synthetic, beat-driven "Citizen's Arrest" bears mention, simply because in context, it sounds genuine and original (the rhythms provoke some comparison to Radiohead's "Idioteque", but even on a bad day, that's a good thing). In fact, the sugary drone of "Citizen's Arrest" is one of the album's finest moments, and there even are some close runners-up. However, once (and only once) does Wolf Colonel really transcend the limitations of this sound, and that "once" comes with "The Sophomore". As one sterling counterpoint to refute anyone who claims there's no possibility of expanding lo-fidelity sound, "The Sophomore" makes a joke of most everything Wolf Colonel has done to date. It positively thunders from the speakers, rising to a towering, epic crescendo of hissing guitar and soaring choruses. It brilliantly illustrates the simultaneous intimacy and fuzzy grandeur that made this sound so classic. Why is the rest of Something/Everything content to remain average with this kind of potential going largely unrealized? The fruits of this stale guitar/drums formula are dubious, as is Anderson's forced lyrical quaintness and his best attempt at Pollard's raspy delivery. Yet, although it houses some enjoyable moments and one brush with greatness, the majority of Something/Everything is simply decent, unremarkable music coupled with god-awful lyrics. To wit: "The moon was up there/ Just hangin' in the sky/ Floating pretty high/ No one quite knows why/ I let out a sigh." Me too, Jason. Me too. "

Clipse

Road to Till the Casket Drops

Rap

Tom Breihan

The first skit on the new Clipse mixtape is a genuine-sounding voicemail message from actress Lauren London. "Can you make something for the girls?" she asks. "Like, we so pretty in our Louis Vuitton?" One track later, the brothers Thornton repurpose the airily gorgeous beat from Slim's "So Fly" to snarl nihilistically empty sex-talk: "Not do demean 'em, but that's just how we seen 'em/ Trading bitches off since balling was buying Zimas." As the track ends, Pusha T cackles viciously: "See, sis? We do girl records, right?" Watch what you wish for, I guess. Thing is, once upon a time, Clipse were able to do girl records, or something like them, anyway, in a way that didn't just turn the songs into morbid jokes. With breakout single "Grindin'", Malice and Pusha established the dead-eyed coke-talk they're still running with six years later. But they also made "When the Last Time", one of this century's greatest club jams. On that and a handful of other Lord Willin' tracks-- songs released in 2002, when the duo had something to do with the commercial rap landscape-- Clipse seemed totally genuine talking about how club night was one of the reasons they loved life, and their cold monotones worked just as well on frothy dance-pop tracks as on harshly mechanical tough-guy shit. That was them on Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You", after all. That Clipse is gone now. In the intervening years, they've left rap's mainstream behind completely, becoming internet cult heroes by diligently and eloquently pursuing two basic subjects: selling drugs and the money that comes with it. This has made for some ferociously exciting music, as on long-delayed sophomore album Hell Hath No Fury and the now-classic We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2 mixtape. But they've been hammering away at those two subjects with single-minded focus for years now, and the wear is starting to show. It wouldn't be fair to call Road to Till the Casket Drops, their new mixtape, a disappointment. After all, this is a brisk half-hour of free new music from one of rap's greatest groups. The Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 3 mixtape, released earlier this year, dwelled hard on Fury's disappointing sales and leaned a bit too much on underwhelming original beats. But now they're back on their Vol. 2 shit, hijacking up-to-the-moment rap-radio fodder (featherweight synth-tracks like Ryan Leslie's "Addiction" and Ron Browz's "Pop Champagne", clattering trunk-rattle shit like "Swagger Like Us" and T.I.'s "Swing Ya Rag"). More often than not, they blow away the originals. Re-Up Gang associate Sandman, the weakest link in the extended group, has left, and so now we get an undiluted blast of pure Thornton brothers along with a couple of guest appearances from Re-Up survivor Ab-Liva, whose verse over the "Pop Champagne" beat is a thing of breathless beauty. And Malice and Pusha just have incredible voices, precise and almost technically fussy flows that can drip with contempt like nobody since circa-1999 Jay-Z. So yeah, a new Clipse mixtape is always a good thing, well worth your half-hour and zero dollars. But Road to Till the Casket Drops finds Clipse spinning their wheels a bit. That's understandable; when you've spent years working hard to come up with convoluted cocaine punchlines, it makes sense that the well would be running dry. But every previous Clipse release, official and otherwise, was so jammed with great lines that it could be tough picking out moments to quote. On this one, the best line comes on the first track. Pusha: "It's the hood's Obama, shoveling McCain/ Out the project windows, the drama's insane." Pusha aims a few unwieldy darts at Lil Wayne, which seems a bit pointless; only Wayne is going to end Wayne's hot streak. "Feds Taking Pictures" starts with a long list of shoutouts to specific drug dealers, which isn't all that interesting unless you happen to be one of those drug dealers. Again, I'm mostly just quibbling here. This is a quickie mixtape intended to celebrate the launch of Clipse's new clothing line Play Cloths, which is unfortunately saddled with both one of the worst names and worst logos in rapper-clothing-line history. As a quickie mixtape, it beats the everliving fuck out of virtually all its mixhut competition. A lot of this stuff was probably recorded on a tight schedule, relatively tossed-off. But nothing these guys did used to sound tossed-off. And maybe by the time they release their next album (next year, lord willin'), Clipse should look beyond the corner and make a few tracks that don't revolve around white powder. Like, for instance, maybe some girl songs. Just a thought.

Artist: Clipse, Album: Road to Till the Casket Drops, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "The first skit on the new Clipse mixtape is a genuine-sounding voicemail message from actress Lauren London. "Can you make something for the girls?" she asks. "Like, we so pretty in our Louis Vuitton?" One track later, the brothers Thornton repurpose the airily gorgeous beat from Slim's "So Fly" to snarl nihilistically empty sex-talk: "Not do demean 'em, but that's just how we seen 'em/ Trading bitches off since balling was buying Zimas." As the track ends, Pusha T cackles viciously: "See, sis? We do girl records, right?" Watch what you wish for, I guess. Thing is, once upon a time, Clipse were able to do girl records, or something like them, anyway, in a way that didn't just turn the songs into morbid jokes. With breakout single "Grindin'", Malice and Pusha established the dead-eyed coke-talk they're still running with six years later. But they also made "When the Last Time", one of this century's greatest club jams. On that and a handful of other Lord Willin' tracks-- songs released in 2002, when the duo had something to do with the commercial rap landscape-- Clipse seemed totally genuine talking about how club night was one of the reasons they loved life, and their cold monotones worked just as well on frothy dance-pop tracks as on harshly mechanical tough-guy shit. That was them on Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You", after all. That Clipse is gone now. In the intervening years, they've left rap's mainstream behind completely, becoming internet cult heroes by diligently and eloquently pursuing two basic subjects: selling drugs and the money that comes with it. This has made for some ferociously exciting music, as on long-delayed sophomore album Hell Hath No Fury and the now-classic We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2 mixtape. But they've been hammering away at those two subjects with single-minded focus for years now, and the wear is starting to show. It wouldn't be fair to call Road to Till the Casket Drops, their new mixtape, a disappointment. After all, this is a brisk half-hour of free new music from one of rap's greatest groups. The Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 3 mixtape, released earlier this year, dwelled hard on Fury's disappointing sales and leaned a bit too much on underwhelming original beats. But now they're back on their Vol. 2 shit, hijacking up-to-the-moment rap-radio fodder (featherweight synth-tracks like Ryan Leslie's "Addiction" and Ron Browz's "Pop Champagne", clattering trunk-rattle shit like "Swagger Like Us" and T.I.'s "Swing Ya Rag"). More often than not, they blow away the originals. Re-Up Gang associate Sandman, the weakest link in the extended group, has left, and so now we get an undiluted blast of pure Thornton brothers along with a couple of guest appearances from Re-Up survivor Ab-Liva, whose verse over the "Pop Champagne" beat is a thing of breathless beauty. And Malice and Pusha just have incredible voices, precise and almost technically fussy flows that can drip with contempt like nobody since circa-1999 Jay-Z. So yeah, a new Clipse mixtape is always a good thing, well worth your half-hour and zero dollars. But Road to Till the Casket Drops finds Clipse spinning their wheels a bit. That's understandable; when you've spent years working hard to come up with convoluted cocaine punchlines, it makes sense that the well would be running dry. But every previous Clipse release, official and otherwise, was so jammed with great lines that it could be tough picking out moments to quote. On this one, the best line comes on the first track. Pusha: "It's the hood's Obama, shoveling McCain/ Out the project windows, the drama's insane." Pusha aims a few unwieldy darts at Lil Wayne, which seems a bit pointless; only Wayne is going to end Wayne's hot streak. "Feds Taking Pictures" starts with a long list of shoutouts to specific drug dealers, which isn't all that interesting unless you happen to be one of those drug dealers. Again, I'm mostly just quibbling here. This is a quickie mixtape intended to celebrate the launch of Clipse's new clothing line Play Cloths, which is unfortunately saddled with both one of the worst names and worst logos in rapper-clothing-line history. As a quickie mixtape, it beats the everliving fuck out of virtually all its mixhut competition. A lot of this stuff was probably recorded on a tight schedule, relatively tossed-off. But nothing these guys did used to sound tossed-off. And maybe by the time they release their next album (next year, lord willin'), Clipse should look beyond the corner and make a few tracks that don't revolve around white powder. Like, for instance, maybe some girl songs. Just a thought."

WHY?

Alopecia

Rap

Jason Crock

Eyebrows raised when Why? were chosen to support the Silver Jews on a 2005 tour, but that seemingly incongruous bill made more sense when considering one of Berman's better lines: "All my favorite singers couldn't sing." Likewise on Alopecia, Yoni Wolf doesn't seem to know he isn't a diva on "Simeon's Dilemma", that he isn't a New Pornographer on "Fatalist Palmistry", or that he's not a grizzled battle-rapper on "The Fall of Mr. Fifths", and he won't let any of it get in his way. He's got too much to say to be concerned about it. "Unclassifiable" is usually lazy shorthand for albums featuring both guitars and keyboards. Alopecia is a liquid in the sieve of genre: put it on headphones and it begs to bump; recite lyrics aloud and people will look at you with loathing usually reserved for religious leaflet canvassers and slam poets; try and decode the words in your head and you'll only hear the melodies behind them. As for his lyrics, it's wrong to call them stream-of-consciousness, since that implies Wolf is a poor self-editor; nothing about Alopecia is lazy. It's more like 5 a.m. journal entries cut up and turned to collage. Clearly, every line won't be pure gold, but they all add up to something. Alopecia opens with the chain-gang lurch of "The Vowels Pt. 2", its slow claps and big, watery bass hits rubbing against Wolf's most insistent rap/sing delivery, and the unlikely hook of "Cheery-ay, Cheery-ee..." somehow becoming the record's most ingratiating. Funnily, the first two lines ("I'm not a ladies man, I'm a landmine, filming my own fake death...") reveal most of the record's preoccupation. No matter what he's on about on Alopecia-- although most of the time, he's pretty easy to follow, especially compared to his Anticon brethren-- sex and death are never far from Wolf's mind. The former is pretty evident on "Good Friday", a crisper revisiting of the acoustic plucking-plus-beats of Why?'s earlier work, and an uncomfortable litany of perversions Wolf "wouldn't admit to his head-shrinker" that includes forgetting Elton John lyrics in karaoke. Wolf's voice is (putting it delicately) distinctive, but his monotone murmur here is just one example of his ability to change up his delivery. Not that he needs to-- while Wolf fearlessly splays open his head for all to see its contents, the band is the real star (the core of Yoni, brother Josiah Wolf, Doug McDiarmid, and here fleshed out by Fog's Andrew Broder and bassist Mark Erickson). They're what make "The Hollows" work as both tentative and propulsive guitar-rock under Wolf's paranoia, and make "Palmistry" cheerful and memorable pop under the sobriety of his lyrics. "These Few Presidents" is stiff indie rock, with drum-machines and the polite blurt of an organ, until the bottom drops out and cascades of clattering percussion and yawning low frequencies soundtrack the most sincere Hallmark card ever: "Even though I haven't seen you in years, yours is a funeral I'd fly to from anywhere." "Mr. Fifths" returns to bouncy, rap-minded delivery, with tongue-twisting lines about syphilis and the sound of high heels on marble. But they've got some nerve here, making us wait until the record's last third for its best songs: "A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under" is some strange, sublime triangulation of Steve Reich, deadpan rap swagger, and blustery multi-tracked choruses you could link to Alice in Chains. But trainspotting is beside the point-- the band creates a musical landscape so vivid that every cryptic line doesn't seem inscrutable, but more like puzzles worth unlocking. The stalker's serenade, "Simeon's Dilemma", is creepy, sure, but then Wolf busts out the falsetto like he's a supporting character in a boy band getting his big solo moment-- you can almost hear him pointing at notes on the invisible scale with his hand. Then there's the disorienting and dreamy behind-the-beat thump of "By Torpedo or Crohn's", featuring what I guess you might expect from underground white-guy rap: cryptic lyrics about throwing up behind Whole Foods, the admission that as a kid he "didn't shit his pants much," and hoping for health food in hell. It contrasts with the rest of Alopecia, but even as a portrait of a medium existence, it's still a complicated one, and its most lasting impression after the lulling sing-song of the chorus is pervasive anxiety. It's weird to think that 2008 could be a year of reaffirmation for Anticon, but along with Subtle, they just won't adhere to the boxes we've tried to stuff them into. If there's anything that drags down Alopecia, it's that "Fatalist Palmistry" is the only real sigh of relief on a very sober record (and even that song begins and ends on thoughts of death). Even as it charted a difficult breakup, 2005's Elephant Eyelash had a few more moments of relative sunshine. Here, Wolf's exhaustively catalogued his sins and imperfections as on "Good Friday", and even the stalker in "Simeon's Dilemma" has no release or acknowledgment to look forward to; he braces for the fall, and prepares to "deny, deny, deny." Wolf seems doomed to feel too much here-- to take in everything, and take it all very, very seriously.

Artist: WHY?, Album: Alopecia, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "Eyebrows raised when Why? were chosen to support the Silver Jews on a 2005 tour, but that seemingly incongruous bill made more sense when considering one of Berman's better lines: "All my favorite singers couldn't sing." Likewise on Alopecia, Yoni Wolf doesn't seem to know he isn't a diva on "Simeon's Dilemma", that he isn't a New Pornographer on "Fatalist Palmistry", or that he's not a grizzled battle-rapper on "The Fall of Mr. Fifths", and he won't let any of it get in his way. He's got too much to say to be concerned about it. "Unclassifiable" is usually lazy shorthand for albums featuring both guitars and keyboards. Alopecia is a liquid in the sieve of genre: put it on headphones and it begs to bump; recite lyrics aloud and people will look at you with loathing usually reserved for religious leaflet canvassers and slam poets; try and decode the words in your head and you'll only hear the melodies behind them. As for his lyrics, it's wrong to call them stream-of-consciousness, since that implies Wolf is a poor self-editor; nothing about Alopecia is lazy. It's more like 5 a.m. journal entries cut up and turned to collage. Clearly, every line won't be pure gold, but they all add up to something. Alopecia opens with the chain-gang lurch of "The Vowels Pt. 2", its slow claps and big, watery bass hits rubbing against Wolf's most insistent rap/sing delivery, and the unlikely hook of "Cheery-ay, Cheery-ee..." somehow becoming the record's most ingratiating. Funnily, the first two lines ("I'm not a ladies man, I'm a landmine, filming my own fake death...") reveal most of the record's preoccupation. No matter what he's on about on Alopecia-- although most of the time, he's pretty easy to follow, especially compared to his Anticon brethren-- sex and death are never far from Wolf's mind. The former is pretty evident on "Good Friday", a crisper revisiting of the acoustic plucking-plus-beats of Why?'s earlier work, and an uncomfortable litany of perversions Wolf "wouldn't admit to his head-shrinker" that includes forgetting Elton John lyrics in karaoke. Wolf's voice is (putting it delicately) distinctive, but his monotone murmur here is just one example of his ability to change up his delivery. Not that he needs to-- while Wolf fearlessly splays open his head for all to see its contents, the band is the real star (the core of Yoni, brother Josiah Wolf, Doug McDiarmid, and here fleshed out by Fog's Andrew Broder and bassist Mark Erickson). They're what make "The Hollows" work as both tentative and propulsive guitar-rock under Wolf's paranoia, and make "Palmistry" cheerful and memorable pop under the sobriety of his lyrics. "These Few Presidents" is stiff indie rock, with drum-machines and the polite blurt of an organ, until the bottom drops out and cascades of clattering percussion and yawning low frequencies soundtrack the most sincere Hallmark card ever: "Even though I haven't seen you in years, yours is a funeral I'd fly to from anywhere." "Mr. Fifths" returns to bouncy, rap-minded delivery, with tongue-twisting lines about syphilis and the sound of high heels on marble. But they've got some nerve here, making us wait until the record's last third for its best songs: "A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under" is some strange, sublime triangulation of Steve Reich, deadpan rap swagger, and blustery multi-tracked choruses you could link to Alice in Chains. But trainspotting is beside the point-- the band creates a musical landscape so vivid that every cryptic line doesn't seem inscrutable, but more like puzzles worth unlocking. The stalker's serenade, "Simeon's Dilemma", is creepy, sure, but then Wolf busts out the falsetto like he's a supporting character in a boy band getting his big solo moment-- you can almost hear him pointing at notes on the invisible scale with his hand. Then there's the disorienting and dreamy behind-the-beat thump of "By Torpedo or Crohn's", featuring what I guess you might expect from underground white-guy rap: cryptic lyrics about throwing up behind Whole Foods, the admission that as a kid he "didn't shit his pants much," and hoping for health food in hell. It contrasts with the rest of Alopecia, but even as a portrait of a medium existence, it's still a complicated one, and its most lasting impression after the lulling sing-song of the chorus is pervasive anxiety. It's weird to think that 2008 could be a year of reaffirmation for Anticon, but along with Subtle, they just won't adhere to the boxes we've tried to stuff them into. If there's anything that drags down Alopecia, it's that "Fatalist Palmistry" is the only real sigh of relief on a very sober record (and even that song begins and ends on thoughts of death). Even as it charted a difficult breakup, 2005's Elephant Eyelash had a few more moments of relative sunshine. Here, Wolf's exhaustively catalogued his sins and imperfections as on "Good Friday", and even the stalker in "Simeon's Dilemma" has no release or acknowledgment to look forward to; he braces for the fall, and prepares to "deny, deny, deny." Wolf seems doomed to feel too much here-- to take in everything, and take it all very, very seriously."

Jack Rose

Dr. Ragtime and His Pals

Folk/Country

Sam Sodomsky

The fiery, pastoral steel-string guitar music of Jack Rose first entered the national consciousness in the mid 2000s, as part of a return-to-roots movement sometimes called “New Weird America.” If you were to ask Rose, however, he’d have likely told you there wasn’t much “new” about what he was doing. Rose’s inspiration came largely from pre-war American music: country blues, ragtime, and jazz. But his work never took on the tone of an archivist or academic: his guitar playing always sounded alive and in the moment. In his self-penned liner notes for his sophomore album, Opium Musick, Rose poked fun at himself. Writing under an acronymic pen name and paying homage to the tradition of steel-string albums with satirically self-important liner notes (see John Fahey and Leo Kottke), Rose invented an origin story in which an aged sensae urged him “not to let the ragtime die and to bring it into the 21st century.” Even early in his career, Rose was self-aware in his self-mythologizing, illustrating both a strong sense of humor and a defiant sense of purpose. “A lot of people, when they view old-time music, they view it as gentle or nostalgic, which I don’t get at all,” Rose said around the release of Golden Apples of the Sun, a scene-establishing compilation for the “New Weird”/freak-folk moment, on which he was included among acts like Antony and the Johnsons, Joanna Newsom, and Vashti Bunyan. “It was totally bizarre sounding to me, and messed up,” he added. Throughout his too-short career and across his nine excellent solo albums, the Virginia-born, Philadelphia-based guitarist made a living out of bizarre sounding, messed-up, old-time music. Six of his albums have been reissued on vinyl by the VHF and Three Lobed labels, and they are each eye-opening testaments to his gift. Collecting his earliest recordings as a solo guitarist through some of his final collaborations before his tragic death in 2009 at the age of 39, these records illustrate Rose’s artistic mastery and his influence on the future of the genre. On his 2002 debut, Red Horse, White Mule, the self-taught Rose already harbored an acute awareness of the possibilities of his instrument. In the opening “Red Horse,” he plays with a sprawling musicality and insistent rhythm, thumbing a steady picking pattern that picks up in intensity and speed as the track goes on. By the next song, a cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” he’s using his slide to create an eerie buzz, calling back to his heavy, droning work with the improv group Pelt in the ’90s and forecasting the wilder compositions to come. Red Horse is a distinctive, if nascent, work—the sound an artist falling in love with his instrument and attempting to put all he knows on tape. Even just one album in, Rose had already created a signature sound and style, and there was a ghostly presence lurking throughout. John Fahey’s solo guitar compositions cast a heavy shadow on anyone approaching the steel string guitar in a solo context. But, of all the guitar soli artists to emerge over the last two decades, Jack Rose is the one who followed most closely in Fahey’s footsteps. Like Fahey, Rose’s thoroughly researched and lived-in Americana hinted at a deep understanding of the nation’s history. Even his more psychedelic moments unfolded with a penchant for stark realism. His music was beautiful and familiar, without ever feeling predictable or cliched. The sonic similarities between the two guitarists can be effectively boiled down to a melodic sensibility that Glenn Jones called, in the excellent live DVD The Things That We Used to Do, a “resolutely anti-sentimental approach” (Rose puts it more bluntly: he doesn’t play any “pussy chords”). Rose’s music was a distinct turn away from the acoustic guitar’s more romantic qualities. It makes sense that he was ideologically opposed to the New Age-leaning acts like William Ackerman on the Windham Hill label and the more melodic recordings of Kottke. As he developed as a guitarist, Rose would carve out his own niche. If Red Horse illustrated the myriad possibilities of his instrument, then its follow-up, Opium Musick, was a more intricate portrait of the artist behind the music. In the time between Red Horse and Opium Musick, Rose’s obsession with ragtime intensified, lending him a brighter and more dynamic picking style. The album also marks the moment when Rose’s interest in Indian sitar music and ragas blossomed, particularly with on the opening “Yaman Blues,” which features tanpura played by Pelt’s Mike Gangloff. “Linden Avenue Stomp” is another collaborative track, this time with Glenn Jones. Aside from becoming one of many new folk standards in Rose’s catalog, it is also the most Fahey-influenced track on the album, not to mention, one named for the house where Fahey cut most of his records (The title, however, marks another apocryphal moment in folk music: the street was actually called Linhurst Ave, but the duo thought “Linden” sounded more poetic). Raag Manifestos from 2004 was an even more ambitious collection than its predecessor, a diverse and comprehensive record that transcends its odds-and-ends structure. Originally released as a tour-only CD-R, compiling material from various singles and compilations, Manifestos is a sprawling work that feels like a summary of Rose’s discography to that point. Across its seven tracks, Rose plays both steel and 12-string guitar with a newfound confidence, from the intense, lo-fi rumblings of “Hart Crane’s Old Boyfriends” and “Black Pearls From the River” (a composition also recorded by Pelt) to the quiet, bucolic fingerpicking in “Road.” Manifestos was a breakthrough for Rose, but it was also the jumping-off point that led to his greatest work. The following year saw the release of Kensington Blues, an album that remains Rose’s most essential release and the one that defines his career to this day (although it is not included in either of these reissues). Rose himself referred to Kensington as a “really hard record to live up to,” while also speaking of the pleasure he took in hearing other guitarists cover its songs, hinting at the communal drive that fueled Rose’s later recordings. Jack Rose, the 2006 follow-up to Kensington Blues, marks another attempt on his part to make a deeper connection. Its songs are shorter and more melodic. Tracks like “St. Louis Blues” and “Miss May’s Place” are sprightly and sweet, even catchy, and the album’s most sprawling composition, the stunning “Spirits in the House,” is less meandering than Rose’s previous epics. “When

Artist: Jack Rose, Album: Dr. Ragtime and His Pals, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "The fiery, pastoral steel-string guitar music of Jack Rose first entered the national consciousness in the mid 2000s, as part of a return-to-roots movement sometimes called “New Weird America.” If you were to ask Rose, however, he’d have likely told you there wasn’t much “new” about what he was doing. Rose’s inspiration came largely from pre-war American music: country blues, ragtime, and jazz. But his work never took on the tone of an archivist or academic: his guitar playing always sounded alive and in the moment. In his self-penned liner notes for his sophomore album, Opium Musick, Rose poked fun at himself. Writing under an acronymic pen name and paying homage to the tradition of steel-string albums with satirically self-important liner notes (see John Fahey and Leo Kottke), Rose invented an origin story in which an aged sensae urged him “not to let the ragtime die and to bring it into the 21st century.” Even early in his career, Rose was self-aware in his self-mythologizing, illustrating both a strong sense of humor and a defiant sense of purpose. “A lot of people, when they view old-time music, they view it as gentle or nostalgic, which I don’t get at all,” Rose said around the release of Golden Apples of the Sun, a scene-establishing compilation for the “New Weird”/freak-folk moment, on which he was included among acts like Antony and the Johnsons, Joanna Newsom, and Vashti Bunyan. “It was totally bizarre sounding to me, and messed up,” he added. Throughout his too-short career and across his nine excellent solo albums, the Virginia-born, Philadelphia-based guitarist made a living out of bizarre sounding, messed-up, old-time music. Six of his albums have been reissued on vinyl by the VHF and Three Lobed labels, and they are each eye-opening testaments to his gift. Collecting his earliest recordings as a solo guitarist through some of his final collaborations before his tragic death in 2009 at the age of 39, these records illustrate Rose’s artistic mastery and his influence on the future of the genre. On his 2002 debut, Red Horse, White Mule, the self-taught Rose already harbored an acute awareness of the possibilities of his instrument. In the opening “Red Horse,” he plays with a sprawling musicality and insistent rhythm, thumbing a steady picking pattern that picks up in intensity and speed as the track goes on. By the next song, a cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” he’s using his slide to create an eerie buzz, calling back to his heavy, droning work with the improv group Pelt in the ’90s and forecasting the wilder compositions to come. Red Horse is a distinctive, if nascent, work—the sound an artist falling in love with his instrument and attempting to put all he knows on tape. Even just one album in, Rose had already created a signature sound and style, and there was a ghostly presence lurking throughout. John Fahey’s solo guitar compositions cast a heavy shadow on anyone approaching the steel string guitar in a solo context. But, of all the guitar soli artists to emerge over the last two decades, Jack Rose is the one who followed most closely in Fahey’s footsteps. Like Fahey, Rose’s thoroughly researched and lived-in Americana hinted at a deep understanding of the nation’s history. Even his more psychedelic moments unfolded with a penchant for stark realism. His music was beautiful and familiar, without ever feeling predictable or cliched. The sonic similarities between the two guitarists can be effectively boiled down to a melodic sensibility that Glenn Jones called, in the excellent live DVD The Things That We Used to Do, a “resolutely anti-sentimental approach” (Rose puts it more bluntly: he doesn’t play any “pussy chords”). Rose’s music was a distinct turn away from the acoustic guitar’s more romantic qualities. It makes sense that he was ideologically opposed to the New Age-leaning acts like William Ackerman on the Windham Hill label and the more melodic recordings of Kottke. As he developed as a guitarist, Rose would carve out his own niche. If Red Horse illustrated the myriad possibilities of his instrument, then its follow-up, Opium Musick, was a more intricate portrait of the artist behind the music. In the time between Red Horse and Opium Musick, Rose’s obsession with ragtime intensified, lending him a brighter and more dynamic picking style. The album also marks the moment when Rose’s interest in Indian sitar music and ragas blossomed, particularly with on the opening “Yaman Blues,” which features tanpura played by Pelt’s Mike Gangloff. “Linden Avenue Stomp” is another collaborative track, this time with Glenn Jones. Aside from becoming one of many new folk standards in Rose’s catalog, it is also the most Fahey-influenced track on the album, not to mention, one named for the house where Fahey cut most of his records (The title, however, marks another apocryphal moment in folk music: the street was actually called Linhurst Ave, but the duo thought “Linden” sounded more poetic). Raag Manifestos from 2004 was an even more ambitious collection than its predecessor, a diverse and comprehensive record that transcends its odds-and-ends structure. Originally released as a tour-only CD-R, compiling material from various singles and compilations, Manifestos is a sprawling work that feels like a summary of Rose’s discography to that point. Across its seven tracks, Rose plays both steel and 12-string guitar with a newfound confidence, from the intense, lo-fi rumblings of “Hart Crane’s Old Boyfriends” and “Black Pearls From the River” (a composition also recorded by Pelt) to the quiet, bucolic fingerpicking in “Road.” Manifestos was a breakthrough for Rose, but it was also the jumping-off point that led to his greatest work. The following year saw the release of Kensington Blues, an album that remains Rose’s most essential release and the one that defines his career to this day (although it is not included in either of these reissues). Rose himself referred to Kensington as a “really hard record to live up to,” while also speaking of the pleasure he took in hearing other guitarists cover its songs, hinting at the communal drive that fueled Rose’s later recordings. Jack Rose, the 2006 follow-up to Kensington Blues, marks another attempt on his part to make a deeper connection. Its songs are shorter and more melodic. Tracks like “St. Louis Blues” and “Miss May’s Place” are sprightly and sweet, even catchy, and the album’s most sprawling composition, the stunning “Spirits in the House,” is less meandering than Rose’s previous epics. “When"

Mr. Fingers

Cerebral Hemispheres

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

Despite the visceral punch of the Chicago house innovator Larry Heard’s earliest hits—“Washing Machine,” from 1986, churned with grueling acid squelch; the following year’s cymbal-battering “Slam Dance” came down like a hailstorm—it’s his conflicting impulses that made him an icon. His two biggest tunes, “Can You Feel It” and “Mystery of Love,” both released under his Mr. Fingers alias, balanced percussive force with a newfound softness, drawing up the blueprint for deep house in the process. But that same reluctance to settle into a single lane probably kept him sidelined in a genre that can be notoriously risk-averse. Boasting a glistening finish and bearing titles like “Dolphin Dream,” 1994’s freeform Sceneries Not Songs, Volume 1 came closer to new age, while 1995’s Sceneries Not Songs, Volume Tu suffused hip-hop and house beats in crystals and incense. The following year, Alien grafted jazzy R&B onto cosmic synths, suggesting a lab-grown hybrid hatched way out in interstellar space. Heard has periodically returned to remind clubbers that he is a force to be reckoned with; his 2006 single “The Sun Can’t Compare” has attained latter-day classic status. Now, with Cerebral Hemispheres, the first Mr. Fingers album in almost 25 years, he attempts to sum up the full range of his interests and talents. His last Mr. Fingers release, 2016’s Outer Acid EP, picked up Alien’s interstellar signals and translated them back into the language of the dancefloor, and part of the new album continues that project. In fact, all four of the EP’s tracks are reprised here, scattered across the album: The gurgling standout “Outer Acid” finds its mate in the steely minimal techno of “Inner Acid”; the ruminative drum circle “Nodyahed” has a new percussive counterpart in the title track, a similarly hypnotic array of drums, synths, and breathy accents. But the operating metaphor this time is not space but the brain, whose opposing halves preside over Cerebral Hemispheres’ dual nature. Counterbalancing his techno leanings, a good portion of the album is given over to R&B’s silkiest trappings: jazz brushes, saxophone solos, dimmer-switch synths. In a recent Billboard interview, Heard recalled a proposed Sade collaboration that never came to pass, and there are hints of what that might have sounded like in the quiet-storm detailing that shades the album’s first half. A slow-burning blues guitar solo colors “City Streets,” a mid-tempo house instrumental; “A Day in Portugal” drizzles honeyed pads over a bossa-nova beat; the horn leading “Sands of Aruba” wouldn’t have sounded at all out of place on Diamond Life. Given that the last Mr. Fingers full-length, Back to Love, came out in the second year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, it’s understandable if Heard wants to make up for lost time, but the album probably doesn’t need to be 100 minutes long. Its length might have worked better if he had more neatly divided its 18 tracks into a right-brain and left-brain side, rather than breaking up its flow by zigzagging between satin-finish soul and misted minimal house. But the few surprises scattered along the way that make its unpredictable course feel worthwhile. In “Tiger Lounge,” jazz guitar, sitar, and dub swirl together over indistinct background noise; whether a live recording or a simulacrum of one, it suggests a space that’s not quite of this world. Then, just past the album’s midpoint, “Electron” fires up the fattest-sounding synth in Heard’s arsenal and sets its course for the heart of the Arpeggio Nebula, following in the path of cosmonauts like Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese. Set to a skeletal beat, it’s the simplest song on the album, and the perfect distillation of his expressive sensibilities.

Artist: Mr. Fingers, Album: Cerebral Hemispheres, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "Despite the visceral punch of the Chicago house innovator Larry Heard’s earliest hits—“Washing Machine,” from 1986, churned with grueling acid squelch; the following year’s cymbal-battering “Slam Dance” came down like a hailstorm—it’s his conflicting impulses that made him an icon. His two biggest tunes, “Can You Feel It” and “Mystery of Love,” both released under his Mr. Fingers alias, balanced percussive force with a newfound softness, drawing up the blueprint for deep house in the process. But that same reluctance to settle into a single lane probably kept him sidelined in a genre that can be notoriously risk-averse. Boasting a glistening finish and bearing titles like “Dolphin Dream,” 1994’s freeform Sceneries Not Songs, Volume 1 came closer to new age, while 1995’s Sceneries Not Songs, Volume Tu suffused hip-hop and house beats in crystals and incense. The following year, Alien grafted jazzy R&B onto cosmic synths, suggesting a lab-grown hybrid hatched way out in interstellar space. Heard has periodically returned to remind clubbers that he is a force to be reckoned with; his 2006 single “The Sun Can’t Compare” has attained latter-day classic status. Now, with Cerebral Hemispheres, the first Mr. Fingers album in almost 25 years, he attempts to sum up the full range of his interests and talents. His last Mr. Fingers release, 2016’s Outer Acid EP, picked up Alien’s interstellar signals and translated them back into the language of the dancefloor, and part of the new album continues that project. In fact, all four of the EP’s tracks are reprised here, scattered across the album: The gurgling standout “Outer Acid” finds its mate in the steely minimal techno of “Inner Acid”; the ruminative drum circle “Nodyahed” has a new percussive counterpart in the title track, a similarly hypnotic array of drums, synths, and breathy accents. But the operating metaphor this time is not space but the brain, whose opposing halves preside over Cerebral Hemispheres’ dual nature. Counterbalancing his techno leanings, a good portion of the album is given over to R&B’s silkiest trappings: jazz brushes, saxophone solos, dimmer-switch synths. In a recent Billboard interview, Heard recalled a proposed Sade collaboration that never came to pass, and there are hints of what that might have sounded like in the quiet-storm detailing that shades the album’s first half. A slow-burning blues guitar solo colors “City Streets,” a mid-tempo house instrumental; “A Day in Portugal” drizzles honeyed pads over a bossa-nova beat; the horn leading “Sands of Aruba” wouldn’t have sounded at all out of place on Diamond Life. Given that the last Mr. Fingers full-length, Back to Love, came out in the second year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, it’s understandable if Heard wants to make up for lost time, but the album probably doesn’t need to be 100 minutes long. Its length might have worked better if he had more neatly divided its 18 tracks into a right-brain and left-brain side, rather than breaking up its flow by zigzagging between satin-finish soul and misted minimal house. But the few surprises scattered along the way that make its unpredictable course feel worthwhile. In “Tiger Lounge,” jazz guitar, sitar, and dub swirl together over indistinct background noise; whether a live recording or a simulacrum of one, it suggests a space that’s not quite of this world. Then, just past the album’s midpoint, “Electron” fires up the fattest-sounding synth in Heard’s arsenal and sets its course for the heart of the Arpeggio Nebula, following in the path of cosmonauts like Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese. Set to a skeletal beat, it’s the simplest song on the album, and the perfect distillation of his expressive sensibilities."

Christina Carter

Electrice

Experimental,Rock

Matthew Murphy

Christina Carter has been so prolific over her 15-plus year career-- both as a member of Charalambides and with her various solo ventures-- that it might seem like the law of averages should dictate that she is overdue for an outright misfire. Yet with her latest solo release Electrice, Carter has once again bucked the odds, displaying anew her uncommon ability to slip almost invisibly between the spheres of the subconscious and the waking world. As with much of her work, Electrice is a study in quiet contrasts-- born of improvisation, but carefully edited and sculpted at the mixing board with layered vocal overdubs and time-stretching sonic effects. Recorded and mixed by Carter herself in Northampton, Mass., the album's four extended drones each share a profound sense of dislocation and existential yearning, as though these ethereal songs were constructed in full knowledge of their own fragility and impermanence. Carter's music has always been marked by certain simplicity of form, and on Electrice she has further refined that simplicity by recording all these songs in the same key and using the same guitar tuning. Even with these self-imposed restrictions, however, her music sounds nothing like the product of a closed system. Unlike the more folk-based improvisations that appeared on her previous Kranky solo collection Living Contact, Carter here makes fuller use of her electric guitar's resonant frequencies, allowing her piano-like chords to linger and fold back upon themselves until they shape a fabric of elongated, overlapping drones. Against this hushed backdrop Carter's multi-tracked voice acquires an open-ended shimmer-- her often-wordless vocals so intertwined with her abstract guitar figures that at points it becomes difficult to gauge which is which. "My language will not die/ A second death/ It is gone," sings Carter on the transfixing opener "Second Death", perhaps as a means of giving voice to the ephemeral nature of the improviser's art. Soon enough her words do indeed fall away, her song slowly dissolving into a circular eddy of chiming guitar overtones and spectral wailing. Without losing their patient stride, her repeating chords then segue naturally into the following "Moving Intercepted". On this track the album's climate of dispossession takes a metaphysical turn, with Carter appearing to address an audience of unseen spirits as she asks, "Will I be moving? Will I be undone? Do you think the body is a comfort?" with expectant fervor. Conversely, the lyrics of "Yellow Pine" are stripped of all forward action, as Carter instead turns inward to offer what resembles a Gertrude Stein rhythmic tone poem. Underscored by flickering, unidentifiable drones, the piece appears shadowed by a dark, almost impassable stillness. "Yellow dress/ All the time/ Yellow pine/ No pines," Carter sings in an otherworldly, trancelike whisper, as though spontaneously delivering the words as they are revealed to her, the objects of the lyrics seemingly as mysterious to herself as they are to the listener. This sense of channeling is further confirmed by album closer "Words Are Not My Own", which finds Carter offering her individual song back to universal wellspring from which it came, asking the listener, "Are your words my words?" It's another eerie, captivating performance from an artist whose career is studded with such memorable séances. And as long as she's to retain such ready access to this fertile spiritual realm, perhaps Carter will prove able to postpone that mid-career slump indefinitely.

Artist: Christina Carter, Album: Electrice, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "Christina Carter has been so prolific over her 15-plus year career-- both as a member of Charalambides and with her various solo ventures-- that it might seem like the law of averages should dictate that she is overdue for an outright misfire. Yet with her latest solo release Electrice, Carter has once again bucked the odds, displaying anew her uncommon ability to slip almost invisibly between the spheres of the subconscious and the waking world. As with much of her work, Electrice is a study in quiet contrasts-- born of improvisation, but carefully edited and sculpted at the mixing board with layered vocal overdubs and time-stretching sonic effects. Recorded and mixed by Carter herself in Northampton, Mass., the album's four extended drones each share a profound sense of dislocation and existential yearning, as though these ethereal songs were constructed in full knowledge of their own fragility and impermanence. Carter's music has always been marked by certain simplicity of form, and on Electrice she has further refined that simplicity by recording all these songs in the same key and using the same guitar tuning. Even with these self-imposed restrictions, however, her music sounds nothing like the product of a closed system. Unlike the more folk-based improvisations that appeared on her previous Kranky solo collection Living Contact, Carter here makes fuller use of her electric guitar's resonant frequencies, allowing her piano-like chords to linger and fold back upon themselves until they shape a fabric of elongated, overlapping drones. Against this hushed backdrop Carter's multi-tracked voice acquires an open-ended shimmer-- her often-wordless vocals so intertwined with her abstract guitar figures that at points it becomes difficult to gauge which is which. "My language will not die/ A second death/ It is gone," sings Carter on the transfixing opener "Second Death", perhaps as a means of giving voice to the ephemeral nature of the improviser's art. Soon enough her words do indeed fall away, her song slowly dissolving into a circular eddy of chiming guitar overtones and spectral wailing. Without losing their patient stride, her repeating chords then segue naturally into the following "Moving Intercepted". On this track the album's climate of dispossession takes a metaphysical turn, with Carter appearing to address an audience of unseen spirits as she asks, "Will I be moving? Will I be undone? Do you think the body is a comfort?" with expectant fervor. Conversely, the lyrics of "Yellow Pine" are stripped of all forward action, as Carter instead turns inward to offer what resembles a Gertrude Stein rhythmic tone poem. Underscored by flickering, unidentifiable drones, the piece appears shadowed by a dark, almost impassable stillness. "Yellow dress/ All the time/ Yellow pine/ No pines," Carter sings in an otherworldly, trancelike whisper, as though spontaneously delivering the words as they are revealed to her, the objects of the lyrics seemingly as mysterious to herself as they are to the listener. This sense of channeling is further confirmed by album closer "Words Are Not My Own", which finds Carter offering her individual song back to universal wellspring from which it came, asking the listener, "Are your words my words?" It's another eerie, captivating performance from an artist whose career is studded with such memorable séances. And as long as she's to retain such ready access to this fertile spiritual realm, perhaps Carter will prove able to postpone that mid-career slump indefinitely."

Damien Jurado

Caught in the Trees

Rock

Matthew Solarski

When Damien Jurado flashed his new wedding ring during a show in Chicago this past fall, a chorus of "awwww"s seeped from the crowd predictably. One has to wonder, however, if there weren't a few seasoned fans in that audience whose "awwww"s were underscored by "uh-oh"s. The songwriter settling down here is, after all, one of the better chroniclers of heartbreak, betrayal, and the other side of love working at the moment. And while no decent person could wish misery on another just for the sake of song, we've nevertheless seen plenty of talents derailed by rehab, children, and holy matrimony. But let's not get carried away: What we do know is something-- maybe marriage, maybe a general restlessness, maybe straight-up serendipity-- woke Jurado up after 2006's stately and sometimes sleepy Now That I'm in Your Shadow. The result, 2008 opus Caught in the Trees, features a rock solid outing from backing bandmates Jenna Conrad and Eric Fisher supporting some of Jurado's best songwriting to date-- not to mention his most rousing musical offerings since I Break Chairs, all congealing in a manner one can't help but call effortless. Opener "Gillian Was a Horse" sets the bar high, thanks to crisp drumming and the clockwork crunch of a maraca. "Trials" and "Caskets" are similarly propulsive, carried along by confident strums and a viscous bassline, respectively. Elsewhere, "Last Rights" sails along a bed of strings. Gone are the pregnant silences that punctuated Shadow, and with them the hesitant tempos of hopelessness. Caught in the Trees, quite simply, is too busy moving along to get too caught up in anything. Which isn't to say Jurado's usual complexities aren't here; if he has ever written an unequivocally contented song, I've yet to hear it. Indeed, a good half of the numbers on Caught in the Trees deal directly with a favorite theme of Jurado's: the fallout from infidelity, manifest most often here in repeated references to lies, liars, lying, specters of jealous husbands, and "bullshit talkers." Yet there's a sense of progress too, of looming reconciliation or at the very least the intention to work things through rather than dwell on them. "Dimes" begins with Jurado resolving to call a lover's husband, and ends by asking "What happens now, when it all goes down?" Later, "Sheets" seems to take that husband's perspective, with the lover cast as "a wounded bird needing a nest." By "Best Dress", someone-- could be the lover, could be the husband-- sounds prepared the claim the embattled woman as his own once and for all. Still, the most satisfying moments on Trees are those that find Jurado and his band embracing their pop sensibilities: "Gillian" is a thing of wondrous songwriting efficacy, its verses all snapping snugly into place like so many Lego blocks. Album high point "Go First" triumphs as both the record's most dynamic and anthemic track, and like "Gillian", also makes the most concessions to standard verse-chorus structure. Trees' latter half culminates with "Paper Kite", which conveys a drama and a desolation that go beyond Jurado's words thanks to atmospheric production flourishes. These three tracks in particular feel the most removed from Shadow, and, we might speculate, the most indicative of what our groom may have in store post-honeymoon. If that is so, then by all means: till death do them part.

Artist: Damien Jurado, Album: Caught in the Trees, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "When Damien Jurado flashed his new wedding ring during a show in Chicago this past fall, a chorus of "awwww"s seeped from the crowd predictably. One has to wonder, however, if there weren't a few seasoned fans in that audience whose "awwww"s were underscored by "uh-oh"s. The songwriter settling down here is, after all, one of the better chroniclers of heartbreak, betrayal, and the other side of love working at the moment. And while no decent person could wish misery on another just for the sake of song, we've nevertheless seen plenty of talents derailed by rehab, children, and holy matrimony. But let's not get carried away: What we do know is something-- maybe marriage, maybe a general restlessness, maybe straight-up serendipity-- woke Jurado up after 2006's stately and sometimes sleepy Now That I'm in Your Shadow. The result, 2008 opus Caught in the Trees, features a rock solid outing from backing bandmates Jenna Conrad and Eric Fisher supporting some of Jurado's best songwriting to date-- not to mention his most rousing musical offerings since I Break Chairs, all congealing in a manner one can't help but call effortless. Opener "Gillian Was a Horse" sets the bar high, thanks to crisp drumming and the clockwork crunch of a maraca. "Trials" and "Caskets" are similarly propulsive, carried along by confident strums and a viscous bassline, respectively. Elsewhere, "Last Rights" sails along a bed of strings. Gone are the pregnant silences that punctuated Shadow, and with them the hesitant tempos of hopelessness. Caught in the Trees, quite simply, is too busy moving along to get too caught up in anything. Which isn't to say Jurado's usual complexities aren't here; if he has ever written an unequivocally contented song, I've yet to hear it. Indeed, a good half of the numbers on Caught in the Trees deal directly with a favorite theme of Jurado's: the fallout from infidelity, manifest most often here in repeated references to lies, liars, lying, specters of jealous husbands, and "bullshit talkers." Yet there's a sense of progress too, of looming reconciliation or at the very least the intention to work things through rather than dwell on them. "Dimes" begins with Jurado resolving to call a lover's husband, and ends by asking "What happens now, when it all goes down?" Later, "Sheets" seems to take that husband's perspective, with the lover cast as "a wounded bird needing a nest." By "Best Dress", someone-- could be the lover, could be the husband-- sounds prepared the claim the embattled woman as his own once and for all. Still, the most satisfying moments on Trees are those that find Jurado and his band embracing their pop sensibilities: "Gillian" is a thing of wondrous songwriting efficacy, its verses all snapping snugly into place like so many Lego blocks. Album high point "Go First" triumphs as both the record's most dynamic and anthemic track, and like "Gillian", also makes the most concessions to standard verse-chorus structure. Trees' latter half culminates with "Paper Kite", which conveys a drama and a desolation that go beyond Jurado's words thanks to atmospheric production flourishes. These three tracks in particular feel the most removed from Shadow, and, we might speculate, the most indicative of what our groom may have in store post-honeymoon. If that is so, then by all means: till death do them part."

SZA

Z

Pop/R&B

Jordan Sargent

When thinking back on the early careers of Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, and Ab-Soul—the household names on the label Top Dawg Entertainment—one element that sticks out is how easy it was to understand each rapper's point of view: Kendrick as the slick-talking, perceptive narrator with a fixation on the Reagan era of the 1980s, Schoolboy as the cocky street-hustler who turns gangsta rap on its head, Ab-Soul as the paranoid hippie. With recent signee Isaiah Rashad, the label has kept it up, presenting an assured artist in the lineage of the South's great thinking-man's MCs. But the ability, or perhaps desire, to be understood immediately eludes TDE's newest artist SZA, the first woman and R&B singer to sign to the label. Her debut album Z plays out like a fractured memory you struggle to piece together fully: there are shards of clarity, but only that. Of course, not every album needs to be completely digestible, but Z is not the sort of mysteriously seductive record that reveals itself over time. Instead, it has walls that are tough, if not impossible, to punch through, making for an unnecessarily frustrating listen that too often feels guarded. It is clear that SZA knows precisely what she wants her music to sound like: Z is essentially a chillwave album, every song resting softly on a bed of gauzy keyboard tones as muffled guitar figures and teetering drum patterns float by like dust in the sunlight. The results sound less weird than that description implies, since plenty of current R&B music folds back towards the same slumbering fog that defined chillwave. But very little chillwave featured female vocals—unless you include Beach House (previously sampled by Lamar, natch), spiritual ancestors of SZA whose DNA also courses through Z. A female R&B singer's version of a chillwave album could be both novel and contemporary if executed well, but Z is deeply flawed. Z's biggest problem is that, despite choosing a sound that is soft and somnolent, SZA is too often overpowered by the music. The album is a glimmering swirl, but her voice gets lost. In a literal sense, it can be hard to hear her: on tracks like "Warm Winds", "Shattered Ring", and "Omega", her vocals are as ethereal as the beat, as entire songs dissipate into a mist. It's also impossible to get a sense for who she is. What is SZA going through? What has she been through? Unfortunately, Z does not reveal the answers to these questions, cutting against both the nature of her label and R&B as a genre. The album opens up when SZA does, but that happens only in slices: the offhand aside of "Your skin tastes like brussels sprouts, I swear" on "Ur", the muttered plea of "Do you want to know me?" on the soulful "Child's Play", or the bracing humor of "Bumping that Jadakiss is dangerous for your sanity" on "Shattered Ring." "HiiiJack," produced by Toro y Moi, is the only time the album blossoms into a real, affecting chorus: "Sometimes I keep you in my mind/ Sometimes I let you go up high/ I'm using everything I find/ Do anything to keep you tied up." Here, SZA comes from an identifiable, relatable place, making a strong—and maybe even irrational—statement of devotion. With a beat that is both off-kilter and soothing and a chorus that floats away slowly like an ascendant balloon, it's a song so good that more like it could have pried Z all the way open. But that power rests solely with SZA, and hopefully she'll harness it on whatever comes next.

Artist: SZA, Album: Z, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 5.9 Album review: "When thinking back on the early careers of Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, and Ab-Soul—the household names on the label Top Dawg Entertainment—one element that sticks out is how easy it was to understand each rapper's point of view: Kendrick as the slick-talking, perceptive narrator with a fixation on the Reagan era of the 1980s, Schoolboy as the cocky street-hustler who turns gangsta rap on its head, Ab-Soul as the paranoid hippie. With recent signee Isaiah Rashad, the label has kept it up, presenting an assured artist in the lineage of the South's great thinking-man's MCs. But the ability, or perhaps desire, to be understood immediately eludes TDE's newest artist SZA, the first woman and R&B singer to sign to the label. Her debut album Z plays out like a fractured memory you struggle to piece together fully: there are shards of clarity, but only that. Of course, not every album needs to be completely digestible, but Z is not the sort of mysteriously seductive record that reveals itself over time. Instead, it has walls that are tough, if not impossible, to punch through, making for an unnecessarily frustrating listen that too often feels guarded. It is clear that SZA knows precisely what she wants her music to sound like: Z is essentially a chillwave album, every song resting softly on a bed of gauzy keyboard tones as muffled guitar figures and teetering drum patterns float by like dust in the sunlight. The results sound less weird than that description implies, since plenty of current R&B music folds back towards the same slumbering fog that defined chillwave. But very little chillwave featured female vocals—unless you include Beach House (previously sampled by Lamar, natch), spiritual ancestors of SZA whose DNA also courses through Z. A female R&B singer's version of a chillwave album could be both novel and contemporary if executed well, but Z is deeply flawed. Z's biggest problem is that, despite choosing a sound that is soft and somnolent, SZA is too often overpowered by the music. The album is a glimmering swirl, but her voice gets lost. In a literal sense, it can be hard to hear her: on tracks like "Warm Winds", "Shattered Ring", and "Omega", her vocals are as ethereal as the beat, as entire songs dissipate into a mist. It's also impossible to get a sense for who she is. What is SZA going through? What has she been through? Unfortunately, Z does not reveal the answers to these questions, cutting against both the nature of her label and R&B as a genre. The album opens up when SZA does, but that happens only in slices: the offhand aside of "Your skin tastes like brussels sprouts, I swear" on "Ur", the muttered plea of "Do you want to know me?" on the soulful "Child's Play", or the bracing humor of "Bumping that Jadakiss is dangerous for your sanity" on "Shattered Ring." "HiiiJack," produced by Toro y Moi, is the only time the album blossoms into a real, affecting chorus: "Sometimes I keep you in my mind/ Sometimes I let you go up high/ I'm using everything I find/ Do anything to keep you tied up." Here, SZA comes from an identifiable, relatable place, making a strong—and maybe even irrational—statement of devotion. With a beat that is both off-kilter and soothing and a chorus that floats away slowly like an ascendant balloon, it's a song so good that more like it could have pried Z all the way open. But that power rests solely with SZA, and hopefully she'll harness it on whatever comes next."

Quasi

Early Recordings

Experimental,Rock

Matt LeMay

Quasi has never been the kind of band to give it to you straight. The very notion of the group-- a divorced couple playing pessimistic, oft-guitarless pop music-- elicits furrowed eyebrows from the uninitiated. In the case of those who've heard the scathing rumors as to the nature of the breakup between Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, those furrowed eyebrows are often accompanied by agape jaws. Given the rather twisted nature of the band's history, it seems kind of disappointing that Early Recordings, 19 tracks culled from tapes recorded by Sam and Janet in 1995, is pretty much entirely what you'd expect it to be. That is, Early Recordings sounds like Quasi... but earlier. One criticism that has been leveled against Featuring "Birds"-era Quasi is that, while their songs were unquestionably catchy and clever, they were all catchy and clever in the exact same way. Sam Coomes belts out some seventh-chord progression on his Roxichord, Janet Weiss pops in with a sparse but rocking beat, and one or both of the divorcees begin musing about the sheer suckiness of life in a sweet melody. And while it's true that Quasi's most distinctive and memorable songs are largely similar, their albums have always included enough variety to keep things from getting terribly stale. Perhaps more importantly, even when Quasi do sink into cliché, they sink into their own clichés, rather than usual ubiquitous clichés of pop music. As is usually the case with pre-debut album collections, Early Recordings is all over the place. Small hints of what would go on to become the band's trademark sound are here in spades, but are often lost in general messiness. Which is not to say that the record is bad. It's a largely exploratory recording-- the sound of two people tinkering around with various instruments and trying to figure out what works. While the downside to such a recording is the previously addressed mess factor, the upside is that, every once in a while, you're privy to one of those moments when a band locks into something really, really good. Early Recordings opens with "Two Hounds," a Coomes-penned instrumental that isn't all that different from the instrumentals that appear on later Quasi records. A simple piano figure, a straightforward drumbeat, and some guitar parts for flavor constitute one of the better tracks on Early Recordings. With cleaner production and more focused instrumental parts, "Two Hounds" would be at home on any Quasi record from R&B; Transmogrification to The Sword of God, making it a decidedly appropriate opener for this compilation. "Time Flies By," an early Coomes/Weiss collaboration, sees the band further carving out their own distinctive sound. Quasi is one of the only bands that can pull off boy/girl harmonies without making me want to shoot myself in the face, and "Time Flies By" showcases the laid-back vocal interplay that sets Quasi apart from most cloying couple-rockers. "Homonculus" marks the first appearance of the moderately off-kilter chord progressions that would become a staple in later records, but disintegrates far too quickly into aimless fucking around. Considering that these 19 songs were recorded before R&B; Transmogrification and haven't been released until now, it's not surprising that they're not exactly fit for public consumption. While there are certainly a few excellent moments on Early Recordings, they only reveal themselves to people who are willing to wade through 19 severely spotty tracks. If you insist on having every decent recording Quasi has ever made in your possession, by all means go out and buy Early Recordings. If you're curious as to what the band sounded like pre-R&B; Transmogrification, listen to any of their proper albums and imagine. It's pretty much the same thing.

Artist: Quasi, Album: Early Recordings, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "Quasi has never been the kind of band to give it to you straight. The very notion of the group-- a divorced couple playing pessimistic, oft-guitarless pop music-- elicits furrowed eyebrows from the uninitiated. In the case of those who've heard the scathing rumors as to the nature of the breakup between Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, those furrowed eyebrows are often accompanied by agape jaws. Given the rather twisted nature of the band's history, it seems kind of disappointing that Early Recordings, 19 tracks culled from tapes recorded by Sam and Janet in 1995, is pretty much entirely what you'd expect it to be. That is, Early Recordings sounds like Quasi... but earlier. One criticism that has been leveled against Featuring "Birds"-era Quasi is that, while their songs were unquestionably catchy and clever, they were all catchy and clever in the exact same way. Sam Coomes belts out some seventh-chord progression on his Roxichord, Janet Weiss pops in with a sparse but rocking beat, and one or both of the divorcees begin musing about the sheer suckiness of life in a sweet melody. And while it's true that Quasi's most distinctive and memorable songs are largely similar, their albums have always included enough variety to keep things from getting terribly stale. Perhaps more importantly, even when Quasi do sink into cliché, they sink into their own clichés, rather than usual ubiquitous clichés of pop music. As is usually the case with pre-debut album collections, Early Recordings is all over the place. Small hints of what would go on to become the band's trademark sound are here in spades, but are often lost in general messiness. Which is not to say that the record is bad. It's a largely exploratory recording-- the sound of two people tinkering around with various instruments and trying to figure out what works. While the downside to such a recording is the previously addressed mess factor, the upside is that, every once in a while, you're privy to one of those moments when a band locks into something really, really good. Early Recordings opens with "Two Hounds," a Coomes-penned instrumental that isn't all that different from the instrumentals that appear on later Quasi records. A simple piano figure, a straightforward drumbeat, and some guitar parts for flavor constitute one of the better tracks on Early Recordings. With cleaner production and more focused instrumental parts, "Two Hounds" would be at home on any Quasi record from R&B; Transmogrification to The Sword of God, making it a decidedly appropriate opener for this compilation. "Time Flies By," an early Coomes/Weiss collaboration, sees the band further carving out their own distinctive sound. Quasi is one of the only bands that can pull off boy/girl harmonies without making me want to shoot myself in the face, and "Time Flies By" showcases the laid-back vocal interplay that sets Quasi apart from most cloying couple-rockers. "Homonculus" marks the first appearance of the moderately off-kilter chord progressions that would become a staple in later records, but disintegrates far too quickly into aimless fucking around. Considering that these 19 songs were recorded before R&B; Transmogrification and haven't been released until now, it's not surprising that they're not exactly fit for public consumption. While there are certainly a few excellent moments on Early Recordings, they only reveal themselves to people who are willing to wade through 19 severely spotty tracks. If you insist on having every decent recording Quasi has ever made in your possession, by all means go out and buy Early Recordings. If you're curious as to what the band sounded like pre-R&B; Transmogrification, listen to any of their proper albums and imagine. It's pretty much the same thing."

Stars

There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light

Electronic,Rock

Brian Howe

Reflecting on his Montreal band Stars’ eighth album, co-frontperson Torquil Campbell said, “We make the small things big and the big things a chorus.” Stars stretch hushed electro-pop into scrambling arena rock, blending the Smiths’ guitar romance with bedroom soul like the product of some Mancunian Motown. Campbell, along with Amy Millan and their four bandmates, have been fiddling with their blend of heartache and hedonism, dance beats and guitar sparks, for almost 20 years now. So it’s little surprise that Campbell knows what they’re best at, even though Stars have had a run that sometimes made us wonder. If 2012’s The North was a cautious return to form and 2014’s No One Is Lost had some fun with it, then There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light finds the band with their feet on the streets and their heads scraping the sky, just where they belong. Indispensable to Stars’ appeal is the platonic chemistry of Campbell and Millan, two different but complementary singers (he the overstated striver, she the understated virtuoso) who were like the xx before the xx, in blazing pastels instead of chiaroscuro. The greatness of their third album, 2004’s Set Yourself on Fire, is so unimpeachable that people forget about 2003’s Heart. (The throbbing “Elevator Love Letter” is still the most perfect Stars song.) “Sometimes the TV is like a lover,” Campbell sings on that album’s title track, which, like all his best lyrics, is embarrassing because it’s true. Of course, in Stars’ music, lovers are also like TV: streamlined, composited, and dramatized with a cinematic splendor that would make Baz Luhrmann blush. There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light may be the most Starry album title possible, with its unsubtle implication that love is the only real thing in a sea of encroaching artificiality, an idea made sonic in music where the rawest sentimentality is clad in the archest theater. Airy and danceable, There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light revives our faith in Stars. We get locket-size images of yellow taxis waiting in the night, clocks chiming in empty rooms; lots of eyes and skies, boys and cars and streets. Words like “dream” and “love” are repeated until they lose all sense, or rather, infuse everything around them. The opening track “Privilege” is slinky and inviting, as Millan does slow flips around a silvery herringbone guitar. “Fluorescent Light” comes on with the particular hushed intensity that Campbell sings with when he’s planning to tug our heartstrings, but it turns into the indie-pop equivalent of a lavish club anthem. Though Stars have reverted to a more plainly romantic, ingenuous style, you might notice, on “Fluorescent Light” and elsewhere, a more adult cast to their dynamics of desire, with more regret and ambiguity crosshatched behind the crayon strokes. “Losing to You,” where Millan and Campbell’s vocal lines cling together like lovers walking in the dark, is clearly set in an adult relationship of considerable duration, and it intuitively captures the premonitory feeling of losing someone you can’t imagine losing, but will. “Is it strong enough a bond to carry on or is there something else that’s really true?” This is a far cry from the Stars of earlier songs like “Ageless Beauty,” when they had all the answers. The unwavering “yes” of Stars has deepened into a “maybe,” but the music still beams with conviction. Millan’s confident vocals on “Hope Avenue” make it sound like she could be a popstar in the vein of Robyn. Campbell gets a requisite U2-style burner on “Alone,” and it’s pretty glorious. The trim, popstep-inflected productions roll on through the piano-caressed “We Called It Love,” with big haymakers from Campbell (“The Maze”) and cosseting enchantments from Millan (“California, I Love that Name”) coming all the way through the end. It’s surely significant that, for the first time, Stars turned over some control to an outsider: producer Peter Katis, who has worked often with the National. For a band like Stars, whose lifeblood and liability has always been bombast, having someone around to arch an eyebrow at them now and then must go a long way. There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light sounds like a band who defied the notion of growing up by realizing that it did anyway, and that it’s strong enough to carry on.

Artist: Stars, Album: There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Reflecting on his Montreal band Stars’ eighth album, co-frontperson Torquil Campbell said, “We make the small things big and the big things a chorus.” Stars stretch hushed electro-pop into scrambling arena rock, blending the Smiths’ guitar romance with bedroom soul like the product of some Mancunian Motown. Campbell, along with Amy Millan and their four bandmates, have been fiddling with their blend of heartache and hedonism, dance beats and guitar sparks, for almost 20 years now. So it’s little surprise that Campbell knows what they’re best at, even though Stars have had a run that sometimes made us wonder. If 2012’s The North was a cautious return to form and 2014’s No One Is Lost had some fun with it, then There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light finds the band with their feet on the streets and their heads scraping the sky, just where they belong. Indispensable to Stars’ appeal is the platonic chemistry of Campbell and Millan, two different but complementary singers (he the overstated striver, she the understated virtuoso) who were like the xx before the xx, in blazing pastels instead of chiaroscuro. The greatness of their third album, 2004’s Set Yourself on Fire, is so unimpeachable that people forget about 2003’s Heart. (The throbbing “Elevator Love Letter” is still the most perfect Stars song.) “Sometimes the TV is like a lover,” Campbell sings on that album’s title track, which, like all his best lyrics, is embarrassing because it’s true. Of course, in Stars’ music, lovers are also like TV: streamlined, composited, and dramatized with a cinematic splendor that would make Baz Luhrmann blush. There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light may be the most Starry album title possible, with its unsubtle implication that love is the only real thing in a sea of encroaching artificiality, an idea made sonic in music where the rawest sentimentality is clad in the archest theater. Airy and danceable, There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light revives our faith in Stars. We get locket-size images of yellow taxis waiting in the night, clocks chiming in empty rooms; lots of eyes and skies, boys and cars and streets. Words like “dream” and “love” are repeated until they lose all sense, or rather, infuse everything around them. The opening track “Privilege” is slinky and inviting, as Millan does slow flips around a silvery herringbone guitar. “Fluorescent Light” comes on with the particular hushed intensity that Campbell sings with when he’s planning to tug our heartstrings, but it turns into the indie-pop equivalent of a lavish club anthem. Though Stars have reverted to a more plainly romantic, ingenuous style, you might notice, on “Fluorescent Light” and elsewhere, a more adult cast to their dynamics of desire, with more regret and ambiguity crosshatched behind the crayon strokes. “Losing to You,” where Millan and Campbell’s vocal lines cling together like lovers walking in the dark, is clearly set in an adult relationship of considerable duration, and it intuitively captures the premonitory feeling of losing someone you can’t imagine losing, but will. “Is it strong enough a bond to carry on or is there something else that’s really true?” This is a far cry from the Stars of earlier songs like “Ageless Beauty,” when they had all the answers. The unwavering “yes” of Stars has deepened into a “maybe,” but the music still beams with conviction. Millan’s confident vocals on “Hope Avenue” make it sound like she could be a popstar in the vein of Robyn. Campbell gets a requisite U2-style burner on “Alone,” and it’s pretty glorious. The trim, popstep-inflected productions roll on through the piano-caressed “We Called It Love,” with big haymakers from Campbell (“The Maze”) and cosseting enchantments from Millan (“California, I Love that Name”) coming all the way through the end. It’s surely significant that, for the first time, Stars turned over some control to an outsider: producer Peter Katis, who has worked often with the National. For a band like Stars, whose lifeblood and liability has always been bombast, having someone around to arch an eyebrow at them now and then must go a long way. There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light sounds like a band who defied the notion of growing up by realizing that it did anyway, and that it’s strong enough to carry on."

London Sinfonietta

Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters

Grayson Currin

Less than 100 years ago, the Parisian police were famously called to the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky's two-part ballet challenged the audience on nearly every level, and its emphasis on intentional dissonance and rhythmic unrest-- not to mention its admittedly pagan themes-- drove the crowd to disorder. Almost six decades later, Steve Reich's stateside premiere of "Four Organs" also caused chaos, and later, John Cage said of Glenn Branca's Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses: "If it was something political, it would resemble fascism." Important works, especially in regard to classical iconoclasm, come with intense labor pains. But the ideas of The Rite of Spring-- as well as Reich's phase pieces and Cage's prepared piano pieces-- are now considered passé. Their lessons have been absorbed into and applied far beyond the realm of art music, from Brian Eno to Ciara. The idée fixe, then, of Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters-- "to explore the connection between electronic experimenters on the Warp label and their sonic grandfathers" by physically playing pieces once performed by machines-- should be easy enough. The basic notion is a given, and the concept that Reich's modulation ideas and that Karlheinz Stockhausen's half-century-old compositions for ring modulators and synthesizers preceded work by current electronic idols is dogma. A dozen box sets, after all, have exhausted this topic. But, on Warp Works, the London Sinfonietta reinvents work from Cage, Reich, Aphex Twin, and Squarepusher, first imagined for mixed media of man and machine, as pieces imaginatively played and performed by flesh-and-bone musicians. Pristine and convincing, these recordings, culled from three European performances by the Sinfonietta in 2003 and 2004, cast the original pieces in a fresh light. Reich's "Six Marimbas", played in real-time by six people, is immaculate, and the four movements of György Ligeti's Chamber Concerto are masterfully evocative, poling between whimsy, fright, apprehension and doom with rarified clarity. Pianist Clive Williamson lends consummate subtlety and precision to the prepared piano pieces of Cage and (to a lesser extent) Aphex Twin. An obvious lineage seems, somehow, worth revisiting. But, for all of the Sinfonietta's dexterity, Warp Works' didactism is as incomplete as it is redundant, and that's what it suffers the most. The quest for extended instrumental techniques and the conquest of emerging technology for making music better (or simply different) are both older than recorded music, and the selection of pieces that illustrate ties between Stockhausen and Squarepusher seems entirely arbitrary, if not coincidental. There are better representations from both Aphex Twin and Squarepusher available, and that the only two electronic artists here once called Warp home craft a dubious, partial lesson. Perhaps it's a lesson that can push back-catalogue sells, but it offers very few authentic insights. In fact, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin feel like the artists that do not belong. Following Conlon Nancarrow's "Study no. 7" by four tracks, the saturated sounds of Squarepusher's "The Tide" fall short of their historical precedents. In the liner notes, the pieces are linked because they both employed technology to perform music too complex for existing instrumental ensembles. Somewhat isolated in Mexico City, Nancarrow realized that finding players to handle his intricacies and concepts (ultimately, he composed rhythmic and tonal ratios based on the irrational numbers pi and e) would be impossible. Working on necessity, he scored his pieces onto massive player piano rolls. At their best, the results epitomized the possible reach of compositional imagination, actually realizing ideas only proposed by Henry Cowell. "Study no. 7" is easily the most complex and involving piece here, and-- even now, 94 years after his birth-- very few composers have rivaled Nancarrow's ingenuity and depth, Squarepusher included. If anything, Nancarrow's inclusion here proves that Tom Jenkinson and Richard James have work to do. Granted, I could simply be leaning too heavily on the explicit bridge-the-gap aspirations manifested in the liner notes. Perhaps Warp Works is simply meant as a celebration of 20th century composition and two Warp artists that have built on those legacies without eclipsing them. Then again, I'm not really into cover bands, even if their drum sounds on Kenneth Hesketh's collection-closing arrangement of Aphex Twins' "Polygon Window" are breathtaking-- or, better yet, even if they call themselves Glass Cage, Stockhausen Syndrome, or London Sinfonietta.

Artist: London Sinfonietta, Album: Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Less than 100 years ago, the Parisian police were famously called to the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky's two-part ballet challenged the audience on nearly every level, and its emphasis on intentional dissonance and rhythmic unrest-- not to mention its admittedly pagan themes-- drove the crowd to disorder. Almost six decades later, Steve Reich's stateside premiere of "Four Organs" also caused chaos, and later, John Cage said of Glenn Branca's Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses: "If it was something political, it would resemble fascism." Important works, especially in regard to classical iconoclasm, come with intense labor pains. But the ideas of The Rite of Spring-- as well as Reich's phase pieces and Cage's prepared piano pieces-- are now considered passé. Their lessons have been absorbed into and applied far beyond the realm of art music, from Brian Eno to Ciara. The idée fixe, then, of Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters-- "to explore the connection between electronic experimenters on the Warp label and their sonic grandfathers" by physically playing pieces once performed by machines-- should be easy enough. The basic notion is a given, and the concept that Reich's modulation ideas and that Karlheinz Stockhausen's half-century-old compositions for ring modulators and synthesizers preceded work by current electronic idols is dogma. A dozen box sets, after all, have exhausted this topic. But, on Warp Works, the London Sinfonietta reinvents work from Cage, Reich, Aphex Twin, and Squarepusher, first imagined for mixed media of man and machine, as pieces imaginatively played and performed by flesh-and-bone musicians. Pristine and convincing, these recordings, culled from three European performances by the Sinfonietta in 2003 and 2004, cast the original pieces in a fresh light. Reich's "Six Marimbas", played in real-time by six people, is immaculate, and the four movements of György Ligeti's Chamber Concerto are masterfully evocative, poling between whimsy, fright, apprehension and doom with rarified clarity. Pianist Clive Williamson lends consummate subtlety and precision to the prepared piano pieces of Cage and (to a lesser extent) Aphex Twin. An obvious lineage seems, somehow, worth revisiting. But, for all of the Sinfonietta's dexterity, Warp Works' didactism is as incomplete as it is redundant, and that's what it suffers the most. The quest for extended instrumental techniques and the conquest of emerging technology for making music better (or simply different) are both older than recorded music, and the selection of pieces that illustrate ties between Stockhausen and Squarepusher seems entirely arbitrary, if not coincidental. There are better representations from both Aphex Twin and Squarepusher available, and that the only two electronic artists here once called Warp home craft a dubious, partial lesson. Perhaps it's a lesson that can push back-catalogue sells, but it offers very few authentic insights. In fact, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin feel like the artists that do not belong. Following Conlon Nancarrow's "Study no. 7" by four tracks, the saturated sounds of Squarepusher's "The Tide" fall short of their historical precedents. In the liner notes, the pieces are linked because they both employed technology to perform music too complex for existing instrumental ensembles. Somewhat isolated in Mexico City, Nancarrow realized that finding players to handle his intricacies and concepts (ultimately, he composed rhythmic and tonal ratios based on the irrational numbers pi and e) would be impossible. Working on necessity, he scored his pieces onto massive player piano rolls. At their best, the results epitomized the possible reach of compositional imagination, actually realizing ideas only proposed by Henry Cowell. "Study no. 7" is easily the most complex and involving piece here, and-- even now, 94 years after his birth-- very few composers have rivaled Nancarrow's ingenuity and depth, Squarepusher included. If anything, Nancarrow's inclusion here proves that Tom Jenkinson and Richard James have work to do. Granted, I could simply be leaning too heavily on the explicit bridge-the-gap aspirations manifested in the liner notes. Perhaps Warp Works is simply meant as a celebration of 20th century composition and two Warp artists that have built on those legacies without eclipsing them. Then again, I'm not really into cover bands, even if their drum sounds on Kenneth Hesketh's collection-closing arrangement of Aphex Twins' "Polygon Window" are breathtaking-- or, better yet, even if they call themselves Glass Cage, Stockhausen Syndrome, or London Sinfonietta."

The Strokes

Comedown Machine

Rock

Ian Cohen

Comedown Machine accomplishes in 38 minutes what nearly a decade and a half of backlash and schadenfreude could not: make the Strokes look like total nerds. This isn’t so much of a revelation as it the culmination of what’s been happening ever since First Impressions of Earth. They got one classic album and another great one exhausting a sound that evoked decades of New York squalor chic through indestructible songs and contradictory images: garages where Orange amps are parked next to Benzes, a trust-funder’s highrise apartment lousy with beer cans and leather jackets, dive bars frequented by models and rock stars. Everything since has taken cues from styles more associated with parents’ basements, musty vinyl shops, and convention centers: dinky synth-pop, surf rock, prog and the weird science of countless 1980s New Wave bands. This flipping of the script can actually be seen as a canny move, recasting the Strokes as lovable underdogs: where they once defined effortless cool, the deeply uncool Comedown Machine smacks of effort. That goes a long way towards making Comedown Machine more immediately appealing than their last two records; the Strokes sound like they’re genuinely trying here. The functional cover art of Comedown Machine suggests some kind of mixtape the Strokes made for themselves, 11 songs that turn out like 11 different genre experiments viewed through the unmistakable prism of their inhuman rhythmic precision and pinched EQ’ing. There are a couple of Is This It? throwbacks (“All The Time,” “50/50”) that turn out to be among the least satisfying things here, too flabby to fit into those same jeans from a decade prior. Otherwise, you get elastic funk (“Tap Out”), dubby dream-pop (“80s Comedown Machine”), unidentifiable Latin-tinged Casio presets (“One Way Trigger”) and plenty of soft-rock sheen that creates an ouroboros effect of the Strokes sounding like Phoenix when they were trying to sound like the Strokes. Credit where it’s due: the guys sound like they’re having fun again. At least that’s the gist you get from the numerous, in-studio “throwaway” moments: the flubbed soloing that introduces the otherwise vise-tight “Tap Out” and the labored laughing that closes out “Slow Animals” only take up a few seconds, but they reinforce the idea that this isn’t Julian Casablancas’ de facto solo project despite it sounding closer to Phrazes For The Young than any Strokes LP*.* But you also sense that the rest of the band getting antsy, issuing challenges to themselves to keep things interesting. Albert Hammond’s solos are charmingly anachronistic, a throwback to when tidy solos were a regular occurrence in three-minute pop songs. But they still can’t shake their tendency to stubbornly hammer at awkward riffs (“Happy Ending”) and clunky chord changes ("Welcome To Japan"). Still, the limitations of Comedown Machine's protracted diversity all come back to Casablancas, a man with wide range as a listener and extremely narrow range as a musician. In both lyrics and tone, he’s best at playing the laconic cad: So when he barks “you’re going too fast” on “All the Time” as a callback to “Reptilia” and the hotseat urgency of Room On Fire, it sounds forced. On the opposite end, the highlight of Comedown Machine is when he asks “What kind of asshole drives a Lotus?” on “Welcome to Japan”; you half expect him to do the “this guy!” routine as a punchline. That’s the kind of thing Casablancas does better than anyone. Unfortunately, most of Comedown Machine finds him doing anything but that. “Tap Out” features at least two of Casablancas' most elegant melodies, but his wispy coo turns them into mush. When he takes the opposite tack to channel his inner Tom Waits, he doesn’t fare much better; no one was asking what the Strokes would've sounded like in the Victrola era, but "Call It Fate Call It Karma" answers it anyway. If this all smacks of effort, at least they are not taking the easy way out. It’s the 10th anniversary of Room On Fire and in light of what came after, a reissue would surely bring more praise than the initial Is This It? Yes It Is assessment. Or, they could’ve followed the lead of fellow fashion plate/occasional hitmaker Suede and made it a point to sound like their old selves after a long, dry spell. Still, it’s frustrating for anyone who still puts stock in the idea that the Strokes could and should be one of America’s biggest rock bands. After all, they feel like stars even if the numbers don’t back it up and reigning champs like the Black Keys have about as much charisma and sex appeal as a General Tire. Of course, Black Keys are writing much better songs than the ones on Comedown Machine and if the Strokes seem unfashionable in 2013, that's the true reason.

Artist: The Strokes, Album: Comedown Machine, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.1 Album review: "Comedown Machine accomplishes in 38 minutes what nearly a decade and a half of backlash and schadenfreude could not: make the Strokes look like total nerds. This isn’t so much of a revelation as it the culmination of what’s been happening ever since First Impressions of Earth. They got one classic album and another great one exhausting a sound that evoked decades of New York squalor chic through indestructible songs and contradictory images: garages where Orange amps are parked next to Benzes, a trust-funder’s highrise apartment lousy with beer cans and leather jackets, dive bars frequented by models and rock stars. Everything since has taken cues from styles more associated with parents’ basements, musty vinyl shops, and convention centers: dinky synth-pop, surf rock, prog and the weird science of countless 1980s New Wave bands. This flipping of the script can actually be seen as a canny move, recasting the Strokes as lovable underdogs: where they once defined effortless cool, the deeply uncool Comedown Machine smacks of effort. That goes a long way towards making Comedown Machine more immediately appealing than their last two records; the Strokes sound like they’re genuinely trying here. The functional cover art of Comedown Machine suggests some kind of mixtape the Strokes made for themselves, 11 songs that turn out like 11 different genre experiments viewed through the unmistakable prism of their inhuman rhythmic precision and pinched EQ’ing. There are a couple of Is This It? throwbacks (“All The Time,” “50/50”) that turn out to be among the least satisfying things here, too flabby to fit into those same jeans from a decade prior. Otherwise, you get elastic funk (“Tap Out”), dubby dream-pop (“80s Comedown Machine”), unidentifiable Latin-tinged Casio presets (“One Way Trigger”) and plenty of soft-rock sheen that creates an ouroboros effect of the Strokes sounding like Phoenix when they were trying to sound like the Strokes. Credit where it’s due: the guys sound like they’re having fun again. At least that’s the gist you get from the numerous, in-studio “throwaway” moments: the flubbed soloing that introduces the otherwise vise-tight “Tap Out” and the labored laughing that closes out “Slow Animals” only take up a few seconds, but they reinforce the idea that this isn’t Julian Casablancas’ de facto solo project despite it sounding closer to Phrazes For The Young than any Strokes LP*.* But you also sense that the rest of the band getting antsy, issuing challenges to themselves to keep things interesting. Albert Hammond’s solos are charmingly anachronistic, a throwback to when tidy solos were a regular occurrence in three-minute pop songs. But they still can’t shake their tendency to stubbornly hammer at awkward riffs (“Happy Ending”) and clunky chord changes ("Welcome To Japan"). Still, the limitations of Comedown Machine's protracted diversity all come back to Casablancas, a man with wide range as a listener and extremely narrow range as a musician. In both lyrics and tone, he’s best at playing the laconic cad: So when he barks “you’re going too fast” on “All the Time” as a callback to “Reptilia” and the hotseat urgency of Room On Fire, it sounds forced. On the opposite end, the highlight of Comedown Machine is when he asks “What kind of asshole drives a Lotus?” on “Welcome to Japan”; you half expect him to do the “this guy!” routine as a punchline. That’s the kind of thing Casablancas does better than anyone. Unfortunately, most of Comedown Machine finds him doing anything but that. “Tap Out” features at least two of Casablancas' most elegant melodies, but his wispy coo turns them into mush. When he takes the opposite tack to channel his inner Tom Waits, he doesn’t fare much better; no one was asking what the Strokes would've sounded like in the Victrola era, but "Call It Fate Call It Karma" answers it anyway. If this all smacks of effort, at least they are not taking the easy way out. It’s the 10th anniversary of Room On Fire and in light of what came after, a reissue would surely bring more praise than the initial Is This It? Yes It Is assessment. Or, they could’ve followed the lead of fellow fashion plate/occasional hitmaker Suede and made it a point to sound like their old selves after a long, dry spell. Still, it’s frustrating for anyone who still puts stock in the idea that the Strokes could and should be one of America’s biggest rock bands. After all, they feel like stars even if the numbers don’t back it up and reigning champs like the Black Keys have about as much charisma and sex appeal as a General Tire. Of course, Black Keys are writing much better songs than the ones on Comedown Machine and if the Strokes seem unfashionable in 2013, that's the true reason."

The Juan MacLean

The Future Will Come

Electronic,Rock

Nate Patrin

If you wanted to hear an askew semi-counterpoint to Hercules and Love Affair's longing, unrequited "Blind" last year, all you had to do was jump back a couple of weeks and one DFA catalogue number. The Juan MacLean's "Happy House" might have been comparatively overlooked in the wake of their labelmates' widespread critical success, but it's hard not to hear it as the weight on the other side of the scale. It jumps a decade or so past H&LA's Larry Levan-minded disco into a style alluded to in the song's double-meaning title, Nancy Whang's voice dripping with a cool, almost aloof exuberance that seemed content to ride along with that pulse-raising piano. It figures that its biggest refrain and most memorable line hints at an arch sort of romanticism: "you are so... excellent." Yet "Happy House" is a stylistic fluke in a discography that got rolling with the jagged yet warm electro-house of the 2002 single "By the Time I Get to Venus" and aimed upwards with 2005's Less Than Human. With more than a year to build on the goodwill accumulated by a potential career-changer, the Juan MacLean have already gone in a completely different direction on their new album. The Future Will Come does at least aim to join "Happy House" in its lean towards pop-music structure, even if it gets there through an era-spanning synth-pop pastiche rather than the euphoria of late-80s (and early 00s revival) house. That shouldn't be too out-of-nowhere, especially if you've already been primed by "The Simple Life", which followed "Happy House" in single form late last summer and points towards the Human League-gone-disco sound John MacLean hinted at during interviews in the run-up to this album. But that song, a gradually-building, subtly-mutating piece of Moroder-meets-Yaz(oo) that spans over eight and a half minutes in opening the album, is a red herring in its own way. That's because with the exception of the 10-minute "Tonight", which blends dubby T.K. Disco rhythm with Derrick May bass in the service of a song filled with strangely mournful-sounding anticipation, every track on The Future Will Come that hasn't already appeared as a single last year is a relatively short and succinct piece of work; think a bunch of radio edits instead of the 12" mixes. The good news is that brevity keeps some of these tracks from getting stretched thin: The rubbery bongo-driven percussion and mutating, unraveling synths in the title track sound like they reach peak powers just before the song ends a few seconds shy of the five-minute mark, the midtempo electro-funk of "Accusations" fits in enough ebb-and-flow atmosphere to explore its Balearic-tweaking turf thoroughly, and cuts like "A New Bot" and "The Station" bypass gradual-build club dynamics entirely to focus on straightforward post-new-wave hookiness, whether it's frenetically anxious or brooding respectively. Yet a couple of other songs feel rudely truncated before they can build to the bigger, arm-waving moments that seem just over the horizon. The seething acid-house of "No Time", which sounds like the Human League's "Being Boiled" on heavy stimulants, ends too quickly, but it stings particularly hard when the 81-meets-89 rave-pop of "One Day" simply drops off a cliff after just more than four minutes when it sounds like it should go on for another six. Like most quality DFA full-lengths, this album has post-disco dance-pop aesthetics intersecting and merging in ways that transcend cheap retro; too much of it leaves you wondering if it could've gone even further with a bit more breathing room. Still, what could another four minutes here and there really do about the dour mood? That's the other gag The Future Will Come springs on the unsuspecting listener hoping for an hour's worth of "Happy House" giddiness, with Whang and MacLean sniping at each other in character like the Oakey/Sulley dynamic in "Don't You Want Me" pushed to a barely repressed loathing. It makes sense, since their vocals are incompatible with each other in the most basic respect. Whang is all coquettish detachment and reserved emotion, singing as though she just happens to be pretty good at expressing these feelings (but, y'know, not showing off or anything), while MacLean stretches his flat voice into attempted overenunciations and hiccupy quirkiness that are beyond the ability of his ideally-monotone voice. As they sing with clashing voices about how hard it is to get along with anyone, this is ebullient, frequently exciting music that trades on the concept of love as irritating farce. The first verse on "The Simple Life" opens with the Whang-sung couplet "Promises you gave but never kept/ Apologies to save for last regrets"; "One Day" sees both singers trading embittered breakup barbs with the promise that "I'll tell you what you wanna hear if you try" the closest it gets to reconciliation; "No Time" drains all the empathy out of post-one-night stand ennui and brings out the casual cruelty in the typically-innocuous pop-lyric standby "shut your mouth." It's all a bit exhausting, but it does lead to a knockout bit of sequencing: from the sourly regretful back-and-forth relationship burden complaints of "The Station" to the sparse, false-ending-filled, self-pitying solo-piano dirge of "Human Disaster"-- and then, to finish the album, "Happy House" in its complete 12-and-a-half minutes of ecstasy. That single hardly represents how the rest of the album turned out sounding, but you couldn't pick a better flash of light at the end of the tunnel.

Artist: The Juan MacLean, Album: The Future Will Come, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "If you wanted to hear an askew semi-counterpoint to Hercules and Love Affair's longing, unrequited "Blind" last year, all you had to do was jump back a couple of weeks and one DFA catalogue number. The Juan MacLean's "Happy House" might have been comparatively overlooked in the wake of their labelmates' widespread critical success, but it's hard not to hear it as the weight on the other side of the scale. It jumps a decade or so past H&LA's Larry Levan-minded disco into a style alluded to in the song's double-meaning title, Nancy Whang's voice dripping with a cool, almost aloof exuberance that seemed content to ride along with that pulse-raising piano. It figures that its biggest refrain and most memorable line hints at an arch sort of romanticism: "you are so... excellent." Yet "Happy House" is a stylistic fluke in a discography that got rolling with the jagged yet warm electro-house of the 2002 single "By the Time I Get to Venus" and aimed upwards with 2005's Less Than Human. With more than a year to build on the goodwill accumulated by a potential career-changer, the Juan MacLean have already gone in a completely different direction on their new album. The Future Will Come does at least aim to join "Happy House" in its lean towards pop-music structure, even if it gets there through an era-spanning synth-pop pastiche rather than the euphoria of late-80s (and early 00s revival) house. That shouldn't be too out-of-nowhere, especially if you've already been primed by "The Simple Life", which followed "Happy House" in single form late last summer and points towards the Human League-gone-disco sound John MacLean hinted at during interviews in the run-up to this album. But that song, a gradually-building, subtly-mutating piece of Moroder-meets-Yaz(oo) that spans over eight and a half minutes in opening the album, is a red herring in its own way. That's because with the exception of the 10-minute "Tonight", which blends dubby T.K. Disco rhythm with Derrick May bass in the service of a song filled with strangely mournful-sounding anticipation, every track on The Future Will Come that hasn't already appeared as a single last year is a relatively short and succinct piece of work; think a bunch of radio edits instead of the 12" mixes. The good news is that brevity keeps some of these tracks from getting stretched thin: The rubbery bongo-driven percussion and mutating, unraveling synths in the title track sound like they reach peak powers just before the song ends a few seconds shy of the five-minute mark, the midtempo electro-funk of "Accusations" fits in enough ebb-and-flow atmosphere to explore its Balearic-tweaking turf thoroughly, and cuts like "A New Bot" and "The Station" bypass gradual-build club dynamics entirely to focus on straightforward post-new-wave hookiness, whether it's frenetically anxious or brooding respectively. Yet a couple of other songs feel rudely truncated before they can build to the bigger, arm-waving moments that seem just over the horizon. The seething acid-house of "No Time", which sounds like the Human League's "Being Boiled" on heavy stimulants, ends too quickly, but it stings particularly hard when the 81-meets-89 rave-pop of "One Day" simply drops off a cliff after just more than four minutes when it sounds like it should go on for another six. Like most quality DFA full-lengths, this album has post-disco dance-pop aesthetics intersecting and merging in ways that transcend cheap retro; too much of it leaves you wondering if it could've gone even further with a bit more breathing room. Still, what could another four minutes here and there really do about the dour mood? That's the other gag The Future Will Come springs on the unsuspecting listener hoping for an hour's worth of "Happy House" giddiness, with Whang and MacLean sniping at each other in character like the Oakey/Sulley dynamic in "Don't You Want Me" pushed to a barely repressed loathing. It makes sense, since their vocals are incompatible with each other in the most basic respect. Whang is all coquettish detachment and reserved emotion, singing as though she just happens to be pretty good at expressing these feelings (but, y'know, not showing off or anything), while MacLean stretches his flat voice into attempted overenunciations and hiccupy quirkiness that are beyond the ability of his ideally-monotone voice. As they sing with clashing voices about how hard it is to get along with anyone, this is ebullient, frequently exciting music that trades on the concept of love as irritating farce. The first verse on "The Simple Life" opens with the Whang-sung couplet "Promises you gave but never kept/ Apologies to save for last regrets"; "One Day" sees both singers trading embittered breakup barbs with the promise that "I'll tell you what you wanna hear if you try" the closest it gets to reconciliation; "No Time" drains all the empathy out of post-one-night stand ennui and brings out the casual cruelty in the typically-innocuous pop-lyric standby "shut your mouth." It's all a bit exhausting, but it does lead to a knockout bit of sequencing: from the sourly regretful back-and-forth relationship burden complaints of "The Station" to the sparse, false-ending-filled, self-pitying solo-piano dirge of "Human Disaster"-- and then, to finish the album, "Happy House" in its complete 12-and-a-half minutes of ecstasy. That single hardly represents how the rest of the album turned out sounding, but you couldn't pick a better flash of light at the end of the tunnel."

Van Morrison

It's Too Late to Stop Now... Volumes II, III, IV & DVD

Rock

Brad Nelson

Van Morrison was and is an irregular live performer. “I do music from an introverted space…in an extrovert business,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2009, describing the profound alienation he often experienced onstage. But by 1973, he’d had finally found something approaching comfort and fidelity as a performer. “The last gig on the East Coast was Carnegie in New York, and something just happened,” he said at the time. “All of a sudden I felt like ‘You’re back into performing’ and it just happened like that. Click.” Morrison documented this breakthrough on It’s Too Late to Stop Now, a 1974 live album culled from various performances throughout the previous year. Too Late has been reissued along with a box set of previously unreleased gigs (Volumes II, III, and IV) along with a DVD portraying a fraction of one of his shows at the Rainbow Theatre; none of the recordings overlap with the original album. What the newly issued concerts reveal is the night-to-night dynamic of Morrison and his then-band, a group of 11 musicians called the Caledonia Soul Orchestra. Caledonia was a name originally assigned to Scotland by the Romans; though the geography it describes still exists, “Caledonia,” as a word, has a kind of mystical aura. It combines history and myth until they produce a kind of transcendent space. History and myth are also two forms of context Morrison is determined to combine in his music. His sets in 1973 juxtaposed original material from throughout his career with established soul and blues songs by Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, Willie Dixon and Sonny Boy Williamson. His own songs are composites themselves: blues, jazz, folk, and rock forms all appear in his music, sometimes at once, collapsing into a slipstream of associations. This feeling of endlessness, of the language of a genre losing its shape and blending with others, gives even his straightest R&B numbers the shape of a whirlpool. This sort of free association flows into his lyrics. One rarely feels, listening to a Van Morrison record, as if they are sifting through a metaphor. He doesn’t reference authors; he names them, and tells us what they’re doing. On “Wild Children,” he sings “Tennessee Williams/Let your inspiration flow.” It’s one of his most permissive compositions, and in the performance at the Rainbow, his band is responsive and sensitive. They construct a flow around him, John Platania contributing soft coronas with his guitar, Bill Atwood’s muted trumpet issuing crisp phrases, like light fluttering on the surface of a lake. The band builds an environment, and Morrison wanders through all of its available space. The Caledonia Soul Orchestra were as capable of knitting hypnotic grooves as centerless landscapes. “In Van’s best music, all the instruments, including his voice, are wholly integrated,” M. Mark wrote in her 1979 essay on the original live album. “They become one big instrument, perfectly tuned, expertly played.” This big instrument is audible in the precise interlockings of Jeff Labes’ piano, David Hayes’ bass, and Dave Shaw’s drums in “I Paid the Price,” a Van composition that has never been included on a studio album. “You’re as cold as ice,” Morrison sings, and Hayes’ and Shaw’s instruments thrum like a rabbit’s heartbeat. On “Domino” Shaw’s snare and hi-hat combinations are so sharp they have the depth of a snap. You can also hear the specificity of the band’s interplay in the rendition of “Moonshine Whiskey” performed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium—the verses stretch until it feels like they’ll separate into components: strings, drums, Van’s kinetic interjections. “I Just Want To Make Love to You” could radically shift its own anatomy from night to night. On the original album Morrison approaches the riff as if he is approaching the edge of a cliff. At the Troubadour it contracts into a sly shuffle. Perhaps what’s most stunning is that a band of this size and scale could sound so crisp and organized. The band are pulled gravitationally by Van, who is as much of a bandleader as soul singer on this collection. But the band also pulls him; they act as shadows of each other, advancing and receding harmonically with the other’s movements. Van exhibits a feline sensitivity to the phrases arcing around him. There are moments where he seems to get lost. Words multiply and cluster; “I would nevernevernevernevernevernevernevernevernever be so meek,” he sings on the recording of “These Dreams of You” at the Troubadour. On “Listen to the Lion” his words deteriorate into individual vowels, molecular components of language. When he sings “Bein’ Green,” a composition originally performed by Kermit the Frog, he introduces a cavity of silence into his gig at the Rainbow. “And it’s what I…” he whispers. Four seconds pass. The audience doesn’t even clap. “…wanna be.” (“Bein’ Green” is a song that’s about confusing yourself with your environment, one of Van’s preferred forms of transcendence.) “The best way to describe it is…a kind of a light trance,” he says in the CBS interview. “If the musicians can follow me…I can go anywhere.” Every performance of “Caravan” available on the box set features an instance of Morrison losing himself. Toward the end of the song the band will give way to the string section; the strings diminish in volume until they resemble the gentle tremble of waves. Then, out of the relative silence, Morrison shouts, “Turn it up!” The band recombines. “Just one more time!” Morrison screams at the end of each phrase, his face glossy with sweat. At this point he seems to experience a kind of weightlessness, as he leans his entire body into several fluid high kicks. (In the video of the Rainbow gig, he unconsciously boots one of the saxophones onstage.) He’s also audibly lost in the recordings of “Cyprus Avenue,” the centerpiece of his 1968 album Astral Weeks. The Caledonia Soul Orchestra reverse the song’s polarity; it’s slowly put back together as raving soul (though the strings maintain some of its native drift). He sings, “And you said France!” and the audience responds: “France!” The venues from which the recordings on It’s Too Late to Stop Now were drawn generally seated around 3,000; in all of the performances of “Cyprus Avenue” I’ve heard, the atmosphere is so intimate that it sounds as though there are maybe 14 people in the theater, including Van and the band. The music gathers force and builds to a single note, atop which Morrison shouts “Baby!” Then: silence. The crowd starts yelling at him. “I said…” he mumbles. There’s an audible restraint, the air having tightened from movements

Artist: Van Morrison, Album: It's Too Late to Stop Now... Volumes II, III, IV & DVD, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.8 Album review: "Van Morrison was and is an irregular live performer. “I do music from an introverted space…in an extrovert business,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2009, describing the profound alienation he often experienced onstage. But by 1973, he’d had finally found something approaching comfort and fidelity as a performer. “The last gig on the East Coast was Carnegie in New York, and something just happened,” he said at the time. “All of a sudden I felt like ‘You’re back into performing’ and it just happened like that. Click.” Morrison documented this breakthrough on It’s Too Late to Stop Now, a 1974 live album culled from various performances throughout the previous year. Too Late has been reissued along with a box set of previously unreleased gigs (Volumes II, III, and IV) along with a DVD portraying a fraction of one of his shows at the Rainbow Theatre; none of the recordings overlap with the original album. What the newly issued concerts reveal is the night-to-night dynamic of Morrison and his then-band, a group of 11 musicians called the Caledonia Soul Orchestra. Caledonia was a name originally assigned to Scotland by the Romans; though the geography it describes still exists, “Caledonia,” as a word, has a kind of mystical aura. It combines history and myth until they produce a kind of transcendent space. History and myth are also two forms of context Morrison is determined to combine in his music. His sets in 1973 juxtaposed original material from throughout his career with established soul and blues songs by Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, Willie Dixon and Sonny Boy Williamson. His own songs are composites themselves: blues, jazz, folk, and rock forms all appear in his music, sometimes at once, collapsing into a slipstream of associations. This feeling of endlessness, of the language of a genre losing its shape and blending with others, gives even his straightest R&B numbers the shape of a whirlpool. This sort of free association flows into his lyrics. One rarely feels, listening to a Van Morrison record, as if they are sifting through a metaphor. He doesn’t reference authors; he names them, and tells us what they’re doing. On “Wild Children,” he sings “Tennessee Williams/Let your inspiration flow.” It’s one of his most permissive compositions, and in the performance at the Rainbow, his band is responsive and sensitive. They construct a flow around him, John Platania contributing soft coronas with his guitar, Bill Atwood’s muted trumpet issuing crisp phrases, like light fluttering on the surface of a lake. The band builds an environment, and Morrison wanders through all of its available space. The Caledonia Soul Orchestra were as capable of knitting hypnotic grooves as centerless landscapes. “In Van’s best music, all the instruments, including his voice, are wholly integrated,” M. Mark wrote in her 1979 essay on the original live album. “They become one big instrument, perfectly tuned, expertly played.” This big instrument is audible in the precise interlockings of Jeff Labes’ piano, David Hayes’ bass, and Dave Shaw’s drums in “I Paid the Price,” a Van composition that has never been included on a studio album. “You’re as cold as ice,” Morrison sings, and Hayes’ and Shaw’s instruments thrum like a rabbit’s heartbeat. On “Domino” Shaw’s snare and hi-hat combinations are so sharp they have the depth of a snap. You can also hear the specificity of the band’s interplay in the rendition of “Moonshine Whiskey” performed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium—the verses stretch until it feels like they’ll separate into components: strings, drums, Van’s kinetic interjections. “I Just Want To Make Love to You” could radically shift its own anatomy from night to night. On the original album Morrison approaches the riff as if he is approaching the edge of a cliff. At the Troubadour it contracts into a sly shuffle. Perhaps what’s most stunning is that a band of this size and scale could sound so crisp and organized. The band are pulled gravitationally by Van, who is as much of a bandleader as soul singer on this collection. But the band also pulls him; they act as shadows of each other, advancing and receding harmonically with the other’s movements. Van exhibits a feline sensitivity to the phrases arcing around him. There are moments where he seems to get lost. Words multiply and cluster; “I would nevernevernevernevernevernevernevernevernever be so meek,” he sings on the recording of “These Dreams of You” at the Troubadour. On “Listen to the Lion” his words deteriorate into individual vowels, molecular components of language. When he sings “Bein’ Green,” a composition originally performed by Kermit the Frog, he introduces a cavity of silence into his gig at the Rainbow. “And it’s what I…” he whispers. Four seconds pass. The audience doesn’t even clap. “…wanna be.” (“Bein’ Green” is a song that’s about confusing yourself with your environment, one of Van’s preferred forms of transcendence.) “The best way to describe it is…a kind of a light trance,” he says in the CBS interview. “If the musicians can follow me…I can go anywhere.” Every performance of “Caravan” available on the box set features an instance of Morrison losing himself. Toward the end of the song the band will give way to the string section; the strings diminish in volume until they resemble the gentle tremble of waves. Then, out of the relative silence, Morrison shouts, “Turn it up!” The band recombines. “Just one more time!” Morrison screams at the end of each phrase, his face glossy with sweat. At this point he seems to experience a kind of weightlessness, as he leans his entire body into several fluid high kicks. (In the video of the Rainbow gig, he unconsciously boots one of the saxophones onstage.) He’s also audibly lost in the recordings of “Cyprus Avenue,” the centerpiece of his 1968 album Astral Weeks. The Caledonia Soul Orchestra reverse the song’s polarity; it’s slowly put back together as raving soul (though the strings maintain some of its native drift). He sings, “And you said France!” and the audience responds: “France!” The venues from which the recordings on It’s Too Late to Stop Now were drawn generally seated around 3,000; in all of the performances of “Cyprus Avenue” I’ve heard, the atmosphere is so intimate that it sounds as though there are maybe 14 people in the theater, including Van and the band. The music gathers force and builds to a single note, atop which Morrison shouts “Baby!” Then: silence. The crowd starts yelling at him. “I said…” he mumbles. There’s an audible restraint, the air having tightened from movements "

Palma Violets

Danger in the Club

Rock

Laura Snapes

What is it with trad British indie-rock bands actively selling themselves short at the moment? Vaccines frontman Justin Young has said of their forthcoming third album, "We wanted to make something that sounds amazing next year and then terrible in 10 years." And here's Palma Violets' co-frontman Sam Fryer: "There's no producer in the world who could make us sound professional." At least Catfish & the Bottlemen reach for the sky (or Glastonbury's main stage) as they're scraping the barrel. Perhaps it's a symptom of having been the barometer/straw men of the Great British Music Press Hype Machine (the sheer fact of which seems to prime the nation's indie bands for America's contempt): retreat before you get replaced. Reviews of Palma Violets' 2013 debut, 180, lambasted fickle British music magazines for telling teenagers that the all-male London four-piece were the next big thing (what a crime), while conceding that the record's punch-drunk mix of Gun Club swagger and the Clash's more jovial insurrection was actually alright. On Danger in the Club, Palma Violets have willfully regressed, from punk to pub-rock—or "pre-punk", as they've been calling it. Spearheaded by Dr. Feelgood, Brinsley Schwarz, and Eddie and the Hot Rods, pub rock was a reaction against prog, glam, and bands ascending to theater venues that priced out their early supporters. The genre was quickly trumped by punk proper, and doesn't have a lot of cachet today. Palma Violets have talked about briefly hating each other by the end of the tour for their debut album, and having no ideas for their second as recently as midway through 2014. 180 wasn't original, but it had energy and high stakes on its side: its youthful relationships were either world-beating or the end of the world, and the nonsensical titles/lyrics ("Johnny Bagga' Donuts", "Chicken Dippers") hinted at a wealth of winking in-jokes between besotted friends. The band members are only now in their very early 20s, but the mood on Danger in the Club is misanthropic, tired of life and home and girls. "I would rather die than be in love", the band's other vocalist, Chilli Jesson, sings on "Coming Over To My Place", a dissolute memory of the melody to the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love". With the help of a supporting gang, he sings the line over and over, in a state of forced triumphant collapse that just seems sad. Danger in the Club is beset by a powerful sense of dread, but there's little effort in Palma Violets' performance, despite their claims that producer John Leckie drilled them to extremes. (It's worth remembering that after an uninspired debut, he helped tease The Bends out of an equally mixed-up young Radiohead, who came to him, as Palmas did, for his work on Magazine's 1978 album, Real Life.) They wanted to retain the quality of their early demos, but the boggy result lacks the debut's clarity. The bottom end bludgeons and their surf guitars are sloppy, the band playing like drunken British seaside pier entertainers reduced to grabbing from their '00s forebears. Interpol's self-pitying specter looms on the dismal ambience of "No Money Honey" and the moronic, Byronic "Matador". "Secrets of America" rips off the returning Libertines' shambolic rockers without any of their heart, and "The Jacket Song" sounds conspicuously like Doherty and co's lovely ballad "Radio America". For their many faults, the Libertines, Palmas' Rough Trade forebears, had astute things to say about British class and society. The main lyrical takeaway from Danger in the Club is that Jesson and Fryer are dreadful poets, attempting to pass off misery as depth and exhibiting a noxious distaste for the women that have left them, or deigned to try and love them. The record opens with an iPhone recording of the owners of the Welsh studio they recorded in singing "Sweet Violets", a comic traditional about how women are only interested in a man's money. Where the Palmas mythologized girls on 180, here they're a nuisance or wearying source of pain at best, slappers (the title track) at worst, something to be stepped on to feel better. "We'll probably burn out and fail", Fryer and Jesson sing on "Girl, You Couldn't Do Much Better on the Beach". "Well, at least I was a marvelous failure/ You'll be like the rest… a nonsensical benign success!" In a recent NME feature that gauged political feeling among bands in the run-up to the UK general election, Jesson, said that Palma Violets had "tried to consciously not be political" on their second album. (It's hard to believe they tried much at all.) "Everything is so fucking politically correct at the moment that if you say something out of line it's almost like you're trying to provoke something," he said, risibly. A charitable perspective might see the band's embrace of pub rock as a conscious rejection of political correctness in the form of so-called good taste; the reality is that it seems like a last-ditch attempt to aestheticize a sublime lack of inspiration.

Artist: Palma Violets, Album: Danger in the Club, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 4.5 Album review: "What is it with trad British indie-rock bands actively selling themselves short at the moment? Vaccines frontman Justin Young has said of their forthcoming third album, "We wanted to make something that sounds amazing next year and then terrible in 10 years." And here's Palma Violets' co-frontman Sam Fryer: "There's no producer in the world who could make us sound professional." At least Catfish & the Bottlemen reach for the sky (or Glastonbury's main stage) as they're scraping the barrel. Perhaps it's a symptom of having been the barometer/straw men of the Great British Music Press Hype Machine (the sheer fact of which seems to prime the nation's indie bands for America's contempt): retreat before you get replaced. Reviews of Palma Violets' 2013 debut, 180, lambasted fickle British music magazines for telling teenagers that the all-male London four-piece were the next big thing (what a crime), while conceding that the record's punch-drunk mix of Gun Club swagger and the Clash's more jovial insurrection was actually alright. On Danger in the Club, Palma Violets have willfully regressed, from punk to pub-rock—or "pre-punk", as they've been calling it. Spearheaded by Dr. Feelgood, Brinsley Schwarz, and Eddie and the Hot Rods, pub rock was a reaction against prog, glam, and bands ascending to theater venues that priced out their early supporters. The genre was quickly trumped by punk proper, and doesn't have a lot of cachet today. Palma Violets have talked about briefly hating each other by the end of the tour for their debut album, and having no ideas for their second as recently as midway through 2014. 180 wasn't original, but it had energy and high stakes on its side: its youthful relationships were either world-beating or the end of the world, and the nonsensical titles/lyrics ("Johnny Bagga' Donuts", "Chicken Dippers") hinted at a wealth of winking in-jokes between besotted friends. The band members are only now in their very early 20s, but the mood on Danger in the Club is misanthropic, tired of life and home and girls. "I would rather die than be in love", the band's other vocalist, Chilli Jesson, sings on "Coming Over To My Place", a dissolute memory of the melody to the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love". With the help of a supporting gang, he sings the line over and over, in a state of forced triumphant collapse that just seems sad. Danger in the Club is beset by a powerful sense of dread, but there's little effort in Palma Violets' performance, despite their claims that producer John Leckie drilled them to extremes. (It's worth remembering that after an uninspired debut, he helped tease The Bends out of an equally mixed-up young Radiohead, who came to him, as Palmas did, for his work on Magazine's 1978 album, Real Life.) They wanted to retain the quality of their early demos, but the boggy result lacks the debut's clarity. The bottom end bludgeons and their surf guitars are sloppy, the band playing like drunken British seaside pier entertainers reduced to grabbing from their '00s forebears. Interpol's self-pitying specter looms on the dismal ambience of "No Money Honey" and the moronic, Byronic "Matador". "Secrets of America" rips off the returning Libertines' shambolic rockers without any of their heart, and "The Jacket Song" sounds conspicuously like Doherty and co's lovely ballad "Radio America". For their many faults, the Libertines, Palmas' Rough Trade forebears, had astute things to say about British class and society. The main lyrical takeaway from Danger in the Club is that Jesson and Fryer are dreadful poets, attempting to pass off misery as depth and exhibiting a noxious distaste for the women that have left them, or deigned to try and love them. The record opens with an iPhone recording of the owners of the Welsh studio they recorded in singing "Sweet Violets", a comic traditional about how women are only interested in a man's money. Where the Palmas mythologized girls on 180, here they're a nuisance or wearying source of pain at best, slappers (the title track) at worst, something to be stepped on to feel better. "We'll probably burn out and fail", Fryer and Jesson sing on "Girl, You Couldn't Do Much Better on the Beach". "Well, at least I was a marvelous failure/ You'll be like the rest… a nonsensical benign success!" In a recent NME feature that gauged political feeling among bands in the run-up to the UK general election, Jesson, said that Palma Violets had "tried to consciously not be political" on their second album. (It's hard to believe they tried much at all.) "Everything is so fucking politically correct at the moment that if you say something out of line it's almost like you're trying to provoke something," he said, risibly. A charitable perspective might see the band's embrace of pub rock as a conscious rejection of political correctness in the form of so-called good taste; the reality is that it seems like a last-ditch attempt to aestheticize a sublime lack of inspiration."

L’Rain

L’Rain

Experimental

Jay Balfour

Taja Cheek was already recording an album about grief when her mother Lorraine died. “It’s almost like I caused her death in some way—the feeling is absurd, bigger than myself, a premonition,” she told Afropunk. In 2014, Cheek adopted L’Rain as a stage name and has just finally released her self-titled debut as a beautiful, untidy conduit for the absurd synchronicity of her grieving. The album isn’t so much about Lorraine the person as it is about the crater her death imprinted on Cheek. A lifelong Brooklynite, Cheek is a DIY artist and noise musician who glides around several scenes. She has a background in classical cello and piano, and throughout L’Rain she’s playing keyboards, synthesizers, and guitar, as well as manning tape delay effects and samples. She’s not alone; together with a small cast of session instrumentalists, Cheek builds swelling mounds of vaguely spiritual free jazz and ambient sound. L’Rain is a perilously busy record that’s open but not begging to be parsed. Sometimes it feels too cerebrally insular, like a barely-curated diary with all the scribbles and rough drafts springing out from the margins. Most of the album seems to hover in a haze levitated by the haunt of Cheek’s voice, whether it’s manipulated to sound removed and choral, or delayed and reversed as a noise element. Either way, the effects often render her lyrics murky and the entire album can slip by without a discernible phrase. “Heavy (But Not in Wait)” opens the record with a clean swell that grows into soulful folk once it’s crescendoed to final form. Here and throughout, L’Rain’s songs seem to softly wander and change shape. There isn’t a single track with a straightforward structure, so the nine songs on L’Rain meander to the point of feeling more like a dozen. Cheek and company often seem possessed by repetitive guitar riffs and churn them into meditative motifs that lend the entire record a pastoral feel. “Stay, Go (Go, Stay)” has a twinkle at its heart, and while it sounds like L’Rain is singing about love, it’s obviously just slipped through her fingers. “Bat,” a yearningly nostalgic track about a bat trapped indoors, chugs along like a sleepy lullaby. “Benediction” is a chanting, ambient intermission that sounds like Cheek walking around in a heartbroken daze. Skittering saxophone darts across the tracklist to dizzying effect. “Which Fork/I’ll Be” is the most rambunctious track here, taking a gentle ode and giving it a softly pulsating disco vibe that almost seems goofy alongside the serenity of the rest of the album. Several shorter tracks—conversational field recordings, a voicemail that’s borderline uncomfortable to listen to in its intimacy—break up larger ideas. It’s rarely a pained sadness that pierces through L’Rain, but rather a wistful fog hovering over every moment. The whole thing feels like bouncing around Cheek’s head. She hums, whispers, coos, and chants so hushedly that she renders many of these moments as scattered background noise. Certainly, these things mean something to her, but it can be difficult to find their meaning from the outside. It sounds like she’s recorded this album for herself as a personal offering for the world to try untangling. Of course, all art is meant for this type of prodding. But L’Rain sounds first and foremost like self-therapy, and even from the outside, it’s convincingly cathartic.

Artist: L’Rain, Album: L’Rain, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "Taja Cheek was already recording an album about grief when her mother Lorraine died. “It’s almost like I caused her death in some way—the feeling is absurd, bigger than myself, a premonition,” she told Afropunk. In 2014, Cheek adopted L’Rain as a stage name and has just finally released her self-titled debut as a beautiful, untidy conduit for the absurd synchronicity of her grieving. The album isn’t so much about Lorraine the person as it is about the crater her death imprinted on Cheek. A lifelong Brooklynite, Cheek is a DIY artist and noise musician who glides around several scenes. She has a background in classical cello and piano, and throughout L’Rain she’s playing keyboards, synthesizers, and guitar, as well as manning tape delay effects and samples. She’s not alone; together with a small cast of session instrumentalists, Cheek builds swelling mounds of vaguely spiritual free jazz and ambient sound. L’Rain is a perilously busy record that’s open but not begging to be parsed. Sometimes it feels too cerebrally insular, like a barely-curated diary with all the scribbles and rough drafts springing out from the margins. Most of the album seems to hover in a haze levitated by the haunt of Cheek’s voice, whether it’s manipulated to sound removed and choral, or delayed and reversed as a noise element. Either way, the effects often render her lyrics murky and the entire album can slip by without a discernible phrase. “Heavy (But Not in Wait)” opens the record with a clean swell that grows into soulful folk once it’s crescendoed to final form. Here and throughout, L’Rain’s songs seem to softly wander and change shape. There isn’t a single track with a straightforward structure, so the nine songs on L’Rain meander to the point of feeling more like a dozen. Cheek and company often seem possessed by repetitive guitar riffs and churn them into meditative motifs that lend the entire record a pastoral feel. “Stay, Go (Go, Stay)” has a twinkle at its heart, and while it sounds like L’Rain is singing about love, it’s obviously just slipped through her fingers. “Bat,” a yearningly nostalgic track about a bat trapped indoors, chugs along like a sleepy lullaby. “Benediction” is a chanting, ambient intermission that sounds like Cheek walking around in a heartbroken daze. Skittering saxophone darts across the tracklist to dizzying effect. “Which Fork/I’ll Be” is the most rambunctious track here, taking a gentle ode and giving it a softly pulsating disco vibe that almost seems goofy alongside the serenity of the rest of the album. Several shorter tracks—conversational field recordings, a voicemail that’s borderline uncomfortable to listen to in its intimacy—break up larger ideas. It’s rarely a pained sadness that pierces through L’Rain, but rather a wistful fog hovering over every moment. The whole thing feels like bouncing around Cheek’s head. She hums, whispers, coos, and chants so hushedly that she renders many of these moments as scattered background noise. Certainly, these things mean something to her, but it can be difficult to find their meaning from the outside. It sounds like she’s recorded this album for herself as a personal offering for the world to try untangling. Of course, all art is meant for this type of prodding. But L’Rain sounds first and foremost like self-therapy, and even from the outside, it’s convincingly cathartic."

The Dandy Warhols

...Earth to the Dandy Warhols...

Electronic,Rock

Eric Harvey

More than anything, the Dandy Warhols are perfectly named: The band seems consumed with scenester mannerisms, with leader Courtney Taylor acting as a socialite participant-observer-- just inside enough to know what's going on, but removed enough to snipe from the sidelines. One sequence from the documentary Dig!-- a document of the band's quest for fame via unapologetic poseurism-- illustrates this perfectly: The band breaks into the Brian Jonestown Massacre's disgusting apartment, taking pictures of themselves amongst the detritus. From a perspective of authenticity, the Dandys are really easy to hate for the way they drape themselves in grimy finery like hack method actors preparing for a role. In the past, however, they've displaced this conception in the best way possible, with highly enjoyable singles ("Boys Better", "Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth", "Bohemian Like You"), and one solid LP, 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia. Aside from their highpoints, however, the Dandy Warhols are most known for feeding into their worst and most indulgent musical instincts: meandering psychedelia, implausible conceptual larks, and skit-length ideas stretched to epic proportions. All of which adds up, more or less, to the entirety of ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols..., the band's sixth album, and a how-to guide for outsize imitations of rock'n'roll debauchery and spirituality. It's no surprise that its prevailing themes-- outer space, dubious Eastern mysticism, "Talk Radio"-- are all known for being infinitely large and depthless. "The World the People Together (Come On)" seemed by itself an odd choice for a first single, especially from a band that's had a few winners in the past-- it's mostly wordless, some vibey chanting that suggests the Go! Team after taking their Ritalin-- but it does effectively catalog Earth's (and the band's) schtick of glacially paced and arena-sized but ultimately pointless sentiment. Earth is a whopping 70 minutes long, and at no point in it do we get an idea of what exactly the fuck the Dandy Warhols are trying to tell us. Like one of those New Age retreats that turns out to be a pyramid scheme, you emerge on the other side of the album a bit worn out, confused, and bitter for lost time. (The final track, for example, is a nearly 15-minute minute studio dickaround about a museum for candy bars.) "Wasp in the Lotus" is a "Sexy Sadie" redux, about the sour intentions just beneath claims of transcendence, and they play it po-faced enough. But then they fall into that exact same trap on "Mission Control", with meaningless advice like: "It's not quite like you think it's/ Not that obvious". When they stick to what they're good at-- lifting musical ideas from the late-60s-- they still sometimes succeed: "Love Song" is a hyper-jangly folk-rock pastiche, but while "Valerie Yum" pulls from Tommy James and the Shondells, it does so for seven minutes, the last four of which sees Taylor exposing his real reason for writing the song. Here's a hint: remove the "erie" from "Valerie", then add the "Yum", and repeat it out loud. See what he did there? That said, I can't hate on the Dandy Warhols only for their simplistic parody. If they were really good at commenting on celebrity and hipster culture from an aesthetic remove-- and if they could write good, empathetic songs about their subjects-- they'd be Pulp, and, well, there can be only one Pulp. What I can take issue with, though, is the fact that the Dandy Warhols, perhaps more here than on any previous album, are trying to have it both ways: Commenting on the absurdity of something while unquestioningly embodying it, and in the process adopting irony as an ironic performative schtick. All of this is neatly encapsulated in the abysmally titled "Welcome to the Third World", a tale of a "college town" refugee burning a fatty on a tropical beach while avoiding the nuisance of shotguns on the dancefloor. It's quite literal, of course, but "Third World" makes it only fair to call the Dandys on their bullshit; after all, everybody hates a tourist.

Artist: The Dandy Warhols, Album: ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols..., Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 3.5 Album review: "More than anything, the Dandy Warhols are perfectly named: The band seems consumed with scenester mannerisms, with leader Courtney Taylor acting as a socialite participant-observer-- just inside enough to know what's going on, but removed enough to snipe from the sidelines. One sequence from the documentary Dig!-- a document of the band's quest for fame via unapologetic poseurism-- illustrates this perfectly: The band breaks into the Brian Jonestown Massacre's disgusting apartment, taking pictures of themselves amongst the detritus. From a perspective of authenticity, the Dandys are really easy to hate for the way they drape themselves in grimy finery like hack method actors preparing for a role. In the past, however, they've displaced this conception in the best way possible, with highly enjoyable singles ("Boys Better", "Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth", "Bohemian Like You"), and one solid LP, 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia. Aside from their highpoints, however, the Dandy Warhols are most known for feeding into their worst and most indulgent musical instincts: meandering psychedelia, implausible conceptual larks, and skit-length ideas stretched to epic proportions. All of which adds up, more or less, to the entirety of ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols..., the band's sixth album, and a how-to guide for outsize imitations of rock'n'roll debauchery and spirituality. It's no surprise that its prevailing themes-- outer space, dubious Eastern mysticism, "Talk Radio"-- are all known for being infinitely large and depthless. "The World the People Together (Come On)" seemed by itself an odd choice for a first single, especially from a band that's had a few winners in the past-- it's mostly wordless, some vibey chanting that suggests the Go! Team after taking their Ritalin-- but it does effectively catalog Earth's (and the band's) schtick of glacially paced and arena-sized but ultimately pointless sentiment. Earth is a whopping 70 minutes long, and at no point in it do we get an idea of what exactly the fuck the Dandy Warhols are trying to tell us. Like one of those New Age retreats that turns out to be a pyramid scheme, you emerge on the other side of the album a bit worn out, confused, and bitter for lost time. (The final track, for example, is a nearly 15-minute minute studio dickaround about a museum for candy bars.) "Wasp in the Lotus" is a "Sexy Sadie" redux, about the sour intentions just beneath claims of transcendence, and they play it po-faced enough. But then they fall into that exact same trap on "Mission Control", with meaningless advice like: "It's not quite like you think it's/ Not that obvious". When they stick to what they're good at-- lifting musical ideas from the late-60s-- they still sometimes succeed: "Love Song" is a hyper-jangly folk-rock pastiche, but while "Valerie Yum" pulls from Tommy James and the Shondells, it does so for seven minutes, the last four of which sees Taylor exposing his real reason for writing the song. Here's a hint: remove the "erie" from "Valerie", then add the "Yum", and repeat it out loud. See what he did there? That said, I can't hate on the Dandy Warhols only for their simplistic parody. If they were really good at commenting on celebrity and hipster culture from an aesthetic remove-- and if they could write good, empathetic songs about their subjects-- they'd be Pulp, and, well, there can be only one Pulp. What I can take issue with, though, is the fact that the Dandy Warhols, perhaps more here than on any previous album, are trying to have it both ways: Commenting on the absurdity of something while unquestioningly embodying it, and in the process adopting irony as an ironic performative schtick. All of this is neatly encapsulated in the abysmally titled "Welcome to the Third World", a tale of a "college town" refugee burning a fatty on a tropical beach while avoiding the nuisance of shotguns on the dancefloor. It's quite literal, of course, but "Third World" makes it only fair to call the Dandys on their bullshit; after all, everybody hates a tourist."

Plan B

Who Needs Actions When You Got Words

Rap

William Bowers

This album's first 10 seconds: a cavernous wind, an elliptical backwards sample, and 22-year-old East Londoner Ben Drew announcing that it's his "time," calling those of us on the receiving end of his lecture "fucking cunts" who'd "best listen up." Expecting his audience to tolerate such abuse requires a wildly self-serving imagination; this rapper is like Shakespeare's Richard III giddily wooing the widow of a guy he just killed. Opening track "Kidz" definitely wants to have it both ways (á la Larry Clark's cautionary/titillating film of virtually the similar name), indulging in myriad violent/sexual fantasies, but chorus-filing the first-person rant away as a (cliché) moral editorial about "kids today." Five minutes worth of freshman Freud helps to synopsize all of side A, during which castration fear abounds. Each track oversalutes the speaker's dick, a phallus whose power is constantly under threat from eager vaginas rife with disease. The repeated images of throat-slitting obviously refer to a need to figuratively emasculate rivals (see the hip-hop tradition of penis-editing terror that dawns with Grandmaster Flash's "trying not to lose my head," running through "King Kut", the 1990s fixation with "peeling caps back," and even "Where's Your Head At"). Taboos such as anality and necrophilia are alternately seductive and horrifying, as the speaker waffles between primal and civilized urges. Resentment of an inability to monopolize the female parent's sexual attention surfaces on "Mama (Loves a Crackhead)". The forbidden youthful desire for the sister is fulfilled on "Charmaine", about a 14-year-old who can be humped because her "enormous" breasts constitute "real woman"-hood (after an intimidating encounter with the "shiny head" of an oversized "doorman"). The first seven of these 14 songs peaks with the blindingly Oedipal "I Don't Hate You", a massive takedown of a father ill-fated by his intimacy with the gods. The second half wakes up from a dreamstate to analyze it; the speaker wonders aloud at his subconscious reasons for his behavior. The music-- previously reliant on two guitar chords (either played mournfully or Doobie Bros-fully) over huge drum loops-- recedes into the trappings of sophistication: "Everyday" owes its titanicness to the lack of an anchoring beat, electing to subsist on a chamber-pop requiem. I'm tempted to think that B has heard the transcendent and beautiful drumless bootlegs of Terror Squad over Modest Mouse and the Streets over Red Hot Chili Peppers (by DJs Erb and Simon Chapman, respectively). The track reveals that, somehow, the syncopated bottom-end of most rap anthems serves to mellow the urgent lyrics rather than intensify them. Diddy even begins his new album over a Tears For Fears sample that never "kicks in"; what I'm trying to say is that hip-hop can go "ambient" without succumbing to (let's not name names) avant-garde paroxysms. The redundant thuggishnesss of side one (talking tough shit about being sick of people talking tough shit?) gives way to the staccato piano of side two's brilliant debunking of gangsta poseurs, "Where Ya From". The early addiction-rants and stoner-reveries yield to the condemnation of drug use that is "Missing Links". Fans of unbowed hardness will probably be made ill by "Couldn't Get Along"'s trucey soft-rock percussion, tear-verge vocals, and Phillip-Glass-meets-*"*The Young and the Restless" musicianship. Plan B manages to milk his biographical plight without resorting to the childhood-trauma-as-pissing-contest tactics of most memoirists, even if he does exceedingly privilege death as a harbinger of realism. (In fact, some of his efforts reveal melodramaturgy similar to the convenient resolutions of "issues-based" cinema such as Traffic and Crash.) The darkness can be a little much, because he's never flat-out ridiculous like, say, Fear smirk-singing about nun assault, but B's cauldron of bits from the Bible, Nas, and Prodigy gets lightened a tad by shout-outs to Coolio and Hall & Oates. Still: dude's named himself after an emergency contraceptive-- what do you want? He's too busy pointing out how elements of mainstream (Michael Jackson, TV news) and high (Irreversible, City of God) culture are as bilious as their low or underground counterparts to even bother caring about his own supposed genre; the electrocrash of Hadouken's (non-album ) remix of "No More Eatin" is more grime than anything on Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, which pretty much sounds like a UK Sage Francis produced by Everlast. (The BBC calls his music "urban." So, what, Jarvis Cocker is "rural"?) And to be fair, the album's sensitive wrap-up contains consecutive songs about rendering folks toothless; Freudians claim that the loss of choppers symbolizes impotence. Regardless, "I Don't Hate You" bears some of this year's sharpest fangs.

Artist: Plan B, Album: Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "This album's first 10 seconds: a cavernous wind, an elliptical backwards sample, and 22-year-old East Londoner Ben Drew announcing that it's his "time," calling those of us on the receiving end of his lecture "fucking cunts" who'd "best listen up." Expecting his audience to tolerate such abuse requires a wildly self-serving imagination; this rapper is like Shakespeare's Richard III giddily wooing the widow of a guy he just killed. Opening track "Kidz" definitely wants to have it both ways (á la Larry Clark's cautionary/titillating film of virtually the similar name), indulging in myriad violent/sexual fantasies, but chorus-filing the first-person rant away as a (cliché) moral editorial about "kids today." Five minutes worth of freshman Freud helps to synopsize all of side A, during which castration fear abounds. Each track oversalutes the speaker's dick, a phallus whose power is constantly under threat from eager vaginas rife with disease. The repeated images of throat-slitting obviously refer to a need to figuratively emasculate rivals (see the hip-hop tradition of penis-editing terror that dawns with Grandmaster Flash's "trying not to lose my head," running through "King Kut", the 1990s fixation with "peeling caps back," and even "Where's Your Head At"). Taboos such as anality and necrophilia are alternately seductive and horrifying, as the speaker waffles between primal and civilized urges. Resentment of an inability to monopolize the female parent's sexual attention surfaces on "Mama (Loves a Crackhead)". The forbidden youthful desire for the sister is fulfilled on "Charmaine", about a 14-year-old who can be humped because her "enormous" breasts constitute "real woman"-hood (after an intimidating encounter with the "shiny head" of an oversized "doorman"). The first seven of these 14 songs peaks with the blindingly Oedipal "I Don't Hate You", a massive takedown of a father ill-fated by his intimacy with the gods. The second half wakes up from a dreamstate to analyze it; the speaker wonders aloud at his subconscious reasons for his behavior. The music-- previously reliant on two guitar chords (either played mournfully or Doobie Bros-fully) over huge drum loops-- recedes into the trappings of sophistication: "Everyday" owes its titanicness to the lack of an anchoring beat, electing to subsist on a chamber-pop requiem. I'm tempted to think that B has heard the transcendent and beautiful drumless bootlegs of Terror Squad over Modest Mouse and the Streets over Red Hot Chili Peppers (by DJs Erb and Simon Chapman, respectively). The track reveals that, somehow, the syncopated bottom-end of most rap anthems serves to mellow the urgent lyrics rather than intensify them. Diddy even begins his new album over a Tears For Fears sample that never "kicks in"; what I'm trying to say is that hip-hop can go "ambient" without succumbing to (let's not name names) avant-garde paroxysms. The redundant thuggishnesss of side one (talking tough shit about being sick of people talking tough shit?) gives way to the staccato piano of side two's brilliant debunking of gangsta poseurs, "Where Ya From". The early addiction-rants and stoner-reveries yield to the condemnation of drug use that is "Missing Links". Fans of unbowed hardness will probably be made ill by "Couldn't Get Along"'s trucey soft-rock percussion, tear-verge vocals, and Phillip-Glass-meets-*"*The Young and the Restless" musicianship. Plan B manages to milk his biographical plight without resorting to the childhood-trauma-as-pissing-contest tactics of most memoirists, even if he does exceedingly privilege death as a harbinger of realism. (In fact, some of his efforts reveal melodramaturgy similar to the convenient resolutions of "issues-based" cinema such as Traffic and Crash.) The darkness can be a little much, because he's never flat-out ridiculous like, say, Fear smirk-singing about nun assault, but B's cauldron of bits from the Bible, Nas, and Prodigy gets lightened a tad by shout-outs to Coolio and Hall & Oates. Still: dude's named himself after an emergency contraceptive-- what do you want? He's too busy pointing out how elements of mainstream (Michael Jackson, TV news) and high (Irreversible, City of God) culture are as bilious as their low or underground counterparts to even bother caring about his own supposed genre; the electrocrash of Hadouken's (non-album ) remix of "No More Eatin" is more grime than anything on Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, which pretty much sounds like a UK Sage Francis produced by Everlast. (The BBC calls his music "urban." So, what, Jarvis Cocker is "rural"?) And to be fair, the album's sensitive wrap-up contains consecutive songs about rendering folks toothless; Freudians claim that the loss of choppers symbolizes impotence. Regardless, "I Don't Hate You" bears some of this year's sharpest fangs."

The Jealous Sound

Kill Them With Kindness

Rock

David Raposa

Nowhere is the futility of kitchen magnet pigeonholing more apparent than in that lovable subsection of popular music commonly referred to by that three-letter E word I'm going to refrain from using for the remainder of this write-up. Just as rock of the independent variety had fans, writers, and PR employees shoving twee-ness like East River Pipe into the same overfilled nook with rabid madmen like the Jesus Lizard, so would the E word attempt to cover more musical ground than one might consider reasonable. A quick check of fourfa.com (a noble attempt to make sense of this madness) would have visitors believe that just about anything from Rites Of Spring to Cap'n Jazz to even The Strokes qualifies as-- OK, I'll say it-- emo. That's a lot of area to lay claim to, and it does little more than turn that E word into a mutt-like descriptor-- the term refers to so many things, it ends up referring to nothing. That doesn't do a group like the Jealous Sound any favors. In its current configuration, The Jealous Sound features former members of Knapsack, Sunday's Best, Jawbox and Shudder to Think (those last 2 groups are part of the litany thanks to drummer Adam Wade, but Wade didn't even drum on this record). In this instance, the key precedent to take note of is Knapsack-- that's the voice of former backpacker Blair Shehan singing lines like "There was a guy/ Making a plan/ Find a girl/ And she'd understand." Yeah, yeah, you think you know the drill-- MORE silly love songs?-- but then Shehan offers less obvious lines like, "Did you manage to forget / Did you tie the tourniquet?/ Forgive me for gushing." This is a cloyingly clever sample, but Shehan's decision to err on this side rather than on the clichéd and plainspoken "he said moon/ she said June\x94 side does the record a world of good. Where these words might once have found themselves attached to a voice prone to tortured yelping and pre-pubescent cracking, they're now delivered by a raspy croak not too dissimilar from something off a Replacements record. Haters might want to point to the Goo Goo Dolls instead-- it's all about the indie cred with some folks-- but both comparisons would be equally appropriate. There's enough of a down-to-earth rock vibe on this record to keep the more mawkish moments from becoming overbearing. Besides, if you're already fond of the Superchunky basslines and synth blubbery on Kill Them With Kindness, it's doubtful that a little thing like who the singer sounds like will keep you from enjoying it. And this actually is an enjoyable record-- a solid set of rock songs that hovers somewhere between the professionalism of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American and your favorite slice of homegrown emotion. This assumes, of course, that you have an affinity for this stuff. If the thought of a band performing this heartfelt guitar-centric safety dance for a bunch of Doc Marteneers makes you want to shave your head and talk to yourself in mirrors, then please leave the Jealous Sound be and let me introduce you to a group of earnest young men calling themselves Dashboard Confessional.

Artist: The Jealous Sound, Album: Kill Them With Kindness, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "Nowhere is the futility of kitchen magnet pigeonholing more apparent than in that lovable subsection of popular music commonly referred to by that three-letter E word I'm going to refrain from using for the remainder of this write-up. Just as rock of the independent variety had fans, writers, and PR employees shoving twee-ness like East River Pipe into the same overfilled nook with rabid madmen like the Jesus Lizard, so would the E word attempt to cover more musical ground than one might consider reasonable. A quick check of fourfa.com (a noble attempt to make sense of this madness) would have visitors believe that just about anything from Rites Of Spring to Cap'n Jazz to even The Strokes qualifies as-- OK, I'll say it-- emo. That's a lot of area to lay claim to, and it does little more than turn that E word into a mutt-like descriptor-- the term refers to so many things, it ends up referring to nothing. That doesn't do a group like the Jealous Sound any favors. In its current configuration, The Jealous Sound features former members of Knapsack, Sunday's Best, Jawbox and Shudder to Think (those last 2 groups are part of the litany thanks to drummer Adam Wade, but Wade didn't even drum on this record). In this instance, the key precedent to take note of is Knapsack-- that's the voice of former backpacker Blair Shehan singing lines like "There was a guy/ Making a plan/ Find a girl/ And she'd understand." Yeah, yeah, you think you know the drill-- MORE silly love songs?-- but then Shehan offers less obvious lines like, "Did you manage to forget / Did you tie the tourniquet?/ Forgive me for gushing." This is a cloyingly clever sample, but Shehan's decision to err on this side rather than on the clichéd and plainspoken "he said moon/ she said June\x94 side does the record a world of good. Where these words might once have found themselves attached to a voice prone to tortured yelping and pre-pubescent cracking, they're now delivered by a raspy croak not too dissimilar from something off a Replacements record. Haters might want to point to the Goo Goo Dolls instead-- it's all about the indie cred with some folks-- but both comparisons would be equally appropriate. There's enough of a down-to-earth rock vibe on this record to keep the more mawkish moments from becoming overbearing. Besides, if you're already fond of the Superchunky basslines and synth blubbery on Kill Them With Kindness, it's doubtful that a little thing like who the singer sounds like will keep you from enjoying it. And this actually is an enjoyable record-- a solid set of rock songs that hovers somewhere between the professionalism of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American and your favorite slice of homegrown emotion. This assumes, of course, that you have an affinity for this stuff. If the thought of a band performing this heartfelt guitar-centric safety dance for a bunch of Doc Marteneers makes you want to shave your head and talk to yourself in mirrors, then please leave the Jealous Sound be and let me introduce you to a group of earnest young men calling themselves Dashboard Confessional."

Solange

Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams

Pop/R&B

Tim Finney

The landscape of contemporary R&B is littered with the bones of self-styled mavericks-- Imani Coppola, Lina, even Kelis of late. So it's with trepidation that I endorse Solange Knowles' second album; its cryptic, wordy title already promising a fatally over-ambitious statement at odds with the more mercantile concerns of mainstream pop. In reality, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams is more familiar than its title and cover-art might suggest, most of it riding the classicist Motown framework repopularized by Amerie and producer Rich Harrison. Instead, Solange's vision and, depending on how you look at it, pretension manifests in an aesthetic of excess: On "Would've Been the One", the sudden rhythmic contortions, the dizzying chord progressions, the too-bright dazzle of Solange's vocal and the excesses of her harmonies combine to form something gloriously surplus-to-requirements. Likewise, the conflicted "T.O.N.Y.", with its circular lyrical fixations (the one-night-stand that got away) and lurching groove, at first feels somehow top-heavy before snapping into place with a charming short-circuit of restless confusion and explosive conviction. At her least, Solange can be too mannered, knocking out flawless period pieces that float past without leaving a trace, her wispy voice, plush arrangements, and oblique, counter-intuitive hooks offering too much of a good thing-- no one except nu-soul enthusiasts wants that much studious classiness. And there are times when everything gets surprisingly arch: the toe-tapping jazz-ballet patter of "I Decided, Pt. 1" sounds a bit like an off-Broadway paean to Motown, its deliberate facsimile of a facsimile of soul signifiers relying on Solange's declamatory performance to carry it to victory. But it's when she abandons the rigorous structures of soul revivalism that this too-clever vibe can get a bit too much-- see "Cosmic Journey", a soft-centred glitch-pop ballad whose swooning loveliness is tarnished slightly by its heavy-handed title and unnecessary "psychedelic" techno-trance coda. Many will applaud the daring of the handful of electronic tracks here-- album closer "This Bird" is even built around a Boards of Canada sample-- but I'm afraid we'd consider this same thing juvenile from, say, Imogen Heap. In fairness, Solange isn't lapsing into cliché here: The arrangements are unpredictable, and the lyrics even more so; on "This Bird" she sighs over how "your dad drives a foreign car and your momma looks like a beauty queen," in an inscrutable tribute to Gershwin, before delicately advising the listener to "just shut the fuck up." But there's a tinge of diaristic adolescence in the way she inevitably fuses these sonic journeys with a thematic obsession with boundlessness, her incomparable surpassing of all expectations and limitations. Predictably, then, it's when Solange slows down and lets the world catch up that she's most arresting. On "I Decided, Pt. 2", a straight-to-the-point remix of its predecessor by erstwhile commercial house merchants the Freemasons, she unabashedly embraces streamlined pop form, her sassy performance somehow finding a new urgency amidst the very anonymity of the song's sugary, Phil Spector-meets-glam arrangement. Call it "generic," but here the term is a compliment: Any hint of eccentricity would be a blemish marring the song's perfectly proportioned, irresistibly svelte figure. It's not a case of Solange performing best when she jettisons her ambition, but rather her need to find a way to let her avant inclinations work with rather than against her pop instincts, and maybe the best way for that to happen is to let the former emerge organically through the latter. Only marginally behind "I Decided, Pt. 2" in terms of impact (and, perhaps, marginally more loveable) is "Sandcastle Disco" its light-as-a-feather summertime funk strut leavened by an utterly magical chorus. A bid for chart success? Undoubtedly, but Solange makes it her own with a crescendo performance like a bubble of terrified elation swelling up in your chest. When she can do scrunch-faced joy so purely, so superlatively, why bother with window-dressing?

Artist: Solange, Album: Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "The landscape of contemporary R&B is littered with the bones of self-styled mavericks-- Imani Coppola, Lina, even Kelis of late. So it's with trepidation that I endorse Solange Knowles' second album; its cryptic, wordy title already promising a fatally over-ambitious statement at odds with the more mercantile concerns of mainstream pop. In reality, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams is more familiar than its title and cover-art might suggest, most of it riding the classicist Motown framework repopularized by Amerie and producer Rich Harrison. Instead, Solange's vision and, depending on how you look at it, pretension manifests in an aesthetic of excess: On "Would've Been the One", the sudden rhythmic contortions, the dizzying chord progressions, the too-bright dazzle of Solange's vocal and the excesses of her harmonies combine to form something gloriously surplus-to-requirements. Likewise, the conflicted "T.O.N.Y.", with its circular lyrical fixations (the one-night-stand that got away) and lurching groove, at first feels somehow top-heavy before snapping into place with a charming short-circuit of restless confusion and explosive conviction. At her least, Solange can be too mannered, knocking out flawless period pieces that float past without leaving a trace, her wispy voice, plush arrangements, and oblique, counter-intuitive hooks offering too much of a good thing-- no one except nu-soul enthusiasts wants that much studious classiness. And there are times when everything gets surprisingly arch: the toe-tapping jazz-ballet patter of "I Decided, Pt. 1" sounds a bit like an off-Broadway paean to Motown, its deliberate facsimile of a facsimile of soul signifiers relying on Solange's declamatory performance to carry it to victory. But it's when she abandons the rigorous structures of soul revivalism that this too-clever vibe can get a bit too much-- see "Cosmic Journey", a soft-centred glitch-pop ballad whose swooning loveliness is tarnished slightly by its heavy-handed title and unnecessary "psychedelic" techno-trance coda. Many will applaud the daring of the handful of electronic tracks here-- album closer "This Bird" is even built around a Boards of Canada sample-- but I'm afraid we'd consider this same thing juvenile from, say, Imogen Heap. In fairness, Solange isn't lapsing into cliché here: The arrangements are unpredictable, and the lyrics even more so; on "This Bird" she sighs over how "your dad drives a foreign car and your momma looks like a beauty queen," in an inscrutable tribute to Gershwin, before delicately advising the listener to "just shut the fuck up." But there's a tinge of diaristic adolescence in the way she inevitably fuses these sonic journeys with a thematic obsession with boundlessness, her incomparable surpassing of all expectations and limitations. Predictably, then, it's when Solange slows down and lets the world catch up that she's most arresting. On "I Decided, Pt. 2", a straight-to-the-point remix of its predecessor by erstwhile commercial house merchants the Freemasons, she unabashedly embraces streamlined pop form, her sassy performance somehow finding a new urgency amidst the very anonymity of the song's sugary, Phil Spector-meets-glam arrangement. Call it "generic," but here the term is a compliment: Any hint of eccentricity would be a blemish marring the song's perfectly proportioned, irresistibly svelte figure. It's not a case of Solange performing best when she jettisons her ambition, but rather her need to find a way to let her avant inclinations work with rather than against her pop instincts, and maybe the best way for that to happen is to let the former emerge organically through the latter. Only marginally behind "I Decided, Pt. 2" in terms of impact (and, perhaps, marginally more loveable) is "Sandcastle Disco" its light-as-a-feather summertime funk strut leavened by an utterly magical chorus. A bid for chart success? Undoubtedly, but Solange makes it her own with a crescendo performance like a bubble of terrified elation swelling up in your chest. When she can do scrunch-faced joy so purely, so superlatively, why bother with window-dressing?"

Applescal

Dreaming in Key

Electronic

Brian Howe

The young Dutch electronic producer Pascal Terstappen has numerous assets, any one of which would be enough to build a strong aesthetic. He has a keen ear for melody, a terse, supple way with rhythm programming, and a sensitive dowsing rod for strange gems and ores hidden under timbral crust. His humid webs of synthetic tones and bass, drums, and treated voices are full of graceful curves and slants. Each intonation of a motif is unique as a piece of hand-blown glass. Best of all is his knack for startling, bafflingly perfect changes in tack, which is in fine form on Dreaming in Key, his new record as Applescal. His music's slippery momentum and Frankensteinian melodies seem designed to delight rather than unsettle. Among fellow deconstructive electronic musicians, he makes for a uniquely genial as well as interesting companion. Loops are naturally, stubbornly additive, but Applescal's are so pliant that the music feels conscious, especially at points of transition-- prone to pausing and gathering itself before swirling into a new form. At the top of a long, warming rise, you're as likely to find a frosty plateau or a side-winding shift as a sheer drop. He's not interested in forward motion; instead, he develops overlapping concentric circles of melody and rhythm, like rain dappling water. With shades of Boards of Canada and Four Tet in its spacey melody and Morse code percussion, "Onetasker" teases at catharsis before finally unleashing one huge, woozily droning chord. The percolating beginning of "Vintage Clown / Shadow Hunters" abruptly slumps into a post-R&B vocal fantasy, which is gradually split open by geysers of molten synths. The stellar "On the Way" starts at an oozy lope but ends in a glorious pile of marbled, backmasked melody, making the old technique feel fresh. Applescal is profligate but consistent with genre: He likes to combine springy tech house arpeggios, intrepid harmonic explorations, and tilted minimalist percussion with hefty ambient stuffing and a sparkly veneer of 90s IDM. It's mind/body music in the lineage of James Holden's Border Community label output, seeping fluidly between kinetic ecstasy and moody solitude. Applescal's versatility and vision caused his prior records to meander sometimes, bogged down by surplus ability and eagerness. That's what makes this more sharply focused third LP a great entry point-- though it wouldn't be Applescal without a certain amount of meandering. He vamps well, working filters and oscillators the way a jazz keyboardist works a modal scale. But his music is most compelling at its most structured, when he carefully draws different elements into uncanny wholes. The best example is still 2010's "Dialeague", where the warmest, most thickly rolling drones and the coldest, thinnest swirl of notes breathe in unison, though it's now rivaled by "On the Way". As an opener, "Boys" is intriguing but limited in scope, with exhalations and hisses atomized over exfoliating arpeggios and locomotive drums. The live version of "El Diablo" is a little too like Ratatat for comfort, and closer "Keep on Dreaming" feels like an afterthought. But everything else on Dreaming in Key is rich, vivid, and full of surprises. The dreamy "Lonely People" draws songful metallic pulses into an almost fugue-like structure, while the visceral "Spring and Life" has a bassy carved-out menace recalling Booka Shade's "Darko". Standout "Wise Noise on Time" channels Pantha du Prince with its tinkling, starry variations, but not before a ghostly melodic line suddenly leaps up to a squeal and hangs there, forming a yawning chasm around a steely bass. Among heavy competition, it's one of my favorite "Applescal moments" so far, the kind where a solid form seems to be pulled out of thin air.

Artist: Applescal, Album: Dreaming in Key, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "The young Dutch electronic producer Pascal Terstappen has numerous assets, any one of which would be enough to build a strong aesthetic. He has a keen ear for melody, a terse, supple way with rhythm programming, and a sensitive dowsing rod for strange gems and ores hidden under timbral crust. His humid webs of synthetic tones and bass, drums, and treated voices are full of graceful curves and slants. Each intonation of a motif is unique as a piece of hand-blown glass. Best of all is his knack for startling, bafflingly perfect changes in tack, which is in fine form on Dreaming in Key, his new record as Applescal. His music's slippery momentum and Frankensteinian melodies seem designed to delight rather than unsettle. Among fellow deconstructive electronic musicians, he makes for a uniquely genial as well as interesting companion. Loops are naturally, stubbornly additive, but Applescal's are so pliant that the music feels conscious, especially at points of transition-- prone to pausing and gathering itself before swirling into a new form. At the top of a long, warming rise, you're as likely to find a frosty plateau or a side-winding shift as a sheer drop. He's not interested in forward motion; instead, he develops overlapping concentric circles of melody and rhythm, like rain dappling water. With shades of Boards of Canada and Four Tet in its spacey melody and Morse code percussion, "Onetasker" teases at catharsis before finally unleashing one huge, woozily droning chord. The percolating beginning of "Vintage Clown / Shadow Hunters" abruptly slumps into a post-R&B vocal fantasy, which is gradually split open by geysers of molten synths. The stellar "On the Way" starts at an oozy lope but ends in a glorious pile of marbled, backmasked melody, making the old technique feel fresh. Applescal is profligate but consistent with genre: He likes to combine springy tech house arpeggios, intrepid harmonic explorations, and tilted minimalist percussion with hefty ambient stuffing and a sparkly veneer of 90s IDM. It's mind/body music in the lineage of James Holden's Border Community label output, seeping fluidly between kinetic ecstasy and moody solitude. Applescal's versatility and vision caused his prior records to meander sometimes, bogged down by surplus ability and eagerness. That's what makes this more sharply focused third LP a great entry point-- though it wouldn't be Applescal without a certain amount of meandering. He vamps well, working filters and oscillators the way a jazz keyboardist works a modal scale. But his music is most compelling at its most structured, when he carefully draws different elements into uncanny wholes. The best example is still 2010's "Dialeague", where the warmest, most thickly rolling drones and the coldest, thinnest swirl of notes breathe in unison, though it's now rivaled by "On the Way". As an opener, "Boys" is intriguing but limited in scope, with exhalations and hisses atomized over exfoliating arpeggios and locomotive drums. The live version of "El Diablo" is a little too like Ratatat for comfort, and closer "Keep on Dreaming" feels like an afterthought. But everything else on Dreaming in Key is rich, vivid, and full of surprises. The dreamy "Lonely People" draws songful metallic pulses into an almost fugue-like structure, while the visceral "Spring and Life" has a bassy carved-out menace recalling Booka Shade's "Darko". Standout "Wise Noise on Time" channels Pantha du Prince with its tinkling, starry variations, but not before a ghostly melodic line suddenly leaps up to a squeal and hangs there, forming a yawning chasm around a steely bass. Among heavy competition, it's one of my favorite "Applescal moments" so far, the kind where a solid form seems to be pulled out of thin air."

Laddio Bolocko

The Life & Times of Laddio Bolocko

Experimental

Dominique Leone

NYC's Laddio Bolocko were borne of the ashes of classic early 90s post-rock. Formed in 1996 by members of Dazzling Killmen, Mars Volta, Panicsville, Craw and Chalk, they began as the next logical step for hardcore bands wanting just a bit more to chew on than shards of metallic noise and haphazard speed-beat. However, where most musicians with the cumulative pedigree of this quartet would either be playing straight jazz or make a nice livings as mercenary session men, LB channeled their muso energies into a tightly wound ball of steel rods. As a group, they effortlessly converged at the service of drive and trance, occasionally jutting out unpredictably into harsher realms. Live, they were a powerhouse (perhaps drummer Blake Fleming learned a few things during his tenure with Zeni Geva), and though their recorded history is brief, it demonstrates a remarkable range of expression, precision and raw power. I've read comparisons to This Heat, Can and Albert Ayler, and while dropping names is usually a quick, cheap way to avoid describing music, in this case I think it really does pay tribute to the quality of their stuff. In short, Laddio Bolocko were fucking awesome. And now, they're gone. Sorry, you missed them. The guys are still playing (Fleming and Marcus DeGrazia in Electric Turn to Me; Drew St. Ivany and Ben Armstrong in The Psychic Paramount), but if you want to see LB now, you'll have to check out the video clip for "As If By Remote" on Life & Times of Laddio Bolocko. This two-disc set collects the entire recorded legacy of a band that might very well have become the premiere representatives of the noise/prog/kraut/jazz legacy as put forth by the aforementioned legends, and host of others currently receiving mega props (Flying Luttenbachers, Lightning Bolt, Ruins). The first disc of Life & Times contains 1997's Strange Warmings of Laddio Bolocko, and is the more rambunctious of the two. "Goat Lips" opens on a pseudo-fanfare of guitar and drums, sun-beaming riffs reaching toward the sky like a bizarro universe prog band that didn't realize they were supposed to insert a keyboard solo in the middle of all that commotion. Before things get too stagnant-- and they never do; one of LB's strengths was they were able to play repetitive music that didn't seem redundant-- they launch a kinetic, jackhammer groove that might fit well on a new Boredoms CD if it was just a tad less funky. They change again, playing an emergency-siren guitar riff while Fleming slams anything in sight. It's a beautiful sound, and they're just getting started. "Call Me Jesus" and "Nurser" emphasize the pure noise aspects of LB's sound, though still with enough a sense of pulse as to grant them post-rock membership on a technicality. Again, though they tend to hit a beat and stick with it, the small details-- DeGrazia's horn interjections in the right speaker, or the vaguely King Crimson-esque "chorus" blasts-- make very little go a long way. This pays major dividends on the unthinkably massive "Y Toros", which finds a few hundred ways to play the same three notes during its 34-minute tour. In much the same way This Heat played with rhythm on "Repeat", LB very rarely let a phrase go by the same way twice. Furthermore, they take almost ten minutes to climax; that may sound gratuitous, and I'm sure some folks are going to run screaming from the room during parts of the second half of the piece, but if extended foreplay with a messy peak is your game, this band wants to love you. The second disc collects 1998's In Real Time and 1999's As If By Remote, documenting the band's considerable growth over its short lifespan. "As If By Remote" is exotic drone, full of disparate sound-bites, jungle bounce and a Middle Eastern guitar riff that leaves a dreamy haze over the entire tune-- a state perfected on the practically untouchable "The Going Gong". "A Passing State of Well-Being" serves up the sunny organ chords, similar to the vibe of the first tune on the other disc, but adds flute and a metronomic funk beat to transform what would be run-of-the-mill Chicago post-rock into muscular psychedelia. Similarly, "Laddio's Money (Death of A Popsong)" takes two chords and half a riff to construct what should be the world's most inept attempt at a Ted Nugent song into avant-garage greatness. Obviously, if instrumental freak-outs of any variety aren't your bag, Laddio Bolocko might induce migraines. Yet this is rarely "noisy" music: where their would-be peers are going for the loudest and fastest riffs imaginable, pushing boundaries of sound into thresholds of pain, LB seemed to have been heading in a more textured direction. It's too bad we won't get to hear where they might have ended up, because bands that can craft delicate stones as well as rocky rave-ups aren't terribly common. In any case, Life & Times comes very recommended for those in need of a jam.

Artist: Laddio Bolocko, Album: The Life & Times of Laddio Bolocko, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 8.5 Album review: "NYC's Laddio Bolocko were borne of the ashes of classic early 90s post-rock. Formed in 1996 by members of Dazzling Killmen, Mars Volta, Panicsville, Craw and Chalk, they began as the next logical step for hardcore bands wanting just a bit more to chew on than shards of metallic noise and haphazard speed-beat. However, where most musicians with the cumulative pedigree of this quartet would either be playing straight jazz or make a nice livings as mercenary session men, LB channeled their muso energies into a tightly wound ball of steel rods. As a group, they effortlessly converged at the service of drive and trance, occasionally jutting out unpredictably into harsher realms. Live, they were a powerhouse (perhaps drummer Blake Fleming learned a few things during his tenure with Zeni Geva), and though their recorded history is brief, it demonstrates a remarkable range of expression, precision and raw power. I've read comparisons to This Heat, Can and Albert Ayler, and while dropping names is usually a quick, cheap way to avoid describing music, in this case I think it really does pay tribute to the quality of their stuff. In short, Laddio Bolocko were fucking awesome. And now, they're gone. Sorry, you missed them. The guys are still playing (Fleming and Marcus DeGrazia in Electric Turn to Me; Drew St. Ivany and Ben Armstrong in The Psychic Paramount), but if you want to see LB now, you'll have to check out the video clip for "As If By Remote" on Life & Times of Laddio Bolocko. This two-disc set collects the entire recorded legacy of a band that might very well have become the premiere representatives of the noise/prog/kraut/jazz legacy as put forth by the aforementioned legends, and host of others currently receiving mega props (Flying Luttenbachers, Lightning Bolt, Ruins). The first disc of Life & Times contains 1997's Strange Warmings of Laddio Bolocko, and is the more rambunctious of the two. "Goat Lips" opens on a pseudo-fanfare of guitar and drums, sun-beaming riffs reaching toward the sky like a bizarro universe prog band that didn't realize they were supposed to insert a keyboard solo in the middle of all that commotion. Before things get too stagnant-- and they never do; one of LB's strengths was they were able to play repetitive music that didn't seem redundant-- they launch a kinetic, jackhammer groove that might fit well on a new Boredoms CD if it was just a tad less funky. They change again, playing an emergency-siren guitar riff while Fleming slams anything in sight. It's a beautiful sound, and they're just getting started. "Call Me Jesus" and "Nurser" emphasize the pure noise aspects of LB's sound, though still with enough a sense of pulse as to grant them post-rock membership on a technicality. Again, though they tend to hit a beat and stick with it, the small details-- DeGrazia's horn interjections in the right speaker, or the vaguely King Crimson-esque "chorus" blasts-- make very little go a long way. This pays major dividends on the unthinkably massive "Y Toros", which finds a few hundred ways to play the same three notes during its 34-minute tour. In much the same way This Heat played with rhythm on "Repeat", LB very rarely let a phrase go by the same way twice. Furthermore, they take almost ten minutes to climax; that may sound gratuitous, and I'm sure some folks are going to run screaming from the room during parts of the second half of the piece, but if extended foreplay with a messy peak is your game, this band wants to love you. The second disc collects 1998's In Real Time and 1999's As If By Remote, documenting the band's considerable growth over its short lifespan. "As If By Remote" is exotic drone, full of disparate sound-bites, jungle bounce and a Middle Eastern guitar riff that leaves a dreamy haze over the entire tune-- a state perfected on the practically untouchable "The Going Gong". "A Passing State of Well-Being" serves up the sunny organ chords, similar to the vibe of the first tune on the other disc, but adds flute and a metronomic funk beat to transform what would be run-of-the-mill Chicago post-rock into muscular psychedelia. Similarly, "Laddio's Money (Death of A Popsong)" takes two chords and half a riff to construct what should be the world's most inept attempt at a Ted Nugent song into avant-garage greatness. Obviously, if instrumental freak-outs of any variety aren't your bag, Laddio Bolocko might induce migraines. Yet this is rarely "noisy" music: where their would-be peers are going for the loudest and fastest riffs imaginable, pushing boundaries of sound into thresholds of pain, LB seemed to have been heading in a more textured direction. It's too bad we won't get to hear where they might have ended up, because bands that can craft delicate stones as well as rocky rave-ups aren't terribly common. In any case, Life & Times comes very recommended for those in need of a jam."

Pika

Ryu No Sumika

Rock

Patrick St. Michel

During her eight years as the drummer in Osaka rock band Afrirampo, the artist known as Pikachu hardly ever sat still. Along with sister and guitarist Oni, the duo created frantic numbers packed with feedback and screaming, guided by a playful curiosity in what sounds their instruments and bodies could cough up. Pikachu hammered away at her kit while hollering into a microphone, and even their most slow-burning moments rarely allowed her space to rest. By the time Afrirampo disbanded in 2010, they had carved out a space next to fellow Japanese noise rockers (and friends) Boredoms and Acid Mothers Temple, while attracting attention from the likes of Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt among others. It might be surprising for those who didn’t follow Pikachu’s career after Afrirampo to hear Ryu No Sumika, her latest solo album recorded under the moniker Pika. She’s always been part of various side projects even while Afrirampo barreled forward, most notably as Moon Mama, which sometimes featured cello player Hiromichi Sakamoto taking an electric drill to his instrument. Like many Japanese musicians, however, she changed her focus after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident. She helped start Taiyo 33 Osaka, a project focusing on exploring future of energy sources and just making people feel happy after the disaster. And she started playing the songs that would end up forming Sumika, songs that moved away from chaos in favor of reflective numbers that are happy to take their time getting anywhere. The title track opens the album, and it offers a fake out aimed at anyone expecting a reversion to Afrirampo form. After nearly four minutes of build, Pikachu lets the song burst open in a rush of chirps, drum smacks and guitar squall. But this brief stretch ends up being the only real throwback to her dissonant heyday, as the bulk of Ryu No Sumika finds Pikachu operating against sparser backdrops. "Reazon" strolls forward via acoustic guitar and piano, while "Kara Wo Mitara" is pure campfire sing-a-long, accented by clarinet courtesy of David Duval-Smith. Afrirampo, however, wasn’t just great because they could make clattering shriekfests better than most. They were an extremely fun band, unafraid to go off in whatever goofy direction appealed to them, including pretending to be various Australian mammals in concert. The sonic backdrop might be different, but Pikachu is still unafraid to follow whatever muse beckons her forward. Highlight "Mermaid" might be the closest Japan’s noise community comes to making a Broadway number, as Pikachu verbally skips among steel drums, at one point ditching words entirely in favor of tongue trills (adding to the theater vibe, several guests are credited as "performers," their roles listed as "Merman" or "Merman’s friend"). Elsewhere, she spends seven minutes listing off different types of people, sometimes with vague political implications ("American" and "Iraqi" falling next to each other for example) and somehow making this potentially eye-rolling sentiment work thanks to her enthusiasm for the idea...along with drama-raising violin from Katsui Yuji. Yuji is a good example of what else makes Ryu No Sumika work. Pikachu’s selection in contributors comprises an all-star cast of artists hailing from Japan’s improvised and experimental music communities, and many of their contributions add welcome tension. Sakamoto appears across Sumika, and though he never grinds power tools against his cello, he does add prickles of unease to otherwise direct songs such as "Onnanoko Yurayura". Acid Mothers Temple mastermind Kawabata Makoto joins Pikachu, wonky singer-songwriter Tavito Nanao and sine-wave aficionado Sachiko M on "Sen", Sumika’s bleakest cut. Saeki Mayumi—better known as Afrirampo’s Oni—even stops by to read poetry on an interlude track. That moment feels important, a signal that the freewheeling spirit behind Afrirampo also inhabits Ryu No Sumika, just in a different shape. Sometimes Pikachu’s more patient approach falters, with several songs meandering and going on too long, but it also results in some deeply sweet and earnest moments. "Okaasan" opens with the line "Mother/ Yesterday mother died," and from there Pikachu turns in her most passionate vocals on the album as the music swells around her, reaching the point where her singing approaches breakdown. It’s the peak emotional moment on an album where Pikachu matures musically without losing the youthful playfulness that led her to this point.

Artist: Pika, Album: Ryu No Sumika, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "During her eight years as the drummer in Osaka rock band Afrirampo, the artist known as Pikachu hardly ever sat still. Along with sister and guitarist Oni, the duo created frantic numbers packed with feedback and screaming, guided by a playful curiosity in what sounds their instruments and bodies could cough up. Pikachu hammered away at her kit while hollering into a microphone, and even their most slow-burning moments rarely allowed her space to rest. By the time Afrirampo disbanded in 2010, they had carved out a space next to fellow Japanese noise rockers (and friends) Boredoms and Acid Mothers Temple, while attracting attention from the likes of Sonic Youth and Lightning Bolt among others. It might be surprising for those who didn’t follow Pikachu’s career after Afrirampo to hear Ryu No Sumika, her latest solo album recorded under the moniker Pika. She’s always been part of various side projects even while Afrirampo barreled forward, most notably as Moon Mama, which sometimes featured cello player Hiromichi Sakamoto taking an electric drill to his instrument. Like many Japanese musicians, however, she changed her focus after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident. She helped start Taiyo 33 Osaka, a project focusing on exploring future of energy sources and just making people feel happy after the disaster. And she started playing the songs that would end up forming Sumika, songs that moved away from chaos in favor of reflective numbers that are happy to take their time getting anywhere. The title track opens the album, and it offers a fake out aimed at anyone expecting a reversion to Afrirampo form. After nearly four minutes of build, Pikachu lets the song burst open in a rush of chirps, drum smacks and guitar squall. But this brief stretch ends up being the only real throwback to her dissonant heyday, as the bulk of Ryu No Sumika finds Pikachu operating against sparser backdrops. "Reazon" strolls forward via acoustic guitar and piano, while "Kara Wo Mitara" is pure campfire sing-a-long, accented by clarinet courtesy of David Duval-Smith. Afrirampo, however, wasn’t just great because they could make clattering shriekfests better than most. They were an extremely fun band, unafraid to go off in whatever goofy direction appealed to them, including pretending to be various Australian mammals in concert. The sonic backdrop might be different, but Pikachu is still unafraid to follow whatever muse beckons her forward. Highlight "Mermaid" might be the closest Japan’s noise community comes to making a Broadway number, as Pikachu verbally skips among steel drums, at one point ditching words entirely in favor of tongue trills (adding to the theater vibe, several guests are credited as "performers," their roles listed as "Merman" or "Merman’s friend"). Elsewhere, she spends seven minutes listing off different types of people, sometimes with vague political implications ("American" and "Iraqi" falling next to each other for example) and somehow making this potentially eye-rolling sentiment work thanks to her enthusiasm for the idea...along with drama-raising violin from Katsui Yuji. Yuji is a good example of what else makes Ryu No Sumika work. Pikachu’s selection in contributors comprises an all-star cast of artists hailing from Japan’s improvised and experimental music communities, and many of their contributions add welcome tension. Sakamoto appears across Sumika, and though he never grinds power tools against his cello, he does add prickles of unease to otherwise direct songs such as "Onnanoko Yurayura". Acid Mothers Temple mastermind Kawabata Makoto joins Pikachu, wonky singer-songwriter Tavito Nanao and sine-wave aficionado Sachiko M on "Sen", Sumika’s bleakest cut. Saeki Mayumi—better known as Afrirampo’s Oni—even stops by to read poetry on an interlude track. That moment feels important, a signal that the freewheeling spirit behind Afrirampo also inhabits Ryu No Sumika, just in a different shape. Sometimes Pikachu’s more patient approach falters, with several songs meandering and going on too long, but it also results in some deeply sweet and earnest moments. "Okaasan" opens with the line "Mother/ Yesterday mother died," and from there Pikachu turns in her most passionate vocals on the album as the music swells around her, reaching the point where her singing approaches breakdown. It’s the peak emotional moment on an album where Pikachu matures musically without losing the youthful playfulness that led her to this point."

Girl Band

The Early Years EP

Rock

Stuart Berman

The obvious joke with Girl Band is that the Irish quartet features no girls (and not everyone’s laughing), but really, the bigger misdirection lies in calling themselves a band. Sure, their composition conforms to standard punk-rock parameters—yelping singer, fuzzbox-tweaking guitarist and bassist, pugilistic drummer—but even at its most ferocious, their music lacks the emotionally raw, primal catharsis we associate with post-hardcore acts. They come off more like steely lab technicians administering shock treatment for dubious purposes. You don’t so much listen to a Girl Band song as get strapped into it: militaristic drum stomps mimic the beat of your pounding heart; foreboding, unidentifiable noises emerge suddenly from unseen corners seemingly by the push of a button; and, as they pile on the punishment with sadistic glee, your convulsions effectively form a new dance move. It’s a drill that Girl Band have been gradually perfecting over the past two years, through a string of singles that have showcased their bone-crushing force, but through markedly different demonstrations, be it 25-second circle-pit blurts or updates of songs by everyone from Beat Happening to Blawan. While these tracks have been compiled by Rough Trade on The Early Years to introduce Girl Band to North American audiences, the EP is also a snapshot of a band still figuring out how to harness the nihilistic noise of punk and the architectural precision of dance music without conforming to the conventions of either. It’s no insult to say that Girl Band’s signature song at this point is a cover—because it's one that perfectly encapsulates both their antagonistic essence and unorthodox methodology. Their grueling distension of Blawan’s "Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage"from 2013 not only betrayed a vision that looked far beyond punk for inspiration, but proved to be an ideal vehicle for frontman Dara Kiely to assert his split personality: part arch absurdist, part panic-attacked nervous wreck. The band’s hammering 2014 single "Lawman" further entrenched these sarcastic/spastic extremes, though, after the past year of awful police-related headlines, the satirical non sequitirs ("He starts every sentence with 'I know I’m not a racist, but…'") and the song’s violent meltdown climax have acquired an accidental, uncomfortably topical resonance. Girl Band’s singular qualities are best appreciated in these longer tracks, which clear adequate space for Kiely's wild mood swings, while affording the band enough time to experiment and find just the right dissonant frequencies to power their apocalyptic finales. The more concentrated songs, naturally, give them less to do: the rumble through Beat Happening’s "I Love You" is ultimately more a reverential nod to Girl Band’s smart-ass indie ancestors than something they try to fully claim as their own, while the group were in such a rush to unleash half-minute no-fi thrasher "The Cha Cha Cha" that they seemingly neglected to master it properly. But "De Bom Bom" marks the point where Girl Band’s primordial aggression and burgeoning ambitions start to coalesce, packing all the textural disorientation and mounting intensity of their extended workouts into a taut, three-and-a-half-minute shot. Like the Girl Band name itself, the title of The Early Years is a silly joke—for one, the EP doesn’t even include the band’s earliest recordings (that would be 2012’s France 98 mini-album), and the period that it faux-nostalgically canonizes covers a mere 19-month span that ended just last summer. But the mercurial, combustible potential within suggests we may not be laughing at it for much longer—like patron saints Liars’ equally feral 2001 debut, The Early Years could one day seem like a mere baby step for a band that has evolved into something even more imposing.

Artist: Girl Band, Album: The Early Years EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "The obvious joke with Girl Band is that the Irish quartet features no girls (and not everyone’s laughing), but really, the bigger misdirection lies in calling themselves a band. Sure, their composition conforms to standard punk-rock parameters—yelping singer, fuzzbox-tweaking guitarist and bassist, pugilistic drummer—but even at its most ferocious, their music lacks the emotionally raw, primal catharsis we associate with post-hardcore acts. They come off more like steely lab technicians administering shock treatment for dubious purposes. You don’t so much listen to a Girl Band song as get strapped into it: militaristic drum stomps mimic the beat of your pounding heart; foreboding, unidentifiable noises emerge suddenly from unseen corners seemingly by the push of a button; and, as they pile on the punishment with sadistic glee, your convulsions effectively form a new dance move. It’s a drill that Girl Band have been gradually perfecting over the past two years, through a string of singles that have showcased their bone-crushing force, but through markedly different demonstrations, be it 25-second circle-pit blurts or updates of songs by everyone from Beat Happening to Blawan. While these tracks have been compiled by Rough Trade on The Early Years to introduce Girl Band to North American audiences, the EP is also a snapshot of a band still figuring out how to harness the nihilistic noise of punk and the architectural precision of dance music without conforming to the conventions of either. It’s no insult to say that Girl Band’s signature song at this point is a cover—because it's one that perfectly encapsulates both their antagonistic essence and unorthodox methodology. Their grueling distension of Blawan’s "Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage"from 2013 not only betrayed a vision that looked far beyond punk for inspiration, but proved to be an ideal vehicle for frontman Dara Kiely to assert his split personality: part arch absurdist, part panic-attacked nervous wreck. The band’s hammering 2014 single "Lawman" further entrenched these sarcastic/spastic extremes, though, after the past year of awful police-related headlines, the satirical non sequitirs ("He starts every sentence with 'I know I’m not a racist, but…'") and the song’s violent meltdown climax have acquired an accidental, uncomfortably topical resonance. Girl Band’s singular qualities are best appreciated in these longer tracks, which clear adequate space for Kiely's wild mood swings, while affording the band enough time to experiment and find just the right dissonant frequencies to power their apocalyptic finales. The more concentrated songs, naturally, give them less to do: the rumble through Beat Happening’s "I Love You" is ultimately more a reverential nod to Girl Band’s smart-ass indie ancestors than something they try to fully claim as their own, while the group were in such a rush to unleash half-minute no-fi thrasher "The Cha Cha Cha" that they seemingly neglected to master it properly. But "De Bom Bom" marks the point where Girl Band’s primordial aggression and burgeoning ambitions start to coalesce, packing all the textural disorientation and mounting intensity of their extended workouts into a taut, three-and-a-half-minute shot. Like the Girl Band name itself, the title of The Early Years is a silly joke—for one, the EP doesn’t even include the band’s earliest recordings (that would be 2012’s France 98 mini-album), and the period that it faux-nostalgically canonizes covers a mere 19-month span that ended just last summer. But the mercurial, combustible potential within suggests we may not be laughing at it for much longer—like patron saints Liars’ equally feral 2001 debut, The Early Years could one day seem like a mere baby step for a band that has evolved into something even more imposing."

John Chantler, Tujiko Noriko, Lawrence English

U

Rock,Electronic,Experimental

Joe Tangari

The Room40 imprint is probably the foremost purveyor of experimental music in the Southern Hemisphere. Founded around the turn of the century by Lawrence English, the label has become the prolific home of many of Australia's best ambient and electronic musicians, as well as a rest stop for guys like Keith Fullerton Whitman, Philip Jeck, Oren Ambarchi, David Toop, Thurston Moore and Luc Ferrari. Japanese singer and experimentalist Tujiko Noriko's here makes her second appearance on the label. Noriko's 2005 effort for Room40, Blurred in My Mirror, had a beguiling and murky atmosphere but nonetheless offered moments of stunning pop clarity-- this collaboration leans much more heavily to abstraction and the pure celebration of sound. John Chantler, whose association with Room40 goes back to its beginnings, and label founder Lawrence English play a variety of rock instruments in a decidedly un-rock way, but they focus mostly on their synthesizers, while Noriko layers her voice to build on their soundscapes. She seems to revel in the juxtaposition of different types of singing. On "Make Me Your Private Party", she very cleary carries the central melody in sharp, child-like "la la las," surrounding them with slightly processed vocal parts that feel somewhat sinister. The effect rolls between fantasy and nightmare. English has curated compilations that focus on illustrating the sleep state, and he and Chantler seem keen to explore that territory here, creating a series of musical backdrops that often sound like half-remembered songs or mirror the way external stimuli can wiggle into our dreams. "12 O'clock on the Highway" opens things strongly, with a nebula of Noriko voices softly meandering in and out of harmony, before the song shifts into an abstract psych groove. Much of the album expertly bridges obtuse style and pleasing sound, though it closes meekly with a wandering track comprised mostly of accordion, Noriko's quietest mumblings and crackling samples of voices. Whatever its fleeting shortcomings, though, this is an album of singular vision, and one that's bound to appeal to admirers of all three artists. It's perhaps a bit more outré than many of Noriko's solo ventures, but it still fits well within her body of work, especially when her previous Room40 records are considered.

Artist: John Chantler, Tujiko Noriko, Lawrence English, Album: U, Genre: Rock,Electronic,Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "The Room40 imprint is probably the foremost purveyor of experimental music in the Southern Hemisphere. Founded around the turn of the century by Lawrence English, the label has become the prolific home of many of Australia's best ambient and electronic musicians, as well as a rest stop for guys like Keith Fullerton Whitman, Philip Jeck, Oren Ambarchi, David Toop, Thurston Moore and Luc Ferrari. Japanese singer and experimentalist Tujiko Noriko's here makes her second appearance on the label. Noriko's 2005 effort for Room40, Blurred in My Mirror, had a beguiling and murky atmosphere but nonetheless offered moments of stunning pop clarity-- this collaboration leans much more heavily to abstraction and the pure celebration of sound. John Chantler, whose association with Room40 goes back to its beginnings, and label founder Lawrence English play a variety of rock instruments in a decidedly un-rock way, but they focus mostly on their synthesizers, while Noriko layers her voice to build on their soundscapes. She seems to revel in the juxtaposition of different types of singing. On "Make Me Your Private Party", she very cleary carries the central melody in sharp, child-like "la la las," surrounding them with slightly processed vocal parts that feel somewhat sinister. The effect rolls between fantasy and nightmare. English has curated compilations that focus on illustrating the sleep state, and he and Chantler seem keen to explore that territory here, creating a series of musical backdrops that often sound like half-remembered songs or mirror the way external stimuli can wiggle into our dreams. "12 O'clock on the Highway" opens things strongly, with a nebula of Noriko voices softly meandering in and out of harmony, before the song shifts into an abstract psych groove. Much of the album expertly bridges obtuse style and pleasing sound, though it closes meekly with a wandering track comprised mostly of accordion, Noriko's quietest mumblings and crackling samples of voices. Whatever its fleeting shortcomings, though, this is an album of singular vision, and one that's bound to appeal to admirers of all three artists. It's perhaps a bit more outré than many of Noriko's solo ventures, but it still fits well within her body of work, especially when her previous Room40 records are considered."

The Afghan Whigs

Unbreakable (A Retrospective)

Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

There's about eight years between the first and second tracks on Unbreakable (A Retrospective), immediately revealing how much the Afghan Whigs developed over a decade, what was gained in the process, and what was lost. Opener "Retarded", from 1990's Up In It, a lo-fi maelstrom of raw, threatening guitars, introduces the band's defining elements: the knife-fight between guitar players Greg Dulli and Rick McCollum, soul and funk melodies ratcheted to aggressive tempos, and Dulli's in-character performance ("Motherfucker lied to you," he snarls), which detractors would label "posturing" throughout the 1990s. Following "Retarded" is "Crazy", from the band's 1998 swan song 1965; it's slicker and more controlled, dialing down its tempo and filling its empty spaces with "Soul Finger"-style party chatter, yet sacrificing not one iota of menace. Unbreakable, a best-of collection that democratically gathers tracks from every facet of the band's career, along with two newly recorded songs, is a sort of last laugh. Despite their stature today (there's a 33 1/3 book on Gentlemen in the works), the band-- and especially Dulli-- were largely neglected during the 1990s, relegated to second-tier status behind alt- bands such as Live, Alice in Chains, and Candlebox. Formed in Cincinnati in 1986 and defunct by 2001, the Afghan Whigs were one of the few alt- bands to flourish on a major label, where greater control and bigger budgets allowed them to indulge every sinister urge. While alternative rock radio still sported untucked flannel, the Whigs looked dapper in all black or tailored suits. When popular music was at its most studiously PC, the Whigs emphasized the sexual, and Dulli played power-struggle games that many read as misogynist. While their peers could barely see past the Who, the Whigs were digging through the Stax Records catalog and covering the Supremes ("Come See About Me" is included here). Even on their early tracks, the band found a way to integrate African-American sounds and influences into their white rock: "Turn on the Water", from 1991's Congregation (whose album cover infamously features a nude black woman holding a white baby, no less) uses Isaac Hayes' wakka-chikka guitars as a punk accessory, and its jumpy guitar riffs instill these songs with a sense of motion that suggests amped-up r&b. Black Love, the band's 1996 blaxploitation-rock epic, should have been the culmination of this trend, but in 1996 it sounded overdone and obvious. Unbreakable, however, reveals Black Love to be a closet singles album, fitting three still-visceral songs into the tracklist but making "Blame Etc." and "Honky's Ladder" the most glaring omissions. With more dry wit and intelligent frustration than was often recognized, Dulli's lyrics were also intensely personal in their intimate sadomasochism, to the extent that he invited Scrawl's Marcy Mays to sing "My Curse" on Gentlemen because he couldn't bring himself to do it (nor could the producers include it here). Taken at face value, though, Dulli's songs made him out to be an asshole, so that's what people assumed he was. And he likely played that up, too. But on Unbreakable, the hyperbolic tension of his lyrics plays as an amplification of his own angst, not as a one-to-one projection. He wasn't necessarily the people he sang about, but they were certainly part of him. The leering threats of "Be Sweet" and "66" might best be read as useful exaggerations. And yet, Dulli's voice wavers on the quieter, slower numbers. He misses notes on "Faded", muddles his phrasing on the new track "Magazine", but never self-censors. He lets the moment stand, powerful in its imperfection, the sound of someone trying to convey overwhelming inner conflict. At a time when many bands strained to project anguish, Dulli kept his performances as raw as the hurt he's singing about. The two newly recorded tracks-- the band's first since their break-up in 2001-- are surprisingly strong, picking up pretty much where 1965 left off. It's nice to hear McCollum's guitar slicing at Dulli again and Curley's bass trying to break them up. After the military grunts that count off "I'm a Soldier", the band launches into a massive gospel assault that prominently features Memphis vocalist Susan Marshall (who also appeared on 1965), as if they had the audacity to rewrite "Gimme Shelter" with a three-note chorus and cagier lyrics. Written shortly before the band split six years ago, "Magazine" begins as a slow ballad, but builds into something more angular, lacking a hook but still intriguing. Rather than presenting these songs chronologically-- starting with their earliest Sub Pop singles and ending with their newly recorded tracks-- Unbreakable is sequenced more organically and intuitively, mixing together songs from each phase of their career so that they comment on one another. Ultimately, the tracklist comprises a larger, self-mythologizing narrative-- culminating in the sweeping drama of "Crime Scene Part One" and "Faded", both from Black Love-- that fits well with the Whigs' album-as-song-cycle approach. Unbreakable is one of those rare career compilations that shows its subject in a new and immensely flattering light, with the potential to clear up past misperceptions and to reveal vast complexities that were previously overlooked.

Artist: The Afghan Whigs, Album: Unbreakable (A Retrospective), Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.8 Album review: "There's about eight years between the first and second tracks on Unbreakable (A Retrospective), immediately revealing how much the Afghan Whigs developed over a decade, what was gained in the process, and what was lost. Opener "Retarded", from 1990's Up In It, a lo-fi maelstrom of raw, threatening guitars, introduces the band's defining elements: the knife-fight between guitar players Greg Dulli and Rick McCollum, soul and funk melodies ratcheted to aggressive tempos, and Dulli's in-character performance ("Motherfucker lied to you," he snarls), which detractors would label "posturing" throughout the 1990s. Following "Retarded" is "Crazy", from the band's 1998 swan song 1965; it's slicker and more controlled, dialing down its tempo and filling its empty spaces with "Soul Finger"-style party chatter, yet sacrificing not one iota of menace. Unbreakable, a best-of collection that democratically gathers tracks from every facet of the band's career, along with two newly recorded songs, is a sort of last laugh. Despite their stature today (there's a 33 1/3 book on Gentlemen in the works), the band-- and especially Dulli-- were largely neglected during the 1990s, relegated to second-tier status behind alt- bands such as Live, Alice in Chains, and Candlebox. Formed in Cincinnati in 1986 and defunct by 2001, the Afghan Whigs were one of the few alt- bands to flourish on a major label, where greater control and bigger budgets allowed them to indulge every sinister urge. While alternative rock radio still sported untucked flannel, the Whigs looked dapper in all black or tailored suits. When popular music was at its most studiously PC, the Whigs emphasized the sexual, and Dulli played power-struggle games that many read as misogynist. While their peers could barely see past the Who, the Whigs were digging through the Stax Records catalog and covering the Supremes ("Come See About Me" is included here). Even on their early tracks, the band found a way to integrate African-American sounds and influences into their white rock: "Turn on the Water", from 1991's Congregation (whose album cover infamously features a nude black woman holding a white baby, no less) uses Isaac Hayes' wakka-chikka guitars as a punk accessory, and its jumpy guitar riffs instill these songs with a sense of motion that suggests amped-up r&b. Black Love, the band's 1996 blaxploitation-rock epic, should have been the culmination of this trend, but in 1996 it sounded overdone and obvious. Unbreakable, however, reveals Black Love to be a closet singles album, fitting three still-visceral songs into the tracklist but making "Blame Etc." and "Honky's Ladder" the most glaring omissions. With more dry wit and intelligent frustration than was often recognized, Dulli's lyrics were also intensely personal in their intimate sadomasochism, to the extent that he invited Scrawl's Marcy Mays to sing "My Curse" on Gentlemen because he couldn't bring himself to do it (nor could the producers include it here). Taken at face value, though, Dulli's songs made him out to be an asshole, so that's what people assumed he was. And he likely played that up, too. But on Unbreakable, the hyperbolic tension of his lyrics plays as an amplification of his own angst, not as a one-to-one projection. He wasn't necessarily the people he sang about, but they were certainly part of him. The leering threats of "Be Sweet" and "66" might best be read as useful exaggerations. And yet, Dulli's voice wavers on the quieter, slower numbers. He misses notes on "Faded", muddles his phrasing on the new track "Magazine", but never self-censors. He lets the moment stand, powerful in its imperfection, the sound of someone trying to convey overwhelming inner conflict. At a time when many bands strained to project anguish, Dulli kept his performances as raw as the hurt he's singing about. The two newly recorded tracks-- the band's first since their break-up in 2001-- are surprisingly strong, picking up pretty much where 1965 left off. It's nice to hear McCollum's guitar slicing at Dulli again and Curley's bass trying to break them up. After the military grunts that count off "I'm a Soldier", the band launches into a massive gospel assault that prominently features Memphis vocalist Susan Marshall (who also appeared on 1965), as if they had the audacity to rewrite "Gimme Shelter" with a three-note chorus and cagier lyrics. Written shortly before the band split six years ago, "Magazine" begins as a slow ballad, but builds into something more angular, lacking a hook but still intriguing. Rather than presenting these songs chronologically-- starting with their earliest Sub Pop singles and ending with their newly recorded tracks-- Unbreakable is sequenced more organically and intuitively, mixing together songs from each phase of their career so that they comment on one another. Ultimately, the tracklist comprises a larger, self-mythologizing narrative-- culminating in the sweeping drama of "Crime Scene Part One" and "Faded", both from Black Love-- that fits well with the Whigs' album-as-song-cycle approach. Unbreakable is one of those rare career compilations that shows its subject in a new and immensely flattering light, with the potential to clear up past misperceptions and to reveal vast complexities that were previously overlooked."

Earthen Sea

An Act of Love

Electronic

Andy Beta

It’s rare to have any vocals appear on of the fog-enshrouded landscapes that Jacob Long devises as Earthen Sea. But earlier this month, Long cleared out his hard drive with A Serious Thing, a nine-track compilation of tracks recorded in the past three years (with all proceeds going to the International Refugee Assistance Project, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the National Lawyers Guild). Less than a minute in, the voice of firebrand gay Harlem intellectual James Baldwin emerges from the mists and speaks of the crucial role of dreamers in their respective societies. “The poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us,” Baldwin said. “Soldiers don’t, statesmen don’t, priests don’t, union leaders don’t. Only the poets.” And while there are no words and no voices that appear on An Act of Love, Long’s debut for Kranky, that poet’s search for an undeniable truth powers the eight breathtaking tracks that appear here. A hardcore veteran who’s played in D.C. bands like Amalgamation and Black Eyes, Long later played bass in the adventurous punk act Mi Ami. Over time, that trio mutated from art-rock towards the sounds of Chicago house and Jamaican dub, soon splintering into three separate electronic acts: drummer Damon Palermo became Magic Touch and guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick became Ital. Long himself took the foundations of dub as the starting point for his next iteration, Earthen Sea. Much like the godfathers of minimal techno—Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, Vladislav Delay circa Multila, the entire Chain Reaction roster—Long realized there was sublimity to be had in endless reverb, delay, and its sonic residue. And with 2014’s Mirage, released on Martin-McCormick’s Lovers Rock label, Earthen Sea’s aesthetic solidified. An Act of Love is a continuation of that effort, though there’s a feeling of refinement and awareness that gives each element here a heightened radiance. Even in the buzzing static and air organ chords that comprise beatless opener “The Present Mist,” there’s a sense of grace, of deep breaths being drawn musically that makes it standout from other ambient noise of its ilk. Earthen Sea makes minimal dub techno, but while Long’s components are suggestive of dance music—especially the 707 that drives most of the tracks—the context for each programmed hit seems to not be a packed club. Rather, Earthen Sea could soundtrack a depopulated metropolis, each beat bouncing off of concrete. A squelchy kick drives “About That Time” and other elements wash in: a canned clap, a tapped ride cymbal, a piano line as contemplative and sonorous as that of Harold Budd. But underneath all of that is a gloriously slow swell of white noise, which rises and falls like an incoming tide and is mesmerizing in and of itself. The muffled “Apparent Lushness” sounds as if it was recorded four feet underwater, its pretty melody reminiscent of something off of Jürgen Müller’s Science of the Sea, shining through the ripples. It segues into the centerpiece “Exuberant Burning,” with Long taking a flare of feedback and making it arc across the sky like a vapor trail. A bass throbs along with the beat, and these elements all hover in place before Long adds live drums and cymbals, and moves the track forward again. A sound not unlike the distant roar of passing cars on a highway comes up, giving the track an uncanny sense of space. After a brief interlude, the album peaks with the muscular kick of “The Flats 1975,” breaking out of the noirish mood of the previous tracks and offering up a sense of much-needed physical release. In the press materials for the album, Long noted that the months leading up to the recording of An Act of Love were “the most emotionally difficult and stressful year in my life,” which might be a sentiment shared by most people in the calendar year of 2016. But despite the darkness that intrudes in on the album—from the inky cover to the gloaming sounds within to the despairing environment in which it now enters our present day—there’s nevertheless a small kernel of hope to be gleaned. Long goes on to discuss the inspiration he got from empty city streets in the dead of night and the realization that regardless there are still people all around, as well as “the openness and possibilities that [they] can bring.” While Long only uses a steady beat and some deeply resonant chords to convey this revelation, he nevertheless moves like a poet to unearth that heartening sense of truth here.

Artist: Earthen Sea, Album: An Act of Love, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "It’s rare to have any vocals appear on of the fog-enshrouded landscapes that Jacob Long devises as Earthen Sea. But earlier this month, Long cleared out his hard drive with A Serious Thing, a nine-track compilation of tracks recorded in the past three years (with all proceeds going to the International Refugee Assistance Project, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the National Lawyers Guild). Less than a minute in, the voice of firebrand gay Harlem intellectual James Baldwin emerges from the mists and speaks of the crucial role of dreamers in their respective societies. “The poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us,” Baldwin said. “Soldiers don’t, statesmen don’t, priests don’t, union leaders don’t. Only the poets.” And while there are no words and no voices that appear on An Act of Love, Long’s debut for Kranky, that poet’s search for an undeniable truth powers the eight breathtaking tracks that appear here. A hardcore veteran who’s played in D.C. bands like Amalgamation and Black Eyes, Long later played bass in the adventurous punk act Mi Ami. Over time, that trio mutated from art-rock towards the sounds of Chicago house and Jamaican dub, soon splintering into three separate electronic acts: drummer Damon Palermo became Magic Touch and guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick became Ital. Long himself took the foundations of dub as the starting point for his next iteration, Earthen Sea. Much like the godfathers of minimal techno—Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, Vladislav Delay circa Multila, the entire Chain Reaction roster—Long realized there was sublimity to be had in endless reverb, delay, and its sonic residue. And with 2014’s Mirage, released on Martin-McCormick’s Lovers Rock label, Earthen Sea’s aesthetic solidified. An Act of Love is a continuation of that effort, though there’s a feeling of refinement and awareness that gives each element here a heightened radiance. Even in the buzzing static and air organ chords that comprise beatless opener “The Present Mist,” there’s a sense of grace, of deep breaths being drawn musically that makes it standout from other ambient noise of its ilk. Earthen Sea makes minimal dub techno, but while Long’s components are suggestive of dance music—especially the 707 that drives most of the tracks—the context for each programmed hit seems to not be a packed club. Rather, Earthen Sea could soundtrack a depopulated metropolis, each beat bouncing off of concrete. A squelchy kick drives “About That Time” and other elements wash in: a canned clap, a tapped ride cymbal, a piano line as contemplative and sonorous as that of Harold Budd. But underneath all of that is a gloriously slow swell of white noise, which rises and falls like an incoming tide and is mesmerizing in and of itself. The muffled “Apparent Lushness” sounds as if it was recorded four feet underwater, its pretty melody reminiscent of something off of Jürgen Müller’s Science of the Sea, shining through the ripples. It segues into the centerpiece “Exuberant Burning,” with Long taking a flare of feedback and making it arc across the sky like a vapor trail. A bass throbs along with the beat, and these elements all hover in place before Long adds live drums and cymbals, and moves the track forward again. A sound not unlike the distant roar of passing cars on a highway comes up, giving the track an uncanny sense of space. After a brief interlude, the album peaks with the muscular kick of “The Flats 1975,” breaking out of the noirish mood of the previous tracks and offering up a sense of much-needed physical release. In the press materials for the album, Long noted that the months leading up to the recording of An Act of Love were “the most emotionally difficult and stressful year in my life,” which might be a sentiment shared by most people in the calendar year of 2016. But despite the darkness that intrudes in on the album—from the inky cover to the gloaming sounds within to the despairing environment in which it now enters our present day—there’s nevertheless a small kernel of hope to be gleaned. Long goes on to discuss the inspiration he got from empty city streets in the dead of night and the realization that regardless there are still people all around, as well as “the openness and possibilities that [they] can bring.” While Long only uses a steady beat and some deeply resonant chords to convey this revelation, he nevertheless moves like a poet to unearth that heartening sense of truth here."

The Moldy Peaches

Moldy Peaches 2000: Unreleased Cutz and Live Jamz

Rock

Michael Idov

Oh, the sheer wrongness of it. The Moldy Peaches, a mere album and single into a dubious career, have just released a 55-track double-CD compilation of-- and I'm loathe to repeat this-- "unreleased cutz and live jamz." In terms of business guile, it's the equivalent of the plushie outfits Kimya Dawson and Adam Green insist on wearing onstage: childish yet disturbing, and so monumentally idiotic that I find myself disarmed. Making fun of this album would require all the daring of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, but I'll try to avoid fish-in-a-barrel potshots. The bounty is unevenly divided into two CDs arranged in roughly chronological order, and some of these cutz are actually coverz, of the Grateful Dead, Spin Doctors and Hulk Hogan. Most originals show up twice, first as studio demos, then in live form. "Steak for Chicken", with its manifesto rhyme "Who mistook the steak for chicken/ Who am I gonna stick my dick in," is a triple offender, but I suppose you could compare the 2001 and 2002 concert versions to track the band's growing familiarity with open chords. You know what? So much for the poker face-- give me that Glock; you're going down, Gilly. The barrel, it needs to be said, is even smaller than the fish: this is the so-called Antifolk scene, largely confined to NYC's Sidewalk Cafe and sprung from the mind of a man named Lach, who does their booking. He gets a soundbite here-- anyone who makes it to track 20 of Disc 1 is treated to "Lach's Intro"-- and Sidewalk provides the setting for some of the live stuff. The entire scene is a bit of a sham; Antifolk is nothing more than an infantile fringe of acoustic punk-- imagine if the Violent Femmes' development halted at age 9 and not 13, and you get the picture. If Adam, Kimya and pals actually pitched their songcraft as a Bronx-cheer rebuttal to granola musings of Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky, things would quickly become interesting. But I'm afraid "Bunny Foo Foo" and "Who's Got the Crack" are not going to cut it. Folk deserves a better nemesis. As absurd as the mini-cult around the Moldy Peaches is (this album is your comeuppance, suckers), fuming at them is probably even more pointless. At their occasionally glimpsed best, the Peaches radiate a stunted, abused-kid vulnerability that makes one feel almost protective. Of course, if that's a put-on, they're evil geniuses after all. In fact, someone should investigate these guys, dropping a debut CD with the song "NYC's Like A Graveyard" on the second Tuesday in September 2001. It's wiser, however, to sentence these kids to time served: novelty acts that blow up to play Central Park Summerstage are usually fair game, but people who played it in lion suits in 95-degree weather have punished themselves enough.

Artist: The Moldy Peaches, Album: Moldy Peaches 2000: Unreleased Cutz and Live Jamz, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 1.9 Album review: "Oh, the sheer wrongness of it. The Moldy Peaches, a mere album and single into a dubious career, have just released a 55-track double-CD compilation of-- and I'm loathe to repeat this-- "unreleased cutz and live jamz." In terms of business guile, it's the equivalent of the plushie outfits Kimya Dawson and Adam Green insist on wearing onstage: childish yet disturbing, and so monumentally idiotic that I find myself disarmed. Making fun of this album would require all the daring of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, but I'll try to avoid fish-in-a-barrel potshots. The bounty is unevenly divided into two CDs arranged in roughly chronological order, and some of these cutz are actually coverz, of the Grateful Dead, Spin Doctors and Hulk Hogan. Most originals show up twice, first as studio demos, then in live form. "Steak for Chicken", with its manifesto rhyme "Who mistook the steak for chicken/ Who am I gonna stick my dick in," is a triple offender, but I suppose you could compare the 2001 and 2002 concert versions to track the band's growing familiarity with open chords. You know what? So much for the poker face-- give me that Glock; you're going down, Gilly. The barrel, it needs to be said, is even smaller than the fish: this is the so-called Antifolk scene, largely confined to NYC's Sidewalk Cafe and sprung from the mind of a man named Lach, who does their booking. He gets a soundbite here-- anyone who makes it to track 20 of Disc 1 is treated to "Lach's Intro"-- and Sidewalk provides the setting for some of the live stuff. The entire scene is a bit of a sham; Antifolk is nothing more than an infantile fringe of acoustic punk-- imagine if the Violent Femmes' development halted at age 9 and not 13, and you get the picture. If Adam, Kimya and pals actually pitched their songcraft as a Bronx-cheer rebuttal to granola musings of Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky, things would quickly become interesting. But I'm afraid "Bunny Foo Foo" and "Who's Got the Crack" are not going to cut it. Folk deserves a better nemesis. As absurd as the mini-cult around the Moldy Peaches is (this album is your comeuppance, suckers), fuming at them is probably even more pointless. At their occasionally glimpsed best, the Peaches radiate a stunted, abused-kid vulnerability that makes one feel almost protective. Of course, if that's a put-on, they're evil geniuses after all. In fact, someone should investigate these guys, dropping a debut CD with the song "NYC's Like A Graveyard" on the second Tuesday in September 2001. It's wiser, however, to sentence these kids to time served: novelty acts that blow up to play Central Park Summerstage are usually fair game, but people who played it in lion suits in 95-degree weather have punished themselves enough."

The Secret Machines

Now Here Is Nowhere

Experimental,Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

The first thing you notice is the rhythm section: large, lumbering drums and hydraulic bass flexes on the nine-minute "First Wave Intact", the lead-off track on The Secret Machines' awkwardly titled debut album, Now Here Is Nowhere. The rhythms are military-precise, locked-in and steady, but they're less heavy metal than Heavy Metal: The band sounds as though they're scoring an intergalactic space battle, or perhaps something more terrestrial, like the lurching onslaught of a thousand warbeasts. Or maybe it's just the march of the marketing behemoth behind Now Here Is Nowhere, which is one of the first major label albums to be released for commercial download before its official street date. In Phase 1 of the assault, the album was posted on the band's website and on select retailers like iTunes, along with a free five-song EP (containing the well-worth-it outtake, "Cannon"). For Phase 2, Reprise released an early version of Now Here Is Nowhere in a "babypack"-- a simple sheaf of cardboard with minimal graphics and a low price. And now, we've arrived at the final phase of the master plan-- the album's actual release, for which the label presumably hopes all those people who downloaded it or bought the tyke-size version will either spring for the "real" album or at least have told all their friends about it. It's too early to tell whether this three-pronged attack will actually succeed, but if it doesn't, it won't be the band's fault. Veterans of Dallas-area groups like UFOFU and Tripping Daisy, these three New Yorkers-by-way-of-Texas-- drummer Josh Garza and brothers Ben and Brandon Curtis-- build a classic rock front to launch a full-out musical assault. Garza's imperturbable drums stand strong against Brandon Curtis' guitar explosions and Ben Curtis' psych-rock keyboard scribbles. Early reviews of Now Here Is Nowhere have likened the band to 70s-era Pink Floyd, a comparison that is limited but not unwarranted. "Pharaoh's Daughter", for example, turns on an elegant Dark Side of the Moon chord change and a volley of "Us and Them" voices in the chorus. But The Secret Machines are no nostalgia act: "Pharaoh's Daughter" counters the Floyd references with a drumbeat practically quoted from Isaac Hayes' cover of Bacharach's "Walk on By". Plus, they deploy a strategy similar to that of The Flaming Lips and Grandaddy: Not only is Garza more Steve Drozd than John Bonham (which could be a compliment), but The Secret Machines create songs that are just as spacey and concept-heavy, if not quite as quirky, as those on Yoshimi and The Sophtware Slump. "Leaves Are Gone" lolls along on the delicate ebb and flow of Brandon Curtis' keyboard cascades, forming a quiet counter to more aggressive songs like "Sad and Lonely". "Light's ON" boasts a better new wave hook than just about anything else to come out of NYC this year, crackling with a palpable paranoia as Curtis decries the intrusiveness of a Big Brother-like observer: "Somewhere there's a record of your whereabouts/ Everywhere you go you leave a trace.../ The light's ON/ We don't know just who our friends are." But there are forces allied against these threats, people who thrive in the underground: "The light's ON/ And we're waiting for the signal." The nervous lyrics and jittery energy of "Light's ON" underscore the pervasiveness of the military imagery on the album, revealing a directed-- if not entirely legible-- political agenda. On "Pharaoh's Daughter", Curtis describes a brewing rebel movement in life-during-wartime language: "We dressed in uniforms left over from the war/ A tourniquet, an iron vest/ Our emblem was a star." A lone star, perhaps. Now Here Is Nowhere pulses with a sexual tension that matches the swagger of the Texas-size drums on songs like "Nowhere Again", when Curtis sings, "There's a woman in the mirror in a fiery state/ As she motions to me I start turning away/ She's lifting her dress up/ Trying to keep up." While this erotic energy threatens to undercut the political tensions on the album, it actually humanizes and intensifies them. The meaning behind all this political and sexual intrigue is a little vague. The "Now" and the "Here" of the album title apparently describe America during its war on terrorism, but beyond that, the album's most specific statement is that rock music, regardless of influences or labels, can still be a subversive agent in society. Although the sound is bombastic, the message is subtler and variable from one listener to another. Now Here Is Nowhere may sound like a full-on assault, but it's actually a covert spec-ops infiltration, as the name Secret Machines suggests; the band step loudly but carry a concealed weapon. Politically, this reticence could have been a cop-out, but aesthetically, it leaves the album open for interpretation, which means it should have a longer life than the current administration.

Artist: The Secret Machines, Album: Now Here Is Nowhere, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "The first thing you notice is the rhythm section: large, lumbering drums and hydraulic bass flexes on the nine-minute "First Wave Intact", the lead-off track on The Secret Machines' awkwardly titled debut album, Now Here Is Nowhere. The rhythms are military-precise, locked-in and steady, but they're less heavy metal than Heavy Metal: The band sounds as though they're scoring an intergalactic space battle, or perhaps something more terrestrial, like the lurching onslaught of a thousand warbeasts. Or maybe it's just the march of the marketing behemoth behind Now Here Is Nowhere, which is one of the first major label albums to be released for commercial download before its official street date. In Phase 1 of the assault, the album was posted on the band's website and on select retailers like iTunes, along with a free five-song EP (containing the well-worth-it outtake, "Cannon"). For Phase 2, Reprise released an early version of Now Here Is Nowhere in a "babypack"-- a simple sheaf of cardboard with minimal graphics and a low price. And now, we've arrived at the final phase of the master plan-- the album's actual release, for which the label presumably hopes all those people who downloaded it or bought the tyke-size version will either spring for the "real" album or at least have told all their friends about it. It's too early to tell whether this three-pronged attack will actually succeed, but if it doesn't, it won't be the band's fault. Veterans of Dallas-area groups like UFOFU and Tripping Daisy, these three New Yorkers-by-way-of-Texas-- drummer Josh Garza and brothers Ben and Brandon Curtis-- build a classic rock front to launch a full-out musical assault. Garza's imperturbable drums stand strong against Brandon Curtis' guitar explosions and Ben Curtis' psych-rock keyboard scribbles. Early reviews of Now Here Is Nowhere have likened the band to 70s-era Pink Floyd, a comparison that is limited but not unwarranted. "Pharaoh's Daughter", for example, turns on an elegant Dark Side of the Moon chord change and a volley of "Us and Them" voices in the chorus. But The Secret Machines are no nostalgia act: "Pharaoh's Daughter" counters the Floyd references with a drumbeat practically quoted from Isaac Hayes' cover of Bacharach's "Walk on By". Plus, they deploy a strategy similar to that of The Flaming Lips and Grandaddy: Not only is Garza more Steve Drozd than John Bonham (which could be a compliment), but The Secret Machines create songs that are just as spacey and concept-heavy, if not quite as quirky, as those on Yoshimi and The Sophtware Slump. "Leaves Are Gone" lolls along on the delicate ebb and flow of Brandon Curtis' keyboard cascades, forming a quiet counter to more aggressive songs like "Sad and Lonely". "Light's ON" boasts a better new wave hook than just about anything else to come out of NYC this year, crackling with a palpable paranoia as Curtis decries the intrusiveness of a Big Brother-like observer: "Somewhere there's a record of your whereabouts/ Everywhere you go you leave a trace.../ The light's ON/ We don't know just who our friends are." But there are forces allied against these threats, people who thrive in the underground: "The light's ON/ And we're waiting for the signal." The nervous lyrics and jittery energy of "Light's ON" underscore the pervasiveness of the military imagery on the album, revealing a directed-- if not entirely legible-- political agenda. On "Pharaoh's Daughter", Curtis describes a brewing rebel movement in life-during-wartime language: "We dressed in uniforms left over from the war/ A tourniquet, an iron vest/ Our emblem was a star." A lone star, perhaps. Now Here Is Nowhere pulses with a sexual tension that matches the swagger of the Texas-size drums on songs like "Nowhere Again", when Curtis sings, "There's a woman in the mirror in a fiery state/ As she motions to me I start turning away/ She's lifting her dress up/ Trying to keep up." While this erotic energy threatens to undercut the political tensions on the album, it actually humanizes and intensifies them. The meaning behind all this political and sexual intrigue is a little vague. The "Now" and the "Here" of the album title apparently describe America during its war on terrorism, but beyond that, the album's most specific statement is that rock music, regardless of influences or labels, can still be a subversive agent in society. Although the sound is bombastic, the message is subtler and variable from one listener to another. Now Here Is Nowhere may sound like a full-on assault, but it's actually a covert spec-ops infiltration, as the name Secret Machines suggests; the band step loudly but carry a concealed weapon. Politically, this reticence could have been a cop-out, but aesthetically, it leaves the album open for interpretation, which means it should have a longer life than the current administration."

Machinedrum

Vapor City

Electronic

Nate Patrin

Machinedrum existed long before Room(s): dig back a bit and you'll find a lot of dizzying glitch-hop and IDM moves on releases like 2001's Now You Know and 2002's Urban Biology that still reverberate through his more contemporary work. That Travis Stewart has since moved from Four Tet-shadowed downtempo abstraction to triple-digit BPMs and retro junglist breaks doesn't change things too much, either. Always handy with muted, distorted droning chords and shredded flakes of melody, Machinedrum's breakthrough as an in-demand name in bass music is a logical destination in the long run; all that there was left to wait for was a context. That context is getting pretty familiar-- distant, lonely vocal refrains from the Burial playbook glazed over a rhythm that could be shorthanded as juke'n'bass. If Room(s) set the stage, and his work with Praveen Sharma as Sepalcure expanded the palette, Vapor City finds Machinedrum getting comfortable inside the parameters that juiced his reptuation. But he's made that formula effective enough that the visceral, emotional lift hasn't faded any. The early signs were there with key single “Gunshotta”: snare-kick fusillades shivering like they have hypothermia, flourescent synthesizer chords reflecting off wet pavement, tunnel-echo fragments of deep soul singing that are so distressed they harmonize cleanly with ruffneck ragga vocals. It's practically archetypal at this point. It's also straight-up gorgeous. Vapor City is front-loaded with those kinds of moments. Part of the thrill of listening to “Infinite Us” is hearing those yearning piano notes that open it and wondering how they'll be put through the wringer; the slow build to a huge, gleaming ascension on the back of a harplike guitar arpeggio only heightens the pull between the delicate melodies and the full-steam-ahead percussion. For a while, it feels like there are endless ways for him to shadowbox the rhythm. “Don't 1 2 Lose U” puts every note of its percussive synthesizer riff through a slight flange effect that, coupled with the wavering vocal sample that gives it its title, makes it sound like the downpour 808s are rattling a film soundtrack off the spools. And opening “Center Your Love” with a gradual un-muffling of its airy dream-pop vocal-driven riff is a slow focus into euphoria; its deep, spare set of piano/guitar chords are a vivid setup for the best Boards of Canada loop Boards of Canada never made. The novelty doesn't come across as strongly on the album's latter half-- after an early peak, Vapor City plays all its hands and settles into a more stripped-down stretch to the end. While it's more likely to feel like acclimation than pointless wheel-spinning stasis, it also has the air of the almost-complete to it, like these sparser tracks are waiting for a vocalist to complete it a'la “SXLND” becoming the backbone for Azealia Banks' “NEEDSUMLUV”. Put the demarcation line at “Vizion”, a submerged descent into crumbling ambient, and everything afterwards is merely deep-cut solid. There are bigger disappointments than this, granted-- the worst you can say about the second half of Vapor City is that it's something of a weird choice to sequence two consecutive tracks with “lie” so prominent in the vocal hook (the downtempo Italians Do It Better-adjacent synthpop of “U Still Lie” and the hyperventilating footwork of “Eyesdontlie”). It could just be a matter of volume, really. When you crank this album loud, it's not just the beats that rattle the system, though they're as crisply forceful as ever. It's the intricate musical subtleties Stewart weaves through them that blow your hair back.

Artist: Machinedrum, Album: Vapor City, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "Machinedrum existed long before Room(s): dig back a bit and you'll find a lot of dizzying glitch-hop and IDM moves on releases like 2001's Now You Know and 2002's Urban Biology that still reverberate through his more contemporary work. That Travis Stewart has since moved from Four Tet-shadowed downtempo abstraction to triple-digit BPMs and retro junglist breaks doesn't change things too much, either. Always handy with muted, distorted droning chords and shredded flakes of melody, Machinedrum's breakthrough as an in-demand name in bass music is a logical destination in the long run; all that there was left to wait for was a context. That context is getting pretty familiar-- distant, lonely vocal refrains from the Burial playbook glazed over a rhythm that could be shorthanded as juke'n'bass. If Room(s) set the stage, and his work with Praveen Sharma as Sepalcure expanded the palette, Vapor City finds Machinedrum getting comfortable inside the parameters that juiced his reptuation. But he's made that formula effective enough that the visceral, emotional lift hasn't faded any. The early signs were there with key single “Gunshotta”: snare-kick fusillades shivering like they have hypothermia, flourescent synthesizer chords reflecting off wet pavement, tunnel-echo fragments of deep soul singing that are so distressed they harmonize cleanly with ruffneck ragga vocals. It's practically archetypal at this point. It's also straight-up gorgeous. Vapor City is front-loaded with those kinds of moments. Part of the thrill of listening to “Infinite Us” is hearing those yearning piano notes that open it and wondering how they'll be put through the wringer; the slow build to a huge, gleaming ascension on the back of a harplike guitar arpeggio only heightens the pull between the delicate melodies and the full-steam-ahead percussion. For a while, it feels like there are endless ways for him to shadowbox the rhythm. “Don't 1 2 Lose U” puts every note of its percussive synthesizer riff through a slight flange effect that, coupled with the wavering vocal sample that gives it its title, makes it sound like the downpour 808s are rattling a film soundtrack off the spools. And opening “Center Your Love” with a gradual un-muffling of its airy dream-pop vocal-driven riff is a slow focus into euphoria; its deep, spare set of piano/guitar chords are a vivid setup for the best Boards of Canada loop Boards of Canada never made. The novelty doesn't come across as strongly on the album's latter half-- after an early peak, Vapor City plays all its hands and settles into a more stripped-down stretch to the end. While it's more likely to feel like acclimation than pointless wheel-spinning stasis, it also has the air of the almost-complete to it, like these sparser tracks are waiting for a vocalist to complete it a'la “SXLND” becoming the backbone for Azealia Banks' “NEEDSUMLUV”. Put the demarcation line at “Vizion”, a submerged descent into crumbling ambient, and everything afterwards is merely deep-cut solid. There are bigger disappointments than this, granted-- the worst you can say about the second half of Vapor City is that it's something of a weird choice to sequence two consecutive tracks with “lie” so prominent in the vocal hook (the downtempo Italians Do It Better-adjacent synthpop of “U Still Lie” and the hyperventilating footwork of “Eyesdontlie”). It could just be a matter of volume, really. When you crank this album loud, it's not just the beats that rattle the system, though they're as crisply forceful as ever. It's the intricate musical subtleties Stewart weaves through them that blow your hair back."

Pharrell

G I R L

Pop/R&B

Larry Fitzmaurice

The Neptunes were in the middle of an untouchable seven-year creative peak—beginning with Kelis' 1999 debut Kaleidoscope and tapering off shortly after the Clipse's 2006 comeback Hell Hath No Fury—when Pharrell dropped his debut solo single, "Frontin'", which eventually landed on the Neptunes' showcase LP The Neptunes Present...Clones. A lush, airy slice of R&B, "Frontin'" existed as a pleasurable curio until three years later, when Pharrell released his first full-length, In My Mind. In My Mind was a low-key record that favored cascading piano cadences and psychedelic soul touches as a backdrop for Pharrell's vacuous lyrics, and it sounds a little better in 2014 than its reputation suggests. But at the time, it cratered both commercially and critically, and Pharrell's solo career faded in tandem with the Neptunes' own slow retreat from the spotlight. The fact that he continued to make music as part of N.E.R.D., his genre-melding, notoriously inconsistent project with Neptunes partner Chad Hugo, suggested that the chilly reception accompanied by striking out on his own was a blow to his self-confidence. "I wrote those songs out of ego," he told GQ in an interview earlier this year. "What was good about that? There was no purpose." If the materialistic bent of In My Mind was indicative of where Pharrell was in 2006, then G I R L, his second solo album, points to what he's looking to achieve in 2014. The last eight years of the 40-going-on-23 years old auteur's career have been light on creative substance—there were a few key contributions to albums from Frank Ocean, Usher, and Kendrick Lamar, as well as heavy involvement in the score for the 2010 animated film Despicable Me. But the success of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", along with Pharrell's work on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, propelled him into a new level of ubiquity. In a recent Pitchfork interview, Pharrell explained that the idea for the album came from Columbia after they first heard the still-inescapable "Get Lucky" and saw dollar signs. "They offered me a deal on the spot," he said. "If I was left to my own devices, I would not have elected to do it." On Random Access Memories, Daft Punk created an expensive-sounding and grandiose monument to the music that shaped their personal histories; on G I R L, Pharrell has done something similar, but with a significantly narrower scope. A bright, smooth demonstration of musical largesse that features a diverse cast of supporting players including Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, composer Hans Zimmer, Kelly Osborne, and teen breakout-turned-internet R&B curiosity JoJo, G I R L calls back to sounds that have shaped its creator's musical vision. There's the nervous sexuality of peak-era Michael Jackson, bright-eyed 1970s soul, funk's squishy right-angle riffs. But largely, G I R L finds Pharrell taking inspiration from Pharrell. His past successes, both solo and as part of the Neptunes, echo throughout the album: the sweaty slink of Timberlake's "Rock Your Body", N.E.R.D.'s yacht-rock fixations on 2002's so-nice-they-recorded-it-twice In Search Of…, the gum-snapping percussion on Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot", the lad's-mag R&B of "Blurred Lines", and the undying jangle of "Get Lucky". The appeal of Pharrell's production has long been a push-and-pull between elegance and agitation. He's capable of sounds that can blow your eardrums and gently caress them into submission. G I R L also tempers its classic-pop approach with strident sonics, as sharp edges poke through the record's overall smoothness—the airless riffs of "Hunter", "Come Get It Bae"'s cascading claps, the ascendant horn figure that punctures "Brand New"'s chorus. These are small hints that Pharrell has a knack for pop music that, at its core, sounds a little weird. But G I R L hedges its bets; its all-ages, aisle-reaching attitude is ready for mass consumption, and over the next year and maybe longer, you'll probably be hearing these easy-to-please tunes anywhere you can find a room without a roof. "Happy", originally conceived for the soundtrack to last year's Despicable Me 2, has already reached the point of mass saturation and currently sits atop the Billboard Hot 100. Accompanied by a celebrity-packed video that's impossible to watch without a grin on your face (as well as a 24-hour version that's impossible to watch without a nap and a few square meals), the walking-on-air retro-soul of "Happy" is, arguably, one of the most beatific and lovable pop singles in recent memory, a bundle of New Age koans dipped in honey and left out to dry on a breezy spring day. If Cee-Lo's "Fuck You" was a declarative T-shirt of a single, "Happy" is what you'd get if you turned that T-shirt inside-out, its effortless just-keep-livin' attitude reflected in its presentation. In addition to being G I R L's highlight, "Happy" also stands apart from the thinly-drawn concept spelled out in the album's title. "Women and girls, for the most part, “have just been so loyal to me and supported me," he told GQ when speaking to the album's thematic concerns, unintentionally reflecting G I R L's shallow non-attempt at paying tribute to the opposite sex. Save for the hang-in-there-baby Alicia Keys duet "Know Who You Are", nearly every woman on G I R L is the object of sexual pursuit, with Pharrell reprising the horny-schoolboy routine he, Thicke, and T.I. embodied in the "Blurred Lines" video. In a recent London listening session, Pharrell hinted that G I R L's female-centric focus was an attempt to rectify his association with the "questionable lyrics" that provoked accusations of sexism in "Blurred Lines". It misses the mark badly. On "Hunter", over a jarringly limp funk motif, Pharrell ditches his Dudley Do-Right hat for something more sinister, comparing the objects of his affection to animal carcasses stuffed for sport and shoehorning in an awkward (and ill-timed) "Duck Dynasty" reference before laying it out in no unspecific terms: "I'm a hunter." The tone-deaf "Hunter" also happens to be G I R L's boldest moment. Other bits stand out—the come-hither hedonism of the Miley Cyrus-featuring "Come Get It Bae" and the bushy-tailed ebullience that Timberlake brings to "Brand New", especially—but Pharrell leans a bit too hard on his Grammy-winning formula of tasteful, everything-in-its-right-place retro-pop. "Gust of Wind", featuring Daft Punk, has all the relentless stair-climbing of Random Access Memories' "Lose Yourself to Dance" with none of that song's patient build; it jogs in place for five minutes that feel much longer. No one will

Artist: Pharrell, Album: G I R L, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "The Neptunes were in the middle of an untouchable seven-year creative peak—beginning with Kelis' 1999 debut Kaleidoscope and tapering off shortly after the Clipse's 2006 comeback Hell Hath No Fury—when Pharrell dropped his debut solo single, "Frontin'", which eventually landed on the Neptunes' showcase LP The Neptunes Present...Clones. A lush, airy slice of R&B, "Frontin'" existed as a pleasurable curio until three years later, when Pharrell released his first full-length, In My Mind. In My Mind was a low-key record that favored cascading piano cadences and psychedelic soul touches as a backdrop for Pharrell's vacuous lyrics, and it sounds a little better in 2014 than its reputation suggests. But at the time, it cratered both commercially and critically, and Pharrell's solo career faded in tandem with the Neptunes' own slow retreat from the spotlight. The fact that he continued to make music as part of N.E.R.D., his genre-melding, notoriously inconsistent project with Neptunes partner Chad Hugo, suggested that the chilly reception accompanied by striking out on his own was a blow to his self-confidence. "I wrote those songs out of ego," he told GQ in an interview earlier this year. "What was good about that? There was no purpose." If the materialistic bent of In My Mind was indicative of where Pharrell was in 2006, then G I R L, his second solo album, points to what he's looking to achieve in 2014. The last eight years of the 40-going-on-23 years old auteur's career have been light on creative substance—there were a few key contributions to albums from Frank Ocean, Usher, and Kendrick Lamar, as well as heavy involvement in the score for the 2010 animated film Despicable Me. But the success of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", along with Pharrell's work on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, propelled him into a new level of ubiquity. In a recent Pitchfork interview, Pharrell explained that the idea for the album came from Columbia after they first heard the still-inescapable "Get Lucky" and saw dollar signs. "They offered me a deal on the spot," he said. "If I was left to my own devices, I would not have elected to do it." On Random Access Memories, Daft Punk created an expensive-sounding and grandiose monument to the music that shaped their personal histories; on G I R L, Pharrell has done something similar, but with a significantly narrower scope. A bright, smooth demonstration of musical largesse that features a diverse cast of supporting players including Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, composer Hans Zimmer, Kelly Osborne, and teen breakout-turned-internet R&B curiosity JoJo, G I R L calls back to sounds that have shaped its creator's musical vision. There's the nervous sexuality of peak-era Michael Jackson, bright-eyed 1970s soul, funk's squishy right-angle riffs. But largely, G I R L finds Pharrell taking inspiration from Pharrell. His past successes, both solo and as part of the Neptunes, echo throughout the album: the sweaty slink of Timberlake's "Rock Your Body", N.E.R.D.'s yacht-rock fixations on 2002's so-nice-they-recorded-it-twice In Search Of…, the gum-snapping percussion on Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot", the lad's-mag R&B of "Blurred Lines", and the undying jangle of "Get Lucky". The appeal of Pharrell's production has long been a push-and-pull between elegance and agitation. He's capable of sounds that can blow your eardrums and gently caress them into submission. G I R L also tempers its classic-pop approach with strident sonics, as sharp edges poke through the record's overall smoothness—the airless riffs of "Hunter", "Come Get It Bae"'s cascading claps, the ascendant horn figure that punctures "Brand New"'s chorus. These are small hints that Pharrell has a knack for pop music that, at its core, sounds a little weird. But G I R L hedges its bets; its all-ages, aisle-reaching attitude is ready for mass consumption, and over the next year and maybe longer, you'll probably be hearing these easy-to-please tunes anywhere you can find a room without a roof. "Happy", originally conceived for the soundtrack to last year's Despicable Me 2, has already reached the point of mass saturation and currently sits atop the Billboard Hot 100. Accompanied by a celebrity-packed video that's impossible to watch without a grin on your face (as well as a 24-hour version that's impossible to watch without a nap and a few square meals), the walking-on-air retro-soul of "Happy" is, arguably, one of the most beatific and lovable pop singles in recent memory, a bundle of New Age koans dipped in honey and left out to dry on a breezy spring day. If Cee-Lo's "Fuck You" was a declarative T-shirt of a single, "Happy" is what you'd get if you turned that T-shirt inside-out, its effortless just-keep-livin' attitude reflected in its presentation. In addition to being G I R L's highlight, "Happy" also stands apart from the thinly-drawn concept spelled out in the album's title. "Women and girls, for the most part, “have just been so loyal to me and supported me," he told GQ when speaking to the album's thematic concerns, unintentionally reflecting G I R L's shallow non-attempt at paying tribute to the opposite sex. Save for the hang-in-there-baby Alicia Keys duet "Know Who You Are", nearly every woman on G I R L is the object of sexual pursuit, with Pharrell reprising the horny-schoolboy routine he, Thicke, and T.I. embodied in the "Blurred Lines" video. In a recent London listening session, Pharrell hinted that G I R L's female-centric focus was an attempt to rectify his association with the "questionable lyrics" that provoked accusations of sexism in "Blurred Lines". It misses the mark badly. On "Hunter", over a jarringly limp funk motif, Pharrell ditches his Dudley Do-Right hat for something more sinister, comparing the objects of his affection to animal carcasses stuffed for sport and shoehorning in an awkward (and ill-timed) "Duck Dynasty" reference before laying it out in no unspecific terms: "I'm a hunter." The tone-deaf "Hunter" also happens to be G I R L's boldest moment. Other bits stand out—the come-hither hedonism of the Miley Cyrus-featuring "Come Get It Bae" and the bushy-tailed ebullience that Timberlake brings to "Brand New", especially—but Pharrell leans a bit too hard on his Grammy-winning formula of tasteful, everything-in-its-right-place retro-pop. "Gust of Wind", featuring Daft Punk, has all the relentless stair-climbing of Random Access Memories' "Lose Yourself to Dance" with none of that song's patient build; it jogs in place for five minutes that feel much longer. No one will "

Bryan Ferry

The Jazz Age

Electronic,Rock

Ned Raggett

Bryan Ferry works steadily, recording, releasing, and (only if necessary, perhaps) touring new albums, even if he remains unable to step out from what was established on earlier work. But then Ferry seemed born to both reinterpret and to look backwards. His solo career started one year after Roxy Music's own debut full length with These Foolish Things, a collection of soul, jazz, and rock'n'roll standards often revisited in utterly surprising ways. By the time of his third solo album Let's Stick Together, Ferry combined yet more covers with reworkings of Roxy's own material just a few years after it had been written and recorded-- his preference for focused contemplation and his particularly male vision of love, lust, and wariness came to the fore. All told, he's done six albums of covers and revisions over 40 years' time. The Jazz Age is the seventh out of 14 solo efforts total, though Ferry acts as co-producer and general driving force rather than performer. In fact, for the first time since Let's Stick Together, Ferry's own material is the subject of reworking: all selections are his work ranging from Roxy's debut single "Virginia Plain" to "Reason or Rhyme", a song from Ferry's previous solo album Olympia. To a degree, The Jazz Age's roots lie in 1999's As Time Goes By, where Ferry recorded jazz and pop songs predominantly from the 1930s. Five out of The Jazz Age's eight performers reappear from the earlier work along with others such as regular Ferry collaborator, trumpeter Enrico Tomasso. But The Jazz Age, a collection of instrumentals performed by the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, is more self-consciously 1920s, openly meant to evoke Louis Armstrong, early Count Basie, and the initial mass popularization of jazz. If there's an inescapable element of perverseness about The Jazz Age, it's the sense of flattening a life's work into pastiche, down to the fact that the album is mixed and produced in non-hi-fi mono, something definitely not the case on As Time Goes By. It doesn't matter whether the source material is a frenetic explosion like "Do the Strand", a clipped mood piece like "Love is the Drug" or "Don't Stop the Dance", or contemplative songs like "Avalon". The resultant energetic but never too disruptive presentation turns everything into something which sounds like it could be coming out of the Victrola at a party at "Downton Abbey" by the time the show hits season five. The album is hard to immediately see as anything but a studied curio by a famous name deliberately out of sync with nearly everything around it, unless one wants to talk about Hugh Laurie's tribute to New Orleans and the blues. The internal trick of The Jazz Age is that Ferry's orchestra also deftly avoids simply sounding one-note despite the uniform presentation and ambience. At points the arrangements are almost specific responses to the originals. "The Bogus Man" here shrinks from 10 to two minutes long, hinting at second line comedy before the funeral's actually been completed, while "I Thought", a slow, stately number from 2002's Frantic, and his utterly poised 1985 hit "Slave to Love" both become peppy dance numbers. But whatever prompted the various reinterpretations, surprises turn up one by one, almost always enjoyably so. "Avalon” kicks off with a rhythmic strut that's far more New Orleans than Newcastle, the crystalline theatricality of "Reason or Rhyme" mutates into a one-room-over and slightly boozy speakeasy swing, and "Virginia Plain"'s dramatic pauses showcase notably friendlier sounding solos. Meanwhile, a telling break from Ferry's other work lies in the total absence of his most famous calling card-- his voice, with it his lyrical concerns and image. If anyone is the lead "voice" throughout it would be Tomasso or saxophonists Alan Barnes and Richard White, whose various solo turns on a number of songs take the place of the singing. As a result, it becomes a strangely affecting blend-- Ferry is here almost by implication, a certain unavoidably melancholic sigh that emerges in hints in the arrangements, even at their merriest. The end result is actually the most atypical Ferry album of them all. It's something that seemed-- only after it was announced-- obvious that he would do but never actually did. It's also something he may never do again. It may not be an extreme reworking of song forms or a sudden return to action, perhaps simply another chapter in the various indulgences he enjoys, but in numerous ways, The Jazz Age is Ferry's most radical work yet.

Artist: Bryan Ferry, Album: The Jazz Age, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "Bryan Ferry works steadily, recording, releasing, and (only if necessary, perhaps) touring new albums, even if he remains unable to step out from what was established on earlier work. But then Ferry seemed born to both reinterpret and to look backwards. His solo career started one year after Roxy Music's own debut full length with These Foolish Things, a collection of soul, jazz, and rock'n'roll standards often revisited in utterly surprising ways. By the time of his third solo album Let's Stick Together, Ferry combined yet more covers with reworkings of Roxy's own material just a few years after it had been written and recorded-- his preference for focused contemplation and his particularly male vision of love, lust, and wariness came to the fore. All told, he's done six albums of covers and revisions over 40 years' time. The Jazz Age is the seventh out of 14 solo efforts total, though Ferry acts as co-producer and general driving force rather than performer. In fact, for the first time since Let's Stick Together, Ferry's own material is the subject of reworking: all selections are his work ranging from Roxy's debut single "Virginia Plain" to "Reason or Rhyme", a song from Ferry's previous solo album Olympia. To a degree, The Jazz Age's roots lie in 1999's As Time Goes By, where Ferry recorded jazz and pop songs predominantly from the 1930s. Five out of The Jazz Age's eight performers reappear from the earlier work along with others such as regular Ferry collaborator, trumpeter Enrico Tomasso. But The Jazz Age, a collection of instrumentals performed by the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, is more self-consciously 1920s, openly meant to evoke Louis Armstrong, early Count Basie, and the initial mass popularization of jazz. If there's an inescapable element of perverseness about The Jazz Age, it's the sense of flattening a life's work into pastiche, down to the fact that the album is mixed and produced in non-hi-fi mono, something definitely not the case on As Time Goes By. It doesn't matter whether the source material is a frenetic explosion like "Do the Strand", a clipped mood piece like "Love is the Drug" or "Don't Stop the Dance", or contemplative songs like "Avalon". The resultant energetic but never too disruptive presentation turns everything into something which sounds like it could be coming out of the Victrola at a party at "Downton Abbey" by the time the show hits season five. The album is hard to immediately see as anything but a studied curio by a famous name deliberately out of sync with nearly everything around it, unless one wants to talk about Hugh Laurie's tribute to New Orleans and the blues. The internal trick of The Jazz Age is that Ferry's orchestra also deftly avoids simply sounding one-note despite the uniform presentation and ambience. At points the arrangements are almost specific responses to the originals. "The Bogus Man" here shrinks from 10 to two minutes long, hinting at second line comedy before the funeral's actually been completed, while "I Thought", a slow, stately number from 2002's Frantic, and his utterly poised 1985 hit "Slave to Love" both become peppy dance numbers. But whatever prompted the various reinterpretations, surprises turn up one by one, almost always enjoyably so. "Avalon” kicks off with a rhythmic strut that's far more New Orleans than Newcastle, the crystalline theatricality of "Reason or Rhyme" mutates into a one-room-over and slightly boozy speakeasy swing, and "Virginia Plain"'s dramatic pauses showcase notably friendlier sounding solos. Meanwhile, a telling break from Ferry's other work lies in the total absence of his most famous calling card-- his voice, with it his lyrical concerns and image. If anyone is the lead "voice" throughout it would be Tomasso or saxophonists Alan Barnes and Richard White, whose various solo turns on a number of songs take the place of the singing. As a result, it becomes a strangely affecting blend-- Ferry is here almost by implication, a certain unavoidably melancholic sigh that emerges in hints in the arrangements, even at their merriest. The end result is actually the most atypical Ferry album of them all. It's something that seemed-- only after it was announced-- obvious that he would do but never actually did. It's also something he may never do again. It may not be an extreme reworking of song forms or a sudden return to action, perhaps simply another chapter in the various indulgences he enjoys, but in numerous ways, The Jazz Age is Ferry's most radical work yet."

Tatsuya Yoshida, Satoko Fujii

Erans

Experimental,Jazz

Dominique Leone

Piano soothes the savage beast-- or in this case, the self-proclaimed "devil from the East"-- Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Ever since he hooked up with jazz pianist Satoko Fujii at the outset of the decade, I've noticed a calmer tendency in his music; be it a greater willingness to emphasize improvisation and chamber-jazz dynamics, or just his gradual distancing from manic, screeching, distorted chaos, the guy seems somehow less combustible than in previous years. Although longtime fans somewhat mourn the days when he might have spent an entire LP side exorcising demons from his larynx, I welcome the change. Yoshida no longer needs to prove his endurance or facility with piss-take screaming etudes, nor does he need to ram out a hundred more avant-zeuhl tunes to express himself. By the same token, Fujii's collaboration with the drummer seems to have brought out her most concise and aggressive qualities. While her big band releases (Eastern and Western) were admirably open to experimentation and the kind of eclectic sound palette, I've always thought she was at her best in a small group. With Yoshida, her pieces seem to unfold without any hint of rehearsed mannerisms or particular obligation to appease the jazz tradition. Erans is their second release as a duo, and fourth together if you include their work with Fujii Quartet. Judging by the music therein, they're only getting better together. The two performers split writing duties down the middle, and share composer credits on two songs. The first of those is the excellent title track, beginning as impressionistic rumbles from Yoshida's kit and fragmented runs by Fujii. They gradually build up tension with faster and faster statements before Fujii announces the head with a short unison fanfare and the pair nails accents together in a similar fashion as most other Yoshida projects. The difference here is in both the refined precision of the playing (it's certainly the closest to straight jazz Yoshida has come), and in the advanced harmonic ideas Fujii introduces. And although the other writing collaboration, "Shimesaba", presents a completely different mood-- imagine modern jazz and speed-disco crossed with the Charleston-- the willingness to compliment and follow one another marks the sign of a mature group, one whose aims betray forward momentum at all costs. Yoshida's "Feirsttix" appears twice on the CD, once as an instrumental and later adding vocals. It's the kind of tune that would sound perfectly at home on a Ruins record, but again, Fujii's way with harmonic development and her ease with covering the entire range of her instrument to lend the broadest possible range of sound to this music are what make Erans an invigorating, accommodating listen. Her own pieces, like the ECM-tinged, odd-meter "Westerlies" or Ravel-meets-Cecil Taylor vignette "Iwashi No Uroko", shine via restrained, relaxed performance and a highly sophisticated use of rhythm that almost always perfectly offsets Yoshida's more brawny style. And somehow, they always manage to lock onto each other during the structured moments, even after spending most of the CD exploring areas far outside the lead sheet. "Westerlies", in particular, should be held as an example of how to fuse explosiveness with subtlety in jazz without seeming contrived or convoluted. Fans of either musician should grab hold of Erans, but perhaps better, modern small-group jazz listeners in general will find much to enjoy here. Though ten years ago it would have been crazy to assume that Yoshida might one day find an audience among the bookstore and coffee-table socialites, this record is right at the cusp of being accessible to jazz snobs and noise freaks alike. And the best news is that nobody had to compromise to get to that point; it was merely a matter of finding the right musical partner.

Artist: Tatsuya Yoshida, Satoko Fujii, Album: Erans, Genre: Experimental,Jazz, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Piano soothes the savage beast-- or in this case, the self-proclaimed "devil from the East"-- Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Ever since he hooked up with jazz pianist Satoko Fujii at the outset of the decade, I've noticed a calmer tendency in his music; be it a greater willingness to emphasize improvisation and chamber-jazz dynamics, or just his gradual distancing from manic, screeching, distorted chaos, the guy seems somehow less combustible than in previous years. Although longtime fans somewhat mourn the days when he might have spent an entire LP side exorcising demons from his larynx, I welcome the change. Yoshida no longer needs to prove his endurance or facility with piss-take screaming etudes, nor does he need to ram out a hundred more avant-zeuhl tunes to express himself. By the same token, Fujii's collaboration with the drummer seems to have brought out her most concise and aggressive qualities. While her big band releases (Eastern and Western) were admirably open to experimentation and the kind of eclectic sound palette, I've always thought she was at her best in a small group. With Yoshida, her pieces seem to unfold without any hint of rehearsed mannerisms or particular obligation to appease the jazz tradition. Erans is their second release as a duo, and fourth together if you include their work with Fujii Quartet. Judging by the music therein, they're only getting better together. The two performers split writing duties down the middle, and share composer credits on two songs. The first of those is the excellent title track, beginning as impressionistic rumbles from Yoshida's kit and fragmented runs by Fujii. They gradually build up tension with faster and faster statements before Fujii announces the head with a short unison fanfare and the pair nails accents together in a similar fashion as most other Yoshida projects. The difference here is in both the refined precision of the playing (it's certainly the closest to straight jazz Yoshida has come), and in the advanced harmonic ideas Fujii introduces. And although the other writing collaboration, "Shimesaba", presents a completely different mood-- imagine modern jazz and speed-disco crossed with the Charleston-- the willingness to compliment and follow one another marks the sign of a mature group, one whose aims betray forward momentum at all costs. Yoshida's "Feirsttix" appears twice on the CD, once as an instrumental and later adding vocals. It's the kind of tune that would sound perfectly at home on a Ruins record, but again, Fujii's way with harmonic development and her ease with covering the entire range of her instrument to lend the broadest possible range of sound to this music are what make Erans an invigorating, accommodating listen. Her own pieces, like the ECM-tinged, odd-meter "Westerlies" or Ravel-meets-Cecil Taylor vignette "Iwashi No Uroko", shine via restrained, relaxed performance and a highly sophisticated use of rhythm that almost always perfectly offsets Yoshida's more brawny style. And somehow, they always manage to lock onto each other during the structured moments, even after spending most of the CD exploring areas far outside the lead sheet. "Westerlies", in particular, should be held as an example of how to fuse explosiveness with subtlety in jazz without seeming contrived or convoluted. Fans of either musician should grab hold of Erans, but perhaps better, modern small-group jazz listeners in general will find much to enjoy here. Though ten years ago it would have been crazy to assume that Yoshida might one day find an audience among the bookstore and coffee-table socialites, this record is right at the cusp of being accessible to jazz snobs and noise freaks alike. And the best news is that nobody had to compromise to get to that point; it was merely a matter of finding the right musical partner."

Voxtrot

Voxtrot

Rock

Eric Harvey

Like the Sarah Records bands they owe so much of their musical aesthetic to, Austin indie rockers Voxtrot have, up to this point, relied upon EPs and seven-inches as their preferred modes of distribution. But unlike their twee-pop predecessors, the band also enjoyed the promotional boost of the mp3, and nurturing from online music communities which allowed them to leverage their few brief releases into a contract with the Beggars Group. Now backed by an honest-to-god record deal, and with fans eagerly awaiting their next step, the band has attempted to transfer their mastery of the EP format to a full album. Unfortunately, it turns out to be something of an awkward translation. During the first episode of the band's YouTube album-recording documentary "Reaching for the Lasers", bassist Jason Chronis admits, "Everybody in the band was ready for things to sound more advanced. We only have three EPs out; it's funny that on our first album we feel like we have to make fairly big changes." Thus, the extended dramatic opening and string-laden climax of "Introduction", which feels like the prelude to something extravagant. Densely detailed, thinly produced EP tracks like "Raised by Wolves" and "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives" are perfect candidates for bigger-budget expansion, and Ramesh Srivastava's songwriting style-- loquacious, emotionally insecure, buoyant, and tidy-- carries over to Voxtrot in full force. The "Kid Gloves" lyric "cheer me up, I'm a miserable fuck" may not halt the Smiths comparisons any time soon, but the song's propulsive power-pop backdrop suggests a well-executed fleshing-out of the sound that gained the group such a strong following. Likewise, "Firecracker" ascends an Arcade Fire-style bridge toward a satisfying, rocking chorus. Moments like these, however, are too few and far between, as the majority of the record's new tracks need to either be more focused or show more dynamic range. Voxtrot songs tend to rely more on successive alterations to near-melodies than full-on excursions into big, transcendent melodic moments. Yet while the band continually strives for hugeness on their debut long-player, they opt to force the issue through instrumental layering and sheer volume rather than re-tooling the songs at the base level. "Easy", for example, desperately wants to gleam but is flattened and disallowed the dynamic spikes it deserves. It's far from empty ambition-- more like unrealized potential-- but the band's M.O. here makes for a frustrating listen. Srivastava's singing voice-- previously an attractively coy, boyish warble-- is a big casualty here, stretched beyond its very limited range, yet still trying to express sentiments fit for a late-night phone call. His coo feels appropriate when crafting a tranquil melody on "The Future Pt. 1" or demurely lamenting on "Steven", but it struggles to keep up with harder numbers like "Brother in Conflict" or the cluttered closer "Blood Red Blood", finding itself buried in the mix. It suffers a bit of melodramatic misuse as well, most obviously on the mushy late-album slow jam "Real Life Version". Of course, that Voxtrot failed to make a career-defining record on their first attempt should not be held against them-- it was simply turned around too quickly. Their internet celebrity has uniquely magnified their tenure and significance, and the resulting echo chamber of hype and anticipation has more than likely placed an unfair burden on them to produce a work out of frame with their intentions. If Chronis' above quote is an indication of the full group's mindset while recording, they placed similar pressure on themselves as well. As a result, Voxtrot shows a young band eagerly trying to have it all: attempting to establish a mature musical identity while aiming for a wide audience. Voxtrot may very well have a great pop record within them, yet their first effort stumbles from the band's enthusiastic, ambitious attempt to produce it immediately.

Artist: Voxtrot, Album: Voxtrot, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.9 Album review: "Like the Sarah Records bands they owe so much of their musical aesthetic to, Austin indie rockers Voxtrot have, up to this point, relied upon EPs and seven-inches as their preferred modes of distribution. But unlike their twee-pop predecessors, the band also enjoyed the promotional boost of the mp3, and nurturing from online music communities which allowed them to leverage their few brief releases into a contract with the Beggars Group. Now backed by an honest-to-god record deal, and with fans eagerly awaiting their next step, the band has attempted to transfer their mastery of the EP format to a full album. Unfortunately, it turns out to be something of an awkward translation. During the first episode of the band's YouTube album-recording documentary "Reaching for the Lasers", bassist Jason Chronis admits, "Everybody in the band was ready for things to sound more advanced. We only have three EPs out; it's funny that on our first album we feel like we have to make fairly big changes." Thus, the extended dramatic opening and string-laden climax of "Introduction", which feels like the prelude to something extravagant. Densely detailed, thinly produced EP tracks like "Raised by Wolves" and "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives" are perfect candidates for bigger-budget expansion, and Ramesh Srivastava's songwriting style-- loquacious, emotionally insecure, buoyant, and tidy-- carries over to Voxtrot in full force. The "Kid Gloves" lyric "cheer me up, I'm a miserable fuck" may not halt the Smiths comparisons any time soon, but the song's propulsive power-pop backdrop suggests a well-executed fleshing-out of the sound that gained the group such a strong following. Likewise, "Firecracker" ascends an Arcade Fire-style bridge toward a satisfying, rocking chorus. Moments like these, however, are too few and far between, as the majority of the record's new tracks need to either be more focused or show more dynamic range. Voxtrot songs tend to rely more on successive alterations to near-melodies than full-on excursions into big, transcendent melodic moments. Yet while the band continually strives for hugeness on their debut long-player, they opt to force the issue through instrumental layering and sheer volume rather than re-tooling the songs at the base level. "Easy", for example, desperately wants to gleam but is flattened and disallowed the dynamic spikes it deserves. It's far from empty ambition-- more like unrealized potential-- but the band's M.O. here makes for a frustrating listen. Srivastava's singing voice-- previously an attractively coy, boyish warble-- is a big casualty here, stretched beyond its very limited range, yet still trying to express sentiments fit for a late-night phone call. His coo feels appropriate when crafting a tranquil melody on "The Future Pt. 1" or demurely lamenting on "Steven", but it struggles to keep up with harder numbers like "Brother in Conflict" or the cluttered closer "Blood Red Blood", finding itself buried in the mix. It suffers a bit of melodramatic misuse as well, most obviously on the mushy late-album slow jam "Real Life Version". Of course, that Voxtrot failed to make a career-defining record on their first attempt should not be held against them-- it was simply turned around too quickly. Their internet celebrity has uniquely magnified their tenure and significance, and the resulting echo chamber of hype and anticipation has more than likely placed an unfair burden on them to produce a work out of frame with their intentions. If Chronis' above quote is an indication of the full group's mindset while recording, they placed similar pressure on themselves as well. As a result, Voxtrot shows a young band eagerly trying to have it all: attempting to establish a mature musical identity while aiming for a wide audience. Voxtrot may very well have a great pop record within them, yet their first effort stumbles from the band's enthusiastic, ambitious attempt to produce it immediately."

Tim Hecker

Norberg/Apondalifa

Experimental

Marc Masters

You can debate exactly when Tim Hecker became a master of his chosen musical form, but there's little doubt that he did at some point—at least as early as 2006's Harmony in Ultraviolet —and hasn't let go since. The variances between his works may seem incremental, but line them all up and the amount of raw material he's turned to gold is remarkable. This kind of mastery means there are no minor releases in his discography, at least in terms of quality. Even the two records collected here—the 2007 live CD Norberg and the 2010 7-inch Apondalifa, both made in limited quantities to coincide with Australian tours—reach levels of interest and intensity below which Hecker seems incapable of falling. How exactly Norberg/Apondalifa fits in his stellar discography is a trickier question. Most reviews of Hecker's records compare them to their predecessors, with good reason; his oeuvre forms an internal dialogue wherein individual albums reflect, react to, and play off of each other. But even though "Norberg" and "Apondalifa" reflect the headspace Hecker was in when Hecker made, they feel isolated, meant to stand alone. And where many Hecker albums have had specific focus—on a theme, or a working method, or a mood—these two pieces are more like simple displays of creative strength. Of the pair, "Norberg" is more comprehensive, a seamless 20-minute piece in which Hecker surfs around the sonic map without deviating far from his initial path. At times he flirts with aggressive noise; in other places he gets so beatific it's like he's meditating. But for most of "Norberg", Hecker skates in the tantalizing space between those poles, hinting at both without dropping off into either. When the piece ends in applause from the crowd, it's almost shocking, because—as in much of Hecker's work—you feel like you've spent the last 20 minutes inside of his head. Perhaps because it's shorter, the 9-minute "Apondalifa" is more single-minded, hewing to one discernible range of mood. But Hecker can blow up even the tiniest dots into widening vistas, a feat he accomplishes here by varying textures rather than his tones. So even as the track feels relentless, it also spreads out into phasing guitar chords, low-end rumbles, and slow waves of drone that circle a solid core. As important as those details are, in a way they're also irrelevant, because Hecker's touch and control are so deft they could transform any coal into diamonds. That's the ultimate value of Norberg/Apondalifa, a sharp reminder that Tim Hecker has had it all figured out for a while now.

Artist: Tim Hecker, Album: Norberg/Apondalifa, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "You can debate exactly when Tim Hecker became a master of his chosen musical form, but there's little doubt that he did at some point—at least as early as 2006's Harmony in Ultraviolet —and hasn't let go since. The variances between his works may seem incremental, but line them all up and the amount of raw material he's turned to gold is remarkable. This kind of mastery means there are no minor releases in his discography, at least in terms of quality. Even the two records collected here—the 2007 live CD Norberg and the 2010 7-inch Apondalifa, both made in limited quantities to coincide with Australian tours—reach levels of interest and intensity below which Hecker seems incapable of falling. How exactly Norberg/Apondalifa fits in his stellar discography is a trickier question. Most reviews of Hecker's records compare them to their predecessors, with good reason; his oeuvre forms an internal dialogue wherein individual albums reflect, react to, and play off of each other. But even though "Norberg" and "Apondalifa" reflect the headspace Hecker was in when Hecker made, they feel isolated, meant to stand alone. And where many Hecker albums have had specific focus—on a theme, or a working method, or a mood—these two pieces are more like simple displays of creative strength. Of the pair, "Norberg" is more comprehensive, a seamless 20-minute piece in which Hecker surfs around the sonic map without deviating far from his initial path. At times he flirts with aggressive noise; in other places he gets so beatific it's like he's meditating. But for most of "Norberg", Hecker skates in the tantalizing space between those poles, hinting at both without dropping off into either. When the piece ends in applause from the crowd, it's almost shocking, because—as in much of Hecker's work—you feel like you've spent the last 20 minutes inside of his head. Perhaps because it's shorter, the 9-minute "Apondalifa" is more single-minded, hewing to one discernible range of mood. But Hecker can blow up even the tiniest dots into widening vistas, a feat he accomplishes here by varying textures rather than his tones. So even as the track feels relentless, it also spreads out into phasing guitar chords, low-end rumbles, and slow waves of drone that circle a solid core. As important as those details are, in a way they're also irrelevant, because Hecker's touch and control are so deft they could transform any coal into diamonds. That's the ultimate value of Norberg/Apondalifa, a sharp reminder that Tim Hecker has had it all figured out for a while now."

Caddywhompus

Odd Hours

Rock

Patric Fallon

In a culture that praises overnight fame and craves an endless stream of hits, the difficult, awkward path known as The Long Road to Success always loses travelers. Why bother with unpaid gigs, cramped tour vans, sleeping on floors, and saving up for studio time when you can easily polish a song at home and let the internet sort out your fate? There’s no shame in the latter route, but there’s something ineffably sweeter about witnessing a beloved underdog mature and pick up steam in real time. Just ask the rabid fans of Caddywhompus, a band that, nine years into their career, has released their most important album. Caddywhompus is the New Orleans-based duo of singer/guitarist Chris Rehm and drummer Sean Hart, friends who have known each other since kindergarten in Houston, Texas, and have played music together since middle school. They’ll cite early inspirations like Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Radiohead as soon as they’ll describe formative experiences with A Minor Forest, Don Caballero, and Explosions in the Sky. Grouper, the Caretaker, Vashti Bunyan, Roy Orbison, and Liz Phair sit side by side on their mixtapes. And the music Rehm and Hart write as Caddywhompus reflects their omnivorous musical appetites. As far back as their 2010 debut LP, Remainder, the pair have mulched the contents of their iPods into a chirping, spazzy noise-rock that’s equally unhinged and pop literate. Rehm’s voice falls into the strange timbre of twerpish falsettos that rattle the bones—like Avey Tare’s yawps tamed by, say, Thom Yorke impersonating Ezra Koenig. The duo’s inclusive sound took on a new wrinkle with 2011’s The Weight EP, when they allowed themselves breathing room between bouts of erratic shredding. Three years later, the impressive Feathering a Nest diverged more frequently from angular riffs and punk tempos into post-rock’s shimmering vistas. The third Caddywhompus album, Odd Hours, is the refined culmination of its predecessors; this stylistic tour de force rarely rests at the countless pit stops spread across its 40 minutes. Opener “Decent” kicks off with a whirlwind of proggy emo and pop punk. “Salmon Run” at first recalls OK Computer with its boomy drum kit and spacey guitar, before switching straight into fuzzy power chords and sing-along melodies à la Deerhoof. “Appetite” pulls a bait-and-switch, too, with a jittery bounce, like ’90s-era Modest Mouse, and a massive, galloping riff that could have shown up on Battles’ Mirrored. All this breakneck jamming and juggling can overwhelm, but the atmospheric instrumental “Ferment” and the straightforward “In Ways” offer palate cleansers amid the delirium. It’s hard not to play connect-the-dots with Odd Hours, but the album is more accomplished than a well-curated grab bag of influences. Because Caddywhompus pulls from everywhere all at once, the flurry of their motions blurs into something unique unto itself. In just over a minute, “Waiting Room” moves from heavy riffing to a lazy waltz to 4/4 power-pop and back again—each transition seamless and unfussy as can be. Yet for all of the band’s remarkable skill and presence, little about them is ostentatious or gratuitous. Behind every hairpin turn and difficult time signature is a gush of effusive candor. Odd Hours is too emotional to be math-rock, too energetic to be post-rock, too structured to be art-rock—there’s no neat categorization for a record this ambidextrous. On each half of Odd Hours, two varied, complete movements rise and fall with casual precision, the lockstep performance of bandmates with almost a decade’s practice behind them. The whole thing couldn’t exist without the duo’s years upon years spent playing flophouses, unlit basements, local block parties, and cold, uncrowded garages, with breaks to record each road-worn song in whichever buddy’s “studio” is cheap and available. It couldn’t exist without the slow work of cultivating a dedicated audience, fans that share their first experience with the band like a badge of honor. It couldn’t exist without the perseverance of two lifelong friends, who would still be playing these songs whether or not anyone bothered to listen.

Artist: Caddywhompus, Album: Odd Hours, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "In a culture that praises overnight fame and craves an endless stream of hits, the difficult, awkward path known as The Long Road to Success always loses travelers. Why bother with unpaid gigs, cramped tour vans, sleeping on floors, and saving up for studio time when you can easily polish a song at home and let the internet sort out your fate? There’s no shame in the latter route, but there’s something ineffably sweeter about witnessing a beloved underdog mature and pick up steam in real time. Just ask the rabid fans of Caddywhompus, a band that, nine years into their career, has released their most important album. Caddywhompus is the New Orleans-based duo of singer/guitarist Chris Rehm and drummer Sean Hart, friends who have known each other since kindergarten in Houston, Texas, and have played music together since middle school. They’ll cite early inspirations like Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Radiohead as soon as they’ll describe formative experiences with A Minor Forest, Don Caballero, and Explosions in the Sky. Grouper, the Caretaker, Vashti Bunyan, Roy Orbison, and Liz Phair sit side by side on their mixtapes. And the music Rehm and Hart write as Caddywhompus reflects their omnivorous musical appetites. As far back as their 2010 debut LP, Remainder, the pair have mulched the contents of their iPods into a chirping, spazzy noise-rock that’s equally unhinged and pop literate. Rehm’s voice falls into the strange timbre of twerpish falsettos that rattle the bones—like Avey Tare’s yawps tamed by, say, Thom Yorke impersonating Ezra Koenig. The duo’s inclusive sound took on a new wrinkle with 2011’s The Weight EP, when they allowed themselves breathing room between bouts of erratic shredding. Three years later, the impressive Feathering a Nest diverged more frequently from angular riffs and punk tempos into post-rock’s shimmering vistas. The third Caddywhompus album, Odd Hours, is the refined culmination of its predecessors; this stylistic tour de force rarely rests at the countless pit stops spread across its 40 minutes. Opener “Decent” kicks off with a whirlwind of proggy emo and pop punk. “Salmon Run” at first recalls OK Computer with its boomy drum kit and spacey guitar, before switching straight into fuzzy power chords and sing-along melodies à la Deerhoof. “Appetite” pulls a bait-and-switch, too, with a jittery bounce, like ’90s-era Modest Mouse, and a massive, galloping riff that could have shown up on Battles’ Mirrored. All this breakneck jamming and juggling can overwhelm, but the atmospheric instrumental “Ferment” and the straightforward “In Ways” offer palate cleansers amid the delirium. It’s hard not to play connect-the-dots with Odd Hours, but the album is more accomplished than a well-curated grab bag of influences. Because Caddywhompus pulls from everywhere all at once, the flurry of their motions blurs into something unique unto itself. In just over a minute, “Waiting Room” moves from heavy riffing to a lazy waltz to 4/4 power-pop and back again—each transition seamless and unfussy as can be. Yet for all of the band’s remarkable skill and presence, little about them is ostentatious or gratuitous. Behind every hairpin turn and difficult time signature is a gush of effusive candor. Odd Hours is too emotional to be math-rock, too energetic to be post-rock, too structured to be art-rock—there’s no neat categorization for a record this ambidextrous. On each half of Odd Hours, two varied, complete movements rise and fall with casual precision, the lockstep performance of bandmates with almost a decade’s practice behind them. The whole thing couldn’t exist without the duo’s years upon years spent playing flophouses, unlit basements, local block parties, and cold, uncrowded garages, with breaks to record each road-worn song in whichever buddy’s “studio” is cheap and available. It couldn’t exist without the slow work of cultivating a dedicated audience, fans that share their first experience with the band like a badge of honor. It couldn’t exist without the perseverance of two lifelong friends, who would still be playing these songs whether or not anyone bothered to listen."

Negative Scanner

Negative Scanner

Rock

Sam Lefebvre

Post-punk is a maddeningly nebulous tag, invoked just recently to describe Shopping's budget funk, Ceremony's spacious arrangements and lithe leads, Lower's wrought cabaret, and so on. But the shared imperative is tension, which is exactly where Negative Scanner excels on its eponymous debut. For the Chicago foursome, it's at once a conscious goal and the consequence of a band threatening to fly off the rails. Suffused with desperation and determination, the songs on Negative Scanner trudge from forbidding valleys to staggering peaks. The players' physical exertion is palpable:drummer Tom Casling punctuates white-knuckled eighth-notes with frantic cymbal strikes, bassist Nick Beaudoin opts for down-strokes, and dual guitarists Matt Revers and Rebecca Valeriano-Flores hold back, chiseling riffs down to just a few needling notes. For a fast and barbed record, it might seem counterintuitive to cite the players' restraint, but they frequently shove out or delay anticipated climaxes and chord changes. Those moments are especially charged and frenzied – much more invigorating than if the group just cut loose when expected. Coupled with trebly, sinuous production, it lends Negative Scanner the feel of skittering on a knife-edge. Valeriano-Flores' pressurized bellow also distinguishes Negative Scanner from similarly zipped-up post-punk acts. Syllables arrive in fits and spasms, like clusters of jabs, making her titular refrain in a song like "C.P.D." exceptionally stirring, especially given its ghastly lyrical impressions of assault. "Tireless violence / It decides if you submit to it," she projects above the arresting chill of two alternating guitar chords. "Don't set me free, C.P.D. / Get off easy, C.P.D.," she sputters at the end, each letter landing like an indictment. On "Saturday Night & Sunday Morning," Valeriano-Flores audibly resists the urge to yell, which hard-boils her enunciation into the fraught, warbling shout of a fighter on the other side of exhaustion. Negative Scanner's earlier catalog, which consists of two EPs released in 2014, featured a couple glimpses of pop in the midst of chaos, particularly on "Ambitious People." Negative Scanner makes good on this impulse with the platinum projectile "Would You Rather", but otherwise seems unconcerned with bright melodic flourishes. The band's accomplishments here are harder earned. "Planet of Slums" vamps on static notes with increasing vigor until feedback envelops and turns it to scree. The same thing happens with Valeriano-Flores' vocals,  which ascend with  perceptible effort. But "Pity", the closer, is Negative Scanner's loftiest statement. For an album that's so concerned with how to configure a crescendo, "Pity" is a fitting endnote. At its apex, Valeriano-Flores trumps all of her earlier performances with an exultantly delivered line that yearns for even more: "Do you want to get higher? / Do you want it, do you will it?" Forget punk and post-punk, "Pity" is a blasted ballad – and a potent demonstration of how tension is most rewarding when it snaps.

Artist: Negative Scanner, Album: Negative Scanner, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Post-punk is a maddeningly nebulous tag, invoked just recently to describe Shopping's budget funk, Ceremony's spacious arrangements and lithe leads, Lower's wrought cabaret, and so on. But the shared imperative is tension, which is exactly where Negative Scanner excels on its eponymous debut. For the Chicago foursome, it's at once a conscious goal and the consequence of a band threatening to fly off the rails. Suffused with desperation and determination, the songs on Negative Scanner trudge from forbidding valleys to staggering peaks. The players' physical exertion is palpable:drummer Tom Casling punctuates white-knuckled eighth-notes with frantic cymbal strikes, bassist Nick Beaudoin opts for down-strokes, and dual guitarists Matt Revers and Rebecca Valeriano-Flores hold back, chiseling riffs down to just a few needling notes. For a fast and barbed record, it might seem counterintuitive to cite the players' restraint, but they frequently shove out or delay anticipated climaxes and chord changes. Those moments are especially charged and frenzied – much more invigorating than if the group just cut loose when expected. Coupled with trebly, sinuous production, it lends Negative Scanner the feel of skittering on a knife-edge. Valeriano-Flores' pressurized bellow also distinguishes Negative Scanner from similarly zipped-up post-punk acts. Syllables arrive in fits and spasms, like clusters of jabs, making her titular refrain in a song like "C.P.D." exceptionally stirring, especially given its ghastly lyrical impressions of assault. "Tireless violence / It decides if you submit to it," she projects above the arresting chill of two alternating guitar chords. "Don't set me free, C.P.D. / Get off easy, C.P.D.," she sputters at the end, each letter landing like an indictment. On "Saturday Night & Sunday Morning," Valeriano-Flores audibly resists the urge to yell, which hard-boils her enunciation into the fraught, warbling shout of a fighter on the other side of exhaustion. Negative Scanner's earlier catalog, which consists of two EPs released in 2014, featured a couple glimpses of pop in the midst of chaos, particularly on "Ambitious People." Negative Scanner makes good on this impulse with the platinum projectile "Would You Rather", but otherwise seems unconcerned with bright melodic flourishes. The band's accomplishments here are harder earned. "Planet of Slums" vamps on static notes with increasing vigor until feedback envelops and turns it to scree. The same thing happens with Valeriano-Flores' vocals,  which ascend with  perceptible effort. But "Pity", the closer, is Negative Scanner's loftiest statement. For an album that's so concerned with how to configure a crescendo, "Pity" is a fitting endnote. At its apex, Valeriano-Flores trumps all of her earlier performances with an exultantly delivered line that yearns for even more: "Do you want to get higher? / Do you want it, do you will it?" Forget punk and post-punk, "Pity" is a blasted ballad – and a potent demonstration of how tension is most rewarding when it snaps."

Jungle

Jungle

Pop/R&B

Andy Beta

In the summer of 2013, an anonymous UK production duo only known by the initials of J and T released a 7" under the name of Jungle. From this side of the Atlantic, there was a bit of an eye roll: anonymous Brits who are taken with the sound of pirate radio jungle rendered back when they were just weens? But rather than follow in the lineage of the likes of Zomby, Burial, and the like, the video for that first single “Platoon” (featuring Ellen’s favorite B-girl) revealed that Jungle weren’t early '90’s ‘ardcore enthusiasts as much as they were just two blokes into Jamiroquai. For a recent series of sold-out shows in Europe and New York City, J and T have dilated to a seven-person live band that features some chops and muscle, but at the root of their 12-track self-titled debut for XL, Jungle retains the constricts of the original duo of producers Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland. Throughout their first album, they favor the bantamweight soul reminiscent of early '80s British acts like Imagination, Fun Boy Three, I-Level and Fine Young Cannibals, to name but a few. But it’s the group’s sense of simple, dance-focused visuals  that have attained a certain level of buzz. Peel back those effective visuals and their sonic palette is rather confectionary: pliant bass, simple 4/4 beats, spindling guitar. Sometimes the synths that underpin the tracks are frothy, other times airy, in a few instances bubbly, but they are almost impossible to differentiate from track to track. The synthesized horns and eddying synth washes of “Busy Earnin’” are a nice garland for a track that laments the self-centeredness of being “Too busy earning/ Can’t get enough.” Too often, Jungle’s shimmering surfaces belie the flimsiness of the songs themselves, which buckle under any sort of weight. Take opener “The Heat”, a catchy, light funk number which manages to shoehorn in three separate “heat” references in under 10 seconds: actual temperature, sexual intensity, and the police (via a sample of wailing sirens). It’s the image of the roller-skating b-boys in matching tracksuits in the song's video, and not the song itself, that leaves a lasting impression. Digested as individual singles rather than as an entire album in one sitting, Jungle fares far better. “Platoon” remains a standout, as does “Time”, though these songs’ distinguishing features blur due to the indistinguishable tracks that border either side of them. The falsetto-castrato harmonies—just beyond the range of Pharrell—that deliver each chorus and hook proves tiring on the ears, too: imagine TV on the Radio’s “I Was a Lover” with Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone forever in the purgatory of that high, grating register, never to descend back into a growl or tenor, much less their regular singing voice. With an expanded band, one hopes that Jungle might broaden their template and branch out into different timbres. As it stands, remaining at that upper register with every word and line, the album’s 39 minutes feel much longer, leaving one high and dry.

Artist: Jungle, Album: Jungle, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "In the summer of 2013, an anonymous UK production duo only known by the initials of J and T released a 7" under the name of Jungle. From this side of the Atlantic, there was a bit of an eye roll: anonymous Brits who are taken with the sound of pirate radio jungle rendered back when they were just weens? But rather than follow in the lineage of the likes of Zomby, Burial, and the like, the video for that first single “Platoon” (featuring Ellen’s favorite B-girl) revealed that Jungle weren’t early '90’s ‘ardcore enthusiasts as much as they were just two blokes into Jamiroquai. For a recent series of sold-out shows in Europe and New York City, J and T have dilated to a seven-person live band that features some chops and muscle, but at the root of their 12-track self-titled debut for XL, Jungle retains the constricts of the original duo of producers Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland. Throughout their first album, they favor the bantamweight soul reminiscent of early '80s British acts like Imagination, Fun Boy Three, I-Level and Fine Young Cannibals, to name but a few. But it’s the group’s sense of simple, dance-focused visuals  that have attained a certain level of buzz. Peel back those effective visuals and their sonic palette is rather confectionary: pliant bass, simple 4/4 beats, spindling guitar. Sometimes the synths that underpin the tracks are frothy, other times airy, in a few instances bubbly, but they are almost impossible to differentiate from track to track. The synthesized horns and eddying synth washes of “Busy Earnin’” are a nice garland for a track that laments the self-centeredness of being “Too busy earning/ Can’t get enough.” Too often, Jungle’s shimmering surfaces belie the flimsiness of the songs themselves, which buckle under any sort of weight. Take opener “The Heat”, a catchy, light funk number which manages to shoehorn in three separate “heat” references in under 10 seconds: actual temperature, sexual intensity, and the police (via a sample of wailing sirens). It’s the image of the roller-skating b-boys in matching tracksuits in the song's video, and not the song itself, that leaves a lasting impression. Digested as individual singles rather than as an entire album in one sitting, Jungle fares far better. “Platoon” remains a standout, as does “Time”, though these songs’ distinguishing features blur due to the indistinguishable tracks that border either side of them. The falsetto-castrato harmonies—just beyond the range of Pharrell—that deliver each chorus and hook proves tiring on the ears, too: imagine TV on the Radio’s “I Was a Lover” with Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone forever in the purgatory of that high, grating register, never to descend back into a growl or tenor, much less their regular singing voice. With an expanded band, one hopes that Jungle might broaden their template and branch out into different timbres. As it stands, remaining at that upper register with every word and line, the album’s 39 minutes feel much longer, leaving one high and dry."

Gaussian Curve

Clouds

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

One of last year's most warmly received archival discoveries was Talk to the Sea, a collection of unreleased recordings by the Italian musician Gigi Masin. His debut album, Wind, self-released in 1986, is an understated gem that falls somewhere between Balearic ambient music and secular new age, with echoes of Harold Budd, Jon Hassell, and Arthur Russell's World of Echo. It's not terribly well known, but those who have heard it tend to be passionate about it. A former radio DJ, Masin has done other things over the years, including a 1989 split LP with This Heat's Charles Hayward, on Sub Rosa, and, in the '00s, a handful of recordings for small Italian labels. But he's remained largely under the radar. I had never heard of Masin until I encountered Talk to the Sea, released by the fledgling Amsterdam label Music From Memory, but its impact was immediate—if "impact" is quite the right word for a sound so warmly, woozily amniotic, a sound entirely without hard surfaces or sharp edges. Masin returns here as one-third of Gaussian Curve, a multi-generational ensemble that also includes the Scottish musician Jonny Nash, a founder of the ESP Institute label and member of the synth-besotted softronica act Land of Light, and Amsterdam's Marco Sterk, better known for his woozy house productions under the Young Marco alias. Nash and Sterk first met Masin in the fall of 2013, and they wound up briefly jamming together in the house of a friend. The three musicians reconvened in Amsterdam in early 2014, and they ended up completing eight tracks in a single weekend. Clouds is the result of those sessions, and it's every bit as dreamlike as the musicians make the weekend sound. "It was almost like we weren't involved," Nash told Juno Plus. "It just slipped out." The eight songs here, all instrumentals, feel less like standalone pieces than variations on a common theme. They share similar instrumentation, and they're all uniformly limpid and languid. Masin sets the tone, and the pace, with slow-moving chords on acoustic piano or Rhodes keyboard, while Nash and Sterk flesh out the songs with gently meandering electric guitar, wispy synthesizer pads, and, occasionally, trumpet and melodica. Given the trumpet, the music often brings to mind Jon Hassell's Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street. A few songs feature rudimentary drum-machine programming, mostly just tuned toms and woodblocks, that might be mistaken for dripping faucets. To call it "atmospheric" would be an extreme understatement. (On the closing "Red Light", they hold a microphone out the studio window and record the voices and footfalls of the alley outside.) It probably bears as much in common with watercolor as it does most electronic music. While the music unfolds with about as much drama as a smoke ring wafting towards the ceiling—about as much consequence, too—these are masterfully crafted mood pieces. In the opening "Talk to the Church", Masin mimics the chimes of a bell tower that loomed over the trio's studio, his chords gently bouncing and swaying, enlivened by millisecond-long syncopations and subtle shifts in volume. And despite the limited palette and the uniform tempos, they wisely change keys for virtually every song. So while the view remains the same, the light shifts, ever so subtly. True to the title, the experience of this short album, just 38 minutes long, feels a little like a time-lapse film of clouds crossing the sky—of day turning to night, and back again. With the closing "Red Light", the music returns to its original key, and it feels like things have come full circle. The logical response—my response, anyway—is to resume the cycle, and launch into the daybreak bells of "Talk to the Church" all over again.

Artist: Gaussian Curve, Album: Clouds, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "One of last year's most warmly received archival discoveries was Talk to the Sea, a collection of unreleased recordings by the Italian musician Gigi Masin. His debut album, Wind, self-released in 1986, is an understated gem that falls somewhere between Balearic ambient music and secular new age, with echoes of Harold Budd, Jon Hassell, and Arthur Russell's World of Echo. It's not terribly well known, but those who have heard it tend to be passionate about it. A former radio DJ, Masin has done other things over the years, including a 1989 split LP with This Heat's Charles Hayward, on Sub Rosa, and, in the '00s, a handful of recordings for small Italian labels. But he's remained largely under the radar. I had never heard of Masin until I encountered Talk to the Sea, released by the fledgling Amsterdam label Music From Memory, but its impact was immediate—if "impact" is quite the right word for a sound so warmly, woozily amniotic, a sound entirely without hard surfaces or sharp edges. Masin returns here as one-third of Gaussian Curve, a multi-generational ensemble that also includes the Scottish musician Jonny Nash, a founder of the ESP Institute label and member of the synth-besotted softronica act Land of Light, and Amsterdam's Marco Sterk, better known for his woozy house productions under the Young Marco alias. Nash and Sterk first met Masin in the fall of 2013, and they wound up briefly jamming together in the house of a friend. The three musicians reconvened in Amsterdam in early 2014, and they ended up completing eight tracks in a single weekend. Clouds is the result of those sessions, and it's every bit as dreamlike as the musicians make the weekend sound. "It was almost like we weren't involved," Nash told Juno Plus. "It just slipped out." The eight songs here, all instrumentals, feel less like standalone pieces than variations on a common theme. They share similar instrumentation, and they're all uniformly limpid and languid. Masin sets the tone, and the pace, with slow-moving chords on acoustic piano or Rhodes keyboard, while Nash and Sterk flesh out the songs with gently meandering electric guitar, wispy synthesizer pads, and, occasionally, trumpet and melodica. Given the trumpet, the music often brings to mind Jon Hassell's Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street. A few songs feature rudimentary drum-machine programming, mostly just tuned toms and woodblocks, that might be mistaken for dripping faucets. To call it "atmospheric" would be an extreme understatement. (On the closing "Red Light", they hold a microphone out the studio window and record the voices and footfalls of the alley outside.) It probably bears as much in common with watercolor as it does most electronic music. While the music unfolds with about as much drama as a smoke ring wafting towards the ceiling—about as much consequence, too—these are masterfully crafted mood pieces. In the opening "Talk to the Church", Masin mimics the chimes of a bell tower that loomed over the trio's studio, his chords gently bouncing and swaying, enlivened by millisecond-long syncopations and subtle shifts in volume. And despite the limited palette and the uniform tempos, they wisely change keys for virtually every song. So while the view remains the same, the light shifts, ever so subtly. True to the title, the experience of this short album, just 38 minutes long, feels a little like a time-lapse film of clouds crossing the sky—of day turning to night, and back again. With the closing "Red Light", the music returns to its original key, and it feels like things have come full circle. The logical response—my response, anyway—is to resume the cycle, and launch into the daybreak bells of "Talk to the Church" all over again."

Billy Mahonie

The Big Dig

Rock

Mark Richard-San

I recently had a conversation with a friend in which we talked about new media and broadband entertainment. I felt that that whatever happens when the Web and TV merge for good, it won't make anybody happier. I said that my present Internet experience gives me what I need-- even over a 56k modem I can read news, check out music, and so on-- and I don't feel like I'm wanting. And my friend said that you never know what you need until somebody gives it to you. Something similar seems to have happened with instrumental rock. Ten years ago, there was very little of the stuff around, and nobody seemed the worse for it. There was fusion, sure, but the only fusion people would admit to liking back then had much more to do with jazz and funk-- stuff like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. True rock instrumentals were limited to surf bands, and the occasional side-long prog opus. The prospect of instrumental rock music back then actually seemed pretty damned boring. Then Slint came along and changed things, and Tortoise finished what they started. These days, most indie rock children need some instrumental music in their collections, even though they'd never have considered it in 1990. This brings us to Billy Mahonie, an instrumental rock band from the UK. One thing I've learned from listening to bands like Mogwai (whom Billy Mahonie have been compared to) is that you need to hear some records a half-dozen times or more before they mean anything. Mogwai's last full-length, in fact, is still keeping me at arm's length, even after having owned it for nearly a year. Similarly, the first few passes through Billy Mahonie's The Big Dig reminded me of chugging a glass of warm water when you're not even thirsty. But the more I listened to it, the more often interesting subtleties kept popping up. Billy Mahonie don't bring anything new to the table, and The Big Dig certainly isn't going to change anybody's life, but this is definitely a solid album. These guys can all play (guitar, two basses, drums) and they have a knack for solid riffs and catchy guitar leads. But since they don't rock very hard and aren't into studio manipulation (my favorite part of the Mogwai experience), the prettiest tracks on The Big Dig are the best. Of these, "Drago" is the most immediately engaging, with a wandering, wistful melody that begs for soft, pleasing visuals. "William Derbyshire" has a gently uplifting chord progression that glows extra bright with ringing acoustic guitar accents. More uptempo but equally as effective is "Watching People Speaking When You Can't Hear What They're Saying," which layers slide guitar right out of U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" over a frenzied, propulsive rhythm before breaking down into a slow, airy section with a lovely guitar melody. And so it seems that while I may not have needed another instrumental rock record in my collection, I wound up enjoying The Big Dig.

Artist: Billy Mahonie, Album: The Big Dig, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "I recently had a conversation with a friend in which we talked about new media and broadband entertainment. I felt that that whatever happens when the Web and TV merge for good, it won't make anybody happier. I said that my present Internet experience gives me what I need-- even over a 56k modem I can read news, check out music, and so on-- and I don't feel like I'm wanting. And my friend said that you never know what you need until somebody gives it to you. Something similar seems to have happened with instrumental rock. Ten years ago, there was very little of the stuff around, and nobody seemed the worse for it. There was fusion, sure, but the only fusion people would admit to liking back then had much more to do with jazz and funk-- stuff like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. True rock instrumentals were limited to surf bands, and the occasional side-long prog opus. The prospect of instrumental rock music back then actually seemed pretty damned boring. Then Slint came along and changed things, and Tortoise finished what they started. These days, most indie rock children need some instrumental music in their collections, even though they'd never have considered it in 1990. This brings us to Billy Mahonie, an instrumental rock band from the UK. One thing I've learned from listening to bands like Mogwai (whom Billy Mahonie have been compared to) is that you need to hear some records a half-dozen times or more before they mean anything. Mogwai's last full-length, in fact, is still keeping me at arm's length, even after having owned it for nearly a year. Similarly, the first few passes through Billy Mahonie's The Big Dig reminded me of chugging a glass of warm water when you're not even thirsty. But the more I listened to it, the more often interesting subtleties kept popping up. Billy Mahonie don't bring anything new to the table, and The Big Dig certainly isn't going to change anybody's life, but this is definitely a solid album. These guys can all play (guitar, two basses, drums) and they have a knack for solid riffs and catchy guitar leads. But since they don't rock very hard and aren't into studio manipulation (my favorite part of the Mogwai experience), the prettiest tracks on The Big Dig are the best. Of these, "Drago" is the most immediately engaging, with a wandering, wistful melody that begs for soft, pleasing visuals. "William Derbyshire" has a gently uplifting chord progression that glows extra bright with ringing acoustic guitar accents. More uptempo but equally as effective is "Watching People Speaking When You Can't Hear What They're Saying," which layers slide guitar right out of U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" over a frenzied, propulsive rhythm before breaking down into a slow, airy section with a lovely guitar melody. And so it seems that while I may not have needed another instrumental rock record in my collection, I wound up enjoying The Big Dig."

Bankroll Fresh

Life of a Hot Boy 2: Real Trapper

Rap

David Drake

Bankroll Fresh was once known as Yung Fresh, and appeared alongside Mr. Perfect-era Gucci Mane on a small handful of records. Now, with a minor hit in 2014's Cash Money-referencing "Hot Boy", a Mike WiLL Made It cosign, and Instagram shout-outs from Drake and, uh, Marilyn Manson, he is Bankroll Fresh, one of several young ATLiens making a move for his city's street rap center. Perhaps because of his older pedigree, the rapper's style doesn't owe Gucci as much of a stylistic debt as others in the current Atlanta rookie class. This is his substantial advantage: at a time when most emulate a series of now-conventional flows, Bankroll seems intent on scratching out his own fresh rhythmic pathways, discovering his own pocket in the groove. ("Free Wop Freestyle (Free Gucci)" is the exception that proves the rule.) Bankroll's vocal tone doesn't have the same effortless panache and character of Gucci's own; in some ways he seems downright regular. But Gucci's influence looms so large in Atlanta street rap that this is a refreshing strategy, exhibiting an inner artistic confidence. Externally, though, Life of a Hot Boy 2: Real Trapper is a spare, skeletal record, more a model on which to build possible futures than a real destination. The album is least imaginative in its opening moments, which feel like an overt attempt to recapture the spirit of Trap or Die/Thug Motivation-era Jeezy, with producer D.Rich emulating the sheet metal symphonies of Shawty Redd. But the bulk of the tape sticks to Bankroll's core sound, an unwavering flatline on a black-and-white canvas, dominated by locked-in, often against-the-beat flows ("Thats Whats Goin On") that emphasize repetition with the deliberate percussiveness of a typewriter. Thus far none of his records have replicated the success of his last tape's big single "Hot Boy", and none here seem poised to do so either. But even that record felt like something of an uphill hit, its chorus successful mainly through bludgeoning repetition. The effect of this dry, minimal approach to trap music is going to limit this tape's audience from the jump: to enjoy this record, you've got to really love the bare-bones particulars of street music, distilled not so much in the service of therapeutic aggression—as it was for Flockaveli—but as a kind of audience GPS. To put it bluntly, the album's subject matter doesn't extend too far beyond that of Gucci's "My Kitchen". Here, it suggests, is Atlanta's missing piece, at a time when eccentric ATLiens like Young Thug, Future, and Rich Homie Quan experiment with different textural palettes and shades of emotion. Bankroll, by contrast, hasn't fleshed out his world much yet, leaving these songs as line-drawings of the dope dealer day-to-day over three-note piano loops. Not that there aren't inspired moments, particularly in the tape's second half. The Zaytoven-produced "Ten" features some tongue-twisting lyrics ("Livin like the mob, fly to Vegas just to ditch ya/ Dom Perignon sipper, cigar-clipper, Vuitton slippers"). The buzzing King Cee O-produced "360", much like his "Screen Door" collaboration with Mike WiLL on the latter's Ransom, suggests the rapper's style works best with some driving momentum behind him. The tape's best song overall is the D.Rich-produced "Fabulous". With brushed snares that sound lifted from former No Limit producer KLC, quivering synthesizers borrowed from Gucci Mane's Fat Boi-produced "Haunted House", and a piano loop that suggests the atmosphere of 2Pac's DeVante Swing-produced "No More Pain", the song is at once several sounds and none—less a costume than a creation. The stripped-down sound of the record makes Bankroll easily adaptable to different styles—the album's closer is a Zaytoven version of Master P's "I'm Bout It, Bout It"—without committing too completely to anything, and his facility for off-center flows is impressive. But he also stands in the shadow of more audacious experiments that have hit hip-hop in recent years: Big Sean, of course, has been doing the against-the-groove rap style for some time. But he's the tip of the iceberg in Detroit, where artists like Pablo Skywalkin and Yae Yae Jordan experiment radically while keeping the street approach at the forefront. In the drill scene, Keef has incorporated melody into his songs while virtually uncoupling himself from the rhythmic grid, and King Louie experimented with repeating flow patterns (and even recorded his own similar Gucci flow tribute back in 2009). Atlanta is a hotbed of hip-hop talent, it's true, but that's also a marketing cliche. Now that its singular space within hip-hop has been so well-established over the past two decades, each new artist arrives with the pressure of its city's proven track record behind it as decorative momentum. Only today, Atlanta faces new challengers, and artists like Bankroll don't have as clear a lane as they once did. This isn't to suggest Bankroll Fresh isn't an original voice. But just being from Atlanta may no longer guarantee you the biggest footprint, and Life of a Hot Boy 2 doesn’t make much of one by itself.

Artist: Bankroll Fresh, Album: Life of a Hot Boy 2: Real Trapper, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Bankroll Fresh was once known as Yung Fresh, and appeared alongside Mr. Perfect-era Gucci Mane on a small handful of records. Now, with a minor hit in 2014's Cash Money-referencing "Hot Boy", a Mike WiLL Made It cosign, and Instagram shout-outs from Drake and, uh, Marilyn Manson, he is Bankroll Fresh, one of several young ATLiens making a move for his city's street rap center. Perhaps because of his older pedigree, the rapper's style doesn't owe Gucci as much of a stylistic debt as others in the current Atlanta rookie class. This is his substantial advantage: at a time when most emulate a series of now-conventional flows, Bankroll seems intent on scratching out his own fresh rhythmic pathways, discovering his own pocket in the groove. ("Free Wop Freestyle (Free Gucci)" is the exception that proves the rule.) Bankroll's vocal tone doesn't have the same effortless panache and character of Gucci's own; in some ways he seems downright regular. But Gucci's influence looms so large in Atlanta street rap that this is a refreshing strategy, exhibiting an inner artistic confidence. Externally, though, Life of a Hot Boy 2: Real Trapper is a spare, skeletal record, more a model on which to build possible futures than a real destination. The album is least imaginative in its opening moments, which feel like an overt attempt to recapture the spirit of Trap or Die/Thug Motivation-era Jeezy, with producer D.Rich emulating the sheet metal symphonies of Shawty Redd. But the bulk of the tape sticks to Bankroll's core sound, an unwavering flatline on a black-and-white canvas, dominated by locked-in, often against-the-beat flows ("Thats Whats Goin On") that emphasize repetition with the deliberate percussiveness of a typewriter. Thus far none of his records have replicated the success of his last tape's big single "Hot Boy", and none here seem poised to do so either. But even that record felt like something of an uphill hit, its chorus successful mainly through bludgeoning repetition. The effect of this dry, minimal approach to trap music is going to limit this tape's audience from the jump: to enjoy this record, you've got to really love the bare-bones particulars of street music, distilled not so much in the service of therapeutic aggression—as it was for Flockaveli—but as a kind of audience GPS. To put it bluntly, the album's subject matter doesn't extend too far beyond that of Gucci's "My Kitchen". Here, it suggests, is Atlanta's missing piece, at a time when eccentric ATLiens like Young Thug, Future, and Rich Homie Quan experiment with different textural palettes and shades of emotion. Bankroll, by contrast, hasn't fleshed out his world much yet, leaving these songs as line-drawings of the dope dealer day-to-day over three-note piano loops. Not that there aren't inspired moments, particularly in the tape's second half. The Zaytoven-produced "Ten" features some tongue-twisting lyrics ("Livin like the mob, fly to Vegas just to ditch ya/ Dom Perignon sipper, cigar-clipper, Vuitton slippers"). The buzzing King Cee O-produced "360", much like his "Screen Door" collaboration with Mike WiLL on the latter's Ransom, suggests the rapper's style works best with some driving momentum behind him. The tape's best song overall is the D.Rich-produced "Fabulous". With brushed snares that sound lifted from former No Limit producer KLC, quivering synthesizers borrowed from Gucci Mane's Fat Boi-produced "Haunted House", and a piano loop that suggests the atmosphere of 2Pac's DeVante Swing-produced "No More Pain", the song is at once several sounds and none—less a costume than a creation. The stripped-down sound of the record makes Bankroll easily adaptable to different styles—the album's closer is a Zaytoven version of Master P's "I'm Bout It, Bout It"—without committing too completely to anything, and his facility for off-center flows is impressive. But he also stands in the shadow of more audacious experiments that have hit hip-hop in recent years: Big Sean, of course, has been doing the against-the-groove rap style for some time. But he's the tip of the iceberg in Detroit, where artists like Pablo Skywalkin and Yae Yae Jordan experiment radically while keeping the street approach at the forefront. In the drill scene, Keef has incorporated melody into his songs while virtually uncoupling himself from the rhythmic grid, and King Louie experimented with repeating flow patterns (and even recorded his own similar Gucci flow tribute back in 2009). Atlanta is a hotbed of hip-hop talent, it's true, but that's also a marketing cliche. Now that its singular space within hip-hop has been so well-established over the past two decades, each new artist arrives with the pressure of its city's proven track record behind it as decorative momentum. Only today, Atlanta faces new challengers, and artists like Bankroll don't have as clear a lane as they once did. This isn't to suggest Bankroll Fresh isn't an original voice. But just being from Atlanta may no longer guarantee you the biggest footprint, and Life of a Hot Boy 2 doesn’t make much of one by itself."

Hella

Tripper

Experimental,Rock

Aaron Leitko

No matter how much Hella have juggled their lineup, the music has always sounded the same. The Sacramento-bred spazz-rock duo's done the OutKast split-solo album thing (Church Gone Wild/Chirpin' Hard), given its songs the coffee-shop open-mike treatment (Acoustics), and revamped itself into a five-piece supergroup (There's No 666 In Outer Space). Yet through all of these rearrangements and reinventions, the band has rarely deviated from its staple schtick: shreddy guitars, frenetic drumming, and hooks scavenged from the Power Glove era of Nintendo gaming. Sometimes it was hard to tell if they were dedicated to a singular vision or stuck within one. Following a four-year hiatus, Tripper finds Hella back to their original two-piece incarnation, with founding members Spencer Seim and Zach Hill on guitar and drums. It's business as usual: spastic pounding, warp-speed scalar runs, and various math-rock feats of strength. Tripper is a more focused effort, but only in comparison to the wanton schizophrenia of other Hella records. On "Long Hair" Seim gets more melody out of fewer notes, sticking to single riffs for longer stretches of time. On "Yubacore" Hill plays with dynamics, interrupting his constant stream of abstract fills with a few simple, spacious grooves. Hella are never relaxed, but they no longer sound like they're sprinting to get to the end of the record. For all of the sweaty battering and calculated sloppiness, Hella's music always retained an inorganic feel. They make high volume but emotionally distant music. The band's main muse, in spirit if not in sound, is Devo. That hasn't changed on Tripper. Hella's peers-- art-school shredders like Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Krallice) and Lightning Bolt-- found their inspiration in hardcore punk and more extreme strains of metal. Though their playing is repetitive and mechanical, it's framed as a quasi-spiritual pursuit and, in Lighting Bolt's case, done in the hopes of producing a sweaty moshpit meltdown. Hella's intent is more arch. The song titles-- "Kid Life Crisis", "Psycho Bro"-- are meaningless goofs. The music's unpredictable and schizophrenic architecture subverts earnest headbanging. On Tripper, Hella's instrumental chops are better than ever, but riffs aside, there's not much to think about.

Artist: Hella, Album: Tripper, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "No matter how much Hella have juggled their lineup, the music has always sounded the same. The Sacramento-bred spazz-rock duo's done the OutKast split-solo album thing (Church Gone Wild/Chirpin' Hard), given its songs the coffee-shop open-mike treatment (Acoustics), and revamped itself into a five-piece supergroup (There's No 666 In Outer Space). Yet through all of these rearrangements and reinventions, the band has rarely deviated from its staple schtick: shreddy guitars, frenetic drumming, and hooks scavenged from the Power Glove era of Nintendo gaming. Sometimes it was hard to tell if they were dedicated to a singular vision or stuck within one. Following a four-year hiatus, Tripper finds Hella back to their original two-piece incarnation, with founding members Spencer Seim and Zach Hill on guitar and drums. It's business as usual: spastic pounding, warp-speed scalar runs, and various math-rock feats of strength. Tripper is a more focused effort, but only in comparison to the wanton schizophrenia of other Hella records. On "Long Hair" Seim gets more melody out of fewer notes, sticking to single riffs for longer stretches of time. On "Yubacore" Hill plays with dynamics, interrupting his constant stream of abstract fills with a few simple, spacious grooves. Hella are never relaxed, but they no longer sound like they're sprinting to get to the end of the record. For all of the sweaty battering and calculated sloppiness, Hella's music always retained an inorganic feel. They make high volume but emotionally distant music. The band's main muse, in spirit if not in sound, is Devo. That hasn't changed on Tripper. Hella's peers-- art-school shredders like Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Krallice) and Lightning Bolt-- found their inspiration in hardcore punk and more extreme strains of metal. Though their playing is repetitive and mechanical, it's framed as a quasi-spiritual pursuit and, in Lighting Bolt's case, done in the hopes of producing a sweaty moshpit meltdown. Hella's intent is more arch. The song titles-- "Kid Life Crisis", "Psycho Bro"-- are meaningless goofs. The music's unpredictable and schizophrenic architecture subverts earnest headbanging. On Tripper, Hella's instrumental chops are better than ever, but riffs aside, there's not much to think about."

Brazos

Saltwater

Harley Brown

When Martin Crane returned from touring his debut full-length as Brazos, 2009's Phosphorescent Blues, he came down with a serious case of post-vacation doldrums. After working at a phone bank and spending a little too much time in Austin dive bars, Crane decided to lift himself out of his rut by moving to New York. There, he signed to independent label Dead Oceans and enlisted some Brooklyn-based musicians to record his second record, Saltwater. Informed by the "transcendent groove music" of artists like Can and Fela Kuti, and the contemporary indie rock canon, Saltwater strives to be a buoyant return to form for Crane even as it strays from his original vision. Before and for a while after Brazos came to be, Crane used to perform with other local artists at a bi-weekly acoustic happy hour at Austin's Beerland. In an early video of one such get-together, a bearded, at ease Crane strums his acoustic guitar and crows heartily along with everyone else on stage, playing bar-room country with the same charmingly informal affect that made it onto his first EPs under the Brazos moniker. That quality was all but lost on Phosphorescent Blues, which came a few years later. For that record, Crane adopted a backing band and reinvented himself as a troubadour of sorts, citing an Adrienne Rich poem as the album's inspiration, and supplementing-- or more often than not, replacing-- his scruffy, clattering arrangements with the sophisticated rhythms of jazz and bossa nova. Saltwater sees that poem and raises it one Moby Dick, Crane's muse this time around. To flesh out such an ambitious vision, the singer-songwriter enlisted Empress Of's bassist Spencer Zahn and drummer Ian Chang, who plays with People Get Ready and Matthew Dear. The new members complement Crane's lyrics, which tend to be heavy on scenes, metaphors, and literary references, with subtle instrumental touches that breathe life into them. On the magnificent "Charm", Zahn teases out the lower ranges of a pulsing guitar riff similar to the one buried in labelmate Phosphorescent's "Song for Zula" as Chang clicks his sticks with the anticipation of fall's first brittle wind. They adeptly change tacks for the samba-indebted title track, which sees Crane using Ishmael as a character to tell the story of a friend's death. Despite lyrics about night terrors and the cult Japanese film Rashomon, Brazos keep things light with twittering piano notes, a woodblock, and surging choruses. Brazos' pop-icalia is well-timed for the onset of summer, but it comes at the expense of the homegrown grit that made Brazos' early recordings so appealing, and it doesn't always go down smooth. "Valencia" is a cutesy vignette of another one of those quirky girls, hinging on stilted conversation ("Oh, how you look so small from most any eye!") that not even that woodblock can save. The subsequent "Deeper Feelings" sounds like a watery outtake from Local Natives' Hummingbird, sunk in strangely squelching background synths and moony guitar lines. By the end, Saltwater winds up with impeccably tuned harmonies, lovely melodies, and literally the exact same guitar chords as the National's "Runaway" opening album closer "Long Shot". At least on Phosphorescent Blues, there were hints of Crane's earlier work in the percussive guitar playing and a voice so threadbare you could hear the grain of it. Now there is little, if anything, left of the Martin Crane that indulged in spontaneous blues licks and wasn't afraid to conclude his bedroom recordings with rambling vocal loops that sound like a drinking song, or like he was just drunk. And that seems to be the way he intended it. Saltwater is a pretty record and the songs are clearly heavy with personal significance, but it was almost better when they were a little rough around the edges.

Artist: Brazos, Album: Saltwater, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "When Martin Crane returned from touring his debut full-length as Brazos, 2009's Phosphorescent Blues, he came down with a serious case of post-vacation doldrums. After working at a phone bank and spending a little too much time in Austin dive bars, Crane decided to lift himself out of his rut by moving to New York. There, he signed to independent label Dead Oceans and enlisted some Brooklyn-based musicians to record his second record, Saltwater. Informed by the "transcendent groove music" of artists like Can and Fela Kuti, and the contemporary indie rock canon, Saltwater strives to be a buoyant return to form for Crane even as it strays from his original vision. Before and for a while after Brazos came to be, Crane used to perform with other local artists at a bi-weekly acoustic happy hour at Austin's Beerland. In an early video of one such get-together, a bearded, at ease Crane strums his acoustic guitar and crows heartily along with everyone else on stage, playing bar-room country with the same charmingly informal affect that made it onto his first EPs under the Brazos moniker. That quality was all but lost on Phosphorescent Blues, which came a few years later. For that record, Crane adopted a backing band and reinvented himself as a troubadour of sorts, citing an Adrienne Rich poem as the album's inspiration, and supplementing-- or more often than not, replacing-- his scruffy, clattering arrangements with the sophisticated rhythms of jazz and bossa nova. Saltwater sees that poem and raises it one Moby Dick, Crane's muse this time around. To flesh out such an ambitious vision, the singer-songwriter enlisted Empress Of's bassist Spencer Zahn and drummer Ian Chang, who plays with People Get Ready and Matthew Dear. The new members complement Crane's lyrics, which tend to be heavy on scenes, metaphors, and literary references, with subtle instrumental touches that breathe life into them. On the magnificent "Charm", Zahn teases out the lower ranges of a pulsing guitar riff similar to the one buried in labelmate Phosphorescent's "Song for Zula" as Chang clicks his sticks with the anticipation of fall's first brittle wind. They adeptly change tacks for the samba-indebted title track, which sees Crane using Ishmael as a character to tell the story of a friend's death. Despite lyrics about night terrors and the cult Japanese film Rashomon, Brazos keep things light with twittering piano notes, a woodblock, and surging choruses. Brazos' pop-icalia is well-timed for the onset of summer, but it comes at the expense of the homegrown grit that made Brazos' early recordings so appealing, and it doesn't always go down smooth. "Valencia" is a cutesy vignette of another one of those quirky girls, hinging on stilted conversation ("Oh, how you look so small from most any eye!") that not even that woodblock can save. The subsequent "Deeper Feelings" sounds like a watery outtake from Local Natives' Hummingbird, sunk in strangely squelching background synths and moony guitar lines. By the end, Saltwater winds up with impeccably tuned harmonies, lovely melodies, and literally the exact same guitar chords as the National's "Runaway" opening album closer "Long Shot". At least on Phosphorescent Blues, there were hints of Crane's earlier work in the percussive guitar playing and a voice so threadbare you could hear the grain of it. Now there is little, if anything, left of the Martin Crane that indulged in spontaneous blues licks and wasn't afraid to conclude his bedroom recordings with rambling vocal loops that sound like a drinking song, or like he was just drunk. And that seems to be the way he intended it. Saltwater is a pretty record and the songs are clearly heavy with personal significance, but it was almost better when they were a little rough around the edges."

Art Brut

Top of the Pops

Rock

Laura Snapes

These days, most people only pay attention to the British Top 40 when it's been hijacked by dullards trying to prove a point-- last week it was the battlefield for a protest at the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's increasingly rose-tinted legacy. Yet it still contains a certain romantic allure among those who never stood a chance of getting in it. Art Brut's new greatest hits collection Top of the Pops (a two-disc set featuring a CD of B-sides and demos) is named after the defunct BBC TV rundown of the nation's favourite songs, an obsession of their ever-enthusiastic frontman Eddie Argos on which they never appeared. In typically shambolic fashion, they've only gone and forgotten to include their actual song "Top of the Pops", an early and live favourite that was always prefaced by a gleeful string of fibs about where the south London band were number one. Presciently named after the French for "outsider art," Art Brut always shot just wide of the mark; had they been around 10 years earlier, they'd undoubtedly have been a fixture of the ITV network's "Chart Show Indie Chart"-- an earnest rival to "TOTP" that broadcast videos by bands like the Wedding Present (who released two singles volumes called Hit Parade) on Saturday mornings-- if not genuine Britpop bona fides. In a Pitchfork interview from 2009, Argos recalled seeing a copy of NME that asked, "Who's the new Jarvis Cocker?" "I thought, 'Fucking hell, some prick I bet.' And I opened it up and it was me. I was like, 'Oh fuck! Well, that's nice." Just as British indie music was getting smart again after a fallow few years either side of the millennium, Art Brut's demeanor embraced indie's coziest, most cardigan-wearing past; Argos standing against all prevailing trends, trying to recreate the world of his youth. But their 2005 debut Bang Bang Rock & Roll was a near perfect, shabbily anthemic post-punk record that set out Argos' abundantly hilarious lyrical stock in trade: singing about how his relationships with music and ladies were as close as the "n" in "snog" and "song". In among the declarations of romantic haplessness ("I've seen her naked twice!") was a rampant self-mythologizing streak so overstated it was as if Art Brut knew they could only ever fail, despite being stated with such bounding naivety and joyous conviction that they believed it would all come true. If only; Argos' benign, brilliant, Half Man Half Biscuit-indebted sense of humor evident on the Bang Bang Rock & Roll singles included here is something painfully lacking among young British indie bands today. Art Brut were arguably obsessed with restoring a culture over individual success, which is lucky since their highest charting single went in like a bullet at number 41. Although one memorable scene in "Gilmore Girls" sees resident indie nut Lane Kim swear that "Formed a Band" should be the national anthem, Art Brut abjectly failed at bringing back the time Argos craved, or slowing the path of an increasingly compromised alternative music culture to the mainstream. But having committed themselves to failure after establishing such lofty goals in the first place, you'd think it wouldn't matter to them. Unfortunately, at least in the narrative that Top of the Pops spins, everything that followed Bang Bang Rock & Roll did so with increasingly unbecoming shades of bitterness. They'd have been better off reissuing Bang Bang for a second time than opting to tell this glum take on events. The songs included here from 2007's EMI-released It's a Bit Complicated (where Jasper Future replaced Chris Chinchilla on guitar) wonder "what else can we do when the kids don't like it?" Argos experiments with and ultimately muddles his personal narratives, and when he wearily yells "punk rock ist nicht tot!" it sounds like the delusional cry of a man bent over punk's dying corpse; not the words of the bloke who once joyously belted, "MODERN ART! MAKES ME! WANT TO ROCK OUT!" The malaise increases with 2009's Art Brut vs. Satan (a return to Cooking Vinyl/Downtown), produced by Frank Black, where Argos sings of his arrested development, unruly drinking problems, and shit summer jobs. He also now hates all the idiots that just can't appreciate good music: "If we can't change the world/ Let's at least get the charts right/ How can you sleep at night/ When nobody likes the music we write?/ Record-buying public, we hate them/ This is Art Brut vs. Satan," goes "Demons Out!", where the band start to sound like the tiresomely dogmatic Cribs. The Wakefield band's 2005 single "Hey Scenesters!" was a disdainful comment on the emergence of indie culture that Art Brut ran around celebrating like lunatics on "Formed a Band". Here, the distance between them shrinks depressingly. The returns don't stop diminishing: Also produced by Frank Black, 2011's Brilliant! Tragic!'s "Axl Rose" sees Argos reduced to a cantankerous cipher: "The world is fucked, and you're an idiot/ Why don't you take a long look at my middle digit!" He makes hapless attempts at singing in a sinister whisper that suggests a stalker ogling his unwitting intented; the band are as convincingly vigorous as someone trying to pogo on a belly full of Sunday roast. Two new numbers close CD1: "Arizona Bay" is named for a Bill Hicks album where he fantasized about L.A. falling "in the fucking ocean", thus destroying the fantasy explored in Bang Bang Rock & Roll's "Moving to L.A." Here, Argos is in the middle of an earthquake situation that reads like a less-than-subtle take on the band's dwindling career. Closer "We Make Pop Music" is the only song on Top of the Pops' main disc that hits a musically regretful note, playing out with an almost-epic middle-eight over which Argos desperately yells, "We make pop music! We make pop music!" (Though in a recent blogpost, Argos wrote, "I only like guitar music and everybody who disagrees with me is a cunt.") With the release of Top of the Pops, Argos keeps insisting that Art Brut were a "classic rock" band all along, offering the fact that they've been on the cover of German Rolling Stone and posed naked in the NME as proof. In a sense (though not the one intended), he's right: Bang Bang Rock & Roll was an accidentally classic album that gave Art Brut an immediate legacy that they seemed to know they'd never top-- a fate that befalls classic rock bands obsessed with besting their best and blaming the rest rather than engaging with the culture around them.

Artist: Art Brut, Album: Top of the Pops, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "These days, most people only pay attention to the British Top 40 when it's been hijacked by dullards trying to prove a point-- last week it was the battlefield for a protest at the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's increasingly rose-tinted legacy. Yet it still contains a certain romantic allure among those who never stood a chance of getting in it. Art Brut's new greatest hits collection Top of the Pops (a two-disc set featuring a CD of B-sides and demos) is named after the defunct BBC TV rundown of the nation's favourite songs, an obsession of their ever-enthusiastic frontman Eddie Argos on which they never appeared. In typically shambolic fashion, they've only gone and forgotten to include their actual song "Top of the Pops", an early and live favourite that was always prefaced by a gleeful string of fibs about where the south London band were number one. Presciently named after the French for "outsider art," Art Brut always shot just wide of the mark; had they been around 10 years earlier, they'd undoubtedly have been a fixture of the ITV network's "Chart Show Indie Chart"-- an earnest rival to "TOTP" that broadcast videos by bands like the Wedding Present (who released two singles volumes called Hit Parade) on Saturday mornings-- if not genuine Britpop bona fides. In a Pitchfork interview from 2009, Argos recalled seeing a copy of NME that asked, "Who's the new Jarvis Cocker?" "I thought, 'Fucking hell, some prick I bet.' And I opened it up and it was me. I was like, 'Oh fuck! Well, that's nice." Just as British indie music was getting smart again after a fallow few years either side of the millennium, Art Brut's demeanor embraced indie's coziest, most cardigan-wearing past; Argos standing against all prevailing trends, trying to recreate the world of his youth. But their 2005 debut Bang Bang Rock & Roll was a near perfect, shabbily anthemic post-punk record that set out Argos' abundantly hilarious lyrical stock in trade: singing about how his relationships with music and ladies were as close as the "n" in "snog" and "song". In among the declarations of romantic haplessness ("I've seen her naked twice!") was a rampant self-mythologizing streak so overstated it was as if Art Brut knew they could only ever fail, despite being stated with such bounding naivety and joyous conviction that they believed it would all come true. If only; Argos' benign, brilliant, Half Man Half Biscuit-indebted sense of humor evident on the Bang Bang Rock & Roll singles included here is something painfully lacking among young British indie bands today. Art Brut were arguably obsessed with restoring a culture over individual success, which is lucky since their highest charting single went in like a bullet at number 41. Although one memorable scene in "Gilmore Girls" sees resident indie nut Lane Kim swear that "Formed a Band" should be the national anthem, Art Brut abjectly failed at bringing back the time Argos craved, or slowing the path of an increasingly compromised alternative music culture to the mainstream. But having committed themselves to failure after establishing such lofty goals in the first place, you'd think it wouldn't matter to them. Unfortunately, at least in the narrative that Top of the Pops spins, everything that followed Bang Bang Rock & Roll did so with increasingly unbecoming shades of bitterness. They'd have been better off reissuing Bang Bang for a second time than opting to tell this glum take on events. The songs included here from 2007's EMI-released It's a Bit Complicated (where Jasper Future replaced Chris Chinchilla on guitar) wonder "what else can we do when the kids don't like it?" Argos experiments with and ultimately muddles his personal narratives, and when he wearily yells "punk rock ist nicht tot!" it sounds like the delusional cry of a man bent over punk's dying corpse; not the words of the bloke who once joyously belted, "MODERN ART! MAKES ME! WANT TO ROCK OUT!" The malaise increases with 2009's Art Brut vs. Satan (a return to Cooking Vinyl/Downtown), produced by Frank Black, where Argos sings of his arrested development, unruly drinking problems, and shit summer jobs. He also now hates all the idiots that just can't appreciate good music: "If we can't change the world/ Let's at least get the charts right/ How can you sleep at night/ When nobody likes the music we write?/ Record-buying public, we hate them/ This is Art Brut vs. Satan," goes "Demons Out!", where the band start to sound like the tiresomely dogmatic Cribs. The Wakefield band's 2005 single "Hey Scenesters!" was a disdainful comment on the emergence of indie culture that Art Brut ran around celebrating like lunatics on "Formed a Band". Here, the distance between them shrinks depressingly. The returns don't stop diminishing: Also produced by Frank Black, 2011's Brilliant! Tragic!'s "Axl Rose" sees Argos reduced to a cantankerous cipher: "The world is fucked, and you're an idiot/ Why don't you take a long look at my middle digit!" He makes hapless attempts at singing in a sinister whisper that suggests a stalker ogling his unwitting intented; the band are as convincingly vigorous as someone trying to pogo on a belly full of Sunday roast. Two new numbers close CD1: "Arizona Bay" is named for a Bill Hicks album where he fantasized about L.A. falling "in the fucking ocean", thus destroying the fantasy explored in Bang Bang Rock & Roll's "Moving to L.A." Here, Argos is in the middle of an earthquake situation that reads like a less-than-subtle take on the band's dwindling career. Closer "We Make Pop Music" is the only song on Top of the Pops' main disc that hits a musically regretful note, playing out with an almost-epic middle-eight over which Argos desperately yells, "We make pop music! We make pop music!" (Though in a recent blogpost, Argos wrote, "I only like guitar music and everybody who disagrees with me is a cunt.") With the release of Top of the Pops, Argos keeps insisting that Art Brut were a "classic rock" band all along, offering the fact that they've been on the cover of German Rolling Stone and posed naked in the NME as proof. In a sense (though not the one intended), he's right: Bang Bang Rock & Roll was an accidentally classic album that gave Art Brut an immediate legacy that they seemed to know they'd never top-- a fate that befalls classic rock bands obsessed with besting their best and blaming the rest rather than engaging with the culture around them."

Beth Gibbons, Rustin Man

Out of Season

Electronic

Jesse Fahnestock

Portishead were a simulacrum, their anchors sunk deep in sample culture with Beth Gibbons' torch singer stylings and Adrian Utley's soundtrack scrapings operating merely as tools in the sample yard. In its evocation of forgotten jazz, blues, film music, and hip-hop, Portishead's Dummy was the quintessence of "even better than the real thing", yet when the magic ceased on the band's eponymous sophomore album, it was ultimately due to their desire to be the real thing. On Portishead, the trio retained their hip-hop elements only in principle-- they played every sound themselves, pressed the results to dubplates, and then cut and looped them into backing tracks. In practice, Portishead had abandoned the sampler's art-- the recontextualization of sound and the creation of history from history-- and so, the thrill had gone. It's no coincidence that the best post-Dummy release from the Portishead camp remains DJ Andy Smith's eclectic mash-up, The Document . Beth Gibbons, one assumes, was never much into hip-hop. Hers, after all, was the bleeding heart at the center of it all, and her remarkable, tortured voice (equal parts Billie Holiday and Sandy Denny), remains capable of gravitas for any occasion. "Mysteries" opens Out of Season brilliantly, folk arpeggios plucking their way around Beth's gasps while a cadre of gospel singers in the background oooooh the record into being. "Tom the Model" takes that cue and runs with it, answering delicate folk verses with a nicely retro big-band soul chorus. Beth attacks the song with verve, and even the hint of self-pity in the lyric is kicked into touch by her defiance. If only the rest of Out of Season displayed that energy. Instead, we're quickly plunged into moodiness for the sake of moodiness, overwhelmed by Gibbons' frankly unpitiable obsession with her own misfortune. At their best, Portishead turned this kind of smoky cabaret blues into an invigorating showpiece. But replace crackling vinyl and subwoofer bass with somber piano and mournful cello, and all you're left with is... well, a pretty goddamn miserable woman who happens to have a great voice. That's "Show" for you, and for all its miserable pleading, it's as forgettable a song as Gibbons has ever crooned. "Romance" tries some moaning french horns on for size, and frankly looks ridiculous in them. Chrissakes, who suggested a 90-second french horn solo was a good idea? And again, if Gibbons' Billie Holiday routine was engaging in Portishead's hip-hop context-- reconstituted blues that fit their mix perfectly-- here it threatens to go a little pantomime. And now to the issue of Rustin Man: What is the deal with calling yourself Rustin Man? Are we supposed to let that slide? Turns out it's an alias for ex-Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb. Now, Talk Talk did some wonderful things-- Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock both proved what can be achieved with emphasis on mood and atmosphere. Here, however, Webb allows Gibbons to dictate both, and it just doesn't work. Striking as her voice can be, she does little to prove that it has the emotive range to match its power. Elsewhere, "Resolve" is a pretty but inconsequential folk tune, and "Drake" and "Funny Time of Year" waltz their way in and out of the frame without forcing you to take much notice. Which leaves "Rustin Man" the song, a frustrating hint of what might have been. Its pure ambience (think Dot Allison's recent album, if produced by Tim Friese-Greene) sounds remarkably modern next to the trad fare that precedes it, and the warbling and sizzling of the synths forces Beth to be a little more active with her vocal-- she slips in and out of the mix, allowing atmosphere to build rather than overwhelming it with her moods. Sonically, of course, it's no less bleak than the rest of this album, and though it does bring in some much-needed excitement at the end, it's just not powerful enough to save the whole from its vanilla dejection.

Artist: Beth Gibbons, Rustin Man, Album: Out of Season, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "Portishead were a simulacrum, their anchors sunk deep in sample culture with Beth Gibbons' torch singer stylings and Adrian Utley's soundtrack scrapings operating merely as tools in the sample yard. In its evocation of forgotten jazz, blues, film music, and hip-hop, Portishead's Dummy was the quintessence of "even better than the real thing", yet when the magic ceased on the band's eponymous sophomore album, it was ultimately due to their desire to be the real thing. On Portishead, the trio retained their hip-hop elements only in principle-- they played every sound themselves, pressed the results to dubplates, and then cut and looped them into backing tracks. In practice, Portishead had abandoned the sampler's art-- the recontextualization of sound and the creation of history from history-- and so, the thrill had gone. It's no coincidence that the best post-Dummy release from the Portishead camp remains DJ Andy Smith's eclectic mash-up, The Document . Beth Gibbons, one assumes, was never much into hip-hop. Hers, after all, was the bleeding heart at the center of it all, and her remarkable, tortured voice (equal parts Billie Holiday and Sandy Denny), remains capable of gravitas for any occasion. "Mysteries" opens Out of Season brilliantly, folk arpeggios plucking their way around Beth's gasps while a cadre of gospel singers in the background oooooh the record into being. "Tom the Model" takes that cue and runs with it, answering delicate folk verses with a nicely retro big-band soul chorus. Beth attacks the song with verve, and even the hint of self-pity in the lyric is kicked into touch by her defiance. If only the rest of Out of Season displayed that energy. Instead, we're quickly plunged into moodiness for the sake of moodiness, overwhelmed by Gibbons' frankly unpitiable obsession with her own misfortune. At their best, Portishead turned this kind of smoky cabaret blues into an invigorating showpiece. But replace crackling vinyl and subwoofer bass with somber piano and mournful cello, and all you're left with is... well, a pretty goddamn miserable woman who happens to have a great voice. That's "Show" for you, and for all its miserable pleading, it's as forgettable a song as Gibbons has ever crooned. "Romance" tries some moaning french horns on for size, and frankly looks ridiculous in them. Chrissakes, who suggested a 90-second french horn solo was a good idea? And again, if Gibbons' Billie Holiday routine was engaging in Portishead's hip-hop context-- reconstituted blues that fit their mix perfectly-- here it threatens to go a little pantomime. And now to the issue of Rustin Man: What is the deal with calling yourself Rustin Man? Are we supposed to let that slide? Turns out it's an alias for ex-Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb. Now, Talk Talk did some wonderful things-- Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock both proved what can be achieved with emphasis on mood and atmosphere. Here, however, Webb allows Gibbons to dictate both, and it just doesn't work. Striking as her voice can be, she does little to prove that it has the emotive range to match its power. Elsewhere, "Resolve" is a pretty but inconsequential folk tune, and "Drake" and "Funny Time of Year" waltz their way in and out of the frame without forcing you to take much notice. Which leaves "Rustin Man" the song, a frustrating hint of what might have been. Its pure ambience (think Dot Allison's recent album, if produced by Tim Friese-Greene) sounds remarkably modern next to the trad fare that precedes it, and the warbling and sizzling of the synths forces Beth to be a little more active with her vocal-- she slips in and out of the mix, allowing atmosphere to build rather than overwhelming it with her moods. Sonically, of course, it's no less bleak than the rest of this album, and though it does bring in some much-needed excitement at the end, it's just not powerful enough to save the whole from its vanilla dejection. "

Mercury Program

All the Suits Began to Fall Off EP

Rock

Camilo Arturo Leslie

Well, the Program is getting better. This ought to be cause for celebration no matter which of two categories you fall into. I'm referring, of course, to the divisive effect of last year's The Vapor of Gasoline and how it split people into opposing camps of a) hypester idolaters that overstepped their enthusiasm for the album into the sphere of gross exaggeration, and b) the backlash contingent that turned their collective nose up at the young, unproven band. If you hail from the former grouping you'll find your feelings well justified; if you weren't fully convinced last time around, All the Suits Began to Fall Off could, and should, do the trick. Being from the culturally backward, asphyxiatingly humid peninsula that is our not-so-great state of Florida, I have a soft spot for anything out of America's Wang that doesn't outright blow. Making it out of there unsullied by the dense fog of suckitude that hangs over everything is a victory in and of itself. The general adversarial ambience is not unlike the dry-ice, death-angel mist effect from Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments, only Florida is much too humorless and unimaginative a place to host a pharaoh. Whether by divine decree or oversight, the suck managed to pass over this Gainsevillean quartet, and though that's a pretty low bar, the Mercury Program takes it as a mere starting point, vastly surpassing expectations. People are sort of funny about their music. You've no doubt heard somebody lament, with corny solemnity, that the guitar/bass/drums paradigm that has served us so well for so long has finally utterly exhausted its potential-- the implication being that it's high time we abandon it. Stick around a while and you may hear the same person tear down a new group for relying on so-called "gimmicky" instrumentation. Only here, the unspoken, and perhaps accidental implication is that any rock musician that dares step outside the inviolate magic circle of guitar/bass/drums must be innovating for innovation's sake, and probably to compensate for some lack. Because, if you can't do it with the time-tested ingredients, maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all. Right, like I said, people are funny about their music. The Mercury Program is just one of those groups that "rely" on non-traditional instrumentation. They incorporate vibraphone, and on this release, employ a fair number of Rhodes-ish keyboard parts as integral elements. Far from gimmicky, the vibe lines add a chilly, ethereal stratum to the layers of mutating guitar phrases and the tight rhythm section. Since "vibraphone" is one of the first words you hear in a description of their sound, the effect of its presence is worth exploring. Rather than characterizing it as an added layer, it's more accurate to say that the vibraphone, by virtue of its timbre, actually illuminates the stratified nature of the music. Its coolly reverberant sound contrasts as sharply with the alternately raspy and silky guitar parts as it does with the foundation of bass and drums, appearing to exist both between and outside those sounds. A crisp separation of sound is the result, as well an appearance of space and distance in what might otherwise have been a much muddier mix. It's the auditory equivalent of taking all the objects in a cluttered room and boxing them into individual cubes of limpid glass. Apart from its beautiful melodic and harmonic role, the vibraphone performs this all-important function, at once complimenting the ensemble, and demarcating the other instruments both from itself and from each other. But who are these guys? Well, for starters, they're multi-instrumentalists. Tom Reno, erstwhile sometimes-singer on previous releases, limits himself here to guitar, bass, and bells. Big brother Sander Travisano likewise holds down guitar and bass and makes occasional forays into drumming, while little brother Whit Travisano feels it on electric piano and the vibes. Dave Lebleu, principal drummer, is responsible for the busy-bee percussion that sounds sort of like a jazzier, more vocal take on DC-style drumming. The collective sound is very much groove-oriented at the bottom, but given to loopy, spinning guitar bits, and Philip Glass-ish melodic abstraction on the vibraphone and keyboard. At half an hour, this five-song teaser packs quite a value. There are no weak tracks to be found, and the repeat appearance of producer Andy Baker (Japancakes, Macha, the Causey Way) does the band's intricacies justice. The guitar playing this time around is less aggressive, with virtually none of the satisfyingly dissonant chord bursts from Vapor. That's not to say it's better or worse, but simply that they've taken a different direction this time, where more often than not, the guitar and vibe parts don't play off each other so much as attempt to intertwine and form a sonic fabric. I'd like to see them bring back some of that caustic guitar playing, though; it provided a focal point amidst the wash of harmonic atmospherics. That, however, is just a matter of taste. The point: All the Suits Began to Fall Off indicates a bright and interesting future for the group. Go Florida.

Artist: Mercury Program, Album: All the Suits Began to Fall Off EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Well, the Program is getting better. This ought to be cause for celebration no matter which of two categories you fall into. I'm referring, of course, to the divisive effect of last year's The Vapor of Gasoline and how it split people into opposing camps of a) hypester idolaters that overstepped their enthusiasm for the album into the sphere of gross exaggeration, and b) the backlash contingent that turned their collective nose up at the young, unproven band. If you hail from the former grouping you'll find your feelings well justified; if you weren't fully convinced last time around, All the Suits Began to Fall Off could, and should, do the trick. Being from the culturally backward, asphyxiatingly humid peninsula that is our not-so-great state of Florida, I have a soft spot for anything out of America's Wang that doesn't outright blow. Making it out of there unsullied by the dense fog of suckitude that hangs over everything is a victory in and of itself. The general adversarial ambience is not unlike the dry-ice, death-angel mist effect from Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments, only Florida is much too humorless and unimaginative a place to host a pharaoh. Whether by divine decree or oversight, the suck managed to pass over this Gainsevillean quartet, and though that's a pretty low bar, the Mercury Program takes it as a mere starting point, vastly surpassing expectations. People are sort of funny about their music. You've no doubt heard somebody lament, with corny solemnity, that the guitar/bass/drums paradigm that has served us so well for so long has finally utterly exhausted its potential-- the implication being that it's high time we abandon it. Stick around a while and you may hear the same person tear down a new group for relying on so-called "gimmicky" instrumentation. Only here, the unspoken, and perhaps accidental implication is that any rock musician that dares step outside the inviolate magic circle of guitar/bass/drums must be innovating for innovation's sake, and probably to compensate for some lack. Because, if you can't do it with the time-tested ingredients, maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all. Right, like I said, people are funny about their music. The Mercury Program is just one of those groups that "rely" on non-traditional instrumentation. They incorporate vibraphone, and on this release, employ a fair number of Rhodes-ish keyboard parts as integral elements. Far from gimmicky, the vibe lines add a chilly, ethereal stratum to the layers of mutating guitar phrases and the tight rhythm section. Since "vibraphone" is one of the first words you hear in a description of their sound, the effect of its presence is worth exploring. Rather than characterizing it as an added layer, it's more accurate to say that the vibraphone, by virtue of its timbre, actually illuminates the stratified nature of the music. Its coolly reverberant sound contrasts as sharply with the alternately raspy and silky guitar parts as it does with the foundation of bass and drums, appearing to exist both between and outside those sounds. A crisp separation of sound is the result, as well an appearance of space and distance in what might otherwise have been a much muddier mix. It's the auditory equivalent of taking all the objects in a cluttered room and boxing them into individual cubes of limpid glass. Apart from its beautiful melodic and harmonic role, the vibraphone performs this all-important function, at once complimenting the ensemble, and demarcating the other instruments both from itself and from each other. But who are these guys? Well, for starters, they're multi-instrumentalists. Tom Reno, erstwhile sometimes-singer on previous releases, limits himself here to guitar, bass, and bells. Big brother Sander Travisano likewise holds down guitar and bass and makes occasional forays into drumming, while little brother Whit Travisano feels it on electric piano and the vibes. Dave Lebleu, principal drummer, is responsible for the busy-bee percussion that sounds sort of like a jazzier, more vocal take on DC-style drumming. The collective sound is very much groove-oriented at the bottom, but given to loopy, spinning guitar bits, and Philip Glass-ish melodic abstraction on the vibraphone and keyboard. At half an hour, this five-song teaser packs quite a value. There are no weak tracks to be found, and the repeat appearance of producer Andy Baker (Japancakes, Macha, the Causey Way) does the band's intricacies justice. The guitar playing this time around is less aggressive, with virtually none of the satisfyingly dissonant chord bursts from Vapor. That's not to say it's better or worse, but simply that they've taken a different direction this time, where more often than not, the guitar and vibe parts don't play off each other so much as attempt to intertwine and form a sonic fabric. I'd like to see them bring back some of that caustic guitar playing, though; it provided a focal point amidst the wash of harmonic atmospherics. That, however, is just a matter of taste. The point: All the Suits Began to Fall Off indicates a bright and interesting future for the group. Go Florida."

Big'N, Oxes

Split EP

Experimental,Metal,Rock

Andrew Goldman

Oxes. Oxes? Technically, it should be "Oxen," but if the band gave a shit about things like grammar, they'd probably be teaching 10th grade English, not recording split EPs with Big'N. And speaking of Oxes, here's a band that's pure grit-- a band that cuts through the crap and gets right to the essence of what music is about: direct communication. Spawned from the depths of Baltimore, Oxes capture the toughness of a city that isn't cosmopolitan or flashy, and has an overwhelming distrust of anything pretentious. The rock is raw-- ain't no two ways about it. Combining the more Storm and Stress side of Don Caballero's polyrhythmic finger-tapping, the balls-out roar of Big'N, and U.S. Maple's affinity for acoustic space and deconstructed riffs, Oxes have invented their own unique style of in-your-face rock. And I mean literally in your face-- they play wireless. Oxes make music that defies their being pigeonholed into existing genres, and by doing so, they defy the physical laws of punk rock. You won't find them hugging their amplifiers. In fact, you probably won't even find them in the same room with their amplifiers. The guitars rock with all the sharpness of Shellac, but these guys can do it while stepping outside for a little fresh air, or while pounding a few back at the bar. Wires are just another way for The Man to keep them down, and Oxes ain't havin' none of it. If this EP were comprised solely of Oxes material, it would have been a pretty flawless release. From the pulsing, siren-like screeching of the guitars on "And Giraffe: Natural Enemies" through the highly amusing, self-referential metaconversation on "China, China, China" (which features discussion about "vintage" candy bars, layered atop an ambient soundscape of feedback and noise), these Charm City ruffians have coughed up the most thoroughly enjoyable rock of recent memory. But mama said you should always share, and thus Oxes' three songs are countered by three from Chicago's now-defunct Big'N. Even though Big'N could throw down like a bloodier-throated Shellac, their songs just sound a bit dull in comparison with those of Oxes. Not bad by any means, but the teacher has once again been overshadowed by the student. If anything, these two bands complement each other brilliantly as an example of where this variety of raw rock has been, and where it's headed.

Artist: Big'N, Oxes, Album: Split EP, Genre: Experimental,Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "Oxes. Oxes? Technically, it should be "Oxen," but if the band gave a shit about things like grammar, they'd probably be teaching 10th grade English, not recording split EPs with Big'N. And speaking of Oxes, here's a band that's pure grit-- a band that cuts through the crap and gets right to the essence of what music is about: direct communication. Spawned from the depths of Baltimore, Oxes capture the toughness of a city that isn't cosmopolitan or flashy, and has an overwhelming distrust of anything pretentious. The rock is raw-- ain't no two ways about it. Combining the more Storm and Stress side of Don Caballero's polyrhythmic finger-tapping, the balls-out roar of Big'N, and U.S. Maple's affinity for acoustic space and deconstructed riffs, Oxes have invented their own unique style of in-your-face rock. And I mean literally in your face-- they play wireless. Oxes make music that defies their being pigeonholed into existing genres, and by doing so, they defy the physical laws of punk rock. You won't find them hugging their amplifiers. In fact, you probably won't even find them in the same room with their amplifiers. The guitars rock with all the sharpness of Shellac, but these guys can do it while stepping outside for a little fresh air, or while pounding a few back at the bar. Wires are just another way for The Man to keep them down, and Oxes ain't havin' none of it. If this EP were comprised solely of Oxes material, it would have been a pretty flawless release. From the pulsing, siren-like screeching of the guitars on "And Giraffe: Natural Enemies" through the highly amusing, self-referential metaconversation on "China, China, China" (which features discussion about "vintage" candy bars, layered atop an ambient soundscape of feedback and noise), these Charm City ruffians have coughed up the most thoroughly enjoyable rock of recent memory. But mama said you should always share, and thus Oxes' three songs are countered by three from Chicago's now-defunct Big'N. Even though Big'N could throw down like a bloodier-throated Shellac, their songs just sound a bit dull in comparison with those of Oxes. Not bad by any means, but the teacher has once again been overshadowed by the student. If anything, these two bands complement each other brilliantly as an example of where this variety of raw rock has been, and where it's headed. "

London Grammar

If You Wait

Pop/R&B

Renato Pagnani

When an album is proclaimed the frontrunner for the UK's Mercury Music Prize before it's even released, it's a sign of both the accelerated nature of the modern hype cycle as well as a vote of confidence in a band's ability to deliver the goods. That London Grammar have been the latest recipients of this sort of breathless anticipation shouldn't shock-- their influences are the kind of alternative-but-still-polite acts generally favored by the prize, and they were featured on "Help Me Lose My Mind", a highlight from Disclosure's Settle. But a cynic tempted to dismiss their downcast take on spacious, reverb-heavy pop as a calculated attempt to muscle into a sizzling market would miss out on an accomplished debut that belies the fact that this trio of Nottingham University alumni wrote and recorded their first song together less than a year ago. That song-- the achingly slow-building "Hey Now"-- is a perfect encapsulation of London Grammar's sound. It begins with frostbitten chords which are soon joined by guitars that recall the xx at their most spectral and, eventually, Hannah Reid's vocals. Jessie Ware has often been invoked as a point of comparison, and both vocalists understand that restraint can be far more effective than constant demonstrations of strength. On "Hey Now", Reid's voice emerges as an elemental power that can clear entire fields, displaying an outward composure that always provides glimpses of a staggering vulnerability lurking just below the surface. This kind of range lets Reid come at any one line from multiple angles, which gives her obsession with the fallout from heartbreak a surprising amount of nuance. When she admits to "feeling shyer" at one point on the album, she sounds at once exhausted, confused, and defiant-- basically anything but shy-- and later in the song, when she advises a suitor content to send mixed signals and make half-plays for her heart that "maybe you should call her," it becomes a taunt rather than a desperate plea for attention. There's always an emotional urgency in Reid's vocals-- she doesn't do low stakes. When producer Dot Major and guitarist Daniel Rothman find that musical equivalent to Reid's reserved sense of theatrics, the results are devastating. "Wasting My Young Years" starts off austere and picks up steam as it races toward a climax that never arrives-- at the precise moment you'd expect the song to launch into the stratosphere, it's yanked back to earth, satisfying through its refusal to meet our expectations. "I don't know what you want, don't leave me hanging on," sings Reid as the song disintegrates into pieces, but this kind of thread-dangling is London Grammar's strong suit. They can conjure emotions without hammering you over the head with them-- on the autumnal "Strong", Reid sings of being "wide-eyed and I'm so damn caught in the middle," plotting coordinates where romantic idealism and reality meet to disastrous results. This no-man's-land between indecision and action is a common thread throughout these songs, even influencing Reid's approach to conflict. "We argue, we don't fight" she accuses on "Metal & Dust", making it clear she'd rather air things out in the moment than let resentment build. Major and Rothman wisely stay out of Reid's way when she locks her sights on a target, and they use their knack for dynamics to support her in subtle ways. They help elevate a cover of Kavinsky's "Nightcall" from filler to a vital peak in its emotional trajectory, stripping it of its fluorescence and ratcheting up its inherent melancholy a dozen notches. At points even a trip-hop influence can be heard, with Portishead-like breaks popping up on and injecting much-needed propulsion into moments that might otherwise wilt on their own. Due to this emphasis on compositional restraint, If You Wait occasionally feels a little too homogeneous, a little too tidy. It's so uniform tonally that it sometimes approaches somnambulance, its negative space becoming a liability rather than a cleverly-used tool. Then again, London Grammar seem bright enough to know there's always room for improvement: "I've heard it takes some time to get it right" Reid opines on "Wasting My Young Years", but this trio already functions like a well-oiled machine, and they've produced a stylish debut that demonstrates both their immense talent and impressive instincts.

Artist: London Grammar, Album: If You Wait, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "When an album is proclaimed the frontrunner for the UK's Mercury Music Prize before it's even released, it's a sign of both the accelerated nature of the modern hype cycle as well as a vote of confidence in a band's ability to deliver the goods. That London Grammar have been the latest recipients of this sort of breathless anticipation shouldn't shock-- their influences are the kind of alternative-but-still-polite acts generally favored by the prize, and they were featured on "Help Me Lose My Mind", a highlight from Disclosure's Settle. But a cynic tempted to dismiss their downcast take on spacious, reverb-heavy pop as a calculated attempt to muscle into a sizzling market would miss out on an accomplished debut that belies the fact that this trio of Nottingham University alumni wrote and recorded their first song together less than a year ago. That song-- the achingly slow-building "Hey Now"-- is a perfect encapsulation of London Grammar's sound. It begins with frostbitten chords which are soon joined by guitars that recall the xx at their most spectral and, eventually, Hannah Reid's vocals. Jessie Ware has often been invoked as a point of comparison, and both vocalists understand that restraint can be far more effective than constant demonstrations of strength. On "Hey Now", Reid's voice emerges as an elemental power that can clear entire fields, displaying an outward composure that always provides glimpses of a staggering vulnerability lurking just below the surface. This kind of range lets Reid come at any one line from multiple angles, which gives her obsession with the fallout from heartbreak a surprising amount of nuance. When she admits to "feeling shyer" at one point on the album, she sounds at once exhausted, confused, and defiant-- basically anything but shy-- and later in the song, when she advises a suitor content to send mixed signals and make half-plays for her heart that "maybe you should call her," it becomes a taunt rather than a desperate plea for attention. There's always an emotional urgency in Reid's vocals-- she doesn't do low stakes. When producer Dot Major and guitarist Daniel Rothman find that musical equivalent to Reid's reserved sense of theatrics, the results are devastating. "Wasting My Young Years" starts off austere and picks up steam as it races toward a climax that never arrives-- at the precise moment you'd expect the song to launch into the stratosphere, it's yanked back to earth, satisfying through its refusal to meet our expectations. "I don't know what you want, don't leave me hanging on," sings Reid as the song disintegrates into pieces, but this kind of thread-dangling is London Grammar's strong suit. They can conjure emotions without hammering you over the head with them-- on the autumnal "Strong", Reid sings of being "wide-eyed and I'm so damn caught in the middle," plotting coordinates where romantic idealism and reality meet to disastrous results. This no-man's-land between indecision and action is a common thread throughout these songs, even influencing Reid's approach to conflict. "We argue, we don't fight" she accuses on "Metal & Dust", making it clear she'd rather air things out in the moment than let resentment build. Major and Rothman wisely stay out of Reid's way when she locks her sights on a target, and they use their knack for dynamics to support her in subtle ways. They help elevate a cover of Kavinsky's "Nightcall" from filler to a vital peak in its emotional trajectory, stripping it of its fluorescence and ratcheting up its inherent melancholy a dozen notches. At points even a trip-hop influence can be heard, with Portishead-like breaks popping up on and injecting much-needed propulsion into moments that might otherwise wilt on their own. Due to this emphasis on compositional restraint, If You Wait occasionally feels a little too homogeneous, a little too tidy. It's so uniform tonally that it sometimes approaches somnambulance, its negative space becoming a liability rather than a cleverly-used tool. Then again, London Grammar seem bright enough to know there's always room for improvement: "I've heard it takes some time to get it right" Reid opines on "Wasting My Young Years", but this trio already functions like a well-oiled machine, and they've produced a stylish debut that demonstrates both their immense talent and impressive instincts."

Friendly Fires

Friendly Fires

Electronic,Rock

Mia Clarke

Hailing from St. Albans, an English commuter city known musically for producing the Zombies, Friendly Fires arrive on the heels of the British indie-dance zeitgeist helmed by the Klaxons and New Young Pony Club. Although their self-titled debut has the immediacy and hard hooks that riddle so much of this genre, Friendly Fires show an amplified, ambitious, and inventive attention to detail that helps steer them away from sounding like just another polished party band. That said, the most striking characteristic of Friendly Fires is that every track sounds like an indie club hit. This energy is relentless to a comical degree, and ends up being the group's Achilles' heel. "Jump in the Pool" opens with heavily produced vocal layering that brings to mind 10cc's "I'm Not in Love"; the subtle vocal additions courtesy of lead singer Ed Macfarlane match the lush wall of guitars and Duran Duran-style wood-block-and-cowbell percussion. Never content to stick to the rails of an already memorable vocal melody, Macfarlane has a tendency to overdub in every direction, brilliantly emphasizing the word "pool" so it sounds like a clipped beat, and allowing an equally strong falsetto line to scorch through the spaces between. "Paris", with backing vocals from Au Revoir Simone, is similarly effect-laden, culminating in washes of renaissance cathedral reverb. Like many of their peers, Friendly Fires nod frequently to the 1980s, particularly on "Strobe", at the center of which Edd Gibson provides a gorgeous reversed guitar loop, and "White Diamonds", which sounds like early Cure mixed with "Strangelove"-era Depeche Mode. The bass lines continually stick to classic, bouncy disco octaves that keep the dance vibe set at full speed ahead, and Friendly Fires pull off every move with considerable finesse, preserving all the euphoric dynamism of their powerful live shows. Friendly Fires are the infallible kings of the melodic reprise, and almost every track features two choruses. Rather than sounding like a dull muddle, however, the songs are so carefully arranged that everything keeps your attention. The band recorded the entire album in the garage of Macfarlane's parents' house, laying down tracks on a laptop using "a crappy microphone gaffer taped to a mic stand," but without top-notch mixing drafted in from a variety of sources, Friendly Fires would sound like a completely different record. As it is, Friendly Fires is teeming with ideas, and although the record's consistent sound can be exhausting-- there is no release, no relaxation in tempo-- it's encouraging to locate a new band with too much passion, so much that it can hardly execute its ideas on one page.

Artist: Friendly Fires, Album: Friendly Fires, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Hailing from St. Albans, an English commuter city known musically for producing the Zombies, Friendly Fires arrive on the heels of the British indie-dance zeitgeist helmed by the Klaxons and New Young Pony Club. Although their self-titled debut has the immediacy and hard hooks that riddle so much of this genre, Friendly Fires show an amplified, ambitious, and inventive attention to detail that helps steer them away from sounding like just another polished party band. That said, the most striking characteristic of Friendly Fires is that every track sounds like an indie club hit. This energy is relentless to a comical degree, and ends up being the group's Achilles' heel. "Jump in the Pool" opens with heavily produced vocal layering that brings to mind 10cc's "I'm Not in Love"; the subtle vocal additions courtesy of lead singer Ed Macfarlane match the lush wall of guitars and Duran Duran-style wood-block-and-cowbell percussion. Never content to stick to the rails of an already memorable vocal melody, Macfarlane has a tendency to overdub in every direction, brilliantly emphasizing the word "pool" so it sounds like a clipped beat, and allowing an equally strong falsetto line to scorch through the spaces between. "Paris", with backing vocals from Au Revoir Simone, is similarly effect-laden, culminating in washes of renaissance cathedral reverb. Like many of their peers, Friendly Fires nod frequently to the 1980s, particularly on "Strobe", at the center of which Edd Gibson provides a gorgeous reversed guitar loop, and "White Diamonds", which sounds like early Cure mixed with "Strangelove"-era Depeche Mode. The bass lines continually stick to classic, bouncy disco octaves that keep the dance vibe set at full speed ahead, and Friendly Fires pull off every move with considerable finesse, preserving all the euphoric dynamism of their powerful live shows. Friendly Fires are the infallible kings of the melodic reprise, and almost every track features two choruses. Rather than sounding like a dull muddle, however, the songs are so carefully arranged that everything keeps your attention. The band recorded the entire album in the garage of Macfarlane's parents' house, laying down tracks on a laptop using "a crappy microphone gaffer taped to a mic stand," but without top-notch mixing drafted in from a variety of sources, Friendly Fires would sound like a completely different record. As it is, Friendly Fires is teeming with ideas, and although the record's consistent sound can be exhausting-- there is no release, no relaxation in tempo-- it's encouraging to locate a new band with too much passion, so much that it can hardly execute its ideas on one page."

PJ Harvey

Uh Huh Her

Rock

Chris Dahlen

Even though Buffy the Vampire Slayer had worn itself out by the time it ended, only a year later, it's startling how quickly the premise-- that a young girl can fight and defend herself just as well as a man-- has vanished from the airwaves. Just the next year, two of the biggest television events were the biopics of Elizabeth Smart and Jessica Lynch, two young, helpless girls who exist only to be rescued. We got a flashback to what we were missing when the Buffy spin-off Angel ended its own run. In one scene, a red-faced demon stalks up to a skinny, defenseless-looking brunette and taunts, "Take your best shot, little girl"; the brunette, unimpressed, reels around and throws a fist right through the chauvinist demon's face, killing him instantly. PJ Harvey's fans are waiting for her to do much the same thing. Every time a new album's announced, part of her audience hopes she'll step up again as the loudest, boldest female guitar hero. It's not that Harvey sounds tame these days: Her confidence on stage and her edgy glamour have kept pace with her voice, which she has developed into one of the most powerful and seductive in rock. But the blaring guitars of Dry and unusual meter of Rid of Me were a quicker fix, and without them, Harvey's studio work grew cloistered and difficult. Since 1995's To Bring You My Love, each of her albums has turned off some chunk of her fanbase. The subtle character studies and trip-hop backdrops of Is This Desire? struck some as cold or dissonant, and her John Parish collaboration, Dance Hall at Louse Point, is (wrongly) dismissed as erratic and avant-weak, even as it showcases her most striking vocals-- at turns chilled and self-absorbed, shriekingly gruesome, or tortured by rapture. And Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea won Britain's Mercury Music Prize, but even some diehards called it slick and easy; and post 9/11, Stories actually sounds creepy, whether for the references to helicopters over New York, the song "Kamikaze", or that duet with Thom Yorke, which is hairlessly erotic like newts 69'ing. Now, four years later, Uh Huh Her-- with its guttural title, punk-ugly cover and its advertised guitar-focus-- is billed as a "return to form." But even if guitars dominate Uh Huh Her, the album ignores all expectations. Harvey plays everything but drums, and you can recognize her rough and earthy tone on the electric, played like she's molding clay. But even the buzzing distortion is focused and spare, mounted the way a collector hangs a precious Japanese sword. It actually resembles Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, a guitar album that also succeeded because of its mood-- not because the mood saves the songs, but because the terse, simple writing makes the album so intimate. The scenes of sexual tension and crisis here resemble those of Is This Desire?, but this time they don't require names or places. "The Pocket Knife" resembles a folk murder ballad, with a simple, perfect guitar part and lyrics like, "Please don't make my wedding dress/ I'm too young to marry yet/ Can you see my pocket knife?/ You can't make me be a wife." Harvey murmurs "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" over a gentle acoustic, and the delicate imagery enhances a straight-up love ballad; and if the final song, "The Darker Days of Me and Him", promises recovery after a bad break-up ("I'll pick up the pieces/ I'll carry on somehow") the tone stays grim, and Harvey's not patting herself on the back for knowing better. Yet as careful as the atmosphere sounds, Harvey's ready to tear it apart at any time. "Cat on a Wall" actually sounds murky and misplaced, but "The Letter", the album's first single, builds in sharp bursts and terse riffs under the shrewd sexual imagery: "Take the cap/ Off your pen/ Wet the envelope/ Lick and lick it." And the two-minute tantrum of "Who the Fuck?" devolves into the caveman-talk promised by the album title-- for example, the bridge: "Who/ Who/ Who/ Who/ Fuck/ Fuck/ Fuck/ You." Britain's Guardian newspaper cites this as proof that Harvey's a "certified lunatic," probably because they don't get the concept of "catharsis." By the time you hear the accordion-and-guitar interlude, or the full minute of seagull calls, it's clear that Harvey isn't making a "rock" record per se. And maybe to preserve the mood, Harvey doesn't give us her most striking material. Outside of a few tracks like "The Letter", "Pocket Knife" or "The Desperate Kingdom of Love", the album is stronger than the sum of its interludes. But if you take it as a whole, Uh Huh Her is deeply engrossing: Harvey has never explored the minimal-verging-on-primitive side of her music so thoroughly, or captured so exactly the sound of a mood swing. And once again, unlike many of her peers and fellow 90s veterans, she refuses to categorize herself. Her recorded work shows her not as a diva singer, or a rock goddess-- no matter how much her fans, or the world, want that-- but as an artist, who will seize the world or retreat from it completely if it serves her ends. Harvey has never recorded a weak record, or even a transitional album; nothing set the audience up for this disc, and we may wait another four years until she's satisfied with the next one. And that one probably won't sound like Dry, either.

Artist: PJ Harvey, Album: Uh Huh Her, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "Even though Buffy the Vampire Slayer had worn itself out by the time it ended, only a year later, it's startling how quickly the premise-- that a young girl can fight and defend herself just as well as a man-- has vanished from the airwaves. Just the next year, two of the biggest television events were the biopics of Elizabeth Smart and Jessica Lynch, two young, helpless girls who exist only to be rescued. We got a flashback to what we were missing when the Buffy spin-off Angel ended its own run. In one scene, a red-faced demon stalks up to a skinny, defenseless-looking brunette and taunts, "Take your best shot, little girl"; the brunette, unimpressed, reels around and throws a fist right through the chauvinist demon's face, killing him instantly. PJ Harvey's fans are waiting for her to do much the same thing. Every time a new album's announced, part of her audience hopes she'll step up again as the loudest, boldest female guitar hero. It's not that Harvey sounds tame these days: Her confidence on stage and her edgy glamour have kept pace with her voice, which she has developed into one of the most powerful and seductive in rock. But the blaring guitars of Dry and unusual meter of Rid of Me were a quicker fix, and without them, Harvey's studio work grew cloistered and difficult. Since 1995's To Bring You My Love, each of her albums has turned off some chunk of her fanbase. The subtle character studies and trip-hop backdrops of Is This Desire? struck some as cold or dissonant, and her John Parish collaboration, Dance Hall at Louse Point, is (wrongly) dismissed as erratic and avant-weak, even as it showcases her most striking vocals-- at turns chilled and self-absorbed, shriekingly gruesome, or tortured by rapture. And Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea won Britain's Mercury Music Prize, but even some diehards called it slick and easy; and post 9/11, Stories actually sounds creepy, whether for the references to helicopters over New York, the song "Kamikaze", or that duet with Thom Yorke, which is hairlessly erotic like newts 69'ing. Now, four years later, Uh Huh Her-- with its guttural title, punk-ugly cover and its advertised guitar-focus-- is billed as a "return to form." But even if guitars dominate Uh Huh Her, the album ignores all expectations. Harvey plays everything but drums, and you can recognize her rough and earthy tone on the electric, played like she's molding clay. But even the buzzing distortion is focused and spare, mounted the way a collector hangs a precious Japanese sword. It actually resembles Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, a guitar album that also succeeded because of its mood-- not because the mood saves the songs, but because the terse, simple writing makes the album so intimate. The scenes of sexual tension and crisis here resemble those of Is This Desire?, but this time they don't require names or places. "The Pocket Knife" resembles a folk murder ballad, with a simple, perfect guitar part and lyrics like, "Please don't make my wedding dress/ I'm too young to marry yet/ Can you see my pocket knife?/ You can't make me be a wife." Harvey murmurs "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" over a gentle acoustic, and the delicate imagery enhances a straight-up love ballad; and if the final song, "The Darker Days of Me and Him", promises recovery after a bad break-up ("I'll pick up the pieces/ I'll carry on somehow") the tone stays grim, and Harvey's not patting herself on the back for knowing better. Yet as careful as the atmosphere sounds, Harvey's ready to tear it apart at any time. "Cat on a Wall" actually sounds murky and misplaced, but "The Letter", the album's first single, builds in sharp bursts and terse riffs under the shrewd sexual imagery: "Take the cap/ Off your pen/ Wet the envelope/ Lick and lick it." And the two-minute tantrum of "Who the Fuck?" devolves into the caveman-talk promised by the album title-- for example, the bridge: "Who/ Who/ Who/ Who/ Fuck/ Fuck/ Fuck/ You." Britain's Guardian newspaper cites this as proof that Harvey's a "certified lunatic," probably because they don't get the concept of "catharsis." By the time you hear the accordion-and-guitar interlude, or the full minute of seagull calls, it's clear that Harvey isn't making a "rock" record per se. And maybe to preserve the mood, Harvey doesn't give us her most striking material. Outside of a few tracks like "The Letter", "Pocket Knife" or "The Desperate Kingdom of Love", the album is stronger than the sum of its interludes. But if you take it as a whole, Uh Huh Her is deeply engrossing: Harvey has never explored the minimal-verging-on-primitive side of her music so thoroughly, or captured so exactly the sound of a mood swing. And once again, unlike many of her peers and fellow 90s veterans, she refuses to categorize herself. Her recorded work shows her not as a diva singer, or a rock goddess-- no matter how much her fans, or the world, want that-- but as an artist, who will seize the world or retreat from it completely if it serves her ends. Harvey has never recorded a weak record, or even a transitional album; nothing set the audience up for this disc, and we may wait another four years until she's satisfied with the next one. And that one probably won't sound like Dry, either."

Brother Reade

Rap Music

Rap

Roque Strew

When it comes to hip-hop, North Carolina's latitude, which puts it squarely between the genre's temples in the Northeast and the Deep South, makes it tough to align with a Billboard-proven aesthetic. You can almost see the map, part of a PowerPoint slideshow in some major label conference room. But Brother Reade-- aka Jimmy Jamz and producer Bobby Evans, a DJ-MC partnership in the mold of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince-- don't believe it's so black and white. After joining forces in Winston-Salem under the banner of punk rock, they later traded rowdiness, on 2005's The Illustrated Guide To: 9 to 5 EP, for ragged warmth and an unassumingly witty, everyman charm. But after programming beats in the land of Nascar, Jamz and Evans eventually fled to Los Angeles. "Like Duh", the first single off Rap Music, their full-length debut, sticks it to their adopted home. A typical couplet: "Nobody walks in L.A./ Nobody got a job in L.A." Laziness is a target in their caricature of the city-- equal parts "Entourage" and Annie Hall-- but so is attitude. Jamz counsels a starry-eyed youngster that, in this glitzy anti-utopia, he doesn't need to be rich or cool: he simply has to "be the fuck-you." His message of low-key rebelliousness calmly rehashes their old punk ethos: under the glare of Tinseltown, to be yourself, you have to incarnate subversion. The tap-tap-tap of an organ keeps the mood, with the lyrics, far below the boiling point. Evans' mesmerizing work behind the boards quietly steals the show. He glides serenely between eerie, hallucinatory atmospherics-- the foundation of El-P's work-- and a bare-bones, Deep South take on boom-bap. And it suits the material. For example, "Let's Go" sits on top of a spartan, bleak pattern of thuds, a beat that suggests bricks banging around in a dryer. Somehow, its strangeness calls attention to itself without turning obnoxious, self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing at the same time, like Jamz's paradox of the middle-class MC: "No trap fame, no crack cocaine/ But the world needs a Kurt Cobain with a chain." Yet unlike El-P, Evans lets the tracks breathe, and never succumbs to the former's fondness for nervous and suffocating density. Using a minimum of tools, he creates a glum grandeur without sacrificing clearness and capaciousness. It makes sense: this duo doesn't have El-P's acid and anger. They tell small stories. Apart from Eminem, whose hardscrabble Detroit origin myth was colorfully vindicated in Eight Mile, the white rapper seems de facto barred from overly gritty subjects. So they resort to the less sensational odysseys of everyday life, as Brother Reade does on "Life Ain't Easy for Ya'll" and "The Marcie Song", which tells a former sexist's Byzantine story of conversion from macho artist to feminist. Unfortunately the latter suffers from Jamz' rushing monotone, which outpaces the sleek, undulating synthesizer pulse. Rap Music: so standoffishly humble, so extravagantly matter-of-fact. But the duo made a very conscious decision with this title, and they bring the right attitude: respect. White guilt plays a complicated role, as usual. Hip-hop has a grand history, beyond just rapping, and naturally opportunists grind the term's meaning away when they use it as an easy stamp of authenticity. Radiating their usual mixture of entitlement and deference, in a Stop Smiling interview, Brother Reade elaborated. "The authenticity of our music is not in question to me," they said. "Our music is rap music."

Artist: Brother Reade, Album: Rap Music, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "When it comes to hip-hop, North Carolina's latitude, which puts it squarely between the genre's temples in the Northeast and the Deep South, makes it tough to align with a Billboard-proven aesthetic. You can almost see the map, part of a PowerPoint slideshow in some major label conference room. But Brother Reade-- aka Jimmy Jamz and producer Bobby Evans, a DJ-MC partnership in the mold of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince-- don't believe it's so black and white. After joining forces in Winston-Salem under the banner of punk rock, they later traded rowdiness, on 2005's The Illustrated Guide To: 9 to 5 EP, for ragged warmth and an unassumingly witty, everyman charm. But after programming beats in the land of Nascar, Jamz and Evans eventually fled to Los Angeles. "Like Duh", the first single off Rap Music, their full-length debut, sticks it to their adopted home. A typical couplet: "Nobody walks in L.A./ Nobody got a job in L.A." Laziness is a target in their caricature of the city-- equal parts "Entourage" and Annie Hall-- but so is attitude. Jamz counsels a starry-eyed youngster that, in this glitzy anti-utopia, he doesn't need to be rich or cool: he simply has to "be the fuck-you." His message of low-key rebelliousness calmly rehashes their old punk ethos: under the glare of Tinseltown, to be yourself, you have to incarnate subversion. The tap-tap-tap of an organ keeps the mood, with the lyrics, far below the boiling point. Evans' mesmerizing work behind the boards quietly steals the show. He glides serenely between eerie, hallucinatory atmospherics-- the foundation of El-P's work-- and a bare-bones, Deep South take on boom-bap. And it suits the material. For example, "Let's Go" sits on top of a spartan, bleak pattern of thuds, a beat that suggests bricks banging around in a dryer. Somehow, its strangeness calls attention to itself without turning obnoxious, self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing at the same time, like Jamz's paradox of the middle-class MC: "No trap fame, no crack cocaine/ But the world needs a Kurt Cobain with a chain." Yet unlike El-P, Evans lets the tracks breathe, and never succumbs to the former's fondness for nervous and suffocating density. Using a minimum of tools, he creates a glum grandeur without sacrificing clearness and capaciousness. It makes sense: this duo doesn't have El-P's acid and anger. They tell small stories. Apart from Eminem, whose hardscrabble Detroit origin myth was colorfully vindicated in Eight Mile, the white rapper seems de facto barred from overly gritty subjects. So they resort to the less sensational odysseys of everyday life, as Brother Reade does on "Life Ain't Easy for Ya'll" and "The Marcie Song", which tells a former sexist's Byzantine story of conversion from macho artist to feminist. Unfortunately the latter suffers from Jamz' rushing monotone, which outpaces the sleek, undulating synthesizer pulse. Rap Music: so standoffishly humble, so extravagantly matter-of-fact. But the duo made a very conscious decision with this title, and they bring the right attitude: respect. White guilt plays a complicated role, as usual. Hip-hop has a grand history, beyond just rapping, and naturally opportunists grind the term's meaning away when they use it as an easy stamp of authenticity. Radiating their usual mixture of entitlement and deference, in a Stop Smiling interview, Brother Reade elaborated. "The authenticity of our music is not in question to me," they said. "Our music is rap music.""

Múm

Early Birds

Electronic,Rock

Jess Harvell

Time has not been particularly kind to Múm's music, though it hasn't been entirely cruel either. Early Birds, a collection of the Icelandic band's first experiments, makes for a strange listen in 2012, not exactly unpleasant but far from satisfying as a whole. Perhaps that's unsurprising, given the often sketchy nature of the material, a band's early attempts at finding their sound. All of the music here predates Múm's 2001 debut album, Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK, a seemingly out-of-nowhere record still beloved by listeners of a certain age, folks for whom the meeting of indie pop and the less-aggressive end of IDM was a long-awaited dream come true. Hardly anyone is making music like this these days, at least not with the kind of profile Múm once enjoyed, so it's weirdly enjoyable to dip back into this almost-forgotten style. Múm's childlike electro-pop-- with its windup-toy rhythms and mechanical music box melodies and kiddie chamber music touches-- remains some of the best of its sort. Tracks like "Gingúrt" imagine what Kraftwerk songs might have sounded like if covered by Conky the stuttering beatbox robot from "Pee-Wee's Playhouse", i.e., cute and kitschy and dated in a good way. Like any sugary substance, Múm's early music is very tasty in very controlled doses. But this was a sound that seemed to be everywhere in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it was easy enough to burn out on its unrelenting tweeness after airing a few compilations by the likes of Nobukazu Takemura's Child's View label. Listening to Early Birds, even if you haven't paid attention to this scene in years, it's not long before you're remembering how exhausting this stuff could be. One can only take so many primary color melodies, always either chipper or glum, and those drums reminiscent of a caffeinated kindergartener making a kit out of wooden blocks, using safety scissors for sticks. If anything dates Early Birds, it's the drums. A good percentage of these tracks are built around the hyper-antic programming of drill'n'bass, a sound that peaked in terms of creativity a few years before Múm even started making music. It may seem cruel to compare most electronic acts to Richard D. James, but up against something like "Girl/Boy Song", a very audible influence on Múm here, the flailing of the drums on tracks like "Bak Þitt Er Sem Rennibraut" and "Insert Coin" sound like a thin and unconvincing take on the real deal, all of the speed and none of the flair. They're fast and choppy, because that's how drums were programmed at the time, but they lack even the zany excesses of the style's more hacky practitioners. Múm sound childlike here in a very different sense, young people trying to get to grips with the influence of more mature artists. Early on, what always saved Múm's music from cuteness overload was an attention to moody textures in otherwise lightweight music. And while, after almost a decade of post-rock, they weren't reinventing the wheel to the extent their fans sometimes claimed, they also achieved a strong balance between their bright synthetic side and rougher-edged live playing. You can hear them stretching in that direction here, but with a frustrating inconsistency. "Bak Þitt" actually opens and closes with some lonesome piano, on a muffled tape that sounds more like a spooky field recording than something birthed in a hard drive. Sadly, Múm never develop the tension inherent there, simply dropping the murky instrumental in as bookends to the song's zippy electronic middle. Better are tracks like "Loksins Erum Vio Engin (Natturuoperan Song)", where happy-sad accordion and the faintest of la-la-la vocals are smeared over distant-sounding electronics, like some daydream of a outdoor Parisian café, listening to a street musician while people play Francoise Hardy and Mouse on Mars records in the apartments above you. Building fantastical environments, part sampled real-world texture and part wholly imagined sonic fairy tale, was something Múm once did very well, and we get our first tastes of it here. They also love that accordion, and it figures in most of the best moments on Early Birds, along with a few of the clangers. An outer-space lullaby like "Múm Spilar (La La La)" is so unerringly lovely and richly textured that it's almost worthy of something off composer Raymond Scott's proto-ambient kiddie album Soothing Sounds for Baby. Again it's the unexpected wheeze of the accordion, along with Múm's increasing assurance in orchestrating their layers of tactile and ethereal texture, that elevates "Múm Spilar (La La La)" above bland chill-out music for infants. Play it more than once or twice in a day, though, and the track's all-smiles fluffiness will probably start to grate if you're not an actual toddler in need of a nap. These more assured moments, gorgeous and swimming with detail even when simply playing with worn-out clichés, are why Early Birds can hardly be called a total falure. When they wanted, Múm could already do abstractly affecting without also tipping into cloying sentimentality. But since the bulk of the compilation is so second-rate and saccharine, an obvious learning experience put on tape, Early Birds is inessential, unless you were really dying to hear a beginner's take on the IDM class of 1999.

Artist: Múm, Album: Early Birds, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "Time has not been particularly kind to Múm's music, though it hasn't been entirely cruel either. Early Birds, a collection of the Icelandic band's first experiments, makes for a strange listen in 2012, not exactly unpleasant but far from satisfying as a whole. Perhaps that's unsurprising, given the often sketchy nature of the material, a band's early attempts at finding their sound. All of the music here predates Múm's 2001 debut album, Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK, a seemingly out-of-nowhere record still beloved by listeners of a certain age, folks for whom the meeting of indie pop and the less-aggressive end of IDM was a long-awaited dream come true. Hardly anyone is making music like this these days, at least not with the kind of profile Múm once enjoyed, so it's weirdly enjoyable to dip back into this almost-forgotten style. Múm's childlike electro-pop-- with its windup-toy rhythms and mechanical music box melodies and kiddie chamber music touches-- remains some of the best of its sort. Tracks like "Gingúrt" imagine what Kraftwerk songs might have sounded like if covered by Conky the stuttering beatbox robot from "Pee-Wee's Playhouse", i.e., cute and kitschy and dated in a good way. Like any sugary substance, Múm's early music is very tasty in very controlled doses. But this was a sound that seemed to be everywhere in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it was easy enough to burn out on its unrelenting tweeness after airing a few compilations by the likes of Nobukazu Takemura's Child's View label. Listening to Early Birds, even if you haven't paid attention to this scene in years, it's not long before you're remembering how exhausting this stuff could be. One can only take so many primary color melodies, always either chipper or glum, and those drums reminiscent of a caffeinated kindergartener making a kit out of wooden blocks, using safety scissors for sticks. If anything dates Early Birds, it's the drums. A good percentage of these tracks are built around the hyper-antic programming of drill'n'bass, a sound that peaked in terms of creativity a few years before Múm even started making music. It may seem cruel to compare most electronic acts to Richard D. James, but up against something like "Girl/Boy Song", a very audible influence on Múm here, the flailing of the drums on tracks like "Bak Þitt Er Sem Rennibraut" and "Insert Coin" sound like a thin and unconvincing take on the real deal, all of the speed and none of the flair. They're fast and choppy, because that's how drums were programmed at the time, but they lack even the zany excesses of the style's more hacky practitioners. Múm sound childlike here in a very different sense, young people trying to get to grips with the influence of more mature artists. Early on, what always saved Múm's music from cuteness overload was an attention to moody textures in otherwise lightweight music. And while, after almost a decade of post-rock, they weren't reinventing the wheel to the extent their fans sometimes claimed, they also achieved a strong balance between their bright synthetic side and rougher-edged live playing. You can hear them stretching in that direction here, but with a frustrating inconsistency. "Bak Þitt" actually opens and closes with some lonesome piano, on a muffled tape that sounds more like a spooky field recording than something birthed in a hard drive. Sadly, Múm never develop the tension inherent there, simply dropping the murky instrumental in as bookends to the song's zippy electronic middle. Better are tracks like "Loksins Erum Vio Engin (Natturuoperan Song)", where happy-sad accordion and the faintest of la-la-la vocals are smeared over distant-sounding electronics, like some daydream of a outdoor Parisian café, listening to a street musician while people play Francoise Hardy and Mouse on Mars records in the apartments above you. Building fantastical environments, part sampled real-world texture and part wholly imagined sonic fairy tale, was something Múm once did very well, and we get our first tastes of it here. They also love that accordion, and it figures in most of the best moments on Early Birds, along with a few of the clangers. An outer-space lullaby like "Múm Spilar (La La La)" is so unerringly lovely and richly textured that it's almost worthy of something off composer Raymond Scott's proto-ambient kiddie album Soothing Sounds for Baby. Again it's the unexpected wheeze of the accordion, along with Múm's increasing assurance in orchestrating their layers of tactile and ethereal texture, that elevates "Múm Spilar (La La La)" above bland chill-out music for infants. Play it more than once or twice in a day, though, and the track's all-smiles fluffiness will probably start to grate if you're not an actual toddler in need of a nap. These more assured moments, gorgeous and swimming with detail even when simply playing with worn-out clichés, are why Early Birds can hardly be called a total falure. When they wanted, Múm could already do abstractly affecting without also tipping into cloying sentimentality. But since the bulk of the compilation is so second-rate and saccharine, an obvious learning experience put on tape, Early Birds is inessential, unless you were really dying to hear a beginner's take on the IDM class of 1999."

Atriarch

An Unending Pathway

Grayson Haver Currin

It is paramount that you understand Lenny Smith, that you really hear what he’s stammering, singing, screaming, spitting or saying. Throughout An Unending Pathway, the third and most despondent LP from his Portland, Oregon quartet Atriarch, Smith mostly pitches his voice above his band’s similarly assorted pile. He is, it seems, a minister of futility, concerned foremost with painting human beliefs of hope and faith and perseverance as "a circle, repeating itself." He needs you to get the message, so on these seven tracks, he sends the send-ups and tirades high above the music. There are exceptions, of course, as when a downshift into the din of doom during "Revenant" swallows his invective whole, or when a break into black metal at the start of "Bereavement" batters his howls like pinballs. But Smith is mostly in the clear and in the lead. At the start, for instance, he snaps of staring into void with the nervy sneer of Mark E. Smith, the agile post-punk structure of the verses affording him urgency and clarity. Twenty minutes later, for the finale, "Veil", he shifts from webs of abrasive effects to taunting monastic chants. He concludes with a curdling yell: "You are the end/ Nothing." Polyglot pessimists like Atriarch run the constant risk of speaking too many musical languages to speak very much to anyone at all. Though 2011’s rudimentary Forever the End largely plowed through blown-out, slow-motion doom, the four tracks incorporated heavy doses of dark-wave and crescendos of more athletic metal, too. A year later, they upped that ante considerably for Ritual of Passing, a record that worked like a slingshot between sullen abstraction, death-rock fisticuffs, and panicked tantrums. It was as though, first recorded finished, they’d become confident enough to admit that Swans, New Order, and Mayhem occupied spaces on their collective shelves. The admixture worked, too. In retrospect, Ritual of Passing feels like a first draft for An Unending Pathway, their debut for Relapse Records and their first album to sound like it wasn’t cut largely in a tin can. Heavy veteran Billy Anderson, whose résumé runs from early High on Fire to late Agalloch, produced An Unending Pathway, and he supplies the quartet with the sort of fortified pulpit they’ve always needed. The subgenres they summon—doom and deathrock, gothic rock and new wave, black metal and harsh noise—are more balanced and better integrated, so that these songs feel less like showcases of Atriarch’s ability to skip between elements they enjoy and more like wholesale integration. Atriarch sometimes linger too long in one spot, as with the funereal, feedback-heavy end of "Revenant", but these tunes largely cut restlessness with deliberateness, and vice versa. The fastest moments are emphatic and pummeling, the slowest monolithic and punishing. When Atriarch aim for a hook, as they do for the lashing, swiveling torment of "Collapse", it sticks. Drummer Maxamillion is essential to this improvement. A bit like Aesop Dekker, he’s seamless and smart, building transitions over multi-second spans rather than jumping errantly from a blast beat to a creeping browbeater. Long before "Entropy" makes its disco-punk leap, he’s subtly picking up the pace and condensing the rests. "Allfather" reaches its radical, post-rock peak only after he’s ratcheted the momentum by squeezing together every rhythmic phrase. But the real quality that pulls An Unending Pathway together, the durable thread that binds all of these stylistic shifts, is the way the musical dynamism mirrors Smith’s message. These seven songs are unapologetic excoriations of religion and its adherents, or of anyone who invests their infinity in a truth they’ve never held in their hands. Across the lurch of "Allfather", which suggests the brood and build of clear Atriarch reference point The Nephilim, Smith taunts the omnipotent with a sarcastic coo. He beseeches god to come out of hiding and save "children [who] have lost their way." And above the arching, barbed guitars at the middle of "Bereavement", Smith teases those who believe what they’ve taken on faith. "Cut through my skin," he speak-sings, disdain dripping from his tongue. "And you will not find my soul." Sure, it’s simple collegiate agnosticism, but Atriarch plunder influences in a way that funnels a decades-long continuum of collective misery into 40 malevolent minutes. "Veil" recapitulates all of these ideas. The song moves from dense sludge to stretched doom to an electronics-contorted postlude, haunted by the ethereal vocals of Worm Ouroboros’ Jessica Way. But the whole tune hinges on a repeated chorus, which Smith delivers like a narcotized demigod. "Dead on the altar/ I learn to see," he sings in an even monotone. "This is an illusion/ Pull back the veil." Smith is trying to warn anyone within earshot of mortality’s unending march toward nothing. Standing on the shoulders of fellow solemn giants, neither he nor Atriarch have ever sounded quite so convincing.

Artist: Atriarch, Album: An Unending Pathway, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "It is paramount that you understand Lenny Smith, that you really hear what he’s stammering, singing, screaming, spitting or saying. Throughout An Unending Pathway, the third and most despondent LP from his Portland, Oregon quartet Atriarch, Smith mostly pitches his voice above his band’s similarly assorted pile. He is, it seems, a minister of futility, concerned foremost with painting human beliefs of hope and faith and perseverance as "a circle, repeating itself." He needs you to get the message, so on these seven tracks, he sends the send-ups and tirades high above the music. There are exceptions, of course, as when a downshift into the din of doom during "Revenant" swallows his invective whole, or when a break into black metal at the start of "Bereavement" batters his howls like pinballs. But Smith is mostly in the clear and in the lead. At the start, for instance, he snaps of staring into void with the nervy sneer of Mark E. Smith, the agile post-punk structure of the verses affording him urgency and clarity. Twenty minutes later, for the finale, "Veil", he shifts from webs of abrasive effects to taunting monastic chants. He concludes with a curdling yell: "You are the end/ Nothing." Polyglot pessimists like Atriarch run the constant risk of speaking too many musical languages to speak very much to anyone at all. Though 2011’s rudimentary Forever the End largely plowed through blown-out, slow-motion doom, the four tracks incorporated heavy doses of dark-wave and crescendos of more athletic metal, too. A year later, they upped that ante considerably for Ritual of Passing, a record that worked like a slingshot between sullen abstraction, death-rock fisticuffs, and panicked tantrums. It was as though, first recorded finished, they’d become confident enough to admit that Swans, New Order, and Mayhem occupied spaces on their collective shelves. The admixture worked, too. In retrospect, Ritual of Passing feels like a first draft for An Unending Pathway, their debut for Relapse Records and their first album to sound like it wasn’t cut largely in a tin can. Heavy veteran Billy Anderson, whose résumé runs from early High on Fire to late Agalloch, produced An Unending Pathway, and he supplies the quartet with the sort of fortified pulpit they’ve always needed. The subgenres they summon—doom and deathrock, gothic rock and new wave, black metal and harsh noise—are more balanced and better integrated, so that these songs feel less like showcases of Atriarch’s ability to skip between elements they enjoy and more like wholesale integration. Atriarch sometimes linger too long in one spot, as with the funereal, feedback-heavy end of "Revenant", but these tunes largely cut restlessness with deliberateness, and vice versa. The fastest moments are emphatic and pummeling, the slowest monolithic and punishing. When Atriarch aim for a hook, as they do for the lashing, swiveling torment of "Collapse", it sticks. Drummer Maxamillion is essential to this improvement. A bit like Aesop Dekker, he’s seamless and smart, building transitions over multi-second spans rather than jumping errantly from a blast beat to a creeping browbeater. Long before "Entropy" makes its disco-punk leap, he’s subtly picking up the pace and condensing the rests. "Allfather" reaches its radical, post-rock peak only after he’s ratcheted the momentum by squeezing together every rhythmic phrase. But the real quality that pulls An Unending Pathway together, the durable thread that binds all of these stylistic shifts, is the way the musical dynamism mirrors Smith’s message. These seven songs are unapologetic excoriations of religion and its adherents, or of anyone who invests their infinity in a truth they’ve never held in their hands. Across the lurch of "Allfather", which suggests the brood and build of clear Atriarch reference point The Nephilim, Smith taunts the omnipotent with a sarcastic coo. He beseeches god to come out of hiding and save "children [who] have lost their way." And above the arching, barbed guitars at the middle of "Bereavement", Smith teases those who believe what they’ve taken on faith. "Cut through my skin," he speak-sings, disdain dripping from his tongue. "And you will not find my soul." Sure, it’s simple collegiate agnosticism, but Atriarch plunder influences in a way that funnels a decades-long continuum of collective misery into 40 malevolent minutes. "Veil" recapitulates all of these ideas. The song moves from dense sludge to stretched doom to an electronics-contorted postlude, haunted by the ethereal vocals of Worm Ouroboros’ Jessica Way. But the whole tune hinges on a repeated chorus, which Smith delivers like a narcotized demigod. "Dead on the altar/ I learn to see," he sings in an even monotone. "This is an illusion/ Pull back the veil." Smith is trying to warn anyone within earshot of mortality’s unending march toward nothing. Standing on the shoulders of fellow solemn giants, neither he nor Atriarch have ever sounded quite so convincing."

Belle and Sebastian

How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt. 1

Rock

Stuart Berman

This past summer at Montreal’s Osheaga Festival, I watched a 40-foot-tall Stuart Murdoch merrily play bongos on a Jumbotron—which is a collection of words that, 20 years ago, would’ve been impossible to string together, like trying to connect magnets with the same polarity. Back then, the prospect of the notoriously secretive Belle and Sebastian even performing live—let alone enthusiastically in front of thousands of people tossing around oversized corporate-branded beach balls—seemed to be as much of a soft-focus fantasy as the misty-eyed daydreams cataloged in their achingly intimate songs. But not only did Belle and Sebastian gradually blossom into one of the most generous and gregarious acts on the festival circuit, their records have become increasingly engineered to ensure the party rages on. By 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, the band had strayed far enough from their bedsit-indie roots that they could title a single about dancefloor seduction “The Party Line” and—thanks to its synth-glossed, four-on-the-floor beat—have it work as a double entendre. But where Belle and Sebastian have ultimately decided it’s less fun to be the new Smiths than the old Chic, they’re at least revisiting some of their early battle-plans. Between now and February, the band will release three mini-albums under the banner of How to Solve Our Human Problems, a strategy that hearkens back to the trifecta of stellar EPs they released over the course of 1997. According to Murdoch, it’s a way for the band to bust out of the typical album/tour/repeat cycle—not to mention a savvy ploy for a veteran act to linger in our newsfeeds at a time when even the most hyped new albums seem to drop out of the conversation in mere weeks. (As he recently lamented to Stereogum, “I think these days when an LP comes out, it’s kind of disappointing. Nothing seems to happen.”) Rather than hunker down in some expensive studio with a producer and crank out an album on deadline, the band worked casually on their own clock in their native Glasgow, enlisting outside help only when the mood struck. As they did with those ’97 releases, they selected three flagship singles from their cache of recordings and built discrete EPs around each. On the first volume of How to Solve Our Human Problems, the selected showroom model is “We Were Beautiful,” a song that inherits Peacetime’s bright synth sheen, but feels infected by the anxiety and malaise that has overcome the world since that album’s release. The skittering breakbeat immediately sets a more tense tone, as Murdoch veers from general expressions of depression (“I was black as I could be”) to the very specific feeling of inadequacy that afflicts you when walking through a gentrifying neighborhood full of fashionable people. (“We were in the urban scene, where they grind the coffee bean, where the women are oblique/And the boys are paper thin, ragged beards upon their chin, we were on the outside looking in.”) But a buoyant brass fanfare can’t quite elevate an undercooked, repetitious chorus that prevents the song from joining the pantheon of B&S best singles. And that’s okay—because you’ll still be buzzing from the preceding track, which ranks among the greatest songs the band has produced this millennium. A rare Stevie Jackson/Murdoch duet, “Sweet Dew Lee” sees the band more subtly absorb the influence of ’70s dance music in a divine six-minute prog-disco suite that bounces laser-beamed synths off its glitter-ball grooves. Its lustrous aura obscures an increasingly tense tug-of-war between Jackson’s starry-eyed romantic idealist and Murdoch’s bitter-truth realist, who cautions, “Reconcile yourself to knowing/That glamour fades as time moves on.” It’s a line that Murdoch could very well be singing to himself, given that Belle and Sebastian’s days as indie rock’s most mysterious and feverishly analyzed band are far in the rearview and they’re now lodged firmly in their steady-as-she-goes middle-age phase. But if Sarah Martin’s country-soul serenade “Fickle Season” is precisely the sort of breather ballad we’ve come to expect in the No. 3 slot on a given Belle and Sebastian record, “The Girl Doesn’t Get It” shows they’re still masters of sly subversion, as they twist a breezy, Eno-esque motorik-pop tune into the world’s peppiest protest song. What begins as a typically Murdochian portrait of a disillusioned, lovelorn young woman gradually zooms out to reveal the omnipresent geopolitical strife weighing on her psyche: “They’ll take profits over the people/They won’t make the country great again/Just as long as it’s white and wealthy/Fear the immigrant workforce!/Fear the kids raised on the internet!” Belle and Sebastian’s music always quietly railed against the bastards—the ex-lovers, the priests, the schoolyard bullies—that keep us down. These days, the bastards are bigger and more powerful, and so Belle and Sebastian project their voices all the more vigorously. But if “The Girl Doesn’t Get It” sees the band successfully apply its insular lyrical perspective to current affairs, the EP’s closing track betrays the pitfalls of their carefree, hermetic recording process. The textbook definition of a meandering B-side jam, “Everything Is Now,” almost shares a title with Arcade Fire’s recent album/single, but it’s actually more like this EP’s “Infinite Content”—i.e., an elaborate set-up to a simple, dispiriting pun. Over a hippy-dippy, slow-clapped ’68-Beatles groove, and no small amount of organ noodling, the band repeatedly chant in unison, “everything is now/everything is different, now” before undercutting the celebratory mood by switching that last part to “everything’s indifferent, now.” It’s an alternately cheeky and weary riposte from a band that still obviously cherishes an intimate connection with their fans (to the point of featuring them on the new EPs’ cover photos), but is all too aware of how tenuous those connections can be in the age of perpetual distraction. Twenty years ago, the release of a new Belle and Sebastian EP would send stateside fans rushing to their local record store and hounding the clerks to order an import copy; failing that, they’d have to hassle a relative in the UK to drop a copy in the post. Now, they can just drag and drop it into a Spotify folder along with the other 50 records they’ve dragged and dropped this week. Accordingly, How to Solve Our Human Problems, Part 1 is the sound of a band deploying its full arsenal of bells and whistles to seize your attention, even when the songs themselves aren’t always strong enough to retain the grip.

Artist: Belle and Sebastian, Album: How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt. 1, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "This past summer at Montreal’s Osheaga Festival, I watched a 40-foot-tall Stuart Murdoch merrily play bongos on a Jumbotron—which is a collection of words that, 20 years ago, would’ve been impossible to string together, like trying to connect magnets with the same polarity. Back then, the prospect of the notoriously secretive Belle and Sebastian even performing live—let alone enthusiastically in front of thousands of people tossing around oversized corporate-branded beach balls—seemed to be as much of a soft-focus fantasy as the misty-eyed daydreams cataloged in their achingly intimate songs. But not only did Belle and Sebastian gradually blossom into one of the most generous and gregarious acts on the festival circuit, their records have become increasingly engineered to ensure the party rages on. By 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, the band had strayed far enough from their bedsit-indie roots that they could title a single about dancefloor seduction “The Party Line” and—thanks to its synth-glossed, four-on-the-floor beat—have it work as a double entendre. But where Belle and Sebastian have ultimately decided it’s less fun to be the new Smiths than the old Chic, they’re at least revisiting some of their early battle-plans. Between now and February, the band will release three mini-albums under the banner of How to Solve Our Human Problems, a strategy that hearkens back to the trifecta of stellar EPs they released over the course of 1997. According to Murdoch, it’s a way for the band to bust out of the typical album/tour/repeat cycle—not to mention a savvy ploy for a veteran act to linger in our newsfeeds at a time when even the most hyped new albums seem to drop out of the conversation in mere weeks. (As he recently lamented to Stereogum, “I think these days when an LP comes out, it’s kind of disappointing. Nothing seems to happen.”) Rather than hunker down in some expensive studio with a producer and crank out an album on deadline, the band worked casually on their own clock in their native Glasgow, enlisting outside help only when the mood struck. As they did with those ’97 releases, they selected three flagship singles from their cache of recordings and built discrete EPs around each. On the first volume of How to Solve Our Human Problems, the selected showroom model is “We Were Beautiful,” a song that inherits Peacetime’s bright synth sheen, but feels infected by the anxiety and malaise that has overcome the world since that album’s release. The skittering breakbeat immediately sets a more tense tone, as Murdoch veers from general expressions of depression (“I was black as I could be”) to the very specific feeling of inadequacy that afflicts you when walking through a gentrifying neighborhood full of fashionable people. (“We were in the urban scene, where they grind the coffee bean, where the women are oblique/And the boys are paper thin, ragged beards upon their chin, we were on the outside looking in.”) But a buoyant brass fanfare can’t quite elevate an undercooked, repetitious chorus that prevents the song from joining the pantheon of B&S best singles. And that’s okay—because you’ll still be buzzing from the preceding track, which ranks among the greatest songs the band has produced this millennium. A rare Stevie Jackson/Murdoch duet, “Sweet Dew Lee” sees the band more subtly absorb the influence of ’70s dance music in a divine six-minute prog-disco suite that bounces laser-beamed synths off its glitter-ball grooves. Its lustrous aura obscures an increasingly tense tug-of-war between Jackson’s starry-eyed romantic idealist and Murdoch’s bitter-truth realist, who cautions, “Reconcile yourself to knowing/That glamour fades as time moves on.” It’s a line that Murdoch could very well be singing to himself, given that Belle and Sebastian’s days as indie rock’s most mysterious and feverishly analyzed band are far in the rearview and they’re now lodged firmly in their steady-as-she-goes middle-age phase. But if Sarah Martin’s country-soul serenade “Fickle Season” is precisely the sort of breather ballad we’ve come to expect in the No. 3 slot on a given Belle and Sebastian record, “The Girl Doesn’t Get It” shows they’re still masters of sly subversion, as they twist a breezy, Eno-esque motorik-pop tune into the world’s peppiest protest song. What begins as a typically Murdochian portrait of a disillusioned, lovelorn young woman gradually zooms out to reveal the omnipresent geopolitical strife weighing on her psyche: “They’ll take profits over the people/They won’t make the country great again/Just as long as it’s white and wealthy/Fear the immigrant workforce!/Fear the kids raised on the internet!” Belle and Sebastian’s music always quietly railed against the bastards—the ex-lovers, the priests, the schoolyard bullies—that keep us down. These days, the bastards are bigger and more powerful, and so Belle and Sebastian project their voices all the more vigorously. But if “The Girl Doesn’t Get It” sees the band successfully apply its insular lyrical perspective to current affairs, the EP’s closing track betrays the pitfalls of their carefree, hermetic recording process. The textbook definition of a meandering B-side jam, “Everything Is Now,” almost shares a title with Arcade Fire’s recent album/single, but it’s actually more like this EP’s “Infinite Content”—i.e., an elaborate set-up to a simple, dispiriting pun. Over a hippy-dippy, slow-clapped ’68-Beatles groove, and no small amount of organ noodling, the band repeatedly chant in unison, “everything is now/everything is different, now” before undercutting the celebratory mood by switching that last part to “everything’s indifferent, now.” It’s an alternately cheeky and weary riposte from a band that still obviously cherishes an intimate connection with their fans (to the point of featuring them on the new EPs’ cover photos), but is all too aware of how tenuous those connections can be in the age of perpetual distraction. Twenty years ago, the release of a new Belle and Sebastian EP would send stateside fans rushing to their local record store and hounding the clerks to order an import copy; failing that, they’d have to hassle a relative in the UK to drop a copy in the post. Now, they can just drag and drop it into a Spotify folder along with the other 50 records they’ve dragged and dropped this week. Accordingly, How to Solve Our Human Problems, Part 1 is the sound of a band deploying its full arsenal of bells and whistles to seize your attention, even when the songs themselves aren’t always strong enough to retain the grip."

The Frequency

The Frequency

Jazz,Pop/R&B,Rap

Joe Tangari

If ever there was a band that lost its way, it was Trans Am. In the mid-90s, these guys were the toast of the post-rock scene-- even though more often than not they actually did rock. Futureworld and The Surveillance were concentrated, nasty albums that sang straight to your machine soul. By the 00s, though, Trans Am LPs became sprawling refuges for labored irony. If anyone can actually remember a thing about the second half of Red Line, I'd be surprised, and Trans Am have only gone downhill from there. Therefore, it only makes sense that the band's members might be itching to try something new, and drummer Sebastian Thomson is the first to head out on his own-- although exactly how new his work as The Frequency actually is to him is open for debate. For one thing, outside of Thomson's omnipresent (and often unremarkable) vocals there's not a whole lot of difference between the dark, buzzing vibe of this album and the late work of Trans Am. There is an absolute ton of sawtoothed synth on this record, and it's heaped on top of an absolute ton of Kraftwerk-styled synth patterns and lockstep beats-- both live and programmed. Thomson's singing give the album more of a focal point than most recent Trans Am fare, but he's frequently found well inside the mix, and often there's little melodic contour for his competent everyman voice to follow. Often, his unaffected voice simply doesn't sound at home in this songs-- I never thought I'd ever have to say "needs more vocoder," but here we are. Bur this album does have plenty going for it. Thomson is a killer drummer but he's not showy, and at the heart of every song lies a solid rhythmic foundation. What Thomson does best is evil synth pop, and the songs that follow that road are usually pretty great, from opener "You're the Perfect Size" to the Computer World strut of "One Chance" and "Zapatos Blancos". "Erasing Myself" is less synth-oriented, but it carries the same feel and has some of the album's best vocals-- double tracking does wonders to liven up Thomson's delivery. "Own Me" adds almost jangly guitars to an itchy synth groove. It's the album's brightest moment, and one of its best tracks. If the LP were focused solely on this type of material, Thomson would have a pretty handsome record; as it is, he succumbs to his band's tendency to pile on subpar material, and he really loses his footing on the album's more rock-oriented numbers-- check the overripe guitar leads on "Moonburn" or the boring, sludgy slog of "Forgot", with its weakly shouted vocals and non-melody. So, unfortunately, The Frequency doesn't seem to be a step toward regaining Trans Am's sense of pinpoint focus-- even if it is both stronger than that band's recent releases and contains its share of highlights. There are certainly worse traits for a musician to have than not knowing when to stop, but in this case it's the difference between a good album and a merely fair one.

Artist: The Frequency, Album: The Frequency, Genre: Jazz,Pop/R&B,Rap, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "If ever there was a band that lost its way, it was Trans Am. In the mid-90s, these guys were the toast of the post-rock scene-- even though more often than not they actually did rock. Futureworld and The Surveillance were concentrated, nasty albums that sang straight to your machine soul. By the 00s, though, Trans Am LPs became sprawling refuges for labored irony. If anyone can actually remember a thing about the second half of Red Line, I'd be surprised, and Trans Am have only gone downhill from there. Therefore, it only makes sense that the band's members might be itching to try something new, and drummer Sebastian Thomson is the first to head out on his own-- although exactly how new his work as The Frequency actually is to him is open for debate. For one thing, outside of Thomson's omnipresent (and often unremarkable) vocals there's not a whole lot of difference between the dark, buzzing vibe of this album and the late work of Trans Am. There is an absolute ton of sawtoothed synth on this record, and it's heaped on top of an absolute ton of Kraftwerk-styled synth patterns and lockstep beats-- both live and programmed. Thomson's singing give the album more of a focal point than most recent Trans Am fare, but he's frequently found well inside the mix, and often there's little melodic contour for his competent everyman voice to follow. Often, his unaffected voice simply doesn't sound at home in this songs-- I never thought I'd ever have to say "needs more vocoder," but here we are. Bur this album does have plenty going for it. Thomson is a killer drummer but he's not showy, and at the heart of every song lies a solid rhythmic foundation. What Thomson does best is evil synth pop, and the songs that follow that road are usually pretty great, from opener "You're the Perfect Size" to the Computer World strut of "One Chance" and "Zapatos Blancos". "Erasing Myself" is less synth-oriented, but it carries the same feel and has some of the album's best vocals-- double tracking does wonders to liven up Thomson's delivery. "Own Me" adds almost jangly guitars to an itchy synth groove. It's the album's brightest moment, and one of its best tracks. If the LP were focused solely on this type of material, Thomson would have a pretty handsome record; as it is, he succumbs to his band's tendency to pile on subpar material, and he really loses his footing on the album's more rock-oriented numbers-- check the overripe guitar leads on "Moonburn" or the boring, sludgy slog of "Forgot", with its weakly shouted vocals and non-melody. So, unfortunately, The Frequency doesn't seem to be a step toward regaining Trans Am's sense of pinpoint focus-- even if it is both stronger than that band's recent releases and contains its share of highlights. There are certainly worse traits for a musician to have than not knowing when to stop, but in this case it's the difference between a good album and a merely fair one."

Rose Elinor Dougall

Stellular

Pop/R&B,Rock

Katherine St. Asaph

The Pipettes as a group were never bound to last—a decade on, it doesn’t sound so appealing to combine the girl-group fandom of indie rock with the schtick of Meghan Trainor and the singer-retention of the Sugababes. The Pipettes as a group of artists, though, have been remarkably prolific. Two years ago, Gwenno Saunders released the year’s highest-concept album, the Welsh-language, sci-fi-enamored Y Dydd Olaf. Bandmate Rose Elinor Dougall, meanwhile has quietly released several albums and EPs’ worth of lovelorn pop music. The comparison is inevitable—both artists work in more or less the same vein of synthpop—but where Gwenno prefers futurism, Dougall prefers romanticism. On tracks like “Fallen Over” and “Hanging Around,” she sheds the self-consciousness and polka-dotted prurience of her old group for a disarmingly earnest swoon. Stellular, produced with Oli Bayston of Boxed In (who also sings on and co-wrote “Dive”) is not a departure from her past solo work—if you’ve heard any of the EPs, you know what to expect, and even if you haven’t, you can venture a guess. Dougall is a Pipettes alum; pastiche is expected. Specifically, most of Stellular wouldn’t exist without the past several decades of post-punk (in particular, Blondie), and the rest of it wouldn’t exist without Trish Keenan and Sarah Cracknell. The lilting “Take Yourself With You” recalls ’70s folk, spacey Stereolab, and some of ABBA’s pastoral, statelier tracks. As influences, they’re ideal—they don’t lend themselves to kitsch so much as sturdy, comfortable arrangements that Dougall inhabits with love and familiarity. Take the title track: it begins bramble-spiky, but Dougall makes it entrancing. She winds through verbosities like “Hopes and despairs in parallel live wildly side by side” effortlessly, almost distracted. It’s a love song, but a hesitant one, caught between prickly guitars and moony sentiments, warning itself off in the bridge: “You’re giving yourself away again.” The title, as precisely chosen as the rest, compares her would-be partner to a small star; full-on cosmic crushing is just not something the narrator allows herself. She does allow herself the more earthy kind on “Closer”: closing time in some arbitrary bar, gazing at someone who’d rather blather on about something so much less important than moving their hand that last crucial centimeter. Dougall’s a wry songwriter when she wants to be, and she delivers these details to match, but the way her coy chorus and frosty “I don't care about your band—it’s 3:45 a.m.” melt within seconds reveals her hopes, and the speeding-heartbeat guitar lick, her blissful impatience. The other blatant new wave cut, “All at Once,” pulls the same sleight-of-heart. There’s as much “Rapture” in it as actual rapture; the funk and whispers and “tonight”s affect cool and do it quite well, but the lyrics—“Give me apathy...sentence me to heaven”—merely aspires toward it, from a longing place. Indeed, what elevates Stellular from just another decade’s nostalgia exercise is that longing. “Answer Me,” while the weakest track here—Dougall’s posh voice doesn't navigate soft-rock or R&B ballads well—redeems itself in its final minute, a plush pile of backing vocals; “Space to Be” is nothing but redemption. It’s a sequel to “Stellular”—the chorus melody is tucked into the synths—set in the same city with the same loneliness, but none of the hesitation. The chorus might lend itself to a girl-group arrangement, and certainly the sentiment would: “I want a love to lift me up high, to wreak havoc on this heart of mine, tear me limb from limb until I find some kind of space to be.” But where the Pipettes would give it irony or sex somewhere, and just about every other girl-group revivalist would lean into the darkness and violence, Dougall leaves it at full-throated emotion.

Artist: Rose Elinor Dougall, Album: Stellular, Genre: Pop/R&B,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "The Pipettes as a group were never bound to last—a decade on, it doesn’t sound so appealing to combine the girl-group fandom of indie rock with the schtick of Meghan Trainor and the singer-retention of the Sugababes. The Pipettes as a group of artists, though, have been remarkably prolific. Two years ago, Gwenno Saunders released the year’s highest-concept album, the Welsh-language, sci-fi-enamored Y Dydd Olaf. Bandmate Rose Elinor Dougall, meanwhile has quietly released several albums and EPs’ worth of lovelorn pop music. The comparison is inevitable—both artists work in more or less the same vein of synthpop—but where Gwenno prefers futurism, Dougall prefers romanticism. On tracks like “Fallen Over” and “Hanging Around,” she sheds the self-consciousness and polka-dotted prurience of her old group for a disarmingly earnest swoon. Stellular, produced with Oli Bayston of Boxed In (who also sings on and co-wrote “Dive”) is not a departure from her past solo work—if you’ve heard any of the EPs, you know what to expect, and even if you haven’t, you can venture a guess. Dougall is a Pipettes alum; pastiche is expected. Specifically, most of Stellular wouldn’t exist without the past several decades of post-punk (in particular, Blondie), and the rest of it wouldn’t exist without Trish Keenan and Sarah Cracknell. The lilting “Take Yourself With You” recalls ’70s folk, spacey Stereolab, and some of ABBA’s pastoral, statelier tracks. As influences, they’re ideal—they don’t lend themselves to kitsch so much as sturdy, comfortable arrangements that Dougall inhabits with love and familiarity. Take the title track: it begins bramble-spiky, but Dougall makes it entrancing. She winds through verbosities like “Hopes and despairs in parallel live wildly side by side” effortlessly, almost distracted. It’s a love song, but a hesitant one, caught between prickly guitars and moony sentiments, warning itself off in the bridge: “You’re giving yourself away again.” The title, as precisely chosen as the rest, compares her would-be partner to a small star; full-on cosmic crushing is just not something the narrator allows herself. She does allow herself the more earthy kind on “Closer”: closing time in some arbitrary bar, gazing at someone who’d rather blather on about something so much less important than moving their hand that last crucial centimeter. Dougall’s a wry songwriter when she wants to be, and she delivers these details to match, but the way her coy chorus and frosty “I don't care about your band—it’s 3:45 a.m.” melt within seconds reveals her hopes, and the speeding-heartbeat guitar lick, her blissful impatience. The other blatant new wave cut, “All at Once,” pulls the same sleight-of-heart. There’s as much “Rapture” in it as actual rapture; the funk and whispers and “tonight”s affect cool and do it quite well, but the lyrics—“Give me apathy...sentence me to heaven”—merely aspires toward it, from a longing place. Indeed, what elevates Stellular from just another decade’s nostalgia exercise is that longing. “Answer Me,” while the weakest track here—Dougall’s posh voice doesn't navigate soft-rock or R&B ballads well—redeems itself in its final minute, a plush pile of backing vocals; “Space to Be” is nothing but redemption. It’s a sequel to “Stellular”—the chorus melody is tucked into the synths—set in the same city with the same loneliness, but none of the hesitation. The chorus might lend itself to a girl-group arrangement, and certainly the sentiment would: “I want a love to lift me up high, to wreak havoc on this heart of mine, tear me limb from limb until I find some kind of space to be.” But where the Pipettes would give it irony or sex somewhere, and just about every other girl-group revivalist would lean into the darkness and violence, Dougall leaves it at full-throated emotion."

Girl Talk, Freeway

Broken Ankles EP

Electronic,Rap

Jayson Greene

There should be a German word for the mixture of joy and sadness felt in watching the giants of 2000s Roc-A-Fella navigate the nostalgia circuit. Cam'ron? He has embraced his role as Internet hero, selling capes, dancing the meringue in Vines, and occasionally releasing mixtapes with moments of low-rent greatness on them. Right now, he's collaborating with A-Trak on an EP, Federal Reserve, which places him lovingly back in the chirpy '03 soul-rap that defined his peak. "To me, the intersection between my world and Cam’s world is very much tied to that New York, downtown, street wear kind of movement," A-Trak told Complex. "It’s kids that are happy to hear his music and also jump around to electronic music and hear some Atlanta stuff and some new rap." This sounds an awful lot like a Girl Talk show, where the above scenario would take place in three minutes. In many ways, Girl Talk's music is the gushing id of dilettante culture, a glutinous ball of disparate pop songs mashed together so you only taste the sugar. Now, Gregg Gillis has found himself working with Freeway and the partnership has the same bittersweet tang to it. Since departing officially from Roc-A-Fella after 2007's Free at Last, Freeway has been in search of a cultural foothold; his attempted rebrand as a Rhymesayers artist was too slippery to stick, and then he drifted momentarily to Babygrande. Throughout, he's never lost his fire, but without a larger context or a new story to tell, he was stuck in an uncomfortable limbo. Collaborating with Girl Talk doesn't exactly free him from said limbo. But it does give him something more temporary and invigorating—a shot in the arm, a needed jolt of energy that his last two releases have lacked entirely. Girl Talk's production is legit: he has the sound and feel of those early Roc-A-Fella releases internalized, and he spits it out convincingly. "Tolerated" gets things off to a rickety start; the big faux-Just Blaze beat Girl Talk provides is too top-heavy and cluttered to move effectively and Waka Flocka Flame raps at about 12-percent energy. The chorus is awkward and strained, all elbows. But from there, things take off. "I Can Hear Sweat" has a strafing arpeggiated synth and a heavy-breathing Biggie sample from "Who Shot Ya" that is so tailor-made for a Jadakiss guest verse that you almost hallucinate him rapping on it before he appears. He is murderously intense on it, as is Free. "Suicide" fits a lot of little events into the beat without getting too distracting—eerie childlike vocal effects, spaghetti-western whistles, KRS-One vocal snippets. The taffy-pulled strings on "Tell Me Yeah", a bald-faced appeal to "Oh Boy" nostalgists, are stretched out just right. There are one or two "Oh come on, why is THIS happening now?!" switch-ups in the beats, which feel like Girl Talk elbowing his way to the fore. But they are rare, and there is a palpable love in the details in Gillis's production. The highest compliment you could pay his work is that it's easy to forget he's involved at all while it's playing. What Gillis has given Free is his best solo project in at least four years.

Artist: Girl Talk, Freeway, Album: Broken Ankles EP, Genre: Electronic,Rap, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "There should be a German word for the mixture of joy and sadness felt in watching the giants of 2000s Roc-A-Fella navigate the nostalgia circuit. Cam'ron? He has embraced his role as Internet hero, selling capes, dancing the meringue in Vines, and occasionally releasing mixtapes with moments of low-rent greatness on them. Right now, he's collaborating with A-Trak on an EP, Federal Reserve, which places him lovingly back in the chirpy '03 soul-rap that defined his peak. "To me, the intersection between my world and Cam’s world is very much tied to that New York, downtown, street wear kind of movement," A-Trak told Complex. "It’s kids that are happy to hear his music and also jump around to electronic music and hear some Atlanta stuff and some new rap." This sounds an awful lot like a Girl Talk show, where the above scenario would take place in three minutes. In many ways, Girl Talk's music is the gushing id of dilettante culture, a glutinous ball of disparate pop songs mashed together so you only taste the sugar. Now, Gregg Gillis has found himself working with Freeway and the partnership has the same bittersweet tang to it. Since departing officially from Roc-A-Fella after 2007's Free at Last, Freeway has been in search of a cultural foothold; his attempted rebrand as a Rhymesayers artist was too slippery to stick, and then he drifted momentarily to Babygrande. Throughout, he's never lost his fire, but without a larger context or a new story to tell, he was stuck in an uncomfortable limbo. Collaborating with Girl Talk doesn't exactly free him from said limbo. But it does give him something more temporary and invigorating—a shot in the arm, a needed jolt of energy that his last two releases have lacked entirely. Girl Talk's production is legit: he has the sound and feel of those early Roc-A-Fella releases internalized, and he spits it out convincingly. "Tolerated" gets things off to a rickety start; the big faux-Just Blaze beat Girl Talk provides is too top-heavy and cluttered to move effectively and Waka Flocka Flame raps at about 12-percent energy. The chorus is awkward and strained, all elbows. But from there, things take off. "I Can Hear Sweat" has a strafing arpeggiated synth and a heavy-breathing Biggie sample from "Who Shot Ya" that is so tailor-made for a Jadakiss guest verse that you almost hallucinate him rapping on it before he appears. He is murderously intense on it, as is Free. "Suicide" fits a lot of little events into the beat without getting too distracting—eerie childlike vocal effects, spaghetti-western whistles, KRS-One vocal snippets. The taffy-pulled strings on "Tell Me Yeah", a bald-faced appeal to "Oh Boy" nostalgists, are stretched out just right. There are one or two "Oh come on, why is THIS happening now?!" switch-ups in the beats, which feel like Girl Talk elbowing his way to the fore. But they are rare, and there is a palpable love in the details in Gillis's production. The highest compliment you could pay his work is that it's easy to forget he's involved at all while it's playing. What Gillis has given Free is his best solo project in at least four years."

Nisennenmondai

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

In the beginning, the Japanese avant-rockers Nisennenmondai made no secret of their influences. Tracks on 2004's Neji EP bore titles like "Pop Group," "This Heat," and "Sonic Youth," and for good reason. On guitar, drums, and bass, the trio whipped up a ferocious, muscular racket scarred with pockets of deep silence—a post-punk template shot through with the ghosts of dub and free noise. Over the years, they've moved away from the prickly aggression of their early records and toward a sleeker, more measured form, one equally informed by Krautrock's steady burble and minimal techno's crosshatched textures. It's as if they started out brandishing a misshapen lump of scrap metal and have proceeded to hammer it out into a long, linear shape, perfectly proportioned. And I do mean long: Their tracks routinely run to 10 or 12 or 14 minutes, and they increasingly feel less like individual songs than outtakes of a single continuum. After touring their 2013 album N, they decided that the material's metronomic clatter had evolved enough that it merited a re-recording for a new release, N', in which it's not so much the songs that have changed as the air and the light around them. In its rigor and regularity, all of the trio's work this decade sounds like a tribute to Agnes Martin's grid drawings. It's the tiny variations within their repeated structures where the crucial differences happen, where life dwells. Nisennenmondai might be the world's most disciplined jam band. Their new album, #N/A, proceeds directly from their last two. Its opening track, "#1," might as well be a continuation of N and N''s respective openers, "A" and "A'." It sounds like a teletype in a hurricane. But they're also stretching out and exploring new territory here. Where "#1" and "#5" are quickstepping as ever—somewhere near 150 BPM, a tempo that requires gargantuan feats of concentration and muscle control to rein in their tightly interlocking rhythms when they play live—they slow down slightly on "#2." At under four minutes long, "#3" is both one of the shortest songs they've done in ages and also the one that comes closest to approximating actual techno, with undulating drones that sound uncannily like Richie Hawtin and Steve Bug's ultra-minimal anthem "Low Blow," from 2002. But there is an important shift on the new record: the addition of On-U Sound's Adrian Sherwood, the British producer and dub wizard, whose mixing-desk manipulations blow the trio's sound wide open, from two dimensions into three or four. His addition helps them shift even further from the associations that usually cling to the typical rock-trio lineup—aside from Sayaka Himeno's diamond-tipped hi-hats, nothing here sounds like what it actually is. Masako Takada's guitar swerves between hollow drones and whippoorwilling trills and a porous, soft-hard spray like a sandblaster full of nail clippings. Yuri Zaikawa's bass is either pure rhythm or pure shadow. Together, they all sound like exploding clockworks, and even more so when Sherwood lassoes individual sounds and whips them to and fro. Against the trio's unflinching sense of discipline, he represents something closer to chaos; to their ceaseless repetition he brings unpredictability. In "#5," gunshots ring out, and so does a typewriter bell; it's unclear what those sounds really are, or where they may have come from. Summoned or not, through the magic of dub, they simply appear. Sherwood's manipulations remain relatively restrained on the five studio cuts, but on two live tracks, he really goes to town, twisting delay knobs and reeling off serpentine licks that magnify the aberrations of the trio's straight-ahead groove. There may be no artist more committed to the line as a creative medium than Nisennenmondai; projected through Sherwood's spacetime-distorting lens, their vision of infinity becomes all the more engrossing.

Artist: Nisennenmondai, Album: None, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "In the beginning, the Japanese avant-rockers Nisennenmondai made no secret of their influences. Tracks on 2004's Neji EP bore titles like "Pop Group," "This Heat," and "Sonic Youth," and for good reason. On guitar, drums, and bass, the trio whipped up a ferocious, muscular racket scarred with pockets of deep silence—a post-punk template shot through with the ghosts of dub and free noise. Over the years, they've moved away from the prickly aggression of their early records and toward a sleeker, more measured form, one equally informed by Krautrock's steady burble and minimal techno's crosshatched textures. It's as if they started out brandishing a misshapen lump of scrap metal and have proceeded to hammer it out into a long, linear shape, perfectly proportioned. And I do mean long: Their tracks routinely run to 10 or 12 or 14 minutes, and they increasingly feel less like individual songs than outtakes of a single continuum. After touring their 2013 album N, they decided that the material's metronomic clatter had evolved enough that it merited a re-recording for a new release, N', in which it's not so much the songs that have changed as the air and the light around them. In its rigor and regularity, all of the trio's work this decade sounds like a tribute to Agnes Martin's grid drawings. It's the tiny variations within their repeated structures where the crucial differences happen, where life dwells. Nisennenmondai might be the world's most disciplined jam band. Their new album, #N/A, proceeds directly from their last two. Its opening track, "#1," might as well be a continuation of N and N''s respective openers, "A" and "A'." It sounds like a teletype in a hurricane. But they're also stretching out and exploring new territory here. Where "#1" and "#5" are quickstepping as ever—somewhere near 150 BPM, a tempo that requires gargantuan feats of concentration and muscle control to rein in their tightly interlocking rhythms when they play live—they slow down slightly on "#2." At under four minutes long, "#3" is both one of the shortest songs they've done in ages and also the one that comes closest to approximating actual techno, with undulating drones that sound uncannily like Richie Hawtin and Steve Bug's ultra-minimal anthem "Low Blow," from 2002. But there is an important shift on the new record: the addition of On-U Sound's Adrian Sherwood, the British producer and dub wizard, whose mixing-desk manipulations blow the trio's sound wide open, from two dimensions into three or four. His addition helps them shift even further from the associations that usually cling to the typical rock-trio lineup—aside from Sayaka Himeno's diamond-tipped hi-hats, nothing here sounds like what it actually is. Masako Takada's guitar swerves between hollow drones and whippoorwilling trills and a porous, soft-hard spray like a sandblaster full of nail clippings. Yuri Zaikawa's bass is either pure rhythm or pure shadow. Together, they all sound like exploding clockworks, and even more so when Sherwood lassoes individual sounds and whips them to and fro. Against the trio's unflinching sense of discipline, he represents something closer to chaos; to their ceaseless repetition he brings unpredictability. In "#5," gunshots ring out, and so does a typewriter bell; it's unclear what those sounds really are, or where they may have come from. Summoned or not, through the magic of dub, they simply appear. Sherwood's manipulations remain relatively restrained on the five studio cuts, but on two live tracks, he really goes to town, twisting delay knobs and reeling off serpentine licks that magnify the aberrations of the trio's straight-ahead groove. There may be no artist more committed to the line as a creative medium than Nisennenmondai; projected through Sherwood's spacetime-distorting lens, their vision of infinity becomes all the more engrossing."

Clearlake

Amber

Rock

Sam Ubl

One can practically hear the crickets chirping in Clearlake's songs, so sylvan is their dreamy brit-rock. Amber, the band's third album, pits ostentatious instrumentation against a druthers for fiery guitar squall, elements they've never meshed this harmoniously before. Frequently gorgeous but over-lubed, the album forges soundscapes so lush they're almost narcotic. In a British rock scene suddenly governed by sexually frustrated Sheffield kids with a Lavigne-shallow understanding of the anvils on which they stand, Amber's yawns are a nice respite from the geeky frissons now being purveyed. The Hove foursome (bummer no Carters among them) come off mellow and sure-footed, maybe a little paternal. The band remembers life before Oasis, even before industrialization: Amber's best songs imagine atavistic, Tolkien-esque habitats, happily ignorant of history's looming smogsets. Even the title invites eco-friendly readings. You'd expect any album with such profligate nods to nature, and how cool it is, and how the modern world is scary, of packing an ideological strain. But frontman Jason Pegg spouts lover's vitriol as diligently as he casts granola melancholy. Risking sounding like a crybaby on Christmas, "I Hate It That I Got What I Wanted" details a strange affliction: remorse over getting what one wants. Pegg's reasoning? "I don't want it anymore." Fair 'nuff. Yet the words don't bother so much as the way they're delivered, Pegg essaying uptempo snarl, getting smothered by those "whoa, dude, let it ring!" Road Rash guitars. Better is the topsy-turvy "It's Getting Light Outside", whose pistoning, tympani-heavy rhythm provides a good context for Pegg's nasally, overearnest sing-song. "You Can't Have Me", even softer-hued, plays fuzzy gegenschein to the more importunate yowlers; the Fennesz-wet upbeat guitar pulses can't not encourage nostalgic reverie. Another way Amber foils expectations: For a band with such imaginative whimsy, Clearlake have a disappointingly staid invasion jones. "Finally Free" does its scuzziest nth-wave stomp, complete with tactical tambourine jiggles, aloof vox harmonies, and an insultingly simple guitar lick; cowbell's a continental aberration, probably a Pixies reference. Even worse is single "Neon", whose booming drum-and-harmonica rig wants to be Big & Rich, not fey British indie rockers. The album really shines when it's at its quietest, like when Pegg quavers trying to bridge the wide gap between "Dreamt That You Died"'s baggy guitar chords. Never mind the song recycles Cedars standout "Trees in the City", only this time on some macabre quasi-personal folderol, not the original's unambiguous anti-concrete screed. Plugged-in but still drowsy, "It's Getting Light Outside" is the real gem, though, mainly because it understands that volume does not equate to energy in recorded music: post-chorus guitar spikes provide a twist-of-lime kick without rising above library volume. A word to British rock in '06: The frissons are great, but let's have more yawns.

Artist: Clearlake, Album: Amber, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "One can practically hear the crickets chirping in Clearlake's songs, so sylvan is their dreamy brit-rock. Amber, the band's third album, pits ostentatious instrumentation against a druthers for fiery guitar squall, elements they've never meshed this harmoniously before. Frequently gorgeous but over-lubed, the album forges soundscapes so lush they're almost narcotic. In a British rock scene suddenly governed by sexually frustrated Sheffield kids with a Lavigne-shallow understanding of the anvils on which they stand, Amber's yawns are a nice respite from the geeky frissons now being purveyed. The Hove foursome (bummer no Carters among them) come off mellow and sure-footed, maybe a little paternal. The band remembers life before Oasis, even before industrialization: Amber's best songs imagine atavistic, Tolkien-esque habitats, happily ignorant of history's looming smogsets. Even the title invites eco-friendly readings. You'd expect any album with such profligate nods to nature, and how cool it is, and how the modern world is scary, of packing an ideological strain. But frontman Jason Pegg spouts lover's vitriol as diligently as he casts granola melancholy. Risking sounding like a crybaby on Christmas, "I Hate It That I Got What I Wanted" details a strange affliction: remorse over getting what one wants. Pegg's reasoning? "I don't want it anymore." Fair 'nuff. Yet the words don't bother so much as the way they're delivered, Pegg essaying uptempo snarl, getting smothered by those "whoa, dude, let it ring!" Road Rash guitars. Better is the topsy-turvy "It's Getting Light Outside", whose pistoning, tympani-heavy rhythm provides a good context for Pegg's nasally, overearnest sing-song. "You Can't Have Me", even softer-hued, plays fuzzy gegenschein to the more importunate yowlers; the Fennesz-wet upbeat guitar pulses can't not encourage nostalgic reverie. Another way Amber foils expectations: For a band with such imaginative whimsy, Clearlake have a disappointingly staid invasion jones. "Finally Free" does its scuzziest nth-wave stomp, complete with tactical tambourine jiggles, aloof vox harmonies, and an insultingly simple guitar lick; cowbell's a continental aberration, probably a Pixies reference. Even worse is single "Neon", whose booming drum-and-harmonica rig wants to be Big & Rich, not fey British indie rockers. The album really shines when it's at its quietest, like when Pegg quavers trying to bridge the wide gap between "Dreamt That You Died"'s baggy guitar chords. Never mind the song recycles Cedars standout "Trees in the City", only this time on some macabre quasi-personal folderol, not the original's unambiguous anti-concrete screed. Plugged-in but still drowsy, "It's Getting Light Outside" is the real gem, though, mainly because it understands that volume does not equate to energy in recorded music: post-chorus guitar spikes provide a twist-of-lime kick without rising above library volume. A word to British rock in '06: The frissons are great, but let's have more yawns."

Emperor X

Central Hug/Friendarmy/Fractaldunes (And the Dreams that Resulted)

Pop/R&B

Chris Dahlen

Let's just use Emperor X's metaphor: One time, Chad Matheny and some friends scrape together just enough junk-- rope, poles and tarp-- to make a man-sized kite, a pre-Wright Brothers low-tech flying device, and they strap themselves in and jump into the winds of a hurricane to catch a few seconds of gust outside Jacksonville, Florida. Just as the ad hoc construction of the wing didn't stop it from taking wind, the aesthetic of Emperor X's recording belies its craft. Homemade and sometimes grungily recorded, the latest record by Chad Matheny's one-man band delivers jitter-- and indie pop that practically gnaws its own arm with excitement. Central Hug/Friendarmy/Fractal Dunes (a single album named as if it were a collection of EPs) has the same aesthetic as last year's Tectonic Membrane/Thin Strip on an Edgeless Platform, but the pace is quicker. Matheny's urgent screams are like Travis Morrison's speak-sing, but while he tempers the album with typical indie ballads ("The Citizens of Wichita", "Ainseley"), it's frenzied anthems like "Edgeless" that sell this junkheap. Matheny built the record from tinny beats and synths, guitar scraped like by nails as if against files, imagery both lucid and absurd, and bass and percussion that wander in so casually you could forget that he recorded and meticulously overdubbed the parts by himself. He tempers his inventiveness with willful crudeness-- as on the closing instrumental, where he changes the tempo by just knocking down the tape speed. And while there are as many beats as guitars-- "Sfearion" is enthusiastic indietronica, with whomping bass near the end-- the synths are as refreshingly rough as the rest of the music: The poppiest songs are fuzzed out and distorted, but still fit for dancing, or at least for hurtling yourself in place. It's easy to act nonchalant about lo-fi, four-track wizardry, and in the post-Microphones, post-Postal Service world, we underrate the use of beats, new textures or inventive overdubs because we insist that originality won't make a record engaging. But Central Hug doesn't settle for sounding "original" or "clever": It nakedly gives a shit about itself, as Matheny assembles his album with tape and cheap wire, building it quickly before the hurricane passes and stretching it to the breaking point with the shout that's scrawled across the disc's face, "GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO..."

Artist: Emperor X, Album: Central Hug/Friendarmy/Fractaldunes (And the Dreams that Resulted), Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Let's just use Emperor X's metaphor: One time, Chad Matheny and some friends scrape together just enough junk-- rope, poles and tarp-- to make a man-sized kite, a pre-Wright Brothers low-tech flying device, and they strap themselves in and jump into the winds of a hurricane to catch a few seconds of gust outside Jacksonville, Florida. Just as the ad hoc construction of the wing didn't stop it from taking wind, the aesthetic of Emperor X's recording belies its craft. Homemade and sometimes grungily recorded, the latest record by Chad Matheny's one-man band delivers jitter-- and indie pop that practically gnaws its own arm with excitement. Central Hug/Friendarmy/Fractal Dunes (a single album named as if it were a collection of EPs) has the same aesthetic as last year's Tectonic Membrane/Thin Strip on an Edgeless Platform, but the pace is quicker. Matheny's urgent screams are like Travis Morrison's speak-sing, but while he tempers the album with typical indie ballads ("The Citizens of Wichita", "Ainseley"), it's frenzied anthems like "Edgeless" that sell this junkheap. Matheny built the record from tinny beats and synths, guitar scraped like by nails as if against files, imagery both lucid and absurd, and bass and percussion that wander in so casually you could forget that he recorded and meticulously overdubbed the parts by himself. He tempers his inventiveness with willful crudeness-- as on the closing instrumental, where he changes the tempo by just knocking down the tape speed. And while there are as many beats as guitars-- "Sfearion" is enthusiastic indietronica, with whomping bass near the end-- the synths are as refreshingly rough as the rest of the music: The poppiest songs are fuzzed out and distorted, but still fit for dancing, or at least for hurtling yourself in place. It's easy to act nonchalant about lo-fi, four-track wizardry, and in the post-Microphones, post-Postal Service world, we underrate the use of beats, new textures or inventive overdubs because we insist that originality won't make a record engaging. But Central Hug doesn't settle for sounding "original" or "clever": It nakedly gives a shit about itself, as Matheny assembles his album with tape and cheap wire, building it quickly before the hurricane passes and stretching it to the breaking point with the shout that's scrawled across the disc's face, "GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO...""

Japanese Motors

Japanese Motors

Rock

Adam Moerder

You can fault Japanese Motors for many things on their self-titled debut, but you can't accuse them of pushing a product that doesn't actually exist. As fantastical as their depiction of West Coast surfing life is, they're only writing what they know. Frontman Alex Knost is a former pro surfer who appeared in the 2003 surf documentary Step into Liquid while drummer Andrew Atkinson's a former designer for the surf clothing company Hurley. To top it off, they look like the male cast of "The Hills". As for the actual music, you could attach "West Coast version of-" to nearly any current "garage"-but-not-made-in-a-garage act and be accurate. There's the transparent Strokes rip "Regrets a Paradise", which features Knost borrowing Julian Casablancas' megaphone and pack-a-day habit. Carefree "Single Fins & Safety Pins" takes its cues from labelmates the Black Lips, keeping its sun-soaked guitar parts simple enough to play while drinking a beer. While those cuts are merely underwhelming and escapist, their more in-your-face retro tracks reek of posturing: "Coors Lite" and "B.N.E." are convinced there's still a Jet fan inside each of us. "B.N.E.", with its bluesy chorus of "She wants a brand new everything," gets wise to this whole superficial, materialistic SoCal culture-- an observation that's been made in like a hundred jagillion (I checked) works of art in the last century. The rest of the album wades in even safer and more comfortable waters. You could peg ballads "Oh Brother" or "Misery & Profits" as doo-wop nostalgia channeled through T. Rex, but the band's beach-bum work ethic can't muster the energy to pull off glam. It's a double-edged sword, because while the band's lazy minimalism deprives them of possessing any real strengths, it at least prevents any Louis XIV-sized missteps. The debut's boring, not awful, but until the band stops sounding like they have a hundred cooler things to do than be in a studio, it's hard to imagine them as anything more than surf muzak.

Artist: Japanese Motors, Album: Japanese Motors, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 3.8 Album review: "You can fault Japanese Motors for many things on their self-titled debut, but you can't accuse them of pushing a product that doesn't actually exist. As fantastical as their depiction of West Coast surfing life is, they're only writing what they know. Frontman Alex Knost is a former pro surfer who appeared in the 2003 surf documentary Step into Liquid while drummer Andrew Atkinson's a former designer for the surf clothing company Hurley. To top it off, they look like the male cast of "The Hills". As for the actual music, you could attach "West Coast version of-" to nearly any current "garage"-but-not-made-in-a-garage act and be accurate. There's the transparent Strokes rip "Regrets a Paradise", which features Knost borrowing Julian Casablancas' megaphone and pack-a-day habit. Carefree "Single Fins & Safety Pins" takes its cues from labelmates the Black Lips, keeping its sun-soaked guitar parts simple enough to play while drinking a beer. While those cuts are merely underwhelming and escapist, their more in-your-face retro tracks reek of posturing: "Coors Lite" and "B.N.E." are convinced there's still a Jet fan inside each of us. "B.N.E.", with its bluesy chorus of "She wants a brand new everything," gets wise to this whole superficial, materialistic SoCal culture-- an observation that's been made in like a hundred jagillion (I checked) works of art in the last century. The rest of the album wades in even safer and more comfortable waters. You could peg ballads "Oh Brother" or "Misery & Profits" as doo-wop nostalgia channeled through T. Rex, but the band's beach-bum work ethic can't muster the energy to pull off glam. It's a double-edged sword, because while the band's lazy minimalism deprives them of possessing any real strengths, it at least prevents any Louis XIV-sized missteps. The debut's boring, not awful, but until the band stops sounding like they have a hundred cooler things to do than be in a studio, it's hard to imagine them as anything more than surf muzak."

+/-

Xs on Your Eyes

Kasia Galazka

+/- really had inertia on their side. Their last album, Let's Build a Fire, gently suggested tomfoolery with its jack-in-the-box title track opener and the Postal Service-tinged "Steal the Blueprints"-- the lovely, inspiring highlight that began with a simple "Hey". The band was just starting to sweeten their electronic pop with little creative inklings. Alas, their latest album, Xs on Your Eyes, is calmer, but with no surprises. And unless I'm a weary parent, that's a crank I'm not too keen on turning. Some of the same Fire elements are here: horns, classical guitar, pedal steel. But gone are the trumpets' screeches and full-fledged commands to burn away the past. Where Fire was bright-eyed, Eyes is bloodshot from a serial-sneezing fit caused by its own emotional dust bowl. The last time I heard about chalk outlines ("You'll Catch Your Death"), sedation ("Xs on Your Eyes"), and potential you'll never see ("Unsung"), I was on an Elliott Smith binge one rainy day ago. But the gloomy vibe that permeates here has no real force. With songwriting duties split between primary songwriter James Baluyut and Patrick Ramos, it's hard to imagine why the album feels just so damn bleak. Certainly the trio has been celebrating these past couple of years: Ramos had twins at the end of that year, Baluyut joined the fatherhood club last year, and drummer Chris Deaner filled in as Kelly Clarkson's drummer on her tour. But I'm guessing the recent procreation explains the unyielding, more "mature" hush that pervades the album. Opener "Tired Eyes" starts the album off well enough. It begins with a dreamy vibraphone, then bursts and abruptly takes off before working its way back into its tinkling intro. The jolt is a neat trick, particularly if the listener has turned up the song because she couldn't hear it too well, but the subsequent build and retreat gets boring fast and slips into the background. "Snowblind", the album's first single, has a thin intro that builds and wanes, giving way to "Subdued"'s flimsy falsetto one-word chorus, which warm guitar strums and some confident drums carry and save. These decent spots come early, and then the album starts to putter halfway through, until "Marina" invites back the pedal steel for some welcomed variation. The bouncy title track ends the album with what sounds like a Death Cab-circa-Something About Airplanes B-side. There's nothing startling about Eyes, no loving slap of surprise. It might be a lot to ask of an electro-acoustic pop band, but after Fire, I expected their streamlined velocity to make their follow-up fun. +/- fans may very well adore the ebbs, wanes, and occasional flatlines, but from a band ensconced in the Google unsearchable elite, I demand more whimsical mischief.

Artist: +/-, Album: Xs on Your Eyes, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 5.0 Album review: "+/- really had inertia on their side. Their last album, Let's Build a Fire, gently suggested tomfoolery with its jack-in-the-box title track opener and the Postal Service-tinged "Steal the Blueprints"-- the lovely, inspiring highlight that began with a simple "Hey". The band was just starting to sweeten their electronic pop with little creative inklings. Alas, their latest album, Xs on Your Eyes, is calmer, but with no surprises. And unless I'm a weary parent, that's a crank I'm not too keen on turning. Some of the same Fire elements are here: horns, classical guitar, pedal steel. But gone are the trumpets' screeches and full-fledged commands to burn away the past. Where Fire was bright-eyed, Eyes is bloodshot from a serial-sneezing fit caused by its own emotional dust bowl. The last time I heard about chalk outlines ("You'll Catch Your Death"), sedation ("Xs on Your Eyes"), and potential you'll never see ("Unsung"), I was on an Elliott Smith binge one rainy day ago. But the gloomy vibe that permeates here has no real force. With songwriting duties split between primary songwriter James Baluyut and Patrick Ramos, it's hard to imagine why the album feels just so damn bleak. Certainly the trio has been celebrating these past couple of years: Ramos had twins at the end of that year, Baluyut joined the fatherhood club last year, and drummer Chris Deaner filled in as Kelly Clarkson's drummer on her tour. But I'm guessing the recent procreation explains the unyielding, more "mature" hush that pervades the album. Opener "Tired Eyes" starts the album off well enough. It begins with a dreamy vibraphone, then bursts and abruptly takes off before working its way back into its tinkling intro. The jolt is a neat trick, particularly if the listener has turned up the song because she couldn't hear it too well, but the subsequent build and retreat gets boring fast and slips into the background. "Snowblind", the album's first single, has a thin intro that builds and wanes, giving way to "Subdued"'s flimsy falsetto one-word chorus, which warm guitar strums and some confident drums carry and save. These decent spots come early, and then the album starts to putter halfway through, until "Marina" invites back the pedal steel for some welcomed variation. The bouncy title track ends the album with what sounds like a Death Cab-circa-Something About Airplanes B-side. There's nothing startling about Eyes, no loving slap of surprise. It might be a lot to ask of an electro-acoustic pop band, but after Fire, I expected their streamlined velocity to make their follow-up fun. +/- fans may very well adore the ebbs, wanes, and occasional flatlines, but from a band ensconced in the Google unsearchable elite, I demand more whimsical mischief."

ZelooperZ

Bothic

Rap

Matthew Strauss

For an artist struggling to stand out, it can be a smart move to focus on your strangest qualities and amplify them. If a conventional approach is failing, then there's no downside to trying something different and getting weirder. On previous projects, 21-year-old Detroit rapper ZelooperZ showed hints of an outsider waiting to break out, but 2011's Coon N the Room is a teenager's failed concept album, and 2014's Help stood out only for its stilted verses (especially considering mentor and Bruiser Brigade leader Danny Brown appears twice and excels). But on his latest album Bothic, ZelooperZ is now both more refined and eccentric than ever. It's nearly impossible to identify a single conventionally rapped verse on the album, which somehow works to its advantage. For the most part, Bothic lacks straightforward melody and ZelooperZ's delivery borders on grating, yet the result is still occasionally enthralling. ZelooperZ opens the album with his best Lil B impression on "Summit" over a beat reminiscent of Clams Casino. It's truly an inauspicious start to the project; ZelooperZ is not as observational as Lil B, nor does he give off any semblance of stream-of-consciousness rapping, which makes the track simply sound the work of a bad rapper—someone who tries and fails to rhyme or flow. From there, however, Bothic picks up. "Bothic Bout It" is a banger despite (or perhaps due to) a complete lack of comprehensible lyrics. The consistent repetition of "bothic" (a portmanteau for "bruiser gothic" that ZelooperZ coined) suggests that we don't need much more than heavy bass, rhythm, and a couple of well-chosen words or sounds for a song to communicate intensity. ZelooperZ has a rudimentary flow, but the momentary offbeat bits of flair that show he has a feel for the grace notes outside traditional structure. "Bothic, rockin' Rick Owens in Hot Topic / Popped a pack for 175, blew a bag, then I made some profit" is intentionally askew and is easily one of the most memorable lines on the record, not only for its humor, but also for how ZelooperZ withholds certain sounds, creating small bursts of energy. At times, it sounds like ZelooperZ is ignoring the production around him, like on "Scale," where he moans over jaunty piano. Still, it works, its haphazard parts colliding together to form a mess, but a compelling one. Ratking's Wiki shows up on "Heart" for the Bothic's only guest appearance; he clearly outshines ZelooperZ lyrically, but while his quick "where I'm from" narrative is welcome, it's somehow not as notable ZelooperZ's frenzied shrieks. Bothic requires a fair amount of immersion to enjoy. With the exception of "Bothic Bout It," "Heart," and "ISBD," most tracks would probably be skipped immediately if heard out of context. "Ocean," for instance, is a relaxing comedown, but ZelooperZ's delivery of "ocean" as "oshaaah" doesn't work without hearing him go through warped exercises on "Scale" and "Automatic." As a whole, Bothic seems intended to be heard as the work of a next-level auteur, but there are still too many moments that beg the question whether it's successful or just plain strange. ZelooperZ is not a finished product as an artist, but if Bothic is any indication, he's willing to push boundaries and could potentially create a style all his own.

Artist: ZelooperZ, Album: Bothic, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "For an artist struggling to stand out, it can be a smart move to focus on your strangest qualities and amplify them. If a conventional approach is failing, then there's no downside to trying something different and getting weirder. On previous projects, 21-year-old Detroit rapper ZelooperZ showed hints of an outsider waiting to break out, but 2011's Coon N the Room is a teenager's failed concept album, and 2014's Help stood out only for its stilted verses (especially considering mentor and Bruiser Brigade leader Danny Brown appears twice and excels). But on his latest album Bothic, ZelooperZ is now both more refined and eccentric than ever. It's nearly impossible to identify a single conventionally rapped verse on the album, which somehow works to its advantage. For the most part, Bothic lacks straightforward melody and ZelooperZ's delivery borders on grating, yet the result is still occasionally enthralling. ZelooperZ opens the album with his best Lil B impression on "Summit" over a beat reminiscent of Clams Casino. It's truly an inauspicious start to the project; ZelooperZ is not as observational as Lil B, nor does he give off any semblance of stream-of-consciousness rapping, which makes the track simply sound the work of a bad rapper—someone who tries and fails to rhyme or flow. From there, however, Bothic picks up. "Bothic Bout It" is a banger despite (or perhaps due to) a complete lack of comprehensible lyrics. The consistent repetition of "bothic" (a portmanteau for "bruiser gothic" that ZelooperZ coined) suggests that we don't need much more than heavy bass, rhythm, and a couple of well-chosen words or sounds for a song to communicate intensity. ZelooperZ has a rudimentary flow, but the momentary offbeat bits of flair that show he has a feel for the grace notes outside traditional structure. "Bothic, rockin' Rick Owens in Hot Topic / Popped a pack for 175, blew a bag, then I made some profit" is intentionally askew and is easily one of the most memorable lines on the record, not only for its humor, but also for how ZelooperZ withholds certain sounds, creating small bursts of energy. At times, it sounds like ZelooperZ is ignoring the production around him, like on "Scale," where he moans over jaunty piano. Still, it works, its haphazard parts colliding together to form a mess, but a compelling one. Ratking's Wiki shows up on "Heart" for the Bothic's only guest appearance; he clearly outshines ZelooperZ lyrically, but while his quick "where I'm from" narrative is welcome, it's somehow not as notable ZelooperZ's frenzied shrieks. Bothic requires a fair amount of immersion to enjoy. With the exception of "Bothic Bout It," "Heart," and "ISBD," most tracks would probably be skipped immediately if heard out of context. "Ocean," for instance, is a relaxing comedown, but ZelooperZ's delivery of "ocean" as "oshaaah" doesn't work without hearing him go through warped exercises on "Scale" and "Automatic." As a whole, Bothic seems intended to be heard as the work of a next-level auteur, but there are still too many moments that beg the question whether it's successful or just plain strange. ZelooperZ is not a finished product as an artist, but if Bothic is any indication, he's willing to push boundaries and could potentially create a style all his own."

Coloma

Finery

Electronic

Andy Beta

Pure happenstance, I came upon an old acquaintance beneath Metropolitan Avenue. After the precursory spinning of mental rolodexes amidst have-you-seen-so-and-so-latelys, she made it known that she is now a part of the lost art of millinery. The yellow fedora of La bohème is her latest creation. "It is a dying trade," she whispered, "because of the quality of buckram. It's the foundation of the industry, and the machines that sew the material make lower thread counts; the very threads themselves are just weaker these days. They just don't make buckram like they used to." From pink pirate hats to tilted trucker caps, they were all done better back in the old days! So, as I slump at the café, staring moribund at my chinos gone threadbare at the knees, I echo the sentiments of "Summer Clothes" off of Coloma's second release, wanting "to wear the clothes that summer wears," in all its light fabric fits. I swear it will be the hit of the summer, fit for all café dwellers, mostly because there's always something there to remind me of that bygone era still ripe for nostalgic plucking and preening. For those who pine that The Postal Service were more Anglo, without the pink Death Cab for Cutie baby-tee, enter the stylish Le Corte Ingles of Coloma, two British ex-pats now residing in Köln, Germany. While Alex Paulick neo-romances the programming of Baroque strings and lingering xylophones cut-n-clicked back together again in a tasteful, unassuming early 80s style, Rob Taylor croaks and croons through a buttoned-down throat bothered with both Jarvis Cocker's aesthetic headaches and Bryan Ferry's decadent migraines, his head splitting at the seams with painful observations of the hip and hideous. His world is full of well-dressed assholes and slumming primadonnas, their visages parading as sensorial barrage: "With their impossible skin and collagen Charles Atlas lips/ Courting the Italian waiter and whistling at the rose-sellers/ When in comes a shower of rickenbacker bricklayer hairgel dumbbell goodfellas." Of course, he's not exactly innocent himself, as there's hair dye on his hands as well when he indicts himself on the epic rendering, "The Tailor": "I don't do sincerity, I couldn't run a mile/ I don't offer guarantees, but I've got a lot of style." As the dignified violin strokes fall apart at the seams, tearing into static, Taylor makes a clean breast of it, admitting, "I am the Dream Weaver, this is the life I chose/ I'm the tailor who sews the Emperor's clothes," revealing his own nakedness in the final wrung breath. "The Second Closer Still" sutures a sneering lip quiver to Lithops-like hiccups, while the more uptempo "If You Can't Be Good", is Farley Jackmaster Funk with a xylophone on the touchpad throb. "Illegible Love" has all the saxy caress and satiny rustle of Wham's Vaseline-lensed classic, "Careless Whisper". Elsewhere, the tracks are as barbed as any sewing needle threaded with strands of tainted love. Where Coloma sticks through is in their persistence of vision. The images tumble past quicker than a parade of bulimic models at a Jello-shot slicked staircase, glossy and grotesque as they collapse. There's also that singular feeling Taylor enunciates as "falling like a goose down feather dropped from a tenth story window sill" that makes me swoon. Coloma remains tempered throughout, with every electronic fiber and silken sigh in its right place, proving that a knife lies within every sharp-dressed man.

Artist: Coloma, Album: Finery, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Pure happenstance, I came upon an old acquaintance beneath Metropolitan Avenue. After the precursory spinning of mental rolodexes amidst have-you-seen-so-and-so-latelys, she made it known that she is now a part of the lost art of millinery. The yellow fedora of La bohème is her latest creation. "It is a dying trade," she whispered, "because of the quality of buckram. It's the foundation of the industry, and the machines that sew the material make lower thread counts; the very threads themselves are just weaker these days. They just don't make buckram like they used to." From pink pirate hats to tilted trucker caps, they were all done better back in the old days! So, as I slump at the café, staring moribund at my chinos gone threadbare at the knees, I echo the sentiments of "Summer Clothes" off of Coloma's second release, wanting "to wear the clothes that summer wears," in all its light fabric fits. I swear it will be the hit of the summer, fit for all café dwellers, mostly because there's always something there to remind me of that bygone era still ripe for nostalgic plucking and preening. For those who pine that The Postal Service were more Anglo, without the pink Death Cab for Cutie baby-tee, enter the stylish Le Corte Ingles of Coloma, two British ex-pats now residing in Köln, Germany. While Alex Paulick neo-romances the programming of Baroque strings and lingering xylophones cut-n-clicked back together again in a tasteful, unassuming early 80s style, Rob Taylor croaks and croons through a buttoned-down throat bothered with both Jarvis Cocker's aesthetic headaches and Bryan Ferry's decadent migraines, his head splitting at the seams with painful observations of the hip and hideous. His world is full of well-dressed assholes and slumming primadonnas, their visages parading as sensorial barrage: "With their impossible skin and collagen Charles Atlas lips/ Courting the Italian waiter and whistling at the rose-sellers/ When in comes a shower of rickenbacker bricklayer hairgel dumbbell goodfellas." Of course, he's not exactly innocent himself, as there's hair dye on his hands as well when he indicts himself on the epic rendering, "The Tailor": "I don't do sincerity, I couldn't run a mile/ I don't offer guarantees, but I've got a lot of style." As the dignified violin strokes fall apart at the seams, tearing into static, Taylor makes a clean breast of it, admitting, "I am the Dream Weaver, this is the life I chose/ I'm the tailor who sews the Emperor's clothes," revealing his own nakedness in the final wrung breath. "The Second Closer Still" sutures a sneering lip quiver to Lithops-like hiccups, while the more uptempo "If You Can't Be Good", is Farley Jackmaster Funk with a xylophone on the touchpad throb. "Illegible Love" has all the saxy caress and satiny rustle of Wham's Vaseline-lensed classic, "Careless Whisper". Elsewhere, the tracks are as barbed as any sewing needle threaded with strands of tainted love. Where Coloma sticks through is in their persistence of vision. The images tumble past quicker than a parade of bulimic models at a Jello-shot slicked staircase, glossy and grotesque as they collapse. There's also that singular feeling Taylor enunciates as "falling like a goose down feather dropped from a tenth story window sill" that makes me swoon. Coloma remains tempered throughout, with every electronic fiber and silken sigh in its right place, proving that a knife lies within every sharp-dressed man."

Earl Sweatshirt

Earl

Rap

Sheldon Pearce

Tyler, the Creator leaps onto Jimmy Fallon’s back and hangs there like a hyperactive kid at the zoo. It’s 2011: Instagram is in its infancy; young people are choosing the internet over television en masse for the first time; Tumblr has nearly tripled its audience in a year. Tyler just performed “Sandwitches” with Hodgy Beats on NBC’s “Late Night”—both representing the collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All—and this mischievous URL rap tag-team turned Studio 6B into a scene from The Ring. Entire verses of the song wouldn’t be performed on TV that night, but the omission of one lyric in particular felt impactful: “Free Earl, that’s the fucking shit/And if you disagree, suck a couple pimple-covered dicks.” This was the crest of Odd Future mania: Tyler had released “Yonkers” (which Kanye West called the best video of the year) only days before, and the enigmatic Frank Ocean dropped his debut mixtape nostalgia, ULTRA without warning the night the “Fallon” episode aired. Rap’s monied old guard, JAY-Z and Diddy, were in a bidding war over the young crew. The media began nitpicking the collective’s grisly lyrics and struggling with the ethics of taking trolls at face value. Despite a growing public profile, the kids of Odd Future were too caught up in their fringe internet communities to really notice; too busy squabbling with rap blogs that wouldn’t post their songs, or responding to fans’ questions on formspring, or relishing very online achievements like “going platinum on YouTube,” or literally predicting future VMA wins on Twitter. But looming larger than the collective’s rapidly expanding reputation was the silhouette of Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, an enigma known to OF onlookers as Earl Sweatshirt. He’d been AWOL throughout the group’s breakthrough with little to no explanation. “I wish Thebe was here to share this moment with us,” Tyler tweeted right after the “Fallon” performance. Even in his absence, Earl was still the wind in their sails. So much of the hysteria surrounding these Los Angeles punks stemmed directly from “Earl,” the title track from the 16-year-old Earl Sweatshirt’s self-titled debut mixtape, released by Tyler for free on Tumblr in March 2010. Earl was slickly sinister yet designed to draw out a visceral reaction—American Psycho meets “Jackass.” And “Earl” was its lynchpin: gorgeously crafted sesquipedalian stanzas with gags about jacking off to Asher Roth vids right next to depictions of killing and eating people, the words scraping up against each other like fractured bones. In its semi-viral music video, under the glare of a grainy fisheye lens, Earl and his OF cohorts use a blender to concoct a drug smoothie out of weed, pills, cough syrup, and malt liquor before puking it all up. They skate, loiter, faceplant, and spit out blood and teeth. The juvenile, almost slapstick images betrayed the seriousness of Earl’s violent claims, as if watching an unaired “Loiter Squad” pilot. But the gambit had worked: Adults were mad, ergo teens loved it. In Earl’s inexplicable absence, his comrades began cryptically roaring “Free Earl” while vaulting into the crowd at their sold-out shows, creating even more buzz and mystery around the already surging, inscrutable collective. (The chatter online was that Earl’s mom caught wind of the “Earl” video and had shipped him off to boot camp, a perceived totalitarian move that only fed his legend among Odd Future’s rabble-rouser fanbase.) Everyone wanted to know why the boy genius was missing. By the time he’d been found, Odd Future had already used his echo to become an indomitable rap force—and Earl had already become someone else. Unbeknownst to most of his faithful, Earl Sweatshirt was the son of world-renowned poet Keorapetse Kgositsile and UCLA law professor Cheryl Harris, a union that seemingly prophesied his eloquence. According to the 1995 poem, “Poet — for Thebe Neruda,” written by Kgositsile’s friend Sterling Plumpp as both a tribute and a baptism, Earl was marked as a bard-king-in-waiting at birth: “You were born with blues With an ANC [African National Congress] imprint on them,” it said. “How you gon do anything but rule?” But after Earl’s parents separated when he was a child, his father became a dark cloud forming just on the outside of his life. Earl’s early self-indictments tied his misfit motivations directly to an estranged relationship with his dad. “I’m half-privileged, think white and have nigga lips/A tad different, mad smart, act ignorant/Shit, I’ll pass the class when my dad starts givin’ shits,” he explained on “Blade” from the 2010 Odd Future tape Radical. “But as long as our relationship is turdless/I’mma keep burning rubber and fucking these beats with burnt dick.” By chance or by choice, Earl had followed in Kgositsile’s footsteps anyway, fulfilling Plumpp’s vision. He picked up rapping in eighth grade, releasing a mixtape on Myspace under the name Sly Tendencies called Kitchen Cutlery. His raps were more sinewy then but no less of a marvel. It wasn’t until after Tyler discovered those Sly songs that Earl’s verses took a turn for the diabolical, positioning him as “the reincarnation of ’98 Eminem,” as he put it on Tyler’s Bastard cut “AssMilk” in 2009. He idolized Tyler almost as much as he did Em, and Tyler recognized instantly what the rest of the world would soon know: Earl Sweatshirt was a wunderkind. He liked to compare Earl to Nas’ Illmatic, and he wasn’t that far off base. Earl had been recruited into a fraternity of mutineers who treated Supreme like haute couture, who made Eminem’s Relapse their unholy bible, who worshipped Lil B and skate pro Jason Dill as gods. They were contrarians goading moralists into reacting to their stunts, drawing life from the discomfort of others. For them, watching the squirming responses to their provocations was proof of a hopelessly stuffy society. “We’re not trying to offend or intrigue people,” Syd told Interview in 2011, one of many attempts to explain how a queer black woman could surround herself with so many perceived homophobes and misogynists spouting rape fantasies. “It’s more of a social experiment. We make fun of society on a daily basis, and people take it so seriously. They’re proving us right.” But more important than the jokes themselves was the fact that they were sharing them, finding fellowship and bonding into a collective. One of the foundational tenets of Odd Future was mining power from being fatherless and building a chosen family in their little Thrasher community. Earl found Tyler’s IDGAF attitude empowering, and emulated it. In each ot

Artist: Earl Sweatshirt, Album: Earl, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 8.3 Album review: "Tyler, the Creator leaps onto Jimmy Fallon’s back and hangs there like a hyperactive kid at the zoo. It’s 2011: Instagram is in its infancy; young people are choosing the internet over television en masse for the first time; Tumblr has nearly tripled its audience in a year. Tyler just performed “Sandwitches” with Hodgy Beats on NBC’s “Late Night”—both representing the collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All—and this mischievous URL rap tag-team turned Studio 6B into a scene from The Ring. Entire verses of the song wouldn’t be performed on TV that night, but the omission of one lyric in particular felt impactful: “Free Earl, that’s the fucking shit/And if you disagree, suck a couple pimple-covered dicks.” This was the crest of Odd Future mania: Tyler had released “Yonkers” (which Kanye West called the best video of the year) only days before, and the enigmatic Frank Ocean dropped his debut mixtape nostalgia, ULTRA without warning the night the “Fallon” episode aired. Rap’s monied old guard, JAY-Z and Diddy, were in a bidding war over the young crew. The media began nitpicking the collective’s grisly lyrics and struggling with the ethics of taking trolls at face value. Despite a growing public profile, the kids of Odd Future were too caught up in their fringe internet communities to really notice; too busy squabbling with rap blogs that wouldn’t post their songs, or responding to fans’ questions on formspring, or relishing very online achievements like “going platinum on YouTube,” or literally predicting future VMA wins on Twitter. But looming larger than the collective’s rapidly expanding reputation was the silhouette of Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, an enigma known to OF onlookers as Earl Sweatshirt. He’d been AWOL throughout the group’s breakthrough with little to no explanation. “I wish Thebe was here to share this moment with us,” Tyler tweeted right after the “Fallon” performance. Even in his absence, Earl was still the wind in their sails. So much of the hysteria surrounding these Los Angeles punks stemmed directly from “Earl,” the title track from the 16-year-old Earl Sweatshirt’s self-titled debut mixtape, released by Tyler for free on Tumblr in March 2010. Earl was slickly sinister yet designed to draw out a visceral reaction—American Psycho meets “Jackass.” And “Earl” was its lynchpin: gorgeously crafted sesquipedalian stanzas with gags about jacking off to Asher Roth vids right next to depictions of killing and eating people, the words scraping up against each other like fractured bones. In its semi-viral music video, under the glare of a grainy fisheye lens, Earl and his OF cohorts use a blender to concoct a drug smoothie out of weed, pills, cough syrup, and malt liquor before puking it all up. They skate, loiter, faceplant, and spit out blood and teeth. The juvenile, almost slapstick images betrayed the seriousness of Earl’s violent claims, as if watching an unaired “Loiter Squad” pilot. But the gambit had worked: Adults were mad, ergo teens loved it. In Earl’s inexplicable absence, his comrades began cryptically roaring “Free Earl” while vaulting into the crowd at their sold-out shows, creating even more buzz and mystery around the already surging, inscrutable collective. (The chatter online was that Earl’s mom caught wind of the “Earl” video and had shipped him off to boot camp, a perceived totalitarian move that only fed his legend among Odd Future’s rabble-rouser fanbase.) Everyone wanted to know why the boy genius was missing. By the time he’d been found, Odd Future had already used his echo to become an indomitable rap force—and Earl had already become someone else. Unbeknownst to most of his faithful, Earl Sweatshirt was the son of world-renowned poet Keorapetse Kgositsile and UCLA law professor Cheryl Harris, a union that seemingly prophesied his eloquence. According to the 1995 poem, “Poet — for Thebe Neruda,” written by Kgositsile’s friend Sterling Plumpp as both a tribute and a baptism, Earl was marked as a bard-king-in-waiting at birth: “You were born with blues With an ANC [African National Congress] imprint on them,” it said. “How you gon do anything but rule?” But after Earl’s parents separated when he was a child, his father became a dark cloud forming just on the outside of his life. Earl’s early self-indictments tied his misfit motivations directly to an estranged relationship with his dad. “I’m half-privileged, think white and have nigga lips/A tad different, mad smart, act ignorant/Shit, I’ll pass the class when my dad starts givin’ shits,” he explained on “Blade” from the 2010 Odd Future tape Radical. “But as long as our relationship is turdless/I’mma keep burning rubber and fucking these beats with burnt dick.” By chance or by choice, Earl had followed in Kgositsile’s footsteps anyway, fulfilling Plumpp’s vision. He picked up rapping in eighth grade, releasing a mixtape on Myspace under the name Sly Tendencies called Kitchen Cutlery. His raps were more sinewy then but no less of a marvel. It wasn’t until after Tyler discovered those Sly songs that Earl’s verses took a turn for the diabolical, positioning him as “the reincarnation of ’98 Eminem,” as he put it on Tyler’s Bastard cut “AssMilk” in 2009. He idolized Tyler almost as much as he did Em, and Tyler recognized instantly what the rest of the world would soon know: Earl Sweatshirt was a wunderkind. He liked to compare Earl to Nas’ Illmatic, and he wasn’t that far off base. Earl had been recruited into a fraternity of mutineers who treated Supreme like haute couture, who made Eminem’s Relapse their unholy bible, who worshipped Lil B and skate pro Jason Dill as gods. They were contrarians goading moralists into reacting to their stunts, drawing life from the discomfort of others. For them, watching the squirming responses to their provocations was proof of a hopelessly stuffy society. “We’re not trying to offend or intrigue people,” Syd told Interview in 2011, one of many attempts to explain how a queer black woman could surround herself with so many perceived homophobes and misogynists spouting rape fantasies. “It’s more of a social experiment. We make fun of society on a daily basis, and people take it so seriously. They’re proving us right.” But more important than the jokes themselves was the fact that they were sharing them, finding fellowship and bonding into a collective. One of the foundational tenets of Odd Future was mining power from being fatherless and building a chosen family in their little Thrasher community. Earl found Tyler’s IDGAF attitude empowering, and emulated it. In each ot"

Jensen Sportag

Stealth of Days

Electronic

Miles Raymer

Jensen Sportag’s debut album Stealth of Days is a sonic hybrid that stands out for its audaciousness even in the context of a dance music scene striving for experimentation. (I recently found out that “ambient gabber” is an actual thing that people are making, as mind-bendingly improbable as that sounds.) What’s notably bold about what the duo (Austin Wilkinson and Elvis Craig of Nashville, Tennessee) are up to isn’t that it hasn’t been done before—it has, a bunch. What makes it a real aesthetic risk is that in the past it’s been done so badly. At its most basic, Stealth of Days is R&B from the period during the late 70s and early 80s where the form first fell hard for synthesizers mixed with the smooth, chilled tones of the more self-consciously tasteful end of the late-90s dance music boom. Wilkinson and Craig like to cite the clean-lined works of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Christian Fennesz as inspirations. A lot of musicians who were working in the late 90s attempted exactly the same thing, and ended up producing the kind of generic, enervated electronic soul that you mostly hear as background music at restaurants that are trying way too hard to project a hip atmosphere. One of the things that keeps the album from following a similar formula is the pair’s ability to steer just shy of the point where tastefulness starts to suffocate a record. Stealth of Days is full of little touches that keep things slightly unbalanced, and therefore compelling. The album-opening “Rain Code” puts a choppy beat behind a satiny R&B vocal melody. “Six Senses” piles layer upon layer of grainy reverb and delay over a two-step beat that in other hands might sound blandly crisp, and occasionally spaces out into brief ambient passages. Throughout the bass synths are dialed a notch or two past “funky” and just into “rude.” There are actually enough interesting little quirks like these that you can easily get distracted from the fact that Stealth of Days is at heart a pop record. The compositions are complex, and so fastidiously arranged that you might get sucked into trying to pick out some kind of flaw. Sometimes it’s a little harder to overlook—on “Light Through Lace” and the late-album standout “Under the Rose” you can hear Ryuichi Sakamoto’s influence in the crystalline textures and immaculately composed percussion, but strip all that away and the the tracks on Stealth of Days sound pretty much like they could be New Edition songs. During the recent CMJ Music Marathon, Jensen Sportag was booked to perform live at the Cascine Records showcase, but Craig was too sick to perform. Instead, Wilkinson simply DJed their original compositions alongside remixes that they’ve done for other acts. You could tell that it was a hastily assembled fix, and the fact that Wilkinson wasn’t blending the tracks but rather pausing between them to introduce each one made it an awkward experience. Still, for the most part people were content to stand and watch, instead of bailing for something else. It really is that absorbing.

Artist: Jensen Sportag, Album: Stealth of Days, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "Jensen Sportag’s debut album Stealth of Days is a sonic hybrid that stands out for its audaciousness even in the context of a dance music scene striving for experimentation. (I recently found out that “ambient gabber” is an actual thing that people are making, as mind-bendingly improbable as that sounds.) What’s notably bold about what the duo (Austin Wilkinson and Elvis Craig of Nashville, Tennessee) are up to isn’t that it hasn’t been done before—it has, a bunch. What makes it a real aesthetic risk is that in the past it’s been done so badly. At its most basic, Stealth of Days is R&B from the period during the late 70s and early 80s where the form first fell hard for synthesizers mixed with the smooth, chilled tones of the more self-consciously tasteful end of the late-90s dance music boom. Wilkinson and Craig like to cite the clean-lined works of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Christian Fennesz as inspirations. A lot of musicians who were working in the late 90s attempted exactly the same thing, and ended up producing the kind of generic, enervated electronic soul that you mostly hear as background music at restaurants that are trying way too hard to project a hip atmosphere. One of the things that keeps the album from following a similar formula is the pair’s ability to steer just shy of the point where tastefulness starts to suffocate a record. Stealth of Days is full of little touches that keep things slightly unbalanced, and therefore compelling. The album-opening “Rain Code” puts a choppy beat behind a satiny R&B vocal melody. “Six Senses” piles layer upon layer of grainy reverb and delay over a two-step beat that in other hands might sound blandly crisp, and occasionally spaces out into brief ambient passages. Throughout the bass synths are dialed a notch or two past “funky” and just into “rude.” There are actually enough interesting little quirks like these that you can easily get distracted from the fact that Stealth of Days is at heart a pop record. The compositions are complex, and so fastidiously arranged that you might get sucked into trying to pick out some kind of flaw. Sometimes it’s a little harder to overlook—on “Light Through Lace” and the late-album standout “Under the Rose” you can hear Ryuichi Sakamoto’s influence in the crystalline textures and immaculately composed percussion, but strip all that away and the the tracks on Stealth of Days sound pretty much like they could be New Edition songs. During the recent CMJ Music Marathon, Jensen Sportag was booked to perform live at the Cascine Records showcase, but Craig was too sick to perform. Instead, Wilkinson simply DJed their original compositions alongside remixes that they’ve done for other acts. You could tell that it was a hastily assembled fix, and the fact that Wilkinson wasn’t blending the tracks but rather pausing between them to introduce each one made it an awkward experience. Still, for the most part people were content to stand and watch, instead of bailing for something else. It really is that absorbing."

Black Devil Disco Club

In Dub

Pop/R&B

Joshua Klein

So few caught on to the mysterious Black Devil the first time around that it's no shock the group/guy/studio construct's excellent second coming, 28 Later, also took people by surprise. The 2006 disc of classic-sounding Italo disco came with little corroborating documentation, and to this day its contents remain unclear. Did the album round up songs from the vaults, or did the elusive, reclusive Bernard Fevre come up with new tracks in the mold of his earlier late-70s/early-80s music? No one seems to know for sure. If the music did come from the vaults, and if there was more where it came from, you'd think Fevre would capitalize on it with a quick sequel. That 28 Later has instead been followed by a more or less rote remix album In Dub implies one of three things. One, there's nothing left in the vaults, leaving it to remixers to extend the group's already limited legacy. Two, there is more to be dusted off, but not much, and Fevre intends to dole it out at a leisurely pace. Or three, 28 Later was indeed of a more recent vintage than its retro sound indicated, but Fevre needed to buy some time to come up with more of the same. This being Black Devil, or at least their 21st century reincarnation, In Dub isn't quite what it's billed as. Anyone expecting deconstructed versions of Fevre's already spare and streamlined songs will probably be disappointed by the autuer's jittery takes on his own tracks, which generally clutter up his cool sci-fi disco soundscapes with unnecessary sonic distractions that detract from their cyber-sexy awesomeness. "On Just Foot (Dub)" is total b-side doofiness, while the best bits of "Coach Me (Dub)" and "An Other Skin (Dub)" are close enough to their original counterparts. Fevre (or whomever) has more fun with "Constantly No Respect (Dub)", playing with the levels, isolating some of the vocals, dropping the beat in and out, but nothing on Fevre's half of In Dub furthers advances the dialogue he decided to restart. The second half of In Dub, where Fevre lets a handful of likeminded fans have their way with his tracks, is also where the fun kicks in, and while it won't change the way you listen to 28 Later, it at least better hints how much this stuff clearly resonates with Fevre's erstwhile descendants and adherents. "The Devil in Us (En Francais)" gets some acid house touches from Elitechnique, the results sounding more 1980s than even what Fevre drummed up. Some of the dissonant menace is gone, the beat's been boosted and, oh yeah, now the song's in French. "On Just Foot (Slide Inside)" features Prins Thomas having his Norwegian way with the tune, weaving Fevre's vocal doots and synth squelches into an even funkier confection that magnifies the sequencer pulse. In Flagranti seemingly slows down "Coach Me (Again and Again)", accenting the disco backbeat and downplaying the melody until its throbs like a druggy afterthought. Quiet Village transforms "I Regret the Flower Power (Fragments of Fear)" into ambient microhouse bliss, and Black Mustang's decision to replace the snare with handclaps heightens the disco euphoria. Unit 4 doesn't do anything special with the minimalist vamp "An Other Skin (Days of Blackula)", but like the best remixes it brings a few fresh ideas to the table without completely ignoring the song's original attributes. Like the rest of the remixes proper, It's enough to make waiting through Fevre walking in place worthwhile, rewarding your patience with savvy takes on Fevre's decidedly unsavvy retro-futurism. It's nothing new, but like everything else Black Devil's done, it'll at least make you move.

Artist: Black Devil Disco Club, Album: In Dub, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "So few caught on to the mysterious Black Devil the first time around that it's no shock the group/guy/studio construct's excellent second coming, 28 Later, also took people by surprise. The 2006 disc of classic-sounding Italo disco came with little corroborating documentation, and to this day its contents remain unclear. Did the album round up songs from the vaults, or did the elusive, reclusive Bernard Fevre come up with new tracks in the mold of his earlier late-70s/early-80s music? No one seems to know for sure. If the music did come from the vaults, and if there was more where it came from, you'd think Fevre would capitalize on it with a quick sequel. That 28 Later has instead been followed by a more or less rote remix album In Dub implies one of three things. One, there's nothing left in the vaults, leaving it to remixers to extend the group's already limited legacy. Two, there is more to be dusted off, but not much, and Fevre intends to dole it out at a leisurely pace. Or three, 28 Later was indeed of a more recent vintage than its retro sound indicated, but Fevre needed to buy some time to come up with more of the same. This being Black Devil, or at least their 21st century reincarnation, In Dub isn't quite what it's billed as. Anyone expecting deconstructed versions of Fevre's already spare and streamlined songs will probably be disappointed by the autuer's jittery takes on his own tracks, which generally clutter up his cool sci-fi disco soundscapes with unnecessary sonic distractions that detract from their cyber-sexy awesomeness. "On Just Foot (Dub)" is total b-side doofiness, while the best bits of "Coach Me (Dub)" and "An Other Skin (Dub)" are close enough to their original counterparts. Fevre (or whomever) has more fun with "Constantly No Respect (Dub)", playing with the levels, isolating some of the vocals, dropping the beat in and out, but nothing on Fevre's half of In Dub furthers advances the dialogue he decided to restart. The second half of In Dub, where Fevre lets a handful of likeminded fans have their way with his tracks, is also where the fun kicks in, and while it won't change the way you listen to 28 Later, it at least better hints how much this stuff clearly resonates with Fevre's erstwhile descendants and adherents. "The Devil in Us (En Francais)" gets some acid house touches from Elitechnique, the results sounding more 1980s than even what Fevre drummed up. Some of the dissonant menace is gone, the beat's been boosted and, oh yeah, now the song's in French. "On Just Foot (Slide Inside)" features Prins Thomas having his Norwegian way with the tune, weaving Fevre's vocal doots and synth squelches into an even funkier confection that magnifies the sequencer pulse. In Flagranti seemingly slows down "Coach Me (Again and Again)", accenting the disco backbeat and downplaying the melody until its throbs like a druggy afterthought. Quiet Village transforms "I Regret the Flower Power (Fragments of Fear)" into ambient microhouse bliss, and Black Mustang's decision to replace the snare with handclaps heightens the disco euphoria. Unit 4 doesn't do anything special with the minimalist vamp "An Other Skin (Days of Blackula)", but like the best remixes it brings a few fresh ideas to the table without completely ignoring the song's original attributes. Like the rest of the remixes proper, It's enough to make waiting through Fevre walking in place worthwhile, rewarding your patience with savvy takes on Fevre's decidedly unsavvy retro-futurism. It's nothing new, but like everything else Black Devil's done, it'll at least make you move."

Boredoms

Seadrum/House of Sun

Experimental

Dominique Leone

What happened to Boredoms? Where did they go? Five years ago, I was ready to trot off with them to Neptune, digging my arm into their furry, electric heels. That was space music, right? Wasn't that what they meant to do in the 70s before anyone had told them that you can be hyper and blissed-out at the same time? It sure seemed like it. And then they just disappeared, only cropping up outside of Japan at sparsely planned eclectic music festivals (that were usually in Europe). In the interim, we got remix albums, some spare influence for neo-no-wavers, and a whole lotta side projects. And I'm not even trying to overlook the side projects, because the last Psycho-Baba album was a lot more interesting than th-- okay, I'll get there in a minute. The answer to Boredoms' whereabouts during the Pitchfork Ascendance was that they sort of broke up and went their own thousand separate ways. Guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto and bassist Hila either left or were fired from the band some time around the turn of this century. Give or take a year; everything's pretty sketchy. I've read interviews with Yamamoto where he talks about not wanting to keep himself restricted to just one band. I've read interviews with de facto leader Yamatsuka Eye where he talks about wanting to love the sun. Suffice to say, there was a communication breakdown. So, Boredoms became "Vooredoms", with Eye, longtime drummer Yoshimi P-We, and two more drummers-- ATR and E-Da-- who'd come aboard when the band had originally gone psychedelic in the late-90s. V8redoms have yet to release any music. They've played lots of shows over the past few years, and true to Eye's concept for the band as a human turntable, their music spins out the jammiest aspects of Boredoms' Vision Creation Newsun and stretches them to epic lengths. Live, its probably an amazing experience; exhausting, hedonistic. Speaking as someone with a fair amount of bootleg mp3s of these shows, I can say that the hour-long drums-and-synth template can be a bit trying as a sit-down listen. And now, out of the clear blue sky, we have Seadrum/House of Sun. It's credited to Boredoms, which makes me wonder if it's actually a new recording, or something leftover. It also comes with zero recording information, musical credits, or any liner notes whatsoever (even any of that cool Eye magic-marker art), in a blue plastic jewel case with cover art that looks stenciled. Wtf? Still, none of that would be so perplexing if the sounds contained inside packed that super-Bore punch. They don't. In fact, if I had to guess, the two tracks on this CD really were leftovers from after VCN. They sound like unedited, marathon jams; the kind that on previous records would have been condensed into concentrated, five-minute mini-trips, and used as part of some electric DJ mix. At best, this sounds like a stopgap. Now, that said, Seadrum/House of Sun features one of the coolest beginnings of any Boredoms album. Yoshimi introduces "Seadrum" with an unaccompanied vocal cadenza, sounding like an island witch serenading the dawn. As she sings her final note, a thick wave of drums, filled out with thunderous reverb like the roar of tidal waves, drowns her out. Pounding, primal percussion is Boredoms' specialty these days, and even when the piano (!) enters later, the vibe is ecstatic. The piano's black-key glissandos turn trance-rock into Asian rhapsody, and when combined with Yoshimi's re-emergent vocals, give the band a tranquil, dreamy sound I've never heard from them before. And it just keeps on going. On and on. Sometimes the drums change their pattern for a few bars (my favorite is when they pull out the tablas and tuned percussion for futuristic tropical craziness), but in general, "Seadrum" coasts where it should surge. Of course, compared to the second track, it's practically explosive. "House of Sun" is a 24-minute comedown drone. Sitars and guitars are lushly layered into a churning, monolithic mass of sound-- and like the preceding song, it goes on for way too long. Acid Mothers Temple's "In D" was similar, but Boredoms go for sensory overload rather than tranquil meditation; after 20 minutes, my ears are numb (and my brain has long since checked out). In theory, Boredoms furthering their psychedelic side should be fantastic, and I have to admit that for sheer orgasmic sprawl, few bands have much on them. However, at a point, sprawl becomes tedious and indulgent-- and I never thought I'd say that about Boredoms.

Artist: Boredoms, Album: Seadrum/House of Sun, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "What happened to Boredoms? Where did they go? Five years ago, I was ready to trot off with them to Neptune, digging my arm into their furry, electric heels. That was space music, right? Wasn't that what they meant to do in the 70s before anyone had told them that you can be hyper and blissed-out at the same time? It sure seemed like it. And then they just disappeared, only cropping up outside of Japan at sparsely planned eclectic music festivals (that were usually in Europe). In the interim, we got remix albums, some spare influence for neo-no-wavers, and a whole lotta side projects. And I'm not even trying to overlook the side projects, because the last Psycho-Baba album was a lot more interesting than th-- okay, I'll get there in a minute. The answer to Boredoms' whereabouts during the Pitchfork Ascendance was that they sort of broke up and went their own thousand separate ways. Guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto and bassist Hila either left or were fired from the band some time around the turn of this century. Give or take a year; everything's pretty sketchy. I've read interviews with Yamamoto where he talks about not wanting to keep himself restricted to just one band. I've read interviews with de facto leader Yamatsuka Eye where he talks about wanting to love the sun. Suffice to say, there was a communication breakdown. So, Boredoms became "Vooredoms", with Eye, longtime drummer Yoshimi P-We, and two more drummers-- ATR and E-Da-- who'd come aboard when the band had originally gone psychedelic in the late-90s. V8redoms have yet to release any music. They've played lots of shows over the past few years, and true to Eye's concept for the band as a human turntable, their music spins out the jammiest aspects of Boredoms' Vision Creation Newsun and stretches them to epic lengths. Live, its probably an amazing experience; exhausting, hedonistic. Speaking as someone with a fair amount of bootleg mp3s of these shows, I can say that the hour-long drums-and-synth template can be a bit trying as a sit-down listen. And now, out of the clear blue sky, we have Seadrum/House of Sun. It's credited to Boredoms, which makes me wonder if it's actually a new recording, or something leftover. It also comes with zero recording information, musical credits, or any liner notes whatsoever (even any of that cool Eye magic-marker art), in a blue plastic jewel case with cover art that looks stenciled. Wtf? Still, none of that would be so perplexing if the sounds contained inside packed that super-Bore punch. They don't. In fact, if I had to guess, the two tracks on this CD really were leftovers from after VCN. They sound like unedited, marathon jams; the kind that on previous records would have been condensed into concentrated, five-minute mini-trips, and used as part of some electric DJ mix. At best, this sounds like a stopgap. Now, that said, Seadrum/House of Sun features one of the coolest beginnings of any Boredoms album. Yoshimi introduces "Seadrum" with an unaccompanied vocal cadenza, sounding like an island witch serenading the dawn. As she sings her final note, a thick wave of drums, filled out with thunderous reverb like the roar of tidal waves, drowns her out. Pounding, primal percussion is Boredoms' specialty these days, and even when the piano (!) enters later, the vibe is ecstatic. The piano's black-key glissandos turn trance-rock into Asian rhapsody, and when combined with Yoshimi's re-emergent vocals, give the band a tranquil, dreamy sound I've never heard from them before. And it just keeps on going. On and on. Sometimes the drums change their pattern for a few bars (my favorite is when they pull out the tablas and tuned percussion for futuristic tropical craziness), but in general, "Seadrum" coasts where it should surge. Of course, compared to the second track, it's practically explosive. "House of Sun" is a 24-minute comedown drone. Sitars and guitars are lushly layered into a churning, monolithic mass of sound-- and like the preceding song, it goes on for way too long. Acid Mothers Temple's "In D" was similar, but Boredoms go for sensory overload rather than tranquil meditation; after 20 minutes, my ears are numb (and my brain has long since checked out). In theory, Boredoms furthering their psychedelic side should be fantastic, and I have to admit that for sheer orgasmic sprawl, few bands have much on them. However, at a point, sprawl becomes tedious and indulgent-- and I never thought I'd say that about Boredoms."

The National

Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers

Rock

Brandon Stosuy

In a town where folks avoid wearing anything on their sleeves that might offer even the slightest peek at their frailties, frontman Matt Berninger staggers down side streets transcribing the language of his failed relationships. What separates him from the throngs of sadsack superstars and raises his personal pity party to a less solipsistic melancholy isn't necessarily his lyrics, his image, or even that he's not actually a superstar, but rather, his ability to implicate himself in the fray. Since The National's excellent self-titled debut in 2001, the Brooklyn-via-Cincinnati quintet has continued developing its hard-knock aesthetic, and lucky for the listener, Berninger's relationships don't appear to be getting any better. Bearing similarities to Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates' classic critique of dreamless suburban emptiness, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers lives up to its blunt title-- Berninger's moribund tales are shot through with the rich beauty of a rotten sky glanced on the way home from an argument, his self-effacing barbs matched by the band's equally potent hooks. On the debut, Berninger was obsessed with nightingales, crows and rivers, and the vagaries of love's beauty. Here he whispers more bird metaphors (cardinals, doves, and hawks) and intones about the vast loneliness of being stuck inside your head. Though it sometimes lacks the soft intimacy and hidden corners of the debut song cycle, the addition of viola, violin, piano, keyboards, french horn, and Wilco-styled electronics creates a bed of complex undertones that opens up the overall sound. Mining a newfound raucous vein, "Available" and "Slipping Husband" rock heavier than anything the band's released yet. "Available", in particular, sounds more like something from the Interpol oeuvre than The National's barroom Americana. Barking questions like "Did you clean yourself for me last night," "Do you feel alone when I'm in my head?" and "Do you still feel clean when the only dirt is the dirt I left?" beneath a wall of darkly jagged guitar incisions, the song climaxes with Berninger losing his grip, screaming himself hoarse. He wonders repeatedly, "Why did you dress me down and liquor me up?" as his perfect pace and phrasing explodes into the caustic shouts and coughs of a man losing his shit in public. The most beguiling tracks, though, remain the hazy ballads. "Cardinal Song" cradles Berninger's advice to "Never tell the one you want that you do/ Save it for the deathbed/ When you know you kept her wanting you" in a bed of echoed arpeggios, twangy chords, hushed backup vocals, cymbal washes, and brushed drums. During a jarring tempo shift played-out over a growling bass rumble and beautiful violin part he finishes off, "Jesus Christ you have confused me/ Cornered, wasted, blessed and used me/ Forgive me, girls, I am confused/ Stiff and pissed and lost and loose." Similarly paced, "Patterns of Fairytales" introduces electronics and drum machines as the soundtrack for a character obsessing over the mixtapes he gave his old girlfriends: "I'm turning on the stereo/ And I'm lining up the names/ On the mixes I made before you/ And I'm turning into fairytales/ With glitter and some glue/ Everything we ever planned to ever do." The added bleeps, buzzes and quavering background sighs make it seem as though Berninger's doing karaoke, adding his vocal swagger to these remnants of his failed seductions, trying to transpose himself into the love songs he wishes he'd written. Each of the dozen laments on Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers balance catchy choruses, exquisite instrumental interludes, and the complex words of a man's grieving. By the time you reach the final punch line of "Lucky You" you feel you know Berninger, want to offer him a coat, a smile, and some warmth to make it through another sleepless night. But on second thought, with that added comfort maybe he'd stop singing these beautiful songs: so you hold off, sit back down, and continue listening to this gorgeous train wreck.

Artist: The National, Album: Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "In a town where folks avoid wearing anything on their sleeves that might offer even the slightest peek at their frailties, frontman Matt Berninger staggers down side streets transcribing the language of his failed relationships. What separates him from the throngs of sadsack superstars and raises his personal pity party to a less solipsistic melancholy isn't necessarily his lyrics, his image, or even that he's not actually a superstar, but rather, his ability to implicate himself in the fray. Since The National's excellent self-titled debut in 2001, the Brooklyn-via-Cincinnati quintet has continued developing its hard-knock aesthetic, and lucky for the listener, Berninger's relationships don't appear to be getting any better. Bearing similarities to Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates' classic critique of dreamless suburban emptiness, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers lives up to its blunt title-- Berninger's moribund tales are shot through with the rich beauty of a rotten sky glanced on the way home from an argument, his self-effacing barbs matched by the band's equally potent hooks. On the debut, Berninger was obsessed with nightingales, crows and rivers, and the vagaries of love's beauty. Here he whispers more bird metaphors (cardinals, doves, and hawks) and intones about the vast loneliness of being stuck inside your head. Though it sometimes lacks the soft intimacy and hidden corners of the debut song cycle, the addition of viola, violin, piano, keyboards, french horn, and Wilco-styled electronics creates a bed of complex undertones that opens up the overall sound. Mining a newfound raucous vein, "Available" and "Slipping Husband" rock heavier than anything the band's released yet. "Available", in particular, sounds more like something from the Interpol oeuvre than The National's barroom Americana. Barking questions like "Did you clean yourself for me last night," "Do you feel alone when I'm in my head?" and "Do you still feel clean when the only dirt is the dirt I left?" beneath a wall of darkly jagged guitar incisions, the song climaxes with Berninger losing his grip, screaming himself hoarse. He wonders repeatedly, "Why did you dress me down and liquor me up?" as his perfect pace and phrasing explodes into the caustic shouts and coughs of a man losing his shit in public. The most beguiling tracks, though, remain the hazy ballads. "Cardinal Song" cradles Berninger's advice to "Never tell the one you want that you do/ Save it for the deathbed/ When you know you kept her wanting you" in a bed of echoed arpeggios, twangy chords, hushed backup vocals, cymbal washes, and brushed drums. During a jarring tempo shift played-out over a growling bass rumble and beautiful violin part he finishes off, "Jesus Christ you have confused me/ Cornered, wasted, blessed and used me/ Forgive me, girls, I am confused/ Stiff and pissed and lost and loose." Similarly paced, "Patterns of Fairytales" introduces electronics and drum machines as the soundtrack for a character obsessing over the mixtapes he gave his old girlfriends: "I'm turning on the stereo/ And I'm lining up the names/ On the mixes I made before you/ And I'm turning into fairytales/ With glitter and some glue/ Everything we ever planned to ever do." The added bleeps, buzzes and quavering background sighs make it seem as though Berninger's doing karaoke, adding his vocal swagger to these remnants of his failed seductions, trying to transpose himself into the love songs he wishes he'd written. Each of the dozen laments on Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers balance catchy choruses, exquisite instrumental interludes, and the complex words of a man's grieving. By the time you reach the final punch line of "Lucky You" you feel you know Berninger, want to offer him a coat, a smile, and some warmth to make it through another sleepless night. But on second thought, with that added comfort maybe he'd stop singing these beautiful songs: so you hold off, sit back down, and continue listening to this gorgeous train wreck."

The Kinks

BBC Sessions 1964-1977

Rock

Ryan Kearney

Although many critics are content to rank them alongside second-tier bands such as the Animals and Creation, the Kinks were arguably one of the four great bands of the British Invasion. Maybe they weren't as bold as the Beatles, as contentious as the Stones, or as audacious as the Who. But if you consider true greatness in terms of influence and innovation-- not to mention a little popularity, as the times required-- then the Kinks, namely Ray and Dave Davies, have secured their place atop rock 'n' roll's Mount Olympus. Consider this: when the Kinks released "You Really Got Me" in 1964, the Beatles were nodding their heads, playing to the ladies; for they had yet to cry "Help!" The Who were still a year away from "My Generation," but in the meantime would come up with "I Can't Explain," which owed Third World-degree debt to "You Really Got Me." And when the Stones weren't still covering R&B; songs, they were busy taking cues from the Beatles-- which wouldn't change until the epiphany of the following year's "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." At a time when rock 'n' roll was evolving faster than ever before, the Kinks were, for the time being, the loudest (white) rock out there. So the Kinks' relatively congenial relationship with the traditional BBC was indeed odd, especially considering that the BBC primarily broadcast music by dance bands and orchestras. The relationship started, as one might expect, with "You Really Got Me," as well as three other tracks recorded at London's Playhouse Theatre on September 7, 1964. Usually, the BBC-- referred to in the liner notes, eerily enough, as "the great Corporation"-- would have screened a track such as "You Really Got Me," particularly since rock 'n' roll was in its infancy and was thus considered both an aberration and a threat. But the single tore through the charts so fast that they waived the review process. Appropriately, this double-disc opens with a quintessentially stiff voice saying, "And now meet the Kinks, five more representatives of the [exaggerated pause] shaggy set. And let's hear that number one, 'You Really Got Me.'" That revelatory track-- astoundingly, just their third single-- follows. The defiant riff, groundbreaking solo and trademark harmonizing and screaming vocals are there, but this classic song is marred by the same limitations that hinder this entire collection-- those being underproduction and sloppy musicianship. After all, most of these tracks are one-and-done takes with only essential overdubs, and they were recorded to BBC's equipment, which was subpar even for its time. The admittedly extensive liner notes say that this "adds to the charm of the recordings," but they couldn't have backpedaled more had they insisted that the Kinks, despite popular belief, were indeed a strong live act. Wait, they do that, too. And then when you consider the abundant between-song introductions and banter-- "Now, why do you wear your hair so long, lads?" "I think the girls go for it, man, you know. They used to go for a moustache, but now it's long hair." "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I couldn't grow mine long if I tried, so let's change the subject." -- you've got an album that, despite all its protestations otherwise, seems simply intended for its historical insight. As such, it is worthy indeed. Arranged chronologically, the album provides a fluid musical timeline of the Kinks from their R&B; roots ("Cadillac"; "Milk Cow Blues") to their creative peak in the late 60's ("Death of a Clown"; "Village Green Preservation Society") and then on to the unfortunate rock opera grandiosity of the 70's ("Demolition"; "Money Talks"), which renders the second disc disposable. (For all intents and purposes, the collection stops at 1974, as only one song-- 1977's "Get Back in Line"-- dates later.) Other than a few exceptions-- "Love Me 'til the Sun Shines," for instance-- almost all of these songs are inferior to their album versions (the Kinks were an underrated studio talent). Furthermore, plenty indisputable classics, like "Shangri-La" and "Lola," don't appear here; undoubtedly, some were never broadcast on the BBC, but it's hard to believe so many weren't played during the 24 sessions. And then there's the issue of the last four tracks, which, by inexplicably jumping back in years, disrupt the chronological fluidity of the album. Thus, BBC Sessions 1964-1977 must be deemed worthwhile for completists only. For those who lived during the Kinks' early rise and their subsequently rocky ride, this album will provide an interesting flashback. And for those of us who didn't, this album is mildly interesting-- once. Yes, the Kinks were a great band that stood out even during the rock 'n' roll explosion of the 60's, but you won't sense much of their brilliance on these recordings.

Artist: The Kinks, Album: BBC Sessions 1964-1977, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "Although many critics are content to rank them alongside second-tier bands such as the Animals and Creation, the Kinks were arguably one of the four great bands of the British Invasion. Maybe they weren't as bold as the Beatles, as contentious as the Stones, or as audacious as the Who. But if you consider true greatness in terms of influence and innovation-- not to mention a little popularity, as the times required-- then the Kinks, namely Ray and Dave Davies, have secured their place atop rock 'n' roll's Mount Olympus. Consider this: when the Kinks released "You Really Got Me" in 1964, the Beatles were nodding their heads, playing to the ladies; for they had yet to cry "Help!" The Who were still a year away from "My Generation," but in the meantime would come up with "I Can't Explain," which owed Third World-degree debt to "You Really Got Me." And when the Stones weren't still covering R&B; songs, they were busy taking cues from the Beatles-- which wouldn't change until the epiphany of the following year's "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." At a time when rock 'n' roll was evolving faster than ever before, the Kinks were, for the time being, the loudest (white) rock out there. So the Kinks' relatively congenial relationship with the traditional BBC was indeed odd, especially considering that the BBC primarily broadcast music by dance bands and orchestras. The relationship started, as one might expect, with "You Really Got Me," as well as three other tracks recorded at London's Playhouse Theatre on September 7, 1964. Usually, the BBC-- referred to in the liner notes, eerily enough, as "the great Corporation"-- would have screened a track such as "You Really Got Me," particularly since rock 'n' roll was in its infancy and was thus considered both an aberration and a threat. But the single tore through the charts so fast that they waived the review process. Appropriately, this double-disc opens with a quintessentially stiff voice saying, "And now meet the Kinks, five more representatives of the [exaggerated pause] shaggy set. And let's hear that number one, 'You Really Got Me.'" That revelatory track-- astoundingly, just their third single-- follows. The defiant riff, groundbreaking solo and trademark harmonizing and screaming vocals are there, but this classic song is marred by the same limitations that hinder this entire collection-- those being underproduction and sloppy musicianship. After all, most of these tracks are one-and-done takes with only essential overdubs, and they were recorded to BBC's equipment, which was subpar even for its time. The admittedly extensive liner notes say that this "adds to the charm of the recordings," but they couldn't have backpedaled more had they insisted that the Kinks, despite popular belief, were indeed a strong live act. Wait, they do that, too. And then when you consider the abundant between-song introductions and banter-- "Now, why do you wear your hair so long, lads?" "I think the girls go for it, man, you know. They used to go for a moustache, but now it's long hair." "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I couldn't grow mine long if I tried, so let's change the subject." -- you've got an album that, despite all its protestations otherwise, seems simply intended for its historical insight. As such, it is worthy indeed. Arranged chronologically, the album provides a fluid musical timeline of the Kinks from their R&B; roots ("Cadillac"; "Milk Cow Blues") to their creative peak in the late 60's ("Death of a Clown"; "Village Green Preservation Society") and then on to the unfortunate rock opera grandiosity of the 70's ("Demolition"; "Money Talks"), which renders the second disc disposable. (For all intents and purposes, the collection stops at 1974, as only one song-- 1977's "Get Back in Line"-- dates later.) Other than a few exceptions-- "Love Me 'til the Sun Shines," for instance-- almost all of these songs are inferior to their album versions (the Kinks were an underrated studio talent). Furthermore, plenty indisputable classics, like "Shangri-La" and "Lola," don't appear here; undoubtedly, some were never broadcast on the BBC, but it's hard to believe so many weren't played during the 24 sessions. And then there's the issue of the last four tracks, which, by inexplicably jumping back in years, disrupt the chronological fluidity of the album. Thus, BBC Sessions 1964-1977 must be deemed worthwhile for completists only. For those who lived during the Kinks' early rise and their subsequently rocky ride, this album will provide an interesting flashback. And for those of us who didn't, this album is mildly interesting-- once. Yes, the Kinks were a great band that stood out even during the rock 'n' roll explosion of the 60's, but you won't sense much of their brilliance on these recordings."

Connoisseur

Over the Edge

Metal

Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

Whenever a band focuses all of its attention on one subject, it’s bound to get old no matter how engaging that subject might be. With that, the appeal of Connoisseur’s debut LP depends entirely on your personal tolerance for the band’s, um, chronic monomania. Then again, by its own admission, the Oakland “stoner violence” trio is trying to be provocative: “If you are straight edge,” says guitarist Daniel Hague, aka Daniel “Machinegun” Grenade, in a press release, “this record will hopefully make you question your life choices. If you smoke pot, this record will make you feel sexy and intelligent.” If only that were true, and if only the band could muster half as much wit via their music as Hague does in that single quip. All indications show they could; clearly, this is a band with a sense of humor. In 2015, their side-splitting video for “Pot Hole” depicted frontman Carlos Saldana sparking up with a pair of door-to-door religious pamphleteers. And Saldana keeps tongue firmly in cheek in the band’s live show, where his hyperactivity and self-deprecation make for a strong, distinct presence that recalls D.R.I.’s Kurt Brecht in his prime. But without the benefit of being able to see Saldana’s facial expressions as he jumps around and windmills his arms, Connoisseur’s schtick loses a critical dimension. On Over the Edge, the band attempts to be dually comical and menacing. The album falls short in both capacities. Things start out promisingly enough when Saldana shouts, “You didn’t want your kids to be like us/We don’t want our kids to be like you” on opening number “The Stoning.” By the next line, though, Saldana’s train of thought gets a bit convoluted: “So now weed is mainstream/And profits are so fucking high/Fancy shops and fancy rigs/We don’t want your money in our scene/Get out.” Okay—it’s understandable that Saldana and company would resent marijuana chic and the gentrification that comes with it. (And hats off to Saldana if he got someone thinking about this issue for the first time.) But would these guys prefer someone face criminal charges and prison time just to maintain their sense of outlaw cool? Worse, when Saldana closes the song out with “You can take your weed/You can fuck yourself,” it reeks of the same punk elitism that undermines come-as-you-are outsider scenes from within. On “I’d Rather Be Smoking Weed,” Saldana calls for a sense of solidarity, singing “No more divisions/Tearing each other down,” but his arms are only open for fellow potheads. Unsurprisingly, the music is most charming when it’s clear that Saldana is just clowning the audience, like when he sings, “Hit this/Or I’ll kick your ass/This weed/It’s so magical/So green/Put it in yer butt/Wait, don’t/I’m just kidding.” On “Weeding Out the Weak”—a kind of boxing contest between smokers—Saldana cleverly makes himself the target of his own joke by losing the contest. Indeed, there’s a lot to like about how this band seems to wink at you between lines, as if screaming “if you take us too seriously, the joke’s on you.” Much of the time, though, Saldana shrieks and grunts as if he’s deadly serious, which makes it easy to miss the joke. And all too often, Connoisseur’s wit is eclipsed by what sounds like a sincere desire to brag about how much weed they burn through. In an age where Weedeater’s Dixie Dave pulls stunts like cough-medicine and cheese tastings, there really are few cards left to play from the drugs-are-cool deck. And if a group as sonically engaging as Cypress Hill can reduce itself to self-parody after just a couple of albums, Connoisseur need to play-up the things that set them apart. Namely: the way they break out of the paint-by-numbers stoner metal mold by mixing fast and slow tempos with ease. However brief and ratty Connoisseur’s songs get, it’s noteworthy that Hague, Saldana, and returning drummer Lyle Sprague are actually emulating musically ambitious groups like Earth Crisis and Spazz. Their mix of sludge, powerviolence, and d-beat hardcore is flexible and seamless enough to accommodate “Hey! Ho!” Ramones-style chants (“All Day, Every Day”) and even clean guitars (“Boulevard of Broken Bongs”). With some tweaking, they could marry the music and the humor together for a particularly potent strain of stoner metal.

Artist: Connoisseur, Album: Over the Edge, Genre: Metal, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Whenever a band focuses all of its attention on one subject, it’s bound to get old no matter how engaging that subject might be. With that, the appeal of Connoisseur’s debut LP depends entirely on your personal tolerance for the band’s, um, chronic monomania. Then again, by its own admission, the Oakland “stoner violence” trio is trying to be provocative: “If you are straight edge,” says guitarist Daniel Hague, aka Daniel “Machinegun” Grenade, in a press release, “this record will hopefully make you question your life choices. If you smoke pot, this record will make you feel sexy and intelligent.” If only that were true, and if only the band could muster half as much wit via their music as Hague does in that single quip. All indications show they could; clearly, this is a band with a sense of humor. In 2015, their side-splitting video for “Pot Hole” depicted frontman Carlos Saldana sparking up with a pair of door-to-door religious pamphleteers. And Saldana keeps tongue firmly in cheek in the band’s live show, where his hyperactivity and self-deprecation make for a strong, distinct presence that recalls D.R.I.’s Kurt Brecht in his prime. But without the benefit of being able to see Saldana’s facial expressions as he jumps around and windmills his arms, Connoisseur’s schtick loses a critical dimension. On Over the Edge, the band attempts to be dually comical and menacing. The album falls short in both capacities. Things start out promisingly enough when Saldana shouts, “You didn’t want your kids to be like us/We don’t want our kids to be like you” on opening number “The Stoning.” By the next line, though, Saldana’s train of thought gets a bit convoluted: “So now weed is mainstream/And profits are so fucking high/Fancy shops and fancy rigs/We don’t want your money in our scene/Get out.” Okay—it’s understandable that Saldana and company would resent marijuana chic and the gentrification that comes with it. (And hats off to Saldana if he got someone thinking about this issue for the first time.) But would these guys prefer someone face criminal charges and prison time just to maintain their sense of outlaw cool? Worse, when Saldana closes the song out with “You can take your weed/You can fuck yourself,” it reeks of the same punk elitism that undermines come-as-you-are outsider scenes from within. On “I’d Rather Be Smoking Weed,” Saldana calls for a sense of solidarity, singing “No more divisions/Tearing each other down,” but his arms are only open for fellow potheads. Unsurprisingly, the music is most charming when it’s clear that Saldana is just clowning the audience, like when he sings, “Hit this/Or I’ll kick your ass/This weed/It’s so magical/So green/Put it in yer butt/Wait, don’t/I’m just kidding.” On “Weeding Out the Weak”—a kind of boxing contest between smokers—Saldana cleverly makes himself the target of his own joke by losing the contest. Indeed, there’s a lot to like about how this band seems to wink at you between lines, as if screaming “if you take us too seriously, the joke’s on you.” Much of the time, though, Saldana shrieks and grunts as if he’s deadly serious, which makes it easy to miss the joke. And all too often, Connoisseur’s wit is eclipsed by what sounds like a sincere desire to brag about how much weed they burn through. In an age where Weedeater’s Dixie Dave pulls stunts like cough-medicine and cheese tastings, there really are few cards left to play from the drugs-are-cool deck. And if a group as sonically engaging as Cypress Hill can reduce itself to self-parody after just a couple of albums, Connoisseur need to play-up the things that set them apart. Namely: the way they break out of the paint-by-numbers stoner metal mold by mixing fast and slow tempos with ease. However brief and ratty Connoisseur’s songs get, it’s noteworthy that Hague, Saldana, and returning drummer Lyle Sprague are actually emulating musically ambitious groups like Earth Crisis and Spazz. Their mix of sludge, powerviolence, and d-beat hardcore is flexible and seamless enough to accommodate “Hey! Ho!” Ramones-style chants (“All Day, Every Day”) and even clean guitars (“Boulevard of Broken Bongs”). With some tweaking, they could marry the music and the humor together for a particularly potent strain of stoner metal."

Abstrackt Keal Agram

Bad Thriller

Electronic,Rock

Sam Ubl

Despite being the butt of many a joke during its salad days, the "bad thriller" has become a topic of serious scholarly debate. Dissertations and books have been devoted to the potential feministic undertones of movies like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Carol Clover's Men, Women and Chainsaws (1993)-- one of the premiere works on the subject-- posited the notion of a so-called Final Girl in slashers as a bastion of feminine righteousness. According to Clover, while all the other tramps are getting hacked during or following a casual sexual encounter, Final Girl abstains from illicit behavior, and ultimately avoids death. Our heroine is cloistered, bookish, and androgynous-- in short, a shameless feminist stereotype. But well-intentioned or not, slasher films are often crass and inelegant-- and, as the adage goes, it's not what you say; it's how you say it. Fortunately, Bad Thriller-- the third album from French synth-hop daemons Abstrackt Keal Agram-- possesses more urbanity and verve than almost anything in the slasher canon. One thing Bad Thriller shares with its namesake film genre is a homespun, low-budget aesthetic. And the three-note acoustic guitar arpeggio and conjoining synth melody at the beginning of its title track sound hauntingly like a prelude to a gory murder-- but that's where the similarities end. While Abstrackt Keal Agram's previous full-length, Cluster Ville, dwelt in dour monotony, Bad Thriller is a sufficiently more upbeat affair, featuring a handful of radiant melodies (case in point: M83's remix of AKA's song titled for Grandaddy's frontman, "Jason Lytle"). And while songs like "Street Lamp Confessions (Ghost Version)" and "Yo, Rap!" affirm Abstrackt Keal Agram's penchant for angular beats and turntable stylings, the group's addition of fragile acoustic guitars to their craggy synthscapes, adoption of a more diverse approach to songwriting, and tendency to sing (in often hushed vocals) as often as they rap make this album more well-rounded than its predecessor. "Delta Force", in particular, shows the sophistication and hopefulness missing from Cluster Ville: After a gloomy, disjointed opening section-- over which guest vocalist Poor Boy slurs double-tracked vocals like, "When you wake up, you feel so tired/ Destroyed by the rules of time"-- the song performs a sly turnabout with gorgeous synth glides augmenting a subtly mutating guitar harmony. This song, like most of the LP's others, features discernable parts and complex evolutions, rather than just cascading instrumentation atop a stagnant rhythmic loop. Bad Thriller's liner notes feature Abstrackt Keal Agram's name graffiti'd on a trucker hat, but their music is a novel reconciliation of old-school beatmaking and modern synth-pop in refulgent 32-bit color. Although the album packs an overwhelming number of ideas into a scant 36 minutes-- and occasionally feels thematically and stylistically disjointed-- Abstrackt Keal Agram have vastly improved upon their prior outings. And the fact that these songs were all written and recorded late last year-- immediately following the release of Cluster Ville-- means the improvements came quickly. In my Pitchfork review of Cluster Ville, I tagged Abstrackt Keal Agram "the hyperkinetic little brothers of the Gooom Disques roster." Here, their undying enthusiasm has served them well-- and every indication is that they'll only get better.

Artist: Abstrackt Keal Agram, Album: Bad Thriller, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "Despite being the butt of many a joke during its salad days, the "bad thriller" has become a topic of serious scholarly debate. Dissertations and books have been devoted to the potential feministic undertones of movies like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Carol Clover's Men, Women and Chainsaws (1993)-- one of the premiere works on the subject-- posited the notion of a so-called Final Girl in slashers as a bastion of feminine righteousness. According to Clover, while all the other tramps are getting hacked during or following a casual sexual encounter, Final Girl abstains from illicit behavior, and ultimately avoids death. Our heroine is cloistered, bookish, and androgynous-- in short, a shameless feminist stereotype. But well-intentioned or not, slasher films are often crass and inelegant-- and, as the adage goes, it's not what you say; it's how you say it. Fortunately, Bad Thriller-- the third album from French synth-hop daemons Abstrackt Keal Agram-- possesses more urbanity and verve than almost anything in the slasher canon. One thing Bad Thriller shares with its namesake film genre is a homespun, low-budget aesthetic. And the three-note acoustic guitar arpeggio and conjoining synth melody at the beginning of its title track sound hauntingly like a prelude to a gory murder-- but that's where the similarities end. While Abstrackt Keal Agram's previous full-length, Cluster Ville, dwelt in dour monotony, Bad Thriller is a sufficiently more upbeat affair, featuring a handful of radiant melodies (case in point: M83's remix of AKA's song titled for Grandaddy's frontman, "Jason Lytle"). And while songs like "Street Lamp Confessions (Ghost Version)" and "Yo, Rap!" affirm Abstrackt Keal Agram's penchant for angular beats and turntable stylings, the group's addition of fragile acoustic guitars to their craggy synthscapes, adoption of a more diverse approach to songwriting, and tendency to sing (in often hushed vocals) as often as they rap make this album more well-rounded than its predecessor. "Delta Force", in particular, shows the sophistication and hopefulness missing from Cluster Ville: After a gloomy, disjointed opening section-- over which guest vocalist Poor Boy slurs double-tracked vocals like, "When you wake up, you feel so tired/ Destroyed by the rules of time"-- the song performs a sly turnabout with gorgeous synth glides augmenting a subtly mutating guitar harmony. This song, like most of the LP's others, features discernable parts and complex evolutions, rather than just cascading instrumentation atop a stagnant rhythmic loop. Bad Thriller's liner notes feature Abstrackt Keal Agram's name graffiti'd on a trucker hat, but their music is a novel reconciliation of old-school beatmaking and modern synth-pop in refulgent 32-bit color. Although the album packs an overwhelming number of ideas into a scant 36 minutes-- and occasionally feels thematically and stylistically disjointed-- Abstrackt Keal Agram have vastly improved upon their prior outings. And the fact that these songs were all written and recorded late last year-- immediately following the release of Cluster Ville-- means the improvements came quickly. In my Pitchfork review of Cluster Ville, I tagged Abstrackt Keal Agram "the hyperkinetic little brothers of the Gooom Disques roster." Here, their undying enthusiasm has served them well-- and every indication is that they'll only get better."

Coliseum

Anxiety's Kiss

Rock

Jonathan K. Dick

The phrase "grown up" often feels like a backhanded compliment when applied to a band or its sound. It praises their current efforts by way of dismissing the steps they took to arrive at that destination. In that regard, Coliseum's progression over the course of 12 years and five full-lengths has been less an exercise in growing up and more one of "growing in" to a sound, one that hits its highest point on their newest album Anxiety's Kiss, which sharpens all of their musical developments into their finest point yet. The result is a pop-savvy sound that 2013's Sister Faith only hinted at. In the relatively short amount of time of the group's existence, Coliseum has made the label rounds, releasing all but two of their records on different labels. This might be a trivial observation for other bands, but it's been a continual point of distinction for the Kentucky-based three-piece, with each album moving in a pointedly different direction than its predecessor while keeping a rock-solid punk-rock ethos at their base. Beneath every shift, vocalist/guitarist and founding member Ryan Patterson barked his lyrics with absolute fervor and passion. While their punk roots remain wholly intact, the band has grown into a comfortable but still-powerful force. Much of that growth can be attributed to bassist Kayhan Vaziri and drummer Carter Wilson, both relatively recent additions to the band who have proven invaluable in fleshing out the band's sound. Paired with Wilson's straightforward, loosely executed rhythmic style, Vaziri's bass works as much melodic nuance into the songs as Patterson's guitar. Anxiety's Kiss wastes no time in announcing its intentions with the radio-ready "We Are the Water", a pop-punk anthem owing as much to the Replacements as it does to Fucked Up, complete with gang-vocal refrain. The post-punk-tinged followup "Dark Light of Seduction" chases the immediacy with a slow burning churn, and a subdued layer of electronic noise that the band has folded into their mix over the last two albums. This muted sense of nuance is what gives Coliseum's music an amorphous tendency, and while that's sometimes worked against them in the past, here it allows them to shift weightlessly from near post-rock atmospherics on the outstanding "Dark Light of Seduction" to blistering anthems like "Drums & Amplifiers", all without losing a core sense of focus. Just shy of 40 minutes, Anxiety's Kiss packs in a surprising amount of singalong hooks, and you can sense their comfort with them. They've always had these proclivities lurking in the background, and this time around they embrace them as the next logical step. For longtime followers of the band, Anxiety's Kiss has the feel of a logical endpoint, the latest natural development in an impressive career of progressions.

Artist: Coliseum, Album: Anxiety's Kiss, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "The phrase "grown up" often feels like a backhanded compliment when applied to a band or its sound. It praises their current efforts by way of dismissing the steps they took to arrive at that destination. In that regard, Coliseum's progression over the course of 12 years and five full-lengths has been less an exercise in growing up and more one of "growing in" to a sound, one that hits its highest point on their newest album Anxiety's Kiss, which sharpens all of their musical developments into their finest point yet. The result is a pop-savvy sound that 2013's Sister Faith only hinted at. In the relatively short amount of time of the group's existence, Coliseum has made the label rounds, releasing all but two of their records on different labels. This might be a trivial observation for other bands, but it's been a continual point of distinction for the Kentucky-based three-piece, with each album moving in a pointedly different direction than its predecessor while keeping a rock-solid punk-rock ethos at their base. Beneath every shift, vocalist/guitarist and founding member Ryan Patterson barked his lyrics with absolute fervor and passion. While their punk roots remain wholly intact, the band has grown into a comfortable but still-powerful force. Much of that growth can be attributed to bassist Kayhan Vaziri and drummer Carter Wilson, both relatively recent additions to the band who have proven invaluable in fleshing out the band's sound. Paired with Wilson's straightforward, loosely executed rhythmic style, Vaziri's bass works as much melodic nuance into the songs as Patterson's guitar. Anxiety's Kiss wastes no time in announcing its intentions with the radio-ready "We Are the Water", a pop-punk anthem owing as much to the Replacements as it does to Fucked Up, complete with gang-vocal refrain. The post-punk-tinged followup "Dark Light of Seduction" chases the immediacy with a slow burning churn, and a subdued layer of electronic noise that the band has folded into their mix over the last two albums. This muted sense of nuance is what gives Coliseum's music an amorphous tendency, and while that's sometimes worked against them in the past, here it allows them to shift weightlessly from near post-rock atmospherics on the outstanding "Dark Light of Seduction" to blistering anthems like "Drums & Amplifiers", all without losing a core sense of focus. Just shy of 40 minutes, Anxiety's Kiss packs in a surprising amount of singalong hooks, and you can sense their comfort with them. They've always had these proclivities lurking in the background, and this time around they embrace them as the next logical step. For longtime followers of the band, Anxiety's Kiss has the feel of a logical endpoint, the latest natural development in an impressive career of progressions."

Eyeless in Gaza

Summer Salt & Subway Sun

Electronic,Rock

Joe Tangari

England's Martyn Bates and Peter Becker have been recording under the name Eyeless in Gaza for nearly 30 years. The duo formed in 1980, taking their name from an Aldous Huxley novel, and have since put together a body of work as remarkable for its consistent quality as its near-total lack of mainstream recognition. They seem content to toil away in the shadows, though, working their unique post-punk niche in a way that sounds modern, yet somehow also very old. Their out-of-time-ness might account for some of their lack of recognition-- any time a trend comes along, there's a good chance they tired of it five years earlier. Case in point: On Summer Salt & Subway Sun they've nearly abandoned their occasional weird-folk leanings in an era when weird folk music is hot property. The most immediately striking feature of this album is the incredible lengths to which Beta-Lactam Ring has gone to package the thing. It's a 2xCD set housed in a hinged, hard-bound box with two slipcases inside, each solid enough to be their own packaging. There's also a lyric book, and the CDs have dust jackets to keep them from getting scratched. It's a display piece that seems ever the more lavish for appearing in the age of the mp3. The two discs, Summer Salt and Subway Sun, are stylistically similar-- simple sequencing seems to have been the sole determinant of what songs wound up where. Bates and Becker rarely employ anything approaching a full drum kit, and these pieces of music derive most of their rhythmic energy from guitars, electronics, and percussion programming. Bates' smooth and clear tenor leads us through the soundscapes with melodic authority, his vocal lines often turning in strange and unexpected ways as the arrangements shift below them. One of the most masterful compositions on either disc is "Where Vivid Bloomed", where the wash of synth that backs the initial verses surprisingly coalesces into a shimmering loop and modulates to a new key. It's a spine-tingling moment where the band manage to wrench a strong emotional effect from a bed of entirely artificial sound, while simultaneously turning a static piece of music into something alive and urgent. There are passages on the record that have the feel of intergalactic drift, as small, pinging sounds float through dark, icy spaces-- the coda of "All New" would probably sound just as good soundtracking a planetarium presentation. The duo's instrumentals range from quiet, ghostly, ambient explorations to workouts for drum machine and minimalist guitar. Though their music is too distinctive to peg to any particular peers, they bear a sort of spiritual similarity to Bark Psychosis, Disco Inferno, Talk Talk, and the Durutti Column-- artists who similarly filled the air between genres-- but these guys have done it longer than any of those colleagues. This album is accessible and ultimately enveloping, a worthwhile addition to an already expansive body of work from two musicians who have only ever been interested in doing their own thing.

Artist: Eyeless in Gaza, Album: Summer Salt & Subway Sun, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "England's Martyn Bates and Peter Becker have been recording under the name Eyeless in Gaza for nearly 30 years. The duo formed in 1980, taking their name from an Aldous Huxley novel, and have since put together a body of work as remarkable for its consistent quality as its near-total lack of mainstream recognition. They seem content to toil away in the shadows, though, working their unique post-punk niche in a way that sounds modern, yet somehow also very old. Their out-of-time-ness might account for some of their lack of recognition-- any time a trend comes along, there's a good chance they tired of it five years earlier. Case in point: On Summer Salt & Subway Sun they've nearly abandoned their occasional weird-folk leanings in an era when weird folk music is hot property. The most immediately striking feature of this album is the incredible lengths to which Beta-Lactam Ring has gone to package the thing. It's a 2xCD set housed in a hinged, hard-bound box with two slipcases inside, each solid enough to be their own packaging. There's also a lyric book, and the CDs have dust jackets to keep them from getting scratched. It's a display piece that seems ever the more lavish for appearing in the age of the mp3. The two discs, Summer Salt and Subway Sun, are stylistically similar-- simple sequencing seems to have been the sole determinant of what songs wound up where. Bates and Becker rarely employ anything approaching a full drum kit, and these pieces of music derive most of their rhythmic energy from guitars, electronics, and percussion programming. Bates' smooth and clear tenor leads us through the soundscapes with melodic authority, his vocal lines often turning in strange and unexpected ways as the arrangements shift below them. One of the most masterful compositions on either disc is "Where Vivid Bloomed", where the wash of synth that backs the initial verses surprisingly coalesces into a shimmering loop and modulates to a new key. It's a spine-tingling moment where the band manage to wrench a strong emotional effect from a bed of entirely artificial sound, while simultaneously turning a static piece of music into something alive and urgent. There are passages on the record that have the feel of intergalactic drift, as small, pinging sounds float through dark, icy spaces-- the coda of "All New" would probably sound just as good soundtracking a planetarium presentation. The duo's instrumentals range from quiet, ghostly, ambient explorations to workouts for drum machine and minimalist guitar. Though their music is too distinctive to peg to any particular peers, they bear a sort of spiritual similarity to Bark Psychosis, Disco Inferno, Talk Talk, and the Durutti Column-- artists who similarly filled the air between genres-- but these guys have done it longer than any of those colleagues. This album is accessible and ultimately enveloping, a worthwhile addition to an already expansive body of work from two musicians who have only ever been interested in doing their own thing."

David Bowie

"Heroes"

Rock

Ryan Dombal

[Ed. Note: In light of David Bowie's passing, Pitchfork commissioned reviews of several of his classic albums.] Even before David Bowie stepped foot in Berlin's grandiose Meistersaal concert hall, the room had soaked up its fair share of history. Since its opening in 1912, the wood-lined space had played host to chamber music recitals, Expressionist art galleries, and Nazi banquets, becoming a symbol of the German capital's artistic—and political—alliances across the 20th century. The hall's checkered past, as well as its wide-open acoustics, certainly offered a rich backdrop for the recording of "Heroes" in the summer of 1977. But by then, the Meistersaal was part of Hansa Studios, a facility that felt more like a relic than a destination. Thirty years after much of Berlin was bombed to rubble during World War II, the pillars that marked the studio's exterior were still ripped by bulletholes, its highest windows filled with bricks. Whereas it was once the epitome of the city's cultural vanguard, in '77, the locale was perhaps best known for its proximity to the Berlin Wall—the imposing, barbed-wire-laced structure that turned West Berlin into an island of capitalism amidst East Germany's communist regime during the Cold War. The Wall was erected to stop East Berliners from fleeing into the city's relatively prosperous other half and by the late '70s had been built up to include a no-man's land watched by armed guards in turrets who were ordered to shoot. This area was called the "death strip," for good reason—at least 100 would-be border crossers were killed during the Wall's stand, including an 18-year-old man who was shot dead amid a barrage of 91 bullets just months before Bowie began his work on "Heroes". All of which is to say: West Berlin was a dangerous and spooky place to make an album in 1977. And that's exactly what Bowie wanted. After falling into hedonistic rock'n'roll clichés in mid-'70s Los Angeles—a place he later called "the most vile piss-pot in the world"—he set his sights on Berlin as a spartan antidote. And though "Heroes" is the second part of his Berlin Trilogy, it's actually the only one of the three that he fully recorded in the city. "Every afternoon I'd sit down at that desk and see three Russian Red Guards looking at us with binoculars, with their Sten guns over their shoulders," the album's producer, Tony Visconti, once recalled. "Everything said we shouldn't be making a record here." All of the manic paranoia and jarring juxtapositions surrounding Hansa bled into the music, which often sounds as if Bowie is conducting chaos, smashing objects together to discover scarily beautiful new shapes. Those contrasts begin with the album's personnel. For "Heroes", the then-30-year-old enlisted many of the same players that showed up on its predecessor, Low, once again balancing out the effortless groove-based rock stylings of drummer Dennis Davis, bassist George Murray, and guitarist Carlos Alomar, with Bowie's own idiosyncratic work across various instruments along with the heady synth wizardry of Brian Eno, who took on an expanded role. Part Little Richard boogie, part krautrock shuffle, the unlikely stylistic combination hints at man's evolution with technology while throwing off sparks of sweat. Also like Low, the album is broken into two contrasting sides, with the vocal tracks on the front and the back made up of mostly moody instrumentals. But setting "Heroes" apart was the crucial addition of King Crimson guitar god Robert Fripp, who sprayed his signature metallic tone all over many of the album's most memorable moments. According to legend, Fripp recorded all of his parts in one six-hour burst of wiry bliss and feedback, often just soloing over tracks he was hearing for the first time. That spontaneity—most of the album's jam-based backing rhythm tracks were also recorded quickly, over just two days—is part of what makes "Heroes" live and breathe to this day. It's an album that is constantly morphing, never static. As Fripp's guitar is shooting electrical shocks, Bowie is bleating saxophone blasts, and Eno is summoning sonic storm clouds that pass as soon as they arrive. And then there are the vocals. "Heroes" contains some of Bowie's greatest vocal performances, fearless takes in which he pushes his voice to wrenching emotional states that often teeter on the edge of sanity. There's tension here, too, because while Bowie is clearly putting all of himself into the microphone like never before, he would often have no idea what he was actually going to sing until actually stepping up to record, a technique borrowed from his frequent collaborator at the time, Iggy Pop. What came out was a Burroughsian stream of consciousness that suggests elements of Bowie's personal travails—involving alcoholism, a crumbling marriage, and business woes—while also sounding abstract and shadowy. He deals with previous alter egos on "Beauty and the Beast," which could be read as a kind of apology for the ill-advised, coke-fueled fantasies of fascism he was peddling just a couple of years before. He muddles sleep and death, dreams and waking life. On the iconic title track, he undercuts the song's would-be heroism by placing its title in quotes; rather than bending over backwards to elevate his own myth, "Heroes" puts everyday courage on a pedestal. It's an immortal track all about fleeting wonders. The album's contradictory nature went beyond Berlin and its spitballing creation, too. "Heroes" was released on October 14, 1977, just two weeks before the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks and a few months after the Clash's self-titled debut LP. So as punk was whirling into a frenzy, Bowie's TV appearances around the time of "Heroes" doubled as acts of stoic defiance. On the Dutch program "TopPop," for example, he looked nonchalant in a smart blazer, button-up shirt, and leg warmers, effortlessly crooning the title track like Sinatra in his prime. During the song's swirling bridge, he steps away from the microphone, lights up a cigarette, and stares into the middle distance—the face of calm in an era of turmoil. He repeated this trick on Italian television, turning the doomsaying instrumental "Sense of Doubt" into an ominous art film in which he oversees a duel between a piano and a synthesizer. To this day, the video feels dangerous, unsettling. A marketing slogan for "Heroes" boasted, "There's Old Wave, there's New Wave and there's David Bowie," which still rings true, especially in light of such performances. With the kids coming up from behind, Bowie used his experience to c

Artist: David Bowie, Album: "Heroes", Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 10.0 Album review: "[Ed. Note: In light of David Bowie's passing, Pitchfork commissioned reviews of several of his classic albums.] Even before David Bowie stepped foot in Berlin's grandiose Meistersaal concert hall, the room had soaked up its fair share of history. Since its opening in 1912, the wood-lined space had played host to chamber music recitals, Expressionist art galleries, and Nazi banquets, becoming a symbol of the German capital's artistic—and political—alliances across the 20th century. The hall's checkered past, as well as its wide-open acoustics, certainly offered a rich backdrop for the recording of "Heroes" in the summer of 1977. But by then, the Meistersaal was part of Hansa Studios, a facility that felt more like a relic than a destination. Thirty years after much of Berlin was bombed to rubble during World War II, the pillars that marked the studio's exterior were still ripped by bulletholes, its highest windows filled with bricks. Whereas it was once the epitome of the city's cultural vanguard, in '77, the locale was perhaps best known for its proximity to the Berlin Wall—the imposing, barbed-wire-laced structure that turned West Berlin into an island of capitalism amidst East Germany's communist regime during the Cold War. The Wall was erected to stop East Berliners from fleeing into the city's relatively prosperous other half and by the late '70s had been built up to include a no-man's land watched by armed guards in turrets who were ordered to shoot. This area was called the "death strip," for good reason—at least 100 would-be border crossers were killed during the Wall's stand, including an 18-year-old man who was shot dead amid a barrage of 91 bullets just months before Bowie began his work on "Heroes". All of which is to say: West Berlin was a dangerous and spooky place to make an album in 1977. And that's exactly what Bowie wanted. After falling into hedonistic rock'n'roll clichés in mid-'70s Los Angeles—a place he later called "the most vile piss-pot in the world"—he set his sights on Berlin as a spartan antidote. And though "Heroes" is the second part of his Berlin Trilogy, it's actually the only one of the three that he fully recorded in the city. "Every afternoon I'd sit down at that desk and see three Russian Red Guards looking at us with binoculars, with their Sten guns over their shoulders," the album's producer, Tony Visconti, once recalled. "Everything said we shouldn't be making a record here." All of the manic paranoia and jarring juxtapositions surrounding Hansa bled into the music, which often sounds as if Bowie is conducting chaos, smashing objects together to discover scarily beautiful new shapes. Those contrasts begin with the album's personnel. For "Heroes", the then-30-year-old enlisted many of the same players that showed up on its predecessor, Low, once again balancing out the effortless groove-based rock stylings of drummer Dennis Davis, bassist George Murray, and guitarist Carlos Alomar, with Bowie's own idiosyncratic work across various instruments along with the heady synth wizardry of Brian Eno, who took on an expanded role. Part Little Richard boogie, part krautrock shuffle, the unlikely stylistic combination hints at man's evolution with technology while throwing off sparks of sweat. Also like Low, the album is broken into two contrasting sides, with the vocal tracks on the front and the back made up of mostly moody instrumentals. But setting "Heroes" apart was the crucial addition of King Crimson guitar god Robert Fripp, who sprayed his signature metallic tone all over many of the album's most memorable moments. According to legend, Fripp recorded all of his parts in one six-hour burst of wiry bliss and feedback, often just soloing over tracks he was hearing for the first time. That spontaneity—most of the album's jam-based backing rhythm tracks were also recorded quickly, over just two days—is part of what makes "Heroes" live and breathe to this day. It's an album that is constantly morphing, never static. As Fripp's guitar is shooting electrical shocks, Bowie is bleating saxophone blasts, and Eno is summoning sonic storm clouds that pass as soon as they arrive. And then there are the vocals. "Heroes" contains some of Bowie's greatest vocal performances, fearless takes in which he pushes his voice to wrenching emotional states that often teeter on the edge of sanity. There's tension here, too, because while Bowie is clearly putting all of himself into the microphone like never before, he would often have no idea what he was actually going to sing until actually stepping up to record, a technique borrowed from his frequent collaborator at the time, Iggy Pop. What came out was a Burroughsian stream of consciousness that suggests elements of Bowie's personal travails—involving alcoholism, a crumbling marriage, and business woes—while also sounding abstract and shadowy. He deals with previous alter egos on "Beauty and the Beast," which could be read as a kind of apology for the ill-advised, coke-fueled fantasies of fascism he was peddling just a couple of years before. He muddles sleep and death, dreams and waking life. On the iconic title track, he undercuts the song's would-be heroism by placing its title in quotes; rather than bending over backwards to elevate his own myth, "Heroes" puts everyday courage on a pedestal. It's an immortal track all about fleeting wonders. The album's contradictory nature went beyond Berlin and its spitballing creation, too. "Heroes" was released on October 14, 1977, just two weeks before the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks and a few months after the Clash's self-titled debut LP. So as punk was whirling into a frenzy, Bowie's TV appearances around the time of "Heroes" doubled as acts of stoic defiance. On the Dutch program "TopPop," for example, he looked nonchalant in a smart blazer, button-up shirt, and leg warmers, effortlessly crooning the title track like Sinatra in his prime. During the song's swirling bridge, he steps away from the microphone, lights up a cigarette, and stares into the middle distance—the face of calm in an era of turmoil. He repeated this trick on Italian television, turning the doomsaying instrumental "Sense of Doubt" into an ominous art film in which he oversees a duel between a piano and a synthesizer. To this day, the video feels dangerous, unsettling. A marketing slogan for "Heroes" boasted, "There's Old Wave, there's New Wave and there's David Bowie," which still rings true, especially in light of such performances. With the kids coming up from behind, Bowie used his experience to c"

World’s Fair

New Lows

Rap

Evan Rytlewski

The Queens rap crew World’s Fair pride themselves on showcasing cultural diversity. The group’s members claim Puerto Rican, Dominican, Filipino, Jamaican, Jewish and Haitian heritages, a makeup that, along with the crew’s name, implicitly promises a global array of voices and perspectives. But while on paper World’s Fair have all the makings of a vibrant melting pot, in execution it’s more like a fondue, a homogenous porridge where the most interesting ingredients get buried and the dominant flavor note is always “New York.” The crew’s regional roots aren’t the selling point they were five years ago, when they released their debut mixtape Bastards of the Party against the backdrop of a “New New York” hip-hop renaissance that’s since fizzled out. World’s Fair weren’t as overtly traditionalist as some of the more prominent acts from that movement (Joey Badass), nor were they as mold-shattering as the more exciting ones (Action Bronson, Flatbush Zombies, or A$AP Mob, to the extent they were ever really part of that scene). Their belated full-length debut New Lows finds them in the same stasis many of New York hip-hop’s true believers have been locked in for most of the new millennium: trying to grow something new from the seeds of some of the genre’s greatest music ever, with little to show for it. Sometimes they get by on sheer perspiration. New Lows plays out as a kinetic tour of the city’s bodegas, subway stops, and underground dice games, with adrenalized production designed to keep the crew firing fast. “Elvis’ Flowers (On My Grave)” spikes its breakbeats with jungle BPMs, while the booming drums of “Win4” bring to life the song’s accounts of how shit can hit the fan even on a routine trip to the corner store. The wilder the production, the more lasting the high: The tweaked-out synths of “Dundas Street West” bring out the most hyped-up performances from the group (as well as guest Freaky Franz, the rap alias of Turnstile bassist Franz Lyons). “Birdman,” meanwhile, charts the inhospitable middle ground between gnarly UK grime and the scorched-earth noise of vintage Def Jux. So, at its best, New Lows re-energizes some familiar sounds. But the crew’s producers can only carry so much weight, and they can’t disguise how little World’s Fairs rappers bring to the table. It’s a trap too many New York traditionalists fall into: They rap forcefully but with little nuance or personality. While rappers around the rest of the country swing for the fences with daring deliveries—not just rhyming but belting, serenading, and exploring—most of World’s Fair’s primary lyricists default to the city’s usual hard-spitting preset, rapping as if smacking a camera lens in an imagined music video. It’s a rigid, outdated notion of hard, and with each verse they run it a little further in the ground. With such a full bench, you’d expect that at least one of the rappers in World’s Fair would rise to the challenge to standout. The big selling point of a rap crew is more bang for your buck: You get to hear a multitude of ideas and personas. But compared to a collective like Brockhampton, where each member brings his own set of convictions, anxieties, and passions, World’s Fair’s rappers are largely interchangeable, distinguishable mostly by the pitch of their voice. In a sense, they’ve been failed by their shared muse: They spend so much of New Lows riding for their city, its heritage, and its way of life that they forget to say all that much about themselves.

Artist: World’s Fair, Album: New Lows, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "The Queens rap crew World’s Fair pride themselves on showcasing cultural diversity. The group’s members claim Puerto Rican, Dominican, Filipino, Jamaican, Jewish and Haitian heritages, a makeup that, along with the crew’s name, implicitly promises a global array of voices and perspectives. But while on paper World’s Fair have all the makings of a vibrant melting pot, in execution it’s more like a fondue, a homogenous porridge where the most interesting ingredients get buried and the dominant flavor note is always “New York.” The crew’s regional roots aren’t the selling point they were five years ago, when they released their debut mixtape Bastards of the Party against the backdrop of a “New New York” hip-hop renaissance that’s since fizzled out. World’s Fair weren’t as overtly traditionalist as some of the more prominent acts from that movement (Joey Badass), nor were they as mold-shattering as the more exciting ones (Action Bronson, Flatbush Zombies, or A$AP Mob, to the extent they were ever really part of that scene). Their belated full-length debut New Lows finds them in the same stasis many of New York hip-hop’s true believers have been locked in for most of the new millennium: trying to grow something new from the seeds of some of the genre’s greatest music ever, with little to show for it. Sometimes they get by on sheer perspiration. New Lows plays out as a kinetic tour of the city’s bodegas, subway stops, and underground dice games, with adrenalized production designed to keep the crew firing fast. “Elvis’ Flowers (On My Grave)” spikes its breakbeats with jungle BPMs, while the booming drums of “Win4” bring to life the song’s accounts of how shit can hit the fan even on a routine trip to the corner store. The wilder the production, the more lasting the high: The tweaked-out synths of “Dundas Street West” bring out the most hyped-up performances from the group (as well as guest Freaky Franz, the rap alias of Turnstile bassist Franz Lyons). “Birdman,” meanwhile, charts the inhospitable middle ground between gnarly UK grime and the scorched-earth noise of vintage Def Jux. So, at its best, New Lows re-energizes some familiar sounds. But the crew’s producers can only carry so much weight, and they can’t disguise how little World’s Fairs rappers bring to the table. It’s a trap too many New York traditionalists fall into: They rap forcefully but with little nuance or personality. While rappers around the rest of the country swing for the fences with daring deliveries—not just rhyming but belting, serenading, and exploring—most of World’s Fair’s primary lyricists default to the city’s usual hard-spitting preset, rapping as if smacking a camera lens in an imagined music video. It’s a rigid, outdated notion of hard, and with each verse they run it a little further in the ground. With such a full bench, you’d expect that at least one of the rappers in World’s Fair would rise to the challenge to standout. The big selling point of a rap crew is more bang for your buck: You get to hear a multitude of ideas and personas. But compared to a collective like Brockhampton, where each member brings his own set of convictions, anxieties, and passions, World’s Fair’s rappers are largely interchangeable, distinguishable mostly by the pitch of their voice. In a sense, they’ve been failed by their shared muse: They spend so much of New Lows riding for their city, its heritage, and its way of life that they forget to say all that much about themselves."

Kool Keith

Feature Magnetic

Rap

Paul A. Thompson

Kool Keith is the kind of rapper who, instead of telling you he’s a Mets fan, says, “The Yankees lost but the blue-and-orange team amuse us.” He doesn’t meet new love interests, he has flight attendants cooking salmon cakes in high-heeled shoes; wack MCs don’t get booed off stage, they get shipped to deli meat plants in Quebec. In October, Kool Keith will turn 53. He’s been a legacy act for three different generations of rap fans, written off and resurrected innumerable times. He’s been deemed a goofy eccentric by those who won’t tease out the grim humanity in his writing, he’s been hermetically sealed in the space stations of his most devoted fans’ imaginations. But on his newest album, Feature Magnetic, he shirks off all those constraints to, simply and inimitably, just rap. The premise is clear: Kool Keith trades verses with an array of guest stars, packaged with bare hooks and brisk running times. In most cases, he pulls his collaborators into his own orbit. Necro spits, “You’re emo and you bump Brian Eno.” Slug sounds like he woke up in the early George W. Bush years, laughing about your insecurities over drinks with your therapist. Even the twice-a-decade DOOM appearance feels like it’s supposed to exist in this universe. Though his voice is at a slightly lower register and his delivery rough around the edges, it’s always a minor thrill to hear the villain fly in from Tulsa and drag a mark to the ATM. That said, Feature Magnetic’s standout track is the one that pulls Keith furthest from his home planet—specifically, to Vallejo, California with Mac Mall on “Bonneville.” The two split the difference between hyphy revivalism and existential dread, with Mac turning in a supremely tongue-twisting verse. Keith slips back and forth from a copper Continental to his private planes, cufflinks always matching the wheel (or yoke). In fact, the Bronx-bred legend is so agile on the album that when the bounce of “Bonneville” gives way to the stone-faced “Tired,” he’s able to stitch together the fantasy and the fatigue in a way that strengthens both. “Tired” is an elegy of sorts for his contemporaries who haven’t stepped in a booth in years, who “get surprised when I come up and shine like the sun.” And it’s more than that—it’s couched in the fear that Keith will become them, that he’ll sink into a La-Z-Boy and start firing off bitter tweets. Not that he’s showing signs of slowing down; *Feature Magnetic *catches him at his most vivid, steering Lady Gaga through the corporate labyrinth and ransacking the Burlington Coat Factory with his alter-ego. But for all the ways Keith can warp reality and carve out alternate timelines, there's the lingering sense that death is coming for us all. That point is driven home by Sadat X in the album’s strongest guest verse. After a clip of Malcolm X talking about JFK’s assassination, Sadat renders pools of blood and swarming ambulances, empty wakes and crowded unemployment offices. It’s unnerving to hear a member of Brand Nubian say he should have gone to dentistry school “and took the steady check.” Yet just when you think the album’s come to a head, when Keith is going to fully pull back the curtain and peer through the fourth wall, he follows Sadat’s verse with a wink. “Sounds like it’s a hard time,” he laughs. “I guess I gotta step out the Phantom.” You can’t pin him down. All the years with Ultramagnetic MCs, all the one-off concept albums and blood feuds with the record industry have left Keith with wisdom that he dispenses through off-kilter parables: “If you see a junkie kneeling, give him cold water and tell him, ‘Little kids is looking, get up’/I’ma sweat and do a lot of sit-ups.” Though he is, at his heart, that craftsman, stacking high his tower of jump-off-the-screen set pieces, there's something darker that lurks underneath. Lest “people get cozy and sit inside the paragraph,” as he sneers on “MC Voltron,” he litters the album with details from Koch-era New York, revealed in the manner of sci-fi world building. Maybe it’s a stylistic choice. Or maybe it's because Keith is from somewhere else entirely.

Artist: Kool Keith, Album: Feature Magnetic, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Kool Keith is the kind of rapper who, instead of telling you he’s a Mets fan, says, “The Yankees lost but the blue-and-orange team amuse us.” He doesn’t meet new love interests, he has flight attendants cooking salmon cakes in high-heeled shoes; wack MCs don’t get booed off stage, they get shipped to deli meat plants in Quebec. In October, Kool Keith will turn 53. He’s been a legacy act for three different generations of rap fans, written off and resurrected innumerable times. He’s been deemed a goofy eccentric by those who won’t tease out the grim humanity in his writing, he’s been hermetically sealed in the space stations of his most devoted fans’ imaginations. But on his newest album, Feature Magnetic, he shirks off all those constraints to, simply and inimitably, just rap. The premise is clear: Kool Keith trades verses with an array of guest stars, packaged with bare hooks and brisk running times. In most cases, he pulls his collaborators into his own orbit. Necro spits, “You’re emo and you bump Brian Eno.” Slug sounds like he woke up in the early George W. Bush years, laughing about your insecurities over drinks with your therapist. Even the twice-a-decade DOOM appearance feels like it’s supposed to exist in this universe. Though his voice is at a slightly lower register and his delivery rough around the edges, it’s always a minor thrill to hear the villain fly in from Tulsa and drag a mark to the ATM. That said, Feature Magnetic’s standout track is the one that pulls Keith furthest from his home planet—specifically, to Vallejo, California with Mac Mall on “Bonneville.” The two split the difference between hyphy revivalism and existential dread, with Mac turning in a supremely tongue-twisting verse. Keith slips back and forth from a copper Continental to his private planes, cufflinks always matching the wheel (or yoke). In fact, the Bronx-bred legend is so agile on the album that when the bounce of “Bonneville” gives way to the stone-faced “Tired,” he’s able to stitch together the fantasy and the fatigue in a way that strengthens both. “Tired” is an elegy of sorts for his contemporaries who haven’t stepped in a booth in years, who “get surprised when I come up and shine like the sun.” And it’s more than that—it’s couched in the fear that Keith will become them, that he’ll sink into a La-Z-Boy and start firing off bitter tweets. Not that he’s showing signs of slowing down; *Feature Magnetic *catches him at his most vivid, steering Lady Gaga through the corporate labyrinth and ransacking the Burlington Coat Factory with his alter-ego. But for all the ways Keith can warp reality and carve out alternate timelines, there's the lingering sense that death is coming for us all. That point is driven home by Sadat X in the album’s strongest guest verse. After a clip of Malcolm X talking about JFK’s assassination, Sadat renders pools of blood and swarming ambulances, empty wakes and crowded unemployment offices. It’s unnerving to hear a member of Brand Nubian say he should have gone to dentistry school “and took the steady check.” Yet just when you think the album’s come to a head, when Keith is going to fully pull back the curtain and peer through the fourth wall, he follows Sadat’s verse with a wink. “Sounds like it’s a hard time,” he laughs. “I guess I gotta step out the Phantom.” You can’t pin him down. All the years with Ultramagnetic MCs, all the one-off concept albums and blood feuds with the record industry have left Keith with wisdom that he dispenses through off-kilter parables: “If you see a junkie kneeling, give him cold water and tell him, ‘Little kids is looking, get up’/I’ma sweat and do a lot of sit-ups.” Though he is, at his heart, that craftsman, stacking high his tower of jump-off-the-screen set pieces, there's something darker that lurks underneath. Lest “people get cozy and sit inside the paragraph,” as he sneers on “MC Voltron,” he litters the album with details from Koch-era New York, revealed in the manner of sci-fi world building. Maybe it’s a stylistic choice. Or maybe it's because Keith is from somewhere else entirely."

Slum Village

Evolution

Rap

Mike Madden

Though Detroit's Slum Village has suffered many hardships, their music, for the most part, has been consistent: 2002’s Trinity: Past, Present and Future had a few positively soupy J Dilla productions as strong as anything he did for the previous material, while 2004’s Detroit Deli had star power, including a contribution from Kanye West. But fast-forward to 2013 and things look almost entirely different: Baatin and Dilla having passed on in the past half-decade, the core unit carrying on the legacy is T3 (the only founding member remaining), Illa J, and Young RJ. With just a single original member, it seems wrong call this project Slum Village. Young RJ handled all the production here but none of his beats bring to mind this outfit’s classic material, though a few channel imitation-worthy rap songs from years past: “Scared Money” is heavily percussive like Clipse’s “Grindin’”, “Summer Breeze” is like a modest take on Nas’ “Summer on Smash”, and “The Line” channels Big Boi’s booming bro-down “Follow Us”. But when RJ tries to do something new and inventive behind the boards, he doesn't follow through and winds up with something like the minute-long scratch solo that closes “Rock Rock”. Still, RJ produced most of Villa Manifesto, a solid outing for Slum Village in every respect, so it’s unclear why these beats fall so flat compared to the ones he was making just a few years ago. The current Slum Village lineup has a lot of Black Star in it. That’s not to say SV are trying to define the underground-rap of today like Mos Def and Talib Kweli did 15 years ago, but the lineage can be heard in these MCs’ interplay, which is one of the few things that they do well together. Unfortunately, with the absence of former Villager Elzhi, who with his 2011 Illmatic tribute proved himself to be the most talented writer ever to hold a full-time position in this group, Slum Village has little to say lyrically. They most often rap about rapping, but when they switch things up, as on the testosterone-infused “Summer Breeze”, the results can be disastrous: “Chest 36C, hips 42/ Can’t blame me for the freaky things I’ll do to you/ Your body’s my Viagara.” At least that line is delivered with some excitement. Too much else feels like coasting. There’s an unfortunately telling declaration on track eight, “Hustle”: “We don’t talk much, we let our history define us.” Such a policy of terseness was the basis of at least one hit rap song in 2012; here, it’s ironic given that these three, as a unit, still have plenty to prove.

Artist: Slum Village, Album: Evolution, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 5.5 Album review: "Though Detroit's Slum Village has suffered many hardships, their music, for the most part, has been consistent: 2002’s Trinity: Past, Present and Future had a few positively soupy J Dilla productions as strong as anything he did for the previous material, while 2004’s Detroit Deli had star power, including a contribution from Kanye West. But fast-forward to 2013 and things look almost entirely different: Baatin and Dilla having passed on in the past half-decade, the core unit carrying on the legacy is T3 (the only founding member remaining), Illa J, and Young RJ. With just a single original member, it seems wrong call this project Slum Village. Young RJ handled all the production here but none of his beats bring to mind this outfit’s classic material, though a few channel imitation-worthy rap songs from years past: “Scared Money” is heavily percussive like Clipse’s “Grindin’”, “Summer Breeze” is like a modest take on Nas’ “Summer on Smash”, and “The Line” channels Big Boi’s booming bro-down “Follow Us”. But when RJ tries to do something new and inventive behind the boards, he doesn't follow through and winds up with something like the minute-long scratch solo that closes “Rock Rock”. Still, RJ produced most of Villa Manifesto, a solid outing for Slum Village in every respect, so it’s unclear why these beats fall so flat compared to the ones he was making just a few years ago. The current Slum Village lineup has a lot of Black Star in it. That’s not to say SV are trying to define the underground-rap of today like Mos Def and Talib Kweli did 15 years ago, but the lineage can be heard in these MCs’ interplay, which is one of the few things that they do well together. Unfortunately, with the absence of former Villager Elzhi, who with his 2011 Illmatic tribute proved himself to be the most talented writer ever to hold a full-time position in this group, Slum Village has little to say lyrically. They most often rap about rapping, but when they switch things up, as on the testosterone-infused “Summer Breeze”, the results can be disastrous: “Chest 36C, hips 42/ Can’t blame me for the freaky things I’ll do to you/ Your body’s my Viagara.” At least that line is delivered with some excitement. Too much else feels like coasting. There’s an unfortunately telling declaration on track eight, “Hustle”: “We don’t talk much, we let our history define us.” Such a policy of terseness was the basis of at least one hit rap song in 2012; here, it’s ironic given that these three, as a unit, still have plenty to prove."

Smokey

How Far Will You Go?: The S&M Recordings, 1973-81

Rock

Eric Torres

John "Smokey" Condon's biography has all the makings of a gay rock legend. He grew up in a Baltimore enmeshed in the counterculture of the 1960s, living above a nightclub as a teen and partying in John Waters’ eclectic circle. He sang in local groups and became involved in activism, protesting the Vietnam War, marching with United Farm Workers civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, and fighting for gay rights at the Stonewall riots in New York City. Crucially, he connected with the Doors’ road manager, Vince Treanor, and accompanied that group to the Isle of Wight festival, where he was exposed to the Who, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and other bands that molded Smokey into the music-obsessive social butterfly he would become when he moved into Treanor's house in the Hollywood Hills shortly thereafter. It was there that Smokey was introduced to EJ Emmons, a little-known record producer whose biggest credit was co-producing with sunshine pop mastermind Curt Boettcher (Beach Boys, the Association). Smokey and Emmons, who quickly became a couple, decided to start recording together based on an easy rationale that would define much of their collaborative decisions in the decade to come: "Well why not?" Their first single, and the opening track on How Far Will You Go? The S&M Recordings, 1973-81, the first-ever collection of Smokey's music released via Melbourne-based Chapter Music, was 1974’s "Leather". A punchy BDSM anthem inspired by Smokey’s first encounter with the newly liberated sex scenes thriving in places like New York’s premier leather bar The Eagle, the song found the duo firing on all cylinders: Smokey’s vampy vocals about being tied up come together with Emmons’ jaunty pianos and drums, making for an inimitable introduction that eventually became their best-selling single, most notably joining the rotation at integral glam rock nightclub Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco. The B-side, "Miss Ray", also included on How Far Will You Go?, further pushed their representation of gay culture to the fore in the shape of a strutting ode to a drag queen Smokey lived with in Baltimore. But despite the catchiness of those first singles, Smokey’s brazenly gay lyrics were a hard sell to the record labels that could have ushered the group into the mainstream. He and Emmons, who at the time had industry connections to boot, were laughed out of meetings with heavyweights MGM and Mercury. It became clear that despite the gay rights movement now at work across the nation, there was no room for queer artists to be themselves and become nationwide music sensations, a fact that the openly gay, similarly forward-thinking Elektra signee Jobriath would later disappointingly prove. But there was a silver lining for Smokey: It was from these consecutive rejections that S&M Recordings was born, essentially serving as a hearty fuck you to the music industry that didn’t want to provide a platform for them, right down to the label’s shamelessly homo emblem: a burly, muscled arm with leather cuffs, S and M tattooed on the bicep. Transferred and restored from S&M Recordings’ original LPs and tapes by Emmons himself, How Far Will You Go*?*'s 16 tracks are threaded together by deft production details and a forthright sense of humor that posits the duo as unsung heroes of those glam, pre-punk years, which, in essence, they were. There's Emmons' chugging disco production spliced with funny bits of spoken-word on "DTNA", which flows easily into the sultry cascade of multi-tracked vocals that intone behind Smokey's sighing performance on "Topaz". You can hear expertly executed elements from various '70s-era music scenes, whether in the Bowie-inflected synth work of "I’ll Always Love You", the pianos on "Topanga" that evoke Elton John (who was rumored to have Smokey 7’’s in his personal jukebox), or the whistling rocket noises and whirring synth lines of nine-minute disco standout "Piss Slave". And, like Jobriath, Smokey always reveled in pushing the envelope, whether that meant inserting "Piss Slave"’s confrontational mid-chorus onto dancefloors ("I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be your toilet!") or casting truck stop tricks in a humanizing and compassionate light on the funk-indebted "Million Dollar Babies". They were fearless in a time when doing so had a high, sometimes fatal price, and by 1980, Smokey had put out their final single on S&M, "Fire", with previously-released B-side "Strong Love". The latter served as the title track to Chapter's excellent 2012 compilation Strong Love - Songs of Gay Liberation 1972-81, and reappears here as well. Though nowhere near as overt as something like "Piss Slave", "Strong Love" is just as nervy and compelling, an anthem for gay love carried by Smokey's sneering, louche vocals. It's a song that serves as the quintessence of Smokey's appeal and ability, one you could see being released today and still shifting the paradigm, at least a little bit. Luckily for us, the duo agreed in a recent interview that there was a possibility for new music from Smokey in the future, now that How Far Will You Go? is out; let's just hope it doesn't take another 35 years before that's unearthed, too.

Artist: Smokey, Album: How Far Will You Go?: The S&M Recordings, 1973-81, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "John "Smokey" Condon's biography has all the makings of a gay rock legend. He grew up in a Baltimore enmeshed in the counterculture of the 1960s, living above a nightclub as a teen and partying in John Waters’ eclectic circle. He sang in local groups and became involved in activism, protesting the Vietnam War, marching with United Farm Workers civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, and fighting for gay rights at the Stonewall riots in New York City. Crucially, he connected with the Doors’ road manager, Vince Treanor, and accompanied that group to the Isle of Wight festival, where he was exposed to the Who, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and other bands that molded Smokey into the music-obsessive social butterfly he would become when he moved into Treanor's house in the Hollywood Hills shortly thereafter. It was there that Smokey was introduced to EJ Emmons, a little-known record producer whose biggest credit was co-producing with sunshine pop mastermind Curt Boettcher (Beach Boys, the Association). Smokey and Emmons, who quickly became a couple, decided to start recording together based on an easy rationale that would define much of their collaborative decisions in the decade to come: "Well why not?" Their first single, and the opening track on How Far Will You Go? The S&M Recordings, 1973-81, the first-ever collection of Smokey's music released via Melbourne-based Chapter Music, was 1974’s "Leather". A punchy BDSM anthem inspired by Smokey’s first encounter with the newly liberated sex scenes thriving in places like New York’s premier leather bar The Eagle, the song found the duo firing on all cylinders: Smokey’s vampy vocals about being tied up come together with Emmons’ jaunty pianos and drums, making for an inimitable introduction that eventually became their best-selling single, most notably joining the rotation at integral glam rock nightclub Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco. The B-side, "Miss Ray", also included on How Far Will You Go?, further pushed their representation of gay culture to the fore in the shape of a strutting ode to a drag queen Smokey lived with in Baltimore. But despite the catchiness of those first singles, Smokey’s brazenly gay lyrics were a hard sell to the record labels that could have ushered the group into the mainstream. He and Emmons, who at the time had industry connections to boot, were laughed out of meetings with heavyweights MGM and Mercury. It became clear that despite the gay rights movement now at work across the nation, there was no room for queer artists to be themselves and become nationwide music sensations, a fact that the openly gay, similarly forward-thinking Elektra signee Jobriath would later disappointingly prove. But there was a silver lining for Smokey: It was from these consecutive rejections that S&M Recordings was born, essentially serving as a hearty fuck you to the music industry that didn’t want to provide a platform for them, right down to the label’s shamelessly homo emblem: a burly, muscled arm with leather cuffs, S and M tattooed on the bicep. Transferred and restored from S&M Recordings’ original LPs and tapes by Emmons himself, How Far Will You Go*?*'s 16 tracks are threaded together by deft production details and a forthright sense of humor that posits the duo as unsung heroes of those glam, pre-punk years, which, in essence, they were. There's Emmons' chugging disco production spliced with funny bits of spoken-word on "DTNA", which flows easily into the sultry cascade of multi-tracked vocals that intone behind Smokey's sighing performance on "Topaz". You can hear expertly executed elements from various '70s-era music scenes, whether in the Bowie-inflected synth work of "I’ll Always Love You", the pianos on "Topanga" that evoke Elton John (who was rumored to have Smokey 7’’s in his personal jukebox), or the whistling rocket noises and whirring synth lines of nine-minute disco standout "Piss Slave". And, like Jobriath, Smokey always reveled in pushing the envelope, whether that meant inserting "Piss Slave"’s confrontational mid-chorus onto dancefloors ("I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be your toilet!") or casting truck stop tricks in a humanizing and compassionate light on the funk-indebted "Million Dollar Babies". They were fearless in a time when doing so had a high, sometimes fatal price, and by 1980, Smokey had put out their final single on S&M, "Fire", with previously-released B-side "Strong Love". The latter served as the title track to Chapter's excellent 2012 compilation Strong Love - Songs of Gay Liberation 1972-81, and reappears here as well. Though nowhere near as overt as something like "Piss Slave", "Strong Love" is just as nervy and compelling, an anthem for gay love carried by Smokey's sneering, louche vocals. It's a song that serves as the quintessence of Smokey's appeal and ability, one you could see being released today and still shifting the paradigm, at least a little bit. Luckily for us, the duo agreed in a recent interview that there was a possibility for new music from Smokey in the future, now that How Far Will You Go? is out; let's just hope it doesn't take another 35 years before that's unearthed, too."

Nikki Sudden

The Truth Doesn't Matter

Rock

Stuart Berman

Sadly, the truth does matter very much in this case, because the truth is that Nikki died suddenly after completing this album last March, turning the mere act of listening to The Truth Doesn't Matter into an autopsy, a chance to pick its lines apart for hints and grave prophecies of what was to come. That the actual cause of death remains a mystery only encourages this speculative impulse; when Sudden sings "Oh, black tar/ Burns all my money away/ It's not worth the stain on my name to relieve the pain," chances are he's not taking about road construction. But while The Truth Doesn't Matter features some of the most confessional and openly sentimental songwriting of the former Swell Maps frontman's long, labyrinthine solo career-- making it a natural companion piece to the autobiography he was writing concurrently-- the robust performances and elaborate arrangements here do not sound like the work of someone who was ready to check out. The stark album packaging emphasizes this point. It has no reference to Sudden's passing, no teary-eyed liner-note remembrances-- just a series of grainy, black-and-white photos of Sudden in his elder bohemian-statesman element (Marc Bolan top hat and all) playing with the boys in the band. But if these images reinforce Sudden's lifelong allegiance to a shabby-chic form of rock and roll that fell out of public favor sometime after 1977, The Truth Doesn't Matter's magnificent opening track, "Seven Miles High", is surprisingly less CBGB than Studio 54. A winsome tale of love-at-first-sight on "the discotheque floor," embellished by a pulsing hi-hat groove, a bittersweet synth symphony, and a backing chorus of female vocals, it's a consummate portrait of a restless artist who, even in his fourth decade of recording, was still looking for new ways to build his proverbial car. If no other song on The Truth Doesn't Matter braves as radical a departure-- most of the material here is typically beholden to Sudden's holy trinity of Dylan, the Stones and the Dolls-- the Spectorized swoon of "The Ballad of Johnny and Marianne" and somber, harmonica-hued piano instrumental "All This Buttoning and Unbuttoning" achieve the same majestic melancholy. But even if it comes just five tracks in on a somewhat overlong 15-song album, the six-minute "Green Shield Stamps" is The Truth's undeniable centerpiece, an autobiographical paean in the vein of Neil Young's "Helpless" and Van Morrison's "Cypress Avenue" that would surely become Sudden's signature song where he still alive to sing it. Over an elegiac, Hammond-soul stroll, Sudden summons a roll call of friends, family, and inspirations-- his mom, his deceased brother Epic Soundtracks, long-time Jacobites collaborator Dave Kusworth and T. Rex's "Jeepster", among them-- to "Raise a glass ... for those teenage years you can never get back." It's a song seemingly designed to invite posthumous interpretation, but Sudden doesn't sing it like he's saying goodbye, but rather taking stock of his life lessons as a means of carrying on. However, if we are to cull an epitaph from this album, let it be the song's final lines: "Dave, Epic and I got together a band or two/ Recorded in our bedroom/ What else were we gonna do?" A most fitting testament to the collision of boredom and bedlam that initially ignited Sudden's 30-year run, and that will continue to inspire future rock and roll renegades long after he's gone.

Artist: Nikki Sudden, Album: The Truth Doesn't Matter, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "Sadly, the truth does matter very much in this case, because the truth is that Nikki died suddenly after completing this album last March, turning the mere act of listening to The Truth Doesn't Matter into an autopsy, a chance to pick its lines apart for hints and grave prophecies of what was to come. That the actual cause of death remains a mystery only encourages this speculative impulse; when Sudden sings "Oh, black tar/ Burns all my money away/ It's not worth the stain on my name to relieve the pain," chances are he's not taking about road construction. But while The Truth Doesn't Matter features some of the most confessional and openly sentimental songwriting of the former Swell Maps frontman's long, labyrinthine solo career-- making it a natural companion piece to the autobiography he was writing concurrently-- the robust performances and elaborate arrangements here do not sound like the work of someone who was ready to check out. The stark album packaging emphasizes this point. It has no reference to Sudden's passing, no teary-eyed liner-note remembrances-- just a series of grainy, black-and-white photos of Sudden in his elder bohemian-statesman element (Marc Bolan top hat and all) playing with the boys in the band. But if these images reinforce Sudden's lifelong allegiance to a shabby-chic form of rock and roll that fell out of public favor sometime after 1977, The Truth Doesn't Matter's magnificent opening track, "Seven Miles High", is surprisingly less CBGB than Studio 54. A winsome tale of love-at-first-sight on "the discotheque floor," embellished by a pulsing hi-hat groove, a bittersweet synth symphony, and a backing chorus of female vocals, it's a consummate portrait of a restless artist who, even in his fourth decade of recording, was still looking for new ways to build his proverbial car. If no other song on The Truth Doesn't Matter braves as radical a departure-- most of the material here is typically beholden to Sudden's holy trinity of Dylan, the Stones and the Dolls-- the Spectorized swoon of "The Ballad of Johnny and Marianne" and somber, harmonica-hued piano instrumental "All This Buttoning and Unbuttoning" achieve the same majestic melancholy. But even if it comes just five tracks in on a somewhat overlong 15-song album, the six-minute "Green Shield Stamps" is The Truth's undeniable centerpiece, an autobiographical paean in the vein of Neil Young's "Helpless" and Van Morrison's "Cypress Avenue" that would surely become Sudden's signature song where he still alive to sing it. Over an elegiac, Hammond-soul stroll, Sudden summons a roll call of friends, family, and inspirations-- his mom, his deceased brother Epic Soundtracks, long-time Jacobites collaborator Dave Kusworth and T. Rex's "Jeepster", among them-- to "Raise a glass ... for those teenage years you can never get back." It's a song seemingly designed to invite posthumous interpretation, but Sudden doesn't sing it like he's saying goodbye, but rather taking stock of his life lessons as a means of carrying on. However, if we are to cull an epitaph from this album, let it be the song's final lines: "Dave, Epic and I got together a band or two/ Recorded in our bedroom/ What else were we gonna do?" A most fitting testament to the collision of boredom and bedlam that initially ignited Sudden's 30-year run, and that will continue to inspire future rock and roll renegades long after he's gone."

Angry Angles

Angry Angles

Rock

Jason Heller

Angry Angles captured Jay Reatard at a pivotal point in his career—which, up to that point, hadn’t resembled a career at all. On paper, the short-lived band was just the latest in an erratic string of projects that the Memphis-based garage-punk wild man had been tearing through since the late ’90s, chief among them the Reatards and the Lost Sounds. During that time, he always kept a handful of side projects on the back burner, but Angry Angles seemed different. When formed in 2005, immediately after the breakup of the Lost Sounds, Angry Angles seemed poised to become Reatard’s new big thing, the group that might propel him to the next level of cult infamy. Instead, the band imploded in 2006, leaving a trail of singles in its wake. *Angry Angles *collects those singles, along with previously unreleased bonus material, and as such it comprises the entire studio output of Angry Angles. Seventeen songs nailed to the wall in a little over a year is nothing to sneeze at—and neither are the songs themselves, despite spackling the slim gap between the Lost Sounds and Reatard’s storied solo career, launched in ’06 and cut short by his death in 2010. With bassist/singer Alix Brown (cofounder with Reatard of the indie label Shattered Records) and alternating drummers Paul Artigues and Ryan Rousseau (the latter a Reatards alum) in tow, Reatard synthesized everything he’d done up to that point. Borrowing some of the Lost Sounds’ retro-new-wave roboticism, but rendered in a more vivid, visceral Reatards-esque spew, Angry Angles tracks like “Crowds” and “Apparent-Transparent” are lobotomized post-punk, whiplash anthems for 21st-century dehumanization. “Apparent-Transparent” also features one of Brown’s most striking vocal performances, a voice-processed call-and-response with Reatard that pays unabashed homage to Devo. There’s an actual Devo cover on Angry Angles as well, a beautifully bruised rendition by Brown of “Blockhead,” along with reverential versions of classics by Wire (“The 15th”), the Urinals (“Black Hole”), and Reatard’s mentor Greg Oblivian (“Memphis Creep” by the Oblivians). Churned together, these four bands pretty much comprise Reatard’s chemical makeup—not that he was ever shy about his influences, or his hooks. There are some great ones on these songs: the scabbed pop-punk of “Stab You Dead” for one, or “Can’t Do It Anymore,” which mixes feral riffage with a singsong chorus designed to stick in the head like a pickaxe. Two versions of “Things Are Moving” are included here, but they’re anything but redundant. On the original single version, distortion is smeared across Reatard’s manic chants and punch-drunk guitar; on the abridged alternate version, that noise is whittled to a finer point. “Things are moving around me all the time,” Reatard howls on both. It sums up exactly where he was circa-Angry Angles. His romantic relationship with Brown ended the same time the band did, leaving him to pour his scattershot energy into his burgeoning solo career. Brown moved on to Golden Triangle, then a DJ career; Rousseau moved back to his home state of Arizona to revive the formidable Destruction Unit (an outfit Reatard was originally a part of). And Reatard funneled his turmoil into his 2006 breakthrough solo album, Blood Visions, an album that sounds more and more like a masterpiece as time goes by. Angry Angles* *is a blurry, inconsistent snapshot of his liminal state between dude-in-a-million-bands and burgeoning solo icon—ragged here, refined there, and brimming with vitality.

Artist: Angry Angles, Album: Angry Angles, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "Angry Angles captured Jay Reatard at a pivotal point in his career—which, up to that point, hadn’t resembled a career at all. On paper, the short-lived band was just the latest in an erratic string of projects that the Memphis-based garage-punk wild man had been tearing through since the late ’90s, chief among them the Reatards and the Lost Sounds. During that time, he always kept a handful of side projects on the back burner, but Angry Angles seemed different. When formed in 2005, immediately after the breakup of the Lost Sounds, Angry Angles seemed poised to become Reatard’s new big thing, the group that might propel him to the next level of cult infamy. Instead, the band imploded in 2006, leaving a trail of singles in its wake. *Angry Angles *collects those singles, along with previously unreleased bonus material, and as such it comprises the entire studio output of Angry Angles. Seventeen songs nailed to the wall in a little over a year is nothing to sneeze at—and neither are the songs themselves, despite spackling the slim gap between the Lost Sounds and Reatard’s storied solo career, launched in ’06 and cut short by his death in 2010. With bassist/singer Alix Brown (cofounder with Reatard of the indie label Shattered Records) and alternating drummers Paul Artigues and Ryan Rousseau (the latter a Reatards alum) in tow, Reatard synthesized everything he’d done up to that point. Borrowing some of the Lost Sounds’ retro-new-wave roboticism, but rendered in a more vivid, visceral Reatards-esque spew, Angry Angles tracks like “Crowds” and “Apparent-Transparent” are lobotomized post-punk, whiplash anthems for 21st-century dehumanization. “Apparent-Transparent” also features one of Brown’s most striking vocal performances, a voice-processed call-and-response with Reatard that pays unabashed homage to Devo. There’s an actual Devo cover on Angry Angles as well, a beautifully bruised rendition by Brown of “Blockhead,” along with reverential versions of classics by Wire (“The 15th”), the Urinals (“Black Hole”), and Reatard’s mentor Greg Oblivian (“Memphis Creep” by the Oblivians). Churned together, these four bands pretty much comprise Reatard’s chemical makeup—not that he was ever shy about his influences, or his hooks. There are some great ones on these songs: the scabbed pop-punk of “Stab You Dead” for one, or “Can’t Do It Anymore,” which mixes feral riffage with a singsong chorus designed to stick in the head like a pickaxe. Two versions of “Things Are Moving” are included here, but they’re anything but redundant. On the original single version, distortion is smeared across Reatard’s manic chants and punch-drunk guitar; on the abridged alternate version, that noise is whittled to a finer point. “Things are moving around me all the time,” Reatard howls on both. It sums up exactly where he was circa-Angry Angles. His romantic relationship with Brown ended the same time the band did, leaving him to pour his scattershot energy into his burgeoning solo career. Brown moved on to Golden Triangle, then a DJ career; Rousseau moved back to his home state of Arizona to revive the formidable Destruction Unit (an outfit Reatard was originally a part of). And Reatard funneled his turmoil into his 2006 breakthrough solo album, Blood Visions, an album that sounds more and more like a masterpiece as time goes by. Angry Angles* *is a blurry, inconsistent snapshot of his liminal state between dude-in-a-million-bands and burgeoning solo icon—ragged here, refined there, and brimming with vitality."

Family Portrait

Family Portrait

Rock

Zach Kelly

New Jersey's Family Portrait have for too long existed seemingly to serve the purposes of others. Acting as a sort of house band for the Underwater Peoples label (they formed when Real Estate needed an opening act at a party), the four-piece has played the background while its brother and sister acts-- Real Estate, Andrew Cedermark, Beach Fossils, Julian Lynch-- found their niche and made their names. Now with their self-titled debut, Family Portrait look ready to finally come into their own, distilling the essence of UP's familiar fuss-free garage jangle while carefully crafting their own unique voice. Though the album doesn't start out that way. Opening mid-tempo tracks "Glide Part I" and "Wait" are worrisome red herrings that find Family Portrait rehashing the same weary sounds they have (quite charmingly) half-assed on one-off singles and EP splits in the past. But what follows is anything but bland: While it's easy to describe their sound and play connect-the-dots with similar bands, it has a strange magic, an unmistakable allure you can't quite put your finger on, that makes music this simple so very satisfying. Credit co-producer Julian Lynch, who injects his own personality into a few of these tracks, showcasing reverb-rippled guitars and the watery textures that have peppered his own recordings. (Lynch's most recent full-length, Mare, feels like a relevant touchstone here.) In particular, the gorgeous "Instrumental" gets a necessary boost from Lynch's explorations. But he also knows when to leave the group alone. There's a reason for Family Portrait's reputation as a really fun band-- when they're rolling, like on "Other Side" or "Killer Statements", it's best to just hit record and try to capture some of their intense, one-take energy. Family Portrait's other secret weapon is frontman Evan Brody. He's not a great singer by any stretch, and his voice is often drowned out in the mix (a symptom of the record's organic production). But Brody knows how to drag out a vocal hook (see the mirrorball-speckled prom waltz "Come Back to Me"), and his enthusiasm is contagious on the sun-burnt paisley-pomp of "Interlude - Never Should've Been There". He's clearly a guy who, even when his group is playing second-fiddle, couldn't be happier doing anything other than singing in a band. And now with this solid debut, it's safe to say he's got himself a really good one.

Artist: Family Portrait, Album: Family Portrait, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "New Jersey's Family Portrait have for too long existed seemingly to serve the purposes of others. Acting as a sort of house band for the Underwater Peoples label (they formed when Real Estate needed an opening act at a party), the four-piece has played the background while its brother and sister acts-- Real Estate, Andrew Cedermark, Beach Fossils, Julian Lynch-- found their niche and made their names. Now with their self-titled debut, Family Portrait look ready to finally come into their own, distilling the essence of UP's familiar fuss-free garage jangle while carefully crafting their own unique voice. Though the album doesn't start out that way. Opening mid-tempo tracks "Glide Part I" and "Wait" are worrisome red herrings that find Family Portrait rehashing the same weary sounds they have (quite charmingly) half-assed on one-off singles and EP splits in the past. But what follows is anything but bland: While it's easy to describe their sound and play connect-the-dots with similar bands, it has a strange magic, an unmistakable allure you can't quite put your finger on, that makes music this simple so very satisfying. Credit co-producer Julian Lynch, who injects his own personality into a few of these tracks, showcasing reverb-rippled guitars and the watery textures that have peppered his own recordings. (Lynch's most recent full-length, Mare, feels like a relevant touchstone here.) In particular, the gorgeous "Instrumental" gets a necessary boost from Lynch's explorations. But he also knows when to leave the group alone. There's a reason for Family Portrait's reputation as a really fun band-- when they're rolling, like on "Other Side" or "Killer Statements", it's best to just hit record and try to capture some of their intense, one-take energy. Family Portrait's other secret weapon is frontman Evan Brody. He's not a great singer by any stretch, and his voice is often drowned out in the mix (a symptom of the record's organic production). But Brody knows how to drag out a vocal hook (see the mirrorball-speckled prom waltz "Come Back to Me"), and his enthusiasm is contagious on the sun-burnt paisley-pomp of "Interlude - Never Should've Been There". He's clearly a guy who, even when his group is playing second-fiddle, couldn't be happier doing anything other than singing in a band. And now with this solid debut, it's safe to say he's got himself a really good one."

The Beets

Let the Poison Out

Electronic,Rock

Martin Douglas

Earlier this year, in an interview published shortly after the release of Stay Home, Beets principles Juan Wauters and Jose Garcia revealed that the writing for their next album had already been completed. This is far from a surprising development in the world of garage-rock, where most bands worth their weight in Nuggets compilations are prone (or, at the very least, prepared) to release two albums, five 7" and 12" singles, and maybe even a tour-only cassette as a forget-me-not in the span of about nine months. Being prolific is not a minor miracle in garage so much as it is muscle memory; the defining trait of this style of music is that it's not incredibly difficult to compose. This is especially true of the Beets, a band who tours the Continental 48 in a station wagon, whose cover art is exclusively drawn with crayons. You get the impression that a Beets song takes about as much time to write and record a song as it takes Beets album artist Matthew Volz to run to Walgreens and get a 64-color box of Crayolas. What would probably be considered an insult to most other bands is part and parcel to the Beets' charm. Much like their heroes Ramones-- a band namedropped in Howard Stern's brief on-air appraisal of the band-- the Beets are long on attitude. On their debut, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool, the album's title served equally well as a mission statement. When the production quality of your record is equivalent to a damp fast food napkin, attitude is pretty much all you have to go on. Spit in the Face was intriguing and enjoyable because it was a lot like watching a band playing through a garage door made of opaque glass: You couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, but you wanted to be a part of it anyway. Let the Poison Out continues the band's gradual crawl out of the basement, and with the added sonic clarity comes the best collection of songs Wauters has written. Granted, the chords haven't ventured into jazzy diminished sevenths-- nor has the band decided to use a full drum kit to play its songs-- but the album showcases the Beets as a band every bit as off-the-cuff as it has been, though far more distinctive. With Wauters' voice pushed to the forefront, the bratty scream-singing of Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool and Stay Home makes way for heavily accented-- and, in the case of "Wipe It Off", intentionally broken-- English, something undetected on past Beets records, where the vocals either sat among or were buried underneath the thudding drums. In general, Wauters is working with a broader songwriting palette. Adding to various Beets traditions-- the tune sung in Spanish ("Preso Voy"), the loopy, experimental interlude ("Eat No Dick 3")-- he boasts a love for stream-of-consciousness imagery on opener "You Don't Want Kids to be Dead", offers sage advice on "Doing as I Do", and plays a lovelorn game of "this or that" on "I Don't Know". The record also marks the addition of drummer Chie Mori, whose plaintive anti-harmonies augment Wauters' singing in a way that recalls a less irksome version of the Moldy Peaches. The boy-girl vocals do more than just add to the pop bliss of the record's more infectious moments: "Friends of Friends" is made rowdier by Mori's contributions, while her backing vocals on quasi-psychedelic closer "Walking to My House" give the song a skewed and eerie vibe. The Beets' newfound focus on recording quality could have easily highlighted shortcomings, but instead, the band found a way to broaden its sound by recruiting a member who exponentially adds to its worth.

Artist: The Beets, Album: Let the Poison Out, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Earlier this year, in an interview published shortly after the release of Stay Home, Beets principles Juan Wauters and Jose Garcia revealed that the writing for their next album had already been completed. This is far from a surprising development in the world of garage-rock, where most bands worth their weight in Nuggets compilations are prone (or, at the very least, prepared) to release two albums, five 7" and 12" singles, and maybe even a tour-only cassette as a forget-me-not in the span of about nine months. Being prolific is not a minor miracle in garage so much as it is muscle memory; the defining trait of this style of music is that it's not incredibly difficult to compose. This is especially true of the Beets, a band who tours the Continental 48 in a station wagon, whose cover art is exclusively drawn with crayons. You get the impression that a Beets song takes about as much time to write and record a song as it takes Beets album artist Matthew Volz to run to Walgreens and get a 64-color box of Crayolas. What would probably be considered an insult to most other bands is part and parcel to the Beets' charm. Much like their heroes Ramones-- a band namedropped in Howard Stern's brief on-air appraisal of the band-- the Beets are long on attitude. On their debut, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool, the album's title served equally well as a mission statement. When the production quality of your record is equivalent to a damp fast food napkin, attitude is pretty much all you have to go on. Spit in the Face was intriguing and enjoyable because it was a lot like watching a band playing through a garage door made of opaque glass: You couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, but you wanted to be a part of it anyway. Let the Poison Out continues the band's gradual crawl out of the basement, and with the added sonic clarity comes the best collection of songs Wauters has written. Granted, the chords haven't ventured into jazzy diminished sevenths-- nor has the band decided to use a full drum kit to play its songs-- but the album showcases the Beets as a band every bit as off-the-cuff as it has been, though far more distinctive. With Wauters' voice pushed to the forefront, the bratty scream-singing of Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool and Stay Home makes way for heavily accented-- and, in the case of "Wipe It Off", intentionally broken-- English, something undetected on past Beets records, where the vocals either sat among or were buried underneath the thudding drums. In general, Wauters is working with a broader songwriting palette. Adding to various Beets traditions-- the tune sung in Spanish ("Preso Voy"), the loopy, experimental interlude ("Eat No Dick 3")-- he boasts a love for stream-of-consciousness imagery on opener "You Don't Want Kids to be Dead", offers sage advice on "Doing as I Do", and plays a lovelorn game of "this or that" on "I Don't Know". The record also marks the addition of drummer Chie Mori, whose plaintive anti-harmonies augment Wauters' singing in a way that recalls a less irksome version of the Moldy Peaches. The boy-girl vocals do more than just add to the pop bliss of the record's more infectious moments: "Friends of Friends" is made rowdier by Mori's contributions, while her backing vocals on quasi-psychedelic closer "Walking to My House" give the song a skewed and eerie vibe. The Beets' newfound focus on recording quality could have easily highlighted shortcomings, but instead, the band found a way to broaden its sound by recruiting a member who exponentially adds to its worth."

Clinic

Free Reign

Electronic,Experimental,Rock

Stuart Berman

Now 15 years into their career, Clinic have left their surgical masks on longer than KISS initially kept on their make-up, and this rigid visual motif makes it easy to overlook the Liverpool art-rock quartet's evolution. We've grown accustomed to conflating an artist's musical progression with their changing appearances-- like when they go through a beardo phase, or get ill-advised new-wave haircuts, or start wearing guyliner. But Clinic always look like Clinic, which reinforces the idea that they always sound like Clinic. Even when the band embraced soft-pop melody and open-hearted lyricism on 2010's knowingly titled Bubblegum, it seemed to only amplify this band's inherent, ineffable strangeness. Those masks aren't just a gimmicky extension of Clinic's name; they're also a visual manifestation of the band's meticulous approach, as they've taken a scalpel to music from the 1960s and 70s-- the Monks, Sparks, Joe Meek, krautrock-- and stitched their favorite bits into new, mutant forms. But compared to the concise structures of their six previous albums, on Free Reign, the band behaves less like surgeons and more like scientists who favor exploration and patience. The game plan this time is to switch their analog synths to the "Suicide" setting and see where the drones take them. The more open-ended ethos also extends to the band's choice of mixer: Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never. Lopatin's avant-electronic soundscaping has little in common with Clinic's compact collage-rock, but his influence seems less about sound than spirit. Clinic show a greater willingness to let these songs unfurl according to their own logic and pace: The slow-percolating opener, "Misty", doesn't reveal its chiming, churchly Spiritualized-like keyboard hook until a good two minutes in, which is usually the point when Clinic are wrapping a song up. It's also the first of four songs here to crack the five-minute mark, heretofore uncharted territory in the Clinic canon. But as Free Reign shows, when Clinic take their time, they can build up a bewitching groove. The album's twin highlights, "Miss You" and "You", are similarly titled, similarly structured, and similarly libidinous exercises in disco-Can decadence; while a touch too slow for dancefloor traction, they both get impressively freakier and funkier the longer they stretch out. "Seamless Boogie Woofie BBC2 10" works the same trick in more abbreviated form, while proving that even a chorus of "you're beautiful" can sound creepily sinister when coming from ever-enigmatic vocalist Ade Blackburn. But if Free Reign posits Clinic as unlikely heirs to the LCD Soundsystem legacy of post-punky electro-rock, it also reveals the mess they made along the way. "See Saw" practically kills the album's momentum before it even gets going, with a maddeningly repetitious caveman stomp that sounds like a practice-space goof. "Cosmic Radiation" and "Sun and the Moon" meanwhile, offer glimpses of Clinic as jam band, with Blackburn's omnipresent melodica squawking over the former's aimless, wah-wah'ed jazz-funk rhythm, while the latter's loose blues ramble imagines the late-era Doors gone dub. But in between Free Reign's two extremes-- of taut groove and directionless doodle-- Clinic also add to their deepening catalog of disarmingly affecting ballads with "For the Season", a wistful whisper of a song that inspires scenes of slow dances in empty ballrooms. It may be the most atypical track here, but on an album that so doggedly documents the process of experimentation, it's a welcome moment where Clinic can let down the mask and enjoy a breather.

Artist: Clinic, Album: Free Reign, Genre: Electronic,Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Now 15 years into their career, Clinic have left their surgical masks on longer than KISS initially kept on their make-up, and this rigid visual motif makes it easy to overlook the Liverpool art-rock quartet's evolution. We've grown accustomed to conflating an artist's musical progression with their changing appearances-- like when they go through a beardo phase, or get ill-advised new-wave haircuts, or start wearing guyliner. But Clinic always look like Clinic, which reinforces the idea that they always sound like Clinic. Even when the band embraced soft-pop melody and open-hearted lyricism on 2010's knowingly titled Bubblegum, it seemed to only amplify this band's inherent, ineffable strangeness. Those masks aren't just a gimmicky extension of Clinic's name; they're also a visual manifestation of the band's meticulous approach, as they've taken a scalpel to music from the 1960s and 70s-- the Monks, Sparks, Joe Meek, krautrock-- and stitched their favorite bits into new, mutant forms. But compared to the concise structures of their six previous albums, on Free Reign, the band behaves less like surgeons and more like scientists who favor exploration and patience. The game plan this time is to switch their analog synths to the "Suicide" setting and see where the drones take them. The more open-ended ethos also extends to the band's choice of mixer: Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never. Lopatin's avant-electronic soundscaping has little in common with Clinic's compact collage-rock, but his influence seems less about sound than spirit. Clinic show a greater willingness to let these songs unfurl according to their own logic and pace: The slow-percolating opener, "Misty", doesn't reveal its chiming, churchly Spiritualized-like keyboard hook until a good two minutes in, which is usually the point when Clinic are wrapping a song up. It's also the first of four songs here to crack the five-minute mark, heretofore uncharted territory in the Clinic canon. But as Free Reign shows, when Clinic take their time, they can build up a bewitching groove. The album's twin highlights, "Miss You" and "You", are similarly titled, similarly structured, and similarly libidinous exercises in disco-Can decadence; while a touch too slow for dancefloor traction, they both get impressively freakier and funkier the longer they stretch out. "Seamless Boogie Woofie BBC2 10" works the same trick in more abbreviated form, while proving that even a chorus of "you're beautiful" can sound creepily sinister when coming from ever-enigmatic vocalist Ade Blackburn. But if Free Reign posits Clinic as unlikely heirs to the LCD Soundsystem legacy of post-punky electro-rock, it also reveals the mess they made along the way. "See Saw" practically kills the album's momentum before it even gets going, with a maddeningly repetitious caveman stomp that sounds like a practice-space goof. "Cosmic Radiation" and "Sun and the Moon" meanwhile, offer glimpses of Clinic as jam band, with Blackburn's omnipresent melodica squawking over the former's aimless, wah-wah'ed jazz-funk rhythm, while the latter's loose blues ramble imagines the late-era Doors gone dub. But in between Free Reign's two extremes-- of taut groove and directionless doodle-- Clinic also add to their deepening catalog of disarmingly affecting ballads with "For the Season", a wistful whisper of a song that inspires scenes of slow dances in empty ballrooms. It may be the most atypical track here, but on an album that so doggedly documents the process of experimentation, it's a welcome moment where Clinic can let down the mask and enjoy a breather."

José González

Stay in the Shade EP

Rock

Marc Hogan

When José González's debut album, Veneer, began to catch on in 2005-- two years after it was first issued-- part of its magic involved the long journey the Swedish/Argentine singer-songwriter's recordings had made. With so much time elapsed between those recordings, it's a little disappointing that the follow-up, five-track EP Stay in the Shade, sounds mostly like more of the same. The tightly double-tracked vocal fjords and sinuous finger-picking remain, as do González's lyrics, which stick mostly to Nick Drake's strangely suggestive universals: "It's warm in the blood/ Cold in the rain," he coos on erstwhile B-side "Down the Hillside", an incongruously chipper (for Gonzo) ditty about cemeteries. Another former flip, "Sensing Owls", slows the pace for a tralatitious take on mountaintops, coming-outs, and the lack of designated drivers. The biggest changes from Veneer are an increased use of hand percussion and less frequent bossa nova tinges, so hold onto your knitted hats. All along, González has been the rare singer-songwriter known more for a cover than for his, y'know, songwriting. The centerpiece of Veneer was his aching rendition of the Knife's "Heartbeats", which has since earned him fame and fortune by appearing in a Sony commercial and, subsequently, the UK top 10. His sequel of sorts, a cover of Kylie Minogue's "Hand on Your Heart", deserves credit for its steadfast straight-face, though by the end his earnestness, percussive guitar-playing and the dopey lyrics have him seeming more like a cuddly coffeehouse troubadour along the lines of Matt Wertz or Dave Barnes than a haunted lo-fi auteur. Put in terms of fellow coverman Mark Kozelek, of Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, if "Heartbeats" was What's Next to the Moon then "Hand on Your Heart" is closer to Tiny Cities. Thing is, González's records are more aesthetic than songs. Eerie, stripped to the waist, and raining classical guitar; it's a fine style, and perfect for bringing the dance-oriented songs of the Knife and Kylie to audiences that otherwise might be loath to embrace them. But weightless João Gilberto-like singing and delicately plucked Drakeisms will only get González so far until his compositions catch up. A closing, untitled instrumental features remarkably humble, droning guitar-playing and funereal horns. A crowd chatters for its final two minutes, as if still waiting for something to begin.

Artist: José González, Album: Stay in the Shade EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "When José González's debut album, Veneer, began to catch on in 2005-- two years after it was first issued-- part of its magic involved the long journey the Swedish/Argentine singer-songwriter's recordings had made. With so much time elapsed between those recordings, it's a little disappointing that the follow-up, five-track EP Stay in the Shade, sounds mostly like more of the same. The tightly double-tracked vocal fjords and sinuous finger-picking remain, as do González's lyrics, which stick mostly to Nick Drake's strangely suggestive universals: "It's warm in the blood/ Cold in the rain," he coos on erstwhile B-side "Down the Hillside", an incongruously chipper (for Gonzo) ditty about cemeteries. Another former flip, "Sensing Owls", slows the pace for a tralatitious take on mountaintops, coming-outs, and the lack of designated drivers. The biggest changes from Veneer are an increased use of hand percussion and less frequent bossa nova tinges, so hold onto your knitted hats. All along, González has been the rare singer-songwriter known more for a cover than for his, y'know, songwriting. The centerpiece of Veneer was his aching rendition of the Knife's "Heartbeats", which has since earned him fame and fortune by appearing in a Sony commercial and, subsequently, the UK top 10. His sequel of sorts, a cover of Kylie Minogue's "Hand on Your Heart", deserves credit for its steadfast straight-face, though by the end his earnestness, percussive guitar-playing and the dopey lyrics have him seeming more like a cuddly coffeehouse troubadour along the lines of Matt Wertz or Dave Barnes than a haunted lo-fi auteur. Put in terms of fellow coverman Mark Kozelek, of Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, if "Heartbeats" was What's Next to the Moon then "Hand on Your Heart" is closer to Tiny Cities. Thing is, González's records are more aesthetic than songs. Eerie, stripped to the waist, and raining classical guitar; it's a fine style, and perfect for bringing the dance-oriented songs of the Knife and Kylie to audiences that otherwise might be loath to embrace them. But weightless João Gilberto-like singing and delicately plucked Drakeisms will only get González so far until his compositions catch up. A closing, untitled instrumental features remarkably humble, droning guitar-playing and funereal horns. A crowd chatters for its final two minutes, as if still waiting for something to begin."

TALWST

Alien Tentacle Sex EP

Andrew Ryce

This singer (pronounced "tall waist") not only shares a hometown (Toronto) and producer (Illangelo) with the Weeknd's Abel Tesfaye, but the same subject matter, vibe, and eerily similar vocal melodies. But instead of an intriguing side project from an obviously talented producer (in addition to the Weeknd, Illangelo had a hand in Drake's "Crew Love"), the EP turns out to be a disappointing facsimile of his more famous projects. Alien Tentacle Sex basically feels like Illangelo twiddling his thumbs nervously while he waits for the Weeknd tour to finish. The record starts strong with a lush production job in "I'd Die", musically as strong as anything on the Weeknd's Echoes of Silence. The slinking metallic beat is embellished with groaning synths, eerie chimes, and all manner of weird samples. But then the vocal comes in. There's something about TALWST's cadences that sound too close to a sandpaper-throated Tesfaye, and the heavy processing that replicates the headier moments of the Weeknd catalog doesn't help the case. The unwise similarity is further explored on "Mercy Me", a nonsense mope-glam number that sounds like it was based off a discarded Tesfaye guide vocal. These comparisons may be unfair, but there's just no escaping them here. TALWST doesn't have the most distinctive or powerful voice, but that shouldn't be enough to dismiss him wholesale-- plenty have done great with much less. Unfortunately, his lyrics are far, far worse: Gems like "passport inked like Lil Wayne's face" are outdone by the mid-album wading pool "Lonely Guy", an unbearably self-pitying track where his reedy warble actually manages to croon the phrase "Lonely guy/ He is I." TALWST's self-analyzation feels like empty narcissism, backed up by a completely unconvincing persona. Alien Tentacle Sex isn't all Weeknd rip-offs. "Woman" chops up spoken-word and gasps of melody into an alien assemblage that sounds neat even if the lyrical content is embarrassing, while the brief "Peace Tonight" is easily the highlight. It's just too bad his gruff rap is interrupted by cries of "please no nuclear bombs." The only thing worse than the unnecessary politicization is his flagrant mispronunciation of "nuclear." The melodramatic closer "No Stones" seems to want to recreate the subtle magic of Usher's "Climax", from the honeyed tones to the gently elongated phrasing, but it lacks even a modicum of subtlety, its ham-shaped fist too salty for even the most naive of palettes. R&B is largely personality-driven stuff, and outside of what he misguidedly tries to borrow from more established artists, TALWST has very little to sell. Having come so far so fast, Illangelo's name now carries some serious weight, but even that proven pedigree isn't enough to build a fortress out of toothpicks. Whatever the intent was with Alien Tentacle Sex (even the title hints at an intriguing dimension unexplored by the pedestrian music), it seems like they lost the plot at some point along the way.

Artist: TALWST, Album: Alien Tentacle Sex EP, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 4.0 Album review: "This singer (pronounced "tall waist") not only shares a hometown (Toronto) and producer (Illangelo) with the Weeknd's Abel Tesfaye, but the same subject matter, vibe, and eerily similar vocal melodies. But instead of an intriguing side project from an obviously talented producer (in addition to the Weeknd, Illangelo had a hand in Drake's "Crew Love"), the EP turns out to be a disappointing facsimile of his more famous projects. Alien Tentacle Sex basically feels like Illangelo twiddling his thumbs nervously while he waits for the Weeknd tour to finish. The record starts strong with a lush production job in "I'd Die", musically as strong as anything on the Weeknd's Echoes of Silence. The slinking metallic beat is embellished with groaning synths, eerie chimes, and all manner of weird samples. But then the vocal comes in. There's something about TALWST's cadences that sound too close to a sandpaper-throated Tesfaye, and the heavy processing that replicates the headier moments of the Weeknd catalog doesn't help the case. The unwise similarity is further explored on "Mercy Me", a nonsense mope-glam number that sounds like it was based off a discarded Tesfaye guide vocal. These comparisons may be unfair, but there's just no escaping them here. TALWST doesn't have the most distinctive or powerful voice, but that shouldn't be enough to dismiss him wholesale-- plenty have done great with much less. Unfortunately, his lyrics are far, far worse: Gems like "passport inked like Lil Wayne's face" are outdone by the mid-album wading pool "Lonely Guy", an unbearably self-pitying track where his reedy warble actually manages to croon the phrase "Lonely guy/ He is I." TALWST's self-analyzation feels like empty narcissism, backed up by a completely unconvincing persona. Alien Tentacle Sex isn't all Weeknd rip-offs. "Woman" chops up spoken-word and gasps of melody into an alien assemblage that sounds neat even if the lyrical content is embarrassing, while the brief "Peace Tonight" is easily the highlight. It's just too bad his gruff rap is interrupted by cries of "please no nuclear bombs." The only thing worse than the unnecessary politicization is his flagrant mispronunciation of "nuclear." The melodramatic closer "No Stones" seems to want to recreate the subtle magic of Usher's "Climax", from the honeyed tones to the gently elongated phrasing, but it lacks even a modicum of subtlety, its ham-shaped fist too salty for even the most naive of palettes. R&B is largely personality-driven stuff, and outside of what he misguidedly tries to borrow from more established artists, TALWST has very little to sell. Having come so far so fast, Illangelo's name now carries some serious weight, but even that proven pedigree isn't enough to build a fortress out of toothpicks. Whatever the intent was with Alien Tentacle Sex (even the title hints at an intriguing dimension unexplored by the pedestrian music), it seems like they lost the plot at some point along the way."

Bleached

Ride Your Heart

Rock

Lindsay Zoladz

"It's a song about being in love but also being independent," Jennifer Clavin said of "Next Stop", the rollicking single from L.A. garage rockers Bleached's debut LP Ride Your Heart. Like Bleached's sound, the video pays homage to the retro cool of the Shangri-Las (motorcycles, leather jackets, ponytails), but it also mines the tension of that thematic split-screen Clavin mentions. It cuts between Jennifer, lounging around with her guy and joyriding on the back of his motorcycle, and bassist Jessica, causing all sorts of trouble at a party with her friends. Bleached aren't presenting romantic love and roguish independence as two mutually exclusive entities: In the video, both of them seem perfectly happy. But they communicate this same message more viscerally in the sound of their music, where sweet, manicured melodies and and pummeling, dirt-under-the-nails punk energy collide. It's one of the more commanding revisionist takes on the 60s girl group sound to come along in a minute. The Clavins are best known as veterans of the beloved, now-defunct L.A. punk band Mika Miko, where they both cut more colorful figures than they do in Bleached: Jessica set the pace for the band's manic, pogoing, sped-up surf-rock rhythm section, while Jennifer's (better known then by her Dracula-esque stage name, Victor Fandgore) signature move was singing (though more often, screaming) into a rotary telephone rigged up like a mic. Three years after their break-up, Mika Miko's legend is established yet ephemeral; like so many underground heroes, they never made a record that quite captured the caterwauling craziness of their live show. Not that they cared: "I think we come off better live than we do recorded," Jessica said in a 2009 interview, "It's better to have that impact as a live band though, isn't it?" The rest of the band nodded in agreement. It's kind of ironic, then, that Ride Your Heart succeeds precisely where the final Mika Miko album-- the spirited but thin-sounding We Be Xuxa-- failed: it manages to capture some of the infectious energy of the Clavins' live show. The difference is all in the production: Ride Your Heart is lush but still maintains a certain loose, inviting sloppiness, which suits the more upbeat songs particularly well. Opener "Looking For a Fight" lurches forward with a grumbling, belligerent swagger, while Jennifer's whiplashed howl on "Next Stop" ("Until next tiiiiiime") makes the song feel like an adrenaline rush: It sounds like she's shouting the whole thing out of a convertible as it zips around a tight corner. Jennifer's vocals sound comparatively stiff and uninspired on "Dreaming Without You" (she doesn't find much emotion in the repeated refrain "Baby, don't cry/ Baby, don't cry"), but the stomping percussion and guitar solo (which sounds straight out of a Flamin' Groovies track and cuts through like a beam of California sunshine) shakes the song out of its stupor. Not every song on Ride Your Heart is so lucky. Bleached's songcraft often feels bland and unimaginative, relying on familiar, pop-worn imagery ("Waiting by the Telephone") and generic declarations of love. (The inert "Outta My Mind" doesn't move far beyond its girl-group-revival-by-numbers hook, "Get out of my mind, boy/ You know I think about you all of the time.") Though there's an electric current coursing through Ride Your Heart, it's too often wasted on mundane material-- which is especially disappointing given how zany and lyrically imaginative their previous band was. Hopefully more of that signature flair will creep into future Bleached releases: It's hard to be content with them waiting by the telephone when we've seen them scream into it.

Artist: Bleached, Album: Ride Your Heart, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: ""It's a song about being in love but also being independent," Jennifer Clavin said of "Next Stop", the rollicking single from L.A. garage rockers Bleached's debut LP Ride Your Heart. Like Bleached's sound, the video pays homage to the retro cool of the Shangri-Las (motorcycles, leather jackets, ponytails), but it also mines the tension of that thematic split-screen Clavin mentions. It cuts between Jennifer, lounging around with her guy and joyriding on the back of his motorcycle, and bassist Jessica, causing all sorts of trouble at a party with her friends. Bleached aren't presenting romantic love and roguish independence as two mutually exclusive entities: In the video, both of them seem perfectly happy. But they communicate this same message more viscerally in the sound of their music, where sweet, manicured melodies and and pummeling, dirt-under-the-nails punk energy collide. It's one of the more commanding revisionist takes on the 60s girl group sound to come along in a minute. The Clavins are best known as veterans of the beloved, now-defunct L.A. punk band Mika Miko, where they both cut more colorful figures than they do in Bleached: Jessica set the pace for the band's manic, pogoing, sped-up surf-rock rhythm section, while Jennifer's (better known then by her Dracula-esque stage name, Victor Fandgore) signature move was singing (though more often, screaming) into a rotary telephone rigged up like a mic. Three years after their break-up, Mika Miko's legend is established yet ephemeral; like so many underground heroes, they never made a record that quite captured the caterwauling craziness of their live show. Not that they cared: "I think we come off better live than we do recorded," Jessica said in a 2009 interview, "It's better to have that impact as a live band though, isn't it?" The rest of the band nodded in agreement. It's kind of ironic, then, that Ride Your Heart succeeds precisely where the final Mika Miko album-- the spirited but thin-sounding We Be Xuxa-- failed: it manages to capture some of the infectious energy of the Clavins' live show. The difference is all in the production: Ride Your Heart is lush but still maintains a certain loose, inviting sloppiness, which suits the more upbeat songs particularly well. Opener "Looking For a Fight" lurches forward with a grumbling, belligerent swagger, while Jennifer's whiplashed howl on "Next Stop" ("Until next tiiiiiime") makes the song feel like an adrenaline rush: It sounds like she's shouting the whole thing out of a convertible as it zips around a tight corner. Jennifer's vocals sound comparatively stiff and uninspired on "Dreaming Without You" (she doesn't find much emotion in the repeated refrain "Baby, don't cry/ Baby, don't cry"), but the stomping percussion and guitar solo (which sounds straight out of a Flamin' Groovies track and cuts through like a beam of California sunshine) shakes the song out of its stupor. Not every song on Ride Your Heart is so lucky. Bleached's songcraft often feels bland and unimaginative, relying on familiar, pop-worn imagery ("Waiting by the Telephone") and generic declarations of love. (The inert "Outta My Mind" doesn't move far beyond its girl-group-revival-by-numbers hook, "Get out of my mind, boy/ You know I think about you all of the time.") Though there's an electric current coursing through Ride Your Heart, it's too often wasted on mundane material-- which is especially disappointing given how zany and lyrically imaginative their previous band was. Hopefully more of that signature flair will creep into future Bleached releases: It's hard to be content with them waiting by the telephone when we've seen them scream into it."

The Future Kings of England

The Fate of Old Mother Orvis

Joshua Klein

Ever since man learned to crane his neck and look up we've been staring at the stars, wondering how to get up there and, that goal achieved, wondering how to travel even further. So maybe it's not a coincidence that the dawn of the space age overlapped with the dawn of the psychedelic age, as millions of people without a science degree or NASA credentials realized they could travel just as far, only inwardly. Space became a state of mind, an alternate dimension accessible to anyone willing to open the door. Or Pandora's Box, as the case may be, since the last thing any rock act needed was a culturally encouraged license for self-indulgence. After all, the perils of traveling toward inner space were practical: As amazing as the place may be, it's awfully hard to bring someone along with you. Not that Pink Floyd, Sun Ra, or any other ambitious interstellar travelers didn't try their best to lead the way, but more often than not their music provided the soundtrack for people already there, not people hoping to tag along. Hailing from Ipswich, the Future Kings of England are the ultimate tag-along, coasting on the 40-year old jetstream left by Pink Floyd's trailblazing freakouts. It's a familiar space-prog universe populated by pulsing minor-key drones, alternately shimmering and sinewy guitars, Mellotrons and languid vocals beamed from some far off place, floating through the sonic ether in uncanny approximation of a bygone era, in search of a midnight laser show. But from their flare for grandiose dynamics to an instinct for the epic, the Future Kings of England also get just about every period detail right. The cymbal and organ swells, dreamy guitar melody and wobbly bass line pulling along the opener "Dunwich" and leading to the first of many surprise explosions is just a taste of things to come. The hypnotic hum of phased guitars and diligent drums of "Mustard Men" cross the melodic mysticism of Meddle-era Floyd with the menace of early King Crimson, hitting a furious double-time peak four minutes in before resolving itself with an acoustic reverie overlaid with a chiming electric solo. "Bartholomew's Merman" makes great use of space, in every sense, the dull rumble of its close the perfect lead into "Children of the Crown", at nearly 10 minutes a proud-to-be-prog epic that starts off with hints of droning English folk and found sound before, as all prog-epics do, morphing into something else. Gothic, ghostly (or, for that matter, Ghost-ly) effects soon envelope the strumming and the sound of laughing children brings us to a portentous pause followed by sleepy organ, stately Gilmour-esque guitar and ultimately drums driving the song to what might have been, in another era, the end of Side One. Side two, as any progger knows, is where the real action is, and the Future Kings of England don't disappoint. "A Meeting at the Red Barn" is just a tease, a set-up, for the nearly 20 minutes of the title track, "The Fate of Old Mother Orvis", which begins auspiciously with the sound of birds cawing as if clearing their throats at the start of a new day. Brushed drums, organ and a lilting straight-forward melody introduce more spooky sound bites (keen ears might pick out such buzzwords as "Satan," "witches," "sacrifices," and "dead") before the trio drifts off into another transitional realm. No doubt anyone making up a plot as the song goes along will find the increasingly imposing cyclical guitar pattern and massed vocals that eventually appear perfect fuel for fertile imaginations, and the turn to near-tribal psych freakout immensely fulfilling. By the time it reaches its mysterious musical endpoint, we've arrived on the sidelines of the court of the Crimson King, triumphant and exultant, with ringing church bells sounding out as if to underscore the point. No, not everyone's taking the same trip, and the journey may lead to different destinations. But there's no question the Future Kings of England are quite adept at if not taking you along then certainly pointing you in the right direction. If that direction at first seems to be backwards, give it another chance. Playing with the very fabric of time and space has a way of turning things topsy turvey, and once you get settled in it becomes clear the band may be traveling forward after all, just on another plane, in a parallel dimension, where dinosaurs still walk the earth, the sun rises in the west, dogs sit at the dinner table and the UFO Club never shut its doors.

Artist: The Future Kings of England, Album: The Fate of Old Mother Orvis, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Ever since man learned to crane his neck and look up we've been staring at the stars, wondering how to get up there and, that goal achieved, wondering how to travel even further. So maybe it's not a coincidence that the dawn of the space age overlapped with the dawn of the psychedelic age, as millions of people without a science degree or NASA credentials realized they could travel just as far, only inwardly. Space became a state of mind, an alternate dimension accessible to anyone willing to open the door. Or Pandora's Box, as the case may be, since the last thing any rock act needed was a culturally encouraged license for self-indulgence. After all, the perils of traveling toward inner space were practical: As amazing as the place may be, it's awfully hard to bring someone along with you. Not that Pink Floyd, Sun Ra, or any other ambitious interstellar travelers didn't try their best to lead the way, but more often than not their music provided the soundtrack for people already there, not people hoping to tag along. Hailing from Ipswich, the Future Kings of England are the ultimate tag-along, coasting on the 40-year old jetstream left by Pink Floyd's trailblazing freakouts. It's a familiar space-prog universe populated by pulsing minor-key drones, alternately shimmering and sinewy guitars, Mellotrons and languid vocals beamed from some far off place, floating through the sonic ether in uncanny approximation of a bygone era, in search of a midnight laser show. But from their flare for grandiose dynamics to an instinct for the epic, the Future Kings of England also get just about every period detail right. The cymbal and organ swells, dreamy guitar melody and wobbly bass line pulling along the opener "Dunwich" and leading to the first of many surprise explosions is just a taste of things to come. The hypnotic hum of phased guitars and diligent drums of "Mustard Men" cross the melodic mysticism of Meddle-era Floyd with the menace of early King Crimson, hitting a furious double-time peak four minutes in before resolving itself with an acoustic reverie overlaid with a chiming electric solo. "Bartholomew's Merman" makes great use of space, in every sense, the dull rumble of its close the perfect lead into "Children of the Crown", at nearly 10 minutes a proud-to-be-prog epic that starts off with hints of droning English folk and found sound before, as all prog-epics do, morphing into something else. Gothic, ghostly (or, for that matter, Ghost-ly) effects soon envelope the strumming and the sound of laughing children brings us to a portentous pause followed by sleepy organ, stately Gilmour-esque guitar and ultimately drums driving the song to what might have been, in another era, the end of Side One. Side two, as any progger knows, is where the real action is, and the Future Kings of England don't disappoint. "A Meeting at the Red Barn" is just a tease, a set-up, for the nearly 20 minutes of the title track, "The Fate of Old Mother Orvis", which begins auspiciously with the sound of birds cawing as if clearing their throats at the start of a new day. Brushed drums, organ and a lilting straight-forward melody introduce more spooky sound bites (keen ears might pick out such buzzwords as "Satan," "witches," "sacrifices," and "dead") before the trio drifts off into another transitional realm. No doubt anyone making up a plot as the song goes along will find the increasingly imposing cyclical guitar pattern and massed vocals that eventually appear perfect fuel for fertile imaginations, and the turn to near-tribal psych freakout immensely fulfilling. By the time it reaches its mysterious musical endpoint, we've arrived on the sidelines of the court of the Crimson King, triumphant and exultant, with ringing church bells sounding out as if to underscore the point. No, not everyone's taking the same trip, and the journey may lead to different destinations. But there's no question the Future Kings of England are quite adept at if not taking you along then certainly pointing you in the right direction. If that direction at first seems to be backwards, give it another chance. Playing with the very fabric of time and space has a way of turning things topsy turvey, and once you get settled in it becomes clear the band may be traveling forward after all, just on another plane, in a parallel dimension, where dinosaurs still walk the earth, the sun rises in the west, dogs sit at the dinner table and the UFO Club never shut its doors."