Datasets:

statworx

/

pitchfork_album_reviews

like 0

Coliseum

House With a Curse

Rock

Jason Crock

For as closely tied as they were early on, it's strange how far apart indie rock and hardcore punk have grown. Early indie and art-rockers took plenty from hardcore in the late 1980s and early 90s, especially bands on labels like Touch and Go and Dischord. Coliseum's third album, House With a Curse, nods to that not-so-distant past. Since its last LP, 2007's No Salvation, the band has recruited a new drummer and found a new label, moving from metal-mongers Relapse to the post-rocking Temporary Residence. They use every opportunity on House With a Curse to give tribute to the turn-of-the-90s bands that helped to shape their sound, often by inviting the members of those bands to perform on the album. J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines) mixed the album and even adds backing vocals on "Blind in One Eye"-- and a hell of a track it is, surging in ways you rarely hear in indie while still toying with quiet-loud dynamics and unpredictable rhythms. The guitars throughout the album crackle with distortion, yet the melodies are always straightforward and clear, and Patterson's lyrics are discernible no matter how he sputters and yowls. He does go for nuance in his singing on "Cloaked in Red" and "Perimeter Man", but subtlety isn't what's remarkable about his voice. Instead, it's his guttural, gravel-gargling roar that would make John Brannon (Negative Approach, Laughing Hyenas) proud. The power of his voice makes a pretty decent nod to some underappreciated bands into something more forceful and emotionally resonant. Some more instrumental variety would have been nice, though-- after the high of the first few tracks wears off and the formula grows more apparent, change-ups like the long, tense intro on "Man Was Never Meant to Fly" turn out to be the bright spots of the album's second side. Trying to bridge the gap between modern and more aggressive early indie doesn't always work. The more earnest nods to indie and art rock, for example, seem like window dressing compared to the force of songs like "Blind in One Eye" and "Crime and the City". While Will Oldham is a man beholden to no genre or label, his contribution to the bridge of "Skeleton Smile" struggles to be heard over the jagged guitar leads and double-time rhythm of the bass and drums, and spotting guests like Jason Noble (Rodan, Shipping News) or Peter Searcy (Squirrel Bait) is a Where's-Waldo hunt without the aid of the liner notes. House With a Curse seems like a conspicuous move from metal to indie, but whether Coliseum reach new fans or not, indie rock at large benefits from the band's injection of energy.

Artist: Coliseum, Album: House With a Curse, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "For as closely tied as they were early on, it's strange how far apart indie rock and hardcore punk have grown. Early indie and art-rockers took plenty from hardcore in the late 1980s and early 90s, especially bands on labels like Touch and Go and Dischord. Coliseum's third album, House With a Curse, nods to that not-so-distant past. Since its last LP, 2007's No Salvation, the band has recruited a new drummer and found a new label, moving from metal-mongers Relapse to the post-rocking Temporary Residence. They use every opportunity on House With a Curse to give tribute to the turn-of-the-90s bands that helped to shape their sound, often by inviting the members of those bands to perform on the album. J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines) mixed the album and even adds backing vocals on "Blind in One Eye"-- and a hell of a track it is, surging in ways you rarely hear in indie while still toying with quiet-loud dynamics and unpredictable rhythms. The guitars throughout the album crackle with distortion, yet the melodies are always straightforward and clear, and Patterson's lyrics are discernible no matter how he sputters and yowls. He does go for nuance in his singing on "Cloaked in Red" and "Perimeter Man", but subtlety isn't what's remarkable about his voice. Instead, it's his guttural, gravel-gargling roar that would make John Brannon (Negative Approach, Laughing Hyenas) proud. The power of his voice makes a pretty decent nod to some underappreciated bands into something more forceful and emotionally resonant. Some more instrumental variety would have been nice, though-- after the high of the first few tracks wears off and the formula grows more apparent, change-ups like the long, tense intro on "Man Was Never Meant to Fly" turn out to be the bright spots of the album's second side. Trying to bridge the gap between modern and more aggressive early indie doesn't always work. The more earnest nods to indie and art rock, for example, seem like window dressing compared to the force of songs like "Blind in One Eye" and "Crime and the City". While Will Oldham is a man beholden to no genre or label, his contribution to the bridge of "Skeleton Smile" struggles to be heard over the jagged guitar leads and double-time rhythm of the bass and drums, and spotting guests like Jason Noble (Rodan, Shipping News) or Peter Searcy (Squirrel Bait) is a Where's-Waldo hunt without the aid of the liner notes. House With a Curse seems like a conspicuous move from metal to indie, but whether Coliseum reach new fans or not, indie rock at large benefits from the band's injection of energy."

Martyn

Great Lengths

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

Nearly a decade old, dubstep is entering into its restless adolescence. I can't remember the last time an established genre felt this dynamic, this much in flux. Fans are spoiled for choice, with every week bringing a panoply of new releases and, just as crucially, new names. Artists with whom we've only recently become familiar are maturing at a prodigious rate, while a new crop of labels and artists from outside the genre's London birthplace-- Bristol, Glasgow, Berlin, the Netherlands-- keep coming out of the woodwork. If the scene's mainstream is defined by its ubiquitous, industrial-strength "wobble," the margins are host to mutation after mutation, as the music absorbs and synthesizes elements of soca, funky, IDM, industrial, hip-hop, downtempo, ambient, classic 2-step garage, and, especially, Detroit techno and dub techno. The eagerly hypothesized techno/dubstep crossover is no longer a critic's fantasy: it's a given. Artists from both sides of the divide-- Shed, Scuba, 2562, Ramadanman, Kode9, Ben Klock, Andy Stott, MLZ-- are increasingly meeting in the middle, crafting tracks that blend the tempos, hallmarks and quirks of both genres. The Dutch producer Martyn is one of that lot's most versatile talents, and his debut album, Great Lengths shows an appropriately varied and evidently personal set of interpretations of dubstep's present possibilities. Like many dubstep artists, Martyn came to the genre from drum'n'bass, but he crossed over only comparatively recently. His first records, released in 2005 and 2006 for Marcus Intalex's Revolve:r label, clearly drew from the same spring that a decade before had fed the lush atmospherics of Alex Reece and LTJ Bukem. (It's not all so tranquil; "Nxt 2 U", for Play:musik, sounded like a tech-step rework of Konono No. 1, and hinted at a growing interest in unconventional rhythms and textures.) By 2007's "Broken" (Revolve:r), Martyn had slowed to dubstep's tempo, but he left many of his usual elements-- drifting pads, rapidfire percussive patterns-- intact. The effect was like watching as the spokes of a moving car's wheels seem to flicker backwards and forwards, buoyant, weightless and hovering in place. This, clearly, was Martyn's groove. With the foundation of his own label, 3024, in 2007, Martyn confirmed his arrival as one of dubstep's distinctive new voices, a reputation he has reinforced across further singles and remixes of Scuba, TRG, Shut Up and Dance, among others. He has simultaneously resisted settling too comfortably into any one sound or scene; he and gauzy hip-hopper Flying Lotus have traded remixes, and he even delved into unadulterated house music on a remix for Detroit's Ican. Great Lengths is accordingly diverse, but it's also remarkably coherent. Most of its tracks fall within dubstep's stomping ground, clocking somewhere between 130 and 140 BPM and heaving with swing; it's underscored by a powerful bass presence that seems to stretch to infinity. But Martyn also pauses to explore other tempos and cadences: the churning "Seventy Four" is a plodding, dub-techno dirge, while "Elden St." marries 2-step syncopations to techno's steady 4/4 under cover of misty keys and fragmented soul vocals. The ambient interludes "Bridge" and "Brilliant Orange", meanwhile, suggest an affinity for moody soundtrack music. Neither is particularly memorable on its own, but they serve a useful purpose as a kind of mood glue, helping give the album its sense of flow. And Detroit techno's plangent chords carry across almost everything here, including the most broken, driving rhythms. This isn't Burial: Martyn is much more obviously a student of the dance floor. His rhythms are more cleanly drawn than Burial's, his sounds more pronounced. But a similar moodiness prevails, making this an album that ought to appeal to a wide swathe of listeners, including plenty who might not care about dubstep in the abstract. Even comparatively sprightly cuts like "Little Things" are awash in melancholic strings, and almost every track is driven by fat, stacked chords moving in formation. He's fond of chords voiced like the sampled rave stabs of yore-- blocky, fixed-interval things that lend an odd modal shiver as they go crab-walking up and down the scales. He makes even more out of dub's glancing tone clusters, which mark syncopated time while nervous counterpoints and nimble bass lines fill in the rest of the spectrum. And Martyn's bass is itself a thing to behold: it envelops without ever overpowering, suggesting at once the anchor and the play in the line leading from it. Even at his most uptempo, Martyn tends to sound guarded, even a little sullen. His rhythms hurtle and slice; there's a flailing desperation lurking behind the funk. At his best, as on tracks like "Vancouver" and "Elden St.", his sounds seem to dissolve into themselves, the groove coiled like a hunched shoulder. It's here, I think, that Martyn sounds most like Martyn. He doesn't always hit his mark; the Spaceape-fronted "Is This Insanity?" sounds like he's merely stapled his trademark shirred chords to a structure modeled on Shackleton's percussive ethno-dubstep. And "krdl-t-grv", to my ears anyway, is too insistent in its two-bar repetitions and strident, detuned harmonies. But every selection on the album points to a particular vision, one expertly carried out in the marriage of force and tenderness, and of passion and craft.

Artist: Martyn, Album: Great Lengths, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Nearly a decade old, dubstep is entering into its restless adolescence. I can't remember the last time an established genre felt this dynamic, this much in flux. Fans are spoiled for choice, with every week bringing a panoply of new releases and, just as crucially, new names. Artists with whom we've only recently become familiar are maturing at a prodigious rate, while a new crop of labels and artists from outside the genre's London birthplace-- Bristol, Glasgow, Berlin, the Netherlands-- keep coming out of the woodwork. If the scene's mainstream is defined by its ubiquitous, industrial-strength "wobble," the margins are host to mutation after mutation, as the music absorbs and synthesizes elements of soca, funky, IDM, industrial, hip-hop, downtempo, ambient, classic 2-step garage, and, especially, Detroit techno and dub techno. The eagerly hypothesized techno/dubstep crossover is no longer a critic's fantasy: it's a given. Artists from both sides of the divide-- Shed, Scuba, 2562, Ramadanman, Kode9, Ben Klock, Andy Stott, MLZ-- are increasingly meeting in the middle, crafting tracks that blend the tempos, hallmarks and quirks of both genres. The Dutch producer Martyn is one of that lot's most versatile talents, and his debut album, Great Lengths shows an appropriately varied and evidently personal set of interpretations of dubstep's present possibilities. Like many dubstep artists, Martyn came to the genre from drum'n'bass, but he crossed over only comparatively recently. His first records, released in 2005 and 2006 for Marcus Intalex's Revolve:r label, clearly drew from the same spring that a decade before had fed the lush atmospherics of Alex Reece and LTJ Bukem. (It's not all so tranquil; "Nxt 2 U", for Play:musik, sounded like a tech-step rework of Konono No. 1, and hinted at a growing interest in unconventional rhythms and textures.) By 2007's "Broken" (Revolve:r), Martyn had slowed to dubstep's tempo, but he left many of his usual elements-- drifting pads, rapidfire percussive patterns-- intact. The effect was like watching as the spokes of a moving car's wheels seem to flicker backwards and forwards, buoyant, weightless and hovering in place. This, clearly, was Martyn's groove. With the foundation of his own label, 3024, in 2007, Martyn confirmed his arrival as one of dubstep's distinctive new voices, a reputation he has reinforced across further singles and remixes of Scuba, TRG, Shut Up and Dance, among others. He has simultaneously resisted settling too comfortably into any one sound or scene; he and gauzy hip-hopper Flying Lotus have traded remixes, and he even delved into unadulterated house music on a remix for Detroit's Ican. Great Lengths is accordingly diverse, but it's also remarkably coherent. Most of its tracks fall within dubstep's stomping ground, clocking somewhere between 130 and 140 BPM and heaving with swing; it's underscored by a powerful bass presence that seems to stretch to infinity. But Martyn also pauses to explore other tempos and cadences: the churning "Seventy Four" is a plodding, dub-techno dirge, while "Elden St." marries 2-step syncopations to techno's steady 4/4 under cover of misty keys and fragmented soul vocals. The ambient interludes "Bridge" and "Brilliant Orange", meanwhile, suggest an affinity for moody soundtrack music. Neither is particularly memorable on its own, but they serve a useful purpose as a kind of mood glue, helping give the album its sense of flow. And Detroit techno's plangent chords carry across almost everything here, including the most broken, driving rhythms. This isn't Burial: Martyn is much more obviously a student of the dance floor. His rhythms are more cleanly drawn than Burial's, his sounds more pronounced. But a similar moodiness prevails, making this an album that ought to appeal to a wide swathe of listeners, including plenty who might not care about dubstep in the abstract. Even comparatively sprightly cuts like "Little Things" are awash in melancholic strings, and almost every track is driven by fat, stacked chords moving in formation. He's fond of chords voiced like the sampled rave stabs of yore-- blocky, fixed-interval things that lend an odd modal shiver as they go crab-walking up and down the scales. He makes even more out of dub's glancing tone clusters, which mark syncopated time while nervous counterpoints and nimble bass lines fill in the rest of the spectrum. And Martyn's bass is itself a thing to behold: it envelops without ever overpowering, suggesting at once the anchor and the play in the line leading from it. Even at his most uptempo, Martyn tends to sound guarded, even a little sullen. His rhythms hurtle and slice; there's a flailing desperation lurking behind the funk. At his best, as on tracks like "Vancouver" and "Elden St.", his sounds seem to dissolve into themselves, the groove coiled like a hunched shoulder. It's here, I think, that Martyn sounds most like Martyn. He doesn't always hit his mark; the Spaceape-fronted "Is This Insanity?" sounds like he's merely stapled his trademark shirred chords to a structure modeled on Shackleton's percussive ethno-dubstep. And "krdl-t-grv", to my ears anyway, is too insistent in its two-bar repetitions and strident, detuned harmonies. But every selection on the album points to a particular vision, one expertly carried out in the marriage of force and tenderness, and of passion and craft."

Pinetop Seven

Beneath Confederate Lake

Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

Beneath Confederate Lake lie the songs that have fallen away over Pinetop Seven's nearly 10-year history, either discarded, forgotten, or saved for the right moment. For this rarities release-- a companion to last year's lushly orchestrated comeback, The Night's Bloom-- the band troll for a handful of tracks, and the results are surprising. Instead of a jumble of waterlogged debris, Beneath Confederate Lake sounds like a proper album, its songs preserved by the deep, dark waters. Most come from the five years of intermittent sessions that produced The Night's Bloom; they are interspersed with old songs newly recorded, a track by Darren Richard's side-project Grand Isle, and two contributions to the soundtrack of the obscure indie flick Numinmata: When Body Hunts Mind. As that filmic source suggests, a large portion of Beneath Confederate Lake is instrumental, echoing Richard's interest in soundtrack work. Short interstitials like "Lewis & Clark, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" as well as lengthier songs like the opener "High on a Summer's Tree" and the tango "Fadograph of a Yestern Scene" conjure a darkly curious atmosphere with a percussive sound that recalls Pinetop Seven's self-titled debut. While the mood and melodies are strong enough to make these songs stand on their own, they also provide a backdrop for the tracks that feature vocals and Richard's literary lyrics. "The Western Ash", "Two Dead Men in a Vermont Graveyard", and the alternate take of "Hurry Home Dark Cloud", which are all from the Night's Bloom sessions, develop the musical and conceptual themes the band introduced on that album. They make full use of the larger lineup to create a lush, textured sound over which Richard's inimitable vocals shimmer like an aurora borealis. The cover of Tom T. Hall's "The Promise and the Dream" proves the album's only misstep, despite the opportunity it grants the band to expand into overt C&W territory. Richard gets points for updating a post-Vietnam ballad and making it explicitly topical, but Hall's straightforward lyrics, which suited him just fine, sound too plainspoken for Richard's otherworldly voice when divorced of narrative context. He just can't sell a line like "The dream was for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Still, this song and the similarly timely-- and more successful-- title track instructively point out the complexity of Richard's songwriting. He sets his story-songs in a hazy American past that incorporates colonial figures, Old West and Native American imagery, and dustbowl details, which are echoed in the technical complexity and antiquated instrumentation of the music. And yet, no matter how historically rooted the music, Richard's concerns remain current. He's engaging the past to address the present, and by relaxing thematic control over the selection and sequencing of these songs, he may have come up with his most relevant album to date.

Artist: Pinetop Seven, Album: Beneath Confederate Lake, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "Beneath Confederate Lake lie the songs that have fallen away over Pinetop Seven's nearly 10-year history, either discarded, forgotten, or saved for the right moment. For this rarities release-- a companion to last year's lushly orchestrated comeback, The Night's Bloom-- the band troll for a handful of tracks, and the results are surprising. Instead of a jumble of waterlogged debris, Beneath Confederate Lake sounds like a proper album, its songs preserved by the deep, dark waters. Most come from the five years of intermittent sessions that produced The Night's Bloom; they are interspersed with old songs newly recorded, a track by Darren Richard's side-project Grand Isle, and two contributions to the soundtrack of the obscure indie flick Numinmata: When Body Hunts Mind. As that filmic source suggests, a large portion of Beneath Confederate Lake is instrumental, echoing Richard's interest in soundtrack work. Short interstitials like "Lewis & Clark, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" as well as lengthier songs like the opener "High on a Summer's Tree" and the tango "Fadograph of a Yestern Scene" conjure a darkly curious atmosphere with a percussive sound that recalls Pinetop Seven's self-titled debut. While the mood and melodies are strong enough to make these songs stand on their own, they also provide a backdrop for the tracks that feature vocals and Richard's literary lyrics. "The Western Ash", "Two Dead Men in a Vermont Graveyard", and the alternate take of "Hurry Home Dark Cloud", which are all from the Night's Bloom sessions, develop the musical and conceptual themes the band introduced on that album. They make full use of the larger lineup to create a lush, textured sound over which Richard's inimitable vocals shimmer like an aurora borealis. The cover of Tom T. Hall's "The Promise and the Dream" proves the album's only misstep, despite the opportunity it grants the band to expand into overt C&W territory. Richard gets points for updating a post-Vietnam ballad and making it explicitly topical, but Hall's straightforward lyrics, which suited him just fine, sound too plainspoken for Richard's otherworldly voice when divorced of narrative context. He just can't sell a line like "The dream was for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Still, this song and the similarly timely-- and more successful-- title track instructively point out the complexity of Richard's songwriting. He sets his story-songs in a hazy American past that incorporates colonial figures, Old West and Native American imagery, and dustbowl details, which are echoed in the technical complexity and antiquated instrumentation of the music. And yet, no matter how historically rooted the music, Richard's concerns remain current. He's engaging the past to address the present, and by relaxing thematic control over the selection and sequencing of these songs, he may have come up with his most relevant album to date."

Wale

Shine

Rap

Jonah Bromwich

It’s been almost a decade since Wale released The Mixtape About Nothing, an earnest collection of well-rapped thinkpieces couched in a savvy, “Seinfeld”-referencing framework. The sitcom was a tempting lure to attract the internet tastemakers, and they helped introduce the D.C.-area rapper to the mainstream. But early acclaim came with high expectations, from both Wale’s audience and from Wale himself. Ever since, he’s been striving to reclaim the near-universal praise earned by that mixtape. Five studio albums, and one mid-career reinvention later, we arrive at Shine, the rapper’s fourth full-length with MMG. Wale has promoted the new project as a record overflowing with contentment, thanks in part to a newborn daughter, Zyla. (The album’s title is an acronym: “Still here ignoring negative energy.”)  In an interview with Complex, he said he wanted to put less pressure on himself. “I put myself through a lot of doom and gloom,” he said. “And I’m just like, ‘Wale, man, just be happier.’” Accordingly, *Shine *is a more buoyant album than his back-to-basics 2015 offering, The Album About Nothing. There’s not a song here that feels grounded in much more than the desire to enjoy the moment or at least feign doing so well enough to make radio playlists. The album hopscotches its way through a varied set of production styles, with Wale performing his usual acrobatic routine through hoops positioned by marketers and focus groups. The Don Cannon-produced “Colombia Heights (Te Llamo)” refers to the largely-Hispanic D.C. neighborhood and features the reggaeton superstar J Balvin, whose presence livens up a meandering track. “My Love” and “Fine Girl” chase the Caribbean muse that Drake has exploited so successfully. The former, which features Major Lazer, Dua Lipa and Wizkid and on which Wale doesn’t rap until nearly two minutes in, is pleasant enough to wiggle into a spot on a backyard party playlist. But “Fine Girl” stumbles around blindly, wasting features from the Nigerian artists Olamide and Davido. On these songs, and many others, Wale is there but not there, his lyrics contractually obligated, though every so often he finds time to drop a regrettable line, like “she penetrating my mind, I penetrate that physique,” on the single “PYT.” Occasionally, on tracks where he’s more present, the mood lures the listener in, as on “Thank God,” an opener meant to sell the idea that Wale is through with pettiness; he uses the orchestral Cool & Dre beat to coo at his daughter, announcing “that feminist side come out when Zyla there” and turning the hook over to the R&B singer Rotimi. “Scarface, Rozay Gotti,” a surprisingly tender tribute to some of Wale’s rap heroes, induces a smile as the rapper sings drunkenly, then launches into deft, empty raps about courtside seats at a Wizards game. Still, there are hints—beyond that “doth protest too much” acronym—that Wale can’t help but relive the past. His flow remains flexible but he’s fixated on the subjects that have long obsessed him: success, wealth, and the haters who are blocking his path to success and wealth. A strange hook on “Thank God” is preoccupied with his enemies, despite the fact that he’s never had a longstanding public beef with any relevant rapper. *Shine *isn’t dark. But it feels like an exercise in avoidance as if Wale took the advice to ease up too far. Even “Smile,” the type of conscious song that animated Mixtape About Nothing, feels dispassionate and obligatory. And for those who were listening to his mixtapes a decade ago, “Running Back” a Lil Wayne feature and one of the best songs on Shine, doubles as a yardstick for what’s happened since. On Wale’s first Wayne feature, you could hear him striving to compete. A decade later, both rappers sound like they’re working solely for the paycheck, their pro forma raps clanging out emptily as a fantastic little sing-song DJ Spinz beat does the heavy lifting. Listening to Shine, you can’t help but think that Wale has finally dropped his rigorous standards for himself. He hadn’t met them in several years, but before this, he was still trying.

Artist: Wale, Album: Shine, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "It’s been almost a decade since Wale released The Mixtape About Nothing, an earnest collection of well-rapped thinkpieces couched in a savvy, “Seinfeld”-referencing framework. The sitcom was a tempting lure to attract the internet tastemakers, and they helped introduce the D.C.-area rapper to the mainstream. But early acclaim came with high expectations, from both Wale’s audience and from Wale himself. Ever since, he’s been striving to reclaim the near-universal praise earned by that mixtape. Five studio albums, and one mid-career reinvention later, we arrive at Shine, the rapper’s fourth full-length with MMG. Wale has promoted the new project as a record overflowing with contentment, thanks in part to a newborn daughter, Zyla. (The album’s title is an acronym: “Still here ignoring negative energy.”)  In an interview with Complex, he said he wanted to put less pressure on himself. “I put myself through a lot of doom and gloom,” he said. “And I’m just like, ‘Wale, man, just be happier.’” Accordingly, *Shine *is a more buoyant album than his back-to-basics 2015 offering, The Album About Nothing. There’s not a song here that feels grounded in much more than the desire to enjoy the moment or at least feign doing so well enough to make radio playlists. The album hopscotches its way through a varied set of production styles, with Wale performing his usual acrobatic routine through hoops positioned by marketers and focus groups. The Don Cannon-produced “Colombia Heights (Te Llamo)” refers to the largely-Hispanic D.C. neighborhood and features the reggaeton superstar J Balvin, whose presence livens up a meandering track. “My Love” and “Fine Girl” chase the Caribbean muse that Drake has exploited so successfully. The former, which features Major Lazer, Dua Lipa and Wizkid and on which Wale doesn’t rap until nearly two minutes in, is pleasant enough to wiggle into a spot on a backyard party playlist. But “Fine Girl” stumbles around blindly, wasting features from the Nigerian artists Olamide and Davido. On these songs, and many others, Wale is there but not there, his lyrics contractually obligated, though every so often he finds time to drop a regrettable line, like “she penetrating my mind, I penetrate that physique,” on the single “PYT.” Occasionally, on tracks where he’s more present, the mood lures the listener in, as on “Thank God,” an opener meant to sell the idea that Wale is through with pettiness; he uses the orchestral Cool & Dre beat to coo at his daughter, announcing “that feminist side come out when Zyla there” and turning the hook over to the R&B singer Rotimi. “Scarface, Rozay Gotti,” a surprisingly tender tribute to some of Wale’s rap heroes, induces a smile as the rapper sings drunkenly, then launches into deft, empty raps about courtside seats at a Wizards game. Still, there are hints—beyond that “doth protest too much” acronym—that Wale can’t help but relive the past. His flow remains flexible but he’s fixated on the subjects that have long obsessed him: success, wealth, and the haters who are blocking his path to success and wealth. A strange hook on “Thank God” is preoccupied with his enemies, despite the fact that he’s never had a longstanding public beef with any relevant rapper. *Shine *isn’t dark. But it feels like an exercise in avoidance as if Wale took the advice to ease up too far. Even “Smile,” the type of conscious song that animated Mixtape About Nothing, feels dispassionate and obligatory. And for those who were listening to his mixtapes a decade ago, “Running Back” a Lil Wayne feature and one of the best songs on Shine, doubles as a yardstick for what’s happened since. On Wale’s first Wayne feature, you could hear him striving to compete. A decade later, both rappers sound like they’re working solely for the paycheck, their pro forma raps clanging out emptily as a fantastic little sing-song DJ Spinz beat does the heavy lifting. Listening to Shine, you can’t help but think that Wale has finally dropped his rigorous standards for himself. He hadn’t met them in several years, but before this, he was still trying."

The Gutter Twins

Adorata EP

Rock

Joshua Klein

Over the course of his career, whether in the Afghan Whigs or Twilight Singers, Greg Dulli has covered acts as diverse as the Supremes, TLC, Fleetwood Mac, Björk, and John Coltrane with often striking results. At the very least, such earnest, even revelatory stunts revealed a craftsman's grasp of context, the notion that even the tried and true can be taken in a new direction by a different voice. Indeed, Dulli's honed his personality as the premier alpha letch to such perfection that he's able to twist whatever material he's singing to suit his needs. Were his schedule lax enough to allow such an indulgence, he'd make one hell of a wedding singer. Given Dulli's track record, it's no shock that the Gutter Twins would get around to recording some covers of their own. At the least, Dulli and partner/complement Mark Lanegan have just a single album's worth of material to their collective name, so an eight-song EP of mostly cover tracks (plus a couple of previously unreleased originals) injects some new blood into a project. Another impetus for Adorata was the passing of Eleven/Queens of the Stone Age singer/organist Natasha Shneider, who died of cancer earlier this year. Portions of the EP's proceeds will go to her memorial fund. Frankly, getting Shneider's name out there, not to mention covering Eleven's "Flow Like a River", could make more of an impact than whatever money is raised by the internet-only sales of this solid EP. "Flow Like a River", from Eleven's 2003 disc Howling Book, is a perfect fit for the Gutter Twins, who don't reinvent the song so much as give it a little kick. The same could be said of some of the other cover choices on Adorata-- Vetiver's "Belles", for example, is pushed slightly out of psych-folk mode, but the version here sticks pretty close to the spirit of the original. Swedish songwriter José González, however, gets the full treatment with his "Down the Line", which is given a set of cojones courtesy tough drums and some pounding piano, transforming this track into a veritable anthem. Elsewhere Primal Scream's "Deep Hit of Morning Sun" is given a funky facelift that streamlines the hallucinogenic cyber-punk "Venus in Furs"-isms of the original to suit Dulli and Lanegan's collective M.O. The traditional "St. James Infirmary", which Lanegan recently recorded with Isobel Campbell, is reprised here, with Dulli as duet partner and Lanegan's baritone once again perfect for the mournful blues of this death ballad. He's great on Scott Walker's "Duchess", too, another track that the Gutter Twins leave largely alone, wisely recognizing it as a song you don't mess around with. While no one would ever accuse the enigmatic Walker of excessive sunniness, there's an airiness and openness to this reading at refreshing odds with the Twins' more typical claustrophobic sound. Which brings us to the band's new tracks, which should surprise no one by reverting back to the expected darkness and intensity. It's called playing to your strengths, which the slow-burn "Spanish Doors" and the particularly Whigs-y "We Have Met Before" (both led by Lanegan) do well. Or well enough, since flipped on their head those same strengths could be seen as limiting weaknesses. Certainly no one expects smiley face music from these guys, but it'd be nice to know such a side exists in more than just fleeting glimpses. As the pair gets more and more comfortable with the idea of being a band rather than a one-off, maybe we'll start to get more of the risks this EP only hints at. Until then, Adorata simply keeps the fire stoked and the scent of brimstone swirling as the group's smoke-obscured future comes into focus.

Artist: The Gutter Twins, Album: Adorata EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.3 Album review: "Over the course of his career, whether in the Afghan Whigs or Twilight Singers, Greg Dulli has covered acts as diverse as the Supremes, TLC, Fleetwood Mac, Björk, and John Coltrane with often striking results. At the very least, such earnest, even revelatory stunts revealed a craftsman's grasp of context, the notion that even the tried and true can be taken in a new direction by a different voice. Indeed, Dulli's honed his personality as the premier alpha letch to such perfection that he's able to twist whatever material he's singing to suit his needs. Were his schedule lax enough to allow such an indulgence, he'd make one hell of a wedding singer. Given Dulli's track record, it's no shock that the Gutter Twins would get around to recording some covers of their own. At the least, Dulli and partner/complement Mark Lanegan have just a single album's worth of material to their collective name, so an eight-song EP of mostly cover tracks (plus a couple of previously unreleased originals) injects some new blood into a project. Another impetus for Adorata was the passing of Eleven/Queens of the Stone Age singer/organist Natasha Shneider, who died of cancer earlier this year. Portions of the EP's proceeds will go to her memorial fund. Frankly, getting Shneider's name out there, not to mention covering Eleven's "Flow Like a River", could make more of an impact than whatever money is raised by the internet-only sales of this solid EP. "Flow Like a River", from Eleven's 2003 disc Howling Book, is a perfect fit for the Gutter Twins, who don't reinvent the song so much as give it a little kick. The same could be said of some of the other cover choices on Adorata-- Vetiver's "Belles", for example, is pushed slightly out of psych-folk mode, but the version here sticks pretty close to the spirit of the original. Swedish songwriter José González, however, gets the full treatment with his "Down the Line", which is given a set of cojones courtesy tough drums and some pounding piano, transforming this track into a veritable anthem. Elsewhere Primal Scream's "Deep Hit of Morning Sun" is given a funky facelift that streamlines the hallucinogenic cyber-punk "Venus in Furs"-isms of the original to suit Dulli and Lanegan's collective M.O. The traditional "St. James Infirmary", which Lanegan recently recorded with Isobel Campbell, is reprised here, with Dulli as duet partner and Lanegan's baritone once again perfect for the mournful blues of this death ballad. He's great on Scott Walker's "Duchess", too, another track that the Gutter Twins leave largely alone, wisely recognizing it as a song you don't mess around with. While no one would ever accuse the enigmatic Walker of excessive sunniness, there's an airiness and openness to this reading at refreshing odds with the Twins' more typical claustrophobic sound. Which brings us to the band's new tracks, which should surprise no one by reverting back to the expected darkness and intensity. It's called playing to your strengths, which the slow-burn "Spanish Doors" and the particularly Whigs-y "We Have Met Before" (both led by Lanegan) do well. Or well enough, since flipped on their head those same strengths could be seen as limiting weaknesses. Certainly no one expects smiley face music from these guys, but it'd be nice to know such a side exists in more than just fleeting glimpses. As the pair gets more and more comfortable with the idea of being a band rather than a one-off, maybe we'll start to get more of the risks this EP only hints at. Until then, Adorata simply keeps the fire stoked and the scent of brimstone swirling as the group's smoke-obscured future comes into focus."

Torres

Torres

Rock

Jayson Greene

Mackenzie Scott's voice conveys raw, urgent desperation, the sort we flinch from instinctually and are attuned, on a primal level, to heed. It is an "I haven't eaten in three days" sound, pitched between stray-dog growl, moan, and sigh. If this voice appeared on a 3am voicemail, your blood would freeze. Like its owner, it fairly lunges to be heard. Scott, a 22-year-old from Nashville, records as Torres. This is her first album. She recorded it mostly in single live-band takes, close-mic'ed, and many of the album's 10 stark, stunning songs are set for nothing more than a single electric guitar. The lyrics are full of tricky, messy subject matter-- loaded poses of female need, abjection, subjugation, dominance-- and Scott handles it deftly, furtively, like hot stones slipped from palm to palm, or a lighter flicked under a wrist. Her sure touch with these explosive subjects immediately puts her in the league of artists like PJ Harvey or EMA. Like them, she paints in whole-hand smears when the moment calls for it. Her ability to capture and sustain a single a spellbinding mood conjures the hypnotic hurt of the earliest, best Songs:Ohia or Cat Power. Her record is an overwhelming rush of feeling, and it connects with throat-seizing immediacy. "Honey, while you were ashing in your coffee/ I was thinking of telling you've what you done to me," she murmurs on "Honey", over three muted implications of power chords. It feels like a depiction of a long-unhappily married couple, maybe, confined to a pair of armchairs, the woman silently glaring a hole in the man's oblivious head. The bass in Scott's voice deepens as the guitar flares, but the song never crosses over from "thinking of telling" to catharsis. "Everything hurts, but its fine, it's fine/ it happens all the time," she mutters; the woman remains rigid in her chair, teeth clenched, leaving claw marks on the arm rests. Often on Torres, Scott plays a coiled, hurt figure willing herself to find the courage to transform into a 50 Ft Queenie, and not quite succeeding. The songs on Torres, accordingly, are not anthems. Scott recorded the album with minimal resources-- a touch of keyboard here, a cello stab there-- and the skeletal backing band feels less like an unfortunate imitation than the album's single best decision. Songs build and build and build and then die, gazing longingly at exhilarating emotional peaks just outside their reach. Like the woman in "Honey", they would explode, if only they had a little help. The feeling is echoed everywhere in the lyrics, which take baleful stock of emotional wreckage like so many groceries strewn open on the lawn. "Moon & Back” is addressed from a mother to a baby she gave up: "I'm writing to you from 1991, the year I gave you to a mama with a girl and a son," she croons. Check the year and do the math; this isn't Scott’s baby, but this feels like her story nonetheless. "Little baby, if you're reading this/ You're probably all grown, the way most babies do/ I'm sure your eyes are still that pretty blue," she sings, and by the time the song reaches its emotional center-- "Your new family knows/ I did this all for you/ maybe one day, you'll believe them too"-- the song has has joined the Pretenders' "Kid" in a devastating lineage of songs: in which beleaguered moms sadly explain the inexplicable to their children. The songs veer between rangy indie rock and hushed folk, unspooling in unhurried five and -six-minute lengths. They never insist on their structure, but eventually it becomes clear that they dip and surge at odd, intuitive moments, suggesting a creative songwriting mind. The music on "Chains" is little more than a single, baleful groan of cello, while scraped guitar strings that feel like ligaments tearing ratchets up tension in the background. The song drops off into a muffled-heartbeat blankness of a drum thud; Scott murmurs "Don't give up on me just yet," her voice hooded. The moment hangs, and you wait for the curtain to drop. It doesn't; the end comes two minutes later in a rude snip of the tape that startles me even at the tenth hearing. The mesmerizing lamp-glow of finger-picked guitar that opens "November Baby" could have shown up on an early Modest Mouse record. It is supported by nothing more than a handful of bass guitar notes, and each one hits at a moment of such breath-held sustained tension that it taps you in the solar plexus. Corralling all of this is Scott's jugular-direct, impressionistic writing. She reels off gorgeous images like this one, which opens "November Baby": "His skin hangs on me like a lampshade/ keeping all my light at bay." Natural images fill her lyrics-- trees, rocks, seasons-- but they are subject to the same disappointments and rejections as the human world: on "When Winter's Over", leaves drop wearily off of sorrowful trees. On the closer "Waterfall", Scott eyes the ceaselessly tumbling water and sees suicide: "The rocks beneath they bare their teeth/ They all conspire to set me free/ I set my teeth and contemplate/ All the possibilities," she sings. The album fades out right before a Big Leap, fading out in a hum rather than a burst. As the tremolo'd guitar behind her dissolves into a fine mist, she either has or hasn't jumped, permamently suspended between doubt and release: "Do you ever make it halfway down and think 'god, I never meant to jump at all'?"

Artist: Torres, Album: Torres, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "Mackenzie Scott's voice conveys raw, urgent desperation, the sort we flinch from instinctually and are attuned, on a primal level, to heed. It is an "I haven't eaten in three days" sound, pitched between stray-dog growl, moan, and sigh. If this voice appeared on a 3am voicemail, your blood would freeze. Like its owner, it fairly lunges to be heard. Scott, a 22-year-old from Nashville, records as Torres. This is her first album. She recorded it mostly in single live-band takes, close-mic'ed, and many of the album's 10 stark, stunning songs are set for nothing more than a single electric guitar. The lyrics are full of tricky, messy subject matter-- loaded poses of female need, abjection, subjugation, dominance-- and Scott handles it deftly, furtively, like hot stones slipped from palm to palm, or a lighter flicked under a wrist. Her sure touch with these explosive subjects immediately puts her in the league of artists like PJ Harvey or EMA. Like them, she paints in whole-hand smears when the moment calls for it. Her ability to capture and sustain a single a spellbinding mood conjures the hypnotic hurt of the earliest, best Songs:Ohia or Cat Power. Her record is an overwhelming rush of feeling, and it connects with throat-seizing immediacy. "Honey, while you were ashing in your coffee/ I was thinking of telling you've what you done to me," she murmurs on "Honey", over three muted implications of power chords. It feels like a depiction of a long-unhappily married couple, maybe, confined to a pair of armchairs, the woman silently glaring a hole in the man's oblivious head. The bass in Scott's voice deepens as the guitar flares, but the song never crosses over from "thinking of telling" to catharsis. "Everything hurts, but its fine, it's fine/ it happens all the time," she mutters; the woman remains rigid in her chair, teeth clenched, leaving claw marks on the arm rests. Often on Torres, Scott plays a coiled, hurt figure willing herself to find the courage to transform into a 50 Ft Queenie, and not quite succeeding. The songs on Torres, accordingly, are not anthems. Scott recorded the album with minimal resources-- a touch of keyboard here, a cello stab there-- and the skeletal backing band feels less like an unfortunate imitation than the album's single best decision. Songs build and build and build and then die, gazing longingly at exhilarating emotional peaks just outside their reach. Like the woman in "Honey", they would explode, if only they had a little help. The feeling is echoed everywhere in the lyrics, which take baleful stock of emotional wreckage like so many groceries strewn open on the lawn. "Moon & Back” is addressed from a mother to a baby she gave up: "I'm writing to you from 1991, the year I gave you to a mama with a girl and a son," she croons. Check the year and do the math; this isn't Scott’s baby, but this feels like her story nonetheless. "Little baby, if you're reading this/ You're probably all grown, the way most babies do/ I'm sure your eyes are still that pretty blue," she sings, and by the time the song reaches its emotional center-- "Your new family knows/ I did this all for you/ maybe one day, you'll believe them too"-- the song has has joined the Pretenders' "Kid" in a devastating lineage of songs: in which beleaguered moms sadly explain the inexplicable to their children. The songs veer between rangy indie rock and hushed folk, unspooling in unhurried five and -six-minute lengths. They never insist on their structure, but eventually it becomes clear that they dip and surge at odd, intuitive moments, suggesting a creative songwriting mind. The music on "Chains" is little more than a single, baleful groan of cello, while scraped guitar strings that feel like ligaments tearing ratchets up tension in the background. The song drops off into a muffled-heartbeat blankness of a drum thud; Scott murmurs "Don't give up on me just yet," her voice hooded. The moment hangs, and you wait for the curtain to drop. It doesn't; the end comes two minutes later in a rude snip of the tape that startles me even at the tenth hearing. The mesmerizing lamp-glow of finger-picked guitar that opens "November Baby" could have shown up on an early Modest Mouse record. It is supported by nothing more than a handful of bass guitar notes, and each one hits at a moment of such breath-held sustained tension that it taps you in the solar plexus. Corralling all of this is Scott's jugular-direct, impressionistic writing. She reels off gorgeous images like this one, which opens "November Baby": "His skin hangs on me like a lampshade/ keeping all my light at bay." Natural images fill her lyrics-- trees, rocks, seasons-- but they are subject to the same disappointments and rejections as the human world: on "When Winter's Over", leaves drop wearily off of sorrowful trees. On the closer "Waterfall", Scott eyes the ceaselessly tumbling water and sees suicide: "The rocks beneath they bare their teeth/ They all conspire to set me free/ I set my teeth and contemplate/ All the possibilities," she sings. The album fades out right before a Big Leap, fading out in a hum rather than a burst. As the tremolo'd guitar behind her dissolves into a fine mist, she either has or hasn't jumped, permamently suspended between doubt and release: "Do you ever make it halfway down and think 'god, I never meant to jump at all'?""

Stereolab

Instant 0 in the Universe EP

Experimental

Dominique Leone

Alright, before we get started, I need you to check this. Brent D gets his cheers and jeers from the leering public, but for my money, he contributed one of the best reviews this site's ever seen. It's not just that he found a way to out-pomo Stereolab and Jim O'Rourke, but that he did it in such a way that didn't necessarily insult anyone involved-- including fans of the record. How should I know? Because I was one of the few who actually liked Cobra & Phases, despite its flat, obviously derivative easy-listening sounds, krautrock medleys and horns cribbed from "Playboy After Dark". DiCrescenzo hit on all that stuff, but not below the belt. I loved the Groop, but also recognized how completely relevant his points were. Result: conundrum. The thing about latter-day 'Lab that many detractors fail to realize is that this period, rather than everything they did prior to Emperor Tomato Ketchup, is "their sound." Look at the progression of records from Peng! through ETK, and then notice the trend ever since. As the band worked through their infatuations with smooth-yet-experimental sounds, awkward cool, and turning French into an actual rock 'n' roll tongue, it only seems right that they would settle down with a uniform approach. Cobra & Phases, the First of the Microbe Hunters mini-LP, and 2001's underrated Sound-Dust might not have been the bloated, lazy lounge malingerers everyone makes them out to be. Well, okay, Microbe Hunters wasn't that great and Cobra could've benefited from trimming 20 minutes of fat-- BUT: I still contend these are not nadirs, but apexes of Stereolab's development. Brent called it "stultifying"; of course, there's no accounting for taste. So it's all the more dreadful to face the facts that have sprung up over the course of their past few albums, the most obvious of which is: even if you corner the market on cocktail space jazz, it doesn't necessarily mean anyone's going to give a shit for more than a couple of records. Granted, Stereolab have a knack for making their extremely minimal song components feel greater than the sum of their parts, but that also means that they're always running the risk of crossing over into the indistinct. Until now, they've generally avoided that, but Instant 0 in the Universe (Acid Mothers, they snagged your stash!) manages to ignore the essential art-rock flourishes of Sound-Dust, and in fact, has done away with anything even remotely interesting or new: these songs sound plucked straight from cutting room floor. Which still doesn't make it terrible-- Stereolab, at this point in their career, hardly seem capable of producing any truly, offensively awful material-- but in a way, it's worse: Instant 0 leaves about as much of an impression as its title indicates. "...Sudden Stars" begins with a quaint Farfisa/guitar counterpoint and Laetitia Sadier's ever-distinct alto. Her vocals have always been one of my favorite sounds in new rock, and it's sad to think that Mary Hansen's won't be there to add another layer of sophistication and complexity. Nevertheless, the band's vision has survived: this is Stereolab to a tee. Unfortunately, the familiar overwhelms-- right down to the propulsive drumming at the front of the mix and yet another chord progression descended from Yes' "Starship Trooper" (don't fight it)-- and even the most sympathetic ears may not be able to maintain interest for the song's whole duration. "Jaunty Monty and the Bubbles of Silence", meanwhile, is a sprightly piece of... well, hell, I don't really need to say anything about it, do I? You know what it sounds like! All of this said, it isn't the similarities between these songs and so many others that disappoints, but that these seem so uninspired. I love the idea of splicing motorik and Gainsbourg in "Microclimate", but Sadier's lilting vocal melody in the waltz section sounds maybe a bit too lilting, like she meant to just go back to bed. Even their backing tracks, generally some of the most reliable in the biz, suffer from such a lack of color and energy that they could easily pass for demos. Some might take that to mean Instant 0 is a "stripped down" affair, that the band has simply returned to their roots. Sadly, it really does just seem flat to me. The worst part about this is that I'm wasting my chance to pump up the maligned Stereolab records on a not-necessarily-thrilling EP. I don't know if the band will ever release a great record again, and truthfully, I don't much care. They've given the indie kids and the record collector geeks theirs, and still put on a pretty tight live show; nothing much to prove these days. Still, one can always hope for another retro-futuristic hurrah. Instant 0 is not that last exultation, but I'll assume it isn't final in any respect.

Artist: Stereolab, Album: Instant 0 in the Universe EP, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 5.0 Album review: "Alright, before we get started, I need you to check this. Brent D gets his cheers and jeers from the leering public, but for my money, he contributed one of the best reviews this site's ever seen. It's not just that he found a way to out-pomo Stereolab and Jim O'Rourke, but that he did it in such a way that didn't necessarily insult anyone involved-- including fans of the record. How should I know? Because I was one of the few who actually liked Cobra & Phases, despite its flat, obviously derivative easy-listening sounds, krautrock medleys and horns cribbed from "Playboy After Dark". DiCrescenzo hit on all that stuff, but not below the belt. I loved the Groop, but also recognized how completely relevant his points were. Result: conundrum. The thing about latter-day 'Lab that many detractors fail to realize is that this period, rather than everything they did prior to Emperor Tomato Ketchup, is "their sound." Look at the progression of records from Peng! through ETK, and then notice the trend ever since. As the band worked through their infatuations with smooth-yet-experimental sounds, awkward cool, and turning French into an actual rock 'n' roll tongue, it only seems right that they would settle down with a uniform approach. Cobra & Phases, the First of the Microbe Hunters mini-LP, and 2001's underrated Sound-Dust might not have been the bloated, lazy lounge malingerers everyone makes them out to be. Well, okay, Microbe Hunters wasn't that great and Cobra could've benefited from trimming 20 minutes of fat-- BUT: I still contend these are not nadirs, but apexes of Stereolab's development. Brent called it "stultifying"; of course, there's no accounting for taste. So it's all the more dreadful to face the facts that have sprung up over the course of their past few albums, the most obvious of which is: even if you corner the market on cocktail space jazz, it doesn't necessarily mean anyone's going to give a shit for more than a couple of records. Granted, Stereolab have a knack for making their extremely minimal song components feel greater than the sum of their parts, but that also means that they're always running the risk of crossing over into the indistinct. Until now, they've generally avoided that, but Instant 0 in the Universe (Acid Mothers, they snagged your stash!) manages to ignore the essential art-rock flourishes of Sound-Dust, and in fact, has done away with anything even remotely interesting or new: these songs sound plucked straight from cutting room floor. Which still doesn't make it terrible-- Stereolab, at this point in their career, hardly seem capable of producing any truly, offensively awful material-- but in a way, it's worse: Instant 0 leaves about as much of an impression as its title indicates. "...Sudden Stars" begins with a quaint Farfisa/guitar counterpoint and Laetitia Sadier's ever-distinct alto. Her vocals have always been one of my favorite sounds in new rock, and it's sad to think that Mary Hansen's won't be there to add another layer of sophistication and complexity. Nevertheless, the band's vision has survived: this is Stereolab to a tee. Unfortunately, the familiar overwhelms-- right down to the propulsive drumming at the front of the mix and yet another chord progression descended from Yes' "Starship Trooper" (don't fight it)-- and even the most sympathetic ears may not be able to maintain interest for the song's whole duration. "Jaunty Monty and the Bubbles of Silence", meanwhile, is a sprightly piece of... well, hell, I don't really need to say anything about it, do I? You know what it sounds like! All of this said, it isn't the similarities between these songs and so many others that disappoints, but that these seem so uninspired. I love the idea of splicing motorik and Gainsbourg in "Microclimate", but Sadier's lilting vocal melody in the waltz section sounds maybe a bit too lilting, like she meant to just go back to bed. Even their backing tracks, generally some of the most reliable in the biz, suffer from such a lack of color and energy that they could easily pass for demos. Some might take that to mean Instant 0 is a "stripped down" affair, that the band has simply returned to their roots. Sadly, it really does just seem flat to me. The worst part about this is that I'm wasting my chance to pump up the maligned Stereolab records on a not-necessarily-thrilling EP. I don't know if the band will ever release a great record again, and truthfully, I don't much care. They've given the indie kids and the record collector geeks theirs, and still put on a pretty tight live show; nothing much to prove these days. Still, one can always hope for another retro-futuristic hurrah. Instant 0 is not that last exultation, but I'll assume it isn't final in any respect."

Roman Flügel

Happiness Is Happening

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

Few dance music producers have established a voice quite as singular as Roman Flügel's. That's ironic, because in his two decades as a solo artist, he's recorded gritty acid fugues, limpid deep house, knotty breakbeat hardcore, and clean-lined minimal techno, among other styles, both pure and hybrid. His cheeky 2004 single "Geht's Noch?" was an unwitting midwife to a squawking strain of big-room EDM; the following year, he teamed up with the vibraphonist Christopher Dell for Superstructure, a collection of diffuse, freeform techno-jazz. (For most club music producers, a release like the latter would be the outlier in his or her catalog, but in Flügel's case, it's the populist, over-the-top club jam that remains the exception.) But Flügel's signature remains legible in pretty much whatever he does, despite the stylistic diversity of his catalog. (That range is one reason he's used so many aliases over the years, including Roman IV, Soylent Green, ro70, and Eight Miles High, in addition to his and Jörn Elling Wuttke's shifting collective identity as Alter Ego, Acid Jesus, Holy Garage, et al.) He's got a way with rippling, wriggling drum patterns, and his knack for daubing on tonal elements proves him to be a skilled pointillist. His ear for nuance and his feel for balance let him take the most shopworn sounds—an unadorned drum machine, a crackling breakbeat, a wily TB-303—and make them sound, if not exactly new, indisputably his. That's truer than ever on Happiness Is Happening, which builds on the principles he set out in 2011's Fatty Folders in playful and sometimes surprising ways. Reflecting a newfound sense of focus in his work, the latter was his first album released under his own name; the new one widens its scope without forsaking any of its cohesion. At its core, the record foregrounds a strain of house music that's wispy but wiry, favoring all his usual trademarks: scratchy analog drum machines, lush pads, quirky little quasi-melodies, and glassy FM synthesizers with the sour clang of oil-drums half-submerged in water. A few of the tracks easily could have fit on Fatty Folders or any of the club-oriented EPs he's released between then and now on labels like Dial and Live at Robert Johnson. "Stuffy", sounding anything but, is classic Flügel: a percussive, energetic workout marked by brittle drums and a colorful, pinging melody. The expressive way that the track's cymbals twitch and flare confirm him as one of our most talented hi-hat programmers. "Your War Is Over" plays with similar ideas, as kalimba-inspired synthesizers pluck against watery chords; though nominally four-to-the-floor, the kick drum is little more than a shadow of itself, which aids the track's weightless drift. "We Have a Nice Life" plays with dance-floor convention in similar ways, opening with two minutes of beatless drones before pulling itself up by its bootstraps—well, its arpeggios, anyway—and morphing into a jaunty set of variations on an Italo-house theme, all whispery shakers and laser zaps. (There are only about four elements in play, yet no two bars of the song are the same, proof of Flügel's commitment to composition as a process of perpetual mutation.) And the slower "Tense Times" stretches those same Italo influences, like rubbery bass arpeggios and rich, major chords, into a dubby fantasia that sounds like the Orb gone disco. It's muscular but dreamy, the kind of contradiction that Flügel savors. But a goodly portion of Happiness Is Happening finds Flügel stretching out and trying out new styles—or styles new to his catalog, anyway.  The delightful "Friendship Song" borrows the chord changes from Grimes' "Oblivion" and turns it into a Depeche Mode song circa Speak & Spell, and "Wilkie", similarly springy and similarly naïve, strikes up a dialogue with the New Order of Power, Corruption & Lies. (That might sound to you like a wholly unnecessary exercise, but once you hear the way he handles the subject matter—gentle but authoritative, and also a little awestruck—you will agree that it is not.) "Parade" twists up the canon yet again, this time by fusing the snap and crackle of early '80s electro with the apocalyptic klaxon blasts of early '90s rave music, like a hybrid of Kraftwerk's "Numbers" and Second Phase's "Mentasm." Two songs in particular show what a versatile producer he can be.  The opening "Connecting the Ghost" explores a slow-fast "motorik" pulse, its stately, chugging beat a foil for Flügel to indulge in creamy textures and squealing oscillators; the quick-stepping "Occult Levitation" offers little more than a steady patter of lawn-sprinkler hi-hats and rosy sunrise glow. Both, in their way, are genre studies—Krautrock and techno, respectively—but more than that, they're examples of Flügel's unique sensibility, deft touch, and expressive, unmistakable voice.

Artist: Roman Flügel, Album: Happiness Is Happening, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "Few dance music producers have established a voice quite as singular as Roman Flügel's. That's ironic, because in his two decades as a solo artist, he's recorded gritty acid fugues, limpid deep house, knotty breakbeat hardcore, and clean-lined minimal techno, among other styles, both pure and hybrid. His cheeky 2004 single "Geht's Noch?" was an unwitting midwife to a squawking strain of big-room EDM; the following year, he teamed up with the vibraphonist Christopher Dell for Superstructure, a collection of diffuse, freeform techno-jazz. (For most club music producers, a release like the latter would be the outlier in his or her catalog, but in Flügel's case, it's the populist, over-the-top club jam that remains the exception.) But Flügel's signature remains legible in pretty much whatever he does, despite the stylistic diversity of his catalog. (That range is one reason he's used so many aliases over the years, including Roman IV, Soylent Green, ro70, and Eight Miles High, in addition to his and Jörn Elling Wuttke's shifting collective identity as Alter Ego, Acid Jesus, Holy Garage, et al.) He's got a way with rippling, wriggling drum patterns, and his knack for daubing on tonal elements proves him to be a skilled pointillist. His ear for nuance and his feel for balance let him take the most shopworn sounds—an unadorned drum machine, a crackling breakbeat, a wily TB-303—and make them sound, if not exactly new, indisputably his. That's truer than ever on Happiness Is Happening, which builds on the principles he set out in 2011's Fatty Folders in playful and sometimes surprising ways. Reflecting a newfound sense of focus in his work, the latter was his first album released under his own name; the new one widens its scope without forsaking any of its cohesion. At its core, the record foregrounds a strain of house music that's wispy but wiry, favoring all his usual trademarks: scratchy analog drum machines, lush pads, quirky little quasi-melodies, and glassy FM synthesizers with the sour clang of oil-drums half-submerged in water. A few of the tracks easily could have fit on Fatty Folders or any of the club-oriented EPs he's released between then and now on labels like Dial and Live at Robert Johnson. "Stuffy", sounding anything but, is classic Flügel: a percussive, energetic workout marked by brittle drums and a colorful, pinging melody. The expressive way that the track's cymbals twitch and flare confirm him as one of our most talented hi-hat programmers. "Your War Is Over" plays with similar ideas, as kalimba-inspired synthesizers pluck against watery chords; though nominally four-to-the-floor, the kick drum is little more than a shadow of itself, which aids the track's weightless drift. "We Have a Nice Life" plays with dance-floor convention in similar ways, opening with two minutes of beatless drones before pulling itself up by its bootstraps—well, its arpeggios, anyway—and morphing into a jaunty set of variations on an Italo-house theme, all whispery shakers and laser zaps. (There are only about four elements in play, yet no two bars of the song are the same, proof of Flügel's commitment to composition as a process of perpetual mutation.) And the slower "Tense Times" stretches those same Italo influences, like rubbery bass arpeggios and rich, major chords, into a dubby fantasia that sounds like the Orb gone disco. It's muscular but dreamy, the kind of contradiction that Flügel savors. But a goodly portion of Happiness Is Happening finds Flügel stretching out and trying out new styles—or styles new to his catalog, anyway.  The delightful "Friendship Song" borrows the chord changes from Grimes' "Oblivion" and turns it into a Depeche Mode song circa Speak & Spell, and "Wilkie", similarly springy and similarly naïve, strikes up a dialogue with the New Order of Power, Corruption & Lies. (That might sound to you like a wholly unnecessary exercise, but once you hear the way he handles the subject matter—gentle but authoritative, and also a little awestruck—you will agree that it is not.) "Parade" twists up the canon yet again, this time by fusing the snap and crackle of early '80s electro with the apocalyptic klaxon blasts of early '90s rave music, like a hybrid of Kraftwerk's "Numbers" and Second Phase's "Mentasm." Two songs in particular show what a versatile producer he can be.  The opening "Connecting the Ghost" explores a slow-fast "motorik" pulse, its stately, chugging beat a foil for Flügel to indulge in creamy textures and squealing oscillators; the quick-stepping "Occult Levitation" offers little more than a steady patter of lawn-sprinkler hi-hats and rosy sunrise glow. Both, in their way, are genre studies—Krautrock and techno, respectively—but more than that, they're examples of Flügel's unique sensibility, deft touch, and expressive, unmistakable voice."

Mark Lanegan Band

Phantom Radio

Rock

Nick Neyland

If there’s a constant in Mark Lanegan’s personal and professional life, it’s in his tendency to periodically flush out everything he knows. Booze, heroin, bands, and collaborators have all framed his existence with some kind of meaning and then been tossed out, sometimes returning, sometimes remaining dead and buried. Blues Funeral—Lanegan’s stubbornly against-type 2012 album, where he folded in, of all things, an impulse for electronica and a dash of New Romantic swagger—had started to look like an anomaly in his canon, a bungled attempt at channeling unlikely influences that were then left to drift into the pool of past-life identities he’s accumulated. His 2013 covers record, Imitations, drew on work by Greg Dulli, Nick Cave, Kurt Weill, and John Cale—in other words, exactly the sort of influences you’d expect the former Screaming Trees frontman to be channeling. But here he is with another album as the Mark Lanegan Band, which in part gets back to the feel he was chasing on Blues Funeral, albeit with a more assured hand ghosting through it. The story behind Phantom Radio is of someone undergoing a unique conflict with his own past. On one hand it’s clear Lanegan wants to make a break from previous working methods, writing faster, more efficiently, and embracing technology by recording on his phone. But he still has a clutch of older influences on his shoulder that he’s determined to rinse out in song, including a wide array of styles from the '80s and '90s that were completely fenced off from his world in Screaming Trees. It’s not always the most palatable way to experience Lanegan, especially when he channels the MOR-hop of Morcheeba on “The Killing Season”, clumsily fusing it with lyrics that are straight out of his dead-eyed-drunk past (“I wear my old grey overcoat,” he growls, as the song fades to a close). Lanegan has never come across as someone who’s at ease with his past or present, so the heart of the struggle is familiar here, even if the tools aren’t. It makes sense that Kurt Cobain was an ally in the grunge era—both often came across as being remarkably uncomfortable in their own bodies on stage. The common feel in a handful of songs here is one of mini symphonies, condensed down into pocket-sized works that create a juxtaposition between Lanegan’s large and small inclinations. “Harvest Home” is one of the strongest works from a lyrical perspective, but its execution is an odd mixture of flat, tinny beats and swooping synthesized strings. It’s a trick Lanegan likes to repeat. “Floor of the Ocean” has a similar uplift, undercut by a moodiness reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen circa “The Killing Moon”. On “Seventh Day”, there’s an airy, flute-driven ambience and a bed of electronics, none of which are elements most longstanding Lanegan fans probably ever expected him to be working with, but ones which he’s becoming increasingly at ease with judging from this album. “Waltzing in Blue” lands somewhere between the frigid melodrama of Joy Division and Beth Gibbons’ mournful darkness in Portishead, with Lanegan providing the perfect male flipside to her damaged wail. Phantom Radio also provides plenty of moments that don’t startle, with a generous portion of it anchored in the stripped-down sinking feeling Lanegan has fitfully returned to since The Winding Sheet in 1990. He throws out “Judgement Time” early in the record, but it’s among his best on this collection, getting back to something resembling the blackness of “Eyes of a Child”, where the sheer coercion of his voice overwhelms from the second it’s introduced. It’s noticeable how Lanegan’s voice has become more brittle over the years, becoming less like a drunk preacher who’s going to gut you and eat you and more like someone quaking in fear of an insufferable end. On the similarly bare “I Am the Wolf” and “The Wild People” you can hear the quiver in his voice, feel the tremors in his hands. It’s not hard to conclude that this is the person Lanegan’s running from in his other material here, although one thing he is remarkably good at across his body of work is letting in disarming moments of vulnerability, where he pulls you in to spectate upon the wreck of his life. On Phantom Radio there are just a few too many times when it's all dressed up in unnecessary complication.

Artist: Mark Lanegan Band, Album: Phantom Radio, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "If there’s a constant in Mark Lanegan’s personal and professional life, it’s in his tendency to periodically flush out everything he knows. Booze, heroin, bands, and collaborators have all framed his existence with some kind of meaning and then been tossed out, sometimes returning, sometimes remaining dead and buried. Blues Funeral—Lanegan’s stubbornly against-type 2012 album, where he folded in, of all things, an impulse for electronica and a dash of New Romantic swagger—had started to look like an anomaly in his canon, a bungled attempt at channeling unlikely influences that were then left to drift into the pool of past-life identities he’s accumulated. His 2013 covers record, Imitations, drew on work by Greg Dulli, Nick Cave, Kurt Weill, and John Cale—in other words, exactly the sort of influences you’d expect the former Screaming Trees frontman to be channeling. But here he is with another album as the Mark Lanegan Band, which in part gets back to the feel he was chasing on Blues Funeral, albeit with a more assured hand ghosting through it. The story behind Phantom Radio is of someone undergoing a unique conflict with his own past. On one hand it’s clear Lanegan wants to make a break from previous working methods, writing faster, more efficiently, and embracing technology by recording on his phone. But he still has a clutch of older influences on his shoulder that he’s determined to rinse out in song, including a wide array of styles from the '80s and '90s that were completely fenced off from his world in Screaming Trees. It’s not always the most palatable way to experience Lanegan, especially when he channels the MOR-hop of Morcheeba on “The Killing Season”, clumsily fusing it with lyrics that are straight out of his dead-eyed-drunk past (“I wear my old grey overcoat,” he growls, as the song fades to a close). Lanegan has never come across as someone who’s at ease with his past or present, so the heart of the struggle is familiar here, even if the tools aren’t. It makes sense that Kurt Cobain was an ally in the grunge era—both often came across as being remarkably uncomfortable in their own bodies on stage. The common feel in a handful of songs here is one of mini symphonies, condensed down into pocket-sized works that create a juxtaposition between Lanegan’s large and small inclinations. “Harvest Home” is one of the strongest works from a lyrical perspective, but its execution is an odd mixture of flat, tinny beats and swooping synthesized strings. It’s a trick Lanegan likes to repeat. “Floor of the Ocean” has a similar uplift, undercut by a moodiness reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen circa “The Killing Moon”. On “Seventh Day”, there’s an airy, flute-driven ambience and a bed of electronics, none of which are elements most longstanding Lanegan fans probably ever expected him to be working with, but ones which he’s becoming increasingly at ease with judging from this album. “Waltzing in Blue” lands somewhere between the frigid melodrama of Joy Division and Beth Gibbons’ mournful darkness in Portishead, with Lanegan providing the perfect male flipside to her damaged wail. Phantom Radio also provides plenty of moments that don’t startle, with a generous portion of it anchored in the stripped-down sinking feeling Lanegan has fitfully returned to since The Winding Sheet in 1990. He throws out “Judgement Time” early in the record, but it’s among his best on this collection, getting back to something resembling the blackness of “Eyes of a Child”, where the sheer coercion of his voice overwhelms from the second it’s introduced. It’s noticeable how Lanegan’s voice has become more brittle over the years, becoming less like a drunk preacher who’s going to gut you and eat you and more like someone quaking in fear of an insufferable end. On the similarly bare “I Am the Wolf” and “The Wild People” you can hear the quiver in his voice, feel the tremors in his hands. It’s not hard to conclude that this is the person Lanegan’s running from in his other material here, although one thing he is remarkably good at across his body of work is letting in disarming moments of vulnerability, where he pulls you in to spectate upon the wreck of his life. On Phantom Radio there are just a few too many times when it's all dressed up in unnecessary complication."

Current 93

I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell: A Channel

Experimental

Grayson Haver Currin

For the last three decades, Current 93 have been not so much a band as an ever-evolving collective anchored around the complicated vision and curdling voice of David Tibet. To scan the liner notes of Current 93’s past is to see a roster of remarkable talents and controversial figures, each worthy of their own lengthy explorations: Crass’ Steve Ignorant and Coil’s Jhonn Balance, folk queen Shirley Collins and ambient demigod William Basinski, regulars Steven Stapleton and Andrew Liles, the mesmeric singers Antony Hegarty and Rickie Lee Jones. Tibet has been an unapologetic Svengali, bending these incredible casts to his alternating will of atmospheric neo-folk or apocalyptic rock symphonies, refined industrial cacophony or delicate chamber maneuvers. There’s endemic payoff and peril with such an arrangement, of course. That rotation has long seemed to energize Tibet, forcing him to reconfigure his explorations of ancient religion and modern life with for nearly every new outing. Tibet’s music remains intriguingly unpredictable, then, a wide catalog bound mostly by the thread of his serpent’s tongue and high-minded conceits. On the other hand, some crews of Current 93 have simply worked better than others. Many have afforded his material surprising depth, while others have seemed shallow when pitted against his idiosyncratic charge. So it goes for the capable assemblage of I Am the Last of All the Field that Fell, an 11-song album that not only re-taps Hegarty, Liles, Nick Cave, and guitarist James Blackshaw (relegated to bass this time) but adds John Zorn and boundary-pressing Dutch classical pianist Reinier van Houdt. And that’s but a partial sample. There are flutes and poetry readings, floods of noise and wisps of bass clarinet. Still, such an astounding lineup only serves to reinforce the disappointment of the flat and oftentimes gangly Field. Tibet’s voice does not easily fit many definitions. It is a sharp, brittle instrument that works best in starts and stops, when it can leap beneath and through musical phrases with the authority reserved only for a bandleader. But on Field, Tibet’s only consistent accompaniment is van Houdt’s versatile piano playing. Together, they navigate peppy burlesque numbers and lurking acid rock, demented freak-jazz and drooping torch songs, various members joining in or dropping out. He attempts to slip his uniquely shaped vocals into too many unyielding holes. These torrents of words—references to Akkadian grammar and forgotten gods, cigarettes and hipsters, delivered no less in several languages—lash against the sides of the songs van Houdt attempts to shape. The most awkward fits even become unintentionally hilarious. Late during “Kings and Things”, Tibet steps sprightly over piano and a distortion-pedal din, his voice chased by the fair air of Comus’ Bobbie Watson. He offers phrases like “Announcing Japanese beheading,” and she stays in his thrall. It sounds like an action scene from Cats, while its successor—the piano-and-voice soliloquy "With the Dromedaries"—sounds like the dark-night confessional that might chase it on a Broadway stage. “Let’s discuss denim/ or the weather/ of my dead friends,” he sings, doing his best to constrain himself to the small valleys between van Houdt’s cresting-and-collapsing notes. Above the tightly scripted full-jazz-band motion of “Spring Sandy Dream Larks”, Tibet seems truly lost for one of the first times in his career. It’s as if he’s wandered uninvited into a rehearsal by the Bad Plus and tried to shoehorn his voice—shouts of Aleph and all—into a tune written without him. Dejected, he takes his leave nearly a minute before they’re done. But the band isn’t so much the problem as the directions they generally take, a point epitomized by the brazen and vitriolic “And Onto NickPick Magick”. The outfit starts in a pre-lit smolder, with snarling electric guitar and teasing flute lashing out against van Houdt’s dissonant piano and Tibet’s deep speak-sing. The group suggests a conflagration spiraling upward through space: The piano lines pile high. The guitar tone grows more reckless. The bass maintains its constant thump but gets louder and more anxious, a pulse quickened by the knowledge of impending doom. By the song’s paroxysmal end, Tibet cries every line, his stentorian tone now liquefied into terror. “I could not find your lips in the songs of bees, in ForgetMeNot Fields,” he screams during one of the album’s most lucid, poignant, and harrowing moments. That sensation emerges toward the end of “Those Flowers Grow”, too, when Tibet’s clinched screams, Zorn’s saxophone squawks, and Tony McPhee’s guitar lock into a three-way war. It’s one of Field’s few moments of full-band power that still finds Tibet in rightful control. Paradoxically, Tibet also succeeds when he sets up a system and lets it advance without him. On 2006’s Black Ships Ate the Sky, for instance, he gave his nightmares ballast and balance by allowing a set of premier singers—Hegarty, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marc Almond—to deliver the 18th century hymn “Idumæa” separately. It stunned. And he wrote the lyrics for the 2007 Michael Cashmore EP The Snow Abides, again voiced by Hegarty; it’s one of the most remarkable moments in any of their careers. On Field, a choir of monastic hums backs Hegarty, gliding through Tibet’s interconnected lyrics with ease. Tibet tries the same thing by himself two songs later, and the contrast crystallizes their differing skill sets. At least the record ends with “I Could Not Shift the Shadow”, a perfect duet between Cave's husky voice and fluttering harmonies, sunlight and shadow, fire and ash. “And bare your naked church into my mouth,” he repeats at the end, pushing off with the sort of steady resolve that so much of Field misses. It’s a parting reminder that this is Current 93, and to date, the magic has always returned.

Artist: Current 93, Album: I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell: A Channel, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 5.1 Album review: "For the last three decades, Current 93 have been not so much a band as an ever-evolving collective anchored around the complicated vision and curdling voice of David Tibet. To scan the liner notes of Current 93’s past is to see a roster of remarkable talents and controversial figures, each worthy of their own lengthy explorations: Crass’ Steve Ignorant and Coil’s Jhonn Balance, folk queen Shirley Collins and ambient demigod William Basinski, regulars Steven Stapleton and Andrew Liles, the mesmeric singers Antony Hegarty and Rickie Lee Jones. Tibet has been an unapologetic Svengali, bending these incredible casts to his alternating will of atmospheric neo-folk or apocalyptic rock symphonies, refined industrial cacophony or delicate chamber maneuvers. There’s endemic payoff and peril with such an arrangement, of course. That rotation has long seemed to energize Tibet, forcing him to reconfigure his explorations of ancient religion and modern life with for nearly every new outing. Tibet’s music remains intriguingly unpredictable, then, a wide catalog bound mostly by the thread of his serpent’s tongue and high-minded conceits. On the other hand, some crews of Current 93 have simply worked better than others. Many have afforded his material surprising depth, while others have seemed shallow when pitted against his idiosyncratic charge. So it goes for the capable assemblage of I Am the Last of All the Field that Fell, an 11-song album that not only re-taps Hegarty, Liles, Nick Cave, and guitarist James Blackshaw (relegated to bass this time) but adds John Zorn and boundary-pressing Dutch classical pianist Reinier van Houdt. And that’s but a partial sample. There are flutes and poetry readings, floods of noise and wisps of bass clarinet. Still, such an astounding lineup only serves to reinforce the disappointment of the flat and oftentimes gangly Field. Tibet’s voice does not easily fit many definitions. It is a sharp, brittle instrument that works best in starts and stops, when it can leap beneath and through musical phrases with the authority reserved only for a bandleader. But on Field, Tibet’s only consistent accompaniment is van Houdt’s versatile piano playing. Together, they navigate peppy burlesque numbers and lurking acid rock, demented freak-jazz and drooping torch songs, various members joining in or dropping out. He attempts to slip his uniquely shaped vocals into too many unyielding holes. These torrents of words—references to Akkadian grammar and forgotten gods, cigarettes and hipsters, delivered no less in several languages—lash against the sides of the songs van Houdt attempts to shape. The most awkward fits even become unintentionally hilarious. Late during “Kings and Things”, Tibet steps sprightly over piano and a distortion-pedal din, his voice chased by the fair air of Comus’ Bobbie Watson. He offers phrases like “Announcing Japanese beheading,” and she stays in his thrall. It sounds like an action scene from Cats, while its successor—the piano-and-voice soliloquy "With the Dromedaries"—sounds like the dark-night confessional that might chase it on a Broadway stage. “Let’s discuss denim/ or the weather/ of my dead friends,” he sings, doing his best to constrain himself to the small valleys between van Houdt’s cresting-and-collapsing notes. Above the tightly scripted full-jazz-band motion of “Spring Sandy Dream Larks”, Tibet seems truly lost for one of the first times in his career. It’s as if he’s wandered uninvited into a rehearsal by the Bad Plus and tried to shoehorn his voice—shouts of Aleph and all—into a tune written without him. Dejected, he takes his leave nearly a minute before they’re done. But the band isn’t so much the problem as the directions they generally take, a point epitomized by the brazen and vitriolic “And Onto NickPick Magick”. The outfit starts in a pre-lit smolder, with snarling electric guitar and teasing flute lashing out against van Houdt’s dissonant piano and Tibet’s deep speak-sing. The group suggests a conflagration spiraling upward through space: The piano lines pile high. The guitar tone grows more reckless. The bass maintains its constant thump but gets louder and more anxious, a pulse quickened by the knowledge of impending doom. By the song’s paroxysmal end, Tibet cries every line, his stentorian tone now liquefied into terror. “I could not find your lips in the songs of bees, in ForgetMeNot Fields,” he screams during one of the album’s most lucid, poignant, and harrowing moments. That sensation emerges toward the end of “Those Flowers Grow”, too, when Tibet’s clinched screams, Zorn’s saxophone squawks, and Tony McPhee’s guitar lock into a three-way war. It’s one of Field’s few moments of full-band power that still finds Tibet in rightful control. Paradoxically, Tibet also succeeds when he sets up a system and lets it advance without him. On 2006’s Black Ships Ate the Sky, for instance, he gave his nightmares ballast and balance by allowing a set of premier singers—Hegarty, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marc Almond—to deliver the 18th century hymn “Idumæa” separately. It stunned. And he wrote the lyrics for the 2007 Michael Cashmore EP The Snow Abides, again voiced by Hegarty; it’s one of the most remarkable moments in any of their careers. On Field, a choir of monastic hums backs Hegarty, gliding through Tibet’s interconnected lyrics with ease. Tibet tries the same thing by himself two songs later, and the contrast crystallizes their differing skill sets. At least the record ends with “I Could Not Shift the Shadow”, a perfect duet between Cave's husky voice and fluttering harmonies, sunlight and shadow, fire and ash. “And bare your naked church into my mouth,” he repeats at the end, pushing off with the sort of steady resolve that so much of Field misses. It’s a parting reminder that this is Current 93, and to date, the magic has always returned."

Blonde Redhead

Melodie Citronique EP

Rock

S. Murray

This release is a bit problematic. Structured ostensibly as a tribute to the group's "European roots," Blonde Redhead could be forgiven for trumping the "global village" exotica card. The concept is not sound enough, however, nor is it executed as smoothly as one might have hoped. The EP consists of five songs, the first two of which are versions of songs off their Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons album ("In Particular" and "Hated Because of Great Qualities") sung in French and Italian. These opening tracks form the crux of Melodie Citronique's misgiving. They're nothing special; the songs themselves are, note for note, exactly like their previous versions, suggesting that Kazu Makino, who sings on both, simply dubbed foreign language vocals over the backing tracks. While that's an underwhelming prospect to say the least, the awkward vocalizations add no new dimensions to the songs. The questionable premise is undercut by the fact that the Japanese Kazu has no "European roots" to speak of, and a certain laziness is apparent in neglecting to translate the chorus of "In Particular," which remains exactly as it was on the album. The one new original track, "Chi E E Non E," is an entirely different matter. The first song written by the group in Italian, it's a delicate acoustic track sung beautifully by guitarist Amedeo Pace that brings to mind the more subdued moments of Os Mutantes. Why the song is tucked away and not given prominence in the EP's tracklisting is a mystery. Following it is a well-executed Serge Gainsbourg cover, "Slogan," sung in French by Kazu. Melodie Citronique closes with "Four Damaged Lemons," a remix of Melody's "For the Damaged" by Third Eye Foundation's Matt Elliot. The remixing apparently had to do mostly with texture and atmosphere, as Elliot opts not to tinker with the actual song, preferring instead to drape a translucent sparseness upon an otherwise unchanged track. Pleasant enough, it's not the dramatic reworking necessary to round off this lukewarm collection. Simply put, the first two tracks are completely dispensable, the remaining three only lightly.

Artist: Blonde Redhead, Album: Melodie Citronique EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.0 Album review: "This release is a bit problematic. Structured ostensibly as a tribute to the group's "European roots," Blonde Redhead could be forgiven for trumping the "global village" exotica card. The concept is not sound enough, however, nor is it executed as smoothly as one might have hoped. The EP consists of five songs, the first two of which are versions of songs off their Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons album ("In Particular" and "Hated Because of Great Qualities") sung in French and Italian. These opening tracks form the crux of Melodie Citronique's misgiving. They're nothing special; the songs themselves are, note for note, exactly like their previous versions, suggesting that Kazu Makino, who sings on both, simply dubbed foreign language vocals over the backing tracks. While that's an underwhelming prospect to say the least, the awkward vocalizations add no new dimensions to the songs. The questionable premise is undercut by the fact that the Japanese Kazu has no "European roots" to speak of, and a certain laziness is apparent in neglecting to translate the chorus of "In Particular," which remains exactly as it was on the album. The one new original track, "Chi E E Non E," is an entirely different matter. The first song written by the group in Italian, it's a delicate acoustic track sung beautifully by guitarist Amedeo Pace that brings to mind the more subdued moments of Os Mutantes. Why the song is tucked away and not given prominence in the EP's tracklisting is a mystery. Following it is a well-executed Serge Gainsbourg cover, "Slogan," sung in French by Kazu. Melodie Citronique closes with "Four Damaged Lemons," a remix of Melody's "For the Damaged" by Third Eye Foundation's Matt Elliot. The remixing apparently had to do mostly with texture and atmosphere, as Elliot opts not to tinker with the actual song, preferring instead to drape a translucent sparseness upon an otherwise unchanged track. Pleasant enough, it's not the dramatic reworking necessary to round off this lukewarm collection. Simply put, the first two tracks are completely dispensable, the remaining three only lightly."

Jon Langford, The Sadies

Mayors of the Moon

Folk/Country,Rock

Chris Dahlen

From the first song you know you're in good hands. Jon Langford's voice, coarse and charming, opens "Drugstore". The Sadies' clean acoustic guitars are all country, but Langford's Welsh accent and that hook in the melody hint at a pub ballad. Langford's narrative is full of fleeting images both warm and threatening-- from the date he's dragging onto the dancefloor, to some guy with a gun who's just walked in, to the sharp air and hints of terror outside. It's a night out at a bar with a seat inside Langford's head, and The Sadies fit the words like a dress shirt that cost a week's pay and only comes out Saturday night. The bandname, Langford and "His" Sadies, is, of course, a friendly joke: The Sadies are their own outfit, with several records to their name that hover around country/western but touch on everything from psych-rock to surf. They've also backed many vocal talents, from 50s R&B cult singer Andre Williams to everyone's favorite redheaded chanteuse, Neko Case. Guitarist Dallas Good has even played with members of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Toronto's finest surf band. As a support band, The Sadies know how to toe the line, and with Langford they forgo any genre-bending or simple fooling around that might distract us. So most of the music treads familiar ground, played well and only a little rowdy. The Sadies stomp down "Up to My Neck in This", on the lefty tirade "American Pageant" their guitars are brash and vicious. Occasional member Critter shows up on vibes and percussion, putting extra resonance on ballads like "Little Vampires", while guest Bob Egan's pedal steel-- especially gorgeous on "Looking Good for Radio" and "Are You an Entertainer?"-- adds a soar and shimmer that tugs the heartstrings. The only thing that lets them down are the songs. These guys have plenty to say, but as the album plays, it becomes less captivating and more by-the-numbers. Putting The Mekons and Waco Brothers singer Jon Langford in front of Toronto's rising alt-country stars looks great on paper-- and typical for a disc from Bloodshot Records, the atmosphere's cozy and the playing's impeccable. Yet there are few sparks, and nothing is really exceptional. Langford and the band wrote all-new material, but it actually sounds less personal than if they'd stuck to good covers. Even their most exotic song, "Shipwreck", feels like just another dreamy lost-at-sea ballad. (Though Sally Timms' guest vocals sure are pretty.) The most career-average contribution comes from Langford. There's no doubting his cred in either rock or alt-country, after twenty-five years of "anything goes" anarcho-rock with The Mekons and his work in cowpunk band The Waco Brothers. And while much has been made of whether his Welsh accent belongs in North American country music, he proves yet again that his rough-timbred working man's rasp couldn't be more suited to belting out songs about work, despair, and opposition to the Bush administration. Langford gets angry, though here he only bares his teeth fleetingly, spitting out the horrific imagery of "American Pageant". He also gets sad, though he never hits a true gutbucket wallow; "Little Vampires" doesn't wrench the heart, nor does "Looking Good for Radio" feel like a deep admission of flaws. (The "'Change must come'/ Can you break this twenty?" line is just plain hammy.) More than anything, Langford comes off as a wayward if loveable uncle; his words are good but rarely cutting, and by the closing number-- "Are You an Entertainer?", a song about the grinds of the touring life-- the album itself has ground to a halt. Mayors of the Moon is in no way a bad record-- every performance is solid and the recording sparkles-- but it doesn't quite meet its potential. The challenge of this collaboration seems to have driven everyone involved to make safe decisions instead of taking risks or letting in a little sloppiness, and that's the last thing you'd expect from these guys.

Artist: Jon Langford, The Sadies, Album: Mayors of the Moon, Genre: Folk/Country,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "From the first song you know you're in good hands. Jon Langford's voice, coarse and charming, opens "Drugstore". The Sadies' clean acoustic guitars are all country, but Langford's Welsh accent and that hook in the melody hint at a pub ballad. Langford's narrative is full of fleeting images both warm and threatening-- from the date he's dragging onto the dancefloor, to some guy with a gun who's just walked in, to the sharp air and hints of terror outside. It's a night out at a bar with a seat inside Langford's head, and The Sadies fit the words like a dress shirt that cost a week's pay and only comes out Saturday night. The bandname, Langford and "His" Sadies, is, of course, a friendly joke: The Sadies are their own outfit, with several records to their name that hover around country/western but touch on everything from psych-rock to surf. They've also backed many vocal talents, from 50s R&B cult singer Andre Williams to everyone's favorite redheaded chanteuse, Neko Case. Guitarist Dallas Good has even played with members of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Toronto's finest surf band. As a support band, The Sadies know how to toe the line, and with Langford they forgo any genre-bending or simple fooling around that might distract us. So most of the music treads familiar ground, played well and only a little rowdy. The Sadies stomp down "Up to My Neck in This", on the lefty tirade "American Pageant" their guitars are brash and vicious. Occasional member Critter shows up on vibes and percussion, putting extra resonance on ballads like "Little Vampires", while guest Bob Egan's pedal steel-- especially gorgeous on "Looking Good for Radio" and "Are You an Entertainer?"-- adds a soar and shimmer that tugs the heartstrings. The only thing that lets them down are the songs. These guys have plenty to say, but as the album plays, it becomes less captivating and more by-the-numbers. Putting The Mekons and Waco Brothers singer Jon Langford in front of Toronto's rising alt-country stars looks great on paper-- and typical for a disc from Bloodshot Records, the atmosphere's cozy and the playing's impeccable. Yet there are few sparks, and nothing is really exceptional. Langford and the band wrote all-new material, but it actually sounds less personal than if they'd stuck to good covers. Even their most exotic song, "Shipwreck", feels like just another dreamy lost-at-sea ballad. (Though Sally Timms' guest vocals sure are pretty.) The most career-average contribution comes from Langford. There's no doubting his cred in either rock or alt-country, after twenty-five years of "anything goes" anarcho-rock with The Mekons and his work in cowpunk band The Waco Brothers. And while much has been made of whether his Welsh accent belongs in North American country music, he proves yet again that his rough-timbred working man's rasp couldn't be more suited to belting out songs about work, despair, and opposition to the Bush administration. Langford gets angry, though here he only bares his teeth fleetingly, spitting out the horrific imagery of "American Pageant". He also gets sad, though he never hits a true gutbucket wallow; "Little Vampires" doesn't wrench the heart, nor does "Looking Good for Radio" feel like a deep admission of flaws. (The "'Change must come'/ Can you break this twenty?" line is just plain hammy.) More than anything, Langford comes off as a wayward if loveable uncle; his words are good but rarely cutting, and by the closing number-- "Are You an Entertainer?", a song about the grinds of the touring life-- the album itself has ground to a halt. Mayors of the Moon is in no way a bad record-- every performance is solid and the recording sparkles-- but it doesn't quite meet its potential. The challenge of this collaboration seems to have driven everyone involved to make safe decisions instead of taking risks or letting in a little sloppiness, and that's the last thing you'd expect from these guys. "

Rufus Wainwright

Want One

Rock

William Morris

Rufus Wainwright is a soldier! He's fashioned as a forlorn knight of yore on this record's cover, brandishing a three-foot iron sword, and shrouded in medieval battle armor. But this image misleads: Want One is more a drove casting of arrows than any detailed fencing bout with mythical demons and fire-breathing dragons. The record is something of cinematic effort, composed of roughly half of the material recorded over the course of six months' studio time that yielded thirty-odd products of his unique musical vision. A follow-up, Want Two, is scheduled for future release, and is said to boast the set's more adventurous and cumbersome confections. A Renaissance man in modern application, Wainwright's grand scope here covers a great deal of space and unwittingly mines the ground dug out by many a contemporary artist. With multitracked vocals and lush, complex arrangements (both, Wainwright staples), the ghost of Brian Wilson seems a ubiquitous presence-- especially on numbers such as "Vicious World", where Rufus' plaintive, appealing croon takes center stage, backed by a chorus of his own likeness and a finely tuned, direct arrangement. "Movies of Myself", with its straight-ahead bounce, drum-led clip, and aberrant guitar crunch, recalls Jason Faulkner. "14th Street" is a Jim Croce chorus-line cabaret burlesque, and "Natasha" loosely tunes in to early Paul Simon-inflected tribute-narratives. But to say Wainwright is following anything but his own vision would be a misconception. His footsteps mostly lead him back to his earlier cabaret-infused theatre pop and maudlin, hushed anti-ballads. The result is a top-heavy album, with his best material-- the more operatic and unconstrained works-- all unfolded within the album's first half hour. "Oh What a World" opens the album with a tuba's reluctant elephant steps and some acoustic plucks, and slowly trickles in a full concert's worth of accompaniment before deploying a string rendition of Ravel's Bolero behind Wainwright's plaintive warble. "I Don't Know What It Is" follows in with a slow building, twinkling pop sensibility, carrying his most melodic vocal punch. "Go or Go Ahead", the album's most compelling portrait, falls in like fine China crashing to the ground in slow motion, reaching an epic chorus that carries the song just shy of the seven-minute mark. The lyrics carry mythological grandeur, but as with the rest of this album, they're shot through with vulnerability and emotional nudity. "Vibrate", then, marks the album's low water mark, taking his stream-of-consciousness, take-me-as-I-am drama too far: Over thin instrumental accompaniment and languished tones he sings, "My phone's on vibrate for you/ Electroclash is karaoke, too/ I try to dance Britney Spears/ I guess I'm getting on in years." This, along with "Natasha", "Pretty Things", and "Want" are simply too sparse to offer any real substance. But then "Beautiful Child" cuts in, sounding, before the mix becomes too cluttered, like Wainwright fronting an inspired, experimental U2. Perhaps there is a battle going on here: It sometimes feels like Wainwright is merely fighting his way through inspiration, unable to put anything aside. And between the scrambling and shifty vulnerability, he stumbles onto something that is uniquely his own. But if there's any momentum to speak of leading into this album's sequel, it's the anchoring weight of Want One's second half, without which the record could survive itself.

Artist: Rufus Wainwright, Album: Want One, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "Rufus Wainwright is a soldier! He's fashioned as a forlorn knight of yore on this record's cover, brandishing a three-foot iron sword, and shrouded in medieval battle armor. But this image misleads: Want One is more a drove casting of arrows than any detailed fencing bout with mythical demons and fire-breathing dragons. The record is something of cinematic effort, composed of roughly half of the material recorded over the course of six months' studio time that yielded thirty-odd products of his unique musical vision. A follow-up, Want Two, is scheduled for future release, and is said to boast the set's more adventurous and cumbersome confections. A Renaissance man in modern application, Wainwright's grand scope here covers a great deal of space and unwittingly mines the ground dug out by many a contemporary artist. With multitracked vocals and lush, complex arrangements (both, Wainwright staples), the ghost of Brian Wilson seems a ubiquitous presence-- especially on numbers such as "Vicious World", where Rufus' plaintive, appealing croon takes center stage, backed by a chorus of his own likeness and a finely tuned, direct arrangement. "Movies of Myself", with its straight-ahead bounce, drum-led clip, and aberrant guitar crunch, recalls Jason Faulkner. "14th Street" is a Jim Croce chorus-line cabaret burlesque, and "Natasha" loosely tunes in to early Paul Simon-inflected tribute-narratives. But to say Wainwright is following anything but his own vision would be a misconception. His footsteps mostly lead him back to his earlier cabaret-infused theatre pop and maudlin, hushed anti-ballads. The result is a top-heavy album, with his best material-- the more operatic and unconstrained works-- all unfolded within the album's first half hour. "Oh What a World" opens the album with a tuba's reluctant elephant steps and some acoustic plucks, and slowly trickles in a full concert's worth of accompaniment before deploying a string rendition of Ravel's Bolero behind Wainwright's plaintive warble. "I Don't Know What It Is" follows in with a slow building, twinkling pop sensibility, carrying his most melodic vocal punch. "Go or Go Ahead", the album's most compelling portrait, falls in like fine China crashing to the ground in slow motion, reaching an epic chorus that carries the song just shy of the seven-minute mark. The lyrics carry mythological grandeur, but as with the rest of this album, they're shot through with vulnerability and emotional nudity. "Vibrate", then, marks the album's low water mark, taking his stream-of-consciousness, take-me-as-I-am drama too far: Over thin instrumental accompaniment and languished tones he sings, "My phone's on vibrate for you/ Electroclash is karaoke, too/ I try to dance Britney Spears/ I guess I'm getting on in years." This, along with "Natasha", "Pretty Things", and "Want" are simply too sparse to offer any real substance. But then "Beautiful Child" cuts in, sounding, before the mix becomes too cluttered, like Wainwright fronting an inspired, experimental U2. Perhaps there is a battle going on here: It sometimes feels like Wainwright is merely fighting his way through inspiration, unable to put anything aside. And between the scrambling and shifty vulnerability, he stumbles onto something that is uniquely his own. But if there's any momentum to speak of leading into this album's sequel, it's the anchoring weight of Want One's second half, without which the record could survive itself."

Arcwelder

Everest

Metal,Rock

Ryan Schreiber

After Husker Du and the Replacements split up, Minneapolis didn't have much of a music scene to brag about. By the time 1993 came around, the scene seemed to be barely kept alive by a few gasping breaths from local artists like Willie Wisely, Polara, the Hang-Ups, Rex Daisy, Dylan Hicks, Bean Girl, Cows, and Walt Mink. And near the top of the list of hometown greats stood Arcwelder. The first record I heard by the band was 1993's classic Pull, their sophomore release, and their best record to date. Arcwelder's blend of solo Bob Mould accessibility and post-punk influences crafted unusual melodies and rhythms from some of the most memorable distortion- fueled pop riffs ever. But the follow- up to Pull didn't fare well. Xerxes was a largely hit- or- miss effort with only one or two standout tracks. And even though 1996's Entropy showed the band largely back on track-- especially on songs like "Free Me" and "Snake Oil"-- they refused to broaden their horizons and failed to cover any new terrain. Everest, Arcwelder's first album in three years, is... well, another Arcwelder album. It makes sense-- these guys are getting older and probably just make albums and tour in their free time. They're probably also somewhat irritated that they're not generally embraced by younger Touch and Go fans-- that they're considered hangers- on from the Jesus Lizard, Flour, and Rifle Sport era. But it's not that Everest is a bad record at all. In fact, after a few listens, it's apparent that the songwriting is the best its been since Pull. For the most part, the snappy, Husker-ish melodies are still strong. It's the playing and the vocals that are uninspired and predictable. Realistically, Arcwelder will probably never make a record as filled with vigor and bile as Pull again. That album's a classic example of a young band's naivety working in their favor-- they were just kids; they weren't jaded yet. But even as far back as their hard- to- find debut, Jacket Made in Canada, Arcwelder's LPs have sounded very similar to this. It's your typical Morphine syndrome: recording the same album over and over again does not grant you a place in the indie rock hall of fame.

Artist: Arcwelder, Album: Everest, Genre: Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "After Husker Du and the Replacements split up, Minneapolis didn't have much of a music scene to brag about. By the time 1993 came around, the scene seemed to be barely kept alive by a few gasping breaths from local artists like Willie Wisely, Polara, the Hang-Ups, Rex Daisy, Dylan Hicks, Bean Girl, Cows, and Walt Mink. And near the top of the list of hometown greats stood Arcwelder. The first record I heard by the band was 1993's classic Pull, their sophomore release, and their best record to date. Arcwelder's blend of solo Bob Mould accessibility and post-punk influences crafted unusual melodies and rhythms from some of the most memorable distortion- fueled pop riffs ever. But the follow- up to Pull didn't fare well. Xerxes was a largely hit- or- miss effort with only one or two standout tracks. And even though 1996's Entropy showed the band largely back on track-- especially on songs like "Free Me" and "Snake Oil"-- they refused to broaden their horizons and failed to cover any new terrain. Everest, Arcwelder's first album in three years, is... well, another Arcwelder album. It makes sense-- these guys are getting older and probably just make albums and tour in their free time. They're probably also somewhat irritated that they're not generally embraced by younger Touch and Go fans-- that they're considered hangers- on from the Jesus Lizard, Flour, and Rifle Sport era. But it's not that Everest is a bad record at all. In fact, after a few listens, it's apparent that the songwriting is the best its been since Pull. For the most part, the snappy, Husker-ish melodies are still strong. It's the playing and the vocals that are uninspired and predictable. Realistically, Arcwelder will probably never make a record as filled with vigor and bile as Pull again. That album's a classic example of a young band's naivety working in their favor-- they were just kids; they weren't jaded yet. But even as far back as their hard- to- find debut, Jacket Made in Canada, Arcwelder's LPs have sounded very similar to this. It's your typical Morphine syndrome: recording the same album over and over again does not grant you a place in the indie rock hall of fame."

Spring Heel Jack

Disappeared

Jazz

Paul Cooper

Spring Heel Jack's seventh album, Disappeared, is an undeniable testament to John Coxon and Ashley Wells' considerable talent and originality. Drum-n-bass acts can rarely boast even seven 12" releases before they fall foul of their own copycat inadequacies or jump onto the Mixmag-sanctioned style of the month. Spring Heel Jack care not that the Manumission mongoloids won't dance a day-glo strut to their cerebral works, nor that the Hoxon Square Mafia have a whole new set of sneaker aesthetics by which to judge nu-jazz crews. It's Coxon and Wales' self-assurance that has seen them through being just another dub-cavernous junglist act picked up by a major label, to being dropped by that major, to signing to an indie that welcomes their abstract proclivities and relishes their installation-enabled audio. Unlike the Oddities album, Disappeared stays pretty much clear of Simfonias for Four Turntables and A Concrete Block or clanging homages to La Monte Young. The only starling avant-gardisms come in the form of guest bass clarinetist (and hugely gifted Devonian) John Surman. For the two takes of the title track, Surman adjusts his instrument from the autumnal gold-drenched tones he showcases on his Coruscating release, to the percussive, embryonic capsules of distortion. It's quite an effect and it sounds like Coxon and Wales are unsure what to make of Surman's contribution. So, they cop out and plant Surman's seeds in a heavy ambient soil, hoping something will germinate. It's a shame because rather than wowing The Wire collective, the duo could have directed the avant-garde to a fresh, untilled tundra of possibilities. But, hey. I should have the luxury to complain when so many drum-n-bass acts fail to reach beyond the mediocre. Spring Heel Jack have rarely relied on the well-worn breaks so brainlessly incorporated by many others. For instance, the battery that powers "Rachel Point" sounds like the Latin massive that propelled the Pet Shop Boys' "Se a La Vida;" the bass that grainily slides through "Mit Wut" seems to have slipped out from one of those hydroponic sessions Adrian Sherwood arranged for Primal Scream a few vanished years ago. Coxon and Wales even find time to have some light fun with big beat on "Trouble and Luck" before returning to dub for a clicks n' cuts rinse out Cole Porterishly titled "To Die a Little." Released almost exactly five months after their previous proper album, Treader, how has the band developed? Not all that much. But then again, Spring Heel Jack have never been bombastic and headline-grabbing. Some expected this album to be an abandonment of junglism for the splenetic classicisms and noisebursts that blunderbussed through Treader. But if anything, Disappeared reestablishes Spring Heel Jack as drum-n-bass experts, gifted at layered percussion, and erudite at unsettling listeners with an uneasy ambience. Over the years, they've let go of the laboratorial digitizing of the sounds around us for richer, more organic statements. They have not imagined the Earth populated by cyborgs or composed soundtracks for straight-to-video Matrix rip-offs. And even if Spring Heel Jack may have their records played during donor-evenings at the Tate Modern, at least they don't think they live there.

Artist: Spring Heel Jack, Album: Disappeared, Genre: Jazz, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Spring Heel Jack's seventh album, Disappeared, is an undeniable testament to John Coxon and Ashley Wells' considerable talent and originality. Drum-n-bass acts can rarely boast even seven 12" releases before they fall foul of their own copycat inadequacies or jump onto the Mixmag-sanctioned style of the month. Spring Heel Jack care not that the Manumission mongoloids won't dance a day-glo strut to their cerebral works, nor that the Hoxon Square Mafia have a whole new set of sneaker aesthetics by which to judge nu-jazz crews. It's Coxon and Wales' self-assurance that has seen them through being just another dub-cavernous junglist act picked up by a major label, to being dropped by that major, to signing to an indie that welcomes their abstract proclivities and relishes their installation-enabled audio. Unlike the Oddities album, Disappeared stays pretty much clear of Simfonias for Four Turntables and A Concrete Block or clanging homages to La Monte Young. The only starling avant-gardisms come in the form of guest bass clarinetist (and hugely gifted Devonian) John Surman. For the two takes of the title track, Surman adjusts his instrument from the autumnal gold-drenched tones he showcases on his Coruscating release, to the percussive, embryonic capsules of distortion. It's quite an effect and it sounds like Coxon and Wales are unsure what to make of Surman's contribution. So, they cop out and plant Surman's seeds in a heavy ambient soil, hoping something will germinate. It's a shame because rather than wowing The Wire collective, the duo could have directed the avant-garde to a fresh, untilled tundra of possibilities. But, hey. I should have the luxury to complain when so many drum-n-bass acts fail to reach beyond the mediocre. Spring Heel Jack have rarely relied on the well-worn breaks so brainlessly incorporated by many others. For instance, the battery that powers "Rachel Point" sounds like the Latin massive that propelled the Pet Shop Boys' "Se a La Vida;" the bass that grainily slides through "Mit Wut" seems to have slipped out from one of those hydroponic sessions Adrian Sherwood arranged for Primal Scream a few vanished years ago. Coxon and Wales even find time to have some light fun with big beat on "Trouble and Luck" before returning to dub for a clicks n' cuts rinse out Cole Porterishly titled "To Die a Little." Released almost exactly five months after their previous proper album, Treader, how has the band developed? Not all that much. But then again, Spring Heel Jack have never been bombastic and headline-grabbing. Some expected this album to be an abandonment of junglism for the splenetic classicisms and noisebursts that blunderbussed through Treader. But if anything, Disappeared reestablishes Spring Heel Jack as drum-n-bass experts, gifted at layered percussion, and erudite at unsettling listeners with an uneasy ambience. Over the years, they've let go of the laboratorial digitizing of the sounds around us for richer, more organic statements. They have not imagined the Earth populated by cyborgs or composed soundtracks for straight-to-video Matrix rip-offs. And even if Spring Heel Jack may have their records played during donor-evenings at the Tate Modern, at least they don't think they live there."

Paul McCartney

Memory Almost Full

Rock

Stuart Berman

Paul McCartney is truly in a class of his own, but not always for the right reasons. The enduring cultural importance of his accomplishments-- and the fact that his private life still moves tabloids in the UK-- affords him a greater stature than your average classic-rock icon. His formidable bank balance suggests that his ongoing recording and performing career is motivated by something more significant than financial gain, but unlike fellow 60s survivors Bob Dylan and Neil Young, McCartney's senior years have not produced an album to challenge the notion that all his best work is decades behind him. He came close with 2005's mostly acoustic Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a deliberate and welcome retreat to the homespun simplicity of his 1970 self-titled debut. But while Chaos may have been the best album of his post-Wings career, it still felt a touch too familiar to constitute a Time Out of Mind-style late-career surprise. You have to wonder if McCartney's unwavering dedication to maintaining his cheery, "cute one" persona negates the sort of sobering introspection that aging rockers often require to create revelatory, relevant albums in their sixties. That McCartney's latest album is being released through an exclusive retail agreement with Starbucks only serves to reinforce the most damning stereotypes about him: he's too safe, too typical, too square. And on first song "Dance Tonight" [video], he plays right to latte-swilling crowd, with an egregiously innocuous mandolin-folk hootenanny ("Everybody gonna dance tonight/ Everybody gonna feel alright") custom-built to have his target demographic tapping along on the steering wheels of their Beemers. It's perhaps the least exciting, least arousing song about moving to music since Genesis' "I Can't Dance". But as Memory Almost Full plays out, you get the sense that by opening the album with this trifle, McCartney is perhaps intentionally pandering to those stereotypes, and that "Dance Tonight" could very well be a sitting-duck decoy for an album that turns out to be a lot more idiosyncratic than its coffee-chain marketing plan suggests. For one, McCartney isn't just writing love songs here; he's writing sex songs. Take the boudoir-bound white soul of "See Your Sunshine", which, if you can forgive the lame mad/sad/glad rhyme scheme, could be the smoothest (read: horniest) thing he's written. And if "Only Mama Knows" plays like a standard-issue rocker-- a less fun "Junior's Farm", to be exact-- it could be the first song he's written about trolling airport lounges for one-night stands. All of which would suggest that Memory Almost Full is Macca's post-Heather rebound album. As he insisted in last month's Pitchfork interview, his recent, media-saturated divorce proceedings had no bearing on the songwriting, much of which predates Chaos. However, at this stage in his career, one of the most daring things McCartney could do is show us that even the eternal thumbs-aloft optimist we see hamming it up at photo-ops and awards-show presentations can occasionally crack under the scrutiny. The stress seems to show on the opening line of "Ever Present Past" ("I've got too much on my plate/ Ain't got no time to be a decent lover") but the song turns out to be just another reminiscence for the good ol' days, albeit with a perky new-wave rhythm that's almost novel enough to make you overlook the fact the song lacks a real payoff chorus. These songs comprise Memory's patchy first half, betraying the album's piecemeal recording process. But even these unremarkable turns are dotted with interesting production quirks (the tremolo-heavy guitar fuzz on "Ever Present Past", the foreboding string sweeps that bookend "Only Mama Knows") that suggest a more mischievous spirit lurking behind the pedestrian songwriting. Thankfully, McCartney's oft-overlooked eccentric streak is given freer rein on the album's second half, which feels far more cohesive and substantial thanks to an Abbey Road-like aversion to between-song gaps and an affinity for choir-like vocal effects that momentarily turns the enterprise into a Queen album. In particular, "Mr. Bellamy" rates as a worthy addition to his canon of stodgy-English-folk character studies, colored by baroque flourishes, baritone backing vocals and a coda reminiscent of the eerie, dying moments of "Magical Mystery Tour". McCartney can be guilty of tripping the light bombastic (see: the squealing guitar solos on overblown power ballad "House of Wax"), but he also knows when to keep it lean and mean: "Nod Your Head" sounds like "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" as remixed by Sonic Youth, a blues goof given a palpably more threatening edge by a spark-shower of abrasive feedback textures. Piano ballad "The End of the End"-- an uncharacteristically somber meditation on looming death-- is being positioned as Memory's defining moment, but the obligatory string-section swells and a too-cute whistling solo detract from its affectingly melancholic melody. For a more honest portrait of Macca '07, look to Memory's best (and loopiest) song, the self-effacing retro-culture commentary "Vintage Clothes". The sprightly piano intro initially suggests a rewrite of Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Love Me", but its West Coast idyll is soon pushed askew by a skittering dub break and subliminal synth/bass frequencies; top it off with some vintage Wings-style harmonies and you've got a prog-pop triumph just waiting to be to covered by the New Pornographers. Sure, the song's opening salvo ("Don't live in the past") is a bit rich coming from someone who still makes millions by singing 40-year-old songs in sports arenas. But for the two minutes and 21 seconds it takes for "Vintage Clothes" to traverse its shape-shifting universe, the sentiment rings true-- because the song proves that McCartney still knows the difference between just singing about the past and measuring up to it.

Artist: Paul McCartney, Album: Memory Almost Full, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Paul McCartney is truly in a class of his own, but not always for the right reasons. The enduring cultural importance of his accomplishments-- and the fact that his private life still moves tabloids in the UK-- affords him a greater stature than your average classic-rock icon. His formidable bank balance suggests that his ongoing recording and performing career is motivated by something more significant than financial gain, but unlike fellow 60s survivors Bob Dylan and Neil Young, McCartney's senior years have not produced an album to challenge the notion that all his best work is decades behind him. He came close with 2005's mostly acoustic Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a deliberate and welcome retreat to the homespun simplicity of his 1970 self-titled debut. But while Chaos may have been the best album of his post-Wings career, it still felt a touch too familiar to constitute a Time Out of Mind-style late-career surprise. You have to wonder if McCartney's unwavering dedication to maintaining his cheery, "cute one" persona negates the sort of sobering introspection that aging rockers often require to create revelatory, relevant albums in their sixties. That McCartney's latest album is being released through an exclusive retail agreement with Starbucks only serves to reinforce the most damning stereotypes about him: he's too safe, too typical, too square. And on first song "Dance Tonight" [video], he plays right to latte-swilling crowd, with an egregiously innocuous mandolin-folk hootenanny ("Everybody gonna dance tonight/ Everybody gonna feel alright") custom-built to have his target demographic tapping along on the steering wheels of their Beemers. It's perhaps the least exciting, least arousing song about moving to music since Genesis' "I Can't Dance". But as Memory Almost Full plays out, you get the sense that by opening the album with this trifle, McCartney is perhaps intentionally pandering to those stereotypes, and that "Dance Tonight" could very well be a sitting-duck decoy for an album that turns out to be a lot more idiosyncratic than its coffee-chain marketing plan suggests. For one, McCartney isn't just writing love songs here; he's writing sex songs. Take the boudoir-bound white soul of "See Your Sunshine", which, if you can forgive the lame mad/sad/glad rhyme scheme, could be the smoothest (read: horniest) thing he's written. And if "Only Mama Knows" plays like a standard-issue rocker-- a less fun "Junior's Farm", to be exact-- it could be the first song he's written about trolling airport lounges for one-night stands. All of which would suggest that Memory Almost Full is Macca's post-Heather rebound album. As he insisted in last month's Pitchfork interview, his recent, media-saturated divorce proceedings had no bearing on the songwriting, much of which predates Chaos. However, at this stage in his career, one of the most daring things McCartney could do is show us that even the eternal thumbs-aloft optimist we see hamming it up at photo-ops and awards-show presentations can occasionally crack under the scrutiny. The stress seems to show on the opening line of "Ever Present Past" ("I've got too much on my plate/ Ain't got no time to be a decent lover") but the song turns out to be just another reminiscence for the good ol' days, albeit with a perky new-wave rhythm that's almost novel enough to make you overlook the fact the song lacks a real payoff chorus. These songs comprise Memory's patchy first half, betraying the album's piecemeal recording process. But even these unremarkable turns are dotted with interesting production quirks (the tremolo-heavy guitar fuzz on "Ever Present Past", the foreboding string sweeps that bookend "Only Mama Knows") that suggest a more mischievous spirit lurking behind the pedestrian songwriting. Thankfully, McCartney's oft-overlooked eccentric streak is given freer rein on the album's second half, which feels far more cohesive and substantial thanks to an Abbey Road-like aversion to between-song gaps and an affinity for choir-like vocal effects that momentarily turns the enterprise into a Queen album. In particular, "Mr. Bellamy" rates as a worthy addition to his canon of stodgy-English-folk character studies, colored by baroque flourishes, baritone backing vocals and a coda reminiscent of the eerie, dying moments of "Magical Mystery Tour". McCartney can be guilty of tripping the light bombastic (see: the squealing guitar solos on overblown power ballad "House of Wax"), but he also knows when to keep it lean and mean: "Nod Your Head" sounds like "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" as remixed by Sonic Youth, a blues goof given a palpably more threatening edge by a spark-shower of abrasive feedback textures. Piano ballad "The End of the End"-- an uncharacteristically somber meditation on looming death-- is being positioned as Memory's defining moment, but the obligatory string-section swells and a too-cute whistling solo detract from its affectingly melancholic melody. For a more honest portrait of Macca '07, look to Memory's best (and loopiest) song, the self-effacing retro-culture commentary "Vintage Clothes". The sprightly piano intro initially suggests a rewrite of Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Love Me", but its West Coast idyll is soon pushed askew by a skittering dub break and subliminal synth/bass frequencies; top it off with some vintage Wings-style harmonies and you've got a prog-pop triumph just waiting to be to covered by the New Pornographers. Sure, the song's opening salvo ("Don't live in the past") is a bit rich coming from someone who still makes millions by singing 40-year-old songs in sports arenas. But for the two minutes and 21 seconds it takes for "Vintage Clothes" to traverse its shape-shifting universe, the sentiment rings true-- because the song proves that McCartney still knows the difference between just singing about the past and measuring up to it."

Mincemeat or Tenspeed

Waiting for Surfin’ Bird

Marc Masters

One of the first things I learned about Davey Harms, who records and performs as Mincemeat or Tenspeed, is that he doesn’t use “real” instruments. His big, scruffy beats are made solely with feedback loops that he coaxes from pedals and mixers. It’s an interesting detail: how does he make such bold, floor-shaking rhythms that way?. But Harms’ music, a psychedelic pound that sounds as much like noise, metal, and rock as it does dance, is fascinating whether or not you’re aware of his unique method. Waiting for Surfin’ Bird, the first release on which Harms uses conventional electronic instruments such as synths and sequencers, is proof that his magic isn’t dependent on his tools. Despite the shift, Harms’ beats still hammer away as gritty fuzz piles up around them, and he’s still obsessed with grinding a single rhythm into your skull like a trepanner’s drill, until it produces the kind of epiphanies intended by mantras. In other words, it still sounds like Harms is DJing for a dancefloor in his head, with the bouncing bodies replaced by firing neurons. If there’s a noticeable difference between *Waiting for Surfin’ Bird *and previous Mincemeat or Tenspeed records, it’s that the music is slightly clearer now, a little sharper, more spacious. But this could just as easily be due to recording techniques as instrumentation. Either way, the variance doesn’t detract an iota from the roller-coaster thrill of Harms’ sonic journeys. He acknowledges the change himself immediately and self-deprecatingly, titling the opening track “Normal Techno Jam”. This music isn't exactly abnormal-sounding, but the frenzied, warped edge Harms gives to every sound makes it singularly demented, and exhilaratingly fun. Despite working within minimalist structures, Harms makes everything sound unpredictably deranged, which gives the album variety. Each track features a sturdy beat that rarely wavers in terms of BPM, deriving momentum instead through texture and volume. So while the frantic “Spirou” might sound like a drum machine that won’t turn off, it also cycles through a wealth of timbral changes, timed with a precision that belies its rough, bleeding cacophony. This also means that more restrained tracks still brim with tension. “Scarfin' Boards” is probably the most reserved Mincemeat or Tenspeed piece to date, yet its tiny clicks and submerged rumbles feel ready to snap at any moment. It might’ve been easy for Harms to give up on that formula, and stop putting so much work and energy into his music. After his excellent 2010 album Strange Gods on Zum, he ended up releasing his last record for free via the Free Music Archive. But he’s since found another sympathetic label to support him: Decoherence, whose owner MP Lockwood himself makes noisy beat-oriented music as Radio Shock. Which is fortunate, because it’s tough to imagine the music of Mincemeat or Tenspeed actually stopping. There’s a drive to Harms’ repetitive beats that feels infinite, even eternal, and so Waiting for Surfin’ Bird will likely echo in your brain long after the album is over.

Artist: Mincemeat or Tenspeed, Album: Waiting for Surfin’ Bird, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "One of the first things I learned about Davey Harms, who records and performs as Mincemeat or Tenspeed, is that he doesn’t use “real” instruments. His big, scruffy beats are made solely with feedback loops that he coaxes from pedals and mixers. It’s an interesting detail: how does he make such bold, floor-shaking rhythms that way?. But Harms’ music, a psychedelic pound that sounds as much like noise, metal, and rock as it does dance, is fascinating whether or not you’re aware of his unique method. Waiting for Surfin’ Bird, the first release on which Harms uses conventional electronic instruments such as synths and sequencers, is proof that his magic isn’t dependent on his tools. Despite the shift, Harms’ beats still hammer away as gritty fuzz piles up around them, and he’s still obsessed with grinding a single rhythm into your skull like a trepanner’s drill, until it produces the kind of epiphanies intended by mantras. In other words, it still sounds like Harms is DJing for a dancefloor in his head, with the bouncing bodies replaced by firing neurons. If there’s a noticeable difference between *Waiting for Surfin’ Bird *and previous Mincemeat or Tenspeed records, it’s that the music is slightly clearer now, a little sharper, more spacious. But this could just as easily be due to recording techniques as instrumentation. Either way, the variance doesn’t detract an iota from the roller-coaster thrill of Harms’ sonic journeys. He acknowledges the change himself immediately and self-deprecatingly, titling the opening track “Normal Techno Jam”. This music isn't exactly abnormal-sounding, but the frenzied, warped edge Harms gives to every sound makes it singularly demented, and exhilaratingly fun. Despite working within minimalist structures, Harms makes everything sound unpredictably deranged, which gives the album variety. Each track features a sturdy beat that rarely wavers in terms of BPM, deriving momentum instead through texture and volume. So while the frantic “Spirou” might sound like a drum machine that won’t turn off, it also cycles through a wealth of timbral changes, timed with a precision that belies its rough, bleeding cacophony. This also means that more restrained tracks still brim with tension. “Scarfin' Boards” is probably the most reserved Mincemeat or Tenspeed piece to date, yet its tiny clicks and submerged rumbles feel ready to snap at any moment. It might’ve been easy for Harms to give up on that formula, and stop putting so much work and energy into his music. After his excellent 2010 album Strange Gods on Zum, he ended up releasing his last record for free via the Free Music Archive. But he’s since found another sympathetic label to support him: Decoherence, whose owner MP Lockwood himself makes noisy beat-oriented music as Radio Shock. Which is fortunate, because it’s tough to imagine the music of Mincemeat or Tenspeed actually stopping. There’s a drive to Harms’ repetitive beats that feels infinite, even eternal, and so Waiting for Surfin’ Bird will likely echo in your brain long after the album is over."

Wilder Maker

Zion

Rock

Grayson Haver Currin

If New York City is your trap, Wilder Maker will not be your escape hatch. The seven songs that make up Zion—the amorphous urban Americana project’s first album since the series of 2015 EPs that helped the band establish a more cohesive identity—form the first installment of a planned musical novel concerning the exigencies and ecstasies of young adult life in Brooklyn. Artists living in squalor long to find their big break before the city’s low-wage jobs and low-stakes friendships break them. Excitable pals tolerate inconveniences like late movers and rickety stairwells when they find a new apartment, all in the eternal search for adventures and lovers. A tardy cocaine dealer gives the narrator time to ask himself a verboten question: What if this incessant toil isn’t fucking worth it? In the microcosm built by founder and lyricist Gabriel Birnbaum, there is no definitive answer, only a peculiar mix of gloom and alluring glimpses of deliverance. The lows are debilitating and quotidian, the sort of stuff that will drive you back to the tallgrass prairie unless your ego develops callouses. During “Drunk Driver,” someone gets their heart publicly shattered amid an uncaring crowd, performing a symphony with “the sound of High Lifes popping”; the only possible exit is more booze elsewhere. “Impossible Summer” paints the city as a showcase for other people’s opulence, constantly reminding you of the things brewing coffee and mixing drinks may never buy you. At the other extreme, perfect summer weather and the pleasantness of a crowd at a New York music festival feel like salvation in “Women Dancing Immortal,” a song that springs into a refrain so ebullient it’s hard not to feel lighter. This admixture even follows the kids out of town for “Multiplied,” in which they’re stranded at a venue with no place to sleep after playing for six people. When a stranger rescues them, they snuggle in sleeping bags, watching late-night television. Birnbaum and the great singer-songwriter Katie von Schleicher recount this experience in dovetailing harmony, their easy chemistry and lyrical specificity confirming that they share this (and all these songs, really) from experience, not imagination. This push and pull—between harsh reality and resilient hope, between skipping town and staying put—recalls Craig Finn during the early days of the Hold Steady, mapping the experiences of a wild youth with the perspective of a survivor. The Hold Steady, however, arrived with an asset Wilder Maker have yet to develop: a consistent and compelling sound that affords their tales the room and resources to flourish. A crisp and clever band, Wilder Maker do offer razor-sharp webs of guitar and a rhythm section that leans back and rushes ahead with refreshing narrative sensitivity. And their hooks are mighty. But the songs themselves pinball among influences that seem vetted for their cultural cachet, shaping a patchwork that resembles the cool corner of a Facebook group where people share pictures of their record collection. The highlife of Ghana, the harmonies of Dirty Projectors, the zigs and zags of St. Vincent, the textural tension of Radiohead, the saxophone of the E Street Band but with the acidic edge of Peter Brötzmann: They all drift through Zion, one by one. It’s not simply the traces of these artists that pose a problem; entire elements of recognizable songs appear here, as though Zion were some instrumental mixtape with Birnbaum’s lyrics added later. “Gonna Get My Money” pivots from the swaggering belligerence of Neil Young’s“Revolution Blues” to the poignant lift of Bobby Charles’ “Small Town Talk” without a wink. When it happens, I get lost within the song, distracted by thoughts of those masterpieces instead. The same holds for “Drunk Driver,” a tense torch song about the tragedy of casual heartbreak. Von Schleicher is hypnotic here—that is, until the music morphs into a clear riff on the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs,” with kick drum and snare strutting behind a coruscant drone. Maybe these borrowed bits are meant as signifiers, hypertext links to songs that tell us more about Wilder Maker’s sojourn through the city. But it often feels like they’re struggling to make sounds worthy of these subjects, to write music as interesting as the times Birnbaum documents. That sensation only grows on the frequent occasions when he over-sings his own lines. It’s as if, caught up in New York’s rush of ambitions, he’s not yet comfortable letting Wilder Maker’s music stand on its own—a conundrum that someone in this map of Brooklyn is bound to face along the way.

Artist: Wilder Maker, Album: Zion, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "If New York City is your trap, Wilder Maker will not be your escape hatch. The seven songs that make up Zion—the amorphous urban Americana project’s first album since the series of 2015 EPs that helped the band establish a more cohesive identity—form the first installment of a planned musical novel concerning the exigencies and ecstasies of young adult life in Brooklyn. Artists living in squalor long to find their big break before the city’s low-wage jobs and low-stakes friendships break them. Excitable pals tolerate inconveniences like late movers and rickety stairwells when they find a new apartment, all in the eternal search for adventures and lovers. A tardy cocaine dealer gives the narrator time to ask himself a verboten question: What if this incessant toil isn’t fucking worth it? In the microcosm built by founder and lyricist Gabriel Birnbaum, there is no definitive answer, only a peculiar mix of gloom and alluring glimpses of deliverance. The lows are debilitating and quotidian, the sort of stuff that will drive you back to the tallgrass prairie unless your ego develops callouses. During “Drunk Driver,” someone gets their heart publicly shattered amid an uncaring crowd, performing a symphony with “the sound of High Lifes popping”; the only possible exit is more booze elsewhere. “Impossible Summer” paints the city as a showcase for other people’s opulence, constantly reminding you of the things brewing coffee and mixing drinks may never buy you. At the other extreme, perfect summer weather and the pleasantness of a crowd at a New York music festival feel like salvation in “Women Dancing Immortal,” a song that springs into a refrain so ebullient it’s hard not to feel lighter. This admixture even follows the kids out of town for “Multiplied,” in which they’re stranded at a venue with no place to sleep after playing for six people. When a stranger rescues them, they snuggle in sleeping bags, watching late-night television. Birnbaum and the great singer-songwriter Katie von Schleicher recount this experience in dovetailing harmony, their easy chemistry and lyrical specificity confirming that they share this (and all these songs, really) from experience, not imagination. This push and pull—between harsh reality and resilient hope, between skipping town and staying put—recalls Craig Finn during the early days of the Hold Steady, mapping the experiences of a wild youth with the perspective of a survivor. The Hold Steady, however, arrived with an asset Wilder Maker have yet to develop: a consistent and compelling sound that affords their tales the room and resources to flourish. A crisp and clever band, Wilder Maker do offer razor-sharp webs of guitar and a rhythm section that leans back and rushes ahead with refreshing narrative sensitivity. And their hooks are mighty. But the songs themselves pinball among influences that seem vetted for their cultural cachet, shaping a patchwork that resembles the cool corner of a Facebook group where people share pictures of their record collection. The highlife of Ghana, the harmonies of Dirty Projectors, the zigs and zags of St. Vincent, the textural tension of Radiohead, the saxophone of the E Street Band but with the acidic edge of Peter Brötzmann: They all drift through Zion, one by one. It’s not simply the traces of these artists that pose a problem; entire elements of recognizable songs appear here, as though Zion were some instrumental mixtape with Birnbaum’s lyrics added later. “Gonna Get My Money” pivots from the swaggering belligerence of Neil Young’s“Revolution Blues” to the poignant lift of Bobby Charles’ “Small Town Talk” without a wink. When it happens, I get lost within the song, distracted by thoughts of those masterpieces instead. The same holds for “Drunk Driver,” a tense torch song about the tragedy of casual heartbreak. Von Schleicher is hypnotic here—that is, until the music morphs into a clear riff on the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs,” with kick drum and snare strutting behind a coruscant drone. Maybe these borrowed bits are meant as signifiers, hypertext links to songs that tell us more about Wilder Maker’s sojourn through the city. But it often feels like they’re struggling to make sounds worthy of these subjects, to write music as interesting as the times Birnbaum documents. That sensation only grows on the frequent occasions when he over-sings his own lines. It’s as if, caught up in New York’s rush of ambitions, he’s not yet comfortable letting Wilder Maker’s music stand on its own—a conundrum that someone in this map of Brooklyn is bound to face along the way."

The Early Years

The Early Years

Rock

Adam Moerder

Says the tagline for Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis: "There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator." Interestingly enough, the same moral for Lang's futuristic city applies to the Early Years' debut album, an artistic piece with a futuristic bent in its own right. Although press kits and cursory listens cast a very cerebral impression of the London trio, their debut wrestles with reconciling its stoic experimentation with surprisingly candid histrionics. While the band's lofty list of touchstones may overwhelm, deep down this album doesn't want to blow your mind any more than it wants to hold your hand. Most of this misconception stems from first single "All Ones & Zeros", a pedal-to-the-metal red herring with an edge the rest of the album lacks. This is a band proudly conceived by two guys who liked fucking with guitar pedals enough to recruit a drummer, and "Ones & Zeros" showcases this sonic mêlée with enough force to land a spot in a Nike commercial last summer. The song seamlessly shifts from uptight motorik to space-rock explosion and back again, with frontman David Malkinson's yelps digitally spliced and reverberated for your intergalactic pleasure. Oblique nods to krautrock such as this are greatly overshadowed by the album's stargazing, albeit direct, ballads. On "Song For Elizabeth", for example, the band effectively crossbreeds the Velvet Underground's brain-dead pop drone with the high-tech, cinematic elements of Spiritualized. "Brown Hearts" follows a similar formula, though Malkinson emotes much more strongly, hanging on to tearjerking phrases that dramatically collide with reverb-drenched guitar riffs. Occasionally the band strays from this, offering a smattering of Madchester one-offs ("Musik Der Fruhen Jahre") or an aftershock of the fist-pumping "So Far Gone". By album's end, however, Early Years makes sure to leave a wistful taste in your mouth. They pull out all stops on "High Times and Low Lives", a nearly seven-minute build rallying around Malkinson's confessional "I'm thinking more than I ever should/ About it." The cosmic debris settles during the brief "Harmonic Interlude" before leading into heart-on-sleeve closer "This Ain't Happiness", a song that sounds like Coldplay on muscle relaxers. The sentiment's not cheap, just disappointing considering the Can and Neu! references many will encounter as an entry level to the band. On the U.S. release's bonus disc, there are high-minded flashes of things to come, such as the lengthy soundscape "A Little More Drones". The penchant for drama, however, too often sets interesting ideas in a predictable groove, and it'd be nice from time to time if the band's collective brain would tell its heart to stop its whining.

Artist: The Early Years, Album: The Early Years, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Says the tagline for Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis: "There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator." Interestingly enough, the same moral for Lang's futuristic city applies to the Early Years' debut album, an artistic piece with a futuristic bent in its own right. Although press kits and cursory listens cast a very cerebral impression of the London trio, their debut wrestles with reconciling its stoic experimentation with surprisingly candid histrionics. While the band's lofty list of touchstones may overwhelm, deep down this album doesn't want to blow your mind any more than it wants to hold your hand. Most of this misconception stems from first single "All Ones & Zeros", a pedal-to-the-metal red herring with an edge the rest of the album lacks. This is a band proudly conceived by two guys who liked fucking with guitar pedals enough to recruit a drummer, and "Ones & Zeros" showcases this sonic mêlée with enough force to land a spot in a Nike commercial last summer. The song seamlessly shifts from uptight motorik to space-rock explosion and back again, with frontman David Malkinson's yelps digitally spliced and reverberated for your intergalactic pleasure. Oblique nods to krautrock such as this are greatly overshadowed by the album's stargazing, albeit direct, ballads. On "Song For Elizabeth", for example, the band effectively crossbreeds the Velvet Underground's brain-dead pop drone with the high-tech, cinematic elements of Spiritualized. "Brown Hearts" follows a similar formula, though Malkinson emotes much more strongly, hanging on to tearjerking phrases that dramatically collide with reverb-drenched guitar riffs. Occasionally the band strays from this, offering a smattering of Madchester one-offs ("Musik Der Fruhen Jahre") or an aftershock of the fist-pumping "So Far Gone". By album's end, however, Early Years makes sure to leave a wistful taste in your mouth. They pull out all stops on "High Times and Low Lives", a nearly seven-minute build rallying around Malkinson's confessional "I'm thinking more than I ever should/ About it." The cosmic debris settles during the brief "Harmonic Interlude" before leading into heart-on-sleeve closer "This Ain't Happiness", a song that sounds like Coldplay on muscle relaxers. The sentiment's not cheap, just disappointing considering the Can and Neu! references many will encounter as an entry level to the band. On the U.S. release's bonus disc, there are high-minded flashes of things to come, such as the lengthy soundscape "A Little More Drones". The penchant for drama, however, too often sets interesting ideas in a predictable groove, and it'd be nice from time to time if the band's collective brain would tell its heart to stop its whining."

Test Icicles

For Screening Purposes Only

Electronic,Rock

Sam Ubl

Feeling Nosferatu vibes this Halloween week? Dig Test Icicles: The UK trio is hard, fast, and viciously catchy, but above all scary. Guitars don't chug and wail; they whinny and scream. Carnival organ gallops ghoulish frequencies on "Pull the Lever". "Catch It" is just a scrambled nightmare with a psychosexual thrust. Yup, it's about the most chilling thing going next to Skateboard P's verses. But the band puts some jaunt to its haunt, namely in frontman Sam Merrann's vocals, which are dynamic but uniformly hair-raising. For those who think acid-throated vox are the province solely of American bands like Blood Brothers, here's a Brit who would give any stateside howler a run for his money in a Drano-drinking contest. The vocal venom sits well on opener "Your Biggest Mistake", whose distortion-eaten guitars call, respond, and scorch the earth. Elsewhere, the singer proves versatile, carrying subcutaneous melodies and bratting-up his quieter spit. When the band's slash-and-burn post-hardcore finally yields beautiful hooks, the screams can be corrosive. Merrann serves up Carengie Deli portions-- ample multi-tracking and agile trade-offs ensure no measure goes unaccompanied by voice, no lyric unechoed by a scream, and no guitar kick unaccented. But havoc and harmony learn to coexist, most harmoniously on "Circle Square Triangle", whose guitars punch thick upbeats despite an ungainly note count. "Pull the Lever" takes a rare indrawn breath, then spits the album's silkiest (and sickest) chorus. So obviously the boys have tools like a baby LeBron. But are their acrobatics more catchy than contrived? The lead singer's fucking nicknamed "Dangerr," and the band name is one of the worst this side of Panic! at the Disco. Next you're gonna tell me Test Icicles play lipstick pink guitars and claim 15,000 Myspace friends. Without the übertight chops and huge choruses on 24-hour call, those facts might matter. Instead they're harmless gimmicks, more easily ignored than derided. For development's sake, the band ought to call Frenchkiss, which has this kind of slanted and chanted dance-punk all but vertically integrated. Screening Purposes would benefit from more voluminous production, especially on a song like "Your Biggest Mistake", which packs several fast-moving parts into a shallow sonic field. The effect is disorienting, like trying to focus on a single buzz in a bee-box. The more linear numbers have a better sense of equilibrium, but the straightest-- "Catch It," which cuts a robotic beeline, and "Maintain the Focus"-- are the least musically compelling. After a torrid opening sweep, the record starts to unravel, connecting its component dots rather than synthesizing them. Fifty minutes-- with only a gauzy organ-droning interlude for a bathroom break-- is a cross-country haul with a record that's all forte, all the time. But the hooks stick long after windedness wears off. Though the single's called "Boa vs. Python", Test Icicles are all cobra. Quick-tempered and ready to pounce at the drop of a double-time bridge, the band splits the difference between cockney, cocked neck, and coq au vin. The total package suggests a less test-icicular, dancefloor sympathetic Glassjaw-- which means show-goers would do well to train hard and eat a big pasta dinner before hitting the parquet. But asking the band to slow down would be like ticketing Tony Stewart.

Artist: Test Icicles, Album: For Screening Purposes Only, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "Feeling Nosferatu vibes this Halloween week? Dig Test Icicles: The UK trio is hard, fast, and viciously catchy, but above all scary. Guitars don't chug and wail; they whinny and scream. Carnival organ gallops ghoulish frequencies on "Pull the Lever". "Catch It" is just a scrambled nightmare with a psychosexual thrust. Yup, it's about the most chilling thing going next to Skateboard P's verses. But the band puts some jaunt to its haunt, namely in frontman Sam Merrann's vocals, which are dynamic but uniformly hair-raising. For those who think acid-throated vox are the province solely of American bands like Blood Brothers, here's a Brit who would give any stateside howler a run for his money in a Drano-drinking contest. The vocal venom sits well on opener "Your Biggest Mistake", whose distortion-eaten guitars call, respond, and scorch the earth. Elsewhere, the singer proves versatile, carrying subcutaneous melodies and bratting-up his quieter spit. When the band's slash-and-burn post-hardcore finally yields beautiful hooks, the screams can be corrosive. Merrann serves up Carengie Deli portions-- ample multi-tracking and agile trade-offs ensure no measure goes unaccompanied by voice, no lyric unechoed by a scream, and no guitar kick unaccented. But havoc and harmony learn to coexist, most harmoniously on "Circle Square Triangle", whose guitars punch thick upbeats despite an ungainly note count. "Pull the Lever" takes a rare indrawn breath, then spits the album's silkiest (and sickest) chorus. So obviously the boys have tools like a baby LeBron. But are their acrobatics more catchy than contrived? The lead singer's fucking nicknamed "Dangerr," and the band name is one of the worst this side of Panic! at the Disco. Next you're gonna tell me Test Icicles play lipstick pink guitars and claim 15,000 Myspace friends. Without the übertight chops and huge choruses on 24-hour call, those facts might matter. Instead they're harmless gimmicks, more easily ignored than derided. For development's sake, the band ought to call Frenchkiss, which has this kind of slanted and chanted dance-punk all but vertically integrated. Screening Purposes would benefit from more voluminous production, especially on a song like "Your Biggest Mistake", which packs several fast-moving parts into a shallow sonic field. The effect is disorienting, like trying to focus on a single buzz in a bee-box. The more linear numbers have a better sense of equilibrium, but the straightest-- "Catch It," which cuts a robotic beeline, and "Maintain the Focus"-- are the least musically compelling. After a torrid opening sweep, the record starts to unravel, connecting its component dots rather than synthesizing them. Fifty minutes-- with only a gauzy organ-droning interlude for a bathroom break-- is a cross-country haul with a record that's all forte, all the time. But the hooks stick long after windedness wears off. Though the single's called "Boa vs. Python", Test Icicles are all cobra. Quick-tempered and ready to pounce at the drop of a double-time bridge, the band splits the difference between cockney, cocked neck, and coq au vin. The total package suggests a less test-icicular, dancefloor sympathetic Glassjaw-- which means show-goers would do well to train hard and eat a big pasta dinner before hitting the parquet. But asking the band to slow down would be like ticketing Tony Stewart."

Rio en Medio

The Bride of Dynamite

Folk/Country

Matthew Murphy

During his brief career moonlighting as an unofficial talent scout, Devendra Banhart has revealed a weakness for a certain stripe of ethereal, folk-inclined female vocalist. His enthusiasm was instrumental in reviving the careers of long-lost 60s-era performers Vashti Bunyan and Ruthann Friedman, and he has also offered similar support to such younger acts as Natasha Khan's Bat for Lashes and Dallas singer Jana Hunter, whose marvelous 2005 debut album Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom was the first release on Gnomonsong, the label Banhart operates with Vetiver's Andy Cabic. So it shouldn't generate much shock to learn that Gnomonsong's latest discovery, Rio en Medio, the solo project of vocalist/instrumentalist Danielle Stech-Homsy, shares several traits in common with each of these other Banhart favorites. Co-produced by the Pernice Brothers' Thom Monahan, Rio en Medio's debut The Bride of Dynamite features cameo appearances from Cabic, CocoRosie's Sierra Casady, and David Coulter. Despite this amassed talent, however, the project belongs entirely to Stech-Homsy, and is centered almost exclusively on her delicate, Vashti-like vocals, a few drifting samples, and her baritone ukulele-- an instrument that sounds considerably less exotic in action than it first might appear. Yet when listening to The Bride of Dynamite, one has to wonder if perhaps Banhart and Gnomonsong might not be getting somewhat ahead of themselves. Stech-Homsy recorded the bulk of this material on her own, with no original intention to release it, and not surprisingly much of it sounds like what used to be quaintly known as a demo tape. With its spare arrangements and extensive use of empty spaces, the album's construction does little to camouflage the fact that Stech-Homsy has yet to fully get her legs beneath her as a songwriter, and as a result too many of these intimate, elliptical pieces feel more like private exercises than vibrant, fleshed-out songs. Adding to The Bride of Dynamite's diffuse impact is Stech-Homsy's decision to cull many of its lyrics from a variety of pre-existing texts. Album opener "You Can Stand" takes its lyrics from a 19th century poem by Ellen Gates, while "Europe a Prophecy" cribs William Blake. Other tracks borrow from poets John Ashbery and Paul Eluard, as well as a vintage Baghdad travelogue by author Freya Stark. And though these texts do provide the album with a valuable multiplicity of voice and perspective, they often do so at the expensive of any kind of authorial continuity and cohesion. Then again, Stech-Homsy fares little better on such self-penned tracks as the cloying "Tiger's Ear" or the mawkish lullaby "Everyone Is Someone's". "Everyone is someone's sweet little baby... we were meant for love," she coos contentedly on the latter over a thin gauze of ukulele, handclaps, and flitting samples of children's voices-- the ghostly sounds of their disembodied laughter inadvertently lending the tune a vaguely creepy, unsettling overtone. Considerably more successful are group-oriented works such as the sturdy, cello-driven "Girls on the Run" or the lightly percolating "Joe Was on the Plane" which is bolstered by Tim Fite's electronics and Coulter's evocative work on singing saw. These pieces suggest Stech-Homsy to be well-suited to writing for a larger ensemble, and reports of her further collaborations with Fite sound promising, particularly when contrasted with the halting, hesitant baby steps publicly displayed on The Bride of Dynamite.

Artist: Rio en Medio, Album: The Bride of Dynamite, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 5.6 Album review: "During his brief career moonlighting as an unofficial talent scout, Devendra Banhart has revealed a weakness for a certain stripe of ethereal, folk-inclined female vocalist. His enthusiasm was instrumental in reviving the careers of long-lost 60s-era performers Vashti Bunyan and Ruthann Friedman, and he has also offered similar support to such younger acts as Natasha Khan's Bat for Lashes and Dallas singer Jana Hunter, whose marvelous 2005 debut album Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom was the first release on Gnomonsong, the label Banhart operates with Vetiver's Andy Cabic. So it shouldn't generate much shock to learn that Gnomonsong's latest discovery, Rio en Medio, the solo project of vocalist/instrumentalist Danielle Stech-Homsy, shares several traits in common with each of these other Banhart favorites. Co-produced by the Pernice Brothers' Thom Monahan, Rio en Medio's debut The Bride of Dynamite features cameo appearances from Cabic, CocoRosie's Sierra Casady, and David Coulter. Despite this amassed talent, however, the project belongs entirely to Stech-Homsy, and is centered almost exclusively on her delicate, Vashti-like vocals, a few drifting samples, and her baritone ukulele-- an instrument that sounds considerably less exotic in action than it first might appear. Yet when listening to The Bride of Dynamite, one has to wonder if perhaps Banhart and Gnomonsong might not be getting somewhat ahead of themselves. Stech-Homsy recorded the bulk of this material on her own, with no original intention to release it, and not surprisingly much of it sounds like what used to be quaintly known as a demo tape. With its spare arrangements and extensive use of empty spaces, the album's construction does little to camouflage the fact that Stech-Homsy has yet to fully get her legs beneath her as a songwriter, and as a result too many of these intimate, elliptical pieces feel more like private exercises than vibrant, fleshed-out songs. Adding to The Bride of Dynamite's diffuse impact is Stech-Homsy's decision to cull many of its lyrics from a variety of pre-existing texts. Album opener "You Can Stand" takes its lyrics from a 19th century poem by Ellen Gates, while "Europe a Prophecy" cribs William Blake. Other tracks borrow from poets John Ashbery and Paul Eluard, as well as a vintage Baghdad travelogue by author Freya Stark. And though these texts do provide the album with a valuable multiplicity of voice and perspective, they often do so at the expensive of any kind of authorial continuity and cohesion. Then again, Stech-Homsy fares little better on such self-penned tracks as the cloying "Tiger's Ear" or the mawkish lullaby "Everyone Is Someone's". "Everyone is someone's sweet little baby... we were meant for love," she coos contentedly on the latter over a thin gauze of ukulele, handclaps, and flitting samples of children's voices-- the ghostly sounds of their disembodied laughter inadvertently lending the tune a vaguely creepy, unsettling overtone. Considerably more successful are group-oriented works such as the sturdy, cello-driven "Girls on the Run" or the lightly percolating "Joe Was on the Plane" which is bolstered by Tim Fite's electronics and Coulter's evocative work on singing saw. These pieces suggest Stech-Homsy to be well-suited to writing for a larger ensemble, and reports of her further collaborations with Fite sound promising, particularly when contrasted with the halting, hesitant baby steps publicly displayed on The Bride of Dynamite."

Brakes

Rock is Dodelijk

Rock

Paul Thompson

The going rate to get into a Brakes concert-- Stateside anyhow, where they're known as BrakesBrakesBrakes-- is within a coupla bucks of what you might pay for the Brighton foursome's new live set, Rock Is Dodelijk. In an era when everything's preserved for posterity within a few minutes of it happening, the live album seems a particularly antiquated artifact, despite the prevalence of the things in the marketplace (this is, after all, not the only live record Pitchfork is reviewing today). Rock in Dodelijk, however, avoids a lot of what makes the live album seem superfluous, thanks to the band's breathless, ripchord performance and the set's searing up-front sound. Dodelijk blasts off with the snidely whiplash of "Hi How Are You?", that great bite-sized kiss off from the band's 2005 debut, Give Blood. It's a perfect attention-grabber, and Brakes knock out all its right angles with aplomb. Brakes trade in the kind of zippy, word-forward, world-weary Britrock of Arctic Monkeys or Art Brut, almost unfailingly sarcastic, as much about inflection as the words spewing from singer Eamon Hamilton's mouth. As such, a live album's a trickier proposition for Brakes than most, as the post-punky precision of the music and all that shit Hamilton talks have to fall in line just so for the whole thing to work. But Brakes have that covered-- they sound beefier here than on record, with some of the nervous energy from the studio converted into pure heft onstage. Lead guitarist Tom White, in particular, lets loose with some billowy solos given far more room to unfurl in front of the audience. As they slide from one tune to another, hardly a scrap of banter or even a few seconds' respite to be had, Brakes' blinders-on, frills-free rock feels taut, terse, and immediate; Dodelijk might be culled from a couple of different shows, each at least six months old, but it sounds a lot more like last night's PA mix still rattling around in your head. Kudos to producers Paul Savage and Ric Peet, who, by minimizing crowd noise and pushing Hamilton way up front, lend this thing a real immediacy. The setlist largely sticks to tunes from their first and still best album, Give Blood, and it's here we find our highlights: silly little country ditty "NY Pie", name-drop nose-turner "Heard About Your Band", single-that-wasn't "What's in It For Me?" As with their studio sets, punky thrashabouts sit comfortably next to twangy tear-in-my-many-beers ditties. The already apparent holes in some of the Brakes' tunes, which at their worst can seem little more than a stutter from Hamilton and a steady scrape from the band, do pop up occasionally; then again, they rarely overstay their welcome, as Dodelijk sneaks 20 tunes into just shy of 45 minutes, and in a way even help the good stuff kick harder in contrast.

Artist: Brakes, Album: Rock is Dodelijk, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "The going rate to get into a Brakes concert-- Stateside anyhow, where they're known as BrakesBrakesBrakes-- is within a coupla bucks of what you might pay for the Brighton foursome's new live set, Rock Is Dodelijk. In an era when everything's preserved for posterity within a few minutes of it happening, the live album seems a particularly antiquated artifact, despite the prevalence of the things in the marketplace (this is, after all, not the only live record Pitchfork is reviewing today). Rock in Dodelijk, however, avoids a lot of what makes the live album seem superfluous, thanks to the band's breathless, ripchord performance and the set's searing up-front sound. Dodelijk blasts off with the snidely whiplash of "Hi How Are You?", that great bite-sized kiss off from the band's 2005 debut, Give Blood. It's a perfect attention-grabber, and Brakes knock out all its right angles with aplomb. Brakes trade in the kind of zippy, word-forward, world-weary Britrock of Arctic Monkeys or Art Brut, almost unfailingly sarcastic, as much about inflection as the words spewing from singer Eamon Hamilton's mouth. As such, a live album's a trickier proposition for Brakes than most, as the post-punky precision of the music and all that shit Hamilton talks have to fall in line just so for the whole thing to work. But Brakes have that covered-- they sound beefier here than on record, with some of the nervous energy from the studio converted into pure heft onstage. Lead guitarist Tom White, in particular, lets loose with some billowy solos given far more room to unfurl in front of the audience. As they slide from one tune to another, hardly a scrap of banter or even a few seconds' respite to be had, Brakes' blinders-on, frills-free rock feels taut, terse, and immediate; Dodelijk might be culled from a couple of different shows, each at least six months old, but it sounds a lot more like last night's PA mix still rattling around in your head. Kudos to producers Paul Savage and Ric Peet, who, by minimizing crowd noise and pushing Hamilton way up front, lend this thing a real immediacy. The setlist largely sticks to tunes from their first and still best album, Give Blood, and it's here we find our highlights: silly little country ditty "NY Pie", name-drop nose-turner "Heard About Your Band", single-that-wasn't "What's in It For Me?" As with their studio sets, punky thrashabouts sit comfortably next to twangy tear-in-my-many-beers ditties. The already apparent holes in some of the Brakes' tunes, which at their worst can seem little more than a stutter from Hamilton and a steady scrape from the band, do pop up occasionally; then again, they rarely overstay their welcome, as Dodelijk sneaks 20 tunes into just shy of 45 minutes, and in a way even help the good stuff kick harder in contrast."

Local Natives

Sunlit Youth

Rock

Ryan Leas

Between their 2010 debut Gorilla Manor* *and 2013’s Hummingbird, Local Natives garnered a reputation in the indie landscape: dependable, gratifying, though not the most innovative. On Gorilla Manor, their cinematic emotions and soaring harmonies referenced the National’s slow-burning sweep and Fleet Foxes’ wide-eyed, bucolic tumble. With Hummingbird, Local Natives grew up with a more meditative album that dealt with the death of vocalist/keyboardist Kelcey Ayer’s mother. Though the rush of Gorilla Manor was missed, it was hard to knock the maturity and gravity that came with Hummingbird's more gradual revelations. Sunlit Youth encounters aging, change, and where life has led you. It is, presumably, an album where they continue to employ new textures and approaches. The difference here is that there’s a discomfort to the shift, with some songs sounding like old-school Local Natives tracks with a weak neon facelift, and others sounding like imposters snuck into the studio and got a few tracks on the album somehow, mostly yielding negative results. It’s a growing pains album, but not exactly a rewarding one. Far from the indie-folk of their earlier days, *Sunlit Youth *leans heavily on the synths and flirts with big-melody pop forms. “Past Lives,” a prime Local Natives composition emboldened by its synth leads, is a moving mission statement for the album. Despite the album’s title, Local Natives write more about the passing of youth, and “Past Lives” finds its way into a steadily intensifying gallop that captures the feeling of life starting to tumble forward as you age. Closer “Sea of Years” lands as if someone said, “We need the epic, swelling finale” and produced a checklist of necessary elements before actually writing it. Yet while the production and instrumentation render many songs on *Sunlit Youth *flat, “Sea of Years” is genuinely gorgeous, another moment where the themes of the album hit home. The instrumental melodies underpinning the chorus glimmer in the heat rather than charge headlong. It’s a convincing depiction of where these guys must be at, making anthems with more of life's baggage hanging around. Then there’s opener “Villany,” a fluttering and pulsing track where Local Natives successfully inject themselves fully into the realm of synth-pop. There is mission-statement business on that song, too; the key lyric is the recurring refrain of “I want to start again.” Its spiritual partner, “Fountain of Youth” is the grating low of the album, with the answer to “I want to start again” coming in the chorus with, “We can do whatever we want!” Suddenly, the band starts peddling the brand of cloying, faceless indie-pop you’d hear as background annoyance at Anthropologie, or in trailers for a “Grey’s Anatomy” knockoff. Tracks like “Mother Emanuel,” “Psycho Lovers,” and “Everything All at Once” follow suit, conjuring a bastardized fan-fiction in which latter-day Coldplay made an album with the Lumineers. The big vocal refrains of Local Natives used to alternatingly evoke the glow of the West Coast and the real, transformative feeling that can still come from barreling down an endless American highway. Now they sound bloodless and unearned. Across Sunlit Youth, there are flickers of what Local Natives do well, but the growth of their sound feels forced and awkward. You'll hear the funk excursion “Coins” touted and celebrated as one of the biggest stylistic leaps on the album. But it’s endemic of problems on about half of the album: One of the big draws of Local Natives were their melodies and their intertwined harmonies. Melodically speaking, they stumble on “Coins,” and they stumble on “Masters,” and they stumble on “Everything All at Once.” In the midst of rebuilding their sound, they’re less reliant on the subtle song-building of their past and lean more on big and broad emotions like they’re auditioning for a headlining spot at Sasquatch Music Festival. But in this half-formed state, they come off more like a mainstream rock band who can’t quite nail the big catharsis. As a result, there’s something sadly anonymous about Sunlit Youth. It’s cloudy, distant, and inert when it should be effervescent. It clubs you over the head with choruses when Local Natives used to be capable of effortlessly lifting you up. As much as they try to sell that “We can do whatever we want!” chorus in “Fountain of Youth,” the song is jarring. They don’t sound like themselves, and it’s hard to believe those words, no matter how loud they sing them.

Artist: Local Natives, Album: Sunlit Youth, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "Between their 2010 debut Gorilla Manor* *and 2013’s Hummingbird, Local Natives garnered a reputation in the indie landscape: dependable, gratifying, though not the most innovative. On Gorilla Manor, their cinematic emotions and soaring harmonies referenced the National’s slow-burning sweep and Fleet Foxes’ wide-eyed, bucolic tumble. With Hummingbird, Local Natives grew up with a more meditative album that dealt with the death of vocalist/keyboardist Kelcey Ayer’s mother. Though the rush of Gorilla Manor was missed, it was hard to knock the maturity and gravity that came with Hummingbird's more gradual revelations. Sunlit Youth encounters aging, change, and where life has led you. It is, presumably, an album where they continue to employ new textures and approaches. The difference here is that there’s a discomfort to the shift, with some songs sounding like old-school Local Natives tracks with a weak neon facelift, and others sounding like imposters snuck into the studio and got a few tracks on the album somehow, mostly yielding negative results. It’s a growing pains album, but not exactly a rewarding one. Far from the indie-folk of their earlier days, *Sunlit Youth *leans heavily on the synths and flirts with big-melody pop forms. “Past Lives,” a prime Local Natives composition emboldened by its synth leads, is a moving mission statement for the album. Despite the album’s title, Local Natives write more about the passing of youth, and “Past Lives” finds its way into a steadily intensifying gallop that captures the feeling of life starting to tumble forward as you age. Closer “Sea of Years” lands as if someone said, “We need the epic, swelling finale” and produced a checklist of necessary elements before actually writing it. Yet while the production and instrumentation render many songs on *Sunlit Youth *flat, “Sea of Years” is genuinely gorgeous, another moment where the themes of the album hit home. The instrumental melodies underpinning the chorus glimmer in the heat rather than charge headlong. It’s a convincing depiction of where these guys must be at, making anthems with more of life's baggage hanging around. Then there’s opener “Villany,” a fluttering and pulsing track where Local Natives successfully inject themselves fully into the realm of synth-pop. There is mission-statement business on that song, too; the key lyric is the recurring refrain of “I want to start again.” Its spiritual partner, “Fountain of Youth” is the grating low of the album, with the answer to “I want to start again” coming in the chorus with, “We can do whatever we want!” Suddenly, the band starts peddling the brand of cloying, faceless indie-pop you’d hear as background annoyance at Anthropologie, or in trailers for a “Grey’s Anatomy” knockoff. Tracks like “Mother Emanuel,” “Psycho Lovers,” and “Everything All at Once” follow suit, conjuring a bastardized fan-fiction in which latter-day Coldplay made an album with the Lumineers. The big vocal refrains of Local Natives used to alternatingly evoke the glow of the West Coast and the real, transformative feeling that can still come from barreling down an endless American highway. Now they sound bloodless and unearned. Across Sunlit Youth, there are flickers of what Local Natives do well, but the growth of their sound feels forced and awkward. You'll hear the funk excursion “Coins” touted and celebrated as one of the biggest stylistic leaps on the album. But it’s endemic of problems on about half of the album: One of the big draws of Local Natives were their melodies and their intertwined harmonies. Melodically speaking, they stumble on “Coins,” and they stumble on “Masters,” and they stumble on “Everything All at Once.” In the midst of rebuilding their sound, they’re less reliant on the subtle song-building of their past and lean more on big and broad emotions like they’re auditioning for a headlining spot at Sasquatch Music Festival. But in this half-formed state, they come off more like a mainstream rock band who can’t quite nail the big catharsis. As a result, there’s something sadly anonymous about Sunlit Youth. It’s cloudy, distant, and inert when it should be effervescent. It clubs you over the head with choruses when Local Natives used to be capable of effortlessly lifting you up. As much as they try to sell that “We can do whatever we want!” chorus in “Fountain of Youth,” the song is jarring. They don’t sound like themselves, and it’s hard to believe those words, no matter how loud they sing them."

Fennesz, Polwechsel

Wrapped Islands

Experimental

Mark Richardson

The actual definition of the word "experiment" suggests focus and planning. In science, one controls variables and conducts an experiment in order to test a hypothesis. Most experimental music doesn't really fit the bill. Experimental music is usually not an attempt to discover whether a specific idea holds true under a given set of conditions; what we call "experiment" in music might better be described as "tinkering." Tinkering is a meandering stream of connected thoughts and movements that might lead to invention: "Okay now, what happens if I put this here, yes, I see, then I tighten this screw and wait, that doesn't work, I need to put the screw underneath this fold, okay, that ought to do it. Now I make a cut here..." Tinkering is what Thomas Edison was doing when he first sat at his workbench and wrapped tin around a cylinder to see if he might make cuts into the metal analogous to sounds in the air. Tinkering is the perfect word to describe this collaboration between Christian Fennesz and Vienna-based improv group Polwechsel. Polwechsel's MO is to create texture and reveal the inner-workings of sound itself. Accordingly, there is virtually no melody on Wrapped Islands and instruments throughout are not used in the traditional manner. Instead we get a series of drones, scrapes, brushes, taps, rustles. There is the sound of John Butcher's saxophone, but usually he blows a single note for 30 seconds and then repeats, transforming his Western instrument into a Fourth World didgeridoo. The guitars, including some of Fennesz' trademark processed strums, drift through a seemingly unrelated series of notes chosen for their geometry, with the occasional jazzy upstroke to keep a foot in the world of conventional music. A cello might be sawed or plucked or tapped or just banged around a bit to hear what happens. The members of Polwechsel play established instruments but two of the members (and Fennesz) are also credited with "computer," and other with "electronics," so you know anything goes as far as sound. Still, the feel of Wrapped Islands is very live and in-the-moment. It's an album of quiet, subtle, low-key improv, music that rumbles and creaks like a building settling into place after a tremor, with just a hint of tense soundtrack music providing atmosphere in the background. There is space in most of these tracks, a thousand holes of silence poked into the chattering web of sound, but my favorites have more density. Wrapped Islands is at its best when the drones gather some momentum. On "Framing 3" (the tracks are titled Framing 1 through Framing 8), a bony spine of drone, something like the gurgle of an outboard boat engine, snakes through the track giving the typically random sounds something to bounce off of. When Butcher's tenor enters for a three-note phrase, the most typically jazz-sounding bit on the entire album, the contrast in the tension is palpable. "Framing 5" is also thick and heavy, with gurgling keyboards and deep bass plucks suggesting some kind of threat. A distant, vague sense that something is wrong prevais on Wrapped Islands, and the tone varies little from track to track. There are moments when something lighter pops out, as on "Framing 4" begins with one of the few concessions to beauty, with a graceful low-end flutter, sterile but mechanically lovely, but these vanish rather quickly into the dark, serious atmosphere of the group improvisation. This devotion to a small handful of moods suggests that Polwechsel and Fennesz had something specific in mind when they sat down together to tinker, but my sense is that they never quite found what they were looking for. Wrapped Islands seems a bit like scribbled notes in pursuit of a potentially great invention.

Artist: Fennesz, Polwechsel, Album: Wrapped Islands, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "The actual definition of the word "experiment" suggests focus and planning. In science, one controls variables and conducts an experiment in order to test a hypothesis. Most experimental music doesn't really fit the bill. Experimental music is usually not an attempt to discover whether a specific idea holds true under a given set of conditions; what we call "experiment" in music might better be described as "tinkering." Tinkering is a meandering stream of connected thoughts and movements that might lead to invention: "Okay now, what happens if I put this here, yes, I see, then I tighten this screw and wait, that doesn't work, I need to put the screw underneath this fold, okay, that ought to do it. Now I make a cut here..." Tinkering is what Thomas Edison was doing when he first sat at his workbench and wrapped tin around a cylinder to see if he might make cuts into the metal analogous to sounds in the air. Tinkering is the perfect word to describe this collaboration between Christian Fennesz and Vienna-based improv group Polwechsel. Polwechsel's MO is to create texture and reveal the inner-workings of sound itself. Accordingly, there is virtually no melody on Wrapped Islands and instruments throughout are not used in the traditional manner. Instead we get a series of drones, scrapes, brushes, taps, rustles. There is the sound of John Butcher's saxophone, but usually he blows a single note for 30 seconds and then repeats, transforming his Western instrument into a Fourth World didgeridoo. The guitars, including some of Fennesz' trademark processed strums, drift through a seemingly unrelated series of notes chosen for their geometry, with the occasional jazzy upstroke to keep a foot in the world of conventional music. A cello might be sawed or plucked or tapped or just banged around a bit to hear what happens. The members of Polwechsel play established instruments but two of the members (and Fennesz) are also credited with "computer," and other with "electronics," so you know anything goes as far as sound. Still, the feel of Wrapped Islands is very live and in-the-moment. It's an album of quiet, subtle, low-key improv, music that rumbles and creaks like a building settling into place after a tremor, with just a hint of tense soundtrack music providing atmosphere in the background. There is space in most of these tracks, a thousand holes of silence poked into the chattering web of sound, but my favorites have more density. Wrapped Islands is at its best when the drones gather some momentum. On "Framing 3" (the tracks are titled Framing 1 through Framing 8), a bony spine of drone, something like the gurgle of an outboard boat engine, snakes through the track giving the typically random sounds something to bounce off of. When Butcher's tenor enters for a three-note phrase, the most typically jazz-sounding bit on the entire album, the contrast in the tension is palpable. "Framing 5" is also thick and heavy, with gurgling keyboards and deep bass plucks suggesting some kind of threat. A distant, vague sense that something is wrong prevais on Wrapped Islands, and the tone varies little from track to track. There are moments when something lighter pops out, as on "Framing 4" begins with one of the few concessions to beauty, with a graceful low-end flutter, sterile but mechanically lovely, but these vanish rather quickly into the dark, serious atmosphere of the group improvisation. This devotion to a small handful of moods suggests that Polwechsel and Fennesz had something specific in mind when they sat down together to tinker, but my sense is that they never quite found what they were looking for. Wrapped Islands seems a bit like scribbled notes in pursuit of a potentially great invention."

The Beta Band

Hot Shots II

Rock

Matt LeMay

There's a reason that shampoo bottles tell you to rinse and repeat. And no, it isn't just to make you buy more shampoo. Of course, in this day and age, when hating all things corporate is "cool," it's easy to write off this advice as shameless commercialism. But if those Herbal Essences commercials have taught us anything, it's that the shampoo manufacturers of the world want nothing more than to make us happy. Is it so hard to believe that they just want to share with us the wisdom they have gained after years of shampoo production? Certainly they aren't recommending the endless, scalp bleed-inducing loops of rinse and repeat that have become the stuff of urban legend. They just want to share with you the wisdom that careful repetition can often make things decidedly more potent. I don't know what kind of shampoo Stephen Mason uses. If the snazzy picture on the back of Hot Shots II is any indication, it's probably pretty good stuff. And the ten dense, smooth tracks on Hot Shots II reveal that Stephen Mason has been paying a good deal of attention to the Zen of the shampoo bottle: rinse and repeat. While rinsing away the dirt and slop of his past may leave Mason feeling clean and fresh, it washes off one of the key elements of the Betas' trademark sound: the almost unparalleled zaniness and willingness to fuck around. The bizarre, layered samples, the sloppy playing-- all these have been cleansed from Mason's mane. The resulting album bears a closer resemblance in general mood and structure to Mason's most recent King Biscuit Time outing than to any previous Beta Band material. Which brings us to the latter half of shampoo bottle wisdom, and the half that helps makes Hot Shots II so good: repeat. Even if rinsing is robbing Mason and his cohorts of some of the beautiful weirdness displayed on previous records, Hot Shots II is a much more comfortable-sounding record than The Three EPs or the group's 1999 self-titled full-length debut. Just about every song here fits nicely into an organic, pulsing, repetitive groove. It's much more densely and diversely orchestrated than King Biscuit Time, but much more contained and deliberate than any previous Beta Band releases. This new contained and repetitive direction often yields amazing results. "Al Sharp", the standout from Hot Shots II, is one of the richest-sounding songs the Betas have ever produced. With xylophones, sampled strings, a groovy bassline, and some flat-out gorgeous multi-tracked vocals, there's very little not to love about the track. Especially when it contains lyrics like, "Or [is it] because the power ranger robots in the skies have called a war/ To you, honey?" As with the best of Hot Shots II, there's something beautiful, meditative, and contemplative about "Al Sharp". Plus, the song simply sounds awesome, the result being perhaps the only Beta Band song on this album that can unequivocally stand up to the best material from The Three EPs or the self-titled record. On the darker side of Hot Shots II is "Gone", a sparse guitar and piano-driven ballad that, were it twice as long and less linear, would sound right at home on The Three EPs. Balancing out the motionless sound of "Gone" is the near-epic, very much alive "Dragons". Another quasi-love-ballad, "Dragons" rides a whacked-out, reverb-drenched drumbeat and washed out synthesizers to a beautiful crescendo of multitracked vocals and samples. Splitting the difference between "Gone" and "Dragons" is "Life", a downcast but decidedly goofy number about unrequited love featuring string swells, synthesizers, and cowbells. "Life" segues perfectly into Hot Shots II's prettiest track, "Eclipse", an appealingly long-winded, spacy musing on books, pizza pie, and questions and answers. The song's rousing bridge, "We all live together on a little round ball," recalls "Yellow Submarine", and the song's final line, which finally brings together its themes provides a perfect ending for an album that never takes itself too seriously. That is, "Eclipse" would make a great closer for an album that never takes itself too seriously. But for some ungodly reason, "Won", a pretty straightforward but hideously awful hip-hop track that has nothing to do with anything else on the album was slapped onto the end as a "bonus". For the most part, I'm not one to bitch about the inclusion of extra tracks, but the awkward, out-of-place "Won" really does fuck up the flow of Hot Shots II, and stifles what could have been a great closing. While it certainly doesn't live up to the adventurousness of its predecessors, Hot Shots II is a pretty damned fine album, and easily surpasses previous outings in the realm of accessibility. It also does away with the bizarre rap numbers and twelve-minute psych pastiches that put so many eager listeners off in the first place. To me, though, that thrown-together sound was one of the things that made the Beta Band's music so exciting, hinting at the possibility of wacky revolutions and violent takeovers by silly string-armed bandits. Rinsing and repeating is working well for Stephen Mason, but it would no doubt serve him well to work up a more turbulent, frothy lather next time.

Artist: The Beta Band, Album: Hot Shots II, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.6 Album review: "There's a reason that shampoo bottles tell you to rinse and repeat. And no, it isn't just to make you buy more shampoo. Of course, in this day and age, when hating all things corporate is "cool," it's easy to write off this advice as shameless commercialism. But if those Herbal Essences commercials have taught us anything, it's that the shampoo manufacturers of the world want nothing more than to make us happy. Is it so hard to believe that they just want to share with us the wisdom they have gained after years of shampoo production? Certainly they aren't recommending the endless, scalp bleed-inducing loops of rinse and repeat that have become the stuff of urban legend. They just want to share with you the wisdom that careful repetition can often make things decidedly more potent. I don't know what kind of shampoo Stephen Mason uses. If the snazzy picture on the back of Hot Shots II is any indication, it's probably pretty good stuff. And the ten dense, smooth tracks on Hot Shots II reveal that Stephen Mason has been paying a good deal of attention to the Zen of the shampoo bottle: rinse and repeat. While rinsing away the dirt and slop of his past may leave Mason feeling clean and fresh, it washes off one of the key elements of the Betas' trademark sound: the almost unparalleled zaniness and willingness to fuck around. The bizarre, layered samples, the sloppy playing-- all these have been cleansed from Mason's mane. The resulting album bears a closer resemblance in general mood and structure to Mason's most recent King Biscuit Time outing than to any previous Beta Band material. Which brings us to the latter half of shampoo bottle wisdom, and the half that helps makes Hot Shots II so good: repeat. Even if rinsing is robbing Mason and his cohorts of some of the beautiful weirdness displayed on previous records, Hot Shots II is a much more comfortable-sounding record than The Three EPs or the group's 1999 self-titled full-length debut. Just about every song here fits nicely into an organic, pulsing, repetitive groove. It's much more densely and diversely orchestrated than King Biscuit Time, but much more contained and deliberate than any previous Beta Band releases. This new contained and repetitive direction often yields amazing results. "Al Sharp", the standout from Hot Shots II, is one of the richest-sounding songs the Betas have ever produced. With xylophones, sampled strings, a groovy bassline, and some flat-out gorgeous multi-tracked vocals, there's very little not to love about the track. Especially when it contains lyrics like, "Or [is it] because the power ranger robots in the skies have called a war/ To you, honey?" As with the best of Hot Shots II, there's something beautiful, meditative, and contemplative about "Al Sharp". Plus, the song simply sounds awesome, the result being perhaps the only Beta Band song on this album that can unequivocally stand up to the best material from The Three EPs or the self-titled record. On the darker side of Hot Shots II is "Gone", a sparse guitar and piano-driven ballad that, were it twice as long and less linear, would sound right at home on The Three EPs. Balancing out the motionless sound of "Gone" is the near-epic, very much alive "Dragons". Another quasi-love-ballad, "Dragons" rides a whacked-out, reverb-drenched drumbeat and washed out synthesizers to a beautiful crescendo of multitracked vocals and samples. Splitting the difference between "Gone" and "Dragons" is "Life", a downcast but decidedly goofy number about unrequited love featuring string swells, synthesizers, and cowbells. "Life" segues perfectly into Hot Shots II's prettiest track, "Eclipse", an appealingly long-winded, spacy musing on books, pizza pie, and questions and answers. The song's rousing bridge, "We all live together on a little round ball," recalls "Yellow Submarine", and the song's final line, which finally brings together its themes provides a perfect ending for an album that never takes itself too seriously. That is, "Eclipse" would make a great closer for an album that never takes itself too seriously. But for some ungodly reason, "Won", a pretty straightforward but hideously awful hip-hop track that has nothing to do with anything else on the album was slapped onto the end as a "bonus". For the most part, I'm not one to bitch about the inclusion of extra tracks, but the awkward, out-of-place "Won" really does fuck up the flow of Hot Shots II, and stifles what could have been a great closing. While it certainly doesn't live up to the adventurousness of its predecessors, Hot Shots II is a pretty damned fine album, and easily surpasses previous outings in the realm of accessibility. It also does away with the bizarre rap numbers and twelve-minute psych pastiches that put so many eager listeners off in the first place. To me, though, that thrown-together sound was one of the things that made the Beta Band's music so exciting, hinting at the possibility of wacky revolutions and violent takeovers by silly string-armed bandits. Rinsing and repeating is working well for Stephen Mason, but it would no doubt serve him well to work up a more turbulent, frothy lather next time."

MellowHype

BlackenedWhite [Reissue]

Rap

Jordan Sargent

When MellowHype first released BlackenedWhite on Halloween of last year, the world was a very different place for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Events that would eventually cement the collective's budding stardom-- Tyler, the Creator's "Yonkers" becoming a viral sensation, their seminal performance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", Tyler inking a deal with XL-- were either weeks or months away. The group at large was still strictly a sensation in a small pocket of the Internet, somewhat mysterious, amorphous, confusing and-- as anyone who tried to grab an album from Odd Future's official blog only to be met with a broken download link could attest-- amateur. Released after that initial rush of online hype, BlackenedWhite (along with Domo Genesis' Rolling Papers) was, if not an introduction point, at least the first new music released since many had initially heard of Odd Future. Described on the crew's Tumblr as "The Perfect Soundtrack For Mobbing On A Dark Halloween Night," and littered with references to dead cops, the album easily fit into the general perception of what Odd Future's music was about. So here we are, some eight-and-a-half months later, and BlackenedWhite has now been remastered, rearranged, and re-released by Fat Possum into a market where Tyler easily coexists next to pop stars. And yet, oddly enough, MellowHype's role is almost precisely the same, again representing the first new release by Odd Future since being embraced again by a wider audience. But where in October 2010 it might've been hard to pinpoint exactly where MellowHype stood in relation to guys like Tyler or Domo or Earl Sweatshirt, time has allowed the different personas within Odd Future to distinguish themselves. Hodgy Beats' wild-eyed glare can be seen next to Tyler on stage during Odd Future's shows, and it's easy to see how he could be thought of as Tyler's sidekick. And in fact, when people talk about Odd Future on a macro level, especially when that discussion is boiled down to the more controversial elements of the music, who they're really talking about is Tyler (and, to a lesser extent, Earl), oftentimes glossing over the individual members of the group. Part of that is by design, of course: Tyler has always been front and center, and not only is his star power blatantly obvious, but he feeds on being on a lightning rod. But lost in the shuffle is that the other arms of Odd Future are putting out music that is far from Tyler's trolling self-autopsies, which is both a good and bad thing. As a rapper, Hodgy seems mostly concerned with stringing together words on the basis of their sound in rapid-fire fashion. This is seen most obviously in "Igotagun" and "64", the two new tracks added to Blackenedwhite for the reissue. He doesn't have Tyler's focus or imagination, but his garden-variety shit talking, combined with gleefully inhabited fables of drug pushing and cop killing, bring the sort of levity that you would expect from a group of skate-punk "Jackass" descendents, and in a way that's much less obnoxious than, say, Tyler's "Bitch Suck Dick". What can't be found here are all the things that upset people about Odd Future, namely Tyler's reliance on slurs and his elaborate rape fantasies. And though Hodgy doesn't possess Earl's effortless rapping skill (who does?), his penchant for tongue-twisting alliteration further separates him from the stoned flows of fellow Odd Future stoners Domo and Mike G. The flipside of that is when Tyler storms through on "Fuck the Police" (now rebranded for Best Buys as "F666 the Police"), the effect is slightly jarring. While Hodgy's Flocka homage and producer Left Brain's turn as Timbaland circa "We Need a Resolution" work just fine, Tyler tells a strikingly vivid story of getting pulled over and murdering a cop in what is easily the most accomplished verse on the album. BlackenedWhite is the most fun Odd Future release (excepting, arguably, the collaborative mixtapes) and it's one of the easier to digest, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny in the way that Tyler's or Earl's work does. This cleaned up version of the album also puts a stronger concentration on the Left Brain productions that lean heavy on Southern rap. Replacing the distinctly Tyler-esque "Chordaroy" and "Loco", as well as the trifles "Stripclub" and "Gram", are the aforementioned new tracks, both of which call back to the beats that the Neptunes used to give to Clipse. The result is both a more succinct and cohesive full-length. The catch-22 for MellowHype is that while their centrism certainly has its merits, their music is unlikely to convert anyone that has, at this point, already written off Odd Future. Which leaves them with a solid, fun rap album to satiate a feverish cult and a growing number of casual fans. Things, all told, could be worse.

Artist: MellowHype, Album: BlackenedWhite [Reissue], Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "When MellowHype first released BlackenedWhite on Halloween of last year, the world was a very different place for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Events that would eventually cement the collective's budding stardom-- Tyler, the Creator's "Yonkers" becoming a viral sensation, their seminal performance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", Tyler inking a deal with XL-- were either weeks or months away. The group at large was still strictly a sensation in a small pocket of the Internet, somewhat mysterious, amorphous, confusing and-- as anyone who tried to grab an album from Odd Future's official blog only to be met with a broken download link could attest-- amateur. Released after that initial rush of online hype, BlackenedWhite (along with Domo Genesis' Rolling Papers) was, if not an introduction point, at least the first new music released since many had initially heard of Odd Future. Described on the crew's Tumblr as "The Perfect Soundtrack For Mobbing On A Dark Halloween Night," and littered with references to dead cops, the album easily fit into the general perception of what Odd Future's music was about. So here we are, some eight-and-a-half months later, and BlackenedWhite has now been remastered, rearranged, and re-released by Fat Possum into a market where Tyler easily coexists next to pop stars. And yet, oddly enough, MellowHype's role is almost precisely the same, again representing the first new release by Odd Future since being embraced again by a wider audience. But where in October 2010 it might've been hard to pinpoint exactly where MellowHype stood in relation to guys like Tyler or Domo or Earl Sweatshirt, time has allowed the different personas within Odd Future to distinguish themselves. Hodgy Beats' wild-eyed glare can be seen next to Tyler on stage during Odd Future's shows, and it's easy to see how he could be thought of as Tyler's sidekick. And in fact, when people talk about Odd Future on a macro level, especially when that discussion is boiled down to the more controversial elements of the music, who they're really talking about is Tyler (and, to a lesser extent, Earl), oftentimes glossing over the individual members of the group. Part of that is by design, of course: Tyler has always been front and center, and not only is his star power blatantly obvious, but he feeds on being on a lightning rod. But lost in the shuffle is that the other arms of Odd Future are putting out music that is far from Tyler's trolling self-autopsies, which is both a good and bad thing. As a rapper, Hodgy seems mostly concerned with stringing together words on the basis of their sound in rapid-fire fashion. This is seen most obviously in "Igotagun" and "64", the two new tracks added to Blackenedwhite for the reissue. He doesn't have Tyler's focus or imagination, but his garden-variety shit talking, combined with gleefully inhabited fables of drug pushing and cop killing, bring the sort of levity that you would expect from a group of skate-punk "Jackass" descendents, and in a way that's much less obnoxious than, say, Tyler's "Bitch Suck Dick". What can't be found here are all the things that upset people about Odd Future, namely Tyler's reliance on slurs and his elaborate rape fantasies. And though Hodgy doesn't possess Earl's effortless rapping skill (who does?), his penchant for tongue-twisting alliteration further separates him from the stoned flows of fellow Odd Future stoners Domo and Mike G. The flipside of that is when Tyler storms through on "Fuck the Police" (now rebranded for Best Buys as "F666 the Police"), the effect is slightly jarring. While Hodgy's Flocka homage and producer Left Brain's turn as Timbaland circa "We Need a Resolution" work just fine, Tyler tells a strikingly vivid story of getting pulled over and murdering a cop in what is easily the most accomplished verse on the album. BlackenedWhite is the most fun Odd Future release (excepting, arguably, the collaborative mixtapes) and it's one of the easier to digest, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny in the way that Tyler's or Earl's work does. This cleaned up version of the album also puts a stronger concentration on the Left Brain productions that lean heavy on Southern rap. Replacing the distinctly Tyler-esque "Chordaroy" and "Loco", as well as the trifles "Stripclub" and "Gram", are the aforementioned new tracks, both of which call back to the beats that the Neptunes used to give to Clipse. The result is both a more succinct and cohesive full-length. The catch-22 for MellowHype is that while their centrism certainly has its merits, their music is unlikely to convert anyone that has, at this point, already written off Odd Future. Which leaves them with a solid, fun rap album to satiate a feverish cult and a growing number of casual fans. Things, all told, could be worse."

Russian Circles

Empros

Metal,Rock

Paul Thompson

A balancing act on a cosmic scale, Empros-- the fourth LP from mostly instrumental Chicago trio Russian Circles-- marries light to dark, order to chaos. Empros swings from the exceedingly beautiful to the punishingly physical in seconds flat. Every note on Empros is its right place, every surface scraped-up just so; a recent Decibel writeup found bassist Brian Cook claiming he'd never make another record "from the ground up" like the meticulously constructed Empros. Shame, that; as on 2009's swarmed-with-strings Geneva, the expanse charted by the grandiose Empros is very vast indeed. Building on the strides they made on Geneva's adventurous first half, Russian Circles complicate the drift-and-build of most post-rock, injecting craggy climaxes, letting the low end take the lead. Highlight "Mlàdek" finds a rousing, almost Broken Social Scene-style guitar chug careening headlong into a patch of black metal-inspired ballast; the shift in tone's a bit jarring, but considering the disparity of styles at play, the transition's pretty flawless. Empros' best moments-- the snowdrift strings that blow across the end of "Schiphol" and into "Atackla", the patch cord static and drums that open "Batu," the aforementioned "Mlàdek" assault-- find some little sliver of gorgeousness overwhelmed by some orbit-upsetting rumble from Cook or some out-from-nowhere turnaround from drummer Dave Turncrantz. Complexity for its own sake muddled the Circles' first few LPs a bit; Empros, like Geneva before it, is less prone to wriggle, more likely to lunge, each move bigger than its last. That increased compositional confidence gives each move they make that much more heft, songs charging eagerly towards their second acts, then dizzyingly doubling back. Still, with most of these tunes hinging around some staggeringly huge mid-song wallop, once you've traveled Empros' strangeways a few times, you'll start to see the landmarks coming from a few miles off. Bigger, stranger, and just plain heavier than any Circles disc before it, the first 35 minutes of Empros' empyrean, oblong alien-prog finds the band once again wrestling their grand ambitions into impossible shapes. And then there's "Praise Be Man", a searching, Spiritualized-nodding folk-gospel featuring a rare vocal turn from Cook. On a record with less scope than Empros, "Praise" would prove the sorest of thumbs, an out-of-character overreach from a band who oughta stick with what they're good at. Arriving at end of all that interstellar overdrive, "Praise" proves an especially lovely comedown, one last burst of light to offset all that darkness.

Artist: Russian Circles, Album: Empros, Genre: Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "A balancing act on a cosmic scale, Empros-- the fourth LP from mostly instrumental Chicago trio Russian Circles-- marries light to dark, order to chaos. Empros swings from the exceedingly beautiful to the punishingly physical in seconds flat. Every note on Empros is its right place, every surface scraped-up just so; a recent Decibel writeup found bassist Brian Cook claiming he'd never make another record "from the ground up" like the meticulously constructed Empros. Shame, that; as on 2009's swarmed-with-strings Geneva, the expanse charted by the grandiose Empros is very vast indeed. Building on the strides they made on Geneva's adventurous first half, Russian Circles complicate the drift-and-build of most post-rock, injecting craggy climaxes, letting the low end take the lead. Highlight "Mlàdek" finds a rousing, almost Broken Social Scene-style guitar chug careening headlong into a patch of black metal-inspired ballast; the shift in tone's a bit jarring, but considering the disparity of styles at play, the transition's pretty flawless. Empros' best moments-- the snowdrift strings that blow across the end of "Schiphol" and into "Atackla", the patch cord static and drums that open "Batu," the aforementioned "Mlàdek" assault-- find some little sliver of gorgeousness overwhelmed by some orbit-upsetting rumble from Cook or some out-from-nowhere turnaround from drummer Dave Turncrantz. Complexity for its own sake muddled the Circles' first few LPs a bit; Empros, like Geneva before it, is less prone to wriggle, more likely to lunge, each move bigger than its last. That increased compositional confidence gives each move they make that much more heft, songs charging eagerly towards their second acts, then dizzyingly doubling back. Still, with most of these tunes hinging around some staggeringly huge mid-song wallop, once you've traveled Empros' strangeways a few times, you'll start to see the landmarks coming from a few miles off. Bigger, stranger, and just plain heavier than any Circles disc before it, the first 35 minutes of Empros' empyrean, oblong alien-prog finds the band once again wrestling their grand ambitions into impossible shapes. And then there's "Praise Be Man", a searching, Spiritualized-nodding folk-gospel featuring a rare vocal turn from Cook. On a record with less scope than Empros, "Praise" would prove the sorest of thumbs, an out-of-character overreach from a band who oughta stick with what they're good at. Arriving at end of all that interstellar overdrive, "Praise" proves an especially lovely comedown, one last burst of light to offset all that darkness."

The Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound

When Sweet Sleep Returned

Nate Patrin

A couple of months ago I was schlepping around YouTube looking for clips of bands I liked, and in the process I idly looked up San Francisco psych revivalists Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound. And I noticed something interesting: Whether it was due to the sound setup at the band's venue or some limitations of the video or cell phone camera filming their show, many of them sounded almost violently distorted and loud. Even the ones that weren't still seemed like bracing experiences, body-tossing waves of lead-footed riffs and drumming that could dislodge rivets. Considering the forceful if limber heaviness of their previous two albums, their self-titled 2005 debut and 2007's Ekranoplan, that shouldn't be a big surprise. A noisy space-rock band? You don't say. But When Sweet Sleep Returned might be the album that changes that whole dynamic. Despite their stoner-rock bonafides, Assemble Head have frequently found themselves on the edge of mellow, and this new album-- while still fairly powerful with the volume up-- seems to be reining in their more chaotic tendencies, with fewer blown-out serrated edges and more clean, open space. Tim Green, who engineered Ekranoplan (as well as albums by nu-acid rock vanguards Earthless and Comets on Fire), might have something to do with that, though the differences between the albums from a pure production standpoint are subtle-- the most noticeable effect being a somewhat less prominent bass rumble. Yet for a group that immerses itself in much of the late 1960s/early 70s cusp-of-metal sound, Assemble Head never quite went far enough into the abyss of Sabbathoid doom that other stoner bands planted their flags in. You can imagine them cranking up Blue Cheer or Hawkwind every now and then, but they've also owed a fair amount to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and even early Grateful Dead, more old-school hippie than proto-hesher burnout with each successive album. The lessened emphasis on early metal on When Sweet Sleep Returned is a mixed blessing-- previous records benefited from the caustic sonics Sweet Sleep lacks, but the cleaner, more bucolic sound reveals a band that, comparatively traditional-minded as they are, at least has a good handle on getting past clichés to burrow to the root of what made California psych and post-psychedelic rock work. And that relies on the guitar tones of Charlie Saufley and Jefferson Marshall. Their strength isn't necessarily in fuzzed-out amplification, but in unpredictable versatility; all at once they can sound menacing and pastoral, leaden and ethereal, even if they seem to be cribbing from a wide array of 40 year-old blueprints. "By the Rippling Green" is the most immediate standout-- a two-layered melodic theoretical summit of John Fogerty rhythms and some of Neil Young's more low-key moments-- but it's not the most typical one. You might actually have a hard time pinning anything on this album as especially typical of anything else, actually: The riffs in "Two Stage Rocket" smoothly transition from 1966 to 69 Pink Floyd, "The Slumbering Ones" crossbreeds sprawling desert blues-rock with hints of a mutant strain of shoegaze, and the gentle hippiefied boogie rock of "Two Birds" slowly but surely expands and explodes into a solo-drenched peak that re-envisions Spiritualized as a jam band. The funny thing is, even though the guitars are just as prone to twang as they are to growl, and even though the rhythms are often more floaty than heavy, there's no lack of power here. You just have to find it in unexpected places: While there's not a lot of squall and noise, there's still plenty of velocity, and the album thrives on uptempo tracks like the borderline alt-country "Kolob Canyon" and the fuzzed-out "Clive and the Lyre"; the latter song comes closest to showing some actual snarl, and exhibits Assemble Head's affection for fellow Nor Cal psychmongers Comets on Fire. The only real bummer with When Sweet Sleep Returned-- aside from the subjective fault of being "uninnovative"-- is the lyrical element; when the vocals aren't getting swept away along with the momentum, they're buried a bit low in an otherwise clean mix or distorted just enough to make every third word unclear. That's a shame, since what one can glean of them hints at a fascinating blend of post-apocalyptic dread and blissed-out reverie. But the music doesn't need to hint at that vibe-- it lays it out in Cinemascope panorama, fuzz or no fuzz.

Artist: The Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Album: When Sweet Sleep Returned, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "A couple of months ago I was schlepping around YouTube looking for clips of bands I liked, and in the process I idly looked up San Francisco psych revivalists Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound. And I noticed something interesting: Whether it was due to the sound setup at the band's venue or some limitations of the video or cell phone camera filming their show, many of them sounded almost violently distorted and loud. Even the ones that weren't still seemed like bracing experiences, body-tossing waves of lead-footed riffs and drumming that could dislodge rivets. Considering the forceful if limber heaviness of their previous two albums, their self-titled 2005 debut and 2007's Ekranoplan, that shouldn't be a big surprise. A noisy space-rock band? You don't say. But When Sweet Sleep Returned might be the album that changes that whole dynamic. Despite their stoner-rock bonafides, Assemble Head have frequently found themselves on the edge of mellow, and this new album-- while still fairly powerful with the volume up-- seems to be reining in their more chaotic tendencies, with fewer blown-out serrated edges and more clean, open space. Tim Green, who engineered Ekranoplan (as well as albums by nu-acid rock vanguards Earthless and Comets on Fire), might have something to do with that, though the differences between the albums from a pure production standpoint are subtle-- the most noticeable effect being a somewhat less prominent bass rumble. Yet for a group that immerses itself in much of the late 1960s/early 70s cusp-of-metal sound, Assemble Head never quite went far enough into the abyss of Sabbathoid doom that other stoner bands planted their flags in. You can imagine them cranking up Blue Cheer or Hawkwind every now and then, but they've also owed a fair amount to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and even early Grateful Dead, more old-school hippie than proto-hesher burnout with each successive album. The lessened emphasis on early metal on When Sweet Sleep Returned is a mixed blessing-- previous records benefited from the caustic sonics Sweet Sleep lacks, but the cleaner, more bucolic sound reveals a band that, comparatively traditional-minded as they are, at least has a good handle on getting past clichés to burrow to the root of what made California psych and post-psychedelic rock work. And that relies on the guitar tones of Charlie Saufley and Jefferson Marshall. Their strength isn't necessarily in fuzzed-out amplification, but in unpredictable versatility; all at once they can sound menacing and pastoral, leaden and ethereal, even if they seem to be cribbing from a wide array of 40 year-old blueprints. "By the Rippling Green" is the most immediate standout-- a two-layered melodic theoretical summit of John Fogerty rhythms and some of Neil Young's more low-key moments-- but it's not the most typical one. You might actually have a hard time pinning anything on this album as especially typical of anything else, actually: The riffs in "Two Stage Rocket" smoothly transition from 1966 to 69 Pink Floyd, "The Slumbering Ones" crossbreeds sprawling desert blues-rock with hints of a mutant strain of shoegaze, and the gentle hippiefied boogie rock of "Two Birds" slowly but surely expands and explodes into a solo-drenched peak that re-envisions Spiritualized as a jam band. The funny thing is, even though the guitars are just as prone to twang as they are to growl, and even though the rhythms are often more floaty than heavy, there's no lack of power here. You just have to find it in unexpected places: While there's not a lot of squall and noise, there's still plenty of velocity, and the album thrives on uptempo tracks like the borderline alt-country "Kolob Canyon" and the fuzzed-out "Clive and the Lyre"; the latter song comes closest to showing some actual snarl, and exhibits Assemble Head's affection for fellow Nor Cal psychmongers Comets on Fire. The only real bummer with When Sweet Sleep Returned-- aside from the subjective fault of being "uninnovative"-- is the lyrical element; when the vocals aren't getting swept away along with the momentum, they're buried a bit low in an otherwise clean mix or distorted just enough to make every third word unclear. That's a shame, since what one can glean of them hints at a fascinating blend of post-apocalyptic dread and blissed-out reverie. But the music doesn't need to hint at that vibe-- it lays it out in Cinemascope panorama, fuzz or no fuzz."

Rose McDowall

Cut With the Cake Knife

Rock

J. Edward Keyes

Everything you need to know about Strawberry Switchblade, the Scottish duo of Rose McDowall and Jill Bryson, is right there in the name. The group, who grew out of the late '70s Glasgow punk scene paired brightly-colored, synth-driven new wave melodies with lyrics that often spoke of sadness and loss. That polarity between light and darkness became even more apparent in the group’s acrimonious dissolution in 1986, just five years after they started. MacDowall had always nursed an interest in the occult, but over the course of the duo's brief run, it deepened, moving beyond a childlike fascination with fairies into the realm of straight-up black magic (in one oft-repeated story, she was so furious with a bad note during the recording of "Let Her Go", she allegedly stared at the tape machine and willed it to burst into flames). Her curiosity only intensified after she and her husband fell in with Genesis P-Orridge, which led to even darker pursuits—in an extensive interview, Bryson claims McDowall developed an obsession with Nazi history, going so far as to hang a Nazi flag in her apartment. While McDowall emphatically denies the claim, her collaborations with suspect artists like Boyd Rice and Death in June in the intervening years seem unwise at best. Fortunately, none of these matters surface on Cut With the Cake Knife, which McDowall recorded in various locations around the UK in the 1980s, shortly after Strawberry Switchblade’s breakup. Instead, the album’s 11 songs follow the same blueprint that made McDowall’s previous group so bewitching, pairing bleak—and, at times, violent—lyrics to the kind of sugary music that might soundtrack a particularly rambunctious children’s show. Drum machines whirr and rattle, keyboards blink like buggy Lite Brites, and McDowall’s somber alto winds its way through the center like a serpent cutting a path through cellophane Easter grass. On the opening track "Tibet", she seems to be wrestling with Strawberry Switchblade’s breakup, sighing "I don’t want you to go/ But can’t ask you to stay/ I wish I could change your mind/ But wishes sometimes die." The music that surrounds it is a kind of ersatz calypso, with charmingly chintzy rhythms and gurgling keyboards, but the vocal melody is so assured and clear-eyed that the song never feels cloying or saccharine. "Sixty Cowboys" dabbles in the kind of synthetic country that the Magnetic Fields would master on Charm of the Highway Strip, with brittle keyboards filling in for banjos and McDowall’s lonesome voice floating upward like campfire smoke. And while the title "Crystal Nights" takes on an ominous meaning in light of the allegations about McDowall’s hobbies, the song itself harbors no questionable subject matter. Instead, it depicts her in bed daydreaming about her lover as keyboards spiral like fireflies around her. While its ingredients are undeniably basic—all of the songs are built from a few period-appropriate keyboards and chugging drum machines, and that’s mostly it—what makes Cake Knife so consistently endearing is how effortless it all sounds. That the only bum note is a chirpy cover of "Don’t Fear the Reaper", which comes off like the theme music to an old Commodore 64 game, speaks to how strong the rest of the record is. On Cake Knife, McDowall has created a kind of aural Candy Land, one where she can break off vanilla bark from Jujyfruit trees while she sings about death and despair. The title track—which was originally intended to be a Strawberry Switchblade song—takes that m.o. to its logical extreme. While a comically cartoonish bass and hyperactive synths jitter and pop around her, McDowall beckons a lover closer before announcing in its deliriously euphoric chorus, "I will take you by the hand and lead you/ To my sunny side and I will/ Cut you with the cake knife/ Right between the eyes." In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside.

Artist: Rose McDowall, Album: Cut With the Cake Knife, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "Everything you need to know about Strawberry Switchblade, the Scottish duo of Rose McDowall and Jill Bryson, is right there in the name. The group, who grew out of the late '70s Glasgow punk scene paired brightly-colored, synth-driven new wave melodies with lyrics that often spoke of sadness and loss. That polarity between light and darkness became even more apparent in the group’s acrimonious dissolution in 1986, just five years after they started. MacDowall had always nursed an interest in the occult, but over the course of the duo's brief run, it deepened, moving beyond a childlike fascination with fairies into the realm of straight-up black magic (in one oft-repeated story, she was so furious with a bad note during the recording of "Let Her Go", she allegedly stared at the tape machine and willed it to burst into flames). Her curiosity only intensified after she and her husband fell in with Genesis P-Orridge, which led to even darker pursuits—in an extensive interview, Bryson claims McDowall developed an obsession with Nazi history, going so far as to hang a Nazi flag in her apartment. While McDowall emphatically denies the claim, her collaborations with suspect artists like Boyd Rice and Death in June in the intervening years seem unwise at best. Fortunately, none of these matters surface on Cut With the Cake Knife, which McDowall recorded in various locations around the UK in the 1980s, shortly after Strawberry Switchblade’s breakup. Instead, the album’s 11 songs follow the same blueprint that made McDowall’s previous group so bewitching, pairing bleak—and, at times, violent—lyrics to the kind of sugary music that might soundtrack a particularly rambunctious children’s show. Drum machines whirr and rattle, keyboards blink like buggy Lite Brites, and McDowall’s somber alto winds its way through the center like a serpent cutting a path through cellophane Easter grass. On the opening track "Tibet", she seems to be wrestling with Strawberry Switchblade’s breakup, sighing "I don’t want you to go/ But can’t ask you to stay/ I wish I could change your mind/ But wishes sometimes die." The music that surrounds it is a kind of ersatz calypso, with charmingly chintzy rhythms and gurgling keyboards, but the vocal melody is so assured and clear-eyed that the song never feels cloying or saccharine. "Sixty Cowboys" dabbles in the kind of synthetic country that the Magnetic Fields would master on Charm of the Highway Strip, with brittle keyboards filling in for banjos and McDowall’s lonesome voice floating upward like campfire smoke. And while the title "Crystal Nights" takes on an ominous meaning in light of the allegations about McDowall’s hobbies, the song itself harbors no questionable subject matter. Instead, it depicts her in bed daydreaming about her lover as keyboards spiral like fireflies around her. While its ingredients are undeniably basic—all of the songs are built from a few period-appropriate keyboards and chugging drum machines, and that’s mostly it—what makes Cake Knife so consistently endearing is how effortless it all sounds. That the only bum note is a chirpy cover of "Don’t Fear the Reaper", which comes off like the theme music to an old Commodore 64 game, speaks to how strong the rest of the record is. On Cake Knife, McDowall has created a kind of aural Candy Land, one where she can break off vanilla bark from Jujyfruit trees while she sings about death and despair. The title track—which was originally intended to be a Strawberry Switchblade song—takes that m.o. to its logical extreme. While a comically cartoonish bass and hyperactive synths jitter and pop around her, McDowall beckons a lover closer before announcing in its deliriously euphoric chorus, "I will take you by the hand and lead you/ To my sunny side and I will/ Cut you with the cake knife/ Right between the eyes." In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."

Palma Violets

180

Rock

Steven Hyden

Like so many scrappy, pub-rocking British blokes before them, Palma Violets face an awkward proposition when presenting its debut record 180 on this side of the pond. Because they've received ecstatic acclaim from the most excitable parts of the English music press, they will inevitably be described as “hyped” or (worse) “over-hyped.” And this will impact how 180 is perceived in this country, because of the aforementioned long line of scrappy (and hyped!) pub-rocking British blokes that have tried and failed to make an impression in the States. But Palma Violets aren’t actually being shoved down any American throats-- the group’s energetic classic-rock re-workings are the polar opposite of what’s considered fashionable in our national music press. Over here, Palma Violets are in the untenable position of seeming vastly oversold while really being a huge underdog. 180 is an appropriately modest yet likeable effort for an underdog act-- bigger on heart than brains, the record’s lack of sophistication speaks to the bands members’ age and limited experience (they’ve been together for less than a year and a half) as well as their dearth of cynicism or guile. Palma Violets play proudly sloppy rock‘n’roll that unapologetically draws from the most obvious sources imaginable for a young band from London: the Clash, the Velvets, the Doors, a little Springsteen, Oasis’ Definitely Maybe, Clinic’s Internal Wrangler, the first couple of Libertines singles. Given that the band members all hover on the north and south sides of 20, it’s fair to assume that they’ve only been listening to those bands for a few years. Rock music probably entered their lives with the Arctic Monkeys, and they’re still thrilled by it. 180 is an act of evangelism from giddy enthusiasts who don’t know how well-worn these sounds are because they’re new to them. The single that started the mini-wave of Palma-mania in the band’s home country is “Best of Friends”, which is placed at the start of 180 like an invitation*.* Truth be told, it is a great song, with a tightly strummed guitar riff pitched somewhere between punk and Merseybeat and a bear-hug of a chorus hollered with beery gusto by guitarist Sam Fryer and bassist Chilli Jenson. The excitable chemistry between Fryer and Jesson is what ignites Palma Violets’ lauded concerts. On “Best of Friends,” they consciously grasp for the legendary shouty harmonizers of Brit-rock’s past, and while they’re no Strummer and Jones, they squarely nail the pint-hoisting romanticism of fresh-faced pals forming a gang and striking out against the world. Lyrically, “Best of Friends” is like a prequel to Faces’ “Ooh La La,” where the sting of a busted-up romance (even if it’s brushed off when the guys sing, “I wanna be your best friend/ I don’t want you to be my girl”) is still fresh and not yet imbued with the wisdom that will come in retrospect. “Best of Friends” is also the rare instance where women show up in the universe of 180; what follows is strictly boy stuff. The production on 180 (capably handled by Pulp bassist Steve Mackey) wisely emphasizes the fevered intensity of Palma Violets’ live show over the songs, which don’t add up to much beyond their record-collector parts. If Mackey’s only instruction to the band wasn’t “just plug in and plays, lads,” it could’ve been: 180 is structured like a gig, with the attention-grabbing hit followed by fun but less memorable tracks that build gradually in excitement. The secret weapon throughout is keyboardist Pete Mayhew who, judging by his licks, is influenced exclusively by the Doors’ “Light My Fire”, the Velvet Underground’s "Sister Ray", “and Faces’ “Stay with Me”. Mayhew supplies trance-y drone to “Step Up for the Cool Cats” and a menacing psychedelic patina to “Chicken Dippers”, almost single-handedly preventing 180 from relying too heavily on the more predictable, monochromatic guitar-rock bravado of songs like “Johnny Bagga’ Donuts”, the album’s loudest and dumbest track (in a good way). No, Palma Violets don’t deserve the amount of ink they’ve received overseas. The songwriting is a little undercooked: “We Found Love” is rife with lyrical groaners (“gonna find myself a ladyfriend and stick by her until the end”) and ends with a direct lift of the riff from “Sweet Jane". Palma Violets aren’t there yet; if they aren’t tossed on the young rock dude scrap heap too quickly, they might just get there. But the best moments of 180 transcend matters of craft. Palma Violets are reminiscent of what it’s like to hear rock music for the first time, and not have anything clever to say in response. Sometimes a good racket speaks louder than words.

Artist: Palma Violets, Album: 180, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "Like so many scrappy, pub-rocking British blokes before them, Palma Violets face an awkward proposition when presenting its debut record 180 on this side of the pond. Because they've received ecstatic acclaim from the most excitable parts of the English music press, they will inevitably be described as “hyped” or (worse) “over-hyped.” And this will impact how 180 is perceived in this country, because of the aforementioned long line of scrappy (and hyped!) pub-rocking British blokes that have tried and failed to make an impression in the States. But Palma Violets aren’t actually being shoved down any American throats-- the group’s energetic classic-rock re-workings are the polar opposite of what’s considered fashionable in our national music press. Over here, Palma Violets are in the untenable position of seeming vastly oversold while really being a huge underdog. 180 is an appropriately modest yet likeable effort for an underdog act-- bigger on heart than brains, the record’s lack of sophistication speaks to the bands members’ age and limited experience (they’ve been together for less than a year and a half) as well as their dearth of cynicism or guile. Palma Violets play proudly sloppy rock‘n’roll that unapologetically draws from the most obvious sources imaginable for a young band from London: the Clash, the Velvets, the Doors, a little Springsteen, Oasis’ Definitely Maybe, Clinic’s Internal Wrangler, the first couple of Libertines singles. Given that the band members all hover on the north and south sides of 20, it’s fair to assume that they’ve only been listening to those bands for a few years. Rock music probably entered their lives with the Arctic Monkeys, and they’re still thrilled by it. 180 is an act of evangelism from giddy enthusiasts who don’t know how well-worn these sounds are because they’re new to them. The single that started the mini-wave of Palma-mania in the band’s home country is “Best of Friends”, which is placed at the start of 180 like an invitation*.* Truth be told, it is a great song, with a tightly strummed guitar riff pitched somewhere between punk and Merseybeat and a bear-hug of a chorus hollered with beery gusto by guitarist Sam Fryer and bassist Chilli Jenson. The excitable chemistry between Fryer and Jesson is what ignites Palma Violets’ lauded concerts. On “Best of Friends,” they consciously grasp for the legendary shouty harmonizers of Brit-rock’s past, and while they’re no Strummer and Jones, they squarely nail the pint-hoisting romanticism of fresh-faced pals forming a gang and striking out against the world. Lyrically, “Best of Friends” is like a prequel to Faces’ “Ooh La La,” where the sting of a busted-up romance (even if it’s brushed off when the guys sing, “I wanna be your best friend/ I don’t want you to be my girl”) is still fresh and not yet imbued with the wisdom that will come in retrospect. “Best of Friends” is also the rare instance where women show up in the universe of 180; what follows is strictly boy stuff. The production on 180 (capably handled by Pulp bassist Steve Mackey) wisely emphasizes the fevered intensity of Palma Violets’ live show over the songs, which don’t add up to much beyond their record-collector parts. If Mackey’s only instruction to the band wasn’t “just plug in and plays, lads,” it could’ve been: 180 is structured like a gig, with the attention-grabbing hit followed by fun but less memorable tracks that build gradually in excitement. The secret weapon throughout is keyboardist Pete Mayhew who, judging by his licks, is influenced exclusively by the Doors’ “Light My Fire”, the Velvet Underground’s "Sister Ray", “and Faces’ “Stay with Me”. Mayhew supplies trance-y drone to “Step Up for the Cool Cats” and a menacing psychedelic patina to “Chicken Dippers”, almost single-handedly preventing 180 from relying too heavily on the more predictable, monochromatic guitar-rock bravado of songs like “Johnny Bagga’ Donuts”, the album’s loudest and dumbest track (in a good way). No, Palma Violets don’t deserve the amount of ink they’ve received overseas. The songwriting is a little undercooked: “We Found Love” is rife with lyrical groaners (“gonna find myself a ladyfriend and stick by her until the end”) and ends with a direct lift of the riff from “Sweet Jane". Palma Violets aren’t there yet; if they aren’t tossed on the young rock dude scrap heap too quickly, they might just get there. But the best moments of 180 transcend matters of craft. Palma Violets are reminiscent of what it’s like to hear rock music for the first time, and not have anything clever to say in response. Sometimes a good racket speaks louder than words."

Glasser

Sextape

Electronic

Sasha Geffen

The intricate, often tempestuous songs that populate Glasser’s first two albums, 2010’s Ring and 2013’s Interiors, tend to bloom outward from Cameron Mesirow’s voice. Her singing is not necessarily the most complex or arresting element of a given track—that would be the multifaceted beat-work she lays beneath it, made up of synthesizers, drum machines, and snippets of breathy, nonverbal vocalizations—but it is the most prominent. Glasser’s first new release in five years, a single, 17-minute track called Sextape, similarly centers the human voice, although there’s hardly any singing to be found on it. Instead, Mesirow builds her production around recorded conversations with friends about formative sexual experiences, which run the gamut from humorous to disturbing, and are often both at once. Sextape’s production takes cues directly from the rhythm of the voices Mesirow recorded; it doesn’t merely weave its spoken word components into an established musical template, but begins with a single voice speaking about an awkward, coercive sexual experience at a gay bar. Almost immediately, lacunae appear in conversations: “He reached around and grabbed my—” a voice says in the first minute, the object of that particular reach left on the cutting room floor. Mesirow homes in on the phrase “and then,” repeating the two words percussively until they form a rhythm, then introduces Sextape’s first beat: a pounding, dancefloor throb evocative of the clubs and bars where some of these encounters took place. Dance music and queer sex intertwine at the root; there is no house music without Frankie Knuckles’ Warehouse, no techno without the Music Institute in Detroit. Yet few contemporary dance artists engage directly with the thorniness of queer intimacy, the complications that arise when queer people seek each other out to dance, to flirt, and to fuck each other. The current discourse on sexual abuse has focused almost exclusively on violence committed against straight women by straight men, leaving queer people to their own, quieter discussions on what consent looks like and how best to avoid harming others. Sextape broaches that conversation without ever slipping into the didactic mode. It’s an intimate piece, not a political one. Rather than write lyrics about complex sexuality, Mesirow simply lets people speak, and finds the music in the conversation instead of forcing the conversation into the music. An uncanny exhilaration infects the voices on Sextape, even as they describe sexual experiences in which consent was blurred or non-existent. It’s as if Mesirow’s interview subjects were animating their past selves for the first time in years, tapping into the long-buried thrill of discovering sexuality for the first time, only to feel that thrill sour in hindsight. One interviewee recalls repeated sexual encounters with a gay high school teacher, and in his voice lies a deep sympathy for the “fearless” and naive teen he used to used to be. You get the sense that there is a strange catharsis in excavating these memories, in holding the bewildered, excitable young person against the adult who better grasps dynamics of power and consent. It can be uncomfortable, even painful, to bear witness to these conversations, but Glasser isn’t interested in brutalizing listeners. Sextape doesn’t concern the immediacy of sexual trauma so much as it considers the way those murky early encounters can shape a person’s relationship to sexuality over time. Mesirow counters the weight of the piece’s conversations with often playful instrumental gestures: a bouncing, detuned synth riff, a pounding club beat that interpolates a voice saying “gay dot com” over and over again. It’s some of the most compelling production she’s written as Glasser, and it spirals beautifully out from the voices of friends sharing intimate secrets. With Sextape, Mesirow relieves some of the weight these conversations are often asked to bear and lets them breathe, gently and compassionately, in the open.

Artist: Glasser, Album: Sextape, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "The intricate, often tempestuous songs that populate Glasser’s first two albums, 2010’s Ring and 2013’s Interiors, tend to bloom outward from Cameron Mesirow’s voice. Her singing is not necessarily the most complex or arresting element of a given track—that would be the multifaceted beat-work she lays beneath it, made up of synthesizers, drum machines, and snippets of breathy, nonverbal vocalizations—but it is the most prominent. Glasser’s first new release in five years, a single, 17-minute track called Sextape, similarly centers the human voice, although there’s hardly any singing to be found on it. Instead, Mesirow builds her production around recorded conversations with friends about formative sexual experiences, which run the gamut from humorous to disturbing, and are often both at once. Sextape’s production takes cues directly from the rhythm of the voices Mesirow recorded; it doesn’t merely weave its spoken word components into an established musical template, but begins with a single voice speaking about an awkward, coercive sexual experience at a gay bar. Almost immediately, lacunae appear in conversations: “He reached around and grabbed my—” a voice says in the first minute, the object of that particular reach left on the cutting room floor. Mesirow homes in on the phrase “and then,” repeating the two words percussively until they form a rhythm, then introduces Sextape’s first beat: a pounding, dancefloor throb evocative of the clubs and bars where some of these encounters took place. Dance music and queer sex intertwine at the root; there is no house music without Frankie Knuckles’ Warehouse, no techno without the Music Institute in Detroit. Yet few contemporary dance artists engage directly with the thorniness of queer intimacy, the complications that arise when queer people seek each other out to dance, to flirt, and to fuck each other. The current discourse on sexual abuse has focused almost exclusively on violence committed against straight women by straight men, leaving queer people to their own, quieter discussions on what consent looks like and how best to avoid harming others. Sextape broaches that conversation without ever slipping into the didactic mode. It’s an intimate piece, not a political one. Rather than write lyrics about complex sexuality, Mesirow simply lets people speak, and finds the music in the conversation instead of forcing the conversation into the music. An uncanny exhilaration infects the voices on Sextape, even as they describe sexual experiences in which consent was blurred or non-existent. It’s as if Mesirow’s interview subjects were animating their past selves for the first time in years, tapping into the long-buried thrill of discovering sexuality for the first time, only to feel that thrill sour in hindsight. One interviewee recalls repeated sexual encounters with a gay high school teacher, and in his voice lies a deep sympathy for the “fearless” and naive teen he used to used to be. You get the sense that there is a strange catharsis in excavating these memories, in holding the bewildered, excitable young person against the adult who better grasps dynamics of power and consent. It can be uncomfortable, even painful, to bear witness to these conversations, but Glasser isn’t interested in brutalizing listeners. Sextape doesn’t concern the immediacy of sexual trauma so much as it considers the way those murky early encounters can shape a person’s relationship to sexuality over time. Mesirow counters the weight of the piece’s conversations with often playful instrumental gestures: a bouncing, detuned synth riff, a pounding club beat that interpolates a voice saying “gay dot com” over and over again. It’s some of the most compelling production she’s written as Glasser, and it spirals beautifully out from the voices of friends sharing intimate secrets. With Sextape, Mesirow relieves some of the weight these conversations are often asked to bear and lets them breathe, gently and compassionately, in the open."

Caustic Resin

Trick Question

Rock

Steven Byrd

For the entirety of their career, the boys in Caustic Resin have been second class citizens of the indie rock nation. Despite having played on some of Built to Spill's classic LPs, releasing four albums, and crafting some pretty damn good songs, Caustic Resin will forever remain "the second best band in Boise" to all but a handful of rabid Resin fans. Well, if any album were set to shake up these guys' image, it'd be their latest release, Trick Question. Sadly, though, changing your image is not necessarily the same as improving it. This time around, Caustic Resin take some serious risks by purposefully downplaying most of the elements that tie them back to their contemporary rock brethren. On Trick Question, the band has picked out a set of rules to play by with all the interest and anticipation of a person picking out their clothes for the day. Unfortunately, the musical outlines they choose to follow are the ones for psychedelic stadium rock and early heavy metal-- styles best left to the 1970's. Although you have to admire the girth of this trio's balls, the end product is blatantly forced and painfully uninspired. Throughout this album, Caustic Resin come off like a Pink Floyd cover band with Tony Iommi on guitars and The Pepsi Girl working the vocals. Heavy, leaden, cliched guitar parts are the focal point f each track, but the band's flashy licks and drawn- out solos more closely resemble the wailing of the damned than Metallica's Master of Puppets. Yet, true to the spilt nature of this album, Caustic Resin has discovered a way to take the manliest of all music instruments-- the electric guitar-- and rip out all of its muscle. In the meantime, the drumming is simply present, while the band's poor attempts as creativity-- the peppering of pianos, turntables and found sound-- are mediocre at best and laughable at worst. To add to the fun, frontman Brett Nelson's lyrics seem to have been copied straight out of a 9th grader's poetry- infected notebooks. Topping off this triple layer shitcake are Nelson's vocals. On each of the songs, no matter the tempo, tone, or subject matter, Brett finds new and inventive ways to make his voice as grating as chewing a mouthful of tin foil. I don't know what the guy was thinking when he chose to be a professional singer, but it sure as hell wasn't, "You know, I can really sing." Despite decent tracks like "Nice Wings You've Got There" and "Road Block," Nelson's warble, drenched tactlessly in delay and reverb, destroys any conceivable enjoyment that would have otherwise been extractable. And songs that were bad to begin with-- like "Slide," a six minute, thirty- nine second- long Soundgarden-esque dirge, become un-fucking-bearable. Trick Question just doesn't fit together, I tell ya. Not in any way, at any time. The polarized nature of the music is interesting (particularly how each song can be as dark and messy as a lump of coal, yet still manage to float lightly around the listener), but it's also stale and uninteresting. If it's meant to be a rock record, it comes off way too hazy to cut the mustard. If it's meant to be a psychedelic record, it's too dumb and heavy- handed for its own good. If it's supposed to sound like this, I don't know what to tell you.

Artist: Caustic Resin, Album: Trick Question, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 2.4 Album review: "For the entirety of their career, the boys in Caustic Resin have been second class citizens of the indie rock nation. Despite having played on some of Built to Spill's classic LPs, releasing four albums, and crafting some pretty damn good songs, Caustic Resin will forever remain "the second best band in Boise" to all but a handful of rabid Resin fans. Well, if any album were set to shake up these guys' image, it'd be their latest release, Trick Question. Sadly, though, changing your image is not necessarily the same as improving it. This time around, Caustic Resin take some serious risks by purposefully downplaying most of the elements that tie them back to their contemporary rock brethren. On Trick Question, the band has picked out a set of rules to play by with all the interest and anticipation of a person picking out their clothes for the day. Unfortunately, the musical outlines they choose to follow are the ones for psychedelic stadium rock and early heavy metal-- styles best left to the 1970's. Although you have to admire the girth of this trio's balls, the end product is blatantly forced and painfully uninspired. Throughout this album, Caustic Resin come off like a Pink Floyd cover band with Tony Iommi on guitars and The Pepsi Girl working the vocals. Heavy, leaden, cliched guitar parts are the focal point f each track, but the band's flashy licks and drawn- out solos more closely resemble the wailing of the damned than Metallica's Master of Puppets. Yet, true to the spilt nature of this album, Caustic Resin has discovered a way to take the manliest of all music instruments-- the electric guitar-- and rip out all of its muscle. In the meantime, the drumming is simply present, while the band's poor attempts as creativity-- the peppering of pianos, turntables and found sound-- are mediocre at best and laughable at worst. To add to the fun, frontman Brett Nelson's lyrics seem to have been copied straight out of a 9th grader's poetry- infected notebooks. Topping off this triple layer shitcake are Nelson's vocals. On each of the songs, no matter the tempo, tone, or subject matter, Brett finds new and inventive ways to make his voice as grating as chewing a mouthful of tin foil. I don't know what the guy was thinking when he chose to be a professional singer, but it sure as hell wasn't, "You know, I can really sing." Despite decent tracks like "Nice Wings You've Got There" and "Road Block," Nelson's warble, drenched tactlessly in delay and reverb, destroys any conceivable enjoyment that would have otherwise been extractable. And songs that were bad to begin with-- like "Slide," a six minute, thirty- nine second- long Soundgarden-esque dirge, become un-fucking-bearable. Trick Question just doesn't fit together, I tell ya. Not in any way, at any time. The polarized nature of the music is interesting (particularly how each song can be as dark and messy as a lump of coal, yet still manage to float lightly around the listener), but it's also stale and uninteresting. If it's meant to be a rock record, it comes off way too hazy to cut the mustard. If it's meant to be a psychedelic record, it's too dumb and heavy- handed for its own good. If it's supposed to sound like this, I don't know what to tell you."

Pearl Jam

Backspacer

Rock

Joshua Love

If you're between the ages of, say, 25 and 35, chances are you either significantly overrate or underrate Pearl Jam. Either you carry a certain nostalgist's sentiment for one of your early rock touchstones (I fall into this camp), or you view them as the root of all that was overwrought and evil about mid-to-late-90s guitar music. Sure, everyone knows PJ sold eleven trillion albums between 1991 and '94, but still I imagine it's difficult for relative young'uns to reconcile how strong an opinion so many people in a specific demographic have about a group that hasn't been commercially or critically relevant for over a decade. Backspacer, the group's ninth studio album, seems to suggest in its tossed-off 37 minutes that Pearl Jam have no greater concern and regard for what they do than the rest of the world can muster. Virtually the whole record settles into the same formula the band's been dutifully churning out since the dawn of the millennium-- lively but almost utterly hookless riff-driven hard rock. Lather, rinse, repeat. And when I say "riff-driven" I really mean "almost entirely riff-dependent," because musically the riffs themselves are typically the only things worth your attention. PJ's long-dormant punk and hardcore proclivities (ugh, "Lukin") have been rising to the surface with greater regularity in recent years, and I'll admit in short bursts this bulldozing approach can be somewhat satisfying. The opening four songs kick-start and then keep up a certain pleasing level of propulsiveness, with the goofily fast-and-loose "Gonna See My Friend" (hey, is that an actual bassline I hear?) and Thin Lizzy-ish double entendres of "Johnny Guitar" being particularly listenable. Sooner or later, however, you remember these guys wouldn't know a melody if it bit them in the ass. What's worse, this chugging blitzkrieg negates the power of the band's greatest weapon, Eddie Vedder's voice, which can display its craggy richness and masculine grace only when the band isn't trying to break land-speed records. (I know some folks hate Ed's singing, but it mostly seems like they're reacting to the fact that his voice launched a thousand Nickelbacks, which is like hating "The Simpsons" because of "Family Guy" or "American Dad".) The gentle "Just Breathe" might seem like the perfect opportunity for Vedder to finally dust off those resonant pipes, but instead he sings the tune with a distractingly country-ish catch in his voice, plus the tune is numbingly syrupy and the lyrics, after a promisingly pointed start ("I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love") devolve into tedium. The same hit-or-miss sensitivity marks "The End"-- Vedder inexplicably finds it necessary to remind us he's "just a human being" on one song and "just another human being" on the other-- but at least "The End" manages to land on the right side of affecting thanks to its painfully honest depiction of romantic dissolution ("This is not me/ You see/ Believe/ I'm better than this/ Don't leave"). Still, we have to rely on "Amongst the Waves" to deliver anything remotely resembling the soaring anthemics that used to be a PJ trademark (what I wouldn't give for a "Light Years" even). The back half of the album sure isn't inclined to help, largely abandoning even the modest steamrolling enjoyment of the record's initial jolt in favor of thoroughly forgettable mid-tempo dreck, save for "Supersonic", which nonetheless sounds like a band trying to be the Ramones minus the fun. It's an extremely odd thing to say about a band that for three or four years was the biggest rock megalith on the planet, but nowadays Pearl Jam are the very definition of anonymously workmanlike, seemingly plugging along with their heads down from one colorlessly unimaginative album to the next. Once upon a time this was a group that was on top of the world and yet still took all kinds of bizarre chances, recording shit like lengthy tape experiments and songs about bugs-- often ridiculously self-indulgent, sure, yet always surprising. Now, paradoxically, with the spotlights long since extinguished, Pearl Jam seem content to do things by the book.

Artist: Pearl Jam, Album: Backspacer, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 4.6 Album review: "If you're between the ages of, say, 25 and 35, chances are you either significantly overrate or underrate Pearl Jam. Either you carry a certain nostalgist's sentiment for one of your early rock touchstones (I fall into this camp), or you view them as the root of all that was overwrought and evil about mid-to-late-90s guitar music. Sure, everyone knows PJ sold eleven trillion albums between 1991 and '94, but still I imagine it's difficult for relative young'uns to reconcile how strong an opinion so many people in a specific demographic have about a group that hasn't been commercially or critically relevant for over a decade. Backspacer, the group's ninth studio album, seems to suggest in its tossed-off 37 minutes that Pearl Jam have no greater concern and regard for what they do than the rest of the world can muster. Virtually the whole record settles into the same formula the band's been dutifully churning out since the dawn of the millennium-- lively but almost utterly hookless riff-driven hard rock. Lather, rinse, repeat. And when I say "riff-driven" I really mean "almost entirely riff-dependent," because musically the riffs themselves are typically the only things worth your attention. PJ's long-dormant punk and hardcore proclivities (ugh, "Lukin") have been rising to the surface with greater regularity in recent years, and I'll admit in short bursts this bulldozing approach can be somewhat satisfying. The opening four songs kick-start and then keep up a certain pleasing level of propulsiveness, with the goofily fast-and-loose "Gonna See My Friend" (hey, is that an actual bassline I hear?) and Thin Lizzy-ish double entendres of "Johnny Guitar" being particularly listenable. Sooner or later, however, you remember these guys wouldn't know a melody if it bit them in the ass. What's worse, this chugging blitzkrieg negates the power of the band's greatest weapon, Eddie Vedder's voice, which can display its craggy richness and masculine grace only when the band isn't trying to break land-speed records. (I know some folks hate Ed's singing, but it mostly seems like they're reacting to the fact that his voice launched a thousand Nickelbacks, which is like hating "The Simpsons" because of "Family Guy" or "American Dad".) The gentle "Just Breathe" might seem like the perfect opportunity for Vedder to finally dust off those resonant pipes, but instead he sings the tune with a distractingly country-ish catch in his voice, plus the tune is numbingly syrupy and the lyrics, after a promisingly pointed start ("I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love") devolve into tedium. The same hit-or-miss sensitivity marks "The End"-- Vedder inexplicably finds it necessary to remind us he's "just a human being" on one song and "just another human being" on the other-- but at least "The End" manages to land on the right side of affecting thanks to its painfully honest depiction of romantic dissolution ("This is not me/ You see/ Believe/ I'm better than this/ Don't leave"). Still, we have to rely on "Amongst the Waves" to deliver anything remotely resembling the soaring anthemics that used to be a PJ trademark (what I wouldn't give for a "Light Years" even). The back half of the album sure isn't inclined to help, largely abandoning even the modest steamrolling enjoyment of the record's initial jolt in favor of thoroughly forgettable mid-tempo dreck, save for "Supersonic", which nonetheless sounds like a band trying to be the Ramones minus the fun. It's an extremely odd thing to say about a band that for three or four years was the biggest rock megalith on the planet, but nowadays Pearl Jam are the very definition of anonymously workmanlike, seemingly plugging along with their heads down from one colorlessly unimaginative album to the next. Once upon a time this was a group that was on top of the world and yet still took all kinds of bizarre chances, recording shit like lengthy tape experiments and songs about bugs-- often ridiculously self-indulgent, sure, yet always surprising. Now, paradoxically, with the spotlights long since extinguished, Pearl Jam seem content to do things by the book."

Colin Stetson

Those Who Didn't Run

Experimental

Brian Howe

When I first heard Colin Stetson's breakthrough LP-- a surprising thing for an experimental saxophonist to even have-- I pegged it to precursors such as Albert Ayler, John Zorn, and Ornette Coleman. The music was so animally energetic that it took me a while to realize how off-base this early impression had been. But while those free-jazz shamans embraced volatility, Stetson is much more aligned with minimalists like Philip Glass, which is to say that he restricts himself and knows exactly where he's going. Glass' longtime saxophonist Dickie Landry, whose excellently mellow 1977 album Fifteen Saxophones was reissued earlier this year, provides an intriguing precedent. Landry was a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble who played on Music in Twelve Parts, a piece whose edge-of-madness harmonic grind is in full force on Those Who Didn't Run. The title's whiff of courageous endurance gets more and more apt as Stetson pulverizes daisy-chained squalls for 10 minutes at a time, in two uncompromising arcs that exclude the airier respites of Judges. Like Bryce Dessner and Glenn Kotche, Stetson adeptly straddles pop and the academy. And like Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, a big part of his magnetism derives from a combination of unusual music and bold feats of physical daring. A one-man polyphony machine, Stetson sets his feet in a resonant room and wires himself up like a cyborg, with microphones on the walls, all through his bass sax, and on his throat. Pointedly ignoring decades' worth of looping and overdubbing technology, he blows the bejeezus out of arcane contrapuntal variations over and over again, with phantom sounds gathering around the deep pulse. The music seems weirdly sentient because only the continuous cycle of breath pumping through it keeps it alive. You wonder why Stetson doesn't just turn blue and fall down, and how one instrument can make so many different noises at once. Circular breathing accounts for the former (Stetson must play a mean didge) while inventive mixing accounts for the latter. The clack of keys becomes an insistent rhythm track, microphone signals fry into ambient ozone, and ghost voices reverberate through the reed. Not only does this technique make brainy variations feel hot and haunted, but it gives us a fresh vantage on the saxophone itself. Though it plays a highly respectable role in jazz, the instrument takes on cheesier cultural baggage as you move outward, from marching bands to soft pop to Sergio. By enlarging the inner workings of the sax, Stetson demolishes clichés to unleash fresh, unexpected energies. It's like being inside an enormous brass tunnel full of windy byways and slamming valves, at once exhilarating and frightening. Here, Stetson pits the low end versus the high; granular texture versus crystalline purity; deep, earthy groove versus high, watery shine. On the A-side, grungy riffs churn over a thumping substructure of bass and key action, and on the B-side, the bottom falls out and we're transported to a completely different world, one cleansed of heavy metal and drone-rock traces. Stetson's horn spirals through an upper-register series of intervals that seem to be trying to wrench themselves free of each other, and the disparity between prettiness and conflict is riveting. Though this EP plows a narrower row than Judges, Stetson still manages to show us two very different aspects of his visceral minimalism. The only downside for me is that his music really thrives on accumulation, which is to say that it thrives in longer formats. I suspect that this EP serves as a palate-cleanser for the final volume of the New History Warfare trilogy, clearly polarizing Stetson's impulses for incantatory force and eerie beauty before drawing them back into a complex whole.

Artist: Colin Stetson, Album: Those Who Didn't Run, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "When I first heard Colin Stetson's breakthrough LP-- a surprising thing for an experimental saxophonist to even have-- I pegged it to precursors such as Albert Ayler, John Zorn, and Ornette Coleman. The music was so animally energetic that it took me a while to realize how off-base this early impression had been. But while those free-jazz shamans embraced volatility, Stetson is much more aligned with minimalists like Philip Glass, which is to say that he restricts himself and knows exactly where he's going. Glass' longtime saxophonist Dickie Landry, whose excellently mellow 1977 album Fifteen Saxophones was reissued earlier this year, provides an intriguing precedent. Landry was a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble who played on Music in Twelve Parts, a piece whose edge-of-madness harmonic grind is in full force on Those Who Didn't Run. The title's whiff of courageous endurance gets more and more apt as Stetson pulverizes daisy-chained squalls for 10 minutes at a time, in two uncompromising arcs that exclude the airier respites of Judges. Like Bryce Dessner and Glenn Kotche, Stetson adeptly straddles pop and the academy. And like Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, a big part of his magnetism derives from a combination of unusual music and bold feats of physical daring. A one-man polyphony machine, Stetson sets his feet in a resonant room and wires himself up like a cyborg, with microphones on the walls, all through his bass sax, and on his throat. Pointedly ignoring decades' worth of looping and overdubbing technology, he blows the bejeezus out of arcane contrapuntal variations over and over again, with phantom sounds gathering around the deep pulse. The music seems weirdly sentient because only the continuous cycle of breath pumping through it keeps it alive. You wonder why Stetson doesn't just turn blue and fall down, and how one instrument can make so many different noises at once. Circular breathing accounts for the former (Stetson must play a mean didge) while inventive mixing accounts for the latter. The clack of keys becomes an insistent rhythm track, microphone signals fry into ambient ozone, and ghost voices reverberate through the reed. Not only does this technique make brainy variations feel hot and haunted, but it gives us a fresh vantage on the saxophone itself. Though it plays a highly respectable role in jazz, the instrument takes on cheesier cultural baggage as you move outward, from marching bands to soft pop to Sergio. By enlarging the inner workings of the sax, Stetson demolishes clichés to unleash fresh, unexpected energies. It's like being inside an enormous brass tunnel full of windy byways and slamming valves, at once exhilarating and frightening. Here, Stetson pits the low end versus the high; granular texture versus crystalline purity; deep, earthy groove versus high, watery shine. On the A-side, grungy riffs churn over a thumping substructure of bass and key action, and on the B-side, the bottom falls out and we're transported to a completely different world, one cleansed of heavy metal and drone-rock traces. Stetson's horn spirals through an upper-register series of intervals that seem to be trying to wrench themselves free of each other, and the disparity between prettiness and conflict is riveting. Though this EP plows a narrower row than Judges, Stetson still manages to show us two very different aspects of his visceral minimalism. The only downside for me is that his music really thrives on accumulation, which is to say that it thrives in longer formats. I suspect that this EP serves as a palate-cleanser for the final volume of the New History Warfare trilogy, clearly polarizing Stetson's impulses for incantatory force and eerie beauty before drawing them back into a complex whole."

Mobius Band

City vs Country EP

Rock

Ryan Dombal

Hailing from the sleepy, made-up sounding Shutesbury, Mass. (population: 1,800), the electro-rock (more like rock-electro) Mobius Band have taken a longish path to Urban Outfitters compilation (don't hate!) buzz band-dom. But the slow build has given the three-piece time to grow into their taught and confident current incarnation. After three self-released, self-recorded, increasingly impressive EPs over the past three years, the band recently signed with those progressive beatheads at Ghostly International and this five-song EP is the first fruit of what seems like a healthy if unlikely partnership. Ditching the meandering instrumental post-rock and country leanings of past releases, the band has morphed into a trim, fleshy rock'n'blip cyborg made up of bass-pumping blood, muscular guitars, and an ever-handy sampler-and-keyboard pacemaker that keeps normal bodily functions running oh-so smoothly. Near-flawless in its execution, City vs Country is at once traditional and progressive, easy to listen to, and dificult to ignore. Not just another group of ax-grinding guys dicking around with annoyingly tacked-on "electronic elements," Mobius Band takes its bleeps seriously and uses them economically and effectively within the intense fabric of their songs. Markedly more precise and three-dimensional than anything they've attempted, the added sonic sheen provided by a professional studio and the mixing talents of Interpol associate Peter Katis fits the band like a snug Powerglove and allows them to indulge in wavy headphone-friendly sonic minutiae. The group shows off its new supped-up sound early with "Starts Off With a Bang", which is actually more of a long, winding fuse than an explosion. Chirpy Morse code quickly gives way to group leader Ben Sterling's passive vocals. By now, Sterling has learned how to make his near-monotone drone work within his band's framework as it often adds fragility to the group's airtight arrangements. "At the start of the century my mind keeps wandering," he dreamily sings, succumbing to the futuristic Aphex-on-X bounce surrounding him. "Multiply" slowly creeps to its distorted shoegazer crescendo, picking up all passers-by along the way. "City vs Country", the most straight-ahead guitar-rocking number, seemingly combines the excitement of new surroundings (two-thirds of the band recently moved to Brooklyn) with the disappointment of an impending break-up through non-linear observations like "The lights on the train flicker off across your face." The same contradictory emotions pop up on the last and best track, "I Had A Good Year". "When life is so good it hurts," muses Sterling, his somber delivery adding an obvious melancholy undercurrent punctuating the hurt rather than the good. "I will cut you in half and then we'll see who laughs," seethes the singer in a rare moment of lyrical clarity, before ringing guitars and panning keyboards take the track into a supersonic stratosphere. Rumbling underneath, crack drummer Noam Schatz's crunching, processed percussion seamlessly morph into a very earthly pummel by the track's crushing dénouement. On City vs Country, Mobius Band temper the downcast urban hum of studio mates Interpol with a bit of Postal Service machine-bop glee. The newly honed aural slickness only adds to this developing band's potential appeal and instead of getting lost inside a real studio, this rock-electro outfit has found itself-- just in time for their first long-player.

Artist: Mobius Band, Album: City vs Country EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Hailing from the sleepy, made-up sounding Shutesbury, Mass. (population: 1,800), the electro-rock (more like rock-electro) Mobius Band have taken a longish path to Urban Outfitters compilation (don't hate!) buzz band-dom. But the slow build has given the three-piece time to grow into their taught and confident current incarnation. After three self-released, self-recorded, increasingly impressive EPs over the past three years, the band recently signed with those progressive beatheads at Ghostly International and this five-song EP is the first fruit of what seems like a healthy if unlikely partnership. Ditching the meandering instrumental post-rock and country leanings of past releases, the band has morphed into a trim, fleshy rock'n'blip cyborg made up of bass-pumping blood, muscular guitars, and an ever-handy sampler-and-keyboard pacemaker that keeps normal bodily functions running oh-so smoothly. Near-flawless in its execution, City vs Country is at once traditional and progressive, easy to listen to, and dificult to ignore. Not just another group of ax-grinding guys dicking around with annoyingly tacked-on "electronic elements," Mobius Band takes its bleeps seriously and uses them economically and effectively within the intense fabric of their songs. Markedly more precise and three-dimensional than anything they've attempted, the added sonic sheen provided by a professional studio and the mixing talents of Interpol associate Peter Katis fits the band like a snug Powerglove and allows them to indulge in wavy headphone-friendly sonic minutiae. The group shows off its new supped-up sound early with "Starts Off With a Bang", which is actually more of a long, winding fuse than an explosion. Chirpy Morse code quickly gives way to group leader Ben Sterling's passive vocals. By now, Sterling has learned how to make his near-monotone drone work within his band's framework as it often adds fragility to the group's airtight arrangements. "At the start of the century my mind keeps wandering," he dreamily sings, succumbing to the futuristic Aphex-on-X bounce surrounding him. "Multiply" slowly creeps to its distorted shoegazer crescendo, picking up all passers-by along the way. "City vs Country", the most straight-ahead guitar-rocking number, seemingly combines the excitement of new surroundings (two-thirds of the band recently moved to Brooklyn) with the disappointment of an impending break-up through non-linear observations like "The lights on the train flicker off across your face." The same contradictory emotions pop up on the last and best track, "I Had A Good Year". "When life is so good it hurts," muses Sterling, his somber delivery adding an obvious melancholy undercurrent punctuating the hurt rather than the good. "I will cut you in half and then we'll see who laughs," seethes the singer in a rare moment of lyrical clarity, before ringing guitars and panning keyboards take the track into a supersonic stratosphere. Rumbling underneath, crack drummer Noam Schatz's crunching, processed percussion seamlessly morph into a very earthly pummel by the track's crushing dénouement. On City vs Country, Mobius Band temper the downcast urban hum of studio mates Interpol with a bit of Postal Service machine-bop glee. The newly honed aural slickness only adds to this developing band's potential appeal and instead of getting lost inside a real studio, this rock-electro outfit has found itself-- just in time for their first long-player."

Redhooker

Vespers

Rock

David Raposa

For fans of the instrumental post-rock proffered by groups like Rachel's, Balmorhea, and Clogs, Redhooker's debut full-length will quickly become a favorite. On Vespers, this group-- led by former Antony and the Johnsons guitarist, and current member of Slow Six, Stephen Griesgraber-- makes it way through a collection of stately, handsome pieces. Greisgraber is also Redhooker's writer, but his songs don't focus on his guitar playing (excepting one Clogs-like turn in "Friction", with his winding arpeggio driving the track). Instead, he's content to hover in the background on tracks like the contemplative "Standing Still" or the swelling "Trip And Fall", ceding the spotlight to the trio of strings players and bass clarinetist in the group. For four of its six tracks (including the patiently haunting "Bedside"), Vespers sticks to this script, offering tasteful melodic motifs for the players to encircle and play off of for five to six minutes. It's enjoyable music, even if it may come off as somewhat unoriginal. If you're not a diehard fan of the music proffered by aforementioned groups, then what Redhooker does here, though they do it well, might not be something you absolutely need to hear. That said, both skeptics and converts should be interested in checking out the album's two longest tracks, "Presence and Reflection" and "Black Light Poster Child"-- at 27 minutes total, the comprise over half of Vespers' running time. In an interview for online Glasgow zine Earz Mag, Greisgraber described their inspiration: "For years I had been interested in the idea of improvising with a small ensemble, capturing the live sounds of that ensemble, and replaying them so that the improvisers would not only be reacting to each other in real time, but also responding to what may have been played minutes before." Through the use of Max/MSP software, Greisgraber was able to realize that idea's potential. Whether it's the freedom of not having to follow sheet music, or just a happy confluence of luck and skill, these tracks find Redhooker discovering sounds from their instruments they might otherwise not have discovered, and opening up new vistas as a result. The interplay between the players is both careful and curious, each seemingly trying to gently push the others along while not straying too far from what's come before. Coupled with the "feedback loop" of what they've already played emerging in the background, the end results of these two explorations are shifting, unsettling near-ambient drones that still manage to engage. On "Presence", the improvisations gives way at a pre-planned point to a more structured movement, and the shift is jarring in the best possible way. There's no such change in "Black Light", but the track's gradual construction of its haunting wall of sound is no less intriguing for such an absence. In light of these explorations, returning to the more composed confines of the other tracks on this record is almost a disappointment. Vespers as a whole is a fine album, especially for a debut. But though the group proves themselves to be excellent players, they seem to truly rise to the occasion when they're on unfamiliar ground, which is something I hope they explore further on future records.

Artist: Redhooker, Album: Vespers, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "For fans of the instrumental post-rock proffered by groups like Rachel's, Balmorhea, and Clogs, Redhooker's debut full-length will quickly become a favorite. On Vespers, this group-- led by former Antony and the Johnsons guitarist, and current member of Slow Six, Stephen Griesgraber-- makes it way through a collection of stately, handsome pieces. Greisgraber is also Redhooker's writer, but his songs don't focus on his guitar playing (excepting one Clogs-like turn in "Friction", with his winding arpeggio driving the track). Instead, he's content to hover in the background on tracks like the contemplative "Standing Still" or the swelling "Trip And Fall", ceding the spotlight to the trio of strings players and bass clarinetist in the group. For four of its six tracks (including the patiently haunting "Bedside"), Vespers sticks to this script, offering tasteful melodic motifs for the players to encircle and play off of for five to six minutes. It's enjoyable music, even if it may come off as somewhat unoriginal. If you're not a diehard fan of the music proffered by aforementioned groups, then what Redhooker does here, though they do it well, might not be something you absolutely need to hear. That said, both skeptics and converts should be interested in checking out the album's two longest tracks, "Presence and Reflection" and "Black Light Poster Child"-- at 27 minutes total, the comprise over half of Vespers' running time. In an interview for online Glasgow zine Earz Mag, Greisgraber described their inspiration: "For years I had been interested in the idea of improvising with a small ensemble, capturing the live sounds of that ensemble, and replaying them so that the improvisers would not only be reacting to each other in real time, but also responding to what may have been played minutes before." Through the use of Max/MSP software, Greisgraber was able to realize that idea's potential. Whether it's the freedom of not having to follow sheet music, or just a happy confluence of luck and skill, these tracks find Redhooker discovering sounds from their instruments they might otherwise not have discovered, and opening up new vistas as a result. The interplay between the players is both careful and curious, each seemingly trying to gently push the others along while not straying too far from what's come before. Coupled with the "feedback loop" of what they've already played emerging in the background, the end results of these two explorations are shifting, unsettling near-ambient drones that still manage to engage. On "Presence", the improvisations gives way at a pre-planned point to a more structured movement, and the shift is jarring in the best possible way. There's no such change in "Black Light", but the track's gradual construction of its haunting wall of sound is no less intriguing for such an absence. In light of these explorations, returning to the more composed confines of the other tracks on this record is almost a disappointment. Vespers as a whole is a fine album, especially for a debut. But though the group proves themselves to be excellent players, they seem to truly rise to the occasion when they're on unfamiliar ground, which is something I hope they explore further on future records."

Palmistry

PAGAN

Electronic

Kevin Lozano

Benjy Keating started making music in a South London bedroom, spurred on by his roommate Dominik Dvorak (aka PC Music affiliated producer Felicita). At first he was making what he admitted to be “Burial rip-offs” but then, after hearing dancehall beats blare out of car windows, he drifted into a new style. The first taste of this came with a song called “Catch,” made in conjunction with SOPHIE. The song boasted a cool minimalism  grafted onto the whisper of polyrhythmic Caribbean sounds. On top of it was Keating’s voice: British, introverted, mumbly, a painfully shy-sounding white kid singing in a sort of patois. It was hard to know what to make of it, but there was an undeniable magnetism to it: Why make a totally introverted, melancholic, and skeletal brand of dancehall? There's an argument that it could maybe work: His current labelmate Popcaan proved in 2014’s Where We Come From that without a doubt, the voice behind a mic in dancehall wasn’t the providence of the badman exclusively. It’s taken six years of behind-the-scenes work and training for Keating to release a full-length debut. He’s produced and written every second of the 36 minutes of *PAGAN. *He’s signed to Dre Skull’s acclaimed independent dancehall label Mixpak, has co-signs from PC Music producers, is featured favorably in respected magazines that span avant-garde art (DIS) and music (FACT, Fader, and others). In other words, he's enjoyed a light smattering of hype. The adjectives that seem to orbit around him—dreamy, romantic, intimate—aren’t necessarily wrong, but they don’t exactly say why he should be interesting. If anything, on a purely musical level, the 36 minutes that compose *PAGAN, *constitutes a bewilderingly long and shapeless journey into the heart of a sound that is truly lacking in depth. Keating seems driven to explore how dancehall and soca rhythms might work in a vacuum. In PAGAN, he solely relies on looped synths, subdued drum machines, and the occasional sample, boiling down cultural signifiers so that only the essential components of those genre’s polyrhythmic patterns are recognizable. He then injects pop straight into the minimalism, making sure the selected synth loop twinkles nicely, and the drum beats happily shuffle. In the tiniest of doses, it can sound attractive but prolonged exposure (read: more than four or five minutes) is both irritating and bewildering. The songs themselves are so muddled, amorphous and repetitive that they become indistinguishable. It’s hard to know what the music is striving to make you feel, if anything: excitement is clearly not the goal, but modest DIY stuff is usually supposed to be fresh and wide-eyed, not clinical and sleepy. And “sleepy” is probably something dancehall should never be. In the brief instrumental interludes, like “Reekin” and “Comeragh Mountains” you can feel the limitations built into the very idea of making dancehall rhythms melancholic or atmospheric present themselves. Then there are those vocals. It’s not necessarily insulting or offensive that Keating sings in a clunky patois. But it is mystifying that he chooses to deliver it in a lilting, high-pitched stage whisper. His lyrics are usually garbled, but when you do catch his words they’re throwaway statements about the modern condition (“I'm lost in the c/there's no remedy”) or generalized hot nonsense, like this one from “Beamer”: “Let the beat drop all night going back to back/back to back/slit my tummy good make a diamond suit.” Lyrics can be nonsense, of course, but a talented vocalist would make them bounce: Keating dashes through these ridiculous lines like a terrified kid reading at a middle school podium, elongating his delivery at strange sections and pitch-shifting his voice in arbitrary and irritating ways. Even in his most coherent song, “Club Aso,” his singing somehow comes off like a Chris Martin approximation of dancehall. Keating has been quick to point out on Twitter that his relationship with dancehall is a tad more opaque and complicated than it might seem, writing back in May: “Just to clarify dancehall never died n also i don't make dancehall.” And then later in an interview with the *Fader *he said “I don’t make dancehall...Dancehall’s so pure as it is, it doesn’t need me to add anything to it."In both of these statements, it’s obvious that he’s grappling with the complications of his particular choices, but there is a certain quality of what he’s saying that feels half-hearted. It’s a rote statement of cultural sensitivity that doesn’t address the fact that his singing and cribbing of rhythms are at best poor impressions of nuanced and complicated linguistic and musical vernaculars. He name-checks the likes of Vybz Kartel and Alkaline as influences, when in a very real way he shares nothing with what they’re doing, considering his general attitude and actual sound. Overall, it’s hard to see where his strengths are, and on some deeper level, I can’t imagine a situation where listening to this album is appropriate for anything else but falling asleep at your desk.

Artist: Palmistry, Album: PAGAN, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 5.0 Album review: "Benjy Keating started making music in a South London bedroom, spurred on by his roommate Dominik Dvorak (aka PC Music affiliated producer Felicita). At first he was making what he admitted to be “Burial rip-offs” but then, after hearing dancehall beats blare out of car windows, he drifted into a new style. The first taste of this came with a song called “Catch,” made in conjunction with SOPHIE. The song boasted a cool minimalism  grafted onto the whisper of polyrhythmic Caribbean sounds. On top of it was Keating’s voice: British, introverted, mumbly, a painfully shy-sounding white kid singing in a sort of patois. It was hard to know what to make of it, but there was an undeniable magnetism to it: Why make a totally introverted, melancholic, and skeletal brand of dancehall? There's an argument that it could maybe work: His current labelmate Popcaan proved in 2014’s Where We Come From that without a doubt, the voice behind a mic in dancehall wasn’t the providence of the badman exclusively. It’s taken six years of behind-the-scenes work and training for Keating to release a full-length debut. He’s produced and written every second of the 36 minutes of *PAGAN. *He’s signed to Dre Skull’s acclaimed independent dancehall label Mixpak, has co-signs from PC Music producers, is featured favorably in respected magazines that span avant-garde art (DIS) and music (FACT, Fader, and others). In other words, he's enjoyed a light smattering of hype. The adjectives that seem to orbit around him—dreamy, romantic, intimate—aren’t necessarily wrong, but they don’t exactly say why he should be interesting. If anything, on a purely musical level, the 36 minutes that compose *PAGAN, *constitutes a bewilderingly long and shapeless journey into the heart of a sound that is truly lacking in depth. Keating seems driven to explore how dancehall and soca rhythms might work in a vacuum. In PAGAN, he solely relies on looped synths, subdued drum machines, and the occasional sample, boiling down cultural signifiers so that only the essential components of those genre’s polyrhythmic patterns are recognizable. He then injects pop straight into the minimalism, making sure the selected synth loop twinkles nicely, and the drum beats happily shuffle. In the tiniest of doses, it can sound attractive but prolonged exposure (read: more than four or five minutes) is both irritating and bewildering. The songs themselves are so muddled, amorphous and repetitive that they become indistinguishable. It’s hard to know what the music is striving to make you feel, if anything: excitement is clearly not the goal, but modest DIY stuff is usually supposed to be fresh and wide-eyed, not clinical and sleepy. And “sleepy” is probably something dancehall should never be. In the brief instrumental interludes, like “Reekin” and “Comeragh Mountains” you can feel the limitations built into the very idea of making dancehall rhythms melancholic or atmospheric present themselves. Then there are those vocals. It’s not necessarily insulting or offensive that Keating sings in a clunky patois. But it is mystifying that he chooses to deliver it in a lilting, high-pitched stage whisper. His lyrics are usually garbled, but when you do catch his words they’re throwaway statements about the modern condition (“I'm lost in the c/there's no remedy”) or generalized hot nonsense, like this one from “Beamer”: “Let the beat drop all night going back to back/back to back/slit my tummy good make a diamond suit.” Lyrics can be nonsense, of course, but a talented vocalist would make them bounce: Keating dashes through these ridiculous lines like a terrified kid reading at a middle school podium, elongating his delivery at strange sections and pitch-shifting his voice in arbitrary and irritating ways. Even in his most coherent song, “Club Aso,” his singing somehow comes off like a Chris Martin approximation of dancehall. Keating has been quick to point out on Twitter that his relationship with dancehall is a tad more opaque and complicated than it might seem, writing back in May: “Just to clarify dancehall never died n also i don't make dancehall.” And then later in an interview with the *Fader *he said “I don’t make dancehall...Dancehall’s so pure as it is, it doesn’t need me to add anything to it."In both of these statements, it’s obvious that he’s grappling with the complications of his particular choices, but there is a certain quality of what he’s saying that feels half-hearted. It’s a rote statement of cultural sensitivity that doesn’t address the fact that his singing and cribbing of rhythms are at best poor impressions of nuanced and complicated linguistic and musical vernaculars. He name-checks the likes of Vybz Kartel and Alkaline as influences, when in a very real way he shares nothing with what they’re doing, considering his general attitude and actual sound. Overall, it’s hard to see where his strengths are, and on some deeper level, I can’t imagine a situation where listening to this album is appropriate for anything else but falling asleep at your desk."

Deaf Wish

Lithium Zion

Rock

Stuart Berman

There’s a fine line between encouraging an intra-band democracy and having an identity crisis. As a four-piece with four singers, Melbourne’s Deaf Wish are liable to sound like four different bands. On their 2015 Sub Pop debut, Pain, they sought catharsis through any means necessary: clanging noise brutalism, hoarse-throat hardcore, frazzled indie rock, distortion-soaked psych. But it was one of those albums that sounded like the band was getting its shit together in real time. Once you got through Pain’s scatterbrained first side, you could sense Deaf Wish learning to let their melancholy melodies lead the way, with singer-guitarists Jensen Tjhung and Sarah Hardiman settling into a familiar Thurston/Kim dynamic. Lithium Zion, their second Sub Pop album and fifth overall, picks up right where they left off—though not without some shake-ups along the way. After a decade of bashing out makeshift-space recordings, the band graduated to a proper studio, with Total Control’s Mikey Young overseeing the mixes. They also bid adieu to bassist Nick Pratt, the member responsible for their fiercest circle-pit stompers. But if Deaf Wish are still very much fueled by a love for frayed-nerve noise, there’s a consistency of vision here that distinguishes Lithium Zion from the band’s caterwauling back catalog. That evolution is apparent in the band’s choice of opening tracks. On Pain, you were instantly confronted by the impenetrable post-punk of “The Whip,” a song that climaxes with the sort of hammering assault that can make you see stars. But with “Easy,” on Lithium Zion, Deaf Wish make the initiation process, well, easy, by hitching their churning guitars to a cascading, “Tomorrow Never Knows”-style drum beat, striking a perfect balance between dissonance and groove. Hardiman’s “FFS” follows, with two exhilarating minutes of restless agitation and revved-up noise-punk that demonstrate the greater focus in effect. Alas, the specter of Sonic Youth is impossible to avoid in these songs. But the album doesn’t mimic Deaf Wish’s spiritual forebears so much as it imagines an alternate history for them, one where the rock formalism of Goo and Dirty became the band’s defining characteristic, rather than a blip in their sprawling discography. (Not only is Lithium Zion’s title track an asphalt-ripping instrumental like Goo’s “Mildred Pierce,” it’s even slotted in a similar side-two position.) Yet there’s an absurdist sensibility at play here that rarely cut through Sonic Youth’s ultra-cool veneer: The needling mid-tempo rumbler “The Rat Is Back” finds Tjhung curling up with his cat to fend off an invasive rodent; “Hitachi Jackhammer” opens with Tjhung and Hardiman reciting ad copy for the titular product, before unleashing a juddering punk squall that conjures its operational qualities. But more than just harnessing the band’s unbridled energy into tightly coiled rockers, Lithium Zion displays a greater willingness to play Deaf Wish’s singers off one another, projecting a deeper sense of camaraderie. Like Pratt before him, new bassist Lee Parker serves as a caustic counterpoint to Tjhung and Hardiman’s disaffected sneers, but his sensibility meshes more naturally with theirs. On “Deep Blue Cheated,” Parker transforms the band into an evil twin to fellow Melburnians Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, until the song’s hyper locomotive thrust is cooled by Hardiman’s soothing counter-melody, a trick she deploys throughout the record. As Lithium Zion confirms, the story of Deaf Wish’s evolution is very much the story of Hardiman’s own. Her increasingly versatile vocals have brought greater emotional depth to their music, from the haunting spoken-word passage that interrupts the PJ Harvey-esque “Afraid for You” or her sad-eyed duet with drummer Daniel Twomey on careening closer “Smoke.” And the swooning “Birthday,” a shot of Brill Building-via-Knitting Factory melodic discord, counts as the most affecting pop song in the band’s canon to date. Deaf Wish may still be suckers for hair-raising noise, but the real thrills on Lithium Zion come when they embrace nuance.

Artist: Deaf Wish, Album: Lithium Zion, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "There’s a fine line between encouraging an intra-band democracy and having an identity crisis. As a four-piece with four singers, Melbourne’s Deaf Wish are liable to sound like four different bands. On their 2015 Sub Pop debut, Pain, they sought catharsis through any means necessary: clanging noise brutalism, hoarse-throat hardcore, frazzled indie rock, distortion-soaked psych. But it was one of those albums that sounded like the band was getting its shit together in real time. Once you got through Pain’s scatterbrained first side, you could sense Deaf Wish learning to let their melancholy melodies lead the way, with singer-guitarists Jensen Tjhung and Sarah Hardiman settling into a familiar Thurston/Kim dynamic. Lithium Zion, their second Sub Pop album and fifth overall, picks up right where they left off—though not without some shake-ups along the way. After a decade of bashing out makeshift-space recordings, the band graduated to a proper studio, with Total Control’s Mikey Young overseeing the mixes. They also bid adieu to bassist Nick Pratt, the member responsible for their fiercest circle-pit stompers. But if Deaf Wish are still very much fueled by a love for frayed-nerve noise, there’s a consistency of vision here that distinguishes Lithium Zion from the band’s caterwauling back catalog. That evolution is apparent in the band’s choice of opening tracks. On Pain, you were instantly confronted by the impenetrable post-punk of “The Whip,” a song that climaxes with the sort of hammering assault that can make you see stars. But with “Easy,” on Lithium Zion, Deaf Wish make the initiation process, well, easy, by hitching their churning guitars to a cascading, “Tomorrow Never Knows”-style drum beat, striking a perfect balance between dissonance and groove. Hardiman’s “FFS” follows, with two exhilarating minutes of restless agitation and revved-up noise-punk that demonstrate the greater focus in effect. Alas, the specter of Sonic Youth is impossible to avoid in these songs. But the album doesn’t mimic Deaf Wish’s spiritual forebears so much as it imagines an alternate history for them, one where the rock formalism of Goo and Dirty became the band’s defining characteristic, rather than a blip in their sprawling discography. (Not only is Lithium Zion’s title track an asphalt-ripping instrumental like Goo’s “Mildred Pierce,” it’s even slotted in a similar side-two position.) Yet there’s an absurdist sensibility at play here that rarely cut through Sonic Youth’s ultra-cool veneer: The needling mid-tempo rumbler “The Rat Is Back” finds Tjhung curling up with his cat to fend off an invasive rodent; “Hitachi Jackhammer” opens with Tjhung and Hardiman reciting ad copy for the titular product, before unleashing a juddering punk squall that conjures its operational qualities. But more than just harnessing the band’s unbridled energy into tightly coiled rockers, Lithium Zion displays a greater willingness to play Deaf Wish’s singers off one another, projecting a deeper sense of camaraderie. Like Pratt before him, new bassist Lee Parker serves as a caustic counterpoint to Tjhung and Hardiman’s disaffected sneers, but his sensibility meshes more naturally with theirs. On “Deep Blue Cheated,” Parker transforms the band into an evil twin to fellow Melburnians Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, until the song’s hyper locomotive thrust is cooled by Hardiman’s soothing counter-melody, a trick she deploys throughout the record. As Lithium Zion confirms, the story of Deaf Wish’s evolution is very much the story of Hardiman’s own. Her increasingly versatile vocals have brought greater emotional depth to their music, from the haunting spoken-word passage that interrupts the PJ Harvey-esque “Afraid for You” or her sad-eyed duet with drummer Daniel Twomey on careening closer “Smoke.” And the swooning “Birthday,” a shot of Brill Building-via-Knitting Factory melodic discord, counts as the most affecting pop song in the band’s canon to date. Deaf Wish may still be suckers for hair-raising noise, but the real thrills on Lithium Zion come when they embrace nuance."

Nacho Picasso

For the Glory

Rap

Jeff Weiss

His Cannabis Club card (probably) reads "Jesse James," but Seattle rapper Nacho Picasso willingly shares a name with something you'd expect to find at a Johnny Rockets in Barcelona. You will either think the alias is awesome or awful. There is no in-between. Yet it's instantly memorable and more fitting than anything that references a Jack Black/Lucha Libre vehicle has any right to be. Since Rick Rubin tried to create the "worst shit ever," rap has a long history of the highbrow-lowbrow game. Or what Ghostface Killah called the "smart dumb cat." Robinson is Nacho and Picasso, part fast food, part real deal. He is the hardcore hood nerd, the walking talking paradox writ large. Or as he describes himself on For the Glory: "Think like George Carlin/ Dress like Carlton/ Ball like Damon/ And wild like Marlon." Nacho openly claims he's an arrogant asshole, not to be trusted, a bridge burner, and a numbnuts. He dedicates his orgies to Dionysus. His album cover is a picture of him riding a horse dressed as Sir Lance-A-Lot, while flanked by a Harry Potter castle and three nude goddesses. The latter continue Sir Mix-A-Lot's proud Emerald City tradition. Picasso proves that you don't need to practice the art of storytelling when you've mastered the art of saying nothing. And For the Glory is basically a paean to girls, guns, tattoos, chronic, and comics. There is an entire song, "Marvel", wherein Picasso basically compares himself to every summer blockbuster of the last decade. While it should feel like second-rate MF Doom, Nacho spits slick and (partially) revelatory internal rhymes. He repeats, "Smoking/ Reading comic books," until it becomes mantra, like the kid from the cover of OutKast's ATLiens grown up. If anything, For the Glory is a snub-nosed self-portrait. Picasso condenses information into one or two bars with the ease of a 1990s 5 Percent rapper. "He's been a bad guy/ Since his dad died." The self-aware scumbag redeemed through his honesty and arrant goofiness. On "Moor Gang", he describes his life as "Big butts and boobs/ Blunts and booze/ Watching Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze/ With my Steven Urkel frames and custom-made shoes." And he even has the restraint to refrain from a Vanilla Ice punchline. That's the thing about Picasso, he knows how to vividly render an image and largely avoid cliché. Even when he resorts to the tired mobster/rapper dualities of "Benjamin Segal", he avoids the obvious Tony Montana trap. Circa 2011, the norm is rappers so tatted-up they might as well be married to Sandra Bullock. But Picasso is one of the few who makes it seem like more than fashion accessory. On "Sweaters", the self-proclaimed "tat in the hat" describes his body as a timeline and his face as something ageless. Later, he says he's inked like a Rorschach blot and a fourth-grade desk. Half of the record captures Picasso as the affable stoner drawling in a seen-it-all baritone about 1980s professional wrestlers and characters from Half Baked. The guy who would insert a lesser remembered clip of White Men Can't Jump just for the fuck of it. The other side is the ruthless hustler whose car "looks like Iceland," who lashes out against "bitches who say that he looks like Chris Brown." The Black Flag-shirted, bare knuckle-gypsy, who shares his dead dad's love of anarchy. The end result is language-drunk and spliff-lit disorientation in the cold vein of vintage Cam'ron, late-period Curren$y, and the post-Def Jux disorderly conduct of Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire. Picasso references his internal turmoil but never delves too deep. Nor does he need to. In his worldview, there is little nostalgia for the past or dreams of the future-- just the weary gray of the hustle. Lyrically, Seattle doesn't factor in much, other than a stray reference to being from the city where they "bust heads and clean clocks." Thankfully, producers Blue Sky Black Death and Raised by Wolves provide the requisite Pacific Northwestern pallor, providing moody beats that suture "Stepfather Factory"-era El-P to the mercury float of Clams Casino. During a year in which Shabazz Palaces has earned Seattle hip-hop more buzz since the last time slackers wore flannel, Picasso grabs his fair share of the spotlight. For the Glory is one of the best rap debuts of the year, one that simultaneously manages to say everything but reveal nothing. Or as George Carlin would have said: Language is just a tool for concealing the truth.

Artist: Nacho Picasso, Album: For the Glory, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "His Cannabis Club card (probably) reads "Jesse James," but Seattle rapper Nacho Picasso willingly shares a name with something you'd expect to find at a Johnny Rockets in Barcelona. You will either think the alias is awesome or awful. There is no in-between. Yet it's instantly memorable and more fitting than anything that references a Jack Black/Lucha Libre vehicle has any right to be. Since Rick Rubin tried to create the "worst shit ever," rap has a long history of the highbrow-lowbrow game. Or what Ghostface Killah called the "smart dumb cat." Robinson is Nacho and Picasso, part fast food, part real deal. He is the hardcore hood nerd, the walking talking paradox writ large. Or as he describes himself on For the Glory: "Think like George Carlin/ Dress like Carlton/ Ball like Damon/ And wild like Marlon." Nacho openly claims he's an arrogant asshole, not to be trusted, a bridge burner, and a numbnuts. He dedicates his orgies to Dionysus. His album cover is a picture of him riding a horse dressed as Sir Lance-A-Lot, while flanked by a Harry Potter castle and three nude goddesses. The latter continue Sir Mix-A-Lot's proud Emerald City tradition. Picasso proves that you don't need to practice the art of storytelling when you've mastered the art of saying nothing. And For the Glory is basically a paean to girls, guns, tattoos, chronic, and comics. There is an entire song, "Marvel", wherein Picasso basically compares himself to every summer blockbuster of the last decade. While it should feel like second-rate MF Doom, Nacho spits slick and (partially) revelatory internal rhymes. He repeats, "Smoking/ Reading comic books," until it becomes mantra, like the kid from the cover of OutKast's ATLiens grown up. If anything, For the Glory is a snub-nosed self-portrait. Picasso condenses information into one or two bars with the ease of a 1990s 5 Percent rapper. "He's been a bad guy/ Since his dad died." The self-aware scumbag redeemed through his honesty and arrant goofiness. On "Moor Gang", he describes his life as "Big butts and boobs/ Blunts and booze/ Watching Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze/ With my Steven Urkel frames and custom-made shoes." And he even has the restraint to refrain from a Vanilla Ice punchline. That's the thing about Picasso, he knows how to vividly render an image and largely avoid cliché. Even when he resorts to the tired mobster/rapper dualities of "Benjamin Segal", he avoids the obvious Tony Montana trap. Circa 2011, the norm is rappers so tatted-up they might as well be married to Sandra Bullock. But Picasso is one of the few who makes it seem like more than fashion accessory. On "Sweaters", the self-proclaimed "tat in the hat" describes his body as a timeline and his face as something ageless. Later, he says he's inked like a Rorschach blot and a fourth-grade desk. Half of the record captures Picasso as the affable stoner drawling in a seen-it-all baritone about 1980s professional wrestlers and characters from Half Baked. The guy who would insert a lesser remembered clip of White Men Can't Jump just for the fuck of it. The other side is the ruthless hustler whose car "looks like Iceland," who lashes out against "bitches who say that he looks like Chris Brown." The Black Flag-shirted, bare knuckle-gypsy, who shares his dead dad's love of anarchy. The end result is language-drunk and spliff-lit disorientation in the cold vein of vintage Cam'ron, late-period Curren$y, and the post-Def Jux disorderly conduct of Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire. Picasso references his internal turmoil but never delves too deep. Nor does he need to. In his worldview, there is little nostalgia for the past or dreams of the future-- just the weary gray of the hustle. Lyrically, Seattle doesn't factor in much, other than a stray reference to being from the city where they "bust heads and clean clocks." Thankfully, producers Blue Sky Black Death and Raised by Wolves provide the requisite Pacific Northwestern pallor, providing moody beats that suture "Stepfather Factory"-era El-P to the mercury float of Clams Casino. During a year in which Shabazz Palaces has earned Seattle hip-hop more buzz since the last time slackers wore flannel, Picasso grabs his fair share of the spotlight. For the Glory is one of the best rap debuts of the year, one that simultaneously manages to say everything but reveal nothing. Or as George Carlin would have said: Language is just a tool for concealing the truth."

Sia

This Is Acting

Pop/R&B

Cameron Cook

At the age of 40, Sia Furler has been through more career phases than her most of her contemporaries combined. By the time "Chandelier," one of the best Top 40 pop ballads of the decade, made her a global superstar, she had already been frontwoman of Australian '90s jazz-fusion band Crisp; vocalist for crossover lounge act Zero 7; and  a modestly popular solo artist, whose 2006 song "Breathe Me" was featured in the finale of the HBO drama "Six Feet Under." That's a lot, so when "Chandelier" took off, there was an excitement to seeing this relative underdog succeed so wildly in a traditionally sexist and ageist industry, all without bowing to cookie-cutter concepts of what pop stars should be. This Is Acting, the follow-up to this surprise attack on the Billboard charts, can't help but feel like the big-budget sequel to 1000 *Forms of Fear'*s sleeper hit. As the much-hyped backstory makes clear, almost every song on the album was written by Sia but rejected by another artist, from Adele to Rihanna to Beyoncé. Most songwriters would perhaps choose not to draw attention to the fact that they've had an album's worth of material passed over by some of pop's biggest names, but to Sia's immense credit, This Is Acting doesn't necessarily sound like a slapdash collection of demos or B-sides. It's a complete piece of work, and one that serves as a commentary on the intersectionality of art and fame by someone who has recently acquired a new level of notoriety. But the sacrifice here is the personal flair that gave her previous album a spark of creativity and set it apart from the songs she had already been writing for other pop stars. In a few short years, Sia has gone from subverting the mainstream to being the mainstream, and in light of that transformation, you'd expect more than a play-by-play recreation of her most recent highlights. She remains a vocal powerhouse, capable of injecting vitality into even the most formulaic numbers. That aching, slip-sliding, cracked voice reinvogorates the military-drums-and-anthemic-chorus formula on lead single "Alive," and even amidst the record's slow moments, the character of her voice reels you back in: "Broken Glass" seems like a typical, by-the-numbers ballad, until not one, but two belted key changes rescue it from blandness. The Kanye-produced "Reaper" falls a little flat, missing the punch that its intended artist would have provided (Rihanna, in case you were wondering), but it's balanced by the pseudo-reggae lilt of the charming and pleasant "Cheap Thrills." "Sweet Design," however, hints at the epic-banger party record Sia could put out if she so chose. It's an explosion of the playfulness Sia became popular for (sort of a spiritual cousin of "Buttons" from 2008's Some People Have Real Problems); when she sings "Word travels fast/ When you've got an ass like mine[...]/ Where the mens at?" it's strangely hilarious, irreverent, and above all, fresh-sounding, a song that definitely fares better in her hands than anyone else's. As her star continues to rise, hopefully Sia will concentrate on just that: saving the best for herself.

Artist: Sia, Album: This Is Acting, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "At the age of 40, Sia Furler has been through more career phases than her most of her contemporaries combined. By the time "Chandelier," one of the best Top 40 pop ballads of the decade, made her a global superstar, she had already been frontwoman of Australian '90s jazz-fusion band Crisp; vocalist for crossover lounge act Zero 7; and  a modestly popular solo artist, whose 2006 song "Breathe Me" was featured in the finale of the HBO drama "Six Feet Under." That's a lot, so when "Chandelier" took off, there was an excitement to seeing this relative underdog succeed so wildly in a traditionally sexist and ageist industry, all without bowing to cookie-cutter concepts of what pop stars should be. This Is Acting, the follow-up to this surprise attack on the Billboard charts, can't help but feel like the big-budget sequel to 1000 *Forms of Fear'*s sleeper hit. As the much-hyped backstory makes clear, almost every song on the album was written by Sia but rejected by another artist, from Adele to Rihanna to Beyoncé. Most songwriters would perhaps choose not to draw attention to the fact that they've had an album's worth of material passed over by some of pop's biggest names, but to Sia's immense credit, This Is Acting doesn't necessarily sound like a slapdash collection of demos or B-sides. It's a complete piece of work, and one that serves as a commentary on the intersectionality of art and fame by someone who has recently acquired a new level of notoriety. But the sacrifice here is the personal flair that gave her previous album a spark of creativity and set it apart from the songs she had already been writing for other pop stars. In a few short years, Sia has gone from subverting the mainstream to being the mainstream, and in light of that transformation, you'd expect more than a play-by-play recreation of her most recent highlights. She remains a vocal powerhouse, capable of injecting vitality into even the most formulaic numbers. That aching, slip-sliding, cracked voice reinvogorates the military-drums-and-anthemic-chorus formula on lead single "Alive," and even amidst the record's slow moments, the character of her voice reels you back in: "Broken Glass" seems like a typical, by-the-numbers ballad, until not one, but two belted key changes rescue it from blandness. The Kanye-produced "Reaper" falls a little flat, missing the punch that its intended artist would have provided (Rihanna, in case you were wondering), but it's balanced by the pseudo-reggae lilt of the charming and pleasant "Cheap Thrills." "Sweet Design," however, hints at the epic-banger party record Sia could put out if she so chose. It's an explosion of the playfulness Sia became popular for (sort of a spiritual cousin of "Buttons" from 2008's Some People Have Real Problems); when she sings "Word travels fast/ When you've got an ass like mine[...]/ Where the mens at?" it's strangely hilarious, irreverent, and above all, fresh-sounding, a song that definitely fares better in her hands than anyone else's. As her star continues to rise, hopefully Sia will concentrate on just that: saving the best for herself."

Various Artists

Man Chest Hair

Joe Tangari

There's no need to have been alive in the 70s to be very familiar with 70s hard rock. The music has lived on with enough ubiquity that even if you've never gone near classic rock radio, you've probably heard it over the credits of a TV show, or playing in the supermarket, or on the car stereo of a teenager born in 1996. It's the top-level stuff you'll hear, of course: Zeppelin, Free, Cream, Deep Purple, Van Halen... those bands sold millions of records, but trailing in their wake were hundreds more that would have been happy to sell out a private pressing of 500. Enterprising reissue labels and so-called sharity bloggers have done much to shed light on this music in the last 10 or so years, and it feels as if we'll never run out. Once you fall into that world, the pull of the rabbit hole seems to increase exponentially. This is an effect surely felt by Andy Votel and Doug Shipton, the compilers of Man Chest Hair, a set whose cheeky title references the English city of Manchester, host to a thriving hard rock scene during the 70s. The two collectors have brought together a rough assortment of tracks documenting the era here, focusing entirely on rock bands of low-to-no commercial fortune. One of the joys of exploring this old music is discovering the incredible diversity of sounds that can exist under a single generic umbrella like hard rock. The groups here range from straightforward boogie outfits to heavy prog, proto-metal, almost-punk, glam, and down-the-middle pop rock acts, with hints of folk and blues as well. Certainly, the Man Chest Hair title is worth more than a bad pun: nearly every musician heard here was male (JC Heavy's vocalist is the lone exception), and this stuff was recorded during the wild, shirtless heyday of loud rock and roll, before punk taught people to be ashamed of ambition, or to at least act ashamed of it. No, these bands were aiming for the cheap seats in venues where every seat was cheap, or there were no seats at all. Oscar, a band that also played under the name Royal Variety Show, open the disc with "Good Lovin' Woman", which was likely selected to go first because it sounds like some sort of cosmic mean of 70s hard rock. It's got a bit of funk in its step, a lot of crunch in its guitars, ample cowbell, lusty vocals, and free-spirited attitude that roll together almost every quality that put this music on the top of the heap in its original moment. The biggest highlight for me is "King Dick II", by the Way We Live. The song has a great, cycling riff, kicked along by busy but ruthlessly effective drumming, and the lyrics encouraging you to "practice witchcraft with your friends" are a pretty hilarious send-up of both hippie ideals and the panicked reaction to them. This band changed its name to Tractor, released a great album, and then settled into the festival circuit, which makes them one of the longer-lived acts on the compilation. By comparison, So On and So Forth hasn't even received the honor of a Rate Your Music entry, though their cover of Cream's "Sweet Wine" is quite a bit better than the original. Same goes for the excellently named Urbane Gorilla, whose buzzy sax/guitar riffs on "Ten Days Gone" help compensate for the amateurish vocal and turn the song into a thrashing stomper. Not every song is a winner. Stackwaddy, one of the better-known bands included here, turns in a lumbering, momentumless plodder on "Hunt the Stag", and the demo-level quality of other songs doesn't serve the big sounds these groups were aiming for particularly well. These are more than balanced out by the presence of unearthed gems like Grisby Dyke's "Nebula", which veers wildly from heavy prog instrumental passages topped by flute, and folk-y, waltz time verses. Likewise, Slipped Disc switches things up a bit with their funky, harmony-flecked "Come On In", a song that was clearly pointed toward the charts, even if it stood little chance of hitting them. (Their vocalist also sounds ever so slightly like Robert Wyatt.) Man Chest Hair occasionally drags, and can't boast more than a handful of tracks that will flip anyone's lid outside of 70s rock enthusiast circles. One does wonder if there were more fully realized gems that got passed over in favor of more obscure, unissued material when this set was being assembled. I'll extend the benefit of the doubt to the compilers and suppose that they picked what they thought best told the story of a city alive with rock and roll during the brief window in which hard rock truly ruled the world, and the upstart bands that trailed in the wake of Led Zeppelin thought they might be able to secure just a bit of that power for themselves.

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Man Chest Hair, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "There's no need to have been alive in the 70s to be very familiar with 70s hard rock. The music has lived on with enough ubiquity that even if you've never gone near classic rock radio, you've probably heard it over the credits of a TV show, or playing in the supermarket, or on the car stereo of a teenager born in 1996. It's the top-level stuff you'll hear, of course: Zeppelin, Free, Cream, Deep Purple, Van Halen... those bands sold millions of records, but trailing in their wake were hundreds more that would have been happy to sell out a private pressing of 500. Enterprising reissue labels and so-called sharity bloggers have done much to shed light on this music in the last 10 or so years, and it feels as if we'll never run out. Once you fall into that world, the pull of the rabbit hole seems to increase exponentially. This is an effect surely felt by Andy Votel and Doug Shipton, the compilers of Man Chest Hair, a set whose cheeky title references the English city of Manchester, host to a thriving hard rock scene during the 70s. The two collectors have brought together a rough assortment of tracks documenting the era here, focusing entirely on rock bands of low-to-no commercial fortune. One of the joys of exploring this old music is discovering the incredible diversity of sounds that can exist under a single generic umbrella like hard rock. The groups here range from straightforward boogie outfits to heavy prog, proto-metal, almost-punk, glam, and down-the-middle pop rock acts, with hints of folk and blues as well. Certainly, the Man Chest Hair title is worth more than a bad pun: nearly every musician heard here was male (JC Heavy's vocalist is the lone exception), and this stuff was recorded during the wild, shirtless heyday of loud rock and roll, before punk taught people to be ashamed of ambition, or to at least act ashamed of it. No, these bands were aiming for the cheap seats in venues where every seat was cheap, or there were no seats at all. Oscar, a band that also played under the name Royal Variety Show, open the disc with "Good Lovin' Woman", which was likely selected to go first because it sounds like some sort of cosmic mean of 70s hard rock. It's got a bit of funk in its step, a lot of crunch in its guitars, ample cowbell, lusty vocals, and free-spirited attitude that roll together almost every quality that put this music on the top of the heap in its original moment. The biggest highlight for me is "King Dick II", by the Way We Live. The song has a great, cycling riff, kicked along by busy but ruthlessly effective drumming, and the lyrics encouraging you to "practice witchcraft with your friends" are a pretty hilarious send-up of both hippie ideals and the panicked reaction to them. This band changed its name to Tractor, released a great album, and then settled into the festival circuit, which makes them one of the longer-lived acts on the compilation. By comparison, So On and So Forth hasn't even received the honor of a Rate Your Music entry, though their cover of Cream's "Sweet Wine" is quite a bit better than the original. Same goes for the excellently named Urbane Gorilla, whose buzzy sax/guitar riffs on "Ten Days Gone" help compensate for the amateurish vocal and turn the song into a thrashing stomper. Not every song is a winner. Stackwaddy, one of the better-known bands included here, turns in a lumbering, momentumless plodder on "Hunt the Stag", and the demo-level quality of other songs doesn't serve the big sounds these groups were aiming for particularly well. These are more than balanced out by the presence of unearthed gems like Grisby Dyke's "Nebula", which veers wildly from heavy prog instrumental passages topped by flute, and folk-y, waltz time verses. Likewise, Slipped Disc switches things up a bit with their funky, harmony-flecked "Come On In", a song that was clearly pointed toward the charts, even if it stood little chance of hitting them. (Their vocalist also sounds ever so slightly like Robert Wyatt.) Man Chest Hair occasionally drags, and can't boast more than a handful of tracks that will flip anyone's lid outside of 70s rock enthusiast circles. One does wonder if there were more fully realized gems that got passed over in favor of more obscure, unissued material when this set was being assembled. I'll extend the benefit of the doubt to the compilers and suppose that they picked what they thought best told the story of a city alive with rock and roll during the brief window in which hard rock truly ruled the world, and the upstart bands that trailed in the wake of Led Zeppelin thought they might be able to secure just a bit of that power for themselves."

Bob Dylan

Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981

Rock

Sam Sodomsky

In the autumn of 1978, Bob Dylan began performing a new version of “Tangled Up in Blue.” In addition to a complete melodic makeover, he updated a lyric that had previously referenced an unnamed Italian poet to address a more specific source text: “She opened up the Bible and started quoting it to me/Jeremiah, Chapter 13, verses 21 and 33.” Debuted during the tour behind his directionless Street Legal LP, his new arrangement of the beloved track offered a glimpse at Dylan’s next reinvention: You can hear a white light starting to seep in. Right around that time, Dylan introduced a new song to his band called “Slow Train Coming.” That track appears in four vastly different versions on Trouble No More, the fascinating new Bootleg Series release covering his fruitful but polarizing era as an evangelical Christian songwriter between 1979 and 1981. The earliest rendition on the collection stems from his ’78 tour rehearsals when the verses were not yet finalized and Dylan mostly just hammered in the chorus: “There’s a slow/Slow train coming/Around the bend,” he sings over and over again as his backing vocalists’ performance grows increasingly dramatic with each repetition. It’s a stirring, uncanny document of an artist discovering his new sound—an ominous take on gospel to which he’d devote himself for the next three years. ”Slow Train Coming” would become the title track to the first entry in Dylan’s “Christian trilogy.” These albums, which draw on the grainy, burnt-out blues sound he’d adopt more fully in the 21st century, remain the most mysterious items in one of rock music’s deepest, most daunting discographies. On principle alone, they turned off multitudes of fans who once admired Dylan’s staunch individualism and leftist politics. But for Dylan, they signified a rebirth, both creatively and personally. By the end of the decade, his longevity as a rock icon was unprecedented: Elvis was gone; The Beatles had been broken up as long they’d been around; the “new Dylans” like Springsteen were now welcoming their own disciples. When the “old Dylan”—just pushing 40—found himself uninspired on what had become known as his “Las Vegas Tour,” the Bible offered a way forward, even if it didn’t provide the answers he might have wanted. For the most part, the songs on Trouble No More do not reflect the hope or contentment usually associated with praise music. They are as venomous and full of doom as Dylan’s more celebrated writing on war, politics, or love. Neither as warm and embracing as Cat Stevens’ nor as spiritually wise as Leonard Cohen’s, Dylan’s religious work seems to come from a place of fear—borderline paranoia. Inspired by the best-selling Hal Lindsey book The Late Great Planet Earth, he constantly pairs his acceptance of Jesus with warnings of an imminent apocalypse. In a catchy song called “Precious Angel,” propelled by a bouncy, pinched Mark Knopfler guitar riff, he looks to the future and sings of “darkness that will fall from on high/When men will beg God to kill them and they won’t be able to die.” In many songs, Dylan quotes directly from the Bible. In others, he sings as first-person “I,” instructing “you” to follow his lead and make a change or risk facing unthinkable consequences: a strange play on the messianic presence he’d assumed in the lives of his fans. “I told you the answer was blowing in the wind, and it was,” he allegedly announced at a show, “I told you the times they were a-changing, and they did. And I’m telling you Christ is coming back—and he is!” To perform this material live, Dylan pressed reset on his songbook, ignoring the nearly two decades of work that preceded Slow Train Coming. He was debuting new music at every concert—songs that would eventually appear on the sharply focused Saved in 1980 and the more eclectic Shot of Love the following year. In the absence of his hits, he fleshed out setlists with faithful covers of devotional songs like Dallas Holm’s “Rise Again” and hymns performed by a four-person gospel choir who toured with him. Fans were perplexed. Throughout a stunning San Francisco performance of “Pressing On,” one of his finest gospel songs, the audience remains silent. They refuse to clap along during the a capella break, inadvertently bringing the hard-won battle in its lyrics to life. There’s a captivating tension in hearing an artist so revered, so evangelized, preach to empty seats—an energy that pervades the set and makes this one of Dylan’s most haunting and vulnerable collections of music. Trouble No More exists in several editions. The most comprehensive set includes two live shows from the era; two discs of tour highlights; two discs of outtakes and rarities; and a bizarre concert film interrupted by newly filmed scenes of actor Michael Shannon reciting sermons in a vacant church (likely in the absence of Dylan’s own between-song sermons, which have mysteriously and perhaps mercifully been edited out). These recordings beat out their studio counterparts at nearly every turn. Stemming largely from live shows and rehearsals, they avoid the tinny production and glossy pastiche of the records, highlighting this era’s latent strengths: the unnerving conviction in Dylan’s vocals, his killer backing band, and, most of all, the underlying strength of the material. Songs that previously felt like hidden gems in Dylan’s catalog become centerpieces. A live rendition of “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar” features bombastic, blazing guitar solos from guest performer Carlos Santana as Dylan spits his way through the lyrics, making its surreal narrative even more impassioned. “When He Returns,” the closing track on Slow Train Coming, appears in stark, definitive form, on solo piano and organ at a 1980 show in Toronto. Dylan’s voice sounds beautiful, fanatical, and somewhat insane, which is exactly how this material should be delivered. Unlike other editions of the Bootleg Series exploring Dylan’s mythically productive studio sessions, the outtakes are not the main draw here. The slow, stately “Making a Liar Out of Me” comes closest to a lost classic, though the band’s performance is too tentative for it to truly transcend. Less ambitious tracks like “Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody” and “Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One” are pleasant but steer close to “Schoolhouse Rock!” levels of singalong didacticism. While Dylan was writing prolifically at this time, his relentless output felt more like a search for the right words as opposed to an overflow of inspiration. For the most part, the best songs all ended up on the albums. What’s more in

Artist: Bob Dylan, Album: Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "In the autumn of 1978, Bob Dylan began performing a new version of “Tangled Up in Blue.” In addition to a complete melodic makeover, he updated a lyric that had previously referenced an unnamed Italian poet to address a more specific source text: “She opened up the Bible and started quoting it to me/Jeremiah, Chapter 13, verses 21 and 33.” Debuted during the tour behind his directionless Street Legal LP, his new arrangement of the beloved track offered a glimpse at Dylan’s next reinvention: You can hear a white light starting to seep in. Right around that time, Dylan introduced a new song to his band called “Slow Train Coming.” That track appears in four vastly different versions on Trouble No More, the fascinating new Bootleg Series release covering his fruitful but polarizing era as an evangelical Christian songwriter between 1979 and 1981. The earliest rendition on the collection stems from his ’78 tour rehearsals when the verses were not yet finalized and Dylan mostly just hammered in the chorus: “There’s a slow/Slow train coming/Around the bend,” he sings over and over again as his backing vocalists’ performance grows increasingly dramatic with each repetition. It’s a stirring, uncanny document of an artist discovering his new sound—an ominous take on gospel to which he’d devote himself for the next three years. ”Slow Train Coming” would become the title track to the first entry in Dylan’s “Christian trilogy.” These albums, which draw on the grainy, burnt-out blues sound he’d adopt more fully in the 21st century, remain the most mysterious items in one of rock music’s deepest, most daunting discographies. On principle alone, they turned off multitudes of fans who once admired Dylan’s staunch individualism and leftist politics. But for Dylan, they signified a rebirth, both creatively and personally. By the end of the decade, his longevity as a rock icon was unprecedented: Elvis was gone; The Beatles had been broken up as long they’d been around; the “new Dylans” like Springsteen were now welcoming their own disciples. When the “old Dylan”—just pushing 40—found himself uninspired on what had become known as his “Las Vegas Tour,” the Bible offered a way forward, even if it didn’t provide the answers he might have wanted. For the most part, the songs on Trouble No More do not reflect the hope or contentment usually associated with praise music. They are as venomous and full of doom as Dylan’s more celebrated writing on war, politics, or love. Neither as warm and embracing as Cat Stevens’ nor as spiritually wise as Leonard Cohen’s, Dylan’s religious work seems to come from a place of fear—borderline paranoia. Inspired by the best-selling Hal Lindsey book The Late Great Planet Earth, he constantly pairs his acceptance of Jesus with warnings of an imminent apocalypse. In a catchy song called “Precious Angel,” propelled by a bouncy, pinched Mark Knopfler guitar riff, he looks to the future and sings of “darkness that will fall from on high/When men will beg God to kill them and they won’t be able to die.” In many songs, Dylan quotes directly from the Bible. In others, he sings as first-person “I,” instructing “you” to follow his lead and make a change or risk facing unthinkable consequences: a strange play on the messianic presence he’d assumed in the lives of his fans. “I told you the answer was blowing in the wind, and it was,” he allegedly announced at a show, “I told you the times they were a-changing, and they did. And I’m telling you Christ is coming back—and he is!” To perform this material live, Dylan pressed reset on his songbook, ignoring the nearly two decades of work that preceded Slow Train Coming. He was debuting new music at every concert—songs that would eventually appear on the sharply focused Saved in 1980 and the more eclectic Shot of Love the following year. In the absence of his hits, he fleshed out setlists with faithful covers of devotional songs like Dallas Holm’s “Rise Again” and hymns performed by a four-person gospel choir who toured with him. Fans were perplexed. Throughout a stunning San Francisco performance of “Pressing On,” one of his finest gospel songs, the audience remains silent. They refuse to clap along during the a capella break, inadvertently bringing the hard-won battle in its lyrics to life. There’s a captivating tension in hearing an artist so revered, so evangelized, preach to empty seats—an energy that pervades the set and makes this one of Dylan’s most haunting and vulnerable collections of music. Trouble No More exists in several editions. The most comprehensive set includes two live shows from the era; two discs of tour highlights; two discs of outtakes and rarities; and a bizarre concert film interrupted by newly filmed scenes of actor Michael Shannon reciting sermons in a vacant church (likely in the absence of Dylan’s own between-song sermons, which have mysteriously and perhaps mercifully been edited out). These recordings beat out their studio counterparts at nearly every turn. Stemming largely from live shows and rehearsals, they avoid the tinny production and glossy pastiche of the records, highlighting this era’s latent strengths: the unnerving conviction in Dylan’s vocals, his killer backing band, and, most of all, the underlying strength of the material. Songs that previously felt like hidden gems in Dylan’s catalog become centerpieces. A live rendition of “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar” features bombastic, blazing guitar solos from guest performer Carlos Santana as Dylan spits his way through the lyrics, making its surreal narrative even more impassioned. “When He Returns,” the closing track on Slow Train Coming, appears in stark, definitive form, on solo piano and organ at a 1980 show in Toronto. Dylan’s voice sounds beautiful, fanatical, and somewhat insane, which is exactly how this material should be delivered. Unlike other editions of the Bootleg Series exploring Dylan’s mythically productive studio sessions, the outtakes are not the main draw here. The slow, stately “Making a Liar Out of Me” comes closest to a lost classic, though the band’s performance is too tentative for it to truly transcend. Less ambitious tracks like “Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody” and “Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One” are pleasant but steer close to “Schoolhouse Rock!” levels of singalong didacticism. While Dylan was writing prolifically at this time, his relentless output felt more like a search for the right words as opposed to an overflow of inspiration. For the most part, the best songs all ended up on the albums. What’s more in"

Neil Young

Live at Massey Hall

Rock

Rob Mitchum

There are few lonelier sounds than a Neil Young solo performance. Most pictures from his solitary jaunts show him surrounded by an army of guitars or hunched over a piano, trapped in the middle of a stark spotlight. Singing in a hushed and fragile voice, it almost sounds like he's locked in a bedroom rather than on a theater stage, and as such it's jarring to hear the rapt-silent crowd explode into applause between songs. Even the material speaks to solitude, as Young dusts off the corner of his songbook concerned with aging and the search for companionship, topics better suited for early-morning insomniac worry, not public performance. Live at Massey Hall, the second live release in Neil Young's long-awaited and now briskly-paced Archives series, shows that this aspect of Young's persona had already matured in 1971, when the singer was only 26. Coming on the heels of last year's Live at Fillmore East, a disc of barnstorming distortion-pedal epics with his preferred partners Crazy Horse, this birthplace performance is representative of the abrupt downshifts that have marked Young's career. In the two years prior, he had released his loudest record to date, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and participated in mega-ultra-supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, so of course the next step according to Neil Logic was to put the amps in storage and road-test an acoustic one-man show. The January 1971 tour fell between Young's After the Gold Rush album, where his folk origins had started to seep back in amidst the overdrive of songs like "Southern Man", and 1972's Harvest, the warm country-rock crossover that won him his greatest commercial success. Many of the Harvest songs show up in this set still dripping from their compositional birth, and, stripped of their eventual Nashville pageantry, they're surprisingly morose. Without its plucky banjo and Linda Ronstadt/James Taylor backing vocals, "Old Man" shows itself to be more about the horror of growing old alone than country comfort, and the eventual mega-hit "Heart of Gold" is tossed off as the bridge to a stripped-bare version of "A Man Needs a Maid", one of Young's most painfully misanthropic songs. Other new songs are no less glum, but make a case for Young as an underappreciated piano player. "Love in Mind", a minor-key lament from the criminally out-of-print Time Fades Away, is a hangover valentine that's teasingly short, while "See the Sky About to Rain", stripped down from its Rhodes-heavy On the Beach version, reveals itself as a neglected gem, featuring surprisingly complex key-tickling. Two songs that never made it to record show up as well, the mournful country tune "Bad Fog of Loneliness" (see what I mean?) and the silly throwaway "Dance, Dance, Dance", which appears to serve largely as a cheer-up send-off for Young's Toronto audience. One of the strengths of Young's acoustic sets is that they carry a distinct identity from his electric work; they're not merely "unplugged" versions of his high-volume catalog, but a completely different mood designed to emphasize his wounded nasal voice and delicate finger-picking. Even so, the highlights of this particular set come from reinterpretations of electric hits, such as the reprises of Fillmore East showstoppers "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down By the River" recast as chilling murder ballads. The most effective makeover is given to the sometimes-maligned "Ohio", which in solo form (without the histrionics of CSNY's version) is less an angry screed than a perfect and still-relevant encapsulation of political helplessness, all half-finished thoughts and pervasive sadness. All this gloom and doom was only going to build for Neil Young over the years following this tour; his new "The Needle and the Damage Done" foreshadowed the ensuing half-decade of addiction and death that would inspire some of his finest records. Live at Massey Hall catches Young divining that bleak future from the darkness of the crowd, caught alone at the microphone, a chilling example of why he was, in this particular guise, the 70s' best architect of lonesomeness.

Artist: Neil Young, Album: Live at Massey Hall, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "There are few lonelier sounds than a Neil Young solo performance. Most pictures from his solitary jaunts show him surrounded by an army of guitars or hunched over a piano, trapped in the middle of a stark spotlight. Singing in a hushed and fragile voice, it almost sounds like he's locked in a bedroom rather than on a theater stage, and as such it's jarring to hear the rapt-silent crowd explode into applause between songs. Even the material speaks to solitude, as Young dusts off the corner of his songbook concerned with aging and the search for companionship, topics better suited for early-morning insomniac worry, not public performance. Live at Massey Hall, the second live release in Neil Young's long-awaited and now briskly-paced Archives series, shows that this aspect of Young's persona had already matured in 1971, when the singer was only 26. Coming on the heels of last year's Live at Fillmore East, a disc of barnstorming distortion-pedal epics with his preferred partners Crazy Horse, this birthplace performance is representative of the abrupt downshifts that have marked Young's career. In the two years prior, he had released his loudest record to date, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and participated in mega-ultra-supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, so of course the next step according to Neil Logic was to put the amps in storage and road-test an acoustic one-man show. The January 1971 tour fell between Young's After the Gold Rush album, where his folk origins had started to seep back in amidst the overdrive of songs like "Southern Man", and 1972's Harvest, the warm country-rock crossover that won him his greatest commercial success. Many of the Harvest songs show up in this set still dripping from their compositional birth, and, stripped of their eventual Nashville pageantry, they're surprisingly morose. Without its plucky banjo and Linda Ronstadt/James Taylor backing vocals, "Old Man" shows itself to be more about the horror of growing old alone than country comfort, and the eventual mega-hit "Heart of Gold" is tossed off as the bridge to a stripped-bare version of "A Man Needs a Maid", one of Young's most painfully misanthropic songs. Other new songs are no less glum, but make a case for Young as an underappreciated piano player. "Love in Mind", a minor-key lament from the criminally out-of-print Time Fades Away, is a hangover valentine that's teasingly short, while "See the Sky About to Rain", stripped down from its Rhodes-heavy On the Beach version, reveals itself as a neglected gem, featuring surprisingly complex key-tickling. Two songs that never made it to record show up as well, the mournful country tune "Bad Fog of Loneliness" (see what I mean?) and the silly throwaway "Dance, Dance, Dance", which appears to serve largely as a cheer-up send-off for Young's Toronto audience. One of the strengths of Young's acoustic sets is that they carry a distinct identity from his electric work; they're not merely "unplugged" versions of his high-volume catalog, but a completely different mood designed to emphasize his wounded nasal voice and delicate finger-picking. Even so, the highlights of this particular set come from reinterpretations of electric hits, such as the reprises of Fillmore East showstoppers "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down By the River" recast as chilling murder ballads. The most effective makeover is given to the sometimes-maligned "Ohio", which in solo form (without the histrionics of CSNY's version) is less an angry screed than a perfect and still-relevant encapsulation of political helplessness, all half-finished thoughts and pervasive sadness. All this gloom and doom was only going to build for Neil Young over the years following this tour; his new "The Needle and the Damage Done" foreshadowed the ensuing half-decade of addiction and death that would inspire some of his finest records. Live at Massey Hall catches Young divining that bleak future from the darkness of the crowd, caught alone at the microphone, a chilling example of why he was, in this particular guise, the 70s' best architect of lonesomeness."

Cut Hands

Black Mamba

Nick Neyland

Working in an accessible realm may be the only true shock left for artists who have spent lengthy careers operating as provocateurs. The sheer amount of time William Bennett spent terrorizing audiences as part of the long-running noise outfit Whitehouse suggested he would be the last person to land in such a place. But, as the 2011 album by his self-styled "afro-noise" project Cut Hands demonstrated, even someone with a fondness for calling songs "I'm Comin' Up Your Ass" is capable of growing old with a certain amount of grace. Afro Noise I wasn't exactly commercial-- Bennett won't be bothering the Top 40 any time soon-- but anyone expecting to hear a saw-toothed desecration of the African music he was citing as a key influence was left empty handed. On Black Mamba, which follows the lead of its predecessor by tying together a collection of new and previously released material, those rough edges are flattened out even further. The major factor that ties the Cut Hands material to Bennett's work in Whitehouse is in his fondness for the straightforward. There's a sledgehammer-like simplicity to his other band's bludgeoning. Here, nothing splinters off in an unexpected direction, or ends up in a place radically different from whence it came. The standout cut is the title track, possibly the most groove-oriented work Bennett has ever released, where cacophonic beats are driven through carefully plotted tempo changes. There isn't much more to it other than a series of looped drum sounds going to war with one another, but it's an exhausting and exhilarating ride, and one that fully delivers on the promise of the similarly inclined "Stabbers Conspiracy" from the prior Cut Hands album. That we don’t get to return to the feel of "Black Mamba" is a shame, although after years of working in Whitehouse's one-mode world it's perhaps unsurprising to see Bennett taking the chance to stretch out. A theme that binds both Cut Hands records, and sweeps back to Whitehouse's 2007 album Racket (which bore a barely perceptible African influence), is a series of tracks that bear the name "Nzambi". Here, "Nzambi la Ngonde" and "Nzambi la Muini" consist of washy ambient passages, with both edging away from prickly beginnings by picking up a glassy texture reminiscent of Oneohtrix Point Never. The album oscillates between that kind of rudderless drifting and more layered, beat-oriented work. Occasionally it's a little too basic. "No Spare No Soul" spends too long with a beat echoing in place before Bennett dumps a batch of digital discord onto its second half. "Brown-Brown" is better, subtly building off a fidgety sound source that resembles someone hammering a rhythm out on a skeletal rib cage. The bulk of Black Mamba is positioned in a more equable place than the album that preceded it, although it might be better received now that Bennett's fans have had more time to adjust to this mindset. Still, a track like "54 Needles" may come as a shock, especially as it's hard not to reach for an adjective like "cloying" when trying to describe it. Whitehouse may be many things, but sentimental certainly isn't one of them. At this point it's better to look at Cut Hands as an entity unto itself that occasionally bears scars torn from a previous life. Tellingly, Black Mamba becomes more robust when Bennett slings one of those hooks into the sound. It's there in the seething pessimism that pours out of "Erzulie D'en Tort" and it's there in the blackout beats that stack up unremittingly on the title track. Cut Hands may find Bennett in surprise user-friendly mode, but it succeeds most often when he gives up the fight against familiar feelings of tension and confrontation.

Artist: Cut Hands, Album: Black Mamba, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "Working in an accessible realm may be the only true shock left for artists who have spent lengthy careers operating as provocateurs. The sheer amount of time William Bennett spent terrorizing audiences as part of the long-running noise outfit Whitehouse suggested he would be the last person to land in such a place. But, as the 2011 album by his self-styled "afro-noise" project Cut Hands demonstrated, even someone with a fondness for calling songs "I'm Comin' Up Your Ass" is capable of growing old with a certain amount of grace. Afro Noise I wasn't exactly commercial-- Bennett won't be bothering the Top 40 any time soon-- but anyone expecting to hear a saw-toothed desecration of the African music he was citing as a key influence was left empty handed. On Black Mamba, which follows the lead of its predecessor by tying together a collection of new and previously released material, those rough edges are flattened out even further. The major factor that ties the Cut Hands material to Bennett's work in Whitehouse is in his fondness for the straightforward. There's a sledgehammer-like simplicity to his other band's bludgeoning. Here, nothing splinters off in an unexpected direction, or ends up in a place radically different from whence it came. The standout cut is the title track, possibly the most groove-oriented work Bennett has ever released, where cacophonic beats are driven through carefully plotted tempo changes. There isn't much more to it other than a series of looped drum sounds going to war with one another, but it's an exhausting and exhilarating ride, and one that fully delivers on the promise of the similarly inclined "Stabbers Conspiracy" from the prior Cut Hands album. That we don’t get to return to the feel of "Black Mamba" is a shame, although after years of working in Whitehouse's one-mode world it's perhaps unsurprising to see Bennett taking the chance to stretch out. A theme that binds both Cut Hands records, and sweeps back to Whitehouse's 2007 album Racket (which bore a barely perceptible African influence), is a series of tracks that bear the name "Nzambi". Here, "Nzambi la Ngonde" and "Nzambi la Muini" consist of washy ambient passages, with both edging away from prickly beginnings by picking up a glassy texture reminiscent of Oneohtrix Point Never. The album oscillates between that kind of rudderless drifting and more layered, beat-oriented work. Occasionally it's a little too basic. "No Spare No Soul" spends too long with a beat echoing in place before Bennett dumps a batch of digital discord onto its second half. "Brown-Brown" is better, subtly building off a fidgety sound source that resembles someone hammering a rhythm out on a skeletal rib cage. The bulk of Black Mamba is positioned in a more equable place than the album that preceded it, although it might be better received now that Bennett's fans have had more time to adjust to this mindset. Still, a track like "54 Needles" may come as a shock, especially as it's hard not to reach for an adjective like "cloying" when trying to describe it. Whitehouse may be many things, but sentimental certainly isn't one of them. At this point it's better to look at Cut Hands as an entity unto itself that occasionally bears scars torn from a previous life. Tellingly, Black Mamba becomes more robust when Bennett slings one of those hooks into the sound. It's there in the seething pessimism that pours out of "Erzulie D'en Tort" and it's there in the blackout beats that stack up unremittingly on the title track. Cut Hands may find Bennett in surprise user-friendly mode, but it succeeds most often when he gives up the fight against familiar feelings of tension and confrontation."

DJ Shadow

Funky Skunk

Electronic

Alex Linhardt

DJ Shadow is often heralded for turning turntablism toward spiritualism and "serious artistic legitimacy," but he's strangely alienated within the realm of contemporary hip-hop. Perhaps that's because Shadow's major albums, ...Endtroducing and The Private Press, seem more indebted to Brian Eno and Aphex Twin than DJ Polo and Eric B. Some even charge that Shadow's considered among our foremost hip-hop connoisseurs only because he veers away from the most volatile and controversial elements of 21st-century rap: a rap producer in name only, a rocker in sheep's clothing, a DJ for those who can't stand the real thing. No doubt he frequently embraces the warm nostalgia of 1970s street funk and the high-falutin' bricolage of 80s avant-garde. Perhaps it's because people still blame him for trip-hop. Perhaps it's just because he's remixed Keane. At any rate, even within the marginal world of turntable fanboys, Shadow seems to be complimented more for his unimpeachable DJ maneuvers than his actual music. How many times has he been mentioned by a rapper you admire? It's a crying shame, really, since Shadow's endlessly inventive repertoire has always been securely founded on the flotsam of rap B-sides. (Check out the first half of Diminishing Returns.) If the movie Scratch accurately portrayed the producer, Shadow spends most of his days careening around vast vinyl catacombs of 1989 rap singles and deep-funk LPs. No wonder he chose to score Dark Days, a documentary about underground derelicts who build enormous cathedral-like residences out of piles of pop-culture refuse. An iPod claims to hold 15,000 songs; Shadow claims to hold around 90 million ("60,000 shelves")-- and how could anyone doubt him? Funky Skunk-- a limited-edition mixtape sold in exclusive packages with Shepard Fairey's graffiti-chic shirts and accessories-- is addictive and ferocious, and might horrify anyone who's only familiar with Shadow's more serene albums. Here, the grand savior of independent rap flails around with the biggest hits of Three 6 Mafia, Silkk the Shocker, and Too $hort. Entire segments are devoted to grime, gangsta, crunk, Miami bass, and all the other micro-genres that Shadow's acolytes so fiercely oppose. There are indictments of welfare programs, juvenile courts, and geopolitical deceptions, as well as wack niggaz, axes, and old Vipers. The first chorus is worlds apart from the Steve Reich-citing Private Press: "It's going down in this bitch tonight!" Witness Shadow's collage of militant beats and high-brow marriage analysis at the start of the mix: It equates the martial and the marital far more effectively than Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Not to say he's given up on the underdogs-- the mixtape's first 10 minutes feature about a half-dozen of the best beats I've heard this month and riffs I'm astounded other DJs hadn't yet discovered: Opiate garage meets spectral mid-70s funk; Rastafarian hustlers commandeer a melting organ and relay raps that sound like they were recorded under a moving train; cosmic electro and Velcro synths are rubbed over dusty Stax singers until their glossy vocal performances are scrambled and twisted; David Banner struggles against a torrent of ambulance sirens, broken violins, and plastic beats. It's as if Southern rap were about to split into hundreds of Wagner bars and speed-psych riffs. Funky Skunk succeeds on every possible level: lyrics, flow, beats, novelty, mix, sequence, DJ acrobatics, childish humor, and erudite irony. Even when Shadow invokes a Z-grade Lee Hazlewood clone, the lyrics are so entrancingly bizarre they make Shadow seem more cryptic than gimmicky: "She's the lady they refer to when they cut the Ace of Spades/ She's the lady that they think of when the night pulls down its shades." If there's any complaint, it's that Skunk is both physically exhausting-- the pace never relents, even when it probably should-- and veers slightly astray toward the end as the flow becomes more fragmented. Still, it's a testament to Shadow's skills that even these deficiencies can be perceived as virtues under the right conditions. Despite the recent Shadow backlash, this mix solidifies that there are few other hip-hop producers-- in meditative ambiance or glock-wielding top 20 chaos-- who are so consistently stimulating within this increasingly diverse genre.

Artist: DJ Shadow, Album: Funky Skunk, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "DJ Shadow is often heralded for turning turntablism toward spiritualism and "serious artistic legitimacy," but he's strangely alienated within the realm of contemporary hip-hop. Perhaps that's because Shadow's major albums, ...Endtroducing and The Private Press, seem more indebted to Brian Eno and Aphex Twin than DJ Polo and Eric B. Some even charge that Shadow's considered among our foremost hip-hop connoisseurs only because he veers away from the most volatile and controversial elements of 21st-century rap: a rap producer in name only, a rocker in sheep's clothing, a DJ for those who can't stand the real thing. No doubt he frequently embraces the warm nostalgia of 1970s street funk and the high-falutin' bricolage of 80s avant-garde. Perhaps it's because people still blame him for trip-hop. Perhaps it's just because he's remixed Keane. At any rate, even within the marginal world of turntable fanboys, Shadow seems to be complimented more for his unimpeachable DJ maneuvers than his actual music. How many times has he been mentioned by a rapper you admire? It's a crying shame, really, since Shadow's endlessly inventive repertoire has always been securely founded on the flotsam of rap B-sides. (Check out the first half of Diminishing Returns.) If the movie Scratch accurately portrayed the producer, Shadow spends most of his days careening around vast vinyl catacombs of 1989 rap singles and deep-funk LPs. No wonder he chose to score Dark Days, a documentary about underground derelicts who build enormous cathedral-like residences out of piles of pop-culture refuse. An iPod claims to hold 15,000 songs; Shadow claims to hold around 90 million ("60,000 shelves")-- and how could anyone doubt him? Funky Skunk-- a limited-edition mixtape sold in exclusive packages with Shepard Fairey's graffiti-chic shirts and accessories-- is addictive and ferocious, and might horrify anyone who's only familiar with Shadow's more serene albums. Here, the grand savior of independent rap flails around with the biggest hits of Three 6 Mafia, Silkk the Shocker, and Too $hort. Entire segments are devoted to grime, gangsta, crunk, Miami bass, and all the other micro-genres that Shadow's acolytes so fiercely oppose. There are indictments of welfare programs, juvenile courts, and geopolitical deceptions, as well as wack niggaz, axes, and old Vipers. The first chorus is worlds apart from the Steve Reich-citing Private Press: "It's going down in this bitch tonight!" Witness Shadow's collage of militant beats and high-brow marriage analysis at the start of the mix: It equates the martial and the marital far more effectively than Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Not to say he's given up on the underdogs-- the mixtape's first 10 minutes feature about a half-dozen of the best beats I've heard this month and riffs I'm astounded other DJs hadn't yet discovered: Opiate garage meets spectral mid-70s funk; Rastafarian hustlers commandeer a melting organ and relay raps that sound like they were recorded under a moving train; cosmic electro and Velcro synths are rubbed over dusty Stax singers until their glossy vocal performances are scrambled and twisted; David Banner struggles against a torrent of ambulance sirens, broken violins, and plastic beats. It's as if Southern rap were about to split into hundreds of Wagner bars and speed-psych riffs. Funky Skunk succeeds on every possible level: lyrics, flow, beats, novelty, mix, sequence, DJ acrobatics, childish humor, and erudite irony. Even when Shadow invokes a Z-grade Lee Hazlewood clone, the lyrics are so entrancingly bizarre they make Shadow seem more cryptic than gimmicky: "She's the lady they refer to when they cut the Ace of Spades/ She's the lady that they think of when the night pulls down its shades." If there's any complaint, it's that Skunk is both physically exhausting-- the pace never relents, even when it probably should-- and veers slightly astray toward the end as the flow becomes more fragmented. Still, it's a testament to Shadow's skills that even these deficiencies can be perceived as virtues under the right conditions. Despite the recent Shadow backlash, this mix solidifies that there are few other hip-hop producers-- in meditative ambiance or glock-wielding top 20 chaos-- who are so consistently stimulating within this increasingly diverse genre."

Norfolk & Western

Dusk in Cold Parlours

Rock

Joe Tangari

The Norfolk & Western railway was, in a lot of ways, a quintessentially American construct. The "Norfolk" is Norfolk, Virginia, still one of the country's busiest ports, and in the rail line's pre-Civil War nascence, the "Western" was western Virginia, the Appalachian regions that otherwise took days to reach. Over time, like any well-run business, Norfolk & Western expanded, buying other rail lines and extending its passenger and freight services across the Eastern half of the country. The company became something of an icon for American ingenuity and progress, a footnote to the larger American experience. And then, in 1998, after more than a century, it ceased to exist, subsumed by the financial interests of larger competitors, and gone without fanfare, leaving behind little more than appreciative websites set up by admirers. The railway also left its name to an unassuming Northwestern songwriter named Adam Selzer, whose quiet whisper of a voice delivers his songs of meditative resignation with a solemn, understated grace. Selzer's project got off to an inauspicious start in the same year that the Norfolk & Western gave way to the new economy, with a Spartan EP called a Collection of Norfolk & Western that showed some promise but didn't quite fulfill it. Since then, Selzer's thrown his recordings open to an ever-widening group of collaborators, including M. Ward and Calexico's Joey Burns, and as his sound has expanded, he's staked out a nice piece of atmospheric folk ground for himself. His two full-lengths thus far have worked on incorporating a wide range of textures into his simple songs, and this one continues the trend. Dusk in Cold Parlours wastes no time in attesting to the aptness of its title with "A Marriage Proposal". Accompanied by banjo, piano, buzzing organ, brushed drums and watercolor electric guitar, the song is a stark reading of Selzer's poetic take on a couple's engagement despite their uncertainty of the future. The sound is dusty and sepia-toned, a sound the band takes to another level entirely a few songs later on "Terrified", whose spacious corners are awash in vibraphone, B3 and Raymond Richards' gorgeous pedal steel. Multi-instrumentalist Rachel Blumberg offers breathy backing vocals that perfectly meld with Selzer's own voice-- her impact on the album as a whole is inestimable, as she not only provides all of the relaxed drumming that drives it, but also plays about half a dozen other instruments, from piano to tubular bells. The ensemble offers two excellent instrumentals to fully flesh the mood they're going for; the first, "Kelly Bauman", is a cockeyed swirl of melting carnival organ and M. Ward's trembling, immediately recognizable guitar playing. The other instrumental, "A Hymnal", belongs to guest cellist Anna Fritz, whose portamento flights are the most sensual thing on the album. One thing the instrumentals make plain is the band's sense of dynamic interplay, perhaps the single greatest element of their success-- the music breathes and is always in the midst of a rise or a fall, and it turns songs that might otherwise sound pedestrian into something much greater. Dusk in Cold Parlours is the kind of album that rewards multiple listens, revealing details slowly but surely, and once it captures you, it's hard to escape its grasp. But then, it's hard to imagine why you'd want to.

Artist: Norfolk & Western, Album: Dusk in Cold Parlours, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "The Norfolk & Western railway was, in a lot of ways, a quintessentially American construct. The "Norfolk" is Norfolk, Virginia, still one of the country's busiest ports, and in the rail line's pre-Civil War nascence, the "Western" was western Virginia, the Appalachian regions that otherwise took days to reach. Over time, like any well-run business, Norfolk & Western expanded, buying other rail lines and extending its passenger and freight services across the Eastern half of the country. The company became something of an icon for American ingenuity and progress, a footnote to the larger American experience. And then, in 1998, after more than a century, it ceased to exist, subsumed by the financial interests of larger competitors, and gone without fanfare, leaving behind little more than appreciative websites set up by admirers. The railway also left its name to an unassuming Northwestern songwriter named Adam Selzer, whose quiet whisper of a voice delivers his songs of meditative resignation with a solemn, understated grace. Selzer's project got off to an inauspicious start in the same year that the Norfolk & Western gave way to the new economy, with a Spartan EP called a Collection of Norfolk & Western that showed some promise but didn't quite fulfill it. Since then, Selzer's thrown his recordings open to an ever-widening group of collaborators, including M. Ward and Calexico's Joey Burns, and as his sound has expanded, he's staked out a nice piece of atmospheric folk ground for himself. His two full-lengths thus far have worked on incorporating a wide range of textures into his simple songs, and this one continues the trend. Dusk in Cold Parlours wastes no time in attesting to the aptness of its title with "A Marriage Proposal". Accompanied by banjo, piano, buzzing organ, brushed drums and watercolor electric guitar, the song is a stark reading of Selzer's poetic take on a couple's engagement despite their uncertainty of the future. The sound is dusty and sepia-toned, a sound the band takes to another level entirely a few songs later on "Terrified", whose spacious corners are awash in vibraphone, B3 and Raymond Richards' gorgeous pedal steel. Multi-instrumentalist Rachel Blumberg offers breathy backing vocals that perfectly meld with Selzer's own voice-- her impact on the album as a whole is inestimable, as she not only provides all of the relaxed drumming that drives it, but also plays about half a dozen other instruments, from piano to tubular bells. The ensemble offers two excellent instrumentals to fully flesh the mood they're going for; the first, "Kelly Bauman", is a cockeyed swirl of melting carnival organ and M. Ward's trembling, immediately recognizable guitar playing. The other instrumental, "A Hymnal", belongs to guest cellist Anna Fritz, whose portamento flights are the most sensual thing on the album. One thing the instrumentals make plain is the band's sense of dynamic interplay, perhaps the single greatest element of their success-- the music breathes and is always in the midst of a rise or a fall, and it turns songs that might otherwise sound pedestrian into something much greater. Dusk in Cold Parlours is the kind of album that rewards multiple listens, revealing details slowly but surely, and once it captures you, it's hard to escape its grasp. But then, it's hard to imagine why you'd want to."

Widowspeak

Widowspeak

Rock

Nick Neyland

It usually takes years of practice and several albums for bands to reach the crestfallen state Brooklyn trio Widowspeak showcase on their debut. Here, the music's poignant rush came quickly: We're told their debut single "Harsh Realm" was recorded after the band played a total of six shows. The fatalistic croon of singer/songwriter Molly Hamilton has already garnered plenty of Hope Sandoval comparisons. It would be remiss not to mention those here, as Hamilton's phrasing is often nearly identical to her most obvious influence, but there's enough variation in mood and texture to give this project a weight and balance all of its own. Much of the credit is due to the versatile guitar lines traded between Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas. At times there's a hollowed-out starkness and foreboding to the playing reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks ("Puritan"); at others there's a meshing of hippy idealism and influences extracted from bad-vibes garage rock not dissimilar to Love at their peak (see the pleasingly atonal guitar solo that ripples through "Nightcrawlers"). The latter even bears a moody 1950s tenor that sounds like Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches with the filth cleaned out of his fingernails. Anyone looking to wallow in 1990s nostalgia will find much to gorge on, too-- touchstones from that decade come thick and fast. For instance, when Hamilton's not channeling Sandoval, and when the band crawls out of the doldrums into more upbeat territory ("Gun Shy", "Half Awake"), she often resembles Madder Rose singer Mary Lorson. The skill with which Widowspeak assimilates those parts into alluring song structures is what prevents this from being an exercise in tributary. There's an ache to "Harsh Realm" that's all their own, the central vocal line ("I always think about you") bearing a downplayed creepiness that suggests Hamilton knows a thing or two about the ill effects of obsessive love. The one-two punch of "Gun Shy" and "Hard Times" are where the band hits its peak, the former combining their natural wistfulness with bouts of polished-up Link Wray guitar twang that wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to Tom DiCillo's Johnny Suede. On "Hard Times" they bend everything around a featherlight pop framework that provides a perfectly melancholy backbone to Hamilton's naturally listless demeanor: It has the right amount of sun and shade much of Widowspeak possesses, the lightness of touch in the arrangement preventing the songwriting from toppling over into unpalatable sorrow. Sometimes they don't get that balance right-- on "Fir Coat" it sounds like the song is racing away from Hamilton, and the closing "Ghost Boy" is built around the kind of Moe Tucker-inspired drumming that feels tired in the wake of legions of Brooklyn bands mining the sound over the past few years. But this is clearly the work of a group still finding its way, hammering out the kinks in public view. There's a potential here that could lead to something with a great deal more gravity. It's to Widowspeak's credit that they do make this first taste a brief peak behind the curtain: Five of the 10 songs don't go over the three-minute mark, and the entire runtime's barely half an hour. The economical use of space makes Widowspeak feel like a chance meeting with a pining stranger, one who spills their guts then vanishes from sight just as they're beginning to make an impression.

Artist: Widowspeak, Album: Widowspeak, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "It usually takes years of practice and several albums for bands to reach the crestfallen state Brooklyn trio Widowspeak showcase on their debut. Here, the music's poignant rush came quickly: We're told their debut single "Harsh Realm" was recorded after the band played a total of six shows. The fatalistic croon of singer/songwriter Molly Hamilton has already garnered plenty of Hope Sandoval comparisons. It would be remiss not to mention those here, as Hamilton's phrasing is often nearly identical to her most obvious influence, but there's enough variation in mood and texture to give this project a weight and balance all of its own. Much of the credit is due to the versatile guitar lines traded between Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas. At times there's a hollowed-out starkness and foreboding to the playing reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks ("Puritan"); at others there's a meshing of hippy idealism and influences extracted from bad-vibes garage rock not dissimilar to Love at their peak (see the pleasingly atonal guitar solo that ripples through "Nightcrawlers"). The latter even bears a moody 1950s tenor that sounds like Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches with the filth cleaned out of his fingernails. Anyone looking to wallow in 1990s nostalgia will find much to gorge on, too-- touchstones from that decade come thick and fast. For instance, when Hamilton's not channeling Sandoval, and when the band crawls out of the doldrums into more upbeat territory ("Gun Shy", "Half Awake"), she often resembles Madder Rose singer Mary Lorson. The skill with which Widowspeak assimilates those parts into alluring song structures is what prevents this from being an exercise in tributary. There's an ache to "Harsh Realm" that's all their own, the central vocal line ("I always think about you") bearing a downplayed creepiness that suggests Hamilton knows a thing or two about the ill effects of obsessive love. The one-two punch of "Gun Shy" and "Hard Times" are where the band hits its peak, the former combining their natural wistfulness with bouts of polished-up Link Wray guitar twang that wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to Tom DiCillo's Johnny Suede. On "Hard Times" they bend everything around a featherlight pop framework that provides a perfectly melancholy backbone to Hamilton's naturally listless demeanor: It has the right amount of sun and shade much of Widowspeak possesses, the lightness of touch in the arrangement preventing the songwriting from toppling over into unpalatable sorrow. Sometimes they don't get that balance right-- on "Fir Coat" it sounds like the song is racing away from Hamilton, and the closing "Ghost Boy" is built around the kind of Moe Tucker-inspired drumming that feels tired in the wake of legions of Brooklyn bands mining the sound over the past few years. But this is clearly the work of a group still finding its way, hammering out the kinks in public view. There's a potential here that could lead to something with a great deal more gravity. It's to Widowspeak's credit that they do make this first taste a brief peak behind the curtain: Five of the 10 songs don't go over the three-minute mark, and the entire runtime's barely half an hour. The economical use of space makes Widowspeak feel like a chance meeting with a pining stranger, one who spills their guts then vanishes from sight just as they're beginning to make an impression."

Vetiver

Tight Knit

Rock

Matthew Murphy

Just in case there was any lingering confusion, Andy Cabic and his cohorts in Vetiver did an excellent job in 2008 of further outlining their overall musical objectives. On their covers album Thing of the Past and the supplemental EP More of the Past, Vetiver paid faithful homage to a very specific brand of dazed Americana, covering songs by Townes Van Zandt, Norman Greenbaum, and Michael Hurley, as well reviving several long-lost obscurities by such lesser-known songwriters as Garland Jeffreys and Elyse Weinberg. All of the source material for these covers can be roughly dated to 1969-73 time period, and throughout their performances Vetiver showed a virtually effortless affinity for the playing and production styles of that era's folk-rock and cosmic country. Now Vetiver make their Sub Pop debut with Tight Knit, their first album of original material since 2006's To Find Me Gone and fourth album overall. Though the songs are all written by Cabic, he has learned well the lessons of Thing of the Past, and his new work remains very much in that same early-70s headspace. Produced by longtime Vetiver associate Thom Monahan, Tight Knit is built with a keen ear for detail, be it a subtle dose of pedal steel or a gently rippling guitar effect, and it features Cabic's most consistently engaging batch of songs to date. As has been the case in the past, Vetiver's roster on this album straddles the line between a full band and a Cabic solo project. On several tracks here Cabic plays all the instruments himself, while others feature the touring group that includes well-traveled drummer Otto Hauser and Currituck Co.'s guitarist Kevin Barker. To Cabic and Monahan's credit, however, these shifts in personnel are largely invisible, and the songs all hang easily together as a coherent whole. In what seems a show of Cabic's genial self-assurance, he kicks off Tight Knit with "Rolling Sea", a sun-dappled country ballad that wouldn't have startled a soul if it had drifted out of an AM radio 35 years ago. Elsewhere Cabic takes greater chances, such as on the standout "Another Reason to Go", which adds Clavinet and horns to a well-turned hippie groove that seems a distant cousin to the Grateful Dead's "Estimated Prophet." Equally memorable is the melodic "On the Other Side", whose easy gait is measured by the steady clip-clop of a drum machine, and on which Cabic issues what could be his mission statement, gently decrying those unmellow types who "get nervous and act uptight" or otherwise "fuss and fight" before he helpfully points out "that just ain't my speed." Nice and midtempo-- that's more Cabic's speed. And even at its most innovative, Tight Knit still finds Vetiver returning time and again to the familiar shores of West Coast country-rock and the untroubled pace of their Thing of the Past forefathers. Yet in the face of Cabic's relentless positive vibrations it feels somehow unacceptably churlish to say harsh words against either the driving, Gene Clark rhythms of "Everyday" and "More of This" or the dreamy, pastoral folk of the closing "At Forest Edge". With their boundaries and ambitions by now well established, on Tight Knit Cabic and company largely succeed in luring the listener hazily back in time and into Vetiver's comfort zone.

Artist: Vetiver, Album: Tight Knit, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Just in case there was any lingering confusion, Andy Cabic and his cohorts in Vetiver did an excellent job in 2008 of further outlining their overall musical objectives. On their covers album Thing of the Past and the supplemental EP More of the Past, Vetiver paid faithful homage to a very specific brand of dazed Americana, covering songs by Townes Van Zandt, Norman Greenbaum, and Michael Hurley, as well reviving several long-lost obscurities by such lesser-known songwriters as Garland Jeffreys and Elyse Weinberg. All of the source material for these covers can be roughly dated to 1969-73 time period, and throughout their performances Vetiver showed a virtually effortless affinity for the playing and production styles of that era's folk-rock and cosmic country. Now Vetiver make their Sub Pop debut with Tight Knit, their first album of original material since 2006's To Find Me Gone and fourth album overall. Though the songs are all written by Cabic, he has learned well the lessons of Thing of the Past, and his new work remains very much in that same early-70s headspace. Produced by longtime Vetiver associate Thom Monahan, Tight Knit is built with a keen ear for detail, be it a subtle dose of pedal steel or a gently rippling guitar effect, and it features Cabic's most consistently engaging batch of songs to date. As has been the case in the past, Vetiver's roster on this album straddles the line between a full band and a Cabic solo project. On several tracks here Cabic plays all the instruments himself, while others feature the touring group that includes well-traveled drummer Otto Hauser and Currituck Co.'s guitarist Kevin Barker. To Cabic and Monahan's credit, however, these shifts in personnel are largely invisible, and the songs all hang easily together as a coherent whole. In what seems a show of Cabic's genial self-assurance, he kicks off Tight Knit with "Rolling Sea", a sun-dappled country ballad that wouldn't have startled a soul if it had drifted out of an AM radio 35 years ago. Elsewhere Cabic takes greater chances, such as on the standout "Another Reason to Go", which adds Clavinet and horns to a well-turned hippie groove that seems a distant cousin to the Grateful Dead's "Estimated Prophet." Equally memorable is the melodic "On the Other Side", whose easy gait is measured by the steady clip-clop of a drum machine, and on which Cabic issues what could be his mission statement, gently decrying those unmellow types who "get nervous and act uptight" or otherwise "fuss and fight" before he helpfully points out "that just ain't my speed." Nice and midtempo-- that's more Cabic's speed. And even at its most innovative, Tight Knit still finds Vetiver returning time and again to the familiar shores of West Coast country-rock and the untroubled pace of their Thing of the Past forefathers. Yet in the face of Cabic's relentless positive vibrations it feels somehow unacceptably churlish to say harsh words against either the driving, Gene Clark rhythms of "Everyday" and "More of This" or the dreamy, pastoral folk of the closing "At Forest Edge". With their boundaries and ambitions by now well established, on Tight Knit Cabic and company largely succeed in luring the listener hazily back in time and into Vetiver's comfort zone."

Mull Historical Society

Us

Rock

Rob Mitchum

If I had a nemesis in the ruthless world of indie rock, it would have to be Dan Bejar. Nothing against the man personally-- I'm sure he's a noble Canadian and all-- but nobody else in his profession inspires stronger feelings of rage in my bosom. His last album, This Night, was a throwback slice of 70s singer/songwriter excess: self-indulgent, bloated, nonsensical. Maybe if Bejar restricted himself to his other band, Destroyer, I could peacefully ignore him, yet he insists upon sullying the good name of The New Pornographers with his phoned-in, momentum-desiccating contributions. Grrrrr. And I don't drop this piece of character assassination to serve as mere see-saw balance to the frequent Bejar gushing put forth by Matt-ador LeMay in this webspace; this is full-disclosure pre-opinion, because if I were to describe Mull Historical Society (formerly a duo, now just auteur Colin MacIntyre) as the Scottish Destroyer, it would be just about the cruelest entry in my slambook. But for you, loyal Pitchfork reader, such a comparison could possibly be a glowing recommendation. Diff'rent strokes, y'see. Similarities: a voice firmly rooted in his throat (though slightly less squawky than Bejar's, not to mention more appealing), a love for the lush-pop era of Jackson Browne and peers, and a preference for working alone. Differences: MacIntyre possesses an alternate voice for versatility beyond talk-singing every tune, offers less forced-juxtaposition poetry, and is somewhat more genteel in instrumentation-- due to that whole British thing. The most profound resemblance between the two "groups" is the frustrating (if occasional) glimpse of melodic skill buried amidst the cliches and mediocrity, pleading for an editor or equal collaborator to swoop in and excavate. Opener "The Final Arrears" wields a sharp hook of a chorus, but the syrupy, wistful post-Britpop verses blunt the impact. "Minister for Genetics and Insurance M.P." shows glimpses of wry, Steely Dan-saluting jazz-rock, and "The Supermarket Strikes Back" is infectious and pleasant, but with over-glossed production and humdrum structure, it veers a little too close to a particular amphibious Wet Sprocket for comfort. While I'm taking cheap shots, I should add that it just... pisses in my tea how critics (including the grand old NY Times) can take the non sequiturs Bejar shovels for serious poetry (what the hell is "I flew into a lesbian rage" supposed to mean?) And yet, for all his faults, Destroyer-man has never penned anything as trite as "Asylum", which pleads "place it on the sunny side of me" like it can't wait to soundtrack a montage of a couple tearfully packing up their respective things before tearfully booking their respective breakup flights on Expedia.com. MacIntyre isn't afraid of getting his hands a little sappy, whether slow-dancing ("Don't Take Your Love Away from Me") or biting Yorke's "High and Dry" falsetto to emote "can anyone feel anything inside of me?" on "Can". Actually, in light of that simpering, Destroyer-lovers might want to scratch the above backhanded recommendation. Though Mull Historical Society is an act one could easily file under "pleasant-enough pop," at 13 tracks (plus a bonus disc!), MacIntyre's strictly 80bpm velvet-lined melancholia will test the patience of any Anglophile. My dislike of Daniel Bejar might be some volatile mixture of irrationality, priggishness, and psychosis, but one thing it's not is unfair, and McIntyre is not quite up to the level of ruining New Pornographers albums.

Artist: Mull Historical Society, Album: Us, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.1 Album review: "If I had a nemesis in the ruthless world of indie rock, it would have to be Dan Bejar. Nothing against the man personally-- I'm sure he's a noble Canadian and all-- but nobody else in his profession inspires stronger feelings of rage in my bosom. His last album, This Night, was a throwback slice of 70s singer/songwriter excess: self-indulgent, bloated, nonsensical. Maybe if Bejar restricted himself to his other band, Destroyer, I could peacefully ignore him, yet he insists upon sullying the good name of The New Pornographers with his phoned-in, momentum-desiccating contributions. Grrrrr. And I don't drop this piece of character assassination to serve as mere see-saw balance to the frequent Bejar gushing put forth by Matt-ador LeMay in this webspace; this is full-disclosure pre-opinion, because if I were to describe Mull Historical Society (formerly a duo, now just auteur Colin MacIntyre) as the Scottish Destroyer, it would be just about the cruelest entry in my slambook. But for you, loyal Pitchfork reader, such a comparison could possibly be a glowing recommendation. Diff'rent strokes, y'see. Similarities: a voice firmly rooted in his throat (though slightly less squawky than Bejar's, not to mention more appealing), a love for the lush-pop era of Jackson Browne and peers, and a preference for working alone. Differences: MacIntyre possesses an alternate voice for versatility beyond talk-singing every tune, offers less forced-juxtaposition poetry, and is somewhat more genteel in instrumentation-- due to that whole British thing. The most profound resemblance between the two "groups" is the frustrating (if occasional) glimpse of melodic skill buried amidst the cliches and mediocrity, pleading for an editor or equal collaborator to swoop in and excavate. Opener "The Final Arrears" wields a sharp hook of a chorus, but the syrupy, wistful post-Britpop verses blunt the impact. "Minister for Genetics and Insurance M.P." shows glimpses of wry, Steely Dan-saluting jazz-rock, and "The Supermarket Strikes Back" is infectious and pleasant, but with over-glossed production and humdrum structure, it veers a little too close to a particular amphibious Wet Sprocket for comfort. While I'm taking cheap shots, I should add that it just... pisses in my tea how critics (including the grand old NY Times) can take the non sequiturs Bejar shovels for serious poetry (what the hell is "I flew into a lesbian rage" supposed to mean?) And yet, for all his faults, Destroyer-man has never penned anything as trite as "Asylum", which pleads "place it on the sunny side of me" like it can't wait to soundtrack a montage of a couple tearfully packing up their respective things before tearfully booking their respective breakup flights on Expedia.com. MacIntyre isn't afraid of getting his hands a little sappy, whether slow-dancing ("Don't Take Your Love Away from Me") or biting Yorke's "High and Dry" falsetto to emote "can anyone feel anything inside of me?" on "Can". Actually, in light of that simpering, Destroyer-lovers might want to scratch the above backhanded recommendation. Though Mull Historical Society is an act one could easily file under "pleasant-enough pop," at 13 tracks (plus a bonus disc!), MacIntyre's strictly 80bpm velvet-lined melancholia will test the patience of any Anglophile. My dislike of Daniel Bejar might be some volatile mixture of irrationality, priggishness, and psychosis, but one thing it's not is unfair, and McIntyre is not quite up to the level of ruining New Pornographers albums."

LoDeck

Dream Dentistry

Rap

Rollie Pemberton

One of the defining features of underground hip-hop is how the two most contentious factors to success are so opposite. The artists with the largest fanbases are either deeply rooted in tradition or defined by their eccentricity. The ones with the most important impact, however, have a certain way of combining both portions into a single, equal serving. Falling upon this ambiguous sub-region is Johnny23 Records CEO and artist LoDeck, with his debut LP, Dream Dentistry. A concise arrangement of philosophical pondering and bass-heavy beats, the album is driven by Deck's rhyming style. He writes like Aesop Rock mixed with Redman, but his hung-over, rusty, cracking New Yorker vocals and devil-may-care charisma call for comparison to rappers like Sticky Fingaz and MF Doom. In short: LoDeck raps like the Ivy League freshman that went to Daytona Beach for Spring Break and never came back to school. A natural New York-dirty punchline master, LoDeck attempts to power you into his fanclub with subtle jabs and crosses. Not only is he "too ill/ Like Eazy-E at 'Tha Crossroads'," but if he's "too predictable," he'll "twist up like Blanka." Even when he spits out "The Russian ain't playin'/ My real name is Boris," his delivery redeems the randomness of the line. His concepts include the negatives of the idiot box on "Inside the TV", the misunderstandings surrounding the societal standing of underground emcees on "Applause" ("You want a satellite dish? All us rappers are rich!"), and the nature of affection on the aptly titled "Love". LoDeck's major issue is that his meandering stream-of-consciousness flow often sacrifices coherency, topical restraint and consistency for a tighter flow, which, by the end of most of his tracks, tends lose any of the concepts he began with. It does make for an enjoyably raw listening experience but a level of sustained conceptual depth could help him to cross the bridge into Classic County. "Word is Virus" is a highlight, regardless of the lame freezing glitch-hop beat and corny vocal sample, featuring Paramount and sub-underground superhero Mac Lethal. After LoDeck proclaims his "loopy crew acts like soccer thugs with one goal" and that he's "blessed with the same charm that freezes cobras," Paramount sleepwalks through a flow-oriented verse, leaving room for Lethal to steal the show. Opening by pantomiming Beanie Sigel, Mac twists and contorts his delivery around his Midwest battle style, offering a loose, bouncy alternative to the stark ambiguity of Deck and Paramount: "Your crew's about as thuggy as the Shriners/ Rocking turbans made out of trash can liners." Flanked by producers FredONE, Chum Chopz, Big DeEP and perennial Aesop Rock beatmaker Blockhead, the beats on Dream Dentistry definitely disappoint when paired with LoDeck's vocal assault. The Blockhead compositions rise above the others with the aura of professionalism that made LoDeck's Bash It! EP such a stark triumph-- unfortunately, nothing on this record touches "Stethoscope Alley" or "I Pollute" in the realm of production. Chum Chopz, in particular, is hit/miss. "Watchtower" runs romper stomper with hard drums and a spiral staircase bassline that works well, but "Love" is rendered almost unlistenable by tinny guitar licks and a sloppy choral vocal sample. Of course, even if his lack of song structure and freeform rhyming throws some people off, LoDeck has clearly evolved his lyrical status since the ridiculously dope Bash It! EP; it's just that, here, he's lost the beats, and still yet to gain songwriting focus. His next project could hold a deeper listening experience; in the meantime, Dream Dentistry remains a powerful testament to his novel rap style.

Artist: LoDeck, Album: Dream Dentistry, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "One of the defining features of underground hip-hop is how the two most contentious factors to success are so opposite. The artists with the largest fanbases are either deeply rooted in tradition or defined by their eccentricity. The ones with the most important impact, however, have a certain way of combining both portions into a single, equal serving. Falling upon this ambiguous sub-region is Johnny23 Records CEO and artist LoDeck, with his debut LP, Dream Dentistry. A concise arrangement of philosophical pondering and bass-heavy beats, the album is driven by Deck's rhyming style. He writes like Aesop Rock mixed with Redman, but his hung-over, rusty, cracking New Yorker vocals and devil-may-care charisma call for comparison to rappers like Sticky Fingaz and MF Doom. In short: LoDeck raps like the Ivy League freshman that went to Daytona Beach for Spring Break and never came back to school. A natural New York-dirty punchline master, LoDeck attempts to power you into his fanclub with subtle jabs and crosses. Not only is he "too ill/ Like Eazy-E at 'Tha Crossroads'," but if he's "too predictable," he'll "twist up like Blanka." Even when he spits out "The Russian ain't playin'/ My real name is Boris," his delivery redeems the randomness of the line. His concepts include the negatives of the idiot box on "Inside the TV", the misunderstandings surrounding the societal standing of underground emcees on "Applause" ("You want a satellite dish? All us rappers are rich!"), and the nature of affection on the aptly titled "Love". LoDeck's major issue is that his meandering stream-of-consciousness flow often sacrifices coherency, topical restraint and consistency for a tighter flow, which, by the end of most of his tracks, tends lose any of the concepts he began with. It does make for an enjoyably raw listening experience but a level of sustained conceptual depth could help him to cross the bridge into Classic County. "Word is Virus" is a highlight, regardless of the lame freezing glitch-hop beat and corny vocal sample, featuring Paramount and sub-underground superhero Mac Lethal. After LoDeck proclaims his "loopy crew acts like soccer thugs with one goal" and that he's "blessed with the same charm that freezes cobras," Paramount sleepwalks through a flow-oriented verse, leaving room for Lethal to steal the show. Opening by pantomiming Beanie Sigel, Mac twists and contorts his delivery around his Midwest battle style, offering a loose, bouncy alternative to the stark ambiguity of Deck and Paramount: "Your crew's about as thuggy as the Shriners/ Rocking turbans made out of trash can liners." Flanked by producers FredONE, Chum Chopz, Big DeEP and perennial Aesop Rock beatmaker Blockhead, the beats on Dream Dentistry definitely disappoint when paired with LoDeck's vocal assault. The Blockhead compositions rise above the others with the aura of professionalism that made LoDeck's Bash It! EP such a stark triumph-- unfortunately, nothing on this record touches "Stethoscope Alley" or "I Pollute" in the realm of production. Chum Chopz, in particular, is hit/miss. "Watchtower" runs romper stomper with hard drums and a spiral staircase bassline that works well, but "Love" is rendered almost unlistenable by tinny guitar licks and a sloppy choral vocal sample. Of course, even if his lack of song structure and freeform rhyming throws some people off, LoDeck has clearly evolved his lyrical status since the ridiculously dope Bash It! EP; it's just that, here, he's lost the beats, and still yet to gain songwriting focus. His next project could hold a deeper listening experience; in the meantime, Dream Dentistry remains a powerful testament to his novel rap style."

Emil’ana Torrini

Me and Armini

Joshua Klein

The middle's a pretty big place, making room for everyone from pop floozies to coffee house snoozes. Even then, Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini (her dad's Italian) has never seemed sure just where in the middle she wanted to be. Love in the Time of Science was tinged with trip-hop. 2005's Fisherman's Woman was spare folk à la Beth Orton, somewhat hazy but far from crazy. And now, with Me and Armini, her sixth album, Torrini has shifted gears once again, however slightly, to that middle-of-the-road spot most rife for subversion-- amorphous, soul-jazzy adult alternative. The move fits her. Torrini's voice is pleasant but also pretty anonymous, so it's therefore well-suited to any number of (mostly mellow) musical settings. Against a backdrop of generally acoustic guitars and gentle backbeats, Torrini doesn't aim to shake you up but to settle you down. Hers is a voice built to soothe, and the unobtrusive grooves of Me and Armini serve a similar purpose. Yet, like those slightly raised reflectors running alongside the dotted yellow line, even the middle leaves some room to stick out. Without going too far leftfield, Me and Armini manages to reshape the mold ever so slightly, thanks to some savvy production choices that keep the songs from becoming too dull. "Birds", for example, begins as yet another introspective fingerpicked bore before it's transformed by an unexpected space-rock interlude. "Heard It All Before" is a torch song set against a strikingly off-beat backing track, a bit like "Summertime" by way of recent Radiohead. "Ha Ha" occupies rueful territory not unlike that occupied by glum queen Lisa Germano, with Torrini milking her voice for maximum breathiness, while the stacked vocals that kick in half way through "Beggar's Prayer" save the song. The cool studio tomfoolery of "Dead Duck" subsumes, chops up, and spits out Torrini's vocals like they're just another instrument swimming in the mix. It's not all interesting, however. Songs like those are countered by tracks like the insufferable "Big Jumps" and "Jungle Drum", each featuring annoying onomatopoetic ticks that come off more cute than clever and cast far too much attention on some terrible lyrics (at least the latter ends with some raucous guitar and tops off at barely two minutes long). Elsewhere, the milquetoast ska of the title track plays it too safe, sounding like Morcheeba a decade late, while "Hold Heart" recedes further into the background by going the banal bossa nova route. But for all its various and relatively varied highs and low, towering above the record is the snarling, ear-catching and miraculously not totally out of place "Gun", a song that drips with tension, atmosphere, and Serge Gainsbourg-meets-Polly Harvey cool, earning extra points for steadily, perversely inching toward a huge release that never arrives. It's a remarkable little dirge, all bared teeth menace that makes you wish the rest of the album had more bite. It's enough to perk you up from your skim latte and wonder what the hell it was you just heard before turning your attention back to perusing the morning paper.

Artist: Emil’ana Torrini, Album: Me and Armini, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 5.9 Album review: "The middle's a pretty big place, making room for everyone from pop floozies to coffee house snoozes. Even then, Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini (her dad's Italian) has never seemed sure just where in the middle she wanted to be. Love in the Time of Science was tinged with trip-hop. 2005's Fisherman's Woman was spare folk à la Beth Orton, somewhat hazy but far from crazy. And now, with Me and Armini, her sixth album, Torrini has shifted gears once again, however slightly, to that middle-of-the-road spot most rife for subversion-- amorphous, soul-jazzy adult alternative. The move fits her. Torrini's voice is pleasant but also pretty anonymous, so it's therefore well-suited to any number of (mostly mellow) musical settings. Against a backdrop of generally acoustic guitars and gentle backbeats, Torrini doesn't aim to shake you up but to settle you down. Hers is a voice built to soothe, and the unobtrusive grooves of Me and Armini serve a similar purpose. Yet, like those slightly raised reflectors running alongside the dotted yellow line, even the middle leaves some room to stick out. Without going too far leftfield, Me and Armini manages to reshape the mold ever so slightly, thanks to some savvy production choices that keep the songs from becoming too dull. "Birds", for example, begins as yet another introspective fingerpicked bore before it's transformed by an unexpected space-rock interlude. "Heard It All Before" is a torch song set against a strikingly off-beat backing track, a bit like "Summertime" by way of recent Radiohead. "Ha Ha" occupies rueful territory not unlike that occupied by glum queen Lisa Germano, with Torrini milking her voice for maximum breathiness, while the stacked vocals that kick in half way through "Beggar's Prayer" save the song. The cool studio tomfoolery of "Dead Duck" subsumes, chops up, and spits out Torrini's vocals like they're just another instrument swimming in the mix. It's not all interesting, however. Songs like those are countered by tracks like the insufferable "Big Jumps" and "Jungle Drum", each featuring annoying onomatopoetic ticks that come off more cute than clever and cast far too much attention on some terrible lyrics (at least the latter ends with some raucous guitar and tops off at barely two minutes long). Elsewhere, the milquetoast ska of the title track plays it too safe, sounding like Morcheeba a decade late, while "Hold Heart" recedes further into the background by going the banal bossa nova route. But for all its various and relatively varied highs and low, towering above the record is the snarling, ear-catching and miraculously not totally out of place "Gun", a song that drips with tension, atmosphere, and Serge Gainsbourg-meets-Polly Harvey cool, earning extra points for steadily, perversely inching toward a huge release that never arrives. It's a remarkable little dirge, all bared teeth menace that makes you wish the rest of the album had more bite. It's enough to perk you up from your skim latte and wonder what the hell it was you just heard before turning your attention back to perusing the morning paper."

Biosphere

Shenzhou

Experimental

Paul Cooper

"Shenzhou", aside from being the name of the Chinese manned-spaceflight vehicles, means "magic vessel", and I can't imagine a more apt description for Geir Jenssen's latest excursion into ambient deep listening. After following an Aphexian trajectory with his releases on Apollo, the ambient sublabel of Belgium's R&S; Records, Jenssen veered from the padded sci-fi-inspired techno of Microgravity and Patashnik with 1997's Substrata, a genre-defining exploration of drifting soundscapes. Substrata remains for many the album that perfectly expresses the serenity and intensity of Arctic wildernesses, a landscape Jenssen knows intimately, having spent much of his life in the Norwegian Arctic Circle. In 2000, Jenssen nearly eclipsed the success of Substrata with Cirque, a frequently frosty submerging of excerpted conversations and found environmental sounds that rivals Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project in its rumbling, gauzy beauty. Jenssen again relies on found sound as source material for Shenzhou, but this time, the found sound is old vinyl recordings of the orchestral works of French Impressionist composer and ambient precursor, Claude Debussy. Jenssen lifts fragments of these scratched records in a similar manner as he did for Cirque's "Black Lamb Grey Falcon" and "Iberia Eterea". The ten tracks (out of the dozen on the album) that follow this model all begin as a barely audible hum, like a small electrical transformer, out of which the dust-dappled loops of Debussy's woodwind, brass, and strings emerge, condense, and fade out into pink noise rustles. Unlike Steve Reich's phase pieces or Brian Eno's Discreet Music, though, Jenssen doesn't set his loops against each other to produce juxtapositions and piquant dissonance; he uses them to describe imagined terrain, at first glance monotonously flat and barren, but on concentration, replete with minute detailing. The overall effect of these pieces is a sense of immensity. The orchestral loops sound distant, abandoned in a vast wilderness, and strenuously battling against Arctic winds. Jenssen sets the listener down in this wilderness as an aloof observer, a witness to the music's futile struggles against entropic forces. The two tracks not derived from Debussy share the same hypnotic aesthetic. The brief interlude "Bose-Einstein Condension" is a loop of piano chords lolloping in search of coherence, while "Gravity Assist" is a longer voyage into woofer-quaking low-frequency manipulation, bell-like drones, and contrails of subdued noise. I can't help but feel that these tracks fit awkwardly and break up the conceptual flow of the album. This, however, is a minor quibble given the power of this music. Shenzhou is unquestionably a magic vessel, but one that reveals its enchantment only to those who pay close attention.

Artist: Biosphere, Album: Shenzhou, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: ""Shenzhou", aside from being the name of the Chinese manned-spaceflight vehicles, means "magic vessel", and I can't imagine a more apt description for Geir Jenssen's latest excursion into ambient deep listening. After following an Aphexian trajectory with his releases on Apollo, the ambient sublabel of Belgium's R&S; Records, Jenssen veered from the padded sci-fi-inspired techno of Microgravity and Patashnik with 1997's Substrata, a genre-defining exploration of drifting soundscapes. Substrata remains for many the album that perfectly expresses the serenity and intensity of Arctic wildernesses, a landscape Jenssen knows intimately, having spent much of his life in the Norwegian Arctic Circle. In 2000, Jenssen nearly eclipsed the success of Substrata with Cirque, a frequently frosty submerging of excerpted conversations and found environmental sounds that rivals Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project in its rumbling, gauzy beauty. Jenssen again relies on found sound as source material for Shenzhou, but this time, the found sound is old vinyl recordings of the orchestral works of French Impressionist composer and ambient precursor, Claude Debussy. Jenssen lifts fragments of these scratched records in a similar manner as he did for Cirque's "Black Lamb Grey Falcon" and "Iberia Eterea". The ten tracks (out of the dozen on the album) that follow this model all begin as a barely audible hum, like a small electrical transformer, out of which the dust-dappled loops of Debussy's woodwind, brass, and strings emerge, condense, and fade out into pink noise rustles. Unlike Steve Reich's phase pieces or Brian Eno's Discreet Music, though, Jenssen doesn't set his loops against each other to produce juxtapositions and piquant dissonance; he uses them to describe imagined terrain, at first glance monotonously flat and barren, but on concentration, replete with minute detailing. The overall effect of these pieces is a sense of immensity. The orchestral loops sound distant, abandoned in a vast wilderness, and strenuously battling against Arctic winds. Jenssen sets the listener down in this wilderness as an aloof observer, a witness to the music's futile struggles against entropic forces. The two tracks not derived from Debussy share the same hypnotic aesthetic. The brief interlude "Bose-Einstein Condension" is a loop of piano chords lolloping in search of coherence, while "Gravity Assist" is a longer voyage into woofer-quaking low-frequency manipulation, bell-like drones, and contrails of subdued noise. I can't help but feel that these tracks fit awkwardly and break up the conceptual flow of the album. This, however, is a minor quibble given the power of this music. Shenzhou is unquestionably a magic vessel, but one that reveals its enchantment only to those who pay close attention."

Brandon Flowers

The Desired Effect

Rock

Jeremy D. Larson

Brandon Flowers is hard to pin down as a pop star, in part because he's still playing at being a pop star. After he stepped into the limelight on the Killers’ still-terrific debut at 22-years-old, he made three more records with his band full of bona fide arena anthems as well as cheap knock-offs that substitute as arena anthems. The latter is why it's advisable to skip over most of his 2010 solo debut Flamingos, if only because the beige, desert-tinged production says and adds very little to his songwriting. The album is clunky and rote even by the Flowers metric. But with the help of Grammy-winning producer Ariel Rechtshaid, The Desired Effect gives Flowers new backdrops to play around in. Rechtshaid doesn’t mine the '80s and '90s for inspiration like he's done for Haim, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, and many others recently. Instead, he straight up jacks that sound, aiming directly at those fond of the calmer side of Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, or Peter Gabriel. Electric guitars are swapped out for chugging piano lines, hand-clap snares, and melismas sung by anonymous background singers; never mind the inclusion of special guest Bruce Hornsby, a song that samples Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" and features Neil Tennant on vocals, and floppy disc after floppy disc worth of synth patches. Credit to Rechtshaid, the album’s big and luxe sound fits Flowers' big and luxe voice. When they sync up in this milieu, against all odds, it works really well. Above these glossy textures, Flowers doubles down on his earnest goobery, which actually brings him closer to this ideal pop star image he's been chasing. Not since Sam’s Town has Flowers sounded so at home in song. "Can’t Deny My Love" is a masterclass in '80s production tricks (wooden pan flutes! pitch-wavering synth pads! orchestra hits!) with one of those famous, powerful hooks that made him so likable to begin with. It’s cheesy, but the cluster-bomb of ideas is ultimately what makes you want to go back for repeat listens. Likewise, on the mid-tempo ballad "Never Get You Right" Flowers finds the perfect equation for his sincerity and hyperbole. Again, it’s the hook and his voice that do most of the heavy lifting, but the song works because of a simple idea. You look at someone you know and love (who in Flowers' case is possibly a sex worker) and think how "They’ll turn you into something whether you are it or not/ But they’ll never get you right." There are more huge Killers-ready songs to fill stadiums or casinos ("Dreams Come True" and "Untangled Love") and hoary love songs ("Still Want You"), but Flowers can’t help but trip over himself as he’s writing. He’s just so daffy. He sings "Friday nights, football stands" and you just pray the sports imagery stops there, but sure enough, he follows it up with "been fumbled by so many hands." It’s always just one move too many. Sometimes he reaches for the cliché like "ship of fools" or "casting...stones" and sometimes he does some gangly inversion of one, like, "She wasn't having anything, no birds or any bees/ Girl, don't go shootin' all the dogs down just cause one's got fleas." At best, Flowers is too wordy and obvious. At worst, he is BruceSpringsteen_ebooks, cobbling together blue-collar American signifiers in odd arrays that appear to have meaning but are really just empty gestures. "Whether the people want to accept it or not, we might be the best band in the last long time!” said Flowers regarding the Killers in a recent interview. This quote is great because it says everything you need to know about Flowers as a songwriter: He believes deeply in himself by way of absurd and often extra-grammatical reasons. At his essence, Flowers is a big beating heart that under too much scrutiny will shrivel and die. He is bound for excess and Desired Effect delivers on precisely that, at precisely the level you’d imagine a happily married, 33-year-old with millions of dollars in the bank would. Don’t think too much about the heavy-handed religiosity on "The Way It’s Always Been" or the the heartland rock aberration "Diggin' Up the Heart". Just let his words wash over you, subtly, like being tackled by 20 puppies. Flowers gives off charm and stupidity in the same breath and it is as comforting as it is disposable. It’s the mark of a pretty good pop star.

Artist: Brandon Flowers, Album: The Desired Effect, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.6 Album review: "Brandon Flowers is hard to pin down as a pop star, in part because he's still playing at being a pop star. After he stepped into the limelight on the Killers’ still-terrific debut at 22-years-old, he made three more records with his band full of bona fide arena anthems as well as cheap knock-offs that substitute as arena anthems. The latter is why it's advisable to skip over most of his 2010 solo debut Flamingos, if only because the beige, desert-tinged production says and adds very little to his songwriting. The album is clunky and rote even by the Flowers metric. But with the help of Grammy-winning producer Ariel Rechtshaid, The Desired Effect gives Flowers new backdrops to play around in. Rechtshaid doesn’t mine the '80s and '90s for inspiration like he's done for Haim, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, and many others recently. Instead, he straight up jacks that sound, aiming directly at those fond of the calmer side of Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, or Peter Gabriel. Electric guitars are swapped out for chugging piano lines, hand-clap snares, and melismas sung by anonymous background singers; never mind the inclusion of special guest Bruce Hornsby, a song that samples Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" and features Neil Tennant on vocals, and floppy disc after floppy disc worth of synth patches. Credit to Rechtshaid, the album’s big and luxe sound fits Flowers' big and luxe voice. When they sync up in this milieu, against all odds, it works really well. Above these glossy textures, Flowers doubles down on his earnest goobery, which actually brings him closer to this ideal pop star image he's been chasing. Not since Sam’s Town has Flowers sounded so at home in song. "Can’t Deny My Love" is a masterclass in '80s production tricks (wooden pan flutes! pitch-wavering synth pads! orchestra hits!) with one of those famous, powerful hooks that made him so likable to begin with. It’s cheesy, but the cluster-bomb of ideas is ultimately what makes you want to go back for repeat listens. Likewise, on the mid-tempo ballad "Never Get You Right" Flowers finds the perfect equation for his sincerity and hyperbole. Again, it’s the hook and his voice that do most of the heavy lifting, but the song works because of a simple idea. You look at someone you know and love (who in Flowers' case is possibly a sex worker) and think how "They’ll turn you into something whether you are it or not/ But they’ll never get you right." There are more huge Killers-ready songs to fill stadiums or casinos ("Dreams Come True" and "Untangled Love") and hoary love songs ("Still Want You"), but Flowers can’t help but trip over himself as he’s writing. He’s just so daffy. He sings "Friday nights, football stands" and you just pray the sports imagery stops there, but sure enough, he follows it up with "been fumbled by so many hands." It’s always just one move too many. Sometimes he reaches for the cliché like "ship of fools" or "casting...stones" and sometimes he does some gangly inversion of one, like, "She wasn't having anything, no birds or any bees/ Girl, don't go shootin' all the dogs down just cause one's got fleas." At best, Flowers is too wordy and obvious. At worst, he is BruceSpringsteen_ebooks, cobbling together blue-collar American signifiers in odd arrays that appear to have meaning but are really just empty gestures. "Whether the people want to accept it or not, we might be the best band in the last long time!” said Flowers regarding the Killers in a recent interview. This quote is great because it says everything you need to know about Flowers as a songwriter: He believes deeply in himself by way of absurd and often extra-grammatical reasons. At his essence, Flowers is a big beating heart that under too much scrutiny will shrivel and die. He is bound for excess and Desired Effect delivers on precisely that, at precisely the level you’d imagine a happily married, 33-year-old with millions of dollars in the bank would. Don’t think too much about the heavy-handed religiosity on "The Way It’s Always Been" or the the heartland rock aberration "Diggin' Up the Heart". Just let his words wash over you, subtly, like being tackled by 20 puppies. Flowers gives off charm and stupidity in the same breath and it is as comforting as it is disposable. It’s the mark of a pretty good pop star."

Mavis Staples

Live: Hope at the Hideout

Pop/R&B

Amy Granzin

However tomorrow's presidential election turns out, Barack Obama's candidacy is itself a victory. That's what Mavis Staples-- a longtime social justice warrior who marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., and soundtracked, with her Staples siblings and father Pops, the civil rights movement-- would likely tell you. Releasing a live album of freedom songs on this election day is a deliberate gesture, but maybe a more nuanced one than people might expect. Staples (like a lot of us), may fervently hope for an Obama win and would probably be the first to enumerate the items remaining on the civil-rights task list, but the gospel/R&B/pop legend has always favored King's peaceful progressive-Christian theology that privileges the "good news" over the agitating, even when good news is scant and there's plenty to agitate about. Sounding like a charismatic preacher, Staples frames her performance for the audience, "We've come here tonight to bring you some joy, some happiness, inspiration, and some positive vibrations! We want to leave you with enough to last you for maybe the next six months". The crowd that converged on Chicago's cozy, laid-back Hideout this past June are enthused, but polite (and probably a bit awestruck), as she launches with gusto into protest-era standard "Eyes on the Prize". For its well-mannered, highly expectant air, it could be an Obama rally. Subdued audience aside, Staples-- even at 69-- is a geyser of ferocity and depth. Her voice gets a little grizzly performing "Wade in the Water" in the sub-basement of her (already low) natural range, and she requests crowd participation to bolster her understandably weary pipes on finale "I'll Take You There", but her energy is gobsmacking. Following a raucous rendition of "Freedom Highway", which the three-piece band plays as a runaway bus on a rural road, culminating in much cymbal smashing and jubilant howls, Staples apologizes, "I get so all up into it. You know, when the spirit hits you, you've got to move!" But Staples is no saint. In contrast to her demure, choir-backed performance on 2007's superlative studio album We'll Never Turn Back, she sounds lusty and provocative over "This Little Light"'s scruffy guitar riffs, veering often in the same phrase between outrage and "joy-- joy, joy, joy!" "Light" and blues moaner "Down in Mississippi" support-- like most great R&B-- he tenet that the sacred and secular, spiritual and carnal aren't mutually exclusive, and that passion is passion whether exercised as faith, anger, love or lust. Considering that these days Staples' fans probably include just as many of the godless as the church-going, her knack for translating religious experience makes her music ecumenical and inclusive unlike, for example, much contemporary Christian rock. That said, probably the most overtly religious number on her setlist, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", a traditional song closely associated with the Carter Family-- and the first Pops taught his Staples brood to perform-- receives the Hideout audience's warmest embrace. Throughout the performance, Staples' band and trio of backup singers are ideal support players-- tight, professional, and mostly unobtrusive, never threatening to upstage Staples the way some of Ry Cooder's (admittedly spectacular) Never Turn Back production fireworks do. Of course, Staples has never been one of those velvet roped-off divas. If Live: Hope at the Hideout captures something her studio work doesn't, it's her approachability, her genuine audience rapport. Like all the great politicians, Mavis Staples has a gift for the common touch.

Artist: Mavis Staples, Album: Live: Hope at the Hideout, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "However tomorrow's presidential election turns out, Barack Obama's candidacy is itself a victory. That's what Mavis Staples-- a longtime social justice warrior who marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., and soundtracked, with her Staples siblings and father Pops, the civil rights movement-- would likely tell you. Releasing a live album of freedom songs on this election day is a deliberate gesture, but maybe a more nuanced one than people might expect. Staples (like a lot of us), may fervently hope for an Obama win and would probably be the first to enumerate the items remaining on the civil-rights task list, but the gospel/R&B/pop legend has always favored King's peaceful progressive-Christian theology that privileges the "good news" over the agitating, even when good news is scant and there's plenty to agitate about. Sounding like a charismatic preacher, Staples frames her performance for the audience, "We've come here tonight to bring you some joy, some happiness, inspiration, and some positive vibrations! We want to leave you with enough to last you for maybe the next six months". The crowd that converged on Chicago's cozy, laid-back Hideout this past June are enthused, but polite (and probably a bit awestruck), as she launches with gusto into protest-era standard "Eyes on the Prize". For its well-mannered, highly expectant air, it could be an Obama rally. Subdued audience aside, Staples-- even at 69-- is a geyser of ferocity and depth. Her voice gets a little grizzly performing "Wade in the Water" in the sub-basement of her (already low) natural range, and she requests crowd participation to bolster her understandably weary pipes on finale "I'll Take You There", but her energy is gobsmacking. Following a raucous rendition of "Freedom Highway", which the three-piece band plays as a runaway bus on a rural road, culminating in much cymbal smashing and jubilant howls, Staples apologizes, "I get so all up into it. You know, when the spirit hits you, you've got to move!" But Staples is no saint. In contrast to her demure, choir-backed performance on 2007's superlative studio album We'll Never Turn Back, she sounds lusty and provocative over "This Little Light"'s scruffy guitar riffs, veering often in the same phrase between outrage and "joy-- joy, joy, joy!" "Light" and blues moaner "Down in Mississippi" support-- like most great R&B-- he tenet that the sacred and secular, spiritual and carnal aren't mutually exclusive, and that passion is passion whether exercised as faith, anger, love or lust. Considering that these days Staples' fans probably include just as many of the godless as the church-going, her knack for translating religious experience makes her music ecumenical and inclusive unlike, for example, much contemporary Christian rock. That said, probably the most overtly religious number on her setlist, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", a traditional song closely associated with the Carter Family-- and the first Pops taught his Staples brood to perform-- receives the Hideout audience's warmest embrace. Throughout the performance, Staples' band and trio of backup singers are ideal support players-- tight, professional, and mostly unobtrusive, never threatening to upstage Staples the way some of Ry Cooder's (admittedly spectacular) Never Turn Back production fireworks do. Of course, Staples has never been one of those velvet roped-off divas. If Live: Hope at the Hideout captures something her studio work doesn't, it's her approachability, her genuine audience rapport. Like all the great politicians, Mavis Staples has a gift for the common touch."

Declan McKenna

What Do You Think About the Car?

Rock

Marc Hogan

There’s been such a fuss about Declan McKenna, it’s tempting to wonder if folks were subconsciously confusing his name with the one on Elvis Costello’s birth certificate, Declan MacManus. In early 2015, when McKenna was barely 16, he was already being courted by numerous music-biz types. Later that year, brandishing a loop pedal and a red bandana, the floppy-haired bard won Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition. That contest’s previous winners aren’t household names, but McKenna was soon hailed as the voice of his generation. McKenna had been uploading jazz-inflected, appealingly ramshackle guitar-pop for a couple of years, name-checking influences from Jeff Buckley to Bach. The song that vaulted him into the arms of the major labels was “Brazil,” which is most interesting for being written, when McKenna was 15, as a condemnation of FIFA then-president Sepp Blatter. The lyrics themselves weren’t so obvious, but they were evocative. McKenna’s pinched vocals, however, sounded like just about every UK indie bloke hype that has come over post-Libertines. Musically, with a twinkling riff over a shambolic four-chord progression, it was also pretty commonplace. Super catchy, though. Viewers of his 2016 solo performance on “Conan” wondered, wrongly but not unreasonably, if the melody was nicked from a song that they used to know. “Brazil” is one of the best songs on McKenna’s major-label debut album, What Do You Think About the Car?, and also illustrates its shortcomings. Now 18 years old, McKenna really does sound like a voice of a generation (as Lena Dunham once put it). He’s an eloquent champion of progressive social causes who wore a “Give 17 Year Olds the Vote” T-shirt on “Jools Holland,” spars with TV villain Piers Morgan, and speaks out against sexism aimed at his female band members. He grapples with social issues in his lyrics, too. But those lyrics are often forgettably muddled. All this is generally backed by bland Bowie homages that further blur the lines between McKenna and any number of would-be British indie-vaders, from Jake Bugg, Tom Vek, and Jamie T to the Maccabees, the Kooks, and the Vaccines. There’s promise here, but it’s confused. His message loses strength, in part, because he doesn’t fully commit to it. McKenna has nonchalantly skewered the generational-voice stuff as mere “sensationalism.” And yet the video for “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home,” written after the Bataclan attacks, begins with the voices of young people, talking about their g-g-generation—which they feel is “lost,” but also deeply concerned about racism, homophobia, sexism, and bullying. The song itself, a standout here, if a bit overblown in its Britpop grandeur and vague in its second-person indignation, could benefit from similar clarity. James Ford, who produced all but two of the tracks, has plenty of experience with a McKenna-like vocal style in his great work across several Arctic Monkeys albums. But an uneasy conflict between ideological progressivism and sonic orthodoxy feels like it’s embedded in the songs. Opener “Humongous” builds up until it’s, well, humongous, but quirky riff aside, it’s not much more fun than when those Gen Xers in Oasis got similarly bloated. The subject matter is all critically important— “Paracetamol” was inspired by the suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, “Bethlehem” grapples with religious hypocrisy, and “Isombard” depicts a FOX News-like TV host—but that isn’t necessarily evident without research. One of the standard lines on McKenna seems to be: He doesn’t just sing memorable songs, he’s also intelligent. I completely agree he’s intelligent. I’d like to remember more of his songs. Unfortunately, but tellingly, the easiest-to-recall moments aren’t musical. They’re spoken-word snippets, where McKenna seems to be sending up his voice-of-the-youth rep by taking it very literally. What Do You Think About the Car? opens with the voices of children—McKenna’s sister asking the title phrase in audio from an old home movie, the four-year-old proto-troubadour chirping back cutely, “I think it’s really good and now I’m going to sing my new album now.” A track later, “Brazil” ends with a young boy’s voice from a popular meme. “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home” has a children’s choir and closes with one of its members laughing about not wanting to come home. There are aspects of McKenna’s rise that can look weirdly puffed-up. His YouTube channel claimed the “Brazil” lyrics got him investigated by the FBI—a joke, he said when asked. Rumors spread that he’d been chased by an unbelievable 40 record labels—a misconstrued exaggeration, he has said, though the stat persists. Surprisingly, Columbia didn’t pack fidget spinners with the vinyl. But that McKenna is far worthier of your time than Jake Bugg isn’t in doubt. McKenna happily gushes about musical free thinkers like St. Vincent and Sufjan Stevens, and the most hopeful sign he might join their ranks is the finale, “Listen to Your Friends.” Co-written and produced by Rostam, it’s part country-pop lope, part artful cello shading. Calling for youth solidarity against atavistic forces of shallow ignorance, it’s trenchant, convincing, and stunning. McKenna concludes here, “Please trust in me.” Despite a scattershot and often lackluster first outing, he has at least earned that trust.

Artist: Declan McKenna, Album: What Do You Think About the Car?, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.9 Album review: "There’s been such a fuss about Declan McKenna, it’s tempting to wonder if folks were subconsciously confusing his name with the one on Elvis Costello’s birth certificate, Declan MacManus. In early 2015, when McKenna was barely 16, he was already being courted by numerous music-biz types. Later that year, brandishing a loop pedal and a red bandana, the floppy-haired bard won Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition. That contest’s previous winners aren’t household names, but McKenna was soon hailed as the voice of his generation. McKenna had been uploading jazz-inflected, appealingly ramshackle guitar-pop for a couple of years, name-checking influences from Jeff Buckley to Bach. The song that vaulted him into the arms of the major labels was “Brazil,” which is most interesting for being written, when McKenna was 15, as a condemnation of FIFA then-president Sepp Blatter. The lyrics themselves weren’t so obvious, but they were evocative. McKenna’s pinched vocals, however, sounded like just about every UK indie bloke hype that has come over post-Libertines. Musically, with a twinkling riff over a shambolic four-chord progression, it was also pretty commonplace. Super catchy, though. Viewers of his 2016 solo performance on “Conan” wondered, wrongly but not unreasonably, if the melody was nicked from a song that they used to know. “Brazil” is one of the best songs on McKenna’s major-label debut album, What Do You Think About the Car?, and also illustrates its shortcomings. Now 18 years old, McKenna really does sound like a voice of a generation (as Lena Dunham once put it). He’s an eloquent champion of progressive social causes who wore a “Give 17 Year Olds the Vote” T-shirt on “Jools Holland,” spars with TV villain Piers Morgan, and speaks out against sexism aimed at his female band members. He grapples with social issues in his lyrics, too. But those lyrics are often forgettably muddled. All this is generally backed by bland Bowie homages that further blur the lines between McKenna and any number of would-be British indie-vaders, from Jake Bugg, Tom Vek, and Jamie T to the Maccabees, the Kooks, and the Vaccines. There’s promise here, but it’s confused. His message loses strength, in part, because he doesn’t fully commit to it. McKenna has nonchalantly skewered the generational-voice stuff as mere “sensationalism.” And yet the video for “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home,” written after the Bataclan attacks, begins with the voices of young people, talking about their g-g-generation—which they feel is “lost,” but also deeply concerned about racism, homophobia, sexism, and bullying. The song itself, a standout here, if a bit overblown in its Britpop grandeur and vague in its second-person indignation, could benefit from similar clarity. James Ford, who produced all but two of the tracks, has plenty of experience with a McKenna-like vocal style in his great work across several Arctic Monkeys albums. But an uneasy conflict between ideological progressivism and sonic orthodoxy feels like it’s embedded in the songs. Opener “Humongous” builds up until it’s, well, humongous, but quirky riff aside, it’s not much more fun than when those Gen Xers in Oasis got similarly bloated. The subject matter is all critically important— “Paracetamol” was inspired by the suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, “Bethlehem” grapples with religious hypocrisy, and “Isombard” depicts a FOX News-like TV host—but that isn’t necessarily evident without research. One of the standard lines on McKenna seems to be: He doesn’t just sing memorable songs, he’s also intelligent. I completely agree he’s intelligent. I’d like to remember more of his songs. Unfortunately, but tellingly, the easiest-to-recall moments aren’t musical. They’re spoken-word snippets, where McKenna seems to be sending up his voice-of-the-youth rep by taking it very literally. What Do You Think About the Car? opens with the voices of children—McKenna’s sister asking the title phrase in audio from an old home movie, the four-year-old proto-troubadour chirping back cutely, “I think it’s really good and now I’m going to sing my new album now.” A track later, “Brazil” ends with a young boy’s voice from a popular meme. “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home” has a children’s choir and closes with one of its members laughing about not wanting to come home. There are aspects of McKenna’s rise that can look weirdly puffed-up. His YouTube channel claimed the “Brazil” lyrics got him investigated by the FBI—a joke, he said when asked. Rumors spread that he’d been chased by an unbelievable 40 record labels—a misconstrued exaggeration, he has said, though the stat persists. Surprisingly, Columbia didn’t pack fidget spinners with the vinyl. But that McKenna is far worthier of your time than Jake Bugg isn’t in doubt. McKenna happily gushes about musical free thinkers like St. Vincent and Sufjan Stevens, and the most hopeful sign he might join their ranks is the finale, “Listen to Your Friends.” Co-written and produced by Rostam, it’s part country-pop lope, part artful cello shading. Calling for youth solidarity against atavistic forces of shallow ignorance, it’s trenchant, convincing, and stunning. McKenna concludes here, “Please trust in me.” Despite a scattershot and often lackluster first outing, he has at least earned that trust."

Glitterbug

Privilege

Electronic

Brian Howe

For a guy called Glitterbug, this Cologne-based producer doesn't seem to throw very much away. His second album, Privilege, is a double LP with 20 tracks that mostly hover in the six- to eight-minute range. That's well over two hours of enigmatic techno to digest, and it can't even be called diverse, at least on the surface. Glitterbug's unwavering commitment to icy pulses, tidy minimal beats, and unfiltered repetitions makes the songs flow by without much fanfare. Dynamic shifts are used sparingly, and handled with precision. Despite all the steely synth arpeggios and clockwork drums, Privilege often feels more like ambient music than techno, settling comfortably between foreground and background, scratching the same itch as Gas and the Sight Below. Brock Van Wey's White Clouds Drift On and On is a great example of a record that was both monolithic and advantageously overstuffed, pushing through some tedium in order to weave you fully into its unique world. Glitterbug's clipped palpitations wear thin more quickly, but his extended durations do wind up cultivating deep immersion. More editing here might have done more harm than good. It's not like there are a few heaters hidden in a bunch of filler, although the tracks with naturalistic pianos ("So Could We", "Lionheart", "Transitions") are especially wonderful, and I wish there were more of them. Even though some tracks, taken individually, just go on for too long, together they accumulate an oceanic breadth and depth that makes Privilege as a whole feel more substantial than its parts. Glitterbug's tracks are least interesting when they're most purely techno, although he has a strong handle on fundamentals. "Cornered", for example, ratchets up from arpeggio to house bass to snares to chimes, all neat as a pin, and represents the album at its most functional and sterile. The music gets more interesting as it mingles with carefully captured organic sounds and with other genres, like IDM, dub, modern classical and concrete music. Usually, a hint of mystery is all it takes: "Blast" would be feel pretty flat if not for the bit of resonance fluttering anxiously in the background. Glitterbug recorded parts of this album on a global tour that encompassed the Arctic Circle and China, and a map of the journey is hidden in the album by way of field recordings, from the extremely wet-sounding water on "Wide & Near" to the mind-gnawing whispers on "Slurred Thinking". You get a sense of all kinds of secret codes working beneath the hood, and these moments of near-intelligibility ease us through the long haul. We need such things to hold onto amid these almost featureless waves. Why bother with fills and rolls when one kick and one snare will get the point across? Glitterbug seems to wonder. This essentialist mindset reins everything into an ongoing pulse with no margin for error: It can be hypnotic or monotonous, but nowhere in between.

Artist: Glitterbug, Album: Privilege, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "For a guy called Glitterbug, this Cologne-based producer doesn't seem to throw very much away. His second album, Privilege, is a double LP with 20 tracks that mostly hover in the six- to eight-minute range. That's well over two hours of enigmatic techno to digest, and it can't even be called diverse, at least on the surface. Glitterbug's unwavering commitment to icy pulses, tidy minimal beats, and unfiltered repetitions makes the songs flow by without much fanfare. Dynamic shifts are used sparingly, and handled with precision. Despite all the steely synth arpeggios and clockwork drums, Privilege often feels more like ambient music than techno, settling comfortably between foreground and background, scratching the same itch as Gas and the Sight Below. Brock Van Wey's White Clouds Drift On and On is a great example of a record that was both monolithic and advantageously overstuffed, pushing through some tedium in order to weave you fully into its unique world. Glitterbug's clipped palpitations wear thin more quickly, but his extended durations do wind up cultivating deep immersion. More editing here might have done more harm than good. It's not like there are a few heaters hidden in a bunch of filler, although the tracks with naturalistic pianos ("So Could We", "Lionheart", "Transitions") are especially wonderful, and I wish there were more of them. Even though some tracks, taken individually, just go on for too long, together they accumulate an oceanic breadth and depth that makes Privilege as a whole feel more substantial than its parts. Glitterbug's tracks are least interesting when they're most purely techno, although he has a strong handle on fundamentals. "Cornered", for example, ratchets up from arpeggio to house bass to snares to chimes, all neat as a pin, and represents the album at its most functional and sterile. The music gets more interesting as it mingles with carefully captured organic sounds and with other genres, like IDM, dub, modern classical and concrete music. Usually, a hint of mystery is all it takes: "Blast" would be feel pretty flat if not for the bit of resonance fluttering anxiously in the background. Glitterbug recorded parts of this album on a global tour that encompassed the Arctic Circle and China, and a map of the journey is hidden in the album by way of field recordings, from the extremely wet-sounding water on "Wide & Near" to the mind-gnawing whispers on "Slurred Thinking". You get a sense of all kinds of secret codes working beneath the hood, and these moments of near-intelligibility ease us through the long haul. We need such things to hold onto amid these almost featureless waves. Why bother with fills and rolls when one kick and one snare will get the point across? Glitterbug seems to wonder. This essentialist mindset reins everything into an ongoing pulse with no margin for error: It can be hypnotic or monotonous, but nowhere in between."

James Hardway

Straight from the Fridge

Electronic,Jazz

Paul Cooper

David Harrow has been many things in his career. Under a multiplicity of monikers he's remixed Depeche Mode ("Enjoy the Silence") and the Orb ("Asylum"), and worked with Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound System, Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart, and Psychic TV. Harrow's most lucrative credit, though, is for writing Billie Ray Martin's Euro dance monster, "Your Loving Arms." He even explored ethno-techno as Technova and laptop jungle as Magnetic for releases on Andrew Weatherall's Emissions Audio Output label. But James Hardway is Dave Harrow's hardest working alias. Straight from the Fridge is Harrow's fifth full-length excursion as James Hardway, and it incorporates many of the Afro-Cubanisms that dominated his previous album, Moors and Christians, into the jazzy drum-n-bass of earlier outings. Straight from the Fridge launches into the St. Germain-style dancefloor jazz of "Happiness Brakes." To a bucking accompaniment of grimy Hammond B-3 organ stabs, Invader of the Heart Clive Bell sends flute curlicues flitting above and in between scurrying muted horns. The track is so deftly syncopated that its 4/4 kick drum stomp is almost superfluous. For "Earth Runnings," Harrow sets up spacy synths that lurk in the background and wisp past vocalist J.B. Bell's sultry, spoken-word vocals. "Andrea's Chimes" is a gorgeous piano doodle that segues into the world-weary voice of Floyd Batts and his "Danger Blue" lament. Here, Hardway has sampled Batts' song (originally recorded in 1959 at the Parchman Mississippi State Penitentiary) and surrounded it with xylophone lines and burdensome shackles of piano chords. Fortunately, the song avoids the oafishness that usually accompanies disco-fied blues hollers. Hardway's setting is so complimentary and seamless that if I didn't know Batts' vocal was an incorporated recording, I could not have guessed. Ghetto Priest makes a couple of appearances here, too, ripping loose some fiery dancehall chat over the kind of fierce acoustic bass that should by now be familiar to longtime Hardway albums. Priest gets nuff respect from me by referencing both Admiral Bailey's Casiotone raga classic "Jump Up" and Death in Vegas's digital rudie "Jump and Twist" throughout "Jump Up Natural." He also proves himself more than just a rasping raggamuffin during the consciousness ballad "Speak Softly," on which he gives up a fine Bim Sherman impression. "Can't Slow Down" approaches cosmic-jazz territory with a reed-thin swooping synthline zipping through a percussive barrage. With a solo trumpet blast similar to the one heard in Sinéad O'Connor's "Fire on Babylon," the middle-eastern tonalities of the unfittingly named "Uptown" is an immediate link to Moors and Christians. With its Hammond organ filling in spaces between sirocco-surfing horns and a skittering piano figure, the song recalls jazz-folkster Glen Moore's bass-heavy growler, "Moot." As Hardway records go, Straight from the Fridge is succinct and infectiously strong. Unlike previous outings, this record rents no space to noodly weaklings such as "Our Cousin Frank" (from A Positive Sweat). I'm already thirsty for another frosty cool one from Hardway's icebox.

Artist: James Hardway, Album: Straight from the Fridge, Genre: Electronic,Jazz, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "David Harrow has been many things in his career. Under a multiplicity of monikers he's remixed Depeche Mode ("Enjoy the Silence") and the Orb ("Asylum"), and worked with Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound System, Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart, and Psychic TV. Harrow's most lucrative credit, though, is for writing Billie Ray Martin's Euro dance monster, "Your Loving Arms." He even explored ethno-techno as Technova and laptop jungle as Magnetic for releases on Andrew Weatherall's Emissions Audio Output label. But James Hardway is Dave Harrow's hardest working alias. Straight from the Fridge is Harrow's fifth full-length excursion as James Hardway, and it incorporates many of the Afro-Cubanisms that dominated his previous album, Moors and Christians, into the jazzy drum-n-bass of earlier outings. Straight from the Fridge launches into the St. Germain-style dancefloor jazz of "Happiness Brakes." To a bucking accompaniment of grimy Hammond B-3 organ stabs, Invader of the Heart Clive Bell sends flute curlicues flitting above and in between scurrying muted horns. The track is so deftly syncopated that its 4/4 kick drum stomp is almost superfluous. For "Earth Runnings," Harrow sets up spacy synths that lurk in the background and wisp past vocalist J.B. Bell's sultry, spoken-word vocals. "Andrea's Chimes" is a gorgeous piano doodle that segues into the world-weary voice of Floyd Batts and his "Danger Blue" lament. Here, Hardway has sampled Batts' song (originally recorded in 1959 at the Parchman Mississippi State Penitentiary) and surrounded it with xylophone lines and burdensome shackles of piano chords. Fortunately, the song avoids the oafishness that usually accompanies disco-fied blues hollers. Hardway's setting is so complimentary and seamless that if I didn't know Batts' vocal was an incorporated recording, I could not have guessed. Ghetto Priest makes a couple of appearances here, too, ripping loose some fiery dancehall chat over the kind of fierce acoustic bass that should by now be familiar to longtime Hardway albums. Priest gets nuff respect from me by referencing both Admiral Bailey's Casiotone raga classic "Jump Up" and Death in Vegas's digital rudie "Jump and Twist" throughout "Jump Up Natural." He also proves himself more than just a rasping raggamuffin during the consciousness ballad "Speak Softly," on which he gives up a fine Bim Sherman impression. "Can't Slow Down" approaches cosmic-jazz territory with a reed-thin swooping synthline zipping through a percussive barrage. With a solo trumpet blast similar to the one heard in Sinéad O'Connor's "Fire on Babylon," the middle-eastern tonalities of the unfittingly named "Uptown" is an immediate link to Moors and Christians. With its Hammond organ filling in spaces between sirocco-surfing horns and a skittering piano figure, the song recalls jazz-folkster Glen Moore's bass-heavy growler, "Moot." As Hardway records go, Straight from the Fridge is succinct and infectiously strong. Unlike previous outings, this record rents no space to noodly weaklings such as "Our Cousin Frank" (from A Positive Sweat). I'm already thirsty for another frosty cool one from Hardway's icebox."

Hercules and Love Affair

The Feast of the Broken Heart

Electronic

Miles Raymer

Hercules and Love Affair is an amorphous project with a roster that, aside from the group’s mastermind and artistic director Andy Butler, has turned over completely with each of its three albums so far. But its mission has remained consistent throughout: to breathe new life into the sounds and structures of early dance music, particularly the interplay between producer and vocalist that underpinned the genre’s formative years. On the group’s first two records, 2008’s self-titled debut and 2011’s Blue Songs, they accomplished that goal by exploding the tropes of early house music while simultaneously paying fealty to them, resulting in tracks like the quasi-operatic, Antony-led “Blind” that reincarnated the style into ambitiously strange shapes. For The Feast of the Broken Heart, Butler and his team (which this time around includes Viennese house-and-techno revivalists Haze Factory and industrial music stalwart Mark Pistel) color inside the lines a little more than before. If the first two Hercules records were tributes to the dawning era of dance music thirty or so years ago, Feast is more of a flat-out homage. The sounds, the structures, and the entire approach more closely resembles the source material—the propulsive, hard-edged descendant of disco that pioneers like Larry Levan were spinning in the '70s and '80s. Having spent years deconstructing old house music, Butler's now become a considerably more faithful and accurate emulator. There are drawbacks to any artistic undertaking with an explicit retro-revivalist agenda, and Feast suffers accordingly—in particular, there's the subtle but ever-present sensation that, for all the excitement that the music generates, it’s still an echo of someone else’s good time that happened decades ago. Butler and company mitigate much of that feeling by giving their influences a sonic touch-up, dirtying and tweaking out the vintage drum machine and synthesizer sounds they’re working with (check the noisy synth that puts an intriguing wrinkle into the smooth lines of “My Offence”), in the process infusing them with a wily energy that more fastidious retro reproductions can’t manage. Hercules and Love Affair give these tracks more room to breathe than the sometimes claustrophobically compact arrangements on older house records. To some extent, The Feast of the Broken Heart bounces back against those drawbacks because of the nature of the style Hercules and Love Affair working in. Compared to the other major pop genres, dance music has historically been immune to the effects of nostalgia because it’s spent so much of its existence, at least in America, as a subcultural style with an audience that’s been removed from the mainstream (partly because it’s been so relentlessly forward-looking from the genre's beginnings). The recent arrival of younger rave revivalists and old-school house fanatics, however, has caused the genre as a whole to take a good look at its past and try, in earnest, to replicate it. Like Hercules’s first two records, Feast transcends mere homage not only through sonic innovations but by the quality of the emotional connection it makes with its audience. Butler is both a gifted producer and a crafty A&R, and throughout the album he fits an unexpected cast of singers to songs based on criteria much more subtle and significant than their vocal range. The stage performer Rouge Mary imparts disco-diva uplift to the self-realization anthem “5:43 to Freedom”, elevating a hokey line like “Be yourself/ Like there ain’t nobody” into something that could genuinely inspire a dancefloor epiphany. On “My Offence”, singer-songwriter Krystle Warren, whose own work normally leans towards rootsy chamber pop, brings a raspy low range and gleaming high range with the same kind of casual fuck-you attitude that's similarly animated other statement-of-identity house tracks offering spiritual solace to several generations of club-going social misfits. The album’s emotional and musical peak comes with “I Try to Talk to You”, featuring alt-folk singer and former Czars front man John Grant. It’s about Grant’s experience finding out he’s H.I.V. positive, and knowing that about the song can make it a gutting listen, especially on the choruses where he crooningly pleads, “I don’t understand, help me please.” But instead of backing him up with a dirge, Butler and his crew give him a raucous, thumping floor-filler. To some, combining lyrics about a potentially life-threatening illness with the gaudy synthesized orchestral stabs the track’s festooned with might seem crass, but it’s exactly this refusal to bow to tragedy that kept the original house music scene alive through the ravages of the AIDS crisis. With it, Hercules & Love Affair tap into an essential part of house music’s history that’s far more profound than just the music.

Artist: Hercules and Love Affair, Album: The Feast of the Broken Heart, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "Hercules and Love Affair is an amorphous project with a roster that, aside from the group’s mastermind and artistic director Andy Butler, has turned over completely with each of its three albums so far. But its mission has remained consistent throughout: to breathe new life into the sounds and structures of early dance music, particularly the interplay between producer and vocalist that underpinned the genre’s formative years. On the group’s first two records, 2008’s self-titled debut and 2011’s Blue Songs, they accomplished that goal by exploding the tropes of early house music while simultaneously paying fealty to them, resulting in tracks like the quasi-operatic, Antony-led “Blind” that reincarnated the style into ambitiously strange shapes. For The Feast of the Broken Heart, Butler and his team (which this time around includes Viennese house-and-techno revivalists Haze Factory and industrial music stalwart Mark Pistel) color inside the lines a little more than before. If the first two Hercules records were tributes to the dawning era of dance music thirty or so years ago, Feast is more of a flat-out homage. The sounds, the structures, and the entire approach more closely resembles the source material—the propulsive, hard-edged descendant of disco that pioneers like Larry Levan were spinning in the '70s and '80s. Having spent years deconstructing old house music, Butler's now become a considerably more faithful and accurate emulator. There are drawbacks to any artistic undertaking with an explicit retro-revivalist agenda, and Feast suffers accordingly—in particular, there's the subtle but ever-present sensation that, for all the excitement that the music generates, it’s still an echo of someone else’s good time that happened decades ago. Butler and company mitigate much of that feeling by giving their influences a sonic touch-up, dirtying and tweaking out the vintage drum machine and synthesizer sounds they’re working with (check the noisy synth that puts an intriguing wrinkle into the smooth lines of “My Offence”), in the process infusing them with a wily energy that more fastidious retro reproductions can’t manage. Hercules and Love Affair give these tracks more room to breathe than the sometimes claustrophobically compact arrangements on older house records. To some extent, The Feast of the Broken Heart bounces back against those drawbacks because of the nature of the style Hercules and Love Affair working in. Compared to the other major pop genres, dance music has historically been immune to the effects of nostalgia because it’s spent so much of its existence, at least in America, as a subcultural style with an audience that’s been removed from the mainstream (partly because it’s been so relentlessly forward-looking from the genre's beginnings). The recent arrival of younger rave revivalists and old-school house fanatics, however, has caused the genre as a whole to take a good look at its past and try, in earnest, to replicate it. Like Hercules’s first two records, Feast transcends mere homage not only through sonic innovations but by the quality of the emotional connection it makes with its audience. Butler is both a gifted producer and a crafty A&R, and throughout the album he fits an unexpected cast of singers to songs based on criteria much more subtle and significant than their vocal range. The stage performer Rouge Mary imparts disco-diva uplift to the self-realization anthem “5:43 to Freedom”, elevating a hokey line like “Be yourself/ Like there ain’t nobody” into something that could genuinely inspire a dancefloor epiphany. On “My Offence”, singer-songwriter Krystle Warren, whose own work normally leans towards rootsy chamber pop, brings a raspy low range and gleaming high range with the same kind of casual fuck-you attitude that's similarly animated other statement-of-identity house tracks offering spiritual solace to several generations of club-going social misfits. The album’s emotional and musical peak comes with “I Try to Talk to You”, featuring alt-folk singer and former Czars front man John Grant. It’s about Grant’s experience finding out he’s H.I.V. positive, and knowing that about the song can make it a gutting listen, especially on the choruses where he crooningly pleads, “I don’t understand, help me please.” But instead of backing him up with a dirge, Butler and his crew give him a raucous, thumping floor-filler. To some, combining lyrics about a potentially life-threatening illness with the gaudy synthesized orchestral stabs the track’s festooned with might seem crass, but it’s exactly this refusal to bow to tragedy that kept the original house music scene alive through the ravages of the AIDS crisis. With it, Hercules & Love Affair tap into an essential part of house music’s history that’s far more profound than just the music."

Mathematics

The Problem

Rap

Brian Howe

We're a long way from 1997, when the Wu-Tang Clan's second album moved 600,000 units in its first week. Eight years later, in The Wu-Tang Manual, RZA marks '97 as a turning point, when he began "converting Wu from the dictatorship it had been to a democracy." Maybe Ezra Pound was onto something when he famously argued that fascism was beneficial art: The democratic incarnation of Wu-Tang has birthed stellar efforts from Ghostface and RZA, but has also turned out some forgettable solo joints and spotty group albums. Method Man seems to be spending more time on screen than on wax. Cappadonna's driving a taxi in Baltimore. Dirty passed on. "After the laughter..." Mathematics has been a quiet Clan associate since day one-- he designed their famous logo (an early draft had a hand clutching a hilariously gory severed head sticking out of the now-iconic W), and contributed RZA-sanctioned beats for albums like Ghost's Supreme Clientele and Meth's Tical 2000: Judgment Day. On his second LP, Mathematics succeeds where other recent Wu efforts have faltered by keeping it hot and simple. Instead of trying to push things forward, Math sticks to the basics, and The Problem plays like a subtly modernized précis of vintage '90s Wu-Tang styles. Should've been called The Solution: Take mid-to-up-tempo, cinematic beats and use them for blazing posse cuts that mingle the entirety of the Clan (including Dirt) with competent Nü-Tangers like Eyeslow, Hot Flames, and Bald Head; repeat as necessary. The Problem opens with a reminisce, natch: "C What I C", where Mathematics's skittering drums and snake-charming melody pave the way for Eyeslow and T-Slugz to reprise the street-reportage/pining for simpler times themes of "Can It Be All So Simple"-- see also the beautifully expressive horns of the elegiac "Tommy". "Strawberries and Cream" is a honeyed, profane slow-jam with a watery soul melody (remember "Love Jones"?) and swaggering romantic raps from RZA and Ghost (one hopes his line about "high school pussy" is a reminisce as well). Where was U-God on that one? You've got your party jams: "John 3:16", where Meth monkeys around on a springy cartoon beat, sing-songing hooks and punchlines ("got Milton Bradley hating the game") like Nelly with a personality; "Rush", which pits Meth's rubber chickens against GZA's precisely clipped fingernail rhymes; the bounce-funk club banger "Two Shots of Henny". Then there are the thrillingly grim tracks: "Winta Sno" gets stupid frosty with silvery minor chords and nihilistic crime rhymes; Ghost and Rae slang-bang "Real Nillaz" over frantic drums and skeletal metallic accents; on "U.S.A." the bombastic spook-house synths are well-contrasted by Masta Killa's stark straight-talk. There's something sly about imbuing all new songs with a "best-of" aura, and it makes for a strong Wu release.

Artist: Mathematics, Album: The Problem, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "We're a long way from 1997, when the Wu-Tang Clan's second album moved 600,000 units in its first week. Eight years later, in The Wu-Tang Manual, RZA marks '97 as a turning point, when he began "converting Wu from the dictatorship it had been to a democracy." Maybe Ezra Pound was onto something when he famously argued that fascism was beneficial art: The democratic incarnation of Wu-Tang has birthed stellar efforts from Ghostface and RZA, but has also turned out some forgettable solo joints and spotty group albums. Method Man seems to be spending more time on screen than on wax. Cappadonna's driving a taxi in Baltimore. Dirty passed on. "After the laughter..." Mathematics has been a quiet Clan associate since day one-- he designed their famous logo (an early draft had a hand clutching a hilariously gory severed head sticking out of the now-iconic W), and contributed RZA-sanctioned beats for albums like Ghost's Supreme Clientele and Meth's Tical 2000: Judgment Day. On his second LP, Mathematics succeeds where other recent Wu efforts have faltered by keeping it hot and simple. Instead of trying to push things forward, Math sticks to the basics, and The Problem plays like a subtly modernized précis of vintage '90s Wu-Tang styles. Should've been called The Solution: Take mid-to-up-tempo, cinematic beats and use them for blazing posse cuts that mingle the entirety of the Clan (including Dirt) with competent Nü-Tangers like Eyeslow, Hot Flames, and Bald Head; repeat as necessary. The Problem opens with a reminisce, natch: "C What I C", where Mathematics's skittering drums and snake-charming melody pave the way for Eyeslow and T-Slugz to reprise the street-reportage/pining for simpler times themes of "Can It Be All So Simple"-- see also the beautifully expressive horns of the elegiac "Tommy". "Strawberries and Cream" is a honeyed, profane slow-jam with a watery soul melody (remember "Love Jones"?) and swaggering romantic raps from RZA and Ghost (one hopes his line about "high school pussy" is a reminisce as well). Where was U-God on that one? You've got your party jams: "John 3:16", where Meth monkeys around on a springy cartoon beat, sing-songing hooks and punchlines ("got Milton Bradley hating the game") like Nelly with a personality; "Rush", which pits Meth's rubber chickens against GZA's precisely clipped fingernail rhymes; the bounce-funk club banger "Two Shots of Henny". Then there are the thrillingly grim tracks: "Winta Sno" gets stupid frosty with silvery minor chords and nihilistic crime rhymes; Ghost and Rae slang-bang "Real Nillaz" over frantic drums and skeletal metallic accents; on "U.S.A." the bombastic spook-house synths are well-contrasted by Masta Killa's stark straight-talk. There's something sly about imbuing all new songs with a "best-of" aura, and it makes for a strong Wu release."

Autechre

Peel Session 2 EP

Electronic

Ryan Kearney

"Odi et amo," reads a famous epigram by the Latin poet Catullus. "quare id faciam fortasse requiris? nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior." Translating, with some artistic license, as, "I hate and love [Autechre]. Perhaps you're asking why I do that? I don't know, but I feel it happening, and am racked." Of course, Catullus didn't have Autechre in mind when he wrote this poem, but I had this poem in mind when I heard Peel Session 2. Generally, I love Rob Brown and Sean Booth, the English duo that comprises Autechre. But at the moment I hate them and am exhausted, because I have to describe their sound. Nearly every comparison the critics use to describe Autechre seems terribly desperate, from architecture to computer source code to virtual landscapes. But this is not by any fault of the critic. The difficulty of Autechre's music is surpassed only by the difficulty of describing it. Nonetheless, the attempt must be made, so critics invariably use any number of the following words: blips, bleeps, farts, echoes, sparkle, skitter, clanks, pulses, drone, chopped, synapses, and on and on. These words may as well be Latin. But rest assured, I'm no different: plenty of them undoubtedly will appear below. And so the inevitable attempt, however futile, begins. This four-song, 27-minute EP, which was originally broadcast on September 9, 1999, opens with "Gelk." (It should be noted that the song titles were chosen by John Peel because the audio masters delivered to Radio 1 contained none.) The track begins calmly with a trotting beat, analog hiss, and an occasional bass pulse that raises static as if the music were played through blown speakers. Foreign synths chime in, and a piano descends into the sonic plane just as the keyboards turn intergalactic, flickering out of earshot in perpetual reverberation. But nothing too surprising. Then "Gelk" turns ominous. Deep synths set the dark tone, but the thickened beat, no longer clean now but crackling and popping, sends the song into the dungeon. Given the gurgling and indecipherable whispering, there must a deformed creature down here, maybe Sloth or the Gimp. The song soon strips down to one single sound, which most nearly resembles someone plucking the low strings of a grand piano. A more standard beat ends the interlude, as does what might as well be considered electronic steel drums, and soon the track is washed over by distant crashes, like Godzilla and King Kong playing soccer with a Zildjian delivery truck. When it finally ends, you realize you've almost run the full gamut of emotion. The next three tracks, unfortunately, aren't quite as varied or complex. Before you can even digest "Gelk," the raucous "Blifil" breaks in with a more furious and uneven beat, thick drones, and muffled, chopped vocals. But the song barely progresses from there; the only other significant addition is droplets of digital water. Still, by the end of the track, one does sense that, over the course of seven minutes, Autechre have taken you from an underground dig to an extraterrestrial voyage. The clacks that open "Gaekwad" consistently stutter and fizzle out like a spinning coin coming to rest. Other sounds reminiscent of creaking doors and radiators fill in the background noise. More steel drum-like notes and ghostly ambient whines keep the ear trailing along, and eventually, trebled beats skip in to carry the tune. When mellow synths, orchestral stutters, and high-pitched pings achieve melody over the skittering beat, Peel Session 2 achieves its most Aphex-like moment. But the cackling and wheezing that soon interrupt make this the only obvious and direct comparison on the EP. Then there's the aptly-titled "19 Headaches." Some might say it's avant-IDM, but isn't IDM avant enough? I say it's Brown and Booth doing their best Phish impression-- digital jamming, if you will. The same skittering sounds are here, in addition to a synth straight out of "3-2-1 Contact." Sounds chirp into the foreground like pikas popping their heads out of a rock bed. Like these small, darting mammals, "19 Headaches" is at first interesting, then uncompelling, and finally, annoying. This effort could almost be called lo-fi drill-n-bass, if there were such a thing. Perhaps their grittiest work to date, the EP is always worn raw by fuzz, static, or hiss-- a sharp contrast to the clarity of efforts such as Tri Repetae++, which rests on the opposite end of Autechre's oeuvre. Still, although Peel Session 2 is uneven and oftentimes bears similarity to their less-popular work (Chiastic Slide and EP7, for instance), we should nonetheless consider ourselves fortunate that, unlike Latin, this music has yet to bastardized out of existence.

Artist: Autechre, Album: Peel Session 2 EP, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: ""Odi et amo," reads a famous epigram by the Latin poet Catullus. "quare id faciam fortasse requiris? nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior." Translating, with some artistic license, as, "I hate and love [Autechre]. Perhaps you're asking why I do that? I don't know, but I feel it happening, and am racked." Of course, Catullus didn't have Autechre in mind when he wrote this poem, but I had this poem in mind when I heard Peel Session 2. Generally, I love Rob Brown and Sean Booth, the English duo that comprises Autechre. But at the moment I hate them and am exhausted, because I have to describe their sound. Nearly every comparison the critics use to describe Autechre seems terribly desperate, from architecture to computer source code to virtual landscapes. But this is not by any fault of the critic. The difficulty of Autechre's music is surpassed only by the difficulty of describing it. Nonetheless, the attempt must be made, so critics invariably use any number of the following words: blips, bleeps, farts, echoes, sparkle, skitter, clanks, pulses, drone, chopped, synapses, and on and on. These words may as well be Latin. But rest assured, I'm no different: plenty of them undoubtedly will appear below. And so the inevitable attempt, however futile, begins. This four-song, 27-minute EP, which was originally broadcast on September 9, 1999, opens with "Gelk." (It should be noted that the song titles were chosen by John Peel because the audio masters delivered to Radio 1 contained none.) The track begins calmly with a trotting beat, analog hiss, and an occasional bass pulse that raises static as if the music were played through blown speakers. Foreign synths chime in, and a piano descends into the sonic plane just as the keyboards turn intergalactic, flickering out of earshot in perpetual reverberation. But nothing too surprising. Then "Gelk" turns ominous. Deep synths set the dark tone, but the thickened beat, no longer clean now but crackling and popping, sends the song into the dungeon. Given the gurgling and indecipherable whispering, there must a deformed creature down here, maybe Sloth or the Gimp. The song soon strips down to one single sound, which most nearly resembles someone plucking the low strings of a grand piano. A more standard beat ends the interlude, as does what might as well be considered electronic steel drums, and soon the track is washed over by distant crashes, like Godzilla and King Kong playing soccer with a Zildjian delivery truck. When it finally ends, you realize you've almost run the full gamut of emotion. The next three tracks, unfortunately, aren't quite as varied or complex. Before you can even digest "Gelk," the raucous "Blifil" breaks in with a more furious and uneven beat, thick drones, and muffled, chopped vocals. But the song barely progresses from there; the only other significant addition is droplets of digital water. Still, by the end of the track, one does sense that, over the course of seven minutes, Autechre have taken you from an underground dig to an extraterrestrial voyage. The clacks that open "Gaekwad" consistently stutter and fizzle out like a spinning coin coming to rest. Other sounds reminiscent of creaking doors and radiators fill in the background noise. More steel drum-like notes and ghostly ambient whines keep the ear trailing along, and eventually, trebled beats skip in to carry the tune. When mellow synths, orchestral stutters, and high-pitched pings achieve melody over the skittering beat, Peel Session 2 achieves its most Aphex-like moment. But the cackling and wheezing that soon interrupt make this the only obvious and direct comparison on the EP. Then there's the aptly-titled "19 Headaches." Some might say it's avant-IDM, but isn't IDM avant enough? I say it's Brown and Booth doing their best Phish impression-- digital jamming, if you will. The same skittering sounds are here, in addition to a synth straight out of "3-2-1 Contact." Sounds chirp into the foreground like pikas popping their heads out of a rock bed. Like these small, darting mammals, "19 Headaches" is at first interesting, then uncompelling, and finally, annoying. This effort could almost be called lo-fi drill-n-bass, if there were such a thing. Perhaps their grittiest work to date, the EP is always worn raw by fuzz, static, or hiss-- a sharp contrast to the clarity of efforts such as Tri Repetae++, which rests on the opposite end of Autechre's oeuvre. Still, although Peel Session 2 is uneven and oftentimes bears similarity to their less-popular work (Chiastic Slide and EP7, for instance), we should nonetheless consider ourselves fortunate that, unlike Latin, this music has yet to bastardized out of existence."

Supergrass

Supergrass Is 10

Electronic,Rock

Marc Hogan

In American English, collective nouns usually take a singular verb. In British English, the same nouns generally use a plural verb. As a result, you can't debate the relative merits of Radiohead versus Blur without first determining whether Blur are or merely is. Now, Supergrass aren't (isn't?) the most self-conscious bunch of apemen, but the title of their new "best of" collection clearly adopts the Americanized diction. While this Oxford trio will never pass for American, they're not trying to. A decade after "Caught by the Fuzz", Supergrass look to break the surly bonds of Britpop and establish themselves in the rock 'n' roll pantheon, borders and oceans be chuggered. What's striking about Supergrass Is 10 is its revelation that, despite the occasional stabs of Parklife rhythm guitar and music-hall tinges, Supergrass never really belonged to the scene from which they sprang. Liam and Noel wanted to be The Beatles. Damon wanted to be admired. Jarvis wanted to be clever. Thom wanted everyone else to be miserable, too. Meanwhile, the Cornelius-faced Gaz Coombes, the man with the mutton chops? He just wanted to feel "Alright." So while Noel attempted rewrites of Abbey Road and Menswe@r became the punchline to this joke, Supergrass built up a catalog of raucous, jubilant, unrepentant unpretentiousness-- influenced by The Kinks and Buzzcocks, yes, but increasingly tapping into the swagger and immediacy of early rock and Delta blues, as channeled through the Rolling Stones and T.Rex. "I'm a rock 'n' roll singer in a rock 'n' roll band," Coombes declares in "Seen the Light", his voice strangled in an apparent Elvis impression that makes Graham Coxon's American accent for Blur's "Rednecks" sound authentic. The song's scraggly boogie could serve as an object lesson for more recent Bolan adherents like The M's. "Strange Ones" is a bizarre, brilliant mash-up of British punk and obscene blues. Old "Lenny" B-side "Wait for the Sun" is dead-on acoustic Zep. Even "Pumping on Your Stereo", the closest thing Supergrass had to an American hit, sounds more like the faux-Southern rock of "Rocks Off" than "Common People". The band's more Britpop-tinged hits hold up, too. The punky sturm-und-drang (and goofy backing vocals) of "Caught by the Fuzz" are still worth getting arrested over. The sublime "Moving" glides comfortably along like the Acela Express, with sleepy strings that might have appeared in Mancini's score for Silver Streak, before bursting into its brilliantly jerky "chorus" (if that's what you'd even call it in a song that doesn't really have verses, per se, just hooks). "It's Not Me" provides one of the album's rare respites; its electronic burps and effects sound more like Moon Safari than I ever realized. And what of new single "Kiss of Life"? Well, it won't resuscitate the group's stardom, which apparently is waning in the U.K. (they never really broke the States). The song sees the band reborn under punchy percussion, as the funky jam of cleverly sequenced preceding track "Sun Hits the Sky" gives way to the new one's Talking Heads-style polyrhythms. It could be great, too, if the best lyric weren't "your love's like a heart attack" and if Bono hadn't already used the verse melody in "Mysterious Ways". The other new song, "Bullet", is a dark bit of Goth about, uh, bullets, that has Coombes wondering, "I'm in a world of marching soldiers and who am I?" Hey, didn't we just slam Joan of Arc for that kind of nonsense? If you already own the original albums, Supergrass Is 10 runs a bit long at 71 minutes. And there's no reason it couldn't be in chronological order, really. The American edition will add a live disc, but it will be tough to improve on the album's defining track, "Richard III", from In It for the Money. Yes, it's the most blatantly British title on a collection that I've just said proves Supergrass's significance beyond cloistered Britpopdom. But listen: It starts slow-- just some warm-up sounds-- before exploding into stern alarums of distorted guitar and a barbaric "whoop!" from Coombes. The melody is as catchy as ever for this group and then something happens, something otherworldly. Is that a... theremin? Somewhere in those good vibrations, Supergrass become one of the funnest bands of the 90s, singular or plural.

Artist: Supergrass, Album: Supergrass Is 10, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.5 Album review: "In American English, collective nouns usually take a singular verb. In British English, the same nouns generally use a plural verb. As a result, you can't debate the relative merits of Radiohead versus Blur without first determining whether Blur are or merely is. Now, Supergrass aren't (isn't?) the most self-conscious bunch of apemen, but the title of their new "best of" collection clearly adopts the Americanized diction. While this Oxford trio will never pass for American, they're not trying to. A decade after "Caught by the Fuzz", Supergrass look to break the surly bonds of Britpop and establish themselves in the rock 'n' roll pantheon, borders and oceans be chuggered. What's striking about Supergrass Is 10 is its revelation that, despite the occasional stabs of Parklife rhythm guitar and music-hall tinges, Supergrass never really belonged to the scene from which they sprang. Liam and Noel wanted to be The Beatles. Damon wanted to be admired. Jarvis wanted to be clever. Thom wanted everyone else to be miserable, too. Meanwhile, the Cornelius-faced Gaz Coombes, the man with the mutton chops? He just wanted to feel "Alright." So while Noel attempted rewrites of Abbey Road and Menswe@r became the punchline to this joke, Supergrass built up a catalog of raucous, jubilant, unrepentant unpretentiousness-- influenced by The Kinks and Buzzcocks, yes, but increasingly tapping into the swagger and immediacy of early rock and Delta blues, as channeled through the Rolling Stones and T.Rex. "I'm a rock 'n' roll singer in a rock 'n' roll band," Coombes declares in "Seen the Light", his voice strangled in an apparent Elvis impression that makes Graham Coxon's American accent for Blur's "Rednecks" sound authentic. The song's scraggly boogie could serve as an object lesson for more recent Bolan adherents like The M's. "Strange Ones" is a bizarre, brilliant mash-up of British punk and obscene blues. Old "Lenny" B-side "Wait for the Sun" is dead-on acoustic Zep. Even "Pumping on Your Stereo", the closest thing Supergrass had to an American hit, sounds more like the faux-Southern rock of "Rocks Off" than "Common People". The band's more Britpop-tinged hits hold up, too. The punky sturm-und-drang (and goofy backing vocals) of "Caught by the Fuzz" are still worth getting arrested over. The sublime "Moving" glides comfortably along like the Acela Express, with sleepy strings that might have appeared in Mancini's score for Silver Streak, before bursting into its brilliantly jerky "chorus" (if that's what you'd even call it in a song that doesn't really have verses, per se, just hooks). "It's Not Me" provides one of the album's rare respites; its electronic burps and effects sound more like Moon Safari than I ever realized. And what of new single "Kiss of Life"? Well, it won't resuscitate the group's stardom, which apparently is waning in the U.K. (they never really broke the States). The song sees the band reborn under punchy percussion, as the funky jam of cleverly sequenced preceding track "Sun Hits the Sky" gives way to the new one's Talking Heads-style polyrhythms. It could be great, too, if the best lyric weren't "your love's like a heart attack" and if Bono hadn't already used the verse melody in "Mysterious Ways". The other new song, "Bullet", is a dark bit of Goth about, uh, bullets, that has Coombes wondering, "I'm in a world of marching soldiers and who am I?" Hey, didn't we just slam Joan of Arc for that kind of nonsense? If you already own the original albums, Supergrass Is 10 runs a bit long at 71 minutes. And there's no reason it couldn't be in chronological order, really. The American edition will add a live disc, but it will be tough to improve on the album's defining track, "Richard III", from In It for the Money. Yes, it's the most blatantly British title on a collection that I've just said proves Supergrass's significance beyond cloistered Britpopdom. But listen: It starts slow-- just some warm-up sounds-- before exploding into stern alarums of distorted guitar and a barbaric "whoop!" from Coombes. The melody is as catchy as ever for this group and then something happens, something otherworldly. Is that a... theremin? Somewhere in those good vibrations, Supergrass become one of the funnest bands of the 90s, singular or plural."

Stephin Merritt

Eban and Charley

Rock

Matt LeMay

Generally speaking, collaboration is a good thing. When musicians share ideas, not only do they get to take advantage of the very best that each of them has to offer, but the added perspective generally prevents them from falling into blind, self-obsessed egotism. Generally speaking, Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, the Gothic Archies, and the Future Bible Heroes, is one of those rare, wonderful musicians who's at his best when he's unapologetically being himself. But it wasn't until the release of the brilliantly executed 69 Love Songs, on which Merritt opened himself up to the contributions of his touring band and guest vocalists, that his unique musical vision was fully realized. And Merritt is, without question, a true original-- a character falling somewhere between Cole Porter and Droopy who's as likely to cite ABBA as a musical influence as he is to bring up Harry Partch. Over the course of his career, Merritt has proven that he's one of the most adept, versatile songwriters working today, capable of cranking out synth-pop gems and downcast piano ballads alike, all dripping with a unique kind of theatrical, semi-satirical melancholy. While many artists struggle to create something that buries its influences under the guise of innovation, Merritt's strength has always rested partially in the limits he imposes on himself. While trying to incorporate such a wide range of influences could result in an utter mess, trying to incorporate these influences into, say, a three-minute pop song with a ukulele yields much more contained, interesting results. This, the soundtrack to the independent film Eban and Charley, is the first thing to be recorded by Merritt under his birthname. And appropriately, it's in some ways the loosest, most unfiltered thing Merritt has ever recorded. Working outside of the framework of the pop song, Merritt is left to explore more exotic sound sources and song structures. Unfortunately, without that framework, these elements often fail to amount to anything significant, providing somewhat interesting, meandering background music, but little more. Eban and Charley's 40-second, piano-only introductory piece, "Mother," seems promising enough. Simple, stark, and vaguely melodic, the greatest strength of "Mother" lies in its brevity. Sadly, the same can't be said for the plodding "Cricket Problem," a sound collage of bicycles, slurping straws, and music box chimes that fails both as a proper song and as an abstract piece of mechanical music. Things pick up with "Some Summer Day," one of the few songs on Eban and Charley to play host to Merritt's haunting baritone. Whimsical and melancholy without being too heavy-handed, the track is a lovely, albeit brief, glimpse of Merritt doing what he does best. Still, the album's finest moments don't come until "Poppyland" and "Maria Maria Maria," the most fully developed songs on the record, and two songs that could easily hold their own against the Magnetic Fields' better work. The former harkens back to Merritt's older work, with a charming drum machine beat and bubbly synthesizers. "Maria Maria Maria" is simply gorgeous-- a dark, reverb-soaked slab of despondency with a lyrical combination of absurdism and sincerity that could only have come from Merritt. But elsewhere, the musical accompaniment for Eban and Charley can't seem to figure out exactly what it wants to do with itself. Tracks like "Titles" consist of little more than arranged mechanical noises that don't benefit from the kind of grand conceptualism that made composers like Ligeti's mechanical music so fascinating. For fans harboring high expectations for Merritt's work, Eban and Charley is more than a little bittersweet. Its high points are Merritt at his best, but substantial portions of it seem somewhat like aimless background music. Collaboration is indeed good thing, but the general unevenness of this record suggests that Merritt does his best work when the parameters of his music are established by his own mind, not an independent film.

Artist: Stephin Merritt, Album: Eban and Charley, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "Generally speaking, collaboration is a good thing. When musicians share ideas, not only do they get to take advantage of the very best that each of them has to offer, but the added perspective generally prevents them from falling into blind, self-obsessed egotism. Generally speaking, Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, the Gothic Archies, and the Future Bible Heroes, is one of those rare, wonderful musicians who's at his best when he's unapologetically being himself. But it wasn't until the release of the brilliantly executed 69 Love Songs, on which Merritt opened himself up to the contributions of his touring band and guest vocalists, that his unique musical vision was fully realized. And Merritt is, without question, a true original-- a character falling somewhere between Cole Porter and Droopy who's as likely to cite ABBA as a musical influence as he is to bring up Harry Partch. Over the course of his career, Merritt has proven that he's one of the most adept, versatile songwriters working today, capable of cranking out synth-pop gems and downcast piano ballads alike, all dripping with a unique kind of theatrical, semi-satirical melancholy. While many artists struggle to create something that buries its influences under the guise of innovation, Merritt's strength has always rested partially in the limits he imposes on himself. While trying to incorporate such a wide range of influences could result in an utter mess, trying to incorporate these influences into, say, a three-minute pop song with a ukulele yields much more contained, interesting results. This, the soundtrack to the independent film Eban and Charley, is the first thing to be recorded by Merritt under his birthname. And appropriately, it's in some ways the loosest, most unfiltered thing Merritt has ever recorded. Working outside of the framework of the pop song, Merritt is left to explore more exotic sound sources and song structures. Unfortunately, without that framework, these elements often fail to amount to anything significant, providing somewhat interesting, meandering background music, but little more. Eban and Charley's 40-second, piano-only introductory piece, "Mother," seems promising enough. Simple, stark, and vaguely melodic, the greatest strength of "Mother" lies in its brevity. Sadly, the same can't be said for the plodding "Cricket Problem," a sound collage of bicycles, slurping straws, and music box chimes that fails both as a proper song and as an abstract piece of mechanical music. Things pick up with "Some Summer Day," one of the few songs on Eban and Charley to play host to Merritt's haunting baritone. Whimsical and melancholy without being too heavy-handed, the track is a lovely, albeit brief, glimpse of Merritt doing what he does best. Still, the album's finest moments don't come until "Poppyland" and "Maria Maria Maria," the most fully developed songs on the record, and two songs that could easily hold their own against the Magnetic Fields' better work. The former harkens back to Merritt's older work, with a charming drum machine beat and bubbly synthesizers. "Maria Maria Maria" is simply gorgeous-- a dark, reverb-soaked slab of despondency with a lyrical combination of absurdism and sincerity that could only have come from Merritt. But elsewhere, the musical accompaniment for Eban and Charley can't seem to figure out exactly what it wants to do with itself. Tracks like "Titles" consist of little more than arranged mechanical noises that don't benefit from the kind of grand conceptualism that made composers like Ligeti's mechanical music so fascinating. For fans harboring high expectations for Merritt's work, Eban and Charley is more than a little bittersweet. Its high points are Merritt at his best, but substantial portions of it seem somewhat like aimless background music. Collaboration is indeed good thing, but the general unevenness of this record suggests that Merritt does his best work when the parameters of his music are established by his own mind, not an independent film."

Unrest

Imperial f.f.r.r.

Rock

Nitsuh Abebe

One of the cooler things about the Great Halcyon Days of College Radio (say, 1987-93) was the number of different camps populating the underground. You had your hardcore kids, punks, and skate rats big on yelling and beer, skeptical of synths and Englishmen. You had your goths and art school kids, big on keyboards and eyeliner. And you had your tweedy collegiate types, the ones with their hands on the radio transmitters, and who made (sm)arty-pants indie-rock their reigning sound. It was that audience that took Unrest up as a flagship, making them loom as large as Pavement, Hal Hartley, and David Foster Wallace in the mid-90s college-sophomore canon. Super-minimalist pop, cloudy atmosphere, trans-Atlantic cool, and obscure obsessions like Cath Carroll and Isabel Bishop: Nothing seemed to fit quite as well with design courses and corduroy. Design types, after all, have that thing about minimalism, and this band's stark, elegant sound could strip things down to a strikingly small number of moving parts-- some kind of warm, detailed dream of the indie-rock group as postmodern 50s pop combo. This reissue of 1992's Imperial f.f.r.r. demonstrates where Unrest, formerly a scattershot pseudo-punk outfit, became that version of itself-- an art-pop guitar band drawing incredibly simple lines. If the story of this group is that of frontman Mark Robinson gradually admitting he might rather be an English kid from the early 80s, well, their EP of Factory Records covers may be the coming-out party, but this is where it counts. The first attraction is the sound of their big ecstatic pop songs, which feel as crisp and joyous as ever: "Suki" rushes along on clean guitar jangle and Robinson's coy babble (no one's ever sounded so good just repeating the word "kicking"), and "Cherry Cream On", an even coyer come-on, is still the record's standout blast. Come to this reissue looking for that pop rush, though, and you'll barely get an EP's worth of what you want-- even counting the eight bonus tracks. Because no matter how easy it is to remember Unrest as a racing pop act ("Cath Carroll", "Make Out Club"), the fact is that they were starker and artier than that, and the scattershot experiments of their early releases can still be heard fading into this one. The first track is just the test tone used for mastering, and around its edges you get just as many art pieces: Here a collage of beats, bells, and bass; there a pattern of feedback bouncing between speakers. But those are the poles: The actual core of this album is stark, warm, and elegantly simple, and it's in that space that Unrest wound up doing their most interesting work. The title track, for instance, is just a slow, chiming guitar run and one of Robinson's awkward choir-boy vocals; a 14-minute variant among the bonus tracks strips it down even further. The album version of "Isabel" is similar, just acoustic guitar and a careful chorus harmony; it was the 12" version, included here, that fleshed it out into a college radio hit, sounding something like indie-pop trip-hop. "June", one of the band's best-ever tracks, glides smoothly along on just bass, drums, and bassist Bridget Cross's vocals, then fleshes it out into a harmonized wash that's a blueprint for the post-Unrest Air Miami project. There are plenty of skips around that sound-- they're something like Crispy Ambulance fans on "Loyola", something like Krautrock devotees on the bonus "Hydrofoil One". But on a track like "I Do Believe You Are Blushing", it sounds absolutely pure: They seem to have whittled down American indie-rock into some variant that feels as lush and dreamy as English post-rock, and you start to see how a guitar-based three-piece from DC could share fans with acts like Stereolab, share UK label-space with the Cocteau Twins, and cover both new wave obscurities like the Family Fodder and indie pop prototypes like Miaow. The trick is to see Unrest for what they were: A pop band that didn't often play pop songs. There's always that rushing, radio-friendly jangle, yes. But the bulk of their work-- both here and on the even more accessible Perfect Teeth-- was a lot more stylized than that, and the oddly dreamy pop sound they sketched out tends to be unique enough to inspire devotion. Imperial's littered with tracks you'll wind up skipping; even with those eight bonuses (more prototypes and variants than anything else), I can only whittle it down to a nine-song Perfect Album. But when it's worth it, it kills: This stuff is pure style, and unlike just about anything around it.

Artist: Unrest, Album: Imperial f.f.r.r., Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "One of the cooler things about the Great Halcyon Days of College Radio (say, 1987-93) was the number of different camps populating the underground. You had your hardcore kids, punks, and skate rats big on yelling and beer, skeptical of synths and Englishmen. You had your goths and art school kids, big on keyboards and eyeliner. And you had your tweedy collegiate types, the ones with their hands on the radio transmitters, and who made (sm)arty-pants indie-rock their reigning sound. It was that audience that took Unrest up as a flagship, making them loom as large as Pavement, Hal Hartley, and David Foster Wallace in the mid-90s college-sophomore canon. Super-minimalist pop, cloudy atmosphere, trans-Atlantic cool, and obscure obsessions like Cath Carroll and Isabel Bishop: Nothing seemed to fit quite as well with design courses and corduroy. Design types, after all, have that thing about minimalism, and this band's stark, elegant sound could strip things down to a strikingly small number of moving parts-- some kind of warm, detailed dream of the indie-rock group as postmodern 50s pop combo. This reissue of 1992's Imperial f.f.r.r. demonstrates where Unrest, formerly a scattershot pseudo-punk outfit, became that version of itself-- an art-pop guitar band drawing incredibly simple lines. If the story of this group is that of frontman Mark Robinson gradually admitting he might rather be an English kid from the early 80s, well, their EP of Factory Records covers may be the coming-out party, but this is where it counts. The first attraction is the sound of their big ecstatic pop songs, which feel as crisp and joyous as ever: "Suki" rushes along on clean guitar jangle and Robinson's coy babble (no one's ever sounded so good just repeating the word "kicking"), and "Cherry Cream On", an even coyer come-on, is still the record's standout blast. Come to this reissue looking for that pop rush, though, and you'll barely get an EP's worth of what you want-- even counting the eight bonus tracks. Because no matter how easy it is to remember Unrest as a racing pop act ("Cath Carroll", "Make Out Club"), the fact is that they were starker and artier than that, and the scattershot experiments of their early releases can still be heard fading into this one. The first track is just the test tone used for mastering, and around its edges you get just as many art pieces: Here a collage of beats, bells, and bass; there a pattern of feedback bouncing between speakers. But those are the poles: The actual core of this album is stark, warm, and elegantly simple, and it's in that space that Unrest wound up doing their most interesting work. The title track, for instance, is just a slow, chiming guitar run and one of Robinson's awkward choir-boy vocals; a 14-minute variant among the bonus tracks strips it down even further. The album version of "Isabel" is similar, just acoustic guitar and a careful chorus harmony; it was the 12" version, included here, that fleshed it out into a college radio hit, sounding something like indie-pop trip-hop. "June", one of the band's best-ever tracks, glides smoothly along on just bass, drums, and bassist Bridget Cross's vocals, then fleshes it out into a harmonized wash that's a blueprint for the post-Unrest Air Miami project. There are plenty of skips around that sound-- they're something like Crispy Ambulance fans on "Loyola", something like Krautrock devotees on the bonus "Hydrofoil One". But on a track like "I Do Believe You Are Blushing", it sounds absolutely pure: They seem to have whittled down American indie-rock into some variant that feels as lush and dreamy as English post-rock, and you start to see how a guitar-based three-piece from DC could share fans with acts like Stereolab, share UK label-space with the Cocteau Twins, and cover both new wave obscurities like the Family Fodder and indie pop prototypes like Miaow. The trick is to see Unrest for what they were: A pop band that didn't often play pop songs. There's always that rushing, radio-friendly jangle, yes. But the bulk of their work-- both here and on the even more accessible Perfect Teeth-- was a lot more stylized than that, and the oddly dreamy pop sound they sketched out tends to be unique enough to inspire devotion. Imperial's littered with tracks you'll wind up skipping; even with those eight bonuses (more prototypes and variants than anything else), I can only whittle it down to a nine-song Perfect Album. But when it's worth it, it kills: This stuff is pure style, and unlike just about anything around it."

Lightning Bolt

Wonderful Rainbow

Rock

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Forming in 1995 and performing locally around Providence, Rhode Island, Lightning Bolt started out a sloppy but determined art-school trio with a penchant for Skin Graft-style noise-rock and aggressive live shows. It took them two years to get a record out, and when they finally did, it was released in a limited run of 750 copies. Since then, they've tightened up-- even dropping a member to become a bass/drums duo-- and the live shows which were once simply tenacious have slowly developed into juggernauts, atomic blasts of crystalline fury that send shards of feedback and blistering distortion into anyone who dares witness such savagery in the flesh. 2001 saw things quickly heating up for Lightning Bolt. Their first nationally released full-length, Ride the Skies, set an impossibly high standard for the band, its tightly wound maelstrom of brutal aggression earning them instant acclaim as among the most punishing new art-rock bands. But, in an unusual parallel with the early bands of 1980s indie rock, the record served mainly as a flier for their brain-damaging stage show, the main attraction. The massive, chunky noise violence that emits from bassist Brian Gibson and drummer Brian Chippendale onstage makes for an intensely visceral experience. Chippendale's vocals transmit via a contact mic rigged to his mouth inside a weathered, striped ski mask-- which, incidentally, was reduced to a mere shred of its former self by the third time they'd made it to my city last year. Their amps alone are about the height and size of a large-scale yurt, and when they're turned up all the way, the sound is both hypnotic and physically exhausting. Ride the Skies conveyed that power, earning the band comparisons to Ruins, Boredoms, and even Slayer. The bass came in clumps of crackled abuse, the drums clanged and thwacked with colossal precision, and Chippendale's searing, scorched vocal delivery was enough to blow holes clean through the most durable speakers at high volumes. Suffice to say, Lightning Bolt have got quite a myth to uphold with their second full-length, Wonderful Rainbow. One might expect this follow-up to either echo Ride the Skies, or diverge from that record's distinctive sound and collapse under the weight of its experimentation. I rank Lightning Bolt in my top ten live experiences of all time, and I wasn't quite convinced they weren't just a one-trick pony, all flash and magic. Fortunately, Wonderful Rainbow proves superior to its predecessor. Sure, there's less grating, scraping, and stabbing-- three traits that best defined their last LP-- and it may even disappoint those who love Lightning Bolt purely for the carnage. But Wonderful Rainbow delivers what Ride the Skies most lacked: musical diversity. Possibly taking cues from their psychic brethren and frequent tourmates Hella, Lightning Bolt have replaced much of their corrosive noise with throat-grappling melodies that are... actually kind of pretty, in a lacerating, destructive kind of way. "Crown of Storms", a noodly, chugging prog anthem spattered with muffled hollering, and the quietly chirping title track, show Lightning Bolt dropping some of their incredible audacity to further embrace a clearly awesome sense of humor. The result is something like a more contemporary, less D&D-oriented; Blind Guardian; titanic, complex metal distorted by bass and kickdrum shrapnel. The levity and melody lighten things up considerably, adding more energy and sparkling static, and making the band's traditional fist-throwing freakouts-- like the appropriately titled "30,000 Monkies"-- resonate much more on the uptake. Though already known for naked aggression executed with highbrow overtones, Lightning Bolt have gone even artier on us with Wonderful Rainbow, and by balancing their strong-armed aesthetic with unexpected dynamics, they're now proving themselves as artists with actual range, a band that can deliver beyond the novelty that got people talking; perhaps for the first time on a broad scale, Lightning Bolt will have them listening instead.

Artist: Lightning Bolt, Album: Wonderful Rainbow, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "Forming in 1995 and performing locally around Providence, Rhode Island, Lightning Bolt started out a sloppy but determined art-school trio with a penchant for Skin Graft-style noise-rock and aggressive live shows. It took them two years to get a record out, and when they finally did, it was released in a limited run of 750 copies. Since then, they've tightened up-- even dropping a member to become a bass/drums duo-- and the live shows which were once simply tenacious have slowly developed into juggernauts, atomic blasts of crystalline fury that send shards of feedback and blistering distortion into anyone who dares witness such savagery in the flesh. 2001 saw things quickly heating up for Lightning Bolt. Their first nationally released full-length, Ride the Skies, set an impossibly high standard for the band, its tightly wound maelstrom of brutal aggression earning them instant acclaim as among the most punishing new art-rock bands. But, in an unusual parallel with the early bands of 1980s indie rock, the record served mainly as a flier for their brain-damaging stage show, the main attraction. The massive, chunky noise violence that emits from bassist Brian Gibson and drummer Brian Chippendale onstage makes for an intensely visceral experience. Chippendale's vocals transmit via a contact mic rigged to his mouth inside a weathered, striped ski mask-- which, incidentally, was reduced to a mere shred of its former self by the third time they'd made it to my city last year. Their amps alone are about the height and size of a large-scale yurt, and when they're turned up all the way, the sound is both hypnotic and physically exhausting. Ride the Skies conveyed that power, earning the band comparisons to Ruins, Boredoms, and even Slayer. The bass came in clumps of crackled abuse, the drums clanged and thwacked with colossal precision, and Chippendale's searing, scorched vocal delivery was enough to blow holes clean through the most durable speakers at high volumes. Suffice to say, Lightning Bolt have got quite a myth to uphold with their second full-length, Wonderful Rainbow. One might expect this follow-up to either echo Ride the Skies, or diverge from that record's distinctive sound and collapse under the weight of its experimentation. I rank Lightning Bolt in my top ten live experiences of all time, and I wasn't quite convinced they weren't just a one-trick pony, all flash and magic. Fortunately, Wonderful Rainbow proves superior to its predecessor. Sure, there's less grating, scraping, and stabbing-- three traits that best defined their last LP-- and it may even disappoint those who love Lightning Bolt purely for the carnage. But Wonderful Rainbow delivers what Ride the Skies most lacked: musical diversity. Possibly taking cues from their psychic brethren and frequent tourmates Hella, Lightning Bolt have replaced much of their corrosive noise with throat-grappling melodies that are... actually kind of pretty, in a lacerating, destructive kind of way. "Crown of Storms", a noodly, chugging prog anthem spattered with muffled hollering, and the quietly chirping title track, show Lightning Bolt dropping some of their incredible audacity to further embrace a clearly awesome sense of humor. The result is something like a more contemporary, less D&D-oriented; Blind Guardian; titanic, complex metal distorted by bass and kickdrum shrapnel. The levity and melody lighten things up considerably, adding more energy and sparkling static, and making the band's traditional fist-throwing freakouts-- like the appropriately titled "30,000 Monkies"-- resonate much more on the uptake. Though already known for naked aggression executed with highbrow overtones, Lightning Bolt have gone even artier on us with Wonderful Rainbow, and by balancing their strong-armed aesthetic with unexpected dynamics, they're now proving themselves as artists with actual range, a band that can deliver beyond the novelty that got people talking; perhaps for the first time on a broad scale, Lightning Bolt will have them listening instead."

Julie Sokolow

Something About Violins

Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

The tape hiss that courses through nearly every song on Julie Sokolow's debut, Something About Violins, suggests what tape hiss usually suggests: a live-setting intimacy testifying to some sort of Luddite authenticity, whether in the recording (a basement four-track) or the instrumentation (a yard-sale turntable). Sokolow, a Pittsburgh native living in New York City, plays up this lo-fi sensibility, keeping instruments to a minimum (typically, just her voice and guitar) and basking in that airy hiss to create a sound that's not unlike early Cat Power or Julie Doiron. But lo-fi as a movement, to which Sokolow alludes only tangentially, strikes me as an aesthetic of circumstance: Artists with limited access to technology, from Guided by Voices to the Grifters to Daniel Johnston, have turned that fuzzy sound into a viable genre. In this setting, Sokolow's guitar sounds textured, its high end tinnily bright and its low end reverberating roomily. Her voice sounds dreamily nuanced, personable yet mysterious as she contemplates unrequited love on "Your Wrists" and her fragile emotional state on "Expanse's Net". But credit Sokolow with self-awareness: For her, lo-fi isn't a result of outsider circumstances, but an artistic choice. After all, she recorded these songs on her Mac G4's built-in mic. Something About Violins adroitly upends lo-fi's expectations of live performance, its songs full of artful touches and sophisticated layering of sounds. "Alternations" begins with a recital-quality piano; then she begins singing; then she begins layering multiple vocal tracks in an odd chorale. And then enters what sounds like a roomful of toy monkeys playing a roomful of miniature cymbals. Meanwhile, "Solid" is anything but. After a hushed verse, the song distorts in soft, quavering static, her words barely breaking the surface. "End March" incorporates a spoken-word verse that splinters into several voices, stitched together by a martial snare and delicate piano. As confident as the album is, Sokolow realizes the potential ambiguity of sound and uses that to her advantage: "I shook on the phone and it sounded like laughter," she sings matter-of-factly on "Expanse's Net". "Broke plates in alarm and it sounded like clapping." She's unafraid to portray herself in a less-than-flattering light, to candidly expose "how ugly I can be", as she states in "Pictures", without sounding self-absorbed or blandly confessional. Instead, she comes across as conflicted, her emotions as unresolved as her music, but her tough-minded, self-reflective lyrics give shape and solidity to these mercurial songs. That may be the most intriguing aspect of Something About Violins: her lyrics explain why her music sounds the way it does.

Artist: Julie Sokolow, Album: Something About Violins, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.6 Album review: "The tape hiss that courses through nearly every song on Julie Sokolow's debut, Something About Violins, suggests what tape hiss usually suggests: a live-setting intimacy testifying to some sort of Luddite authenticity, whether in the recording (a basement four-track) or the instrumentation (a yard-sale turntable). Sokolow, a Pittsburgh native living in New York City, plays up this lo-fi sensibility, keeping instruments to a minimum (typically, just her voice and guitar) and basking in that airy hiss to create a sound that's not unlike early Cat Power or Julie Doiron. But lo-fi as a movement, to which Sokolow alludes only tangentially, strikes me as an aesthetic of circumstance: Artists with limited access to technology, from Guided by Voices to the Grifters to Daniel Johnston, have turned that fuzzy sound into a viable genre. In this setting, Sokolow's guitar sounds textured, its high end tinnily bright and its low end reverberating roomily. Her voice sounds dreamily nuanced, personable yet mysterious as she contemplates unrequited love on "Your Wrists" and her fragile emotional state on "Expanse's Net". But credit Sokolow with self-awareness: For her, lo-fi isn't a result of outsider circumstances, but an artistic choice. After all, she recorded these songs on her Mac G4's built-in mic. Something About Violins adroitly upends lo-fi's expectations of live performance, its songs full of artful touches and sophisticated layering of sounds. "Alternations" begins with a recital-quality piano; then she begins singing; then she begins layering multiple vocal tracks in an odd chorale. And then enters what sounds like a roomful of toy monkeys playing a roomful of miniature cymbals. Meanwhile, "Solid" is anything but. After a hushed verse, the song distorts in soft, quavering static, her words barely breaking the surface. "End March" incorporates a spoken-word verse that splinters into several voices, stitched together by a martial snare and delicate piano. As confident as the album is, Sokolow realizes the potential ambiguity of sound and uses that to her advantage: "I shook on the phone and it sounded like laughter," she sings matter-of-factly on "Expanse's Net". "Broke plates in alarm and it sounded like clapping." She's unafraid to portray herself in a less-than-flattering light, to candidly expose "how ugly I can be", as she states in "Pictures", without sounding self-absorbed or blandly confessional. Instead, she comes across as conflicted, her emotions as unresolved as her music, but her tough-minded, self-reflective lyrics give shape and solidity to these mercurial songs. That may be the most intriguing aspect of Something About Violins: her lyrics explain why her music sounds the way it does."

Volta Do Mar

At the Speed of Light of Day

Dominique Leone

We've seen our music come a long way in the last few decades. Could any of the original rock and rollers have foreseen the kind of advances their music would be subject to? It's not just that rock music sounds different now than when it began, but it seems the whole attitude of playing has changed. I've always read about the old rock music being borne of rebellion, and the kind of thing that united otherwise unrelated kids. But, after dozens of movements-- technological, conceptual and sometimes even cultural-- today, rock is almost irreparably diverse. Now, most people would say that's a good thing. I would agree with them, to the point that new music can never be bad, in the same way new information can never be bad. Fresh ideas are the symptom of a vital community, and to witness the expansion of rock's reach over its history is indeed inspiring. However, there is a price: chiefly, that when moving forward, often in direct opposition to that which is considered "standard" or "traditional," sometimes good things get left behind. I won't hide my biases. I grew up on Beatles and Beach Boys. Whether I like it or not, I've come to expect certain things about music, such as cool melodies, interesting arrangements, and ace musicianship. This is not to say I don't appreciate inspired chaos, but unless I pick up on some inherent will to address (and not necessarily even emphasize) those "classic" characteristics, I'm wont to find the music lacking. And this is why Volta Do Mar's latest, At the Speed of Light of Day, is often disappointing. They aren't chaotic, and certainly aren't bad musicians, but something is missing. Chicago's Volta Do Mar play post-rock. Whatever your feeling for that terminology, it's now a perfectly legitimate generalization for music that might otherwise get lumped in with second-form prog. This is music that takes all the dexterity and kinetic flash of old-school progressive rock, but is usually not as over-the-top, extroverted or showy (bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky are exceptions to the rule). Unfortunately, it's often not as interesting, either. You see, my main issue with a band like Volta Do Mar is not that they're too intense and eclectic, but they aren't enough of those things. They don't have melodies. The tunes are long and complicated; not because there are lots of ideas being presented, but as far as I can tell, because the band stretches out their ideas too much, and there always comes a point where I wonder why they keep playing the same stuff over and over. Of course, there's a tradition for that, too. In rock, you need look no further than the original Krautrockers to find examples of how lengthy, repetitive music could be both "progressive" and "rock," and yet not be "progressive rock." Maybe that's what Volta Do Mar is going for: some kind of synthesis of, say, Neu and Rush. It just seems that when bands try to combine these disparate influences, they often end up creating music that negates the best qualities of all of it. The album begins with "The Sound of Day." Guitarist Phil Taylor finger-picks some rather lovely figures on acoustic guitar, which is a nice change from the ultra-processed sounds post-rock bands usually opt for. Soon, an electric guitar enters with a repetitive figure, dissolving to tense jabs. Pounding toms and a deep bass crescendo to a point when the band implodes. Then, with the guitar still jabbing away in the distance, basses in both channels drop a few afterthoughts, and the acoustic guitar comes back. The whole thing is very atmospheric, like watching an oncoming rainstorm. A nice start. Afterwards comes "7/1000," which tries to up the intensity level-- the volume has increased and the tempo is faster. Drummer Tony Ceraulo, excellent throughout, does his best to inject some life into the tune, which sounds mostly comprised of figures (but not "riffs") that are child to Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew's from Discipline-era King Crimson, but retain little of the direction of that music. It leads into the short "Rock for Nations," which adds some straightforward rock groove to the mix. In each case, I could have used more prog and less post, as without real melodies, and lacking very much textural diversity, this stuff begins to get a tad monolithic. The band does kick it into a higher gear elsewhere, on "Binary Penetration," which features some very aggressive drumming and guitar playing (though I still couldn't really call what Taylor is playing "riffs"). However, at only 33 seconds in length, the fun is over before it really gets started. More typical is the following tune, "Quiet Alley and Lonely Terrain," which manages to take a hard groove and interesting form and not do anything with them. I would like to say that the band are inventing a new kind of rock where none of the traditional characteristics matter anymore, but mostly I was just waiting for the introduction to be over, and the real song to start. The introduction turned out to be the whole song, and I was left waiting. I should mention that these guys (including duel bassists Mike Baldwin and Jeff Wojtysiak) all sound like excellent players. Again, the fact that they seemingly have so much raw material to work with makes this album a little disappointing. Believe me, I would kill to hear people taking old prog and Krautrock, and turning it into a brand of music that wouldn't necessarily be "post" anything, but something new and just as interesting. I'm guessing the members of Volta Do Mar listen to lots of great music. Hopefully, they'll take their passion for playing and transcend the genres to make something altogether inspiring. You never know, someone might compare tomorrow's rock to them.

Artist: Volta Do Mar, Album: At the Speed of Light of Day, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "We've seen our music come a long way in the last few decades. Could any of the original rock and rollers have foreseen the kind of advances their music would be subject to? It's not just that rock music sounds different now than when it began, but it seems the whole attitude of playing has changed. I've always read about the old rock music being borne of rebellion, and the kind of thing that united otherwise unrelated kids. But, after dozens of movements-- technological, conceptual and sometimes even cultural-- today, rock is almost irreparably diverse. Now, most people would say that's a good thing. I would agree with them, to the point that new music can never be bad, in the same way new information can never be bad. Fresh ideas are the symptom of a vital community, and to witness the expansion of rock's reach over its history is indeed inspiring. However, there is a price: chiefly, that when moving forward, often in direct opposition to that which is considered "standard" or "traditional," sometimes good things get left behind. I won't hide my biases. I grew up on Beatles and Beach Boys. Whether I like it or not, I've come to expect certain things about music, such as cool melodies, interesting arrangements, and ace musicianship. This is not to say I don't appreciate inspired chaos, but unless I pick up on some inherent will to address (and not necessarily even emphasize) those "classic" characteristics, I'm wont to find the music lacking. And this is why Volta Do Mar's latest, At the Speed of Light of Day, is often disappointing. They aren't chaotic, and certainly aren't bad musicians, but something is missing. Chicago's Volta Do Mar play post-rock. Whatever your feeling for that terminology, it's now a perfectly legitimate generalization for music that might otherwise get lumped in with second-form prog. This is music that takes all the dexterity and kinetic flash of old-school progressive rock, but is usually not as over-the-top, extroverted or showy (bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky are exceptions to the rule). Unfortunately, it's often not as interesting, either. You see, my main issue with a band like Volta Do Mar is not that they're too intense and eclectic, but they aren't enough of those things. They don't have melodies. The tunes are long and complicated; not because there are lots of ideas being presented, but as far as I can tell, because the band stretches out their ideas too much, and there always comes a point where I wonder why they keep playing the same stuff over and over. Of course, there's a tradition for that, too. In rock, you need look no further than the original Krautrockers to find examples of how lengthy, repetitive music could be both "progressive" and "rock," and yet not be "progressive rock." Maybe that's what Volta Do Mar is going for: some kind of synthesis of, say, Neu and Rush. It just seems that when bands try to combine these disparate influences, they often end up creating music that negates the best qualities of all of it. The album begins with "The Sound of Day." Guitarist Phil Taylor finger-picks some rather lovely figures on acoustic guitar, which is a nice change from the ultra-processed sounds post-rock bands usually opt for. Soon, an electric guitar enters with a repetitive figure, dissolving to tense jabs. Pounding toms and a deep bass crescendo to a point when the band implodes. Then, with the guitar still jabbing away in the distance, basses in both channels drop a few afterthoughts, and the acoustic guitar comes back. The whole thing is very atmospheric, like watching an oncoming rainstorm. A nice start. Afterwards comes "7/1000," which tries to up the intensity level-- the volume has increased and the tempo is faster. Drummer Tony Ceraulo, excellent throughout, does his best to inject some life into the tune, which sounds mostly comprised of figures (but not "riffs") that are child to Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew's from Discipline-era King Crimson, but retain little of the direction of that music. It leads into the short "Rock for Nations," which adds some straightforward rock groove to the mix. In each case, I could have used more prog and less post, as without real melodies, and lacking very much textural diversity, this stuff begins to get a tad monolithic. The band does kick it into a higher gear elsewhere, on "Binary Penetration," which features some very aggressive drumming and guitar playing (though I still couldn't really call what Taylor is playing "riffs"). However, at only 33 seconds in length, the fun is over before it really gets started. More typical is the following tune, "Quiet Alley and Lonely Terrain," which manages to take a hard groove and interesting form and not do anything with them. I would like to say that the band are inventing a new kind of rock where none of the traditional characteristics matter anymore, but mostly I was just waiting for the introduction to be over, and the real song to start. The introduction turned out to be the whole song, and I was left waiting. I should mention that these guys (including duel bassists Mike Baldwin and Jeff Wojtysiak) all sound like excellent players. Again, the fact that they seemingly have so much raw material to work with makes this album a little disappointing. Believe me, I would kill to hear people taking old prog and Krautrock, and turning it into a brand of music that wouldn't necessarily be "post" anything, but something new and just as interesting. I'm guessing the members of Volta Do Mar listen to lots of great music. Hopefully, they'll take their passion for playing and transcend the genres to make something altogether inspiring. You never know, someone might compare tomorrow's rock to them."

Map of Africa

Map of Africa

Mark Pytlik

While it's been disproportionately hyped by folks in and around the dance music community, Thomas Bullock (Rub 'N Tug, A.R.E. Weapons) and DJ Harvey's Map of Africa really doesn't have much in common sonically with dance music at all. Variously described as "proto-disco" (mildly defensible) and "beardo house" (more wrong than right), this full-length debut is still miles away from those. So before anything else, try to forget what it says on the "file under" tab; if this qualifies as disco or house, its only under their most tangential and gracious definitions, i.e. those of the much less splintered 1970s, when stoner riffs and 4/4s routinely rubbed up against each other on DJ playlists. What does that leave us with? Basically, a classic rock record. More than anything else, Map of Africa is evidence for rock's increasing movement back towards 70s-inflected psychedelia. But where bands like Sweden's Studio have furnished that overall sound with spacier, more modern sonics, MoA prefer to keep it close to the bone. With the exception of a few of the more straightforward blues-rock tracks, which pop in a way that only rock recorded on digital can, the production here remains studiously faithful to the source material that inspired it. In that sense, this slots in comfortably with contemporaries like Arbouretum and A Mountain of One, in that all of them feel like they're on personal missions to engineer the 70s rock record they couldn't find secondhand. Of the 14 tracks here, it's the simple, skanky, meat'n'potatoes material that has the largest potential to polarize and rankle. From the inferior cover of the Equals' "Black Skin Blue Eyed Boy" to the sleazy, bar-room rock of "Gonna Ride", Map of Africa are at their most facile when they attempt-- as they do for roughly half the record-- to locate themselves somewhere near, say, Thin Lizzy or Motörhead. Combined with Bullock's puffed-out vocal delivery and his purposefully ludicrous lyrics ("Once or maybe twice a day/ Dirty lovin baby it's okay/ I like it straight around the bend/ Enough for me and both my friends" goes "Dirty Lovin"), it's often hard to see beyond this as a slightly self-indulgent genre exercise. It's not all so hard-charging, though. With its gurgling analog synths, churning rhythms, and slow, spacey builds, "Ely Cathedral" begs comparisons to vintage-period Can. Elsewhere, the short drone piece "Creation Myth", the ragged psychedelia of "Plastic Surgery", and the woozy, almost-pretty title track prove that it's the more psychedelic, kraut-inspired moments in which Map of Africa shine. In the end, though, what you get out of this debut will depend mostly on your appetite for tongue-in-cheek, guitar-in-hand and cock-stuffed-proudly-under-leather. One man's mustachio sweat is another man's treasure-- your mileage may vary.

Artist: Map of Africa, Album: Map of Africa, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "While it's been disproportionately hyped by folks in and around the dance music community, Thomas Bullock (Rub 'N Tug, A.R.E. Weapons) and DJ Harvey's Map of Africa really doesn't have much in common sonically with dance music at all. Variously described as "proto-disco" (mildly defensible) and "beardo house" (more wrong than right), this full-length debut is still miles away from those. So before anything else, try to forget what it says on the "file under" tab; if this qualifies as disco or house, its only under their most tangential and gracious definitions, i.e. those of the much less splintered 1970s, when stoner riffs and 4/4s routinely rubbed up against each other on DJ playlists. What does that leave us with? Basically, a classic rock record. More than anything else, Map of Africa is evidence for rock's increasing movement back towards 70s-inflected psychedelia. But where bands like Sweden's Studio have furnished that overall sound with spacier, more modern sonics, MoA prefer to keep it close to the bone. With the exception of a few of the more straightforward blues-rock tracks, which pop in a way that only rock recorded on digital can, the production here remains studiously faithful to the source material that inspired it. In that sense, this slots in comfortably with contemporaries like Arbouretum and A Mountain of One, in that all of them feel like they're on personal missions to engineer the 70s rock record they couldn't find secondhand. Of the 14 tracks here, it's the simple, skanky, meat'n'potatoes material that has the largest potential to polarize and rankle. From the inferior cover of the Equals' "Black Skin Blue Eyed Boy" to the sleazy, bar-room rock of "Gonna Ride", Map of Africa are at their most facile when they attempt-- as they do for roughly half the record-- to locate themselves somewhere near, say, Thin Lizzy or Motörhead. Combined with Bullock's puffed-out vocal delivery and his purposefully ludicrous lyrics ("Once or maybe twice a day/ Dirty lovin baby it's okay/ I like it straight around the bend/ Enough for me and both my friends" goes "Dirty Lovin"), it's often hard to see beyond this as a slightly self-indulgent genre exercise. It's not all so hard-charging, though. With its gurgling analog synths, churning rhythms, and slow, spacey builds, "Ely Cathedral" begs comparisons to vintage-period Can. Elsewhere, the short drone piece "Creation Myth", the ragged psychedelia of "Plastic Surgery", and the woozy, almost-pretty title track prove that it's the more psychedelic, kraut-inspired moments in which Map of Africa shine. In the end, though, what you get out of this debut will depend mostly on your appetite for tongue-in-cheek, guitar-in-hand and cock-stuffed-proudly-under-leather. One man's mustachio sweat is another man's treasure-- your mileage may vary."

Lee Ranaldo

Electric Trim

Experimental,Rock

Paul Thompson

In the early goings of Jonathan Lethem’s book Chronic City, an ex-child star called Chase Insteadman and his aging, eccentric pothead-critic pal Perkus Tooth listen—at Tooth’s insistence—to American primitive guitar/banjo legend Sandy Bull. Though Bull’s dronings soothe Tooth’s headaches, they grate mightily on the younger Insteadman; that is, until he and Tooth get nicely toasted on a strain of weed called Ice whilst scouring eBay late into the night for rare vases. Something about the night and the drugs and the cheap thrills finally sparks Insteadman’s interest in Bull’s buzzing, proto-psychedelic thrum. What’s all this got to do with Lee Ranaldo? For starters, the bulk of the lyrics on Electric Trim, Ranaldo’s third LP under his own name since the dissolution Sonic Youth, were written in collaboration with Lethem, the celebrated novelist/critic. Really, though, it’s that plenty of listeners have been waiting for their Sandy Bull-on-Ice moment with Ranaldo’s solo works. While Kim Gordon’s gloriously gnarly duo Body/Head keeps digging its heels into our skulls, and Thurston Moore continues to play in the sandbox with his own sprawling post-SY material, Ranaldo—with 2012’s Between the Tides and the Times and 2015’s Last Night on Earth—hasn’t enjoyed the same successes. With and without his band The Dust—including Sonic Youth stickman Steve Shelley, experimental guitarist and critic Alan Licht, and bassist Tim Luntzel—Ranaldo’s solo works are a meandering, somewhat toothless lot, littered with better-on-the-page lyrics and musicianship, perched in a not-unpleasant but hardly inspiring zone between proficient and predictable. This is the same Lee Ranaldo who wrote “Hey Joni” and “Eric’s Trip” and “Karen Revisited.” Was he really going to keep turning out these noncommittal solo LPs? First, the good news: Electric Trim is easily Ranaldo’s finest post-SY solo effort, a sumptuous, shape-shifting headphone record that proves there’s still plenty of gas left in the tank. Guiding a massive ensemble cast—The Dust plus Sharon Van Etten, Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Oneida drummer Kid Millions, Ranaldo’s son Cody, and others—through nine expansive, deeply pliable tunes, Ranaldo, Lethem, and Spanish producer Raul Refree have created a dexterous, rambling record, pieced together from scraps of poetry and tiny little flickers of sound. From snaky power-pop to piquant autumnal balladry to the gospel-y back-and-forth of the title track, Electric Trim is a rangy but fluid record, constantly in rearrangement, rarely the same from one moment to the next. In many ways, it’s classic Ranaldo at a somewhat lower ebb: the offhand, rainwater-grey tenor, the sinuous pace at which these tunes—all but one clocking in over five minutes—unfurl. Lyrically, Ranaldo and Lethem prove fairly sympatico, slinging conversational, Beat-derived abstractions and thumbnail-sketch narratives that leave plenty of room for interpretation. Lethem doesn’t fully curb Ranaldo’s tendency towards semi-guileless lyrics (the less said of the boneheaded body/head splits of “Uncle Skeleton,” the better). Pynchon notwithstanding, there are few if any other working novelists who get rock music quite like Lethem does—his 33 1/3 on Talking Heads’ Fear of Music is one of his three or four best books, full-stop—and he comports himself admirably here. Ranaldo and company seem to have left plenty of tape running throughout the yearlong, continent-spanning Trim sessions. Songs shift, swell, retract: a steady Shelley pulse will quickly give way to a rattletrap Kid Millions thwomp; late-Beatles orchestral ballasts come sneaking in from the sides; Nels Cline’s writhing leads streak across the sky before dissolving into the backdrop. It’s a rich, multivalent sound, and Ranaldo and producer Refree’s ability to direct all this traffic without causing too many pileups is no small feat. The gangly lyrics and garish pulse of “Uncle Skeleton” are the set’s one true misstep, but there are certainly some rough patches elsewhere. Opener “Moroccan Mountains” kicks off with a murmuring drone and slides quickly into spoken word. It finds its way into a few overlong verses, tosses out a couple Avey Tare-style yips, then completely flips itself on its head into what passes, on a Ranaldo record, for a pop song. This lends the album a semi-disjointed feel it never fully shakes; as much attention as they’ve paid to arrangement here, there’s a kind of collagist, put-that-anywhere logic to the way the songs themselves progress that can feel haphazard and choppy. It’s no wonder the more straightforward stuff—like the rousing call-and-response of “Electric Trim,” the sweet nothings of “New Thing,” and the delicate sunrises of the Sharon Van Etten-assisted “Last Looks”—fares best. I caught Ranaldo playing in Chicago just a few days before the inauguration. He introduced the circuitous Lethem collaboration “Thrown Over the Wall” as a kind of accidental protest song, a potential anthem for the gathering resistance. The tune’s a touch too indirect (“We use the sea to hide our submarines/Disguise our faces with dreams”) to fit that particular bill. But it does manage to capture a certain feeling many of us have had since late January, that restless “What now?” malaise that greets the endless tide of ever-worsening news. It’s hard to say if I would have gathered as much if Ranaldo hadn’t spelled it out, but Electric Trim draws you in just close enough to give up a few more of its secrets.

Artist: Lee Ranaldo, Album: Electric Trim, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "In the early goings of Jonathan Lethem’s book Chronic City, an ex-child star called Chase Insteadman and his aging, eccentric pothead-critic pal Perkus Tooth listen—at Tooth’s insistence—to American primitive guitar/banjo legend Sandy Bull. Though Bull’s dronings soothe Tooth’s headaches, they grate mightily on the younger Insteadman; that is, until he and Tooth get nicely toasted on a strain of weed called Ice whilst scouring eBay late into the night for rare vases. Something about the night and the drugs and the cheap thrills finally sparks Insteadman’s interest in Bull’s buzzing, proto-psychedelic thrum. What’s all this got to do with Lee Ranaldo? For starters, the bulk of the lyrics on Electric Trim, Ranaldo’s third LP under his own name since the dissolution Sonic Youth, were written in collaboration with Lethem, the celebrated novelist/critic. Really, though, it’s that plenty of listeners have been waiting for their Sandy Bull-on-Ice moment with Ranaldo’s solo works. While Kim Gordon’s gloriously gnarly duo Body/Head keeps digging its heels into our skulls, and Thurston Moore continues to play in the sandbox with his own sprawling post-SY material, Ranaldo—with 2012’s Between the Tides and the Times and 2015’s Last Night on Earth—hasn’t enjoyed the same successes. With and without his band The Dust—including Sonic Youth stickman Steve Shelley, experimental guitarist and critic Alan Licht, and bassist Tim Luntzel—Ranaldo’s solo works are a meandering, somewhat toothless lot, littered with better-on-the-page lyrics and musicianship, perched in a not-unpleasant but hardly inspiring zone between proficient and predictable. This is the same Lee Ranaldo who wrote “Hey Joni” and “Eric’s Trip” and “Karen Revisited.” Was he really going to keep turning out these noncommittal solo LPs? First, the good news: Electric Trim is easily Ranaldo’s finest post-SY solo effort, a sumptuous, shape-shifting headphone record that proves there’s still plenty of gas left in the tank. Guiding a massive ensemble cast—The Dust plus Sharon Van Etten, Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Oneida drummer Kid Millions, Ranaldo’s son Cody, and others—through nine expansive, deeply pliable tunes, Ranaldo, Lethem, and Spanish producer Raul Refree have created a dexterous, rambling record, pieced together from scraps of poetry and tiny little flickers of sound. From snaky power-pop to piquant autumnal balladry to the gospel-y back-and-forth of the title track, Electric Trim is a rangy but fluid record, constantly in rearrangement, rarely the same from one moment to the next. In many ways, it’s classic Ranaldo at a somewhat lower ebb: the offhand, rainwater-grey tenor, the sinuous pace at which these tunes—all but one clocking in over five minutes—unfurl. Lyrically, Ranaldo and Lethem prove fairly sympatico, slinging conversational, Beat-derived abstractions and thumbnail-sketch narratives that leave plenty of room for interpretation. Lethem doesn’t fully curb Ranaldo’s tendency towards semi-guileless lyrics (the less said of the boneheaded body/head splits of “Uncle Skeleton,” the better). Pynchon notwithstanding, there are few if any other working novelists who get rock music quite like Lethem does—his 33 1/3 on Talking Heads’ Fear of Music is one of his three or four best books, full-stop—and he comports himself admirably here. Ranaldo and company seem to have left plenty of tape running throughout the yearlong, continent-spanning Trim sessions. Songs shift, swell, retract: a steady Shelley pulse will quickly give way to a rattletrap Kid Millions thwomp; late-Beatles orchestral ballasts come sneaking in from the sides; Nels Cline’s writhing leads streak across the sky before dissolving into the backdrop. It’s a rich, multivalent sound, and Ranaldo and producer Refree’s ability to direct all this traffic without causing too many pileups is no small feat. The gangly lyrics and garish pulse of “Uncle Skeleton” are the set’s one true misstep, but there are certainly some rough patches elsewhere. Opener “Moroccan Mountains” kicks off with a murmuring drone and slides quickly into spoken word. It finds its way into a few overlong verses, tosses out a couple Avey Tare-style yips, then completely flips itself on its head into what passes, on a Ranaldo record, for a pop song. This lends the album a semi-disjointed feel it never fully shakes; as much attention as they’ve paid to arrangement here, there’s a kind of collagist, put-that-anywhere logic to the way the songs themselves progress that can feel haphazard and choppy. It’s no wonder the more straightforward stuff—like the rousing call-and-response of “Electric Trim,” the sweet nothings of “New Thing,” and the delicate sunrises of the Sharon Van Etten-assisted “Last Looks”—fares best. I caught Ranaldo playing in Chicago just a few days before the inauguration. He introduced the circuitous Lethem collaboration “Thrown Over the Wall” as a kind of accidental protest song, a potential anthem for the gathering resistance. The tune’s a touch too indirect (“We use the sea to hide our submarines/Disguise our faces with dreams”) to fit that particular bill. But it does manage to capture a certain feeling many of us have had since late January, that restless “What now?” malaise that greets the endless tide of ever-worsening news. It’s hard to say if I would have gathered as much if Ranaldo hadn’t spelled it out, but Electric Trim draws you in just close enough to give up a few more of its secrets."

Delicate Steve

This Is Steve

Pop/R&B

Stuart Berman

Over the past six years, Steve Marion has become something you didn’t know you even needed in this day and age: a guitar hero. And just as contemporary superhero franchise reboots tend to focus less on their protagonists’ powers and more on their flaws, Marion wields his ample talent with the humility of a mortal. On the (mostly) instrumental albums he’s released as Delicate Steve, Marion’s guitar playing is always in the spotlight, but never hogging it—rather, his luminous leads form the emotional undercurrent around which everything else flows. What makes Marion a guitar hero isn’t his technical wizardry, but his music’s mission to help you through dark times. The home-brewed Afro-psych soundscapes of Marion’s previous releases made him a natural collaborator with contemporaries mining similar terrain, like Yeasayer and Dirty Projectors. Last year, he received the ultimate endorsement when he was invited to play on the latest album from the patron saint of worldly pop experimentation, Paul Simon. Though he makes primarily instrumental music, Marion’s never been shy about using his titles to telegraph his aesthetic, be it the Stevie salute of 2011’s Wondervisions or the nod to Sly Stone’s lo-fi funk masterwork There’s a Riot Goin’ On in “Afria Talks to You” (from 2012’s Positive Force). The track list to his new album, This Is Steve, features no such obvious call-outs, but one song title suggests a doozy of a defining statement: “Cartoon Rock.” This time out, Marion is less interested in rendering his inner visions than in animating rock ‘n’ roll’s most outrageous qualities, using his studio savvy to make it do all the things it can’t in real life. This Is Steve may share its predecessors’ hermetic, self-made M.O. (with Marion once again performing all the instruments himself), but it’s the first Delicate Steve album that feels like it was designed to be performed in front of a crowd—and an inebriated one at that. The pan-cultural influences and meditative quality that permeated his previous records have given way to more carefree kicks: southern-rock choogle, country-funk fusion, and new-wave spazziness. They’re the sort of hazardous materials that, in less capable hands, could easily degenerate into schticky cliché. But Marion handles them with the same craft and sensitivity he approached his previous, more contemplative records, translating the cheeky into the charming. The aforementioned “Cartoon Rock” is a case in point: what begins as an exercise in Eliminator-era ZZ Top robo-boogie eventually gives way to a joyous synth-pop coda that sounds like it’s being performed through a CalecoVision. Likewise, on the opening “Animals,” Marion revs up a greasy slide refrain in anticipation of an explosive rock-out eruption; instead, at the expected moment of detonation, it dissolves into a celestial disco daydream. In essence, the song plays out like an alternate-universe version of the 1979 Disco Demolition in Comiskey Park, where instead of blowing up Saturday Night Fever LPs, the raging long-haired ruffians storming the field suddenly break into the hustle. Marion’s previous records occasionally used vocals for textural effect, but here, he lets his guitar do all the singing. And in light of This Is Steve’s more irreverent approach, those George Harrison-styled leads play an ever more crucial role. They invest otherwise frivolous tunes—like the murky boombox reggae of “Nightlife” and the fidgety, synth-buzzed “Together”—with unexpected pangs of poignancy, while on centerpiece track “Help,” he fashions a “My Sweet Lord” for atheists, its chirpy, cloud-parting guitar melody grounded by a gritty acoustic groove. But Marion is also conscious of not overusing his string-bending skills for emotionally manipulative effect: one of the album’s most moving moments comes during the nocturnal reverie “Driving,” where the chilly, piano-sculpted post-rock atmospherics give way to a flurry of sunrise-summoning acoustic oscillations. Though it clocks in at just 28 minutes, This Is Steve is generously overstuffed—with gorgeous melodies, compositional quirks, sonic details, goofy ideas, and messy feelings. But if there’s a message Marion is trying to convey through the album’s jammed frequencies, it’s that you’re welcome to have a laugh while his guitar gently weeps.

Artist: Delicate Steve, Album: This Is Steve, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "Over the past six years, Steve Marion has become something you didn’t know you even needed in this day and age: a guitar hero. And just as contemporary superhero franchise reboots tend to focus less on their protagonists’ powers and more on their flaws, Marion wields his ample talent with the humility of a mortal. On the (mostly) instrumental albums he’s released as Delicate Steve, Marion’s guitar playing is always in the spotlight, but never hogging it—rather, his luminous leads form the emotional undercurrent around which everything else flows. What makes Marion a guitar hero isn’t his technical wizardry, but his music’s mission to help you through dark times. The home-brewed Afro-psych soundscapes of Marion’s previous releases made him a natural collaborator with contemporaries mining similar terrain, like Yeasayer and Dirty Projectors. Last year, he received the ultimate endorsement when he was invited to play on the latest album from the patron saint of worldly pop experimentation, Paul Simon. Though he makes primarily instrumental music, Marion’s never been shy about using his titles to telegraph his aesthetic, be it the Stevie salute of 2011’s Wondervisions or the nod to Sly Stone’s lo-fi funk masterwork There’s a Riot Goin’ On in “Afria Talks to You” (from 2012’s Positive Force). The track list to his new album, This Is Steve, features no such obvious call-outs, but one song title suggests a doozy of a defining statement: “Cartoon Rock.” This time out, Marion is less interested in rendering his inner visions than in animating rock ‘n’ roll’s most outrageous qualities, using his studio savvy to make it do all the things it can’t in real life. This Is Steve may share its predecessors’ hermetic, self-made M.O. (with Marion once again performing all the instruments himself), but it’s the first Delicate Steve album that feels like it was designed to be performed in front of a crowd—and an inebriated one at that. The pan-cultural influences and meditative quality that permeated his previous records have given way to more carefree kicks: southern-rock choogle, country-funk fusion, and new-wave spazziness. They’re the sort of hazardous materials that, in less capable hands, could easily degenerate into schticky cliché. But Marion handles them with the same craft and sensitivity he approached his previous, more contemplative records, translating the cheeky into the charming. The aforementioned “Cartoon Rock” is a case in point: what begins as an exercise in Eliminator-era ZZ Top robo-boogie eventually gives way to a joyous synth-pop coda that sounds like it’s being performed through a CalecoVision. Likewise, on the opening “Animals,” Marion revs up a greasy slide refrain in anticipation of an explosive rock-out eruption; instead, at the expected moment of detonation, it dissolves into a celestial disco daydream. In essence, the song plays out like an alternate-universe version of the 1979 Disco Demolition in Comiskey Park, where instead of blowing up Saturday Night Fever LPs, the raging long-haired ruffians storming the field suddenly break into the hustle. Marion’s previous records occasionally used vocals for textural effect, but here, he lets his guitar do all the singing. And in light of This Is Steve’s more irreverent approach, those George Harrison-styled leads play an ever more crucial role. They invest otherwise frivolous tunes—like the murky boombox reggae of “Nightlife” and the fidgety, synth-buzzed “Together”—with unexpected pangs of poignancy, while on centerpiece track “Help,” he fashions a “My Sweet Lord” for atheists, its chirpy, cloud-parting guitar melody grounded by a gritty acoustic groove. But Marion is also conscious of not overusing his string-bending skills for emotionally manipulative effect: one of the album’s most moving moments comes during the nocturnal reverie “Driving,” where the chilly, piano-sculpted post-rock atmospherics give way to a flurry of sunrise-summoning acoustic oscillations. Though it clocks in at just 28 minutes, This Is Steve is generously overstuffed—with gorgeous melodies, compositional quirks, sonic details, goofy ideas, and messy feelings. But if there’s a message Marion is trying to convey through the album’s jammed frequencies, it’s that you’re welcome to have a laugh while his guitar gently weeps."

Tinted Windows

Tinted Windows

Pop/R&B

Stephen M. Deusner

Let's not proclaim the CD dead just yet. Just as there are certain types of music that sound better on vinyl, the clean-room sound of that nearly obsolete silvery disc is the perfect medium for certain styles mostly associated with the 90s alt-rock that coincides with the technology's heyday. It's not an across-the-board pairing, however. Pearl Jam were so into vinyl that they added scratches to Vitalogy. But Stone Temple Pilots: CD. Candlebox: CD. Hanson: CD. Fountains of Wayne: CD. The Smashing Pumpkins: CD (although I imagine they'd be particularly loathe to admit it). Those last three acts are all represented in the new group Tinted Windows. That's middle child Taylor Hanson on vocals. Former Pumpkin James Iha on guitar. Fountain Adam Schlesinger on bass. And on the skins! The one! The only! Bun! E.! Carlos! (Crowd goes same). The drummer is obviously the odd man out here: Not only is he old enough to be the singer's father, but Cheap Trick is old enough to have intimately influenced each of his bandmates, their former bands, and pretty much anyone they ever toured with. Also, Cheap Trick: both vinyl and CD. The result of this collaboration is the kind of polished power pop that was popular and even a little edgy for a brief period during the previous decade, and it's hard to tell if Tinted Windows, with their power chords, studio-sculpted guitars, and terrible name, are hopelessly dated and irrelevant or simply nostalgic for a musical moment before CDs became technology's bitch-- right above cassingles and right below eight-tracks. I was a little disappointed that my copy wasn't sealed with one of those dogbone stickers, the residue of which would remain long after the death of the medium and even the death of me. On the other hand, the second or third best-selling tween act in the country is a power-pop act-- Jonas Brothers-- who take to the genre like a birthright and who really aren't so bad, as far as that sort of thing goes. Is there a market for the style or just for young brother acts? Even if Tinted Windows are riding a revivalist wave, the group's self-titled debut is pretty unsurprising in its pop-rock format, and it may be cynical to think they've polished it up and sanded it down to make it as broadly appealing as possible. Songs open with a snappy riff; catchy choruses follow melodic verses; and the opposite sex is the main subject matter. "Kind of a Girl" is the first song on their new album, and arguably the best, showcasing Schlesinger's compact melodies and an interesting dynamic between his bass line and Iha's guitar squall. Spelling out each woah-woah in the lyrics sheet is a nice touch, and a reminder to say good-bye to liner notes. Unfortunately, those may be the wittiest lyrics in the song, whose title promises a character who's not entirely a girl, but just kind of a girl. Instead, Schlesinger, whose pop sensibility once seemed dead-on, writes like he's still on the That Thing You Do set. Tinted Windows is best when the tempo is fast and the momentum relentless, which makes "Kind of a Girl" a strong leadoff and "Can't Get a Read on You" almost desperately fast. The highlight of "Messing with My Head"-- the real keeper here-- may be Hanson's performance, which showcases a cool falsetto yelp and subtle growl in his otherwise everyguy vocals. As the pace of the songs slow, the intensity flags and the album sags. The big, midtempo chords of "Dead Serious" herald a lackluster chorus, faux-breathless vocals, de rigueur guitar fanfares, and an egregiously unexcitable use of "hey hey hey!" Those are all Schlesinger compositions; Iha and Hanson fare worse in the songwriting department: the guitarist's "Cha Cha" is a grating Cheap Trick knock-off that should have given the drummer pause, and the singer's "Nothing to Me" grafts a pretty mean-spirited kiss-off to a pretty limp hook. But at least neither of them is responsible for the bass player's insipid montage rocker "Without Love", whose faux uplift is tempered with moldy pop clichés like "Without love the nights are so long." Sure, lyrics aren't as crucial as melody and momentum, but how can you sing along if you're always cringing? Ultimately, the whole of Tinted Windows is so much less than the sum of its considerable parts that it's almost tragic. In playing to pop's imagined past, this quartet neglect the idiosyncrasies that made them such compelling individual artists: the inventiveness of Iha's solo work, the humor and specificity of Fountains, the exuberance of "Mmmbop", the sweet escapism of Cheap Trick in the 70s. If there are dollar bins in the future, that's where you'll find this failed debut.

Artist: Tinted Windows, Album: Tinted Windows, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 3.5 Album review: "Let's not proclaim the CD dead just yet. Just as there are certain types of music that sound better on vinyl, the clean-room sound of that nearly obsolete silvery disc is the perfect medium for certain styles mostly associated with the 90s alt-rock that coincides with the technology's heyday. It's not an across-the-board pairing, however. Pearl Jam were so into vinyl that they added scratches to Vitalogy. But Stone Temple Pilots: CD. Candlebox: CD. Hanson: CD. Fountains of Wayne: CD. The Smashing Pumpkins: CD (although I imagine they'd be particularly loathe to admit it). Those last three acts are all represented in the new group Tinted Windows. That's middle child Taylor Hanson on vocals. Former Pumpkin James Iha on guitar. Fountain Adam Schlesinger on bass. And on the skins! The one! The only! Bun! E.! Carlos! (Crowd goes same). The drummer is obviously the odd man out here: Not only is he old enough to be the singer's father, but Cheap Trick is old enough to have intimately influenced each of his bandmates, their former bands, and pretty much anyone they ever toured with. Also, Cheap Trick: both vinyl and CD. The result of this collaboration is the kind of polished power pop that was popular and even a little edgy for a brief period during the previous decade, and it's hard to tell if Tinted Windows, with their power chords, studio-sculpted guitars, and terrible name, are hopelessly dated and irrelevant or simply nostalgic for a musical moment before CDs became technology's bitch-- right above cassingles and right below eight-tracks. I was a little disappointed that my copy wasn't sealed with one of those dogbone stickers, the residue of which would remain long after the death of the medium and even the death of me. On the other hand, the second or third best-selling tween act in the country is a power-pop act-- Jonas Brothers-- who take to the genre like a birthright and who really aren't so bad, as far as that sort of thing goes. Is there a market for the style or just for young brother acts? Even if Tinted Windows are riding a revivalist wave, the group's self-titled debut is pretty unsurprising in its pop-rock format, and it may be cynical to think they've polished it up and sanded it down to make it as broadly appealing as possible. Songs open with a snappy riff; catchy choruses follow melodic verses; and the opposite sex is the main subject matter. "Kind of a Girl" is the first song on their new album, and arguably the best, showcasing Schlesinger's compact melodies and an interesting dynamic between his bass line and Iha's guitar squall. Spelling out each woah-woah in the lyrics sheet is a nice touch, and a reminder to say good-bye to liner notes. Unfortunately, those may be the wittiest lyrics in the song, whose title promises a character who's not entirely a girl, but just kind of a girl. Instead, Schlesinger, whose pop sensibility once seemed dead-on, writes like he's still on the That Thing You Do set. Tinted Windows is best when the tempo is fast and the momentum relentless, which makes "Kind of a Girl" a strong leadoff and "Can't Get a Read on You" almost desperately fast. The highlight of "Messing with My Head"-- the real keeper here-- may be Hanson's performance, which showcases a cool falsetto yelp and subtle growl in his otherwise everyguy vocals. As the pace of the songs slow, the intensity flags and the album sags. The big, midtempo chords of "Dead Serious" herald a lackluster chorus, faux-breathless vocals, de rigueur guitar fanfares, and an egregiously unexcitable use of "hey hey hey!" Those are all Schlesinger compositions; Iha and Hanson fare worse in the songwriting department: the guitarist's "Cha Cha" is a grating Cheap Trick knock-off that should have given the drummer pause, and the singer's "Nothing to Me" grafts a pretty mean-spirited kiss-off to a pretty limp hook. But at least neither of them is responsible for the bass player's insipid montage rocker "Without Love", whose faux uplift is tempered with moldy pop clichés like "Without love the nights are so long." Sure, lyrics aren't as crucial as melody and momentum, but how can you sing along if you're always cringing? Ultimately, the whole of Tinted Windows is so much less than the sum of its considerable parts that it's almost tragic. In playing to pop's imagined past, this quartet neglect the idiosyncrasies that made them such compelling individual artists: the inventiveness of Iha's solo work, the humor and specificity of Fountains, the exuberance of "Mmmbop", the sweet escapism of Cheap Trick in the 70s. If there are dollar bins in the future, that's where you'll find this failed debut."

Cam'ron, DJ Drama, Vado

Boss of All Bosses 3

Rap,Pop/R&B

Jordan Sargent

As Jay-Z once said, "Men lie, women lie, numbers don't." Apparently, that memo never reached Cam'ron and Vado, whose latest joint mixtape, Boss of All Bosses 3, is actually their fifth entry in an increasingly tired series. (It follows Boss of All Bosses 1, 2, 2.5, and 2.8.) Diehard Dipset fans might turn up a few tracks here where the light of Cam's Purple Haze-era peak still flickers, but Vado, once New York's next great hope, appears so rarely that the collaborative billing feels a little misleading. Boss of All Bosses 3 is symptomatic of the current era where only a handful of rappers can get albums in stores and on time. Rappers like Cam and Vado need to flood the market to keep their names on the blogs' front page, but they also have to hope that the inherent diminishing returns of a seemingly endless mixtape series don't permanently turn off listeners. Vado should be keeping up with guys like A$AP Rocky and French Montana who have more or less assumed his buzz and replaced him in the food chain that decides which rappers might actually get to put out a real life album or take a little bit of radio airtime away from Young Money. Cam, on the other hand, is presumably looking to convince label execs that he's still a relevant artist worth an investment, a proposition that stands to lead, at best, to a internet rumors. For listeners, a tape like this begs the question: When is enough enough? At this point, new Dipset just sounds like old Dipset, and old Dipset is way more kinetic. The production here recalls the blustery symphonies of their heyday, but Cam's disengaged flow, which once felt like the epitome of cockiness, no longer sounds hungry. He still cracks a few good lines and drops the occasional sideways reference, but the Cam of "sake, Suzuki, Osaka Bay" is far in the rearview. A few tracks fare better than others: "Keys in tha Damier" isn't too far from the sample-driven bangers of Dipset yesteryear, and "Talk My Nigga" has the fiercest rapping on the tape despite both rappers jacking their cadence from Crazy Town's "Butterfly". But the appeal of these tracks isn't likely to resonate with non-diehards. There's so much invigorating rap coming out of New York (and elsewhere) right now, but Boss of All Bosses 3 isn't exactly among the most inspiring. There's no harm in plucking out a few dope tracks for a playlist, but there's so much more heat, spirit, and conviction in the back catalog. Isn't it about time you broke out disc two of Diplomatic Immunity?

Artist: Cam'ron, DJ Drama, Vado, Album: Boss of All Bosses 3, Genre: Rap,Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 5.3 Album review: "As Jay-Z once said, "Men lie, women lie, numbers don't." Apparently, that memo never reached Cam'ron and Vado, whose latest joint mixtape, Boss of All Bosses 3, is actually their fifth entry in an increasingly tired series. (It follows Boss of All Bosses 1, 2, 2.5, and 2.8.) Diehard Dipset fans might turn up a few tracks here where the light of Cam's Purple Haze-era peak still flickers, but Vado, once New York's next great hope, appears so rarely that the collaborative billing feels a little misleading. Boss of All Bosses 3 is symptomatic of the current era where only a handful of rappers can get albums in stores and on time. Rappers like Cam and Vado need to flood the market to keep their names on the blogs' front page, but they also have to hope that the inherent diminishing returns of a seemingly endless mixtape series don't permanently turn off listeners. Vado should be keeping up with guys like A$AP Rocky and French Montana who have more or less assumed his buzz and replaced him in the food chain that decides which rappers might actually get to put out a real life album or take a little bit of radio airtime away from Young Money. Cam, on the other hand, is presumably looking to convince label execs that he's still a relevant artist worth an investment, a proposition that stands to lead, at best, to a internet rumors. For listeners, a tape like this begs the question: When is enough enough? At this point, new Dipset just sounds like old Dipset, and old Dipset is way more kinetic. The production here recalls the blustery symphonies of their heyday, but Cam's disengaged flow, which once felt like the epitome of cockiness, no longer sounds hungry. He still cracks a few good lines and drops the occasional sideways reference, but the Cam of "sake, Suzuki, Osaka Bay" is far in the rearview. A few tracks fare better than others: "Keys in tha Damier" isn't too far from the sample-driven bangers of Dipset yesteryear, and "Talk My Nigga" has the fiercest rapping on the tape despite both rappers jacking their cadence from Crazy Town's "Butterfly". But the appeal of these tracks isn't likely to resonate with non-diehards. There's so much invigorating rap coming out of New York (and elsewhere) right now, but Boss of All Bosses 3 isn't exactly among the most inspiring. There's no harm in plucking out a few dope tracks for a playlist, but there's so much more heat, spirit, and conviction in the back catalog. Isn't it about time you broke out disc two of Diplomatic Immunity?"

Laurent Garnier

The Cloud Making Machine

Electronic

Adam Moerder

Laurent Garnier has played the Antonio Salieri of the French electronic scene, spending years studying and publicizing the genre only to take a backseat to major-label Mozarts like Air, Cassius, and-- of course-- Daft Punk. But while these newcomers were living it up in the house scene that Garnier built, the veteran DJ pressed on with several commendable, although modestly received, full-lengths. What Garnier can lack in feeling, he makes up for with years of technical know-how, on The Cloud Making Machine as before. Songs like "Huis Clos" and "Act 1 Minotaure Ex." are dark and colossal, as if recorded in some massive sub-aquatic lair. "Barbiturik Blues" clearly sprouts from the same mind that flavored his late 1980s house and techno with refreshing amounts of jazz. The song showcases casino-cool mellotron improv over an impeccably modulated drum beat. Between the two instruments, Garnier drops space-age blips and beeps, just to top it all off. Garnier's logged many years in this biz spinning Madchester, penning books, and curating compilations-- he's heard a lot and his palate is wide. That said, Garnier's genre-hopping tendency costs him his personality, a common sacrifice for DJs. "9.01-9.06" drips with Richard D. James envy; its ominous bassline sounds like a mere video game score compared to Aphex Twin's more menacing bass patterns. "(I Wanna Be) Waiting For My Plane" sounds like an electronic mutation of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with a shitty Iggy Pop, restored by scratchy digital sheen. All in all, despite failing to live up to their originals, the tracks change up the album's pace nicely and allow Garnier to show off more electro toys. Garnier's idea for a more cerebral, emotional album is wise; 2000's Unreasonable Behaviour, with its vocoders and pretentious lyrics, begged too hard for attention. At the risk of sounding cold, the only thing about The Cloud Making Machine that could be considered pretentious is that it has a concept-- in this case, the Parisian homeless. Come on, Laurent, how am I supposed to help the homeless when I can't stop digging these beats?!

Artist: Laurent Garnier, Album: The Cloud Making Machine, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Laurent Garnier has played the Antonio Salieri of the French electronic scene, spending years studying and publicizing the genre only to take a backseat to major-label Mozarts like Air, Cassius, and-- of course-- Daft Punk. But while these newcomers were living it up in the house scene that Garnier built, the veteran DJ pressed on with several commendable, although modestly received, full-lengths. What Garnier can lack in feeling, he makes up for with years of technical know-how, on The Cloud Making Machine as before. Songs like "Huis Clos" and "Act 1 Minotaure Ex." are dark and colossal, as if recorded in some massive sub-aquatic lair. "Barbiturik Blues" clearly sprouts from the same mind that flavored his late 1980s house and techno with refreshing amounts of jazz. The song showcases casino-cool mellotron improv over an impeccably modulated drum beat. Between the two instruments, Garnier drops space-age blips and beeps, just to top it all off. Garnier's logged many years in this biz spinning Madchester, penning books, and curating compilations-- he's heard a lot and his palate is wide. That said, Garnier's genre-hopping tendency costs him his personality, a common sacrifice for DJs. "9.01-9.06" drips with Richard D. James envy; its ominous bassline sounds like a mere video game score compared to Aphex Twin's more menacing bass patterns. "(I Wanna Be) Waiting For My Plane" sounds like an electronic mutation of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with a shitty Iggy Pop, restored by scratchy digital sheen. All in all, despite failing to live up to their originals, the tracks change up the album's pace nicely and allow Garnier to show off more electro toys. Garnier's idea for a more cerebral, emotional album is wise; 2000's Unreasonable Behaviour, with its vocoders and pretentious lyrics, begged too hard for attention. At the risk of sounding cold, the only thing about The Cloud Making Machine that could be considered pretentious is that it has a concept-- in this case, the Parisian homeless. Come on, Laurent, how am I supposed to help the homeless when I can't stop digging these beats?!"

Beequeen

The Bodyshop

Electronic

Matthew Murphy

Since the late 1980s, the Dutch duo of Frans De Waard and Freek Kinkelaar have blazed an enigmatic trail together as Beequeen, with the bulk of their back catalog consisting of impossibly rare singles, one-sided LPs, self-issued cassettes, and other seldom-seen relics. And much of their early work (at least in the trace amounts I've actually been able to track down) is as inscrutable as their discography is unwieldy, consisting of a formidable series of opaque post-industrial ambient dronescapes. With their 2002 album Ownliness, however, the twosome made an abrupt (relatively speaking) break with their past as they cracked open their heavy shutters just enough to allow in some stray melodic sunrays, even making use of polite trip-hop beats and ringing indie-rock guitars. Picking up from where the more accessible fibers of Ownliness led them, The Bodyshop is Beequeen's most musically expansive work yet, incorporating elements of shadowy folk and Faustian prog into their microsound tableaus. And though Beequeen's combination of electronics and folk elements is hardly an unprecedented (or untrendy) maneuver, few acts this side of Current 93 have so managed to lace their surface pastoralism with such unsettling, sinister nuance. Painstakingly recorded by Legendary Pink Dots guitarist Erik Drost, every sound on The Bodyshop has been audibly fretted over down to the tiniest electronic mote, giving these pieces an effectively claustrophobic feel that never permits the listener to become overly comfortable, quietly demanding the album receive unbroken attention. After opening with the Yo La Tengo-like guitar instrumental of "Swag Cave," (one of the few unambiguously pretty tracks here) the gentle folksy arpeggios of "Sad Sheep" are soon overrun by itchy, drill-like electronic whines, segueing into "The Dream-O-Phone" where the microscopic mandibles of carpenter ants patiently consume the lush scenery. Elsewhere, as on the percussive "Blackburn" or swirling psych of "One Road to Everywhere", Beequeen begin to resemble the spacious avant-rock of groups like Cul De Sac or Dirty Three. Perhaps the track most illustrative of The Bodyshop's peculiar allure is their cover of Nick Drake's "Black-Eyed Dog", which features exquisite, double-tracked vocals by Marie-Louise Munck. Beginning as a near a cappella folk tune, Beequeen allow Drake's troubling lyric ("A black-eyed dog he called at my door...a black-eyed dog he knew my name") room to gather depressive momentum before slowly adding layers of disquieting, clacking electronics which carry the groans of an antique winding wheel spinning gold back into straw. It's a mesmerizing, haunting performance, and it exemplifies Beequeen's skill for creating beguiling music whose tranquil surfaces mask treacherous, churning depths.

Artist: Beequeen, Album: The Bodyshop, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "Since the late 1980s, the Dutch duo of Frans De Waard and Freek Kinkelaar have blazed an enigmatic trail together as Beequeen, with the bulk of their back catalog consisting of impossibly rare singles, one-sided LPs, self-issued cassettes, and other seldom-seen relics. And much of their early work (at least in the trace amounts I've actually been able to track down) is as inscrutable as their discography is unwieldy, consisting of a formidable series of opaque post-industrial ambient dronescapes. With their 2002 album Ownliness, however, the twosome made an abrupt (relatively speaking) break with their past as they cracked open their heavy shutters just enough to allow in some stray melodic sunrays, even making use of polite trip-hop beats and ringing indie-rock guitars. Picking up from where the more accessible fibers of Ownliness led them, The Bodyshop is Beequeen's most musically expansive work yet, incorporating elements of shadowy folk and Faustian prog into their microsound tableaus. And though Beequeen's combination of electronics and folk elements is hardly an unprecedented (or untrendy) maneuver, few acts this side of Current 93 have so managed to lace their surface pastoralism with such unsettling, sinister nuance. Painstakingly recorded by Legendary Pink Dots guitarist Erik Drost, every sound on The Bodyshop has been audibly fretted over down to the tiniest electronic mote, giving these pieces an effectively claustrophobic feel that never permits the listener to become overly comfortable, quietly demanding the album receive unbroken attention. After opening with the Yo La Tengo-like guitar instrumental of "Swag Cave," (one of the few unambiguously pretty tracks here) the gentle folksy arpeggios of "Sad Sheep" are soon overrun by itchy, drill-like electronic whines, segueing into "The Dream-O-Phone" where the microscopic mandibles of carpenter ants patiently consume the lush scenery. Elsewhere, as on the percussive "Blackburn" or swirling psych of "One Road to Everywhere", Beequeen begin to resemble the spacious avant-rock of groups like Cul De Sac or Dirty Three. Perhaps the track most illustrative of The Bodyshop's peculiar allure is their cover of Nick Drake's "Black-Eyed Dog", which features exquisite, double-tracked vocals by Marie-Louise Munck. Beginning as a near a cappella folk tune, Beequeen allow Drake's troubling lyric ("A black-eyed dog he called at my door...a black-eyed dog he knew my name") room to gather depressive momentum before slowly adding layers of disquieting, clacking electronics which carry the groans of an antique winding wheel spinning gold back into straw. It's a mesmerizing, haunting performance, and it exemplifies Beequeen's skill for creating beguiling music whose tranquil surfaces mask treacherous, churning depths."

Prins Thomas

Prins Thomas

Electronic

Andrew Gaerig

Prins Thomas has built a reputation as a cosmic disco stalwart through a series of ubiquitously fun remixes, running the Full Pupp label, and his status as Lindstrøm's best bro. In fact, he's been sort of hard to avoid for anyone with even a cursory interest in a Scandinavian electronic scene populated by artists like Rune Lindbæk, diskJokke, and Todd Terje. When Thomas' eponymous debut was announced abruptly in February, there was a sense of inevitability-- a coming-out party for one of nu-disco's premier names. Prins Thomas, however, is a bit of a curveball, one that moves away from most definitions of "dance" music toward a wilier sound inspired by 1970s German music and avant-garde composition. The first thing you notice about Prins Thomas is that it's slow, or at least reserved. Thomas has been mining krautrock legends like Cluster, Neu!, and solo works by Michael Rother and Manuel Göttsching. (No surprise-- one of Thomas' only proper tracks prior to this release was named "Göttsching".) His highest profile gig to-date has been working with fellow Norwegian Lindstrøm, with last year's collaboration, II, digging hard into fried instrumental jams. Prins Thomas came together quickly after mixing for II ended, and it's cut from the same cloth: slow grooves that leave room for guitars, keyboards, and sometimes vocals to voyage skyward. These expeditions can be thrilling and impressive, but Prins Thomas often fails to establish any discernible mood; the album is not effusive or downcast, never giddy or stoic. It feels, at times, academic, which is a product of its well-worn influences but also Thomas' sturdy, uneventful pacing. The longest track here, "Sauerkraut", references its influences in both its title and its composition, speeding up the bassline from Neu!'s seminal "Negativland". Prins Thomas sometimes feels like the work of a fan, a study. Of course Thomas is much more than just a fan, and he's smart enough to know that he needn't assign too much importance to an album, even his first: In an interview with Beatportal (conducted by Pitchfork contributor Philip Sherburne) he refers to Prins Thomas as a "snapshot." He openly frets about his musical ability while name-checking the legends. It's safe to say that an artist who spent 10 years collaborating in a close-knit scene before dropping his debut has healthily non-traditional attitudes about a career in music. In turn, it's best to think of Prins Thomas not as a speedbump but as another iteration, slightly undercooked, of his still-developing style.

Artist: Prins Thomas, Album: Prins Thomas, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "Prins Thomas has built a reputation as a cosmic disco stalwart through a series of ubiquitously fun remixes, running the Full Pupp label, and his status as Lindstrøm's best bro. In fact, he's been sort of hard to avoid for anyone with even a cursory interest in a Scandinavian electronic scene populated by artists like Rune Lindbæk, diskJokke, and Todd Terje. When Thomas' eponymous debut was announced abruptly in February, there was a sense of inevitability-- a coming-out party for one of nu-disco's premier names. Prins Thomas, however, is a bit of a curveball, one that moves away from most definitions of "dance" music toward a wilier sound inspired by 1970s German music and avant-garde composition. The first thing you notice about Prins Thomas is that it's slow, or at least reserved. Thomas has been mining krautrock legends like Cluster, Neu!, and solo works by Michael Rother and Manuel Göttsching. (No surprise-- one of Thomas' only proper tracks prior to this release was named "Göttsching".) His highest profile gig to-date has been working with fellow Norwegian Lindstrøm, with last year's collaboration, II, digging hard into fried instrumental jams. Prins Thomas came together quickly after mixing for II ended, and it's cut from the same cloth: slow grooves that leave room for guitars, keyboards, and sometimes vocals to voyage skyward. These expeditions can be thrilling and impressive, but Prins Thomas often fails to establish any discernible mood; the album is not effusive or downcast, never giddy or stoic. It feels, at times, academic, which is a product of its well-worn influences but also Thomas' sturdy, uneventful pacing. The longest track here, "Sauerkraut", references its influences in both its title and its composition, speeding up the bassline from Neu!'s seminal "Negativland". Prins Thomas sometimes feels like the work of a fan, a study. Of course Thomas is much more than just a fan, and he's smart enough to know that he needn't assign too much importance to an album, even his first: In an interview with Beatportal (conducted by Pitchfork contributor Philip Sherburne) he refers to Prins Thomas as a "snapshot." He openly frets about his musical ability while name-checking the legends. It's safe to say that an artist who spent 10 years collaborating in a close-knit scene before dropping his debut has healthily non-traditional attitudes about a career in music. In turn, it's best to think of Prins Thomas not as a speedbump but as another iteration, slightly undercooked, of his still-developing style."

Lithops

Queries

Electronic

Mark Richardson

In the second half of the 1990s, Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars was active making solo tracks as Lithops. He released two albums and a number of singles under the name during this period, all with little promotion and to little notice. These records served as a bridge between Mouse on Mars' pop experiments and the randomized abstraction St. Werner created with Markus Popp of Oval in Microstoria. When Mouse on Mars leaned ambient, as on the *Instrumentals * and Glam records, it sounded a lot like what St. Werner was doing around the same time with Lithops. The notion of computer folk was still a couple years away during the Lithops heyday, but returning to the singles and unreleased material collected here, the idea fits the music rather well. It's not that Lithops incorporates guitars or references "folk" proper in any way; it's that the music seems to bubble up from a similar organic place. It feels simultaneously earthy and disembodied, like it always existed in some form and it was St. Werner's charge to channel and shape it. Which is not to say that the music is divorced from genre. Many of St. Werner's usual concerns are present. When the tempo shifts upward and percussion makes an appearance, tracks like "Tubino See-Through", "Wackler", and "Blasphere" make oblong reference to dub, keeping just behind the lilting beat as St. Werner moves weird bubbly noises around the space. The more open-ended excursions in mood and ambient extend naturally from Eno circa On Land, with St. Werner adding a distinctive industrial dirtiness to the sound. A fantastic title used for a Lithops track collected on Mille Plateaux's Modulation and Transformation 4 (and not included here) sums up the aesthetic of "Kahn", "Sequenced Twinset", and "Fi" rather nicely: "Between The Jolts Were Gritty Regions". You can almost smell the solder and feel the greasy metallic residue on these droney pieces. And then the noisy slo-mo dissection of feedback "Blasmusik" points to the spoonful-weighs-a-ton density St. Werner would later explore on Scrypt, a record I'm still trying to get my head around three years after its release. The world of technology was going crazy as the 20th century ended and no one really knew what was to come. It has accelerated further since, of course, but by now we're getting used to it. When Moore's Law was in full effect and a new paradigm was announced every couple of weeks, we had no idea where these silicon chips were going to take us. In this environment, Lithops singles seemed like the sort of pleasant, unassuming, natural, and open tracks that would emerge from computers in this new era. They sounded like machines making music independently and for their own amusement.

Artist: Lithops, Album: Queries, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "In the second half of the 1990s, Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars was active making solo tracks as Lithops. He released two albums and a number of singles under the name during this period, all with little promotion and to little notice. These records served as a bridge between Mouse on Mars' pop experiments and the randomized abstraction St. Werner created with Markus Popp of Oval in Microstoria. When Mouse on Mars leaned ambient, as on the *Instrumentals * and Glam records, it sounded a lot like what St. Werner was doing around the same time with Lithops. The notion of computer folk was still a couple years away during the Lithops heyday, but returning to the singles and unreleased material collected here, the idea fits the music rather well. It's not that Lithops incorporates guitars or references "folk" proper in any way; it's that the music seems to bubble up from a similar organic place. It feels simultaneously earthy and disembodied, like it always existed in some form and it was St. Werner's charge to channel and shape it. Which is not to say that the music is divorced from genre. Many of St. Werner's usual concerns are present. When the tempo shifts upward and percussion makes an appearance, tracks like "Tubino See-Through", "Wackler", and "Blasphere" make oblong reference to dub, keeping just behind the lilting beat as St. Werner moves weird bubbly noises around the space. The more open-ended excursions in mood and ambient extend naturally from Eno circa On Land, with St. Werner adding a distinctive industrial dirtiness to the sound. A fantastic title used for a Lithops track collected on Mille Plateaux's Modulation and Transformation 4 (and not included here) sums up the aesthetic of "Kahn", "Sequenced Twinset", and "Fi" rather nicely: "Between The Jolts Were Gritty Regions". You can almost smell the solder and feel the greasy metallic residue on these droney pieces. And then the noisy slo-mo dissection of feedback "Blasmusik" points to the spoonful-weighs-a-ton density St. Werner would later explore on Scrypt, a record I'm still trying to get my head around three years after its release. The world of technology was going crazy as the 20th century ended and no one really knew what was to come. It has accelerated further since, of course, but by now we're getting used to it. When Moore's Law was in full effect and a new paradigm was announced every couple of weeks, we had no idea where these silicon chips were going to take us. In this environment, Lithops singles seemed like the sort of pleasant, unassuming, natural, and open tracks that would emerge from computers in this new era. They sounded like machines making music independently and for their own amusement."

Hallelujah the Hills

Prepare to Qualify EP

Rock

Jessica Suarez

In an interview before the release of Hallelujah The Hills' debut LP, main singer/songwriter Ryan Walsh was asked what discouraged him about music making. "Limitations of my voice, my playing, and my equipment," was his answer, limitations he said he confronted like "a school-yard taunt." On the Prepare To Qualify EP (available for free from the band's website) Walsh and the rest of the Hills write around-- or rather, push through-- those limits admirably: bluster and pomp cover over technical shortcomings, and Walsh's tangled lyrics make up for his shaky voice. But these solutions can't altogether make up for HTH's pallor. All seven tracks' little peaks and valleys flatten into a homogeneous plain after a few cycles through. Unpacking Walsh's lyrics is still the best part of listening to HTH; but the songs themselves, dense and overburdened, could use a little unpacking too. Read further into interviews with Walsh, and he frequently brings up Davids Lynch, Byrne, and Foster Wallace. Walsh identifies with their work and shares, in a small way, their desire to leave ends unraveled, to create scenes without pushing them toward a conclusion. This is Prepare To Qualify's unifying and best aspect. Detail and dialogue cross opening track "Nurses 5 Float Past", where a doctor asks, "Is this an epilogue?", gesturing to the interstitial qualities of EPs in general, and confusing beginnings and ends. But there are few tricks past this trickery: drums bluster under wordless choruses, smooth strings hover over sampled clips and transistor detritus. Rather than focus on the EP's standard lo-fi fare, you should pocket Walsh's best phrases, alliteration like "He left with a limp and a cut on his lip" ("Let It Wave"), or tongue twisters like "Built by science/ 'The dysphemic alliance'" ("Cataloging Candy's Demise"). The songs detail, in passing, Armenian waitresses, locksmiths, and doctors, but they also weave from first to third person and back. They are specific and vague at once, as if the narrator can, in overcontextualizing his surroundings, cover for his missing internal considerations. These fragmented stories even make up for the EP's ridiculous puns and long titles, like track two's "Don't Take the Law Into Your Own Hands But Take Mine in Yours", or "When night falls/ Who picks it up?" from a track of the same name. Though such verbal extravagances are occasionally forced, they're usually entertaining. In such overcrowded songs, though, redeeming moments can fall by the wayside. "When Night Falls" has a Steven Wright-like pun, okay, but its chain-gang vocals simply seem unnecessary, and they persist through the whole album. Prepare To Qualify could have been a more spacious record if they had occasionally abandoned the mass vocal line, but as it is, the songs, which are constricting already, feel sweltering and crowded with the additional voices. As Eric Harvey mentioned in his review of Collective Psychosis Begone, one of HTH's earliest tracks was culled from Jonathan Lethem's "Promiscuous Materials" project, where the novelist put up lyrics to songs he had abandoned, and left them for musicians to use as they liked. This "Monster Eyes" is different from the one Harvey quoted, but it remains unusually minimal for HTH. The repetitive, country-tinged waltz is menacing: "Best thing I ever did for you/ Was get you out of range," Walsh sings, though its threat is softened by how distant he sounds, as though the band recorded the song to acetate. But "Monster Eyes", and the live closer "(You Better Hope You) Die Before Me" make for a nice finish because they both showcase HTH sans the bells and whistles (and strings).

Artist: Hallelujah the Hills, Album: Prepare to Qualify EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "In an interview before the release of Hallelujah The Hills' debut LP, main singer/songwriter Ryan Walsh was asked what discouraged him about music making. "Limitations of my voice, my playing, and my equipment," was his answer, limitations he said he confronted like "a school-yard taunt." On the Prepare To Qualify EP (available for free from the band's website) Walsh and the rest of the Hills write around-- or rather, push through-- those limits admirably: bluster and pomp cover over technical shortcomings, and Walsh's tangled lyrics make up for his shaky voice. But these solutions can't altogether make up for HTH's pallor. All seven tracks' little peaks and valleys flatten into a homogeneous plain after a few cycles through. Unpacking Walsh's lyrics is still the best part of listening to HTH; but the songs themselves, dense and overburdened, could use a little unpacking too. Read further into interviews with Walsh, and he frequently brings up Davids Lynch, Byrne, and Foster Wallace. Walsh identifies with their work and shares, in a small way, their desire to leave ends unraveled, to create scenes without pushing them toward a conclusion. This is Prepare To Qualify's unifying and best aspect. Detail and dialogue cross opening track "Nurses 5 Float Past", where a doctor asks, "Is this an epilogue?", gesturing to the interstitial qualities of EPs in general, and confusing beginnings and ends. But there are few tricks past this trickery: drums bluster under wordless choruses, smooth strings hover over sampled clips and transistor detritus. Rather than focus on the EP's standard lo-fi fare, you should pocket Walsh's best phrases, alliteration like "He left with a limp and a cut on his lip" ("Let It Wave"), or tongue twisters like "Built by science/ 'The dysphemic alliance'" ("Cataloging Candy's Demise"). The songs detail, in passing, Armenian waitresses, locksmiths, and doctors, but they also weave from first to third person and back. They are specific and vague at once, as if the narrator can, in overcontextualizing his surroundings, cover for his missing internal considerations. These fragmented stories even make up for the EP's ridiculous puns and long titles, like track two's "Don't Take the Law Into Your Own Hands But Take Mine in Yours", or "When night falls/ Who picks it up?" from a track of the same name. Though such verbal extravagances are occasionally forced, they're usually entertaining. In such overcrowded songs, though, redeeming moments can fall by the wayside. "When Night Falls" has a Steven Wright-like pun, okay, but its chain-gang vocals simply seem unnecessary, and they persist through the whole album. Prepare To Qualify could have been a more spacious record if they had occasionally abandoned the mass vocal line, but as it is, the songs, which are constricting already, feel sweltering and crowded with the additional voices. As Eric Harvey mentioned in his review of Collective Psychosis Begone, one of HTH's earliest tracks was culled from Jonathan Lethem's "Promiscuous Materials" project, where the novelist put up lyrics to songs he had abandoned, and left them for musicians to use as they liked. This "Monster Eyes" is different from the one Harvey quoted, but it remains unusually minimal for HTH. The repetitive, country-tinged waltz is menacing: "Best thing I ever did for you/ Was get you out of range," Walsh sings, though its threat is softened by how distant he sounds, as though the band recorded the song to acetate. But "Monster Eyes", and the live closer "(You Better Hope You) Die Before Me" make for a nice finish because they both showcase HTH sans the bells and whistles (and strings)."

Peter Buck

I Am Back To Blow Your Mind Once Again

Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

In the late 1970s and early 80s, the members of the newly-formed R.E.M. cut their teeth on typical bar-band fare. They gigged around Athens playing a range rock'n'roll standards, from the Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again” to Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over”. As Tony Fletcher writes in his exhaustive band bio Perfect Circle, “People danced, drank, and sang along when they recognized a Sixties’ pop classic like [the Monkees’] ‘Stepping Stone’… Others frowned upon the proliferation of cover songs; in a community with such a strong reputation for art, innovation was a prerequisite for performing.” Eventually, the quartet seeded their sets with more and more originals, including early versions of “Radio Free Europe” and “Sitting Still”, but those early covers held sway over the band for years, informing the ramshackle charms of Dead Letter Office and their infamous cover of the Clique’s “Superman” on Lifes Rich Pageant. After R.E.M. dissolved in 2011, guitarist Peter Buck was quick out of the gate with his first solo album, which returned to those early influences to find fresh inspiration. He covered old bluesmen and wrote songs that sounded like they could have been pounded out in somebody’s garage ca. 1966. Rather than derivative, that album sounded loose and nervy, as thought he’d finally broken free of the best-band-in-the-world expectations that quashed so many of R.E.M.’s eccentricities in the 2000s. That he returns to this general sound for his follow-up, the immodestly titled I Am Back to Blow Your Mind Once Again, is no surprise at all. Nor is it unwelcome: Songs like the jittery rave-up “Monkey Mask” and the gangly jangle “My Slobbering Decline” bristle with the excitement of a kid staying up late to watch black-and-white monster movies on cable. As a solo artist Buck has repeatedly signaled his willingness to indulge some of his weirder impulses, both musical and commercial. As with his debut, I Am Back will be released exclusively on vinyl, via Portland indie Mississippi Records. Again, he enlisted a small core of friends as his backing band: Adam Selzer, Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin. Corin Tucker returns for the murky country-goth ballad “Drown with Me”, while Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood narrates “Southerner” as Buck unleashes squalls of Monster-era feedback behind him. Both the solemnity of the piece and its  reliance on real-world details contrast the fantastical nature of much of Buck’s songwriting, with its nods to apes and aliens and parties, yet Hood’s sense of personal reminiscence reinforces the nostalgia that clearly motivates Buck’s solo material. I Am Back not only picks up where Peter Buck left off, but sounds like an extension of that album’s sessions and sensibility. Except that it’s better: more focused and funnier, although not so much better that it sounds polished or loses its DIY grit. Still wooly and weird, I Am Back shows a slightly stronger sense of the sideman’s strengths and weaknesses as a frontman. Buck does, in fact, seem like a creditable bandleader, almost like a newly zombified Sam the Sham. Rather than write a bridge for “Monkey Mask”, he simply yells, “Sun Ra!” and lets his band burst into some slapstick noise-rock. On the outro, he calls out Mighty Joe Young as “nothing but a fat man in an antiquated monkey suit. I’ll kick his ass.” In addition to making better use of the grit and grime in his bizarre voice, which is the definition of “acquired taste,” Buck enlarges his musical palette, not just writing lowdown blues-pop numbers that sound like covers but also driving the Ramones to the beach on “Gotta Get Outta the House” and chasing two-headed dogs with Roky Erickson on “West of Sunset”. Buck’s return to these early sounds as the template for future experiments is something of a—forgive the pun—perfect circle. I Am Back gives the impression of a man approaching everything with the enthusiasm of an adolescent, as though he had just heard Ramones and the Nightcrawlers’ “Little Black Egg” (which is all but quoteed in "Fall on My Own Sword") for the very first time. The album itself is far too loose, too modest, too personal, too fans-only to live up to its grandiose title, but perhaps it’s not Buck’s intention. Perhaps that’s only the music talking: old songs cropping up to blow Buck’s mind once again.

Artist: Peter Buck, Album: I Am Back To Blow Your Mind Once Again, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "In the late 1970s and early 80s, the members of the newly-formed R.E.M. cut their teeth on typical bar-band fare. They gigged around Athens playing a range rock'n'roll standards, from the Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again” to Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over”. As Tony Fletcher writes in his exhaustive band bio Perfect Circle, “People danced, drank, and sang along when they recognized a Sixties’ pop classic like [the Monkees’] ‘Stepping Stone’… Others frowned upon the proliferation of cover songs; in a community with such a strong reputation for art, innovation was a prerequisite for performing.” Eventually, the quartet seeded their sets with more and more originals, including early versions of “Radio Free Europe” and “Sitting Still”, but those early covers held sway over the band for years, informing the ramshackle charms of Dead Letter Office and their infamous cover of the Clique’s “Superman” on Lifes Rich Pageant. After R.E.M. dissolved in 2011, guitarist Peter Buck was quick out of the gate with his first solo album, which returned to those early influences to find fresh inspiration. He covered old bluesmen and wrote songs that sounded like they could have been pounded out in somebody’s garage ca. 1966. Rather than derivative, that album sounded loose and nervy, as thought he’d finally broken free of the best-band-in-the-world expectations that quashed so many of R.E.M.’s eccentricities in the 2000s. That he returns to this general sound for his follow-up, the immodestly titled I Am Back to Blow Your Mind Once Again, is no surprise at all. Nor is it unwelcome: Songs like the jittery rave-up “Monkey Mask” and the gangly jangle “My Slobbering Decline” bristle with the excitement of a kid staying up late to watch black-and-white monster movies on cable. As a solo artist Buck has repeatedly signaled his willingness to indulge some of his weirder impulses, both musical and commercial. As with his debut, I Am Back will be released exclusively on vinyl, via Portland indie Mississippi Records. Again, he enlisted a small core of friends as his backing band: Adam Selzer, Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin. Corin Tucker returns for the murky country-goth ballad “Drown with Me”, while Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood narrates “Southerner” as Buck unleashes squalls of Monster-era feedback behind him. Both the solemnity of the piece and its  reliance on real-world details contrast the fantastical nature of much of Buck’s songwriting, with its nods to apes and aliens and parties, yet Hood’s sense of personal reminiscence reinforces the nostalgia that clearly motivates Buck’s solo material. I Am Back not only picks up where Peter Buck left off, but sounds like an extension of that album’s sessions and sensibility. Except that it’s better: more focused and funnier, although not so much better that it sounds polished or loses its DIY grit. Still wooly and weird, I Am Back shows a slightly stronger sense of the sideman’s strengths and weaknesses as a frontman. Buck does, in fact, seem like a creditable bandleader, almost like a newly zombified Sam the Sham. Rather than write a bridge for “Monkey Mask”, he simply yells, “Sun Ra!” and lets his band burst into some slapstick noise-rock. On the outro, he calls out Mighty Joe Young as “nothing but a fat man in an antiquated monkey suit. I’ll kick his ass.” In addition to making better use of the grit and grime in his bizarre voice, which is the definition of “acquired taste,” Buck enlarges his musical palette, not just writing lowdown blues-pop numbers that sound like covers but also driving the Ramones to the beach on “Gotta Get Outta the House” and chasing two-headed dogs with Roky Erickson on “West of Sunset”. Buck’s return to these early sounds as the template for future experiments is something of a—forgive the pun—perfect circle. I Am Back gives the impression of a man approaching everything with the enthusiasm of an adolescent, as though he had just heard Ramones and the Nightcrawlers’ “Little Black Egg” (which is all but quoteed in "Fall on My Own Sword") for the very first time. The album itself is far too loose, too modest, too personal, too fans-only to live up to its grandiose title, but perhaps it’s not Buck’s intention. Perhaps that’s only the music talking: old songs cropping up to blow Buck’s mind once again."

Frank & Tony

You Go Girl

Andrew Gaerig

Frank & Tony is a collaboration between two Brooklyn-based dance music veterans, Francis Harris and Anthony Collins. If the name brings to mind one of those innumerable East Coast production duos who vacillated between house and R&B in the early '90s, that’s probably not an accident: Harris and Collins have, over the course of several EPs, pursued the contemplative and melancholic deep house sound developed in New York and New Jersey. It’s the type of music that inevitably gets described as "sumptuous"; a sound that, with its relaxed tempos and smoky hues, has proven itself equally at home on dance floors and in living rooms. Harris and Collins both have long histories churning out high energy singles for DJs, but it’s Harris whose solo work has recently taken a turn toward outre composition and lush textures. This year’s well-received Minutes of Sleep was an experiment almost completely untethered from the dance floor, an album whose exceptional clarity allowed Harris and listeners to swim amongst its rich detail. It’s easy to see Harris’ hand in You Go Girl, Frank & Tony’s first album, an album that is far more concerned with the sound of house music than its function. Though the album’s sound is indebted to those deep house classics, it doesn’t share their cultural impact. Those records, crucial in helping carve out spaces for gay and transgender communities, had a socio-political purpose that You Go Girl can’t; instead, the record plays as an exquisite display of deep house’s sound palette, a record on which every sound and gesture is imbued with elegance and purpose. There’s a moment in the middle of "Call Me Rain" that will be familiar to anyone who’s listened to house music before: a heavy, trudging bass drum is reintroduced after a short passage of heavily-effected electric piano. A few bars latter, a tittering hi-hat and then a clap on the second and fourth beat, splashing down like a boot into a puddle. There is no novelty here; every one of these elements is commonplace, including the structure of the track. What feels unique about Frank & Tony, however, is that these elements aren’t aligned like this to aid a DJ in mixing a track, but rather because this is the ideal presentation for better appreciating these sounds: the cavity the kick drum carves out each time it booms, the crisp landing of the clap, the glittering tinsel of the hi-hats. You Go Girl is an appreciation and a study of sound. The sounds it wants to study happen to be best observed in a 120 bpm deep house track. It’s in this way that Harris and Collins owe a debt to artists like Matthew Herbert and Terre Thaemlitz (especially her work as DJ Sprinkles), artists with avant-garde roots who have often chosen to contrast their more experimental and sound design impulses with the conventions of house music. (Indeed, the duo collaborated with Thaemlitz for a track on one of three 12''s that accompanies the release of You Go Girl.) You Go Girl offers a similar richness of detail, its slack tempos gently guiding listeners. They mostly stick to the script: brisk drum, hazy keyboards, a nod-able bassline. Tracks such as "After Days" and "Faded (Dub)" construct noir-ish atmospheres, imagining a world in which grim detectives nod along on dusky dancefloors. A handful of vocal collaborations—a moody and sour Gry Bagøien on "Bring the Sun", a cryptic Jason Poranski on "Resistance"—offer crucial variety. You Go Girl is a conservative album in every way, asking very little of listeners: if you choose not to stare at the macro details of a bass drum, You Go Girl will fade pleasantly into the background. It doesn’t have the scope or ambition of Thaemlitz’s monumental Midtown 120 Blues, a clear influence. Its instincts are construction, not destruction. The album at times seems like a coloring book in which someone has exclusively drawn inside the lines, but with extreme precision. There’s value in that: these are pretty pictures with a lot of detail, and the care and attention with which they were produced shouldn’t be confused for a lack of passion.

Artist: Frank & Tony, Album: You Go Girl, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Frank & Tony is a collaboration between two Brooklyn-based dance music veterans, Francis Harris and Anthony Collins. If the name brings to mind one of those innumerable East Coast production duos who vacillated between house and R&B in the early '90s, that’s probably not an accident: Harris and Collins have, over the course of several EPs, pursued the contemplative and melancholic deep house sound developed in New York and New Jersey. It’s the type of music that inevitably gets described as "sumptuous"; a sound that, with its relaxed tempos and smoky hues, has proven itself equally at home on dance floors and in living rooms. Harris and Collins both have long histories churning out high energy singles for DJs, but it’s Harris whose solo work has recently taken a turn toward outre composition and lush textures. This year’s well-received Minutes of Sleep was an experiment almost completely untethered from the dance floor, an album whose exceptional clarity allowed Harris and listeners to swim amongst its rich detail. It’s easy to see Harris’ hand in You Go Girl, Frank & Tony’s first album, an album that is far more concerned with the sound of house music than its function. Though the album’s sound is indebted to those deep house classics, it doesn’t share their cultural impact. Those records, crucial in helping carve out spaces for gay and transgender communities, had a socio-political purpose that You Go Girl can’t; instead, the record plays as an exquisite display of deep house’s sound palette, a record on which every sound and gesture is imbued with elegance and purpose. There’s a moment in the middle of "Call Me Rain" that will be familiar to anyone who’s listened to house music before: a heavy, trudging bass drum is reintroduced after a short passage of heavily-effected electric piano. A few bars latter, a tittering hi-hat and then a clap on the second and fourth beat, splashing down like a boot into a puddle. There is no novelty here; every one of these elements is commonplace, including the structure of the track. What feels unique about Frank & Tony, however, is that these elements aren’t aligned like this to aid a DJ in mixing a track, but rather because this is the ideal presentation for better appreciating these sounds: the cavity the kick drum carves out each time it booms, the crisp landing of the clap, the glittering tinsel of the hi-hats. You Go Girl is an appreciation and a study of sound. The sounds it wants to study happen to be best observed in a 120 bpm deep house track. It’s in this way that Harris and Collins owe a debt to artists like Matthew Herbert and Terre Thaemlitz (especially her work as DJ Sprinkles), artists with avant-garde roots who have often chosen to contrast their more experimental and sound design impulses with the conventions of house music. (Indeed, the duo collaborated with Thaemlitz for a track on one of three 12''s that accompanies the release of You Go Girl.) You Go Girl offers a similar richness of detail, its slack tempos gently guiding listeners. They mostly stick to the script: brisk drum, hazy keyboards, a nod-able bassline. Tracks such as "After Days" and "Faded (Dub)" construct noir-ish atmospheres, imagining a world in which grim detectives nod along on dusky dancefloors. A handful of vocal collaborations—a moody and sour Gry Bagøien on "Bring the Sun", a cryptic Jason Poranski on "Resistance"—offer crucial variety. You Go Girl is a conservative album in every way, asking very little of listeners: if you choose not to stare at the macro details of a bass drum, You Go Girl will fade pleasantly into the background. It doesn’t have the scope or ambition of Thaemlitz’s monumental Midtown 120 Blues, a clear influence. Its instincts are construction, not destruction. The album at times seems like a coloring book in which someone has exclusively drawn inside the lines, but with extreme precision. There’s value in that: these are pretty pictures with a lot of detail, and the care and attention with which they were produced shouldn’t be confused for a lack of passion."

Franz Ferdinand

Tonight

Rock

Stuart Berman

The standard line about having your whole life to write your first album and only six months to write your second seemed especially true in the case of Franz Ferdinand. The Glaswegian band issued its sophomore effort You Could Have It So Much Better some 18 months after its 2004 self-titled debut-- a narrow window considering that first record yielded three top 10 UK singles, a Mercury Prize, and a steady touring itinerary that saw them ascend from clubs to concert halls to the Grammys. But the quick turnaround and life on the road didn't affect the quality of the material so much as the band's performance of it-- sounding brawnier and brasher than on their debut, Franz Ferdinand ripped through the album's 13 songs. Franz Ferdinand must've therefore been happy to sit out the past three years. In the time since Franz released their last album, their American contemporaries the Killers have already gone Springsteen and then swung back to their synth-pop roots, while next-generation UK upstarts like the Arctic Monkeys have weathered their own cycle of hyperbole, hibernation, and orchestral side projects. During that time, Franz Ferdinand first seemed poised to reemerge as the biggest pop band in the UK-- having initially tapped Girls Aloud guru Brian Higgins (Xenomania) to produce their third album-- or the most commercially suicidal, eventually parting ways with Higgins and indulging in extended studio jams, electronic experiments, and deconstructed, Martin Hannett-like recording techniques (complete with tales of using human bones for percussion). In his review of You Could Have It So Much Better, Pitchfork's Nitsuh Abebe praised Franz Ferdinand for making albums that played like compilations of discrete but equally great singles, refreshingly bereft of the conceptual heft that marked the band's indie-rock peers at the time. Here the group dial that back from the start: "Ulysses" is less immediately striking than the band's previous headlining singles, as well as more lean and mechanistic. But it ably asserts Tonight's slow-burn methodology: If that "la la la" chorus sounds unremarkable at first, by the third round, it's unstoppable. Instead, Tonight's patient pacing supports Franz singer Alex Kapranos' claims that these tracks share a nocturnal theme, reinforced by a gradually arced dusk-to-dawn sequence, a wandering spirit, and surprises that spring out of the shadows: "Send Him Away" comes on as a cool snap-along Sly Stone strut before intensifying into an unlikely but effective Afro-psych-funk jam; "Bite Hard" is a piano ballad reborn as a thick-heeled glam-rock gallop; the slo-mo-disco group chant "What You Came For" explodes into roadhouse-metal thrashing. But seeing as many of these arrangements were extracted from improvised jams, the shifts rarely feel forced, sounding more like the inevitable climaxes to Kapranos' seedy, increasingly desperate, club-crawling narratives. It's only on Tonight's would-be epic "Lucid Dreams" that the album's exploratory approach works against the band's pop instincts. Appearing in a considerably different, elongated eight-minute version than the one that debuted on the band's website last fall, the song is now outfitted with a re-arranged, slowed-down chorus that makes it stumble where it should soar. But if the extended fade out feels overlong and anti-climactic on its own terms, in the context of Tonight it provides an effective, slate-cleaning set-up for the album's two sweetly serene closers: space-age bachelor-pad lullaby "Dream Again" and a solo acoustic-troubador turn from Kapranos on "Katherine Kiss Me". More so than stoking the band's current commercial prospects, Tonight is an exciting record for what it could potentially spell for Franz Ferdinand's future-- from here, you could just as easily imagine the band further exploring electro-house productions, or stripping their sound down and making a folk record, or delving into tropical laptop-tronic pop. Or, if you just want them to keep re-writing "Take Me Out", well, hey, they can do that too-- see: "No You Girls", a standard-issue but still irresistible disco-floor stomper that imagines Bowie re-recording "Oh You Pretty Things" for Scary Monsters (and which recently assumed its natural habitat in an episode of "Gossip Girl). As the band that provided the exclamation point to the post-punk revival of the early 00s, there was good reason to question Franz Ferdinand's current standing in the pop world, now that that trend is on the wane. However, as it turns out, their return is perfectly timed to remind us that, in a world where UK rock is so uninspired the Brits were forced to make superstars out of Kings of Leon, you really can have it so much better.

Artist: Franz Ferdinand, Album: Tonight, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "The standard line about having your whole life to write your first album and only six months to write your second seemed especially true in the case of Franz Ferdinand. The Glaswegian band issued its sophomore effort You Could Have It So Much Better some 18 months after its 2004 self-titled debut-- a narrow window considering that first record yielded three top 10 UK singles, a Mercury Prize, and a steady touring itinerary that saw them ascend from clubs to concert halls to the Grammys. But the quick turnaround and life on the road didn't affect the quality of the material so much as the band's performance of it-- sounding brawnier and brasher than on their debut, Franz Ferdinand ripped through the album's 13 songs. Franz Ferdinand must've therefore been happy to sit out the past three years. In the time since Franz released their last album, their American contemporaries the Killers have already gone Springsteen and then swung back to their synth-pop roots, while next-generation UK upstarts like the Arctic Monkeys have weathered their own cycle of hyperbole, hibernation, and orchestral side projects. During that time, Franz Ferdinand first seemed poised to reemerge as the biggest pop band in the UK-- having initially tapped Girls Aloud guru Brian Higgins (Xenomania) to produce their third album-- or the most commercially suicidal, eventually parting ways with Higgins and indulging in extended studio jams, electronic experiments, and deconstructed, Martin Hannett-like recording techniques (complete with tales of using human bones for percussion). In his review of You Could Have It So Much Better, Pitchfork's Nitsuh Abebe praised Franz Ferdinand for making albums that played like compilations of discrete but equally great singles, refreshingly bereft of the conceptual heft that marked the band's indie-rock peers at the time. Here the group dial that back from the start: "Ulysses" is less immediately striking than the band's previous headlining singles, as well as more lean and mechanistic. But it ably asserts Tonight's slow-burn methodology: If that "la la la" chorus sounds unremarkable at first, by the third round, it's unstoppable. Instead, Tonight's patient pacing supports Franz singer Alex Kapranos' claims that these tracks share a nocturnal theme, reinforced by a gradually arced dusk-to-dawn sequence, a wandering spirit, and surprises that spring out of the shadows: "Send Him Away" comes on as a cool snap-along Sly Stone strut before intensifying into an unlikely but effective Afro-psych-funk jam; "Bite Hard" is a piano ballad reborn as a thick-heeled glam-rock gallop; the slo-mo-disco group chant "What You Came For" explodes into roadhouse-metal thrashing. But seeing as many of these arrangements were extracted from improvised jams, the shifts rarely feel forced, sounding more like the inevitable climaxes to Kapranos' seedy, increasingly desperate, club-crawling narratives. It's only on Tonight's would-be epic "Lucid Dreams" that the album's exploratory approach works against the band's pop instincts. Appearing in a considerably different, elongated eight-minute version than the one that debuted on the band's website last fall, the song is now outfitted with a re-arranged, slowed-down chorus that makes it stumble where it should soar. But if the extended fade out feels overlong and anti-climactic on its own terms, in the context of Tonight it provides an effective, slate-cleaning set-up for the album's two sweetly serene closers: space-age bachelor-pad lullaby "Dream Again" and a solo acoustic-troubador turn from Kapranos on "Katherine Kiss Me". More so than stoking the band's current commercial prospects, Tonight is an exciting record for what it could potentially spell for Franz Ferdinand's future-- from here, you could just as easily imagine the band further exploring electro-house productions, or stripping their sound down and making a folk record, or delving into tropical laptop-tronic pop. Or, if you just want them to keep re-writing "Take Me Out", well, hey, they can do that too-- see: "No You Girls", a standard-issue but still irresistible disco-floor stomper that imagines Bowie re-recording "Oh You Pretty Things" for Scary Monsters (and which recently assumed its natural habitat in an episode of "Gossip Girl). As the band that provided the exclamation point to the post-punk revival of the early 00s, there was good reason to question Franz Ferdinand's current standing in the pop world, now that that trend is on the wane. However, as it turns out, their return is perfectly timed to remind us that, in a world where UK rock is so uninspired the Brits were forced to make superstars out of Kings of Leon, you really can have it so much better."

Amon Amarth

Deceiver of the Gods

Folk/Country,Metal

Grayson Currin

For a band so clearly invested in tales of invasion, war, and conquest, Sweden’s Amon Amarth is a strangely lead-footed target, so listless and uninterested in change that they’d make for an easy capture on a Norse battlefield of old. During the last two decades, they’ve released nine albums of headstrong Viking metal, built almost entirely around tales of shared Scandinavian heritage and tunes that either charged like a massive military’s frontline or sailed skyward like a hard-earned victory chant. The best of those records (by mere example, see with Oden on Our Side and Versus the World) have felt both urgent and addictive, combining death metal heft and modern rock-ready hooks to build and brandish verifiable anthems. Indeed, to see Amon Amarth live is to see almost all of an audience throw hands or horns at once, chanting along to stories of wins in war and glory in the afterlife. They are a sort of turbocharged Cliff’s Notes to The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda, a modern metal band revivifying ancient history with unwavering conviction. There’s little reason to suspect, then, that Amon Amarth will soon run out of stories to sing; their potential pool of subjects is, in essence, a culture’s complete heritage, and they’ve got tales of Oden and Loke to share yet. And there’s always the option of fan-fiction, or creating imagined sagas of pugnacity and defeat from the lore itself. Of late, though, Amon Amarth has started to run out of, if not songs, then novel ways to make their stories really stick within those songs. After an incredible streak of righteous albums, 2011’s Surtur Rising sometimes felt overly stiff and deliberate, as if Amon Amarth were trying to bully past the limits of their own Viking brand. But the new Deceiver of the Gods feels formulaic and tired, as if the long-running quintet has now settled into the complacency and comfort of their reputation-- bad news, of course, for warriors who end songs with shouts of “Now we attack! Ride into fate!” At last, Amon Amarth has made a record that is every bit as rote, uninspired and matter-of-fact as a set of Cliff’s Notes. In the past, they’ve sounded strangely uplifting; this time around, they simply sound persistent. The symptoms start as early as the opening title track, a thrashing sprint that flatlines in the chorus and rebounds a bit in a chant-along bridge but ultimately stumbles into a solo so tepid and predictable that it nearly necessitates skipping right along to the next track, “As Loke Falls”. Amon Amarth at least displays some vivacity there, volleying a riff between drums blasts like a game of pinball. Frontman Johan Hegg sounds convincing here, too, delivering the tale of Ragnarök’s end less like a storyteller than a witness. In fact, Hegg is compelling throughout most of Deceiver of the Gods, and he’s got good material to offer. His account of a brutal murder technique called Blood Eagle makes for fine pulp fiction, while “Shape Shifter” uses the life of the god Loke to discuss betrayal and a necessary balance of light and dark. In fact, reading Deceiver of the Gods is arguably more engaging than listening to most of it. The band behind Hegg seems exhausted or, at the very least, over it. They push ahead with the same up-tempo roil so much that any break at all-- be they the sampled sounds of murder at the start of the gruesome “Blood Eagle” or the psychedelic guitar spirals that introduce closer “Warriors of the North”-- are welcome, overdue diversions. Candlemass’ Messiah Marcolin guests on “Hel”, but Amon Amarth is so unyielding that the best they can do is let him moan in the background like Marianne Faithful. It’s not that anyone’s now hoping for Amon Amarth to be metal’s great hybridizers or innovators. Nine albums into a career, no-one expects them to suddenly lace their battle hymns with electronics or noise or to write brilliant black metal bursts or dramatic post-rock crescendos into their records. But Amon Amarth boasts a lot of their own skill, bravery and brilliance within their songs; they are a small army of “endless wrath” and “the walker on the wind” and “fast in thought, quicker tongue.” Here, though, those are only hollow words, self-righteousness from a band bloated on their own lofty reputation and sales history. On Deceiver of the Gods, they are satisfied with plugging 10 new anecdotes into 10 songs they’ve made before and, unfortunately, will most likely make again.

Artist: Amon Amarth, Album: Deceiver of the Gods, Genre: Folk/Country,Metal, Score (1-10): 5.6 Album review: "For a band so clearly invested in tales of invasion, war, and conquest, Sweden’s Amon Amarth is a strangely lead-footed target, so listless and uninterested in change that they’d make for an easy capture on a Norse battlefield of old. During the last two decades, they’ve released nine albums of headstrong Viking metal, built almost entirely around tales of shared Scandinavian heritage and tunes that either charged like a massive military’s frontline or sailed skyward like a hard-earned victory chant. The best of those records (by mere example, see with Oden on Our Side and Versus the World) have felt both urgent and addictive, combining death metal heft and modern rock-ready hooks to build and brandish verifiable anthems. Indeed, to see Amon Amarth live is to see almost all of an audience throw hands or horns at once, chanting along to stories of wins in war and glory in the afterlife. They are a sort of turbocharged Cliff’s Notes to The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda, a modern metal band revivifying ancient history with unwavering conviction. There’s little reason to suspect, then, that Amon Amarth will soon run out of stories to sing; their potential pool of subjects is, in essence, a culture’s complete heritage, and they’ve got tales of Oden and Loke to share yet. And there’s always the option of fan-fiction, or creating imagined sagas of pugnacity and defeat from the lore itself. Of late, though, Amon Amarth has started to run out of, if not songs, then novel ways to make their stories really stick within those songs. After an incredible streak of righteous albums, 2011’s Surtur Rising sometimes felt overly stiff and deliberate, as if Amon Amarth were trying to bully past the limits of their own Viking brand. But the new Deceiver of the Gods feels formulaic and tired, as if the long-running quintet has now settled into the complacency and comfort of their reputation-- bad news, of course, for warriors who end songs with shouts of “Now we attack! Ride into fate!” At last, Amon Amarth has made a record that is every bit as rote, uninspired and matter-of-fact as a set of Cliff’s Notes. In the past, they’ve sounded strangely uplifting; this time around, they simply sound persistent. The symptoms start as early as the opening title track, a thrashing sprint that flatlines in the chorus and rebounds a bit in a chant-along bridge but ultimately stumbles into a solo so tepid and predictable that it nearly necessitates skipping right along to the next track, “As Loke Falls”. Amon Amarth at least displays some vivacity there, volleying a riff between drums blasts like a game of pinball. Frontman Johan Hegg sounds convincing here, too, delivering the tale of Ragnarök’s end less like a storyteller than a witness. In fact, Hegg is compelling throughout most of Deceiver of the Gods, and he’s got good material to offer. His account of a brutal murder technique called Blood Eagle makes for fine pulp fiction, while “Shape Shifter” uses the life of the god Loke to discuss betrayal and a necessary balance of light and dark. In fact, reading Deceiver of the Gods is arguably more engaging than listening to most of it. The band behind Hegg seems exhausted or, at the very least, over it. They push ahead with the same up-tempo roil so much that any break at all-- be they the sampled sounds of murder at the start of the gruesome “Blood Eagle” or the psychedelic guitar spirals that introduce closer “Warriors of the North”-- are welcome, overdue diversions. Candlemass’ Messiah Marcolin guests on “Hel”, but Amon Amarth is so unyielding that the best they can do is let him moan in the background like Marianne Faithful. It’s not that anyone’s now hoping for Amon Amarth to be metal’s great hybridizers or innovators. Nine albums into a career, no-one expects them to suddenly lace their battle hymns with electronics or noise or to write brilliant black metal bursts or dramatic post-rock crescendos into their records. But Amon Amarth boasts a lot of their own skill, bravery and brilliance within their songs; they are a small army of “endless wrath” and “the walker on the wind” and “fast in thought, quicker tongue.” Here, though, those are only hollow words, self-righteousness from a band bloated on their own lofty reputation and sales history. On Deceiver of the Gods, they are satisfied with plugging 10 new anecdotes into 10 songs they’ve made before and, unfortunately, will most likely make again."

The Decemberists

Castaways and Cutouts

Rock

Eric Carr

If Jeff Mangum had never been born, Colin Meloy could have assumed Jeff Mangum's current status as indie rock's consummate pop songwriter freak. Which, of course, would mean some other wild-eyed kid from Montana would have had to be Colin Meloy. The Real Meloy, in this Trading Places-themed Twilight Zone, would have filled in for Mangum's nasal warble and given the world the sweet gift of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea with his band Neutral Milk Hotel, while New Guy would front a band named, say, The Decemberists, who would shamelessly mine the sparkly folk-fuzz (sans-fuzz) of that most lauded of Elephant 6 bands. The Decemberists would be a tad poppier, and maybe a tad sweeter than their key influence, but fronted by a voice so close to Mangum's that few could tell the difference. Some say this may even have actually happened. Some say it's happening right now. Such a mix-up is understandable (even if it may seem quite the opposite on paper): The Decemberists stick to the same kind of heavy acoustic folk-rock and freakish lyrical balladry that fueled Neutral Milk Hotel's rise to power. Fortunately, their music also possesses enough unique twists to distinguish it from simple mimicry. The most obvious is the band's often baroque instrumentation, which generally makes for more elaborate arrangements than those of their stylistic forbearer. Hammond organ and subtle theremin flesh out the mix, each adding an anachronistic spin on the otherwise quaint jangle of strings and guitars hearkening to some dusty, distant past. Melodic organ riffs, meanwhile, slightly warp the old-time illusion of the music-- the better to compliment the absurd, rag-tag world at the center of this band's dreamy fictionalizations. The Decemberists' is a land of ghosts and petticoats, "crooked French-Canadians" gut-shot while running gin, bedwetters and gentlemen suitors, abandoned wastrels and pickpockets. It's also a realm of bizarre historical dreamscapes and snazzy wordplay: "And just to lie with you/ There's nothing that I wouldn't do/ Save lay my rifle down," sings Meloy in the bittersweet hallucination "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect". Time and again, these unhappy tales and fantastic allegories ring out over strangely soothing, rolling folk that seldom breaks from a dense, melancholy haze. Only once does Castaways and Cutouts fully escape the hypnotic pull of its darkling bedtime stories; "July, July!" may be the album's only genuinely happy moment, decked out in lush harmonies and fly-away choruses that clip their wings just shy of soaring towards anything too grand. And the band actually makes this singular elated moment stick by remaining reasonably understated-- despite the temptation there must have been to launch into a full-on celebration in the midst of such omnipresent malaise, the song is content to simply smile, permeating the surrounding bleakness with a subtle aura of peaceful contentment. The constant sobriety of the rest of these tracks does wear thin now and then-- the inclusion of another similarly uplifting tune might have made the record somewhat more effective-- but the somber fables of Castaways and Cutouts remain compelling nonetheless. The Decemberists rarely put forth individually gripping songs, yet somehow, the result is a remarkable whole, an autonomous unit. From the opening cry of, "My name is Leslie Anne Levine/ My mother birthed me down a dry ravine," to the album's exhausting conclusion, the fever never breaks. So, if Jeff Mangum really is on permanent vacation, we're going to need a successor. Few bands seem as worthy of inheriting his twisted empire as The Decemberists.

Artist: The Decemberists, Album: Castaways and Cutouts, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "If Jeff Mangum had never been born, Colin Meloy could have assumed Jeff Mangum's current status as indie rock's consummate pop songwriter freak. Which, of course, would mean some other wild-eyed kid from Montana would have had to be Colin Meloy. The Real Meloy, in this Trading Places-themed Twilight Zone, would have filled in for Mangum's nasal warble and given the world the sweet gift of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea with his band Neutral Milk Hotel, while New Guy would front a band named, say, The Decemberists, who would shamelessly mine the sparkly folk-fuzz (sans-fuzz) of that most lauded of Elephant 6 bands. The Decemberists would be a tad poppier, and maybe a tad sweeter than their key influence, but fronted by a voice so close to Mangum's that few could tell the difference. Some say this may even have actually happened. Some say it's happening right now. Such a mix-up is understandable (even if it may seem quite the opposite on paper): The Decemberists stick to the same kind of heavy acoustic folk-rock and freakish lyrical balladry that fueled Neutral Milk Hotel's rise to power. Fortunately, their music also possesses enough unique twists to distinguish it from simple mimicry. The most obvious is the band's often baroque instrumentation, which generally makes for more elaborate arrangements than those of their stylistic forbearer. Hammond organ and subtle theremin flesh out the mix, each adding an anachronistic spin on the otherwise quaint jangle of strings and guitars hearkening to some dusty, distant past. Melodic organ riffs, meanwhile, slightly warp the old-time illusion of the music-- the better to compliment the absurd, rag-tag world at the center of this band's dreamy fictionalizations. The Decemberists' is a land of ghosts and petticoats, "crooked French-Canadians" gut-shot while running gin, bedwetters and gentlemen suitors, abandoned wastrels and pickpockets. It's also a realm of bizarre historical dreamscapes and snazzy wordplay: "And just to lie with you/ There's nothing that I wouldn't do/ Save lay my rifle down," sings Meloy in the bittersweet hallucination "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect". Time and again, these unhappy tales and fantastic allegories ring out over strangely soothing, rolling folk that seldom breaks from a dense, melancholy haze. Only once does Castaways and Cutouts fully escape the hypnotic pull of its darkling bedtime stories; "July, July!" may be the album's only genuinely happy moment, decked out in lush harmonies and fly-away choruses that clip their wings just shy of soaring towards anything too grand. And the band actually makes this singular elated moment stick by remaining reasonably understated-- despite the temptation there must have been to launch into a full-on celebration in the midst of such omnipresent malaise, the song is content to simply smile, permeating the surrounding bleakness with a subtle aura of peaceful contentment. The constant sobriety of the rest of these tracks does wear thin now and then-- the inclusion of another similarly uplifting tune might have made the record somewhat more effective-- but the somber fables of Castaways and Cutouts remain compelling nonetheless. The Decemberists rarely put forth individually gripping songs, yet somehow, the result is a remarkable whole, an autonomous unit. From the opening cry of, "My name is Leslie Anne Levine/ My mother birthed me down a dry ravine," to the album's exhausting conclusion, the fever never breaks. So, if Jeff Mangum really is on permanent vacation, we're going to need a successor. Few bands seem as worthy of inheriting his twisted empire as The Decemberists."

Jeremy Enigk

Return of the Frog Queen

Rock

Patric Fallon

In the annals of rock music's early flirtations with the internet, an incident from the career of Sunny Day Real Estate stands as prophetic of the echo chamber we know today. In December 1994, the band's frontman, Jeremy Enigk, responded to rumors of an imminent breakup by posting an open letter. While SDRE were being celebrated as the best thing to hit the Seattle scene since grunge, Enigk was coming out as a born-again Christian—and the words he used in dropping that bombshell left a mark as indelible as his band's emo masterpiece, Diary on his career. “Jesus isn’t anything that I want to compromise with, for He is far more important then [sic] this music, financial security, or popularity could ever be,” Enigk wrote. “So the idea of breaking up has been talked about." The Jesus stuff stuck with fans and the press alike, and speculation that it was the reason for SDRE’s split—just months after the letter and more than half a year before the release of their second album—dominated the rumor mill. Over the years, this collective obsession with Enigk’s faith has drowned out everything else he’s said about his mental state in the mid-’90s. “It’s not that I was unhappy back then," he reflected in 2006, "but I definitely was a younger man… reaching for the unknown, I guess, trying to find my place." That quest defines his peculiar 1996 solo debut, Return of the Frog Queen, an album that finds a spiritually awakened Enigk summoning the courage to reach beyond the blunt, soul-baring music SDRE had released and toward thematic grandeur his bandmates weren't yet prepared to grasp. Christianity was never why Enigk left the band; it was how he began his journey of self-discovery. And Frog Queen—with its half-baked mysticism, charming introspection, and lofty musical ambitions—was the first milestone. Any celebrations of faith or a higher power were largely unrecognizable as such. "Songs that I’ve written about God, I am singing about in a language of my own heart, not one of an organized structure," Enigk once explained. The lyrics on Frog Queen have a poetic bent; the rhapsodic, soul-searching verses of “Explain” seem designed to stick in the subconscious. But some of the other songs scan as nonsense. Written and recorded around the time of SDRE’s disbandment, the album exchanged the increasingly anachronistic sound of a rock band splitting the difference between Rites of Spring and U2 for timeless influences like Neil Young, Nick Drake, and Red House Painters. Acoustic guitar waltzes and intimate, unhurried musings replaced stark loud-quiet contrasts. A 21-piece orchestra filled a background once occupied by reverb and delay pedals. And production by Greg Williamson, who would go on to produce SDRE's transcendent comeback record How It Feels to Be Something On, gave Enigk's wispy croon enough space to expand and contract at will. If Frog Queen was, on some level, a message to his former (and future) bandmates, the takeaway seemed to be, "It's not you—it's me." Yet the album feels anchored to the foundation of SDRE. Soft, swaying ballads like "Abegail Anne" and downtrodden odes like "Call Me Steam" are well suited to composer Mark Nichols' delicate arrangements, but Enigk's version of chamber pop still employs plenty of the vocal distortion and guitar pounding for which his band was known. At its best—from the quiet ache of "Lewis Hollow" to the anthemic splendor of "Shade and the Black Heart"—Frog Queen sounds like the unplugged record SDRE never made. In less successful moments, the album reflects the limitations of a young songwriter deliberately leaving his comfort zone. "Carnival" is a strange combination of boilerplate guitar chords, overproduced vocals, and disorienting orchestral motifs. The plodding "Lizard" oversells its awkward verses, then overshoots the emotional mark during its brief crescendo, aiming for drama but delivering histrionics. Frog Queen made an impression on those who heard it upon its initial release, in July of '96. CMJ described it as mysterious, enchanting, and “purely spiritual,” while otherspraised its originality. Sebadoh's Lou Barlow called it his favorite album of the year. But it didn't sell so well at first—at least not compared to SDRE releases—and wasn’t repressed. Instead, it became a cult classic and a footnote to Enigk’s long career, often mentioned in the samesentence as bassist Nate Mendel's departure to join the Foo Fighters or Hoerner’s move to a farm in rural Washington. Like many relics of pre-Web 2.0 indie rock, Frog Queen remained an underground favorite, its mythos proliferating through mix CDs, AIM away messages, and local scene forums. Spotify curators and YouTube influencers may not have been clamoring for Sub Pop’s new reissue of the album, but its long absence from the cultural conversation has only made the experience of discovering or revisiting it more powerful. An record whose trackable influence seems lost to the archives of the Wayback Machine, Frog Queen helped define a sound that became ubiquitous in indie rock for years following its release. The rough-edged perfection of “Explain” is bound to speak to Neutral Milk Hotel cultists who pored over In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Fans of Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House will surely recognize its predecessor in the pastoral folk-pop, sparse orchestration, and simple studio flourishes of "Call Me Steam" and "Return of the Frog Queen.” Although it doesn’t reach the heights of SDRE’s greatest albums, Enigk's labor of love deserves to live on—not just as a turning point in his life, but as an inspiration to younger risk-takers looking to make deeply personal, unabashedly flawed music of their own.

Artist: Jeremy Enigk, Album: Return of the Frog Queen, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "In the annals of rock music's early flirtations with the internet, an incident from the career of Sunny Day Real Estate stands as prophetic of the echo chamber we know today. In December 1994, the band's frontman, Jeremy Enigk, responded to rumors of an imminent breakup by posting an open letter. While SDRE were being celebrated as the best thing to hit the Seattle scene since grunge, Enigk was coming out as a born-again Christian—and the words he used in dropping that bombshell left a mark as indelible as his band's emo masterpiece, Diary on his career. “Jesus isn’t anything that I want to compromise with, for He is far more important then [sic] this music, financial security, or popularity could ever be,” Enigk wrote. “So the idea of breaking up has been talked about." The Jesus stuff stuck with fans and the press alike, and speculation that it was the reason for SDRE’s split—just months after the letter and more than half a year before the release of their second album—dominated the rumor mill. Over the years, this collective obsession with Enigk’s faith has drowned out everything else he’s said about his mental state in the mid-’90s. “It’s not that I was unhappy back then," he reflected in 2006, "but I definitely was a younger man… reaching for the unknown, I guess, trying to find my place." That quest defines his peculiar 1996 solo debut, Return of the Frog Queen, an album that finds a spiritually awakened Enigk summoning the courage to reach beyond the blunt, soul-baring music SDRE had released and toward thematic grandeur his bandmates weren't yet prepared to grasp. Christianity was never why Enigk left the band; it was how he began his journey of self-discovery. And Frog Queen—with its half-baked mysticism, charming introspection, and lofty musical ambitions—was the first milestone. Any celebrations of faith or a higher power were largely unrecognizable as such. "Songs that I’ve written about God, I am singing about in a language of my own heart, not one of an organized structure," Enigk once explained. The lyrics on Frog Queen have a poetic bent; the rhapsodic, soul-searching verses of “Explain” seem designed to stick in the subconscious. But some of the other songs scan as nonsense. Written and recorded around the time of SDRE’s disbandment, the album exchanged the increasingly anachronistic sound of a rock band splitting the difference between Rites of Spring and U2 for timeless influences like Neil Young, Nick Drake, and Red House Painters. Acoustic guitar waltzes and intimate, unhurried musings replaced stark loud-quiet contrasts. A 21-piece orchestra filled a background once occupied by reverb and delay pedals. And production by Greg Williamson, who would go on to produce SDRE's transcendent comeback record How It Feels to Be Something On, gave Enigk's wispy croon enough space to expand and contract at will. If Frog Queen was, on some level, a message to his former (and future) bandmates, the takeaway seemed to be, "It's not you—it's me." Yet the album feels anchored to the foundation of SDRE. Soft, swaying ballads like "Abegail Anne" and downtrodden odes like "Call Me Steam" are well suited to composer Mark Nichols' delicate arrangements, but Enigk's version of chamber pop still employs plenty of the vocal distortion and guitar pounding for which his band was known. At its best—from the quiet ache of "Lewis Hollow" to the anthemic splendor of "Shade and the Black Heart"—Frog Queen sounds like the unplugged record SDRE never made. In less successful moments, the album reflects the limitations of a young songwriter deliberately leaving his comfort zone. "Carnival" is a strange combination of boilerplate guitar chords, overproduced vocals, and disorienting orchestral motifs. The plodding "Lizard" oversells its awkward verses, then overshoots the emotional mark during its brief crescendo, aiming for drama but delivering histrionics. Frog Queen made an impression on those who heard it upon its initial release, in July of '96. CMJ described it as mysterious, enchanting, and “purely spiritual,” while otherspraised its originality. Sebadoh's Lou Barlow called it his favorite album of the year. But it didn't sell so well at first—at least not compared to SDRE releases—and wasn’t repressed. Instead, it became a cult classic and a footnote to Enigk’s long career, often mentioned in the samesentence as bassist Nate Mendel's departure to join the Foo Fighters or Hoerner’s move to a farm in rural Washington. Like many relics of pre-Web 2.0 indie rock, Frog Queen remained an underground favorite, its mythos proliferating through mix CDs, AIM away messages, and local scene forums. Spotify curators and YouTube influencers may not have been clamoring for Sub Pop’s new reissue of the album, but its long absence from the cultural conversation has only made the experience of discovering or revisiting it more powerful. An record whose trackable influence seems lost to the archives of the Wayback Machine, Frog Queen helped define a sound that became ubiquitous in indie rock for years following its release. The rough-edged perfection of “Explain” is bound to speak to Neutral Milk Hotel cultists who pored over In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Fans of Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House will surely recognize its predecessor in the pastoral folk-pop, sparse orchestration, and simple studio flourishes of "Call Me Steam" and "Return of the Frog Queen.” Although it doesn’t reach the heights of SDRE’s greatest albums, Enigk's labor of love deserves to live on—not just as a turning point in his life, but as an inspiration to younger risk-takers looking to make deeply personal, unabashedly flawed music of their own."

Morrissey

World Peace Is None of Your Business

Rock

Marc Hogan

"We were paralyzed by the dumbness of the times. So we did our best to change them." That's Morrissey, on how clueless gatekeepers blocked the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?" from bigger commercial success, in the new book Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s. His comments here are striking partly for how little has changed—in Morrissey's telling, everyone else was wrong: the other Smiths, who were "embarrassed" by the lyrics; producer John Porter, who downplayed them; Rough Trade head Geoff Travis, who relegated the song to a UK B-side; and the American chartkeepers and TV producers, who failed to recognize the track's genius. Morrissey's remarks also stand out, though, for their optimism. All his hope might've been gone, as he sang, but he still left a scrap for the rest of us. Though World Peace Is None of Your Business, Morrissey's first album in five years, comes in times that are undoubtedly just as dumb in their own way, the Smiths' place within them is secure. Defunct for almost three decades, the band is a perennial subject of Coachella reunion whispers. Morrissey elicits tributes in "Parks and Recreation" dialogue and Peanuts-themed Tumblr mashups alike. The gap between albums is his longest since virtually disappearing between 1997's misunderstood Maladjusted and 2004's tommy gun-blazing You Are the Quarry, but nowadays Morrissey is rarely far from the public eye, whether publishing a sometimes-brilliant memoir, canceling tour dates (while blaming the opener), or getting into it over animal rights with Jimmy Kimmel and Los Angeles' Staples Center. Remember when he appeared to start using Twitter? Then denied using Twitter? Post-financial crisis, he's as ubiquitous as global protest movements. Tour and Twitter drama aside, the rollout of World Peace has still managed only to raise Morrissey's profile, from the album's priceless album cover and tracklist to unconventional spoken-word videos guest-starring past musical collaborator Nancy Sinatra and fellow PETA activist Pamela Anderson. The full-length itself, though—in a characteristic Morrissey twist—is hardly welcoming to newcomers. It's musically as rich and worldly as Morrissey gets, and the 55-year-old who early last year addressed another round of health concerns by quipping that "the reports of my death have been greatly understated" proves he can be as hilarious and multi-dimensional as ever. But it's also a deeply sour record, even for Morrissey. He's always had it both ways, singing his life but with a wink that resists literal interpretations; even so, this album's expressions of wide-ranging contempt are at times unbecomingly convincing. Ever since You Are the Quarry weathered criticism for Jerry Finn's unsubtle production, Morrissey's albums have flourished sonically, and that growth is its furthest-reaching to date on World Peace. Boz Boorer, on guitar since 1992's Your Arsenal, brings a muscular continuity and sense of comfort—but keyboard/synthesizer newcomer Gustavo Manzur and producer Joe Chiccarelli (the White Stripes, Beck) go beyond the Ennio Morricone orchestral cameo from 2006's Ringleader of the Tormentors and the unpredictable luxuriance of 2009's Years of Refusal. Recorded in France, the album makes the world its business, encompassing meditative drones along with flamenco guitars and mariachi horns. It's as meticulously detailed as it is cosmopolitan, and marks the second straight Morrissey album that rewards listening without paying attention to the lyrics. Morrissey's golden vibrato also sounds gloriously undamaged by his recent medical woes. As ever, it's most evident in his nonverbal tics—the way he stretches out the word "ways" into umpteen syllables on "Staircase at the University", an "Ask"-jaunty number about a student whose academic imperfections lead to suicide, and how he melismatically unfurls "cries" on "The Bullfighter Dies", another cheerfully morbid song cheering the perfectly Morrissey-esque subject of the title ("because we all want the bull to survive"). "Neal Cassady Drops Dead" is as jagged and punchy as its bleakly funny, faux-Beat tirade about "babies full of rabies/ Rabies full of scabies/ Scarlett has a fever.../ The little fella has got Rubella." Morrissey still knows how to be cranky with aplomb. Still, at times the intricate arrangements come across as a means of covering up unmemorable songwriting. The murky midtempo rock of "Istanbul", about a father who identifies the body of his dead son, and the ornately textured strummer "Mountjoy", which finds grim equality in a notorious Irish prison ("We all lose/ Rich or poor"), are evidence of how these songs often tend to drag. The worst offender is nearly eight-minute centerpiece "I'm Not a Man", which grows from ambient twinkles and show-tunes crooning to gutsy modern-rock pounding and howling as Morrissey reaches new levels of self-righteousness: "I'd never kill or eat an animal/ And I never would destroy this planet I am on." All credit to Morrissey for speaking inconvenient truths, but it doesn't take joining the Koch family to possess the ability to walk out of this lecture. Forget "man"—what about "charming"? Along with the occasional trudging bits, Morrissey's smug preachiness is the album's other off-putting point. The title track is ingeniously catchy and deeply sardonic, but dismissing protesters from Ukraine to Bahrain as "you poor little fool" and coining the mantra that "Each time you vote/ You support the process" isn't a dose of welcome realism; it's cynical and self-absorbed (Americans in Morrissey's lifetime marched and died for voting rights). The glamorous, self-mythologizing romantic melancholy that's Morrissey's stock-in-trade, meanwhile, comes up only rarely, though you can hear its echoes in the joyously "Besame Mucho"-flipping "Kiss Me a Lot," and Morrissey's exaltation of ruffians in the vaguely sexualized violence of "Smiler With Knife". The album's most miserablist songs, to use the word long applied to Morrissey's music, nevertheless zoom out for a wider view: there's the Spanish-tinged romp "Earth Is the Loneliest Planet", where "You fail as a woman/ And you lose as a man," and the pointedly dirge-like "Kick the Bride Down the Aisle", where Morrissey's scorn for institution of matrimony leaves me longing for the Hidden Cameras' more entertaining "Ban Marriage". On finale "Oboe Concerto", which idiosyncratically leans on Boorer's sax and clarinet, Morrissey repeats, "There's a song I can't stand/ And it's stuck in my head." Beneath electronic blips and burbles

Artist: Morrissey, Album: World Peace Is None of Your Business, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.9 Album review: ""We were paralyzed by the dumbness of the times. So we did our best to change them." That's Morrissey, on how clueless gatekeepers blocked the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?" from bigger commercial success, in the new book Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s. His comments here are striking partly for how little has changed—in Morrissey's telling, everyone else was wrong: the other Smiths, who were "embarrassed" by the lyrics; producer John Porter, who downplayed them; Rough Trade head Geoff Travis, who relegated the song to a UK B-side; and the American chartkeepers and TV producers, who failed to recognize the track's genius. Morrissey's remarks also stand out, though, for their optimism. All his hope might've been gone, as he sang, but he still left a scrap for the rest of us. Though World Peace Is None of Your Business, Morrissey's first album in five years, comes in times that are undoubtedly just as dumb in their own way, the Smiths' place within them is secure. Defunct for almost three decades, the band is a perennial subject of Coachella reunion whispers. Morrissey elicits tributes in "Parks and Recreation" dialogue and Peanuts-themed Tumblr mashups alike. The gap between albums is his longest since virtually disappearing between 1997's misunderstood Maladjusted and 2004's tommy gun-blazing You Are the Quarry, but nowadays Morrissey is rarely far from the public eye, whether publishing a sometimes-brilliant memoir, canceling tour dates (while blaming the opener), or getting into it over animal rights with Jimmy Kimmel and Los Angeles' Staples Center. Remember when he appeared to start using Twitter? Then denied using Twitter? Post-financial crisis, he's as ubiquitous as global protest movements. Tour and Twitter drama aside, the rollout of World Peace has still managed only to raise Morrissey's profile, from the album's priceless album cover and tracklist to unconventional spoken-word videos guest-starring past musical collaborator Nancy Sinatra and fellow PETA activist Pamela Anderson. The full-length itself, though—in a characteristic Morrissey twist—is hardly welcoming to newcomers. It's musically as rich and worldly as Morrissey gets, and the 55-year-old who early last year addressed another round of health concerns by quipping that "the reports of my death have been greatly understated" proves he can be as hilarious and multi-dimensional as ever. But it's also a deeply sour record, even for Morrissey. He's always had it both ways, singing his life but with a wink that resists literal interpretations; even so, this album's expressions of wide-ranging contempt are at times unbecomingly convincing. Ever since You Are the Quarry weathered criticism for Jerry Finn's unsubtle production, Morrissey's albums have flourished sonically, and that growth is its furthest-reaching to date on World Peace. Boz Boorer, on guitar since 1992's Your Arsenal, brings a muscular continuity and sense of comfort—but keyboard/synthesizer newcomer Gustavo Manzur and producer Joe Chiccarelli (the White Stripes, Beck) go beyond the Ennio Morricone orchestral cameo from 2006's Ringleader of the Tormentors and the unpredictable luxuriance of 2009's Years of Refusal. Recorded in France, the album makes the world its business, encompassing meditative drones along with flamenco guitars and mariachi horns. It's as meticulously detailed as it is cosmopolitan, and marks the second straight Morrissey album that rewards listening without paying attention to the lyrics. Morrissey's golden vibrato also sounds gloriously undamaged by his recent medical woes. As ever, it's most evident in his nonverbal tics—the way he stretches out the word "ways" into umpteen syllables on "Staircase at the University", an "Ask"-jaunty number about a student whose academic imperfections lead to suicide, and how he melismatically unfurls "cries" on "The Bullfighter Dies", another cheerfully morbid song cheering the perfectly Morrissey-esque subject of the title ("because we all want the bull to survive"). "Neal Cassady Drops Dead" is as jagged and punchy as its bleakly funny, faux-Beat tirade about "babies full of rabies/ Rabies full of scabies/ Scarlett has a fever.../ The little fella has got Rubella." Morrissey still knows how to be cranky with aplomb. Still, at times the intricate arrangements come across as a means of covering up unmemorable songwriting. The murky midtempo rock of "Istanbul", about a father who identifies the body of his dead son, and the ornately textured strummer "Mountjoy", which finds grim equality in a notorious Irish prison ("We all lose/ Rich or poor"), are evidence of how these songs often tend to drag. The worst offender is nearly eight-minute centerpiece "I'm Not a Man", which grows from ambient twinkles and show-tunes crooning to gutsy modern-rock pounding and howling as Morrissey reaches new levels of self-righteousness: "I'd never kill or eat an animal/ And I never would destroy this planet I am on." All credit to Morrissey for speaking inconvenient truths, but it doesn't take joining the Koch family to possess the ability to walk out of this lecture. Forget "man"—what about "charming"? Along with the occasional trudging bits, Morrissey's smug preachiness is the album's other off-putting point. The title track is ingeniously catchy and deeply sardonic, but dismissing protesters from Ukraine to Bahrain as "you poor little fool" and coining the mantra that "Each time you vote/ You support the process" isn't a dose of welcome realism; it's cynical and self-absorbed (Americans in Morrissey's lifetime marched and died for voting rights). The glamorous, self-mythologizing romantic melancholy that's Morrissey's stock-in-trade, meanwhile, comes up only rarely, though you can hear its echoes in the joyously "Besame Mucho"-flipping "Kiss Me a Lot," and Morrissey's exaltation of ruffians in the vaguely sexualized violence of "Smiler With Knife". The album's most miserablist songs, to use the word long applied to Morrissey's music, nevertheless zoom out for a wider view: there's the Spanish-tinged romp "Earth Is the Loneliest Planet", where "You fail as a woman/ And you lose as a man," and the pointedly dirge-like "Kick the Bride Down the Aisle", where Morrissey's scorn for institution of matrimony leaves me longing for the Hidden Cameras' more entertaining "Ban Marriage". On finale "Oboe Concerto", which idiosyncratically leans on Boorer's sax and clarinet, Morrissey repeats, "There's a song I can't stand/ And it's stuck in my head." Beneath electronic blips and burbles"

Lee Hazlewood

Requiem for an Almost Lady

Folk/Country

Mark Richard-San

I recently packed all my shit into a rental car and moved from San Francisco to Greensboro, North Carolina. My best memory from the trip was driving between Memphis and Nashville, listening to WSM, the home of the Grand Old Opry. There's something about the production in country music from the early '50s to the early '70s. In those days, the only way to get records to sound good coming out of crappy AM radios was to thicken the reverb to the saturation point. This meant that Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells sounded like they were singing about broken hearts from the belly of a hollowed- out submarine. And that, my friends, is a lonesome sound. Lee Hazlewood, who cut his musical teeth during this time, understands this lonesome sound. Best known as the writer of Nancy Sinatra's hit "These Boots are Made for Walkin'," Hazlewood was an enigmatic contemporary of Phil Spector whose gift for melody and arrangement graced many a hit single in the '60s. On his own records, Hazlewood can be seen as a kind of urban cowboy- meets- Leonard Cohen figure whose thick baritone is consistently in tune and affecting. After moving to Sweden in the early 1970s, Hazlewood's records fell out of print and became much sought after by fanatical (and rich) collectors. Hearing the freshly reissued Requiem for an Almost Lady, one can see what the fuss is all about. Originally released in 1971, Requiem has a concept-- one you can probably guess from the title. To give you an idea where Hazlewood is coming from, on the liner notes he writes "In retrospect... these songs were not written about or for one lady or two or even three... they are a composite of all my memories of ladies, since I became aware of memories and ladies..." Cheesy? God, yes. And the between- song spoken interludes, laced with similar platitudes about life, love and loss, can be a little hard to endure initally. Still, taken as a whole, with Hazlewood's stellar production and subtle, understated arrangements (mostly just bass and guitar), the album becomes something greater. An artifact, sure-- sadly, they don't record voices like this any more, all rich and full of romantic atmosphere. But there's something else at work, a simplicity that yields a kind of grandeur. The melodies (particularly on such weepers as "If It's Monday Morning" and "I'll Live Yesterdays") show that Hazlewood fully understood the power of the 1-5 change. The words are simple storytelling in the country- folk vein-- engaging stories laced with humor and keen observation. And the chamber- tonk production adds a showman's sheen to these roadhouse blues. Dylan was plowing these same fields in the early '70s on New Morning and Nashville Skyline, but he was too confused at that point do it with Hazlewood's panache. Memories and ladies, ah yes... Lee got it right.

Artist: Lee Hazlewood, Album: Requiem for an Almost Lady, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "I recently packed all my shit into a rental car and moved from San Francisco to Greensboro, North Carolina. My best memory from the trip was driving between Memphis and Nashville, listening to WSM, the home of the Grand Old Opry. There's something about the production in country music from the early '50s to the early '70s. In those days, the only way to get records to sound good coming out of crappy AM radios was to thicken the reverb to the saturation point. This meant that Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells sounded like they were singing about broken hearts from the belly of a hollowed- out submarine. And that, my friends, is a lonesome sound. Lee Hazlewood, who cut his musical teeth during this time, understands this lonesome sound. Best known as the writer of Nancy Sinatra's hit "These Boots are Made for Walkin'," Hazlewood was an enigmatic contemporary of Phil Spector whose gift for melody and arrangement graced many a hit single in the '60s. On his own records, Hazlewood can be seen as a kind of urban cowboy- meets- Leonard Cohen figure whose thick baritone is consistently in tune and affecting. After moving to Sweden in the early 1970s, Hazlewood's records fell out of print and became much sought after by fanatical (and rich) collectors. Hearing the freshly reissued Requiem for an Almost Lady, one can see what the fuss is all about. Originally released in 1971, Requiem has a concept-- one you can probably guess from the title. To give you an idea where Hazlewood is coming from, on the liner notes he writes "In retrospect... these songs were not written about or for one lady or two or even three... they are a composite of all my memories of ladies, since I became aware of memories and ladies..." Cheesy? God, yes. And the between- song spoken interludes, laced with similar platitudes about life, love and loss, can be a little hard to endure initally. Still, taken as a whole, with Hazlewood's stellar production and subtle, understated arrangements (mostly just bass and guitar), the album becomes something greater. An artifact, sure-- sadly, they don't record voices like this any more, all rich and full of romantic atmosphere. But there's something else at work, a simplicity that yields a kind of grandeur. The melodies (particularly on such weepers as "If It's Monday Morning" and "I'll Live Yesterdays") show that Hazlewood fully understood the power of the 1-5 change. The words are simple storytelling in the country- folk vein-- engaging stories laced with humor and keen observation. And the chamber- tonk production adds a showman's sheen to these roadhouse blues. Dylan was plowing these same fields in the early '70s on New Morning and Nashville Skyline, but he was too confused at that point do it with Hazlewood's panache. Memories and ladies, ah yes... Lee got it right."

The Detroit Cobras

Baby

Electronic,Rock

Johnny Loftus

The Detroit Cobras dovetail nicely into "Shangri-La." First, it's a catchall descriptor for fans of creaky old r&b; and soul singles. For them, Cobras albums are crackling pieces of heaven, combining all the music's sex and danger with the detail of an archivist. Plus, buying stuff like Baby or their memorable 1998 debut Mink Rat or Rabbit saves hours wasted trolling mildew-y record shops and the back alleys of eBay. But "Shangri-La" also references the Cobras' connection to Memphis and Stax/Volt, Cooper-Young cool. They're conduits for the city's soul history, but they also have a contemporary link in Greg Cartwright: Baby's co-producer and lately a fulltime Cobra, Cartwright was a member of Memphis garage rock instituions the Reigning Sound, the Oblivians, and Compulsive Gamblers, the last two of which recorded for...Shangri-La Records. That the Cobras' bash-and-slink versions of those old songs paint them as both interpreters and garage rock revivalists only completes the Shangri-la daisy chain. Baby was released on Rough Trade in the UK and Europe earlier this year, but in America it's the band's Bloodshot debut. They've picked out 12 more r&b; obscurities, but also thrown in an original, the shamelessly salacious "Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat)" ("You bring the drinks, and I got the buns..."). Covering old cuts of r&b; and soul as they do, you might expect Cobras vocalist Rachel Nagy to try on her damndest Carla Thomas or Aretha Franklin, or at least sing with cockeyed arm on hip. But instead Nagy sings with a cocky, slow-burn confidence that's throaty enough to handle the material but is all kinds of unique, too. Her voice places the Cobras on the cusp between purism and reinterpretation. Plus, if you want to push the intro bit even further, on "It's Raining" and "Real Thing" she suggests the dusky girl group growl of the Shangri-Las. While Nagy's delivery is the Cobras' centerpiece, much of their famously kinetic groove comes from guitars that wrangle all trebly over drumming that's heavy on cymbals and wet snare. "Cha Cha Twist" is part fire, part whisper, and wants to turn your living room into a clothing-optional dance party, while Bobby Womack's "Baby Help Me" alternates its pleading verses with big trashy chords in the chorus and still finds time to reference the Percy Sledge version with a silky bass line. The Cobras can crank out shimmy-ready numbers like "Cha Cha", "Everybody's Going Wild", and opener "Slippin' Around" ("We're making love 15 miles from town!") in their sleep. But because things come easy for them, the Cobras might be tempted to coast a little-- and that's a factor on Baby. They're always raucous-- and Nagy is always on-- but the album can also leave you wondering, "What if the Detroit Cobras covered this one or that one, or the deeper-in-the-stacks one?" Luckily, they'll never run out of material for the very same reason. And when Nagy and the band really hit it, as on Baby's "Weak Spot", "Raining", and "Just Can't Please You", you're too busy reveling in a band on top of their game to wonder what they could've been doing instead.

Artist: The Detroit Cobras, Album: Baby, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "The Detroit Cobras dovetail nicely into "Shangri-La." First, it's a catchall descriptor for fans of creaky old r&b; and soul singles. For them, Cobras albums are crackling pieces of heaven, combining all the music's sex and danger with the detail of an archivist. Plus, buying stuff like Baby or their memorable 1998 debut Mink Rat or Rabbit saves hours wasted trolling mildew-y record shops and the back alleys of eBay. But "Shangri-La" also references the Cobras' connection to Memphis and Stax/Volt, Cooper-Young cool. They're conduits for the city's soul history, but they also have a contemporary link in Greg Cartwright: Baby's co-producer and lately a fulltime Cobra, Cartwright was a member of Memphis garage rock instituions the Reigning Sound, the Oblivians, and Compulsive Gamblers, the last two of which recorded for...Shangri-La Records. That the Cobras' bash-and-slink versions of those old songs paint them as both interpreters and garage rock revivalists only completes the Shangri-la daisy chain. Baby was released on Rough Trade in the UK and Europe earlier this year, but in America it's the band's Bloodshot debut. They've picked out 12 more r&b; obscurities, but also thrown in an original, the shamelessly salacious "Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat)" ("You bring the drinks, and I got the buns..."). Covering old cuts of r&b; and soul as they do, you might expect Cobras vocalist Rachel Nagy to try on her damndest Carla Thomas or Aretha Franklin, or at least sing with cockeyed arm on hip. But instead Nagy sings with a cocky, slow-burn confidence that's throaty enough to handle the material but is all kinds of unique, too. Her voice places the Cobras on the cusp between purism and reinterpretation. Plus, if you want to push the intro bit even further, on "It's Raining" and "Real Thing" she suggests the dusky girl group growl of the Shangri-Las. While Nagy's delivery is the Cobras' centerpiece, much of their famously kinetic groove comes from guitars that wrangle all trebly over drumming that's heavy on cymbals and wet snare. "Cha Cha Twist" is part fire, part whisper, and wants to turn your living room into a clothing-optional dance party, while Bobby Womack's "Baby Help Me" alternates its pleading verses with big trashy chords in the chorus and still finds time to reference the Percy Sledge version with a silky bass line. The Cobras can crank out shimmy-ready numbers like "Cha Cha", "Everybody's Going Wild", and opener "Slippin' Around" ("We're making love 15 miles from town!") in their sleep. But because things come easy for them, the Cobras might be tempted to coast a little-- and that's a factor on Baby. They're always raucous-- and Nagy is always on-- but the album can also leave you wondering, "What if the Detroit Cobras covered this one or that one, or the deeper-in-the-stacks one?" Luckily, they'll never run out of material for the very same reason. And when Nagy and the band really hit it, as on Baby's "Weak Spot", "Raining", and "Just Can't Please You", you're too busy reveling in a band on top of their game to wonder what they could've been doing instead."

White Lung

Paradise

Rock

Laura Snapes

Although White Lung sprung from the Vancouver underground, they've never been shy about their ambition. "We'll celebrate breaking even after every single [self-booked] tour," frontwoman Mish Barber-Way wrote prior to the release of their second album, 2012's Sorry. "And that's totally okay with me." With Paradise, their fourth, they've talked about exploring a new pop sensibility, versus "this really stupid attitude that only punks have where it's somehow uncool to become a better songwriter." Barber-Way took singing lessons; they embraced "accessible." None of which, thankfully, has pared down Kenneth William's tar-spitting guitars, Anne-Marie Vassiliou's breakneck drumming, or their powerslide dynamic. If anything, there's more of a spotlight on those things now. Over time, the Canadian thrashers have increasingly allowed space to let the pop potential of their songs shine through. After the sparking Catherine wheel sound of their last album, 2014's excellent Deep Fantasy, and its predecessors, the production on Paradise is roomy by comparison; convincingly stadium-sized, and billowing with dry ice, a touch indebted to pop's cavernous post-Steve Lillywhite moment. Having ruined her voice on the Deep Fantasy tour, Barber-Way now sings at a gothy remove rather than a throat-mangling shred. "Narcoleptic" chimes with dark, glassy synth-like guitars, and in "Hungry" and "Below," they've written two genuinely affecting power ballads that don't scrimp on attack or scream-'til-it-hurts hooks. On Deep Fantasy, Barber-Way tackled body dysmorphia and addiction, and wrote bracing indictments of rape culture and the violent and insidious ways it affects society, from outright assault ("I Believe You") to the ongoing fear of getting your drink spiked in a club ("Down It Goes"). Unsurprisingly, it was often labeled a "feminist punk record." Which it was—and an important one, too—but however many years on we are from feminism's big mainstream moment, the term has become a suffocating expectation of art made by women: that honoring the sisterhood must surely be their only intention, that their politics are their identity, rather than the other way around, and should they make any move deemed *un-*feminist, they better line up at the nearest Twitter stake post-haste. White Lung are never a band to follow expectations, and Barber-Way has always expressed disdain for the concept of a singular feminism. As if to celebrate that, on Paradise, she follows the lead of an artist who initially confounded her own ideas of female power and agency. In 2014, Barber-Way grappled with her appreciation of Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence in a review for the Talkhouse. At first, she wrote, she had to separate the "Video Games" singer from her art because she found her "annoying." But over repeated listens, Barber-Way arrived at a revelation: "LDR is always searching for herself through someone else and sometimes she hits the mark and embodies the character perfectly." On Paradise (coincidentally or not*,* also the name of an EP by LDR), Barber-Way, who is now based in Los Angeles, shifts between her own perspective and various other female points of view, all of which offer provocative challenges to the idea of what it means to be a Good Feminist. In one sense, it's a writing exercise: As a journalist in her own right, she's often written about marrying a "motorcycle-riding, Southern-born hick from Arkansas," and that she'd like little more than to abandon her career and escape to the country with him. It's a prospect she says is considered "grossly basic" in her punk peer group—and a happy one that "doesn't make for the best songwriting." But the one spot on Paradise where she tries it explicitly is awesome: It's the subject of the title track, a ride-or-die pounder with a killer chorus where she yearns for her husband to "ride south with me now." She sneers, "I'm all about you/You're all about me too," before asking anyone who cares to challenge her dream, "Oh, is that oppressive? No." A couple of songs seem to deal with getting over the addictions that she's mentioned in the past; what is Paradise if not exerting control over a totally personal environment? Among Barber-Way's characters are two real-life serial killers. On "Sister," she sings as Karla Homolka, the wife of Paul Bernardo, who at the end of the 1980s became known as the "Ken and Barbie killers" thanks to a spree of murders in Scarborough, Canada—including Homolka's sister, Tammy. "You'll burn a bit/My little sister," Barber-Way sings, over intricate, trebly guitar. On "Demented" Barber-Way imagines a fight between British serial killers Rosemary and Fred West over their mutually assured destruction, echoed by what sounds like a wall of death race around the tip of a volcano. These songs are schlocky, but they serve as part of a deeper inquiry into how we perceive and attribute female desire and agency—female serial killers get shorter sentences than their male equivalents, because it's harder for anyone to believe they'd do it. Barber-Way has called the sharp-edged "Kiss Me When I Bleed," whose chorus feels like mudsliding through a ring of fire, her riches-to-rags white-trash fairytale. "I will give birth in a trailer," she whines with stubborn pride, singing as a girl caught up with what her family think is the wrong kinda guy. This isn't about bullshit "choice feminism" or "empowerment," but offers a demanding characterization of the battles Barber-Way waged with herself over her own decisions, and one that asks that we examine our own responses: Do we sneer? Why? Barber-Way wastes no time dismantling the traditional yardsticks of female worth, the rigged games of beauty ("Below") and fame ("Hungry"), and the Republican-endorsed concept of female bodies as pliant reproductive vessels. "Spare your good seed," she laments in a layered, robotic yowl on the hyper-speed "Dead Weight," "I'm getting bored and old." Deep Fantasy screamed itself black and blue fighting back against a culture of oppression. On Paradise, Barber-Way steps outside of her own body and the assaults it sustains, and creates a searing portrait of what it can look like to love without fear, even when that love doesn't resemble the fantasy we've been sold.

Artist: White Lung, Album: Paradise, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "Although White Lung sprung from the Vancouver underground, they've never been shy about their ambition. "We'll celebrate breaking even after every single [self-booked] tour," frontwoman Mish Barber-Way wrote prior to the release of their second album, 2012's Sorry. "And that's totally okay with me." With Paradise, their fourth, they've talked about exploring a new pop sensibility, versus "this really stupid attitude that only punks have where it's somehow uncool to become a better songwriter." Barber-Way took singing lessons; they embraced "accessible." None of which, thankfully, has pared down Kenneth William's tar-spitting guitars, Anne-Marie Vassiliou's breakneck drumming, or their powerslide dynamic. If anything, there's more of a spotlight on those things now. Over time, the Canadian thrashers have increasingly allowed space to let the pop potential of their songs shine through. After the sparking Catherine wheel sound of their last album, 2014's excellent Deep Fantasy, and its predecessors, the production on Paradise is roomy by comparison; convincingly stadium-sized, and billowing with dry ice, a touch indebted to pop's cavernous post-Steve Lillywhite moment. Having ruined her voice on the Deep Fantasy tour, Barber-Way now sings at a gothy remove rather than a throat-mangling shred. "Narcoleptic" chimes with dark, glassy synth-like guitars, and in "Hungry" and "Below," they've written two genuinely affecting power ballads that don't scrimp on attack or scream-'til-it-hurts hooks. On Deep Fantasy, Barber-Way tackled body dysmorphia and addiction, and wrote bracing indictments of rape culture and the violent and insidious ways it affects society, from outright assault ("I Believe You") to the ongoing fear of getting your drink spiked in a club ("Down It Goes"). Unsurprisingly, it was often labeled a "feminist punk record." Which it was—and an important one, too—but however many years on we are from feminism's big mainstream moment, the term has become a suffocating expectation of art made by women: that honoring the sisterhood must surely be their only intention, that their politics are their identity, rather than the other way around, and should they make any move deemed *un-*feminist, they better line up at the nearest Twitter stake post-haste. White Lung are never a band to follow expectations, and Barber-Way has always expressed disdain for the concept of a singular feminism. As if to celebrate that, on Paradise, she follows the lead of an artist who initially confounded her own ideas of female power and agency. In 2014, Barber-Way grappled with her appreciation of Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence in a review for the Talkhouse. At first, she wrote, she had to separate the "Video Games" singer from her art because she found her "annoying." But over repeated listens, Barber-Way arrived at a revelation: "LDR is always searching for herself through someone else and sometimes she hits the mark and embodies the character perfectly." On Paradise (coincidentally or not*,* also the name of an EP by LDR), Barber-Way, who is now based in Los Angeles, shifts between her own perspective and various other female points of view, all of which offer provocative challenges to the idea of what it means to be a Good Feminist. In one sense, it's a writing exercise: As a journalist in her own right, she's often written about marrying a "motorcycle-riding, Southern-born hick from Arkansas," and that she'd like little more than to abandon her career and escape to the country with him. It's a prospect she says is considered "grossly basic" in her punk peer group—and a happy one that "doesn't make for the best songwriting." But the one spot on Paradise where she tries it explicitly is awesome: It's the subject of the title track, a ride-or-die pounder with a killer chorus where she yearns for her husband to "ride south with me now." She sneers, "I'm all about you/You're all about me too," before asking anyone who cares to challenge her dream, "Oh, is that oppressive? No." A couple of songs seem to deal with getting over the addictions that she's mentioned in the past; what is Paradise if not exerting control over a totally personal environment? Among Barber-Way's characters are two real-life serial killers. On "Sister," she sings as Karla Homolka, the wife of Paul Bernardo, who at the end of the 1980s became known as the "Ken and Barbie killers" thanks to a spree of murders in Scarborough, Canada—including Homolka's sister, Tammy. "You'll burn a bit/My little sister," Barber-Way sings, over intricate, trebly guitar. On "Demented" Barber-Way imagines a fight between British serial killers Rosemary and Fred West over their mutually assured destruction, echoed by what sounds like a wall of death race around the tip of a volcano. These songs are schlocky, but they serve as part of a deeper inquiry into how we perceive and attribute female desire and agency—female serial killers get shorter sentences than their male equivalents, because it's harder for anyone to believe they'd do it. Barber-Way has called the sharp-edged "Kiss Me When I Bleed," whose chorus feels like mudsliding through a ring of fire, her riches-to-rags white-trash fairytale. "I will give birth in a trailer," she whines with stubborn pride, singing as a girl caught up with what her family think is the wrong kinda guy. This isn't about bullshit "choice feminism" or "empowerment," but offers a demanding characterization of the battles Barber-Way waged with herself over her own decisions, and one that asks that we examine our own responses: Do we sneer? Why? Barber-Way wastes no time dismantling the traditional yardsticks of female worth, the rigged games of beauty ("Below") and fame ("Hungry"), and the Republican-endorsed concept of female bodies as pliant reproductive vessels. "Spare your good seed," she laments in a layered, robotic yowl on the hyper-speed "Dead Weight," "I'm getting bored and old." Deep Fantasy screamed itself black and blue fighting back against a culture of oppression. On Paradise, Barber-Way steps outside of her own body and the assaults it sustains, and creates a searing portrait of what it can look like to love without fear, even when that love doesn't resemble the fantasy we've been sold."

Blawan

Wet Will Always Dry

Electronic

Ben Cardew

Two minutes into “Careless,” the second song on Blawan’s debut album, Wet Will Always Dry, something unexpected happens: The UK techno don’s voice wafts into the mix, his airy tone suggesting a Belle and Sebastian B-side blown across the festival field. For a producer whose best-known song—2012’s monstrous “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?”—hangs off a distorted vocal hook that hints at murder, the contrast is eye-opening. It introduces a rejuvenating tinge of vulnerability into Blawan’s sometimes stony techno. The move is not entirely without precedent. Since launching his Ternesc label in 2015, Blawan (aka Jamie Roberts) has eased off the terrible intensity of “Bodies” and his thunderous work with Pariah as Karenn; that softening has coincided with him turning to modular synthesis to produce his music. Roberts’ twin 2016 EPs as Bored Young Adults and Kilner showcased a more introverted take on electronics, while 2017’s Nutrition EP hinted at tenderness within the thunder. Even so, that cobweb-light voice on “Careless” is an unexpected highlight on an album that subtly turns up the color on Blawan’s hard-nosed production sound. It’s not just that the vocal is fragile; it also has a hook that you could find yourself muttering in the shower several days later. This is the closest Blawan has come to weirdo pop music since “Bodies” or 2011’s bumping “Getting Me Down.” His knack for an understated vocal hook shows up again on “Stell,” where his wistful voice anchors insolently squelching synths in a piece of electronic music that feels designed for staring out the window on an overcast day. Musical color is also evident in the fantastically visceral sounds that elevate Wet Will Always Dry above the techno horde. Album opener “Klade” is built around a droning noise that evokes the feeling of lying in the long grass watching planes pass overhead, while “North” layers a springy, insistent synth line over what sounds like a bag of potato chips being thrown on the fire. It helps that the album’s mix is bathed in a satisfying sonic warmth whose rich timbre does for the ears what the smell of polished wood does for the nose. Odd hooks and noises might not sound like enough to sustain an eight-track album. But Blawan has a way of drawing out the subtle drama in his sounds, playing on the tension between the elasticity of the instrumental lines and the tightly wound percussive structure. The rubbery harp-pluck effect on “Nims,” for example, is forever threatening to veer out of control, only to be brought back in line by the click and thud of the regimented drum line. The album only falters when these touches aren’t enough to sustain interest. “Tasser” and “Vented” both feature hugely satisfying noises—the former resembling the ominous, metallic buildup of a sea storm, the latter a ruler being twanged in the bowels of hell—but neither is developed sufficiently to raise their respective tracks above post-Jeff Mills loopery. Wet Will Always Dry isn’t an album that will rewire dance music or revolutionize modern electronics, but at its best it succeeds in pushing against the expectations of modern techno, bringing vulnerability, warmth, and oodles of enchanting noises to a musical genre whose pursuit of the future sometimes seems to have gotten lost in po-faced respect for the past. Wet Will Always Dry is tender, intense, and dramatic. But most of all it is fun, in a way that only the pursuit of the most ludicrous aural stimulation can be.

Artist: Blawan, Album: Wet Will Always Dry, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Two minutes into “Careless,” the second song on Blawan’s debut album, Wet Will Always Dry, something unexpected happens: The UK techno don’s voice wafts into the mix, his airy tone suggesting a Belle and Sebastian B-side blown across the festival field. For a producer whose best-known song—2012’s monstrous “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?”—hangs off a distorted vocal hook that hints at murder, the contrast is eye-opening. It introduces a rejuvenating tinge of vulnerability into Blawan’s sometimes stony techno. The move is not entirely without precedent. Since launching his Ternesc label in 2015, Blawan (aka Jamie Roberts) has eased off the terrible intensity of “Bodies” and his thunderous work with Pariah as Karenn; that softening has coincided with him turning to modular synthesis to produce his music. Roberts’ twin 2016 EPs as Bored Young Adults and Kilner showcased a more introverted take on electronics, while 2017’s Nutrition EP hinted at tenderness within the thunder. Even so, that cobweb-light voice on “Careless” is an unexpected highlight on an album that subtly turns up the color on Blawan’s hard-nosed production sound. It’s not just that the vocal is fragile; it also has a hook that you could find yourself muttering in the shower several days later. This is the closest Blawan has come to weirdo pop music since “Bodies” or 2011’s bumping “Getting Me Down.” His knack for an understated vocal hook shows up again on “Stell,” where his wistful voice anchors insolently squelching synths in a piece of electronic music that feels designed for staring out the window on an overcast day. Musical color is also evident in the fantastically visceral sounds that elevate Wet Will Always Dry above the techno horde. Album opener “Klade” is built around a droning noise that evokes the feeling of lying in the long grass watching planes pass overhead, while “North” layers a springy, insistent synth line over what sounds like a bag of potato chips being thrown on the fire. It helps that the album’s mix is bathed in a satisfying sonic warmth whose rich timbre does for the ears what the smell of polished wood does for the nose. Odd hooks and noises might not sound like enough to sustain an eight-track album. But Blawan has a way of drawing out the subtle drama in his sounds, playing on the tension between the elasticity of the instrumental lines and the tightly wound percussive structure. The rubbery harp-pluck effect on “Nims,” for example, is forever threatening to veer out of control, only to be brought back in line by the click and thud of the regimented drum line. The album only falters when these touches aren’t enough to sustain interest. “Tasser” and “Vented” both feature hugely satisfying noises—the former resembling the ominous, metallic buildup of a sea storm, the latter a ruler being twanged in the bowels of hell—but neither is developed sufficiently to raise their respective tracks above post-Jeff Mills loopery. Wet Will Always Dry isn’t an album that will rewire dance music or revolutionize modern electronics, but at its best it succeeds in pushing against the expectations of modern techno, bringing vulnerability, warmth, and oodles of enchanting noises to a musical genre whose pursuit of the future sometimes seems to have gotten lost in po-faced respect for the past. Wet Will Always Dry is tender, intense, and dramatic. But most of all it is fun, in a way that only the pursuit of the most ludicrous aural stimulation can be."

Jim Black

Splay

Jazz

Dominique Leone

The guitars are so calm, and the watery sound effects beneath the surface, you might think this was a new age record for the first few seconds. And in some ways, you might be right. Whatever raging, insistent inspiration Jim Black carries with him while playing for other people seems to have been merely a color effect for his owr music. It's just not fair to pigeonhole Black as always being full of rage: his light-handed, detail-oriented playing and ability to make just about any kind of music interesting is one of his major talents. In fact, the dense calm at the heart of his compositions seems to indicate that resolution, not rage, is his ultimate goal. So, I think an introduction is in order: meet Jim Black, drummer and composer. Black was born in 1967 in Seattle. He'd grown up playing rock and jazz, and eventually attended the esteemed Berklee College of Music in Boston. Soon, he moved to New York City, and fell in with the budding downtown avant-garde jazz scene. His first claim to fame was playing in Tim Berne's legendary Bloodcount unit, where he was at least partially responsible for the band's rather intimidating aggression. Black also made the rounds with Dave Douglas, Ellery Eskelin, Satoko Fujii and Chris Speed. Jim Black plays like there has never been a concept of tomorrow: like an ultra-precise, junk-cymbal and Aphex-beat loving hurricane. I read an interview ir an old drummer magazine once where Black was giving props to Stewart Copeland and John Bonham, and I guess those are good starters, but they don't really account for the whole lightspeed chaotic behind-the-beat-even-though-he's-really-right-on-it thing he does. Furthermore, Copeland and Bonham weren't jazz drummers. To my ears, he's near the lineage of Tony Williams-- aggressive and idiosyncratic, but so nimble that you never get the feeling he's pushing too much. Splay is Black's second solo release, after last year's Alasnoaxis, with his band of the same name. The band ir question (Chris Speed on clarinet and tenor sax, Hilmar Jensson or guitar and Skuli Sverrisson on bass) is made of players very much ir Black's demographic. These are relatively young artists who are knee-deep in the highbrow pit of new jazz-- yet unlike John Zorn, don't have to play modern rock as a genre exercise. I'd say the music on this record has as much relevance in an indie discography (particularly one that features instrumental acts such as Tortoise, Chicago Underground Duo/Trio and Rovo) as it does a jazz one, at least on the surface. Tunes like "Aloe Evra" and "Cheepa vs. Cheep" could probably pass for a jazzy brand of Chicago post-rock. The former begins lightly, with a backdrop of wet ambience and modest guitar figure-- until the drums crash in, at which point it becomes an odd combination of MBV distortion, but with relentlessly crashing cymbals and up-tempo rock beat, and eerily contemplative chamber jazz. Speed's clarinet takes the melody, and his understated tone just barely manages to keep aloft amongst the guitars and cymbals. Despite the intensity (and density), the overarching mood is still of calm. "Cheepa vs. Cheep" starts with Jensson's heavily distorted guitar and kinetic polyrhythms from Black, while Speed's clarinet makes modest melodic statements. In the mid-section breakdown the band first disintegrates into boisterous free-form cutups, only to completely disappear into a drone of pulsating acoustic guitar and pillowy synth. Sometimes the sound can get a bit too calm, especially during the ballads. "iCratic," with Speed's straight-tone melody and Jensson's Frisell-esque watercolor comping, borders on the stationary despite Black's restless drumming. The tune doesn't really start to gain any momentum until about two minutes in, when it coincidentally ceases being a ballad and turns into brooding avant-rock. Black tests listener patience with the epic "Blissed (Selfchatter Mix)" which, at twelve minutes, will undoubtedly filter out all the strict jazzbos ir the audience. It's basically a straight indie instrumental, for whatever that's worth, along the lines of very recent Fugazi or Sonic Youth-- reveling in those low-register guitar chords and Black's everyman rock beat. If you havex92t had the pleasure of hearing Black play, I'd recommend starting with some of his records as a sideman (particularly with Ellery Eskelin or Tim Berne) before hitting Splay. It's not that this side of his music isn't just as compelling, but those performances were some of the best of the 90s, whereas his solo work is strangely attractive, but arguably not as inventive, or immediate for that matter. Nevertheless, a solid effort from one of the most interesting artists in contemporary jazz.

Artist: Jim Black, Album: Splay, Genre: Jazz, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "The guitars are so calm, and the watery sound effects beneath the surface, you might think this was a new age record for the first few seconds. And in some ways, you might be right. Whatever raging, insistent inspiration Jim Black carries with him while playing for other people seems to have been merely a color effect for his owr music. It's just not fair to pigeonhole Black as always being full of rage: his light-handed, detail-oriented playing and ability to make just about any kind of music interesting is one of his major talents. In fact, the dense calm at the heart of his compositions seems to indicate that resolution, not rage, is his ultimate goal. So, I think an introduction is in order: meet Jim Black, drummer and composer. Black was born in 1967 in Seattle. He'd grown up playing rock and jazz, and eventually attended the esteemed Berklee College of Music in Boston. Soon, he moved to New York City, and fell in with the budding downtown avant-garde jazz scene. His first claim to fame was playing in Tim Berne's legendary Bloodcount unit, where he was at least partially responsible for the band's rather intimidating aggression. Black also made the rounds with Dave Douglas, Ellery Eskelin, Satoko Fujii and Chris Speed. Jim Black plays like there has never been a concept of tomorrow: like an ultra-precise, junk-cymbal and Aphex-beat loving hurricane. I read an interview ir an old drummer magazine once where Black was giving props to Stewart Copeland and John Bonham, and I guess those are good starters, but they don't really account for the whole lightspeed chaotic behind-the-beat-even-though-he's-really-right-on-it thing he does. Furthermore, Copeland and Bonham weren't jazz drummers. To my ears, he's near the lineage of Tony Williams-- aggressive and idiosyncratic, but so nimble that you never get the feeling he's pushing too much. Splay is Black's second solo release, after last year's Alasnoaxis, with his band of the same name. The band ir question (Chris Speed on clarinet and tenor sax, Hilmar Jensson or guitar and Skuli Sverrisson on bass) is made of players very much ir Black's demographic. These are relatively young artists who are knee-deep in the highbrow pit of new jazz-- yet unlike John Zorn, don't have to play modern rock as a genre exercise. I'd say the music on this record has as much relevance in an indie discography (particularly one that features instrumental acts such as Tortoise, Chicago Underground Duo/Trio and Rovo) as it does a jazz one, at least on the surface. Tunes like "Aloe Evra" and "Cheepa vs. Cheep" could probably pass for a jazzy brand of Chicago post-rock. The former begins lightly, with a backdrop of wet ambience and modest guitar figure-- until the drums crash in, at which point it becomes an odd combination of MBV distortion, but with relentlessly crashing cymbals and up-tempo rock beat, and eerily contemplative chamber jazz. Speed's clarinet takes the melody, and his understated tone just barely manages to keep aloft amongst the guitars and cymbals. Despite the intensity (and density), the overarching mood is still of calm. "Cheepa vs. Cheep" starts with Jensson's heavily distorted guitar and kinetic polyrhythms from Black, while Speed's clarinet makes modest melodic statements. In the mid-section breakdown the band first disintegrates into boisterous free-form cutups, only to completely disappear into a drone of pulsating acoustic guitar and pillowy synth. Sometimes the sound can get a bit too calm, especially during the ballads. "iCratic," with Speed's straight-tone melody and Jensson's Frisell-esque watercolor comping, borders on the stationary despite Black's restless drumming. The tune doesn't really start to gain any momentum until about two minutes in, when it coincidentally ceases being a ballad and turns into brooding avant-rock. Black tests listener patience with the epic "Blissed (Selfchatter Mix)" which, at twelve minutes, will undoubtedly filter out all the strict jazzbos ir the audience. It's basically a straight indie instrumental, for whatever that's worth, along the lines of very recent Fugazi or Sonic Youth-- reveling in those low-register guitar chords and Black's everyman rock beat. If you havex92t had the pleasure of hearing Black play, I'd recommend starting with some of his records as a sideman (particularly with Ellery Eskelin or Tim Berne) before hitting Splay. It's not that this side of his music isn't just as compelling, but those performances were some of the best of the 90s, whereas his solo work is strangely attractive, but arguably not as inventive, or immediate for that matter. Nevertheless, a solid effort from one of the most interesting artists in contemporary jazz."

Daughn Gibson

Me Moan

Folk/Country

Ian Cohen

Having a voice like Daughn Gibson’s must be kind of a burden. It’s such a deep, sonorous, chesty thing that carrying it around must weigh on him, and every lyric feels like a bench press. It’s a physical gift that doubles as a restriction. When you’ve got the ability to conjure Johnny Cash or any other basso profundo like Gibson, your artistic direction is laid out for you-- you’re probably not gonna make punk or R&B. That was quite all right on last year’s All Hell, an intriguing confluence of sampling and songwriting. It was something like Odelay if Beck's record was culled entirely from episodes of "Cops" and the kind of country cassettes available at truckstops. Otherwise, it sounded like nothing else. On Me Moan, his Sub Pop debut*,* Gibson wisely attempts to maintain the immediate draw of his authoritative vocals and perspective without making an exact replica of his first album. It’s an uneven record that lacks the spark of its predecessor, but a more diverse and accessible follow-up from an artist who’s laudably willing to take risks. Compared to All Hell, Me Moan is more an album of various “songs” than a unified sound. And now, Gibson is coaxing music out of human beings (including members of Baroness and Brokeback) rather than samplers. He’s still treating it all like a rummage sale, even if the budget has emboldened his taste for chintz and levity. Gibson’s voice will undoubtedly draw more comparisons to golden country greats, though the closest Me Moan gets to any sort of “roots” music might be the cocaine cowboy balladry of “Won’t You Climb”. Otherwise, the songs here are pieced together with bagpipes, melodica, drum machines, and warped samples, adding rhinestone to Gibson’s trucker flannels. Even the one thing that sounds like it could be plucked out under the Mississippi moonlight (“All My Days Off”) has a riff that could easily segue into David Banner’s “Cadillac On 22’s”. But there’s the burden of his voice: like the terribly uncoordinated klutz who got put on the basketball team because he’s the tallest guy in school or the diffident offensive lineman with the thyroid condition, Gibson can seem pressed into action out of some kind of physical obligation. You just can’t hide with that baritone and so Gibson figures he might as well stand out as much as possible. The choruses of “Phantom Rider” and “Mad Ocean” teeter on kitsch based solely on their lyrics and Gibson delivers them with extra “we’re gonna move that convoy” gusto. This approach works on Me Moan’s more campy material, but when he tries to convey menace over Alabama 3-style beats on “You Don’t Fade”, he sounds retrograde instead of classicist; all that's missing is a video of Gibson chomping a cigar on the New Jersey Turnpike. Gibson’s hampered on the emotionally bare songs as well. “Franco” is Me Moan’s most immediately striking number, with chalky guitar harmonics and sobering reverb evoking a slippery-when-wet power ballad that shifts the focus from the docks of New Jersey to a trailer park somewhere. The ache in the chorus is palpable, as Gibson yearns to a tired lover, “I wish we had a kid that never wanted to die.” It’s a situation that begs for an earnest performance, but Gibson leans hard on the vowels in “campfire” and "hour" to the point where they sound like they’re curdling in his mouth ("camp-foyer" and "orrrrrrr," respectively). “Franco” is meant to be a tearjerker, but sometimes it feels like it’s poking you in the eye. Otherwise, there’s a glaring disjunction between the detail of the music and the lack thereof in Gibson’s lyrics. Me Moan leaves a little too much to the imagination, and you might think that a year as a touring musician didn’t give Gibson as much raw material as his time in the cabin of an 18-wheeler. His more suggestive form of storytelling works on “The Sound of Law”: Gibson’s born on the roadside to an outlaw, more specifically, a beast of a man who doesn’t just kill, he “blows that fucker off to hell.” Though specifics are scarce, the music lets you fill in the blanks, as the charging drum rolls and girded guitar riffs generate the momentum of a moving train, plotting a perfect visual for a family that has to up and leave town at the faintest whine of a police siren. But elsewhere, while the tone of Gibson’s vocals convey truth and wisdom, the songs rarely feel populated with fully drawn characters or narratives. Places like Lynn Falls and Pisgee Nest and the Rio Bar and Grill sound like where a character in a Daughn Gibson song might hang out, even if they’re not necessarily real. Over the span of Me Moan, this lack of geography starts to wear. Both “The Pisgee Nest” and “Kissin on the Blacktop” have evocative lines in their choruses that makes you want to lean in closer; yet they’re incomplete, memories or images of a state trooper’s daughter or a devious middle school friend that he couldn’t quite bring to life just yet. The result doesn’t take Gibson’s music off the open road, it just replaces mystery with mundanity: while All Hell felt imbued with danger and intrigue, on Me Moan, the people pulled off to highway shoulder are never in any real distress upon closer inspection. They just stepped out to check a map.

Artist: Daughn Gibson, Album: Me Moan, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "Having a voice like Daughn Gibson’s must be kind of a burden. It’s such a deep, sonorous, chesty thing that carrying it around must weigh on him, and every lyric feels like a bench press. It’s a physical gift that doubles as a restriction. When you’ve got the ability to conjure Johnny Cash or any other basso profundo like Gibson, your artistic direction is laid out for you-- you’re probably not gonna make punk or R&B. That was quite all right on last year’s All Hell, an intriguing confluence of sampling and songwriting. It was something like Odelay if Beck's record was culled entirely from episodes of "Cops" and the kind of country cassettes available at truckstops. Otherwise, it sounded like nothing else. On Me Moan, his Sub Pop debut*,* Gibson wisely attempts to maintain the immediate draw of his authoritative vocals and perspective without making an exact replica of his first album. It’s an uneven record that lacks the spark of its predecessor, but a more diverse and accessible follow-up from an artist who’s laudably willing to take risks. Compared to All Hell, Me Moan is more an album of various “songs” than a unified sound. And now, Gibson is coaxing music out of human beings (including members of Baroness and Brokeback) rather than samplers. He’s still treating it all like a rummage sale, even if the budget has emboldened his taste for chintz and levity. Gibson’s voice will undoubtedly draw more comparisons to golden country greats, though the closest Me Moan gets to any sort of “roots” music might be the cocaine cowboy balladry of “Won’t You Climb”. Otherwise, the songs here are pieced together with bagpipes, melodica, drum machines, and warped samples, adding rhinestone to Gibson’s trucker flannels. Even the one thing that sounds like it could be plucked out under the Mississippi moonlight (“All My Days Off”) has a riff that could easily segue into David Banner’s “Cadillac On 22’s”. But there’s the burden of his voice: like the terribly uncoordinated klutz who got put on the basketball team because he’s the tallest guy in school or the diffident offensive lineman with the thyroid condition, Gibson can seem pressed into action out of some kind of physical obligation. You just can’t hide with that baritone and so Gibson figures he might as well stand out as much as possible. The choruses of “Phantom Rider” and “Mad Ocean” teeter on kitsch based solely on their lyrics and Gibson delivers them with extra “we’re gonna move that convoy” gusto. This approach works on Me Moan’s more campy material, but when he tries to convey menace over Alabama 3-style beats on “You Don’t Fade”, he sounds retrograde instead of classicist; all that's missing is a video of Gibson chomping a cigar on the New Jersey Turnpike. Gibson’s hampered on the emotionally bare songs as well. “Franco” is Me Moan’s most immediately striking number, with chalky guitar harmonics and sobering reverb evoking a slippery-when-wet power ballad that shifts the focus from the docks of New Jersey to a trailer park somewhere. The ache in the chorus is palpable, as Gibson yearns to a tired lover, “I wish we had a kid that never wanted to die.” It’s a situation that begs for an earnest performance, but Gibson leans hard on the vowels in “campfire” and "hour" to the point where they sound like they’re curdling in his mouth ("camp-foyer" and "orrrrrrr," respectively). “Franco” is meant to be a tearjerker, but sometimes it feels like it’s poking you in the eye. Otherwise, there’s a glaring disjunction between the detail of the music and the lack thereof in Gibson’s lyrics. Me Moan leaves a little too much to the imagination, and you might think that a year as a touring musician didn’t give Gibson as much raw material as his time in the cabin of an 18-wheeler. His more suggestive form of storytelling works on “The Sound of Law”: Gibson’s born on the roadside to an outlaw, more specifically, a beast of a man who doesn’t just kill, he “blows that fucker off to hell.” Though specifics are scarce, the music lets you fill in the blanks, as the charging drum rolls and girded guitar riffs generate the momentum of a moving train, plotting a perfect visual for a family that has to up and leave town at the faintest whine of a police siren. But elsewhere, while the tone of Gibson’s vocals convey truth and wisdom, the songs rarely feel populated with fully drawn characters or narratives. Places like Lynn Falls and Pisgee Nest and the Rio Bar and Grill sound like where a character in a Daughn Gibson song might hang out, even if they’re not necessarily real. Over the span of Me Moan, this lack of geography starts to wear. Both “The Pisgee Nest” and “Kissin on the Blacktop” have evocative lines in their choruses that makes you want to lean in closer; yet they’re incomplete, memories or images of a state trooper’s daughter or a devious middle school friend that he couldn’t quite bring to life just yet. The result doesn’t take Gibson’s music off the open road, it just replaces mystery with mundanity: while All Hell felt imbued with danger and intrigue, on Me Moan, the people pulled off to highway shoulder are never in any real distress upon closer inspection. They just stepped out to check a map."

Pharmakon

Abandon

Experimental

Nick Neyland

It starts with a scream. Not just any scream, but one that sounds like it's shredding all the muscle tissue in the vocal cords of Margaret Chardiet, the 22-year-old New Yorker who records as Pharmakon. It's more a warning than an introduction, a line drawn in the sand that forces you to either cross and face the consequences or turn away and go about your pleasant day. Chardiet outlined her backstory in a recent Rising feature; the daughter of punk parents, highly active on the DIY scene in New York, uninterested in cultivating any kind of online presence. She says Abandon is about "fiercely holding on to what's true and unapologetically abandoning what's not." Getting to the heart of Chardiet's truth is an ugly process, full of pain and suffering and confrontation spilling outward, forming an unwavering commitment to her art that's both commendable and distressing at the same time. This release for Sacred Bones is the most high-profile Pharmakon output to date, following a series of hard-to-find CD-Rs and cassettes. The music hovers around the noise and power electronics genres, taking cues from Throbbing Gristle, various phases of Swans, and Whitehouse among others. Like those bands, Chardiet isn't interested in music as a passive listening experience. Instead, Abandon is a brick hurtling through the windshield of a moving car, a purposefully antagonistic act that forces you to fully focus on the moment. Pharmakon's most frightening moments rarely involve a complete noise blackout. This is a carefully worked set of lethargically paced songs, sometimes passing from a chilly machine hum to dull thuds of metallic percussion ("Ache"), sometimes taking pitch-shifted vocal passages and layering them over drones that sound like bombs tumbling out of the sky ("Crawling on Bruised Knees"). There’s a thread of body horror loosely strung through Chardiet's work. A prior release included a track named "Mound of Flesh, Cavern of Fluids"; this record depicts Chardiet covered in maggots on the cover and includes "Crawling on Bruised Knees"; one of her older tracks, "Xia Xinfeng", is named after a woman who literally kissed her lover to death by passing him a capsule of rat poison when their lips met. Similarly, the music carries a strong sense of disease and decay, of things nearing a point of total breakdown. The fascination with bodily atrophy makes sense here, anchored to work so physically draining for both listener and performer. Abandon isn't at all about creating distance or putting up boundaries. Chardiet often forces audience members to look her directly in the eyes during live shows, sucking participants down into her despair in an unnervingly direct manner. The arc Abandon takes feels deliberately mapped out, heading from an overpowering form of aggression at the start and gradually sinking into more studied material later on. "Pitted" borrows some of the clarity Swans found circa Children of God, where noise started to feel like a dead end and tracks like "New Mind" represented a solemn trudge out of the mire. Chardiet's vocal bears a similar authoritarian tone to the one Michael Gira possesses; when she sings, you shut up and listen. It's helped by the fact that her multi-octave voice can rise and plummet so effectively, something driven home by "Pitted", where no amount of harsh electronics can compete with the full-tilt power of her vocal. It's the one slip of the mask here, the one moment where a form of deathlike beauty is stirred into the swill, momentarily hinting at a place somewhere outside of Pharmakon's defiant battle mode. In a recent Wire interview with Wolf Eyes, the band's John Olson discussed the gradual cessation of musicians working in all-out noise, resulting in more meditative electronic artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds. Olson likened the move to a shift from external to internal impulses, a retreat from the outright purge of Wolf Eyes into something more inward-looking. Chardiet's work as Pharmakon spills all its guts out onto the floor and leaves them hanging for close inspection, but this isn't entirely a return to external outpouring. As noted in the aforementioned interview, there are times in the Pharmakon live show where she's "disappearing into her own head." Those moments are apparent here, too, making it feel like Chardiet oscillates between being lost to the world and thoroughly bruised by it. Getting forcibly pinned down in her personal cycle of attack and retreat is a dark, visceral, utterly compelling thrill.

Artist: Pharmakon, Album: Abandon, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "It starts with a scream. Not just any scream, but one that sounds like it's shredding all the muscle tissue in the vocal cords of Margaret Chardiet, the 22-year-old New Yorker who records as Pharmakon. It's more a warning than an introduction, a line drawn in the sand that forces you to either cross and face the consequences or turn away and go about your pleasant day. Chardiet outlined her backstory in a recent Rising feature; the daughter of punk parents, highly active on the DIY scene in New York, uninterested in cultivating any kind of online presence. She says Abandon is about "fiercely holding on to what's true and unapologetically abandoning what's not." Getting to the heart of Chardiet's truth is an ugly process, full of pain and suffering and confrontation spilling outward, forming an unwavering commitment to her art that's both commendable and distressing at the same time. This release for Sacred Bones is the most high-profile Pharmakon output to date, following a series of hard-to-find CD-Rs and cassettes. The music hovers around the noise and power electronics genres, taking cues from Throbbing Gristle, various phases of Swans, and Whitehouse among others. Like those bands, Chardiet isn't interested in music as a passive listening experience. Instead, Abandon is a brick hurtling through the windshield of a moving car, a purposefully antagonistic act that forces you to fully focus on the moment. Pharmakon's most frightening moments rarely involve a complete noise blackout. This is a carefully worked set of lethargically paced songs, sometimes passing from a chilly machine hum to dull thuds of metallic percussion ("Ache"), sometimes taking pitch-shifted vocal passages and layering them over drones that sound like bombs tumbling out of the sky ("Crawling on Bruised Knees"). There’s a thread of body horror loosely strung through Chardiet's work. A prior release included a track named "Mound of Flesh, Cavern of Fluids"; this record depicts Chardiet covered in maggots on the cover and includes "Crawling on Bruised Knees"; one of her older tracks, "Xia Xinfeng", is named after a woman who literally kissed her lover to death by passing him a capsule of rat poison when their lips met. Similarly, the music carries a strong sense of disease and decay, of things nearing a point of total breakdown. The fascination with bodily atrophy makes sense here, anchored to work so physically draining for both listener and performer. Abandon isn't at all about creating distance or putting up boundaries. Chardiet often forces audience members to look her directly in the eyes during live shows, sucking participants down into her despair in an unnervingly direct manner. The arc Abandon takes feels deliberately mapped out, heading from an overpowering form of aggression at the start and gradually sinking into more studied material later on. "Pitted" borrows some of the clarity Swans found circa Children of God, where noise started to feel like a dead end and tracks like "New Mind" represented a solemn trudge out of the mire. Chardiet's vocal bears a similar authoritarian tone to the one Michael Gira possesses; when she sings, you shut up and listen. It's helped by the fact that her multi-octave voice can rise and plummet so effectively, something driven home by "Pitted", where no amount of harsh electronics can compete with the full-tilt power of her vocal. It's the one slip of the mask here, the one moment where a form of deathlike beauty is stirred into the swill, momentarily hinting at a place somewhere outside of Pharmakon's defiant battle mode. In a recent Wire interview with Wolf Eyes, the band's John Olson discussed the gradual cessation of musicians working in all-out noise, resulting in more meditative electronic artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds. Olson likened the move to a shift from external to internal impulses, a retreat from the outright purge of Wolf Eyes into something more inward-looking. Chardiet's work as Pharmakon spills all its guts out onto the floor and leaves them hanging for close inspection, but this isn't entirely a return to external outpouring. As noted in the aforementioned interview, there are times in the Pharmakon live show where she's "disappearing into her own head." Those moments are apparent here, too, making it feel like Chardiet oscillates between being lost to the world and thoroughly bruised by it. Getting forcibly pinned down in her personal cycle of attack and retreat is a dark, visceral, utterly compelling thrill."

Yung Lean

Unknown Memory

Rap

Jonah Bromwich

Born Jonatan Leandoer Håstad, Yung Lean is an 18-year-old Swede who speaks, raps, and sings over beats mostly created by members of his Sad Boys clique. His general shtick is an approximation of contemporary swag-rap that comes across as a mixture of tribute and parody; he initially attracted notice as a kind of musical meme. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine Lean gaining an audience without visuals, and the video for "Ginseng Strip 2002" exemplifies his approach: the baby-faced rapper dons his now-trademark bucket hat and a bad Southern accent, shouting out Makaveli within the clip's opening seconds. His verses are stilted, his movements awkward; he resembles a rap-obsessed misfit from a summer camp who freestyles poorly and doesn’t worry about distinguishing between the positive and negative attention he's receiving. And Lean receives plenty of both: the video has over 2.6 million views, and fans and haters still lob pejoratives at each other in the comments section to this day. On last year’s Unknown Death 2002 mixtape, Lean’s rapping was wooden but relatively easy to ignore, and those who found themselves responding in earnest to his music may have been attracted to the cloudy instrumentals provided by producers such as Yung Gud and Yung Sherman. On the trance-like “Gatorade”, Lean’s voice was screwed up and down the register so often that he simply became part of an appealingly chaotic mix; “Lemonade” was a blatant Clams Casino rip-off, but the imitation was accurate enough to capture that producer’s appeal. As a whole, Yung Lean wields the appeal of a charming reality star: he's ridiculous without knowing it. His new album, Unknown Memory, is reminiscent of the second season of "Jersey Shore", where it slowly became clear that the cast was in on the joke. The record finds Yung Lean doubling down on every part of his personality that hit home with those initially drawn to his music, while simultaneously scrubbing away the most amateurish (and most likable) parts of his sound. He’s added two notable tricks to his arsenal: a bastardized form of dub, and a heightened tendency to eschew rapping altogether in favor of Auto-Tuned wailing. This latter development flatters the fidelity of his music—one can easily imagine a track from Unknown Memory passing by anonymously in a public space—but it also makes many of these songs indistinguishable from one another. Consequently, it's harder to ignore Yung Lean's vocals to focus on his more palatable beats; “Sunrise Angel” and “Yoshi City” are relatively interesting production-wise, but Lean’s voice is too high in the mix. His revamped flow, which cements him as a terrible rapper rather than someone who doesn't know how to rap, comes across as more grating than his older, more fruitless attempts at piecing verses together. The most engaging song here, the Travis Scott-featuring “Ghosttown”, might have been more potent if Yung Lean didn't appear on it at all. One of Lean’s noteworthy qualities has always been his expression of sad feelings, and on Unknown Memory that tendency is kicked into overdrive. On the hook of “Yoshi City”, he refers to himself as a “lonely cloud”; on “Monster”, over the same brassy synths and a TNGHT-like build, he laments “nothing matters anymore.” “Leanworld” finds the rapper reaching the nadir of this expression—it’s a swampy, soupy production, almost unimaginably irritating in the club-land fantasy it conjures up. These sentiments feel like the performative sadness that’s been explored with much more sophistication by artists like Lana Del Rey; in comparison, Yung Lean’s expression sounds empty. Yung Lean's tendencies to randomly emote and stunt come in part from approximating the real emotions of the music he takes his cues from—mostly, Southern and West Coast rap ranging from the sad robotics of Future to the anything-goes ethos of Lil B. But he never shows any real emotional investment in the style he’s chosen, and his lyrics and tone don’t reveal much personality beyond “rap fan.” Yung Lean isn’t bringing anything new to rap; instead, he’s making cheap copies of his actual role models, and in doing so he removes the humanity of the rappers he’s imitating, creating unwitting caricatures of those artists and not much more.

Artist: Yung Lean, Album: Unknown Memory, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 3.6 Album review: "Born Jonatan Leandoer Håstad, Yung Lean is an 18-year-old Swede who speaks, raps, and sings over beats mostly created by members of his Sad Boys clique. His general shtick is an approximation of contemporary swag-rap that comes across as a mixture of tribute and parody; he initially attracted notice as a kind of musical meme. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine Lean gaining an audience without visuals, and the video for "Ginseng Strip 2002" exemplifies his approach: the baby-faced rapper dons his now-trademark bucket hat and a bad Southern accent, shouting out Makaveli within the clip's opening seconds. His verses are stilted, his movements awkward; he resembles a rap-obsessed misfit from a summer camp who freestyles poorly and doesn’t worry about distinguishing between the positive and negative attention he's receiving. And Lean receives plenty of both: the video has over 2.6 million views, and fans and haters still lob pejoratives at each other in the comments section to this day. On last year’s Unknown Death 2002 mixtape, Lean’s rapping was wooden but relatively easy to ignore, and those who found themselves responding in earnest to his music may have been attracted to the cloudy instrumentals provided by producers such as Yung Gud and Yung Sherman. On the trance-like “Gatorade”, Lean’s voice was screwed up and down the register so often that he simply became part of an appealingly chaotic mix; “Lemonade” was a blatant Clams Casino rip-off, but the imitation was accurate enough to capture that producer’s appeal. As a whole, Yung Lean wields the appeal of a charming reality star: he's ridiculous without knowing it. His new album, Unknown Memory, is reminiscent of the second season of "Jersey Shore", where it slowly became clear that the cast was in on the joke. The record finds Yung Lean doubling down on every part of his personality that hit home with those initially drawn to his music, while simultaneously scrubbing away the most amateurish (and most likable) parts of his sound. He’s added two notable tricks to his arsenal: a bastardized form of dub, and a heightened tendency to eschew rapping altogether in favor of Auto-Tuned wailing. This latter development flatters the fidelity of his music—one can easily imagine a track from Unknown Memory passing by anonymously in a public space—but it also makes many of these songs indistinguishable from one another. Consequently, it's harder to ignore Yung Lean's vocals to focus on his more palatable beats; “Sunrise Angel” and “Yoshi City” are relatively interesting production-wise, but Lean’s voice is too high in the mix. His revamped flow, which cements him as a terrible rapper rather than someone who doesn't know how to rap, comes across as more grating than his older, more fruitless attempts at piecing verses together. The most engaging song here, the Travis Scott-featuring “Ghosttown”, might have been more potent if Yung Lean didn't appear on it at all. One of Lean’s noteworthy qualities has always been his expression of sad feelings, and on Unknown Memory that tendency is kicked into overdrive. On the hook of “Yoshi City”, he refers to himself as a “lonely cloud”; on “Monster”, over the same brassy synths and a TNGHT-like build, he laments “nothing matters anymore.” “Leanworld” finds the rapper reaching the nadir of this expression—it’s a swampy, soupy production, almost unimaginably irritating in the club-land fantasy it conjures up. These sentiments feel like the performative sadness that’s been explored with much more sophistication by artists like Lana Del Rey; in comparison, Yung Lean’s expression sounds empty. Yung Lean's tendencies to randomly emote and stunt come in part from approximating the real emotions of the music he takes his cues from—mostly, Southern and West Coast rap ranging from the sad robotics of Future to the anything-goes ethos of Lil B. But he never shows any real emotional investment in the style he’s chosen, and his lyrics and tone don’t reveal much personality beyond “rap fan.” Yung Lean isn’t bringing anything new to rap; instead, he’s making cheap copies of his actual role models, and in doing so he removes the humanity of the rappers he’s imitating, creating unwitting caricatures of those artists and not much more."

Sheer Mag

Need to Feel Your Love

Rock

Stuart Berman

Seventies hard rock is like the trans fat of popular music—something the masses once gorged on freely and gluttonously, but which has since come to be viewed as being not all that good for us. From the derisive misogyny, to the skeezy sexual objectification (of minors, no less), to the thinly veiled racism and homophobia the music engendered during the disco-sucks witch trials, hard rock’s anachronistic qualities are as much philosophical as musical. And yet, it remains a forbidden fruit we just can’t resist, with artists both mainstream and underground forever drawing from its trough of pelvic-thrusting riffs, gooey twinned-guitar leads, and shout-it-out-loud hooks. Because, at the end of the day, we all just want to feel as good as the people who made ’70s hard-rock songs felt. Harboring arena-sized dreams in their DIY-hardcore hearts, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag have been on a mission to transform junk-food rock into something nourishing and nutritious. And they do this by reminding us of a fact we tend to forget when we see our ’70s heroes clinking champagne glasses at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame galas or embarking on cruise-ship tours: that this was once the music of clock-punchers and outcasts, and of lonely, bullied kids who, by blasting “God of Thunder” in their poster-plastered bedrooms, could imagine what it would feel like to fight back. That Sheer Mag render their hi-fi fantasies in compact, boomboxed dimensions is not so much an act of punk-schooled subversion or even necessarily a reflection of their modest recording budgets. As guitarist Kyle Seely once explained to Rolling Stone, “We just like that range of fidelity.” Sheer Mag understand that, even though the music they love is often referred to as arena rock, it was more often first experienced through cheap transistor radios, chewed-up 8-tracks, and beaten-up vinyl spinning on Radio Shack Realistic record players. But warped fidelity isn’t the only thing that separates Sheer Mag from the golden gods of the ’70s. In singer Tina Halladay, they possess a denim-vested, raspy-voiced dynamo who (with the help of co-lyricist/guitarist Matt Palmer) can elevate retro-rock tropes into fiery protest music for the here and now. Arriving hot on the heels of their early EPs compilation, the band’s first proper full-length, Need to Feel Your Love, plays like a Dazed and Confused soundtrack set against a backdrop of Trump-age anxiety instead of carefree Carter-era optimism. On the opening “Meet Me in the Street,” Halladay repurposes the cocksure posturing of an old Ratt lyric as an invitation to the sort of inner-city gathering where the bottles are filled with burning gasoline instead of booze—and where hard rock is both the rabble-rousing soundtrack of choice and something to hurl at the encroaching riot police. But if that song is meant to leave bruises, with others they intend to draw blood: On “Expect the Bayonet,” the gerrymandering that undermined the popular vote in last fall’s election becomes grounds for a violent coup, as the song’s pin-pricked, in-the-pocket guitar melody mimics a gently jabbing blade. But Sheer Mag’s bilious contempt for the powers that be is always chased by sweet, honey-dipped hooks. Like the band’s first three EPs, Need to Feel Your Love continues to dance along the line separating proto-metal and power pop, but leans more often toward the latter. Bassist Hart Seely’s slightly crisper production lets you better savor the jangly acoustic strums underpinning the power chords, while liberating Halladay’s singing from the payphone fidelity of those earlier recordings. But the cleaner presentation only amplifies the natural grit in her voice—on soot-covered gems like “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Rank & File,” Halladay comes on like Jennifer Herrema’s feistier little sister, while the band deliver a refined raunch like a Royal Trux whose spirit animal is Dwight Twilley instead of Keith Richards. Having already struck the right balance of melody and menace at this early stage in their career, Sheer Mag are now eager to get a head start on another ‘70s rock rite of passage: the inevitable disco dalliance. On the title track and “Suffer Me,” the band’s usual Camaro-revving thrust downshifts into slow‘n’low grooves, while the riffs get melted down into a crystalline, sundazed twang from the Mac DeMarco-via-Dean Ween playbook. If the two songs follow similar templates, their subject matter contrasts sharply: the former is a beautifully aching plea to reignite an old flame; the latter is an unflinching account of the 1969 Stonewall riots and the struggles for acceptance that LGBT people still experience a half-century later. (“There’s a fear you can’t define,” Halladay laments, “there’s no peace and there’s no crime in living this way.”) But for Sheer Mag, there’s no difference between personal and political songs—they’re both natural products of the same bruised heart and worried mind. Whether Halladay is singing about romantic obsession or societal oppression, her need for the former only intensifies as the threat of the latter looms larger. The cover of Need to Feel Your Love shows an airplane navigating dark, stormy skies toward a bright break in the clouds. On one level, it’s a Nevermind-like allegory of a band on the cusp of busting out of the underground to the potentially wider audience that awaits on the other side. It’s also emblematic of Sheer Mag’s desire to power us through these turbulent times toward better days—but they can’t say with certainty if those clouds are parting or closing in. Need to Feel Your Love closes on a sobering note with the melancholic jangle pop of “(Say Goodbye to) Sophie Scholl,” an ode to the White Rose Movement activist executed by the Nazis in 1943 at age 21. In Scholl, Halladay clearly sees an inspirational role model for today’s anti-fascist resistance, but her voice is also imbued with an audible sadness that such a song still needs to be sung in 2017—in America, no less: “It seems so strange/The blind constrictions and nascent pain/The contradiction from which we came.” It’s a long way from the boisterous, brick-tossing battle cries we hear at the start of the record. But when Halladay caps the song’s bittersweet chorus with “don’t forget your white rose,” she reminds us that despair is ultimately the energy source that fuels our ire.

Artist: Sheer Mag, Album: Need to Feel Your Love, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Seventies hard rock is like the trans fat of popular music—something the masses once gorged on freely and gluttonously, but which has since come to be viewed as being not all that good for us. From the derisive misogyny, to the skeezy sexual objectification (of minors, no less), to the thinly veiled racism and homophobia the music engendered during the disco-sucks witch trials, hard rock’s anachronistic qualities are as much philosophical as musical. And yet, it remains a forbidden fruit we just can’t resist, with artists both mainstream and underground forever drawing from its trough of pelvic-thrusting riffs, gooey twinned-guitar leads, and shout-it-out-loud hooks. Because, at the end of the day, we all just want to feel as good as the people who made ’70s hard-rock songs felt. Harboring arena-sized dreams in their DIY-hardcore hearts, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag have been on a mission to transform junk-food rock into something nourishing and nutritious. And they do this by reminding us of a fact we tend to forget when we see our ’70s heroes clinking champagne glasses at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame galas or embarking on cruise-ship tours: that this was once the music of clock-punchers and outcasts, and of lonely, bullied kids who, by blasting “God of Thunder” in their poster-plastered bedrooms, could imagine what it would feel like to fight back. That Sheer Mag render their hi-fi fantasies in compact, boomboxed dimensions is not so much an act of punk-schooled subversion or even necessarily a reflection of their modest recording budgets. As guitarist Kyle Seely once explained to Rolling Stone, “We just like that range of fidelity.” Sheer Mag understand that, even though the music they love is often referred to as arena rock, it was more often first experienced through cheap transistor radios, chewed-up 8-tracks, and beaten-up vinyl spinning on Radio Shack Realistic record players. But warped fidelity isn’t the only thing that separates Sheer Mag from the golden gods of the ’70s. In singer Tina Halladay, they possess a denim-vested, raspy-voiced dynamo who (with the help of co-lyricist/guitarist Matt Palmer) can elevate retro-rock tropes into fiery protest music for the here and now. Arriving hot on the heels of their early EPs compilation, the band’s first proper full-length, Need to Feel Your Love, plays like a Dazed and Confused soundtrack set against a backdrop of Trump-age anxiety instead of carefree Carter-era optimism. On the opening “Meet Me in the Street,” Halladay repurposes the cocksure posturing of an old Ratt lyric as an invitation to the sort of inner-city gathering where the bottles are filled with burning gasoline instead of booze—and where hard rock is both the rabble-rousing soundtrack of choice and something to hurl at the encroaching riot police. But if that song is meant to leave bruises, with others they intend to draw blood: On “Expect the Bayonet,” the gerrymandering that undermined the popular vote in last fall’s election becomes grounds for a violent coup, as the song’s pin-pricked, in-the-pocket guitar melody mimics a gently jabbing blade. But Sheer Mag’s bilious contempt for the powers that be is always chased by sweet, honey-dipped hooks. Like the band’s first three EPs, Need to Feel Your Love continues to dance along the line separating proto-metal and power pop, but leans more often toward the latter. Bassist Hart Seely’s slightly crisper production lets you better savor the jangly acoustic strums underpinning the power chords, while liberating Halladay’s singing from the payphone fidelity of those earlier recordings. But the cleaner presentation only amplifies the natural grit in her voice—on soot-covered gems like “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Rank & File,” Halladay comes on like Jennifer Herrema’s feistier little sister, while the band deliver a refined raunch like a Royal Trux whose spirit animal is Dwight Twilley instead of Keith Richards. Having already struck the right balance of melody and menace at this early stage in their career, Sheer Mag are now eager to get a head start on another ‘70s rock rite of passage: the inevitable disco dalliance. On the title track and “Suffer Me,” the band’s usual Camaro-revving thrust downshifts into slow‘n’low grooves, while the riffs get melted down into a crystalline, sundazed twang from the Mac DeMarco-via-Dean Ween playbook. If the two songs follow similar templates, their subject matter contrasts sharply: the former is a beautifully aching plea to reignite an old flame; the latter is an unflinching account of the 1969 Stonewall riots and the struggles for acceptance that LGBT people still experience a half-century later. (“There’s a fear you can’t define,” Halladay laments, “there’s no peace and there’s no crime in living this way.”) But for Sheer Mag, there’s no difference between personal and political songs—they’re both natural products of the same bruised heart and worried mind. Whether Halladay is singing about romantic obsession or societal oppression, her need for the former only intensifies as the threat of the latter looms larger. The cover of Need to Feel Your Love shows an airplane navigating dark, stormy skies toward a bright break in the clouds. On one level, it’s a Nevermind-like allegory of a band on the cusp of busting out of the underground to the potentially wider audience that awaits on the other side. It’s also emblematic of Sheer Mag’s desire to power us through these turbulent times toward better days—but they can’t say with certainty if those clouds are parting or closing in. Need to Feel Your Love closes on a sobering note with the melancholic jangle pop of “(Say Goodbye to) Sophie Scholl,” an ode to the White Rose Movement activist executed by the Nazis in 1943 at age 21. In Scholl, Halladay clearly sees an inspirational role model for today’s anti-fascist resistance, but her voice is also imbued with an audible sadness that such a song still needs to be sung in 2017—in America, no less: “It seems so strange/The blind constrictions and nascent pain/The contradiction from which we came.” It’s a long way from the boisterous, brick-tossing battle cries we hear at the start of the record. But when Halladay caps the song’s bittersweet chorus with “don’t forget your white rose,” she reminds us that despair is ultimately the energy source that fuels our ire."

La Luz

Weirdo Shrine

Rock

Lindsay Hood

In Charles Burns' graphic novel Black Hole, the teenagers of 1970s Seattle are spreading a bizarre sexually transmitted disease with varying symptoms. One might grow a tail or shed their skin, or sprout a tiny mouth below the collarbone that whispers secrets while you sleep. Some kids become extremely deformed, while others manage to hide their disfigurement beneath bandages and clothes. Black Hole was the inspiration behind La Luz's Weirdo Shrine, and there are oblique references to Burns' work littered throughout: its title alludes to the artwork built out of trash and human parts that Black Hole's characters stumble upon in the forest, and lyrics like "Cool kids/ Telling lies/ I can't hold their gazes in mine," (from opening track "Sleep Till They Die") hint at the shame and deceit in Burns' world. What makes Weirdo Shrine interesting is that all this existential dread is wrapped up in classic-sounding surf rock, topped with enough "ooohhhs", "aaahhhs", and vocal harmonies to fill your girl group quota for an entire year. Lead singer and guitarist Shana Cleveland tosses out bright, airy guitar riffs, tinged with just the right amount of reverb, as easy as breathing. But the surfer girl guise is a front. If La Luz are a rum punch drink served in a pineapple, be careful lifting the tiny drink umbrella: There's probably a black widow spider underneath. Nowhere is this more apparent than the ballad, "I'll Be True". Cleveland croons, "No one else treats me like you do/ And I'll be true to you/ Just as long as you want me to," while keyboardist Alice Sandahl tries to wrestle the good name of organ solos from the hands of Ray Manzarek. But the lingering effect of the song is not the declaration of loyalty, it's the minor chord progression that blends with the ladies' descending voices. It begs the question: If the love in the song is so pure and innocent then why does it come tinged with such eeriness? La Luz recorded It's Alive in the back of their friend's trailer. For Weirdo Shrine, producer Ty Segall constructed a makeshift studio out of an old surfboard factory. At first, this tactic can come across almost like a cheap gimmick, a soundbite for press releases. But once you realize Segall also chose to keep a persistent hissing overlay on the entire record (it's hard to ignore once you hear it)—the occasional, lingering odd note or glitch will also tend to appear during the transitions between tracks—his methods become less a cute anecdote, and more a way to keep the group firmly grounded in their DIY roots. The ladies might have perfect pitch, but this is not an album for cleaning up mistakes. It's frustrating that the record doesn't fully convey the energy of La Luz's live shows, where the band members will crowd surf and request the audience make space for a line dance à la "Soul Train". But if you choose to focus on La Luz's doo-wop harmonizing, then you're only looking at the frilly, pink bow that tops the whole package. The undercurrent of darkness in La Luz's music is what makes their work so fierce and intelligent. You could blink and miss their sneaky, underhanded way of slipping unease into their cheerful-sounding songs. Which is why you should give them more of your attention. Much like a car accident, it's always the ones we didn't see coming that hit the hardest.

Artist: La Luz, Album: Weirdo Shrine, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "In Charles Burns' graphic novel Black Hole, the teenagers of 1970s Seattle are spreading a bizarre sexually transmitted disease with varying symptoms. One might grow a tail or shed their skin, or sprout a tiny mouth below the collarbone that whispers secrets while you sleep. Some kids become extremely deformed, while others manage to hide their disfigurement beneath bandages and clothes. Black Hole was the inspiration behind La Luz's Weirdo Shrine, and there are oblique references to Burns' work littered throughout: its title alludes to the artwork built out of trash and human parts that Black Hole's characters stumble upon in the forest, and lyrics like "Cool kids/ Telling lies/ I can't hold their gazes in mine," (from opening track "Sleep Till They Die") hint at the shame and deceit in Burns' world. What makes Weirdo Shrine interesting is that all this existential dread is wrapped up in classic-sounding surf rock, topped with enough "ooohhhs", "aaahhhs", and vocal harmonies to fill your girl group quota for an entire year. Lead singer and guitarist Shana Cleveland tosses out bright, airy guitar riffs, tinged with just the right amount of reverb, as easy as breathing. But the surfer girl guise is a front. If La Luz are a rum punch drink served in a pineapple, be careful lifting the tiny drink umbrella: There's probably a black widow spider underneath. Nowhere is this more apparent than the ballad, "I'll Be True". Cleveland croons, "No one else treats me like you do/ And I'll be true to you/ Just as long as you want me to," while keyboardist Alice Sandahl tries to wrestle the good name of organ solos from the hands of Ray Manzarek. But the lingering effect of the song is not the declaration of loyalty, it's the minor chord progression that blends with the ladies' descending voices. It begs the question: If the love in the song is so pure and innocent then why does it come tinged with such eeriness? La Luz recorded It's Alive in the back of their friend's trailer. For Weirdo Shrine, producer Ty Segall constructed a makeshift studio out of an old surfboard factory. At first, this tactic can come across almost like a cheap gimmick, a soundbite for press releases. But once you realize Segall also chose to keep a persistent hissing overlay on the entire record (it's hard to ignore once you hear it)—the occasional, lingering odd note or glitch will also tend to appear during the transitions between tracks—his methods become less a cute anecdote, and more a way to keep the group firmly grounded in their DIY roots. The ladies might have perfect pitch, but this is not an album for cleaning up mistakes. It's frustrating that the record doesn't fully convey the energy of La Luz's live shows, where the band members will crowd surf and request the audience make space for a line dance à la "Soul Train". But if you choose to focus on La Luz's doo-wop harmonizing, then you're only looking at the frilly, pink bow that tops the whole package. The undercurrent of darkness in La Luz's music is what makes their work so fierce and intelligent. You could blink and miss their sneaky, underhanded way of slipping unease into their cheerful-sounding songs. Which is why you should give them more of your attention. Much like a car accident, it's always the ones we didn't see coming that hit the hardest."

Miighty Flashlight

Miighty Flashlight

Folk/Country,Rock

Chris Dahlen

Mike Fellows has symptoms of "sideman's disease." It strikes when you've spent too much time out of the spotlight. The leader of the band stands up front telling every man, woman and child in the room to squeeze his lemon; the sideman hangs back and makes sure his bass stays in tune. He helps load the t-shirts into the van, though his face is never on them. Someone has to sell the show, and someone has to keep it together. Miighty Flashlight is Mike Fellows. Fellows played bass for seminal D.C. hardcore band Rites of Spring; he was one of the members who didn't later play in Fugazi. He's worked with such alt-country V.I.P.'s as Papa M, Will Oldham, and the Silver Jews. Now armed only with a couple guitars, a Powerbook, and his down-home vocals, Fellows has a solo project to record and tour with his own songs. His debut album is a short backyard barbecue, with high potential and mild impact. Over his acoustic and electric guitars, Fellows gently adds samples with his Powerbook, managing to stray far from obvious or clumsy sounds. And only upon close inspection do you notice how extensively he uses these sounds-- for accents, ambience, or even the foundation of a tune, as with the catchy flute hook of "Ventilating Zephyrs," or the effects that gird the melody of "Hala Hanan Di Halida." The instrumental "Go On. Die. It's Easy" layers subtle sounds over the acoustic guitars, from a low buzzing drone to a drum machine fill that may be Miighty Flashlight's only cliché; on other tracks, the piano samples sound like they come from an upright sitting in Fellows' living room. And his vocals-- subdued, a little raw, and sometimes hard to interpret-- fit right in without knocking anything loose. He sings like the guy at a party who mutters, "Sure's been tough since the wife left." Like he wants you to know, but won't make a big deal of it. Unfortunately, the perfect arrangements make the album a bit too subtle. It doesn't rock and it doesn't ache. "Ballet Skool" has grown on me, with its spare electric guitar line and its connotations of regrets and mistakes; but like most of the lyrics here, the words are cryptic and it's difficult to discern what Fellows is trying to say ("On top of ballet school / Don't let me be misdiagnosed"). And as for the three instrumentals, "Go On..." is more than enough; the other two, "Fatherland Focus" and "Forget This Space," are built on sub-John Fahey riffs that just coast by unconvincingly. These songs might be likeable and masterfully crafted, but they could use an extra kick to keep us interested.

Artist: Miighty Flashlight, Album: Miighty Flashlight, Genre: Folk/Country,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "Mike Fellows has symptoms of "sideman's disease." It strikes when you've spent too much time out of the spotlight. The leader of the band stands up front telling every man, woman and child in the room to squeeze his lemon; the sideman hangs back and makes sure his bass stays in tune. He helps load the t-shirts into the van, though his face is never on them. Someone has to sell the show, and someone has to keep it together. Miighty Flashlight is Mike Fellows. Fellows played bass for seminal D.C. hardcore band Rites of Spring; he was one of the members who didn't later play in Fugazi. He's worked with such alt-country V.I.P.'s as Papa M, Will Oldham, and the Silver Jews. Now armed only with a couple guitars, a Powerbook, and his down-home vocals, Fellows has a solo project to record and tour with his own songs. His debut album is a short backyard barbecue, with high potential and mild impact. Over his acoustic and electric guitars, Fellows gently adds samples with his Powerbook, managing to stray far from obvious or clumsy sounds. And only upon close inspection do you notice how extensively he uses these sounds-- for accents, ambience, or even the foundation of a tune, as with the catchy flute hook of "Ventilating Zephyrs," or the effects that gird the melody of "Hala Hanan Di Halida." The instrumental "Go On. Die. It's Easy" layers subtle sounds over the acoustic guitars, from a low buzzing drone to a drum machine fill that may be Miighty Flashlight's only cliché; on other tracks, the piano samples sound like they come from an upright sitting in Fellows' living room. And his vocals-- subdued, a little raw, and sometimes hard to interpret-- fit right in without knocking anything loose. He sings like the guy at a party who mutters, "Sure's been tough since the wife left." Like he wants you to know, but won't make a big deal of it. Unfortunately, the perfect arrangements make the album a bit too subtle. It doesn't rock and it doesn't ache. "Ballet Skool" has grown on me, with its spare electric guitar line and its connotations of regrets and mistakes; but like most of the lyrics here, the words are cryptic and it's difficult to discern what Fellows is trying to say ("On top of ballet school / Don't let me be misdiagnosed"). And as for the three instrumentals, "Go On..." is more than enough; the other two, "Fatherland Focus" and "Forget This Space," are built on sub-John Fahey riffs that just coast by unconvincingly. These songs might be likeable and masterfully crafted, but they could use an extra kick to keep us interested."

Crying

Beyond the Fleeting Gales

Electronic

Colin Joyce

Knowingly or not, Crying saddled themselves with a lot of baggage when they first formed at SUNY Purchase in 2013. Early in the New York indie rock trio’s existence, guitarist Ryan Galloway took to programming synthesizer lines derived from old Game Boy software, which led many to understand them as a chiptune act. But then their name, and later their association with the Boston label Run For Cover records (“There are a lot of sad men,” Galloway said of the label in a recent interview with Village Voice) have led others to call them an emo band. Neither term is particularly damning in 2016, and they were accurate on some level, at least insomuch as the EPs *Get Olde *and Second Wind had their moments of sullen introspection and sugar-rush abandon. But their debut LP, *Beyond the Fleeting Gales, *is different, folding the big-screen bombast of mainstream '80s rock into their sound. Toting a whole gleaming new set of synthesizers and some surprisingly complicated riffing,  Gales transforms the band completely. The experience is sort of like catching a show you used to watch on a CRTV in high def for the first time. Despite the stadium-sized scale of Galloway’s thunderstruck riffs on songs like “Patriot,” a subtlety that was once elided creeps to the forefront. If nothing else, it’s a treat to hear his legato runs sounding more like *Guitar Hero *than the bit-crushed rhythm violence of their older works. It’s a metamorphosis that’s folded into the lyrics of the record. Even the opening track “Premonitory Dream” seems to acknowledge the shock of personal transformation. Over vaporous synth pads and a guitar riff as hair-raising as anything between Rivers Cuomo and Eddie Van Halen, singer Elaiza Santos finds herself on pausing on the middle of a shoddily constructed bridge, unsure whether to go forward or back. She mulls the “risk of burdening the wood and rope I’d already passed,” and ultimately decides to press on. The ascendant riff takes off once she’s made her decision. This is music meant to soundtrack the delicate process of figuring out who you are in relation to the world around you. Openness, in this case and throughout the record, is rewarded; pushing forward is met with joy. "There Was a Door” was released as a single on National Coming Out Day and the song is a sort of public affirmation of the self, punctuated in pitch-shifted guitar licks. Like their fellow New York riff-slingers PWR BTTM, their music can occasionally be read as a playful, grinning inversion of the hetero-masculinity that’s often baked into these sorts of guitar fireworks—a surprisingly-radical suggestion that a sweep-picked guitar solo can be for everyone, not just for oversexed cis dudes with big hair. *Beyond the Fleeting Gales *is a record about these simple victories, and surprising moments of optimism reclaiming simple pleasures and pressing on in the face of an oppressive world. That’s the message at the heart of “There Was a Door.” You face a threshold; cross through and there’s peace, maybe, or at least something worth singing about.

Artist: Crying, Album: Beyond the Fleeting Gales, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Knowingly or not, Crying saddled themselves with a lot of baggage when they first formed at SUNY Purchase in 2013. Early in the New York indie rock trio’s existence, guitarist Ryan Galloway took to programming synthesizer lines derived from old Game Boy software, which led many to understand them as a chiptune act. But then their name, and later their association with the Boston label Run For Cover records (“There are a lot of sad men,” Galloway said of the label in a recent interview with Village Voice) have led others to call them an emo band. Neither term is particularly damning in 2016, and they were accurate on some level, at least insomuch as the EPs *Get Olde *and Second Wind had their moments of sullen introspection and sugar-rush abandon. But their debut LP, *Beyond the Fleeting Gales, *is different, folding the big-screen bombast of mainstream '80s rock into their sound. Toting a whole gleaming new set of synthesizers and some surprisingly complicated riffing,  Gales transforms the band completely. The experience is sort of like catching a show you used to watch on a CRTV in high def for the first time. Despite the stadium-sized scale of Galloway’s thunderstruck riffs on songs like “Patriot,” a subtlety that was once elided creeps to the forefront. If nothing else, it’s a treat to hear his legato runs sounding more like *Guitar Hero *than the bit-crushed rhythm violence of their older works. It’s a metamorphosis that’s folded into the lyrics of the record. Even the opening track “Premonitory Dream” seems to acknowledge the shock of personal transformation. Over vaporous synth pads and a guitar riff as hair-raising as anything between Rivers Cuomo and Eddie Van Halen, singer Elaiza Santos finds herself on pausing on the middle of a shoddily constructed bridge, unsure whether to go forward or back. She mulls the “risk of burdening the wood and rope I’d already passed,” and ultimately decides to press on. The ascendant riff takes off once she’s made her decision. This is music meant to soundtrack the delicate process of figuring out who you are in relation to the world around you. Openness, in this case and throughout the record, is rewarded; pushing forward is met with joy. "There Was a Door” was released as a single on National Coming Out Day and the song is a sort of public affirmation of the self, punctuated in pitch-shifted guitar licks. Like their fellow New York riff-slingers PWR BTTM, their music can occasionally be read as a playful, grinning inversion of the hetero-masculinity that’s often baked into these sorts of guitar fireworks—a surprisingly-radical suggestion that a sweep-picked guitar solo can be for everyone, not just for oversexed cis dudes with big hair. *Beyond the Fleeting Gales *is a record about these simple victories, and surprising moments of optimism reclaiming simple pleasures and pressing on in the face of an oppressive world. That’s the message at the heart of “There Was a Door.” You face a threshold; cross through and there’s peace, maybe, or at least something worth singing about."

Surfer Blood

Astro Coast

Rock

Ian Cohen

There's plenty to like about Astro Coast, the debut LP from the youthful Floridians in Surfer Blood, but first and foremost it's a great guitar album. So what exactly does that mean these days? Often, it's a reference to either a display of astounding technical chops or innovative use of tone and texture, qualities which, to be quite honest, aren't particularly present here. This is a great guitar album in the way Weezer's Blue Album, Built to Spill's Keep It Like a Secret, or, more recently, Japandroids' Post-Nothing are: six-strings serve as a multiplier for hooks, making it every bit as easy and fun to air guitar with as it is to sing along to. Nowhere is this more true than on their breakout single "Swim", which spent the second half of last year generating so much praise that it threatened to make any future album unnecessary or future hype redundant. But even after so many listens, its snowblind-ish reverb is still disorienting-- especially contrasted with its crisp, power-chord hook. It may sound like they're hitting you with their best shot, but after an impassioned "oh oh oh!" from singer John Paul Pitts, Surfer Blood explodes into an even bigger chorus and "Swim" becomes almost overpoweringly fist-pumping. While "Swim" might just remind you of any number of Buzz Bin one-offs now stocking whatever's left of the used-CD store racket, Astro Coast has a strong supporting cast. Throughout, even the titles remark upon how each could've evolved from a killer guitar part into a full-on song-- "Floating Vibes", "Harmonix", "Neighbour Riffs". "Floating Vibes" lumbers with a chest-puffing, two-chord stomp that could evoke either Angus Young or Stephen Malkmus, before the guitars dovetail-- one chiming and light, the other a vocal-leading riff that makes Pitts' handling of the melodic contours sound effortless. The melodic intuitiveness of Astro Coast is in large part due to the interplay heard on "Floating Vibes"-- if every riff is stand-alone hummable, then the vocals take care of themselves. Surfer Blood know from a good hook, but perhaps what's more promising is how most of their compositions build to their rewards. "Take It Easy" does the opposite at its outset, but by its midpoint the fidgety rhythms cool to a mesmerizing motorik that's continued on "Harmonix". "Slow Jabroni" is lonesome and crowded, distorted acoustics serving as a dusty backdrop for Pitts' Isaac Brock-ian carny barking. The riff that introduces "Anchorage" is as blunt as its sentiments ("I don't want to spin my wheels/ I don't got no wheels to spin"), but its second half unfurls a major-key riff that evokes the roomier compositions of Dinosaur Jr. Putting the record's two longest songs back-to-back might not be the canniest bit of sequencing, but it shows the confidence Surfer Blood have in their ability to escape the confines of three-minute power-pop. Though they hail from West Palm Beach and come at the tail-end of 2009's indie feel-good beach party, for all of the oceanic imagery that the band name, album title, and cover art convey, Astro Coast is lyrically landlocked and lonely. Pitts is straightforward when he's not being shrouded by the springy reverb favored by the Shins' James Mercer, and at points, he reads pointedly early-00s emo. Topics of concern include confusion about romance, confusion about friendship, confusion about the future, confusion about religion. It's hard not to think that most of Astro Coast was borne of a relationship dissolved by distance, especially if we're to take the otherwise chipper "Twin Peaks" at face value: Pitts travels to Syracuse, watches David Lynch films, and wrenches out lyrics of sexual frustration that suggest most of the drive was spent listening to Pinkerton. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Surfer Blood spent the latter part of 2009 touring with Japandroids, who, along with BOAT and Cymbals Eat Guitars align in a faux-genre some of us have jokingly referred to as "alt-bro"-- guitar-heavy indie rock that's probably influenced by Pavement, likely about girls, and almost certainly made by people who at first blush sound more fun to get a beer with than, say, Dirty Projectors. But it's unfair to think of Astro Coast as reactionary in some way to the more overtly ambitious indie stars of last year-- there are no chamber sections, no pocket harmonies, no integration of West African rhythms (ok, there's some of that). But ambition can just as easily manifest itself as a desire to create a relentlessly catchy, "classic indie" album in your own dorm room, and if that's what Surfer Blood set out to do, Astro Coast succeeds wildly.

Artist: Surfer Blood, Album: Astro Coast, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "There's plenty to like about Astro Coast, the debut LP from the youthful Floridians in Surfer Blood, but first and foremost it's a great guitar album. So what exactly does that mean these days? Often, it's a reference to either a display of astounding technical chops or innovative use of tone and texture, qualities which, to be quite honest, aren't particularly present here. This is a great guitar album in the way Weezer's Blue Album, Built to Spill's Keep It Like a Secret, or, more recently, Japandroids' Post-Nothing are: six-strings serve as a multiplier for hooks, making it every bit as easy and fun to air guitar with as it is to sing along to. Nowhere is this more true than on their breakout single "Swim", which spent the second half of last year generating so much praise that it threatened to make any future album unnecessary or future hype redundant. But even after so many listens, its snowblind-ish reverb is still disorienting-- especially contrasted with its crisp, power-chord hook. It may sound like they're hitting you with their best shot, but after an impassioned "oh oh oh!" from singer John Paul Pitts, Surfer Blood explodes into an even bigger chorus and "Swim" becomes almost overpoweringly fist-pumping. While "Swim" might just remind you of any number of Buzz Bin one-offs now stocking whatever's left of the used-CD store racket, Astro Coast has a strong supporting cast. Throughout, even the titles remark upon how each could've evolved from a killer guitar part into a full-on song-- "Floating Vibes", "Harmonix", "Neighbour Riffs". "Floating Vibes" lumbers with a chest-puffing, two-chord stomp that could evoke either Angus Young or Stephen Malkmus, before the guitars dovetail-- one chiming and light, the other a vocal-leading riff that makes Pitts' handling of the melodic contours sound effortless. The melodic intuitiveness of Astro Coast is in large part due to the interplay heard on "Floating Vibes"-- if every riff is stand-alone hummable, then the vocals take care of themselves. Surfer Blood know from a good hook, but perhaps what's more promising is how most of their compositions build to their rewards. "Take It Easy" does the opposite at its outset, but by its midpoint the fidgety rhythms cool to a mesmerizing motorik that's continued on "Harmonix". "Slow Jabroni" is lonesome and crowded, distorted acoustics serving as a dusty backdrop for Pitts' Isaac Brock-ian carny barking. The riff that introduces "Anchorage" is as blunt as its sentiments ("I don't want to spin my wheels/ I don't got no wheels to spin"), but its second half unfurls a major-key riff that evokes the roomier compositions of Dinosaur Jr. Putting the record's two longest songs back-to-back might not be the canniest bit of sequencing, but it shows the confidence Surfer Blood have in their ability to escape the confines of three-minute power-pop. Though they hail from West Palm Beach and come at the tail-end of 2009's indie feel-good beach party, for all of the oceanic imagery that the band name, album title, and cover art convey, Astro Coast is lyrically landlocked and lonely. Pitts is straightforward when he's not being shrouded by the springy reverb favored by the Shins' James Mercer, and at points, he reads pointedly early-00s emo. Topics of concern include confusion about romance, confusion about friendship, confusion about the future, confusion about religion. It's hard not to think that most of Astro Coast was borne of a relationship dissolved by distance, especially if we're to take the otherwise chipper "Twin Peaks" at face value: Pitts travels to Syracuse, watches David Lynch films, and wrenches out lyrics of sexual frustration that suggest most of the drive was spent listening to Pinkerton. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Surfer Blood spent the latter part of 2009 touring with Japandroids, who, along with BOAT and Cymbals Eat Guitars align in a faux-genre some of us have jokingly referred to as "alt-bro"-- guitar-heavy indie rock that's probably influenced by Pavement, likely about girls, and almost certainly made by people who at first blush sound more fun to get a beer with than, say, Dirty Projectors. But it's unfair to think of Astro Coast as reactionary in some way to the more overtly ambitious indie stars of last year-- there are no chamber sections, no pocket harmonies, no integration of West African rhythms (ok, there's some of that). But ambition can just as easily manifest itself as a desire to create a relentlessly catchy, "classic indie" album in your own dorm room, and if that's what Surfer Blood set out to do, Astro Coast succeeds wildly."

Derek Bailey

Ballads

Experimental,Jazz,Rock

Dominique Leone

John Zorn owns Derek Bailey. The poor old guy has enough to deal with-- his jazzbo peers are playing it close to trad bop, and the whippersnappers are either copycats of their elders, or are off on some experimental Klezmer trip-hop tangent. And it's not as if Bailey ever really fit in with jazzbos in the first place, what with the whole idea of 'spontaneous' music and improvising with no preconceived set of parameters, much less precedents. Zorn steps in, makes a few calls, and Bailey ends up playing sets with noisemongers like Ruins, or is somehow booked into sessions making drum-n-bass records, or playing world-funk with Ornette Coleman's bassist. Come on, man, let the guy be! But Bailey has been above and beyond the call of jazz duty for a good 40 years now, and his latest Zorn-provoked project of playing ultra-classy standards might just be the pendant on his spiky-splendored coat of a career. He was playing free jazz in London in the mid-60s with Tony Oxley and Dave Holland (before Miles Davis tasted his first crumpet). He formed renowned Incus Records with Oxley and Evan Parker in the 70s when turning skronk into profit was but a twinkle in Zorn's eye. And he's outlasted all but the most shamelessly devoted to the biz by playing an improvised sound so idiosyncratic it effectively defies analytical criticism. Still, there's something to be said about an old dog, new tricks and a lifetime of artistic expression: Ballads is a remarkable record for Bailey. As on recent efforts such as 2000's Mirakle or 1998's Play Backs, the concept places Bailey in a strange context and observes the outcome. However, instead of putting him in a group or adding strange studio effects, the gimmick here is Bailey's interpretations of classic tunes written by the likes of Hoagy Carmichael and Victor Young. Bailey actually started out playing straight ahead small group jazz in the 50s, so this material isn't actually so far from his palette. Furthermore, his acoustic guitar playing is so delicate and sympathetic to the tunes, it's hard to believe he ever left those old standards behind. Bailey's improvisations here are at once impenetrable and immediately familiar. If you've followed his work, you know that he can make his guitars sound as if they were made only for him, and in this case, he actually went to the trouble of finding one that was "totally inappropriate for playing standards." Marc Ribot writes in the liner notes for Ballads that Bailey's playing draws on sources "far wider than those employed in jazz" and how his striking sounds "don't sever the relation of song to improvisation, but [create] deeper, less predictable relations." This will undoubtedly come down to the listener, as there were definitely a couple of occasions when I lost track of the standard, and slipped into a world completely of Bailey's making. "Laura" opens the CD, as Bailey strums light harmonics, and jumps into David Raskin's rather romantic original melody. The guitarist sounds so at home playing the chords that, though he freely mixes in atonal ornaments, it never really sounds juxtaposed. He sometimes settles on angular figures, breaking the romantic mood, but rather than erase the beauty of the melody, he seems to contemplate it, effortlessly letting his mind wander when it will. If you're used to hearing the Wes Montgomery side of things, this will be a bit disorienting. All of the tunes on this set run together, like a stream-of-conscious classic pop revue. Johnny Burke's "What's New" is born out of the improvisation from "Laura," passing by so quickly you might miss the melody. Even as it segues into "When Your Lover Has Gone," you might still be reveling in Bailey's forceful free-strum of the previous tune. However, he does come down every now and then to reveal the tune's inherently nostalgic, almost cinematic charm-- only to launch into flighty, jarring figures that wouldn't have sounded out of place on his Ruins albums. This is one of those times you might forget he's playing standards. The most beautiful moments on Ballads come with the completely unexpected instances of clarity in Bailey's improvisations. In "You Go to My Head," after the tune and typically restless commentary, he begins to rest on eerily perfect octaves. Even though he can spend a lifetime following his muse to the chagrin of anyone that ever wanted to break free of convention, Bailey still has the discipline, dedication and love for the sound all around him that he can make simple unison lines speak as resonantly as the most chaotic fanfare of dissonance. Bailey's ability to let the song go where the improvisation takes it-- while resisting the temptation to veer completely off course-- is the mark of a true artist, and Ballads is a fine entryway to the appreciation of Bailey's art.

Artist: Derek Bailey, Album: Ballads, Genre: Experimental,Jazz,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "John Zorn owns Derek Bailey. The poor old guy has enough to deal with-- his jazzbo peers are playing it close to trad bop, and the whippersnappers are either copycats of their elders, or are off on some experimental Klezmer trip-hop tangent. And it's not as if Bailey ever really fit in with jazzbos in the first place, what with the whole idea of 'spontaneous' music and improvising with no preconceived set of parameters, much less precedents. Zorn steps in, makes a few calls, and Bailey ends up playing sets with noisemongers like Ruins, or is somehow booked into sessions making drum-n-bass records, or playing world-funk with Ornette Coleman's bassist. Come on, man, let the guy be! But Bailey has been above and beyond the call of jazz duty for a good 40 years now, and his latest Zorn-provoked project of playing ultra-classy standards might just be the pendant on his spiky-splendored coat of a career. He was playing free jazz in London in the mid-60s with Tony Oxley and Dave Holland (before Miles Davis tasted his first crumpet). He formed renowned Incus Records with Oxley and Evan Parker in the 70s when turning skronk into profit was but a twinkle in Zorn's eye. And he's outlasted all but the most shamelessly devoted to the biz by playing an improvised sound so idiosyncratic it effectively defies analytical criticism. Still, there's something to be said about an old dog, new tricks and a lifetime of artistic expression: Ballads is a remarkable record for Bailey. As on recent efforts such as 2000's Mirakle or 1998's Play Backs, the concept places Bailey in a strange context and observes the outcome. However, instead of putting him in a group or adding strange studio effects, the gimmick here is Bailey's interpretations of classic tunes written by the likes of Hoagy Carmichael and Victor Young. Bailey actually started out playing straight ahead small group jazz in the 50s, so this material isn't actually so far from his palette. Furthermore, his acoustic guitar playing is so delicate and sympathetic to the tunes, it's hard to believe he ever left those old standards behind. Bailey's improvisations here are at once impenetrable and immediately familiar. If you've followed his work, you know that he can make his guitars sound as if they were made only for him, and in this case, he actually went to the trouble of finding one that was "totally inappropriate for playing standards." Marc Ribot writes in the liner notes for Ballads that Bailey's playing draws on sources "far wider than those employed in jazz" and how his striking sounds "don't sever the relation of song to improvisation, but [create] deeper, less predictable relations." This will undoubtedly come down to the listener, as there were definitely a couple of occasions when I lost track of the standard, and slipped into a world completely of Bailey's making. "Laura" opens the CD, as Bailey strums light harmonics, and jumps into David Raskin's rather romantic original melody. The guitarist sounds so at home playing the chords that, though he freely mixes in atonal ornaments, it never really sounds juxtaposed. He sometimes settles on angular figures, breaking the romantic mood, but rather than erase the beauty of the melody, he seems to contemplate it, effortlessly letting his mind wander when it will. If you're used to hearing the Wes Montgomery side of things, this will be a bit disorienting. All of the tunes on this set run together, like a stream-of-conscious classic pop revue. Johnny Burke's "What's New" is born out of the improvisation from "Laura," passing by so quickly you might miss the melody. Even as it segues into "When Your Lover Has Gone," you might still be reveling in Bailey's forceful free-strum of the previous tune. However, he does come down every now and then to reveal the tune's inherently nostalgic, almost cinematic charm-- only to launch into flighty, jarring figures that wouldn't have sounded out of place on his Ruins albums. This is one of those times you might forget he's playing standards. The most beautiful moments on Ballads come with the completely unexpected instances of clarity in Bailey's improvisations. In "You Go to My Head," after the tune and typically restless commentary, he begins to rest on eerily perfect octaves. Even though he can spend a lifetime following his muse to the chagrin of anyone that ever wanted to break free of convention, Bailey still has the discipline, dedication and love for the sound all around him that he can make simple unison lines speak as resonantly as the most chaotic fanfare of dissonance. Bailey's ability to let the song go where the improvisation takes it-- while resisting the temptation to veer completely off course-- is the mark of a true artist, and Ballads is a fine entryway to the appreciation of Bailey's art."

Danger Mouse, Jemini

Ghetto Pop Life

Rap

Scott Plagenhoef

I'm not sure there's a duller discussion to be had about music than the one about hip-hop's mainstream/underground divide. It's unnecessary and a slight bit juvenile because it's one-sided and too often an exercise in the have-nots simply praising themselves for their not having rather than, y'know, going out and developing their own style, and that's not a very productive way of going about things. DM + Jemini apparently couldn't give a toss about any of these hip-hop politics, either, because they've managed the too-rare trick of bridging the gap. Ghetto Pop Life is a leftfield album built with an emcee more interested in offering wordplay than storytelling or charisma, and a DJ who isn't afraid to underscore the lyrics with playful beats. DM + Jemini-- a self-contained crew, something of a rarity these days-- are also an odd couple. Danger Mouse is based in the far-more-pop-than-ghetto Athens, GA, wears animal costumes, and has crafted beats for limp British R&B; artists, while Jemini (formerly The Gifted One) is a mid-90s Brooklyn B-boy who recorded the Brooklyn Kids' solid Funk Soul Sensation EP. Jemini's nasal, sing-song voice and tendency to raise his tone as he delivers his lines contain echoes of Freeway and Sadat X, although he's not nearly as distinctive or engaging as the former or as high-pitched and offbeat as the latter; his poker-faced rhymes show a bit of dexterity but too often lack personality. Danger Mouse, meanwhile, seems stubbornly determined to make a party record, and acts a welcome counterweight. His soundscapes borrow heavily from hip-hop's history, but rarely drift into the back-patting regressiveness of Jurassic 5 and other old-school loyalists. Ghetto Pop Life's best tracks balance cinematic tones with a touch of funk and Prince Paul's penchant for quirk. It's fairly direct and hardly experimental-- DM's version of pop seems to cut off before the digital era (the only contemporary whose influence is noticeable is Just Blaze)-- but to compensate, it features some of the catchiest hooks the underground has produced this year. "Born-a-MC"-- a regal opener in the spirit of Jay-Z's "The Ruler's Back" and The Streets' "Turn the Page"-- bleeds into the swirling, trebly, and quite glorious title track. "I got a bullet in the clip/ I got a lyric I could spit," Jemini proclaims, illustrating the record's denial of a hip-hop dichotomy. The top-heavy disc peaks early with its sixth track, the infectious, horn-driven "The Only One", which replicates a guilt-free block party vibe without pandering to nostalgia (unlike most of the record's guests, which include The Pharcyde, The Liks, and J-Zone). Other thrills come courtesy of the guitar-picking "Omega Supreme (Who?!)", the restless march of "Copy Cats", and "That Brooklyn Shit", a baroque, Wu-Tangish blend of bewilderment and braggadocio. Unfortunately, the record slumps to a close, weighted down by shaky attempts at topical rap: The calypso-esque "Don't Do Drugs" is a bit precious, oscillating between catchy and grating, while "Bush Boys" is a bit too simplistic, an exercise in preaching to the choir. Other missteps include the flat-out weak Pharcyde collaboration "Medieval", the love letter "I'm a Doomee", and "Here We Go Again", which seems to be purposefully arrhythmic in order to keep focus off its weighty topic, and goes down like medicine (or at least Black-Eyed Peas). It's even peppered with some oddly dated observations, like a mention of the OJ trial (?!) and the line, "Republican/ Democrats/ One and the same," which, even as a former Nader voter, strikes me as a questionable observation. Jemini's comeback is heartwarming and welcome, but it's when Danger Mouse offers a delicate application of his influences that the album truly works. On the whole, the record's another winner from Warp subsidiary Lex Records, which also delivered Tes' x2 earlier in the year and will release the debut from Non Prophets next month. (They're providing some lovely packaging for their records, as well.) Although it's weighted down in spots, Ghetto Pop Life is, at its best, a true surprise from a seemingly mismatched pair working well together to produce a universal, populist sound.

Artist: Danger Mouse, Jemini, Album: Ghetto Pop Life, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "I'm not sure there's a duller discussion to be had about music than the one about hip-hop's mainstream/underground divide. It's unnecessary and a slight bit juvenile because it's one-sided and too often an exercise in the have-nots simply praising themselves for their not having rather than, y'know, going out and developing their own style, and that's not a very productive way of going about things. DM + Jemini apparently couldn't give a toss about any of these hip-hop politics, either, because they've managed the too-rare trick of bridging the gap. Ghetto Pop Life is a leftfield album built with an emcee more interested in offering wordplay than storytelling or charisma, and a DJ who isn't afraid to underscore the lyrics with playful beats. DM + Jemini-- a self-contained crew, something of a rarity these days-- are also an odd couple. Danger Mouse is based in the far-more-pop-than-ghetto Athens, GA, wears animal costumes, and has crafted beats for limp British R&B; artists, while Jemini (formerly The Gifted One) is a mid-90s Brooklyn B-boy who recorded the Brooklyn Kids' solid Funk Soul Sensation EP. Jemini's nasal, sing-song voice and tendency to raise his tone as he delivers his lines contain echoes of Freeway and Sadat X, although he's not nearly as distinctive or engaging as the former or as high-pitched and offbeat as the latter; his poker-faced rhymes show a bit of dexterity but too often lack personality. Danger Mouse, meanwhile, seems stubbornly determined to make a party record, and acts a welcome counterweight. His soundscapes borrow heavily from hip-hop's history, but rarely drift into the back-patting regressiveness of Jurassic 5 and other old-school loyalists. Ghetto Pop Life's best tracks balance cinematic tones with a touch of funk and Prince Paul's penchant for quirk. It's fairly direct and hardly experimental-- DM's version of pop seems to cut off before the digital era (the only contemporary whose influence is noticeable is Just Blaze)-- but to compensate, it features some of the catchiest hooks the underground has produced this year. "Born-a-MC"-- a regal opener in the spirit of Jay-Z's "The Ruler's Back" and The Streets' "Turn the Page"-- bleeds into the swirling, trebly, and quite glorious title track. "I got a bullet in the clip/ I got a lyric I could spit," Jemini proclaims, illustrating the record's denial of a hip-hop dichotomy. The top-heavy disc peaks early with its sixth track, the infectious, horn-driven "The Only One", which replicates a guilt-free block party vibe without pandering to nostalgia (unlike most of the record's guests, which include The Pharcyde, The Liks, and J-Zone). Other thrills come courtesy of the guitar-picking "Omega Supreme (Who?!)", the restless march of "Copy Cats", and "That Brooklyn Shit", a baroque, Wu-Tangish blend of bewilderment and braggadocio. Unfortunately, the record slumps to a close, weighted down by shaky attempts at topical rap: The calypso-esque "Don't Do Drugs" is a bit precious, oscillating between catchy and grating, while "Bush Boys" is a bit too simplistic, an exercise in preaching to the choir. Other missteps include the flat-out weak Pharcyde collaboration "Medieval", the love letter "I'm a Doomee", and "Here We Go Again", which seems to be purposefully arrhythmic in order to keep focus off its weighty topic, and goes down like medicine (or at least Black-Eyed Peas). It's even peppered with some oddly dated observations, like a mention of the OJ trial (?!) and the line, "Republican/ Democrats/ One and the same," which, even as a former Nader voter, strikes me as a questionable observation. Jemini's comeback is heartwarming and welcome, but it's when Danger Mouse offers a delicate application of his influences that the album truly works. On the whole, the record's another winner from Warp subsidiary Lex Records, which also delivered Tes' x2 earlier in the year and will release the debut from Non Prophets next month. (They're providing some lovely packaging for their records, as well.) Although it's weighted down in spots, Ghetto Pop Life is, at its best, a true surprise from a seemingly mismatched pair working well together to produce a universal, populist sound."

Ghostface

The Pretty Toney Album

Rollie Pemberton

Dennis Coles' career may be even more enigmatic than that of the Wu-Tang collective that birthed it. Since notoriously recording his first album from behind a fencing mask, Ghostface Killah has spent his solo discography facing tracklisting errors, guest appearances from subpar MCs, and a quest for commercial acceptance that's netted him exactly zero Top 40 singles. It would seem high time for Coles to shrug off label expectations, focus on pleasing his fanbase, and finally escape the spectre of his financial shortcomings. Where the solo releases of so many Wu-Tang alumni have suffered from lagging production, or seemed naked without backup from fellow Clan members, Ghostface has managed to cultivate a unique sound and identity apart from his former crew on the strength of his own technical merit. Still among the rap game's finest, Ghostface possesses one of history's most malleable flows: he growls, screams, sputters, speeds up, stumbles, coos, whispers, croons, pleads, cries, and indulges in onomatopoeia-- sometimes all in the same song. Considering this distinct style, the quality of his albums has always been relative to his subject matter. Here, he assumes the role of Do the Right Thing's Radio Raheem: one fist spells "HATE", the other "LOVE." "Beat the Clock"'s strings hit like a right hook, as producer Minnesota (best known for Mos Def's "Beef") throws down an unchanging blaxploitation funk loop that keeps in line with the minimalist backing of Ghost's best work. Taking advantage of the open space, Ghost styles like crazy, arguing with himself between verses and periodically switching to a sing-song cadence. Quotables pop up all over the place here-- from scenes that have him "hopping over chairs like O.J." to straight disses like "get off my D-I, then go C the K")-- but the track's most stunning line has Ghost pushing opulence through the creative threshold: "I put my ring up to my man's waves/ I seen the ocean." On the other end of the spectrum is "Save Me Dear", a self-produced throwback sampling Ghostface's own Supreme Clientele highlight "Child's Play" and Jam Master Jay's cavernous 808 beats, and bears a surprisingly resemblance to MF Doom's recent work. An open plea to womankind, Ghost offers a testament to true thug love, asserting, "We mad tight, in the way she never call the cops on a nigga," and rallying, "To all the ladies who love they man/ Though they fucked up and you still let 'em back in." Of course, as is customary with Wu rappers, Ghost sometimes makes missteps in the name of personal preference. There are cases in which Ghost allows his old-school heart and love for homage obscure or detract from the quality of his music (or album cover-- witness the sad Photoshop hackjob paying tribute to Doug E. Fresh's 1988 classic The World's Greatest Entertainer). Yet, The Pretty Toney Album remains incredibly on-target otherwise, with uniformly stunning production work that feels like a ramshackle Blueprint. From the short sample chop and four-bar horn flourish of "Be This Way", to True Master's paused piano and fuzz saxophone drum stomp on "Biscuits", to the fear-soaked, twisted-horn chase music of "Run", Pretty Toney evokes hip-hop's storied past even while its polish and gloss reveal its 2004 release date. Expectedly, minor shortcomings hold the record back from classic status. The lack of his usual obligatory Raekwon collaboration hurts Pretty Toney's variety, and the skits, despite featuring topics and idiosyncratic raps far above the standards of his contemporaries, tend to bog down the album's progress. I'm also disappointed by the exclusion of mixtape tracks "Gorilla Hood", "The Splash", and "My Guitar", which could have offered the record a better batting average. But all things considered, Pretty Toney far surpasses 2001's Bulletproof Wallets, finally finding the missing link between street cred and commercial respect.

Artist: Ghostface, Album: The Pretty Toney Album, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "Dennis Coles' career may be even more enigmatic than that of the Wu-Tang collective that birthed it. Since notoriously recording his first album from behind a fencing mask, Ghostface Killah has spent his solo discography facing tracklisting errors, guest appearances from subpar MCs, and a quest for commercial acceptance that's netted him exactly zero Top 40 singles. It would seem high time for Coles to shrug off label expectations, focus on pleasing his fanbase, and finally escape the spectre of his financial shortcomings. Where the solo releases of so many Wu-Tang alumni have suffered from lagging production, or seemed naked without backup from fellow Clan members, Ghostface has managed to cultivate a unique sound and identity apart from his former crew on the strength of his own technical merit. Still among the rap game's finest, Ghostface possesses one of history's most malleable flows: he growls, screams, sputters, speeds up, stumbles, coos, whispers, croons, pleads, cries, and indulges in onomatopoeia-- sometimes all in the same song. Considering this distinct style, the quality of his albums has always been relative to his subject matter. Here, he assumes the role of Do the Right Thing's Radio Raheem: one fist spells "HATE", the other "LOVE." "Beat the Clock"'s strings hit like a right hook, as producer Minnesota (best known for Mos Def's "Beef") throws down an unchanging blaxploitation funk loop that keeps in line with the minimalist backing of Ghost's best work. Taking advantage of the open space, Ghost styles like crazy, arguing with himself between verses and periodically switching to a sing-song cadence. Quotables pop up all over the place here-- from scenes that have him "hopping over chairs like O.J." to straight disses like "get off my D-I, then go C the K")-- but the track's most stunning line has Ghost pushing opulence through the creative threshold: "I put my ring up to my man's waves/ I seen the ocean." On the other end of the spectrum is "Save Me Dear", a self-produced throwback sampling Ghostface's own Supreme Clientele highlight "Child's Play" and Jam Master Jay's cavernous 808 beats, and bears a surprisingly resemblance to MF Doom's recent work. An open plea to womankind, Ghost offers a testament to true thug love, asserting, "We mad tight, in the way she never call the cops on a nigga," and rallying, "To all the ladies who love they man/ Though they fucked up and you still let 'em back in." Of course, as is customary with Wu rappers, Ghost sometimes makes missteps in the name of personal preference. There are cases in which Ghost allows his old-school heart and love for homage obscure or detract from the quality of his music (or album cover-- witness the sad Photoshop hackjob paying tribute to Doug E. Fresh's 1988 classic The World's Greatest Entertainer). Yet, The Pretty Toney Album remains incredibly on-target otherwise, with uniformly stunning production work that feels like a ramshackle Blueprint. From the short sample chop and four-bar horn flourish of "Be This Way", to True Master's paused piano and fuzz saxophone drum stomp on "Biscuits", to the fear-soaked, twisted-horn chase music of "Run", Pretty Toney evokes hip-hop's storied past even while its polish and gloss reveal its 2004 release date. Expectedly, minor shortcomings hold the record back from classic status. The lack of his usual obligatory Raekwon collaboration hurts Pretty Toney's variety, and the skits, despite featuring topics and idiosyncratic raps far above the standards of his contemporaries, tend to bog down the album's progress. I'm also disappointed by the exclusion of mixtape tracks "Gorilla Hood", "The Splash", and "My Guitar", which could have offered the record a better batting average. But all things considered, Pretty Toney far surpasses 2001's Bulletproof Wallets, finally finding the missing link between street cred and commercial respect."

Michael Jackson

Off the Wall

Pop/R&B

Ryan Dombal

In the summer of 1976, a variety show called "The Jacksons" debuted on CBS. The program came about during a relatively fallow period for the showbiz brood, after the Jackson 5 ignited nationwide fervor with hits like "ABC" and "I’ll Be There" but before Michael Jackson set out for solo superstardom. Their future success seemed in doubt, and the show—with its glaring lights, sparkling costumes, and rampant cheesiness—was a Vegas-style extravaganza that played to well-worn pleasures. One recurring segment called "On the Wall" saw Michael inviting various guest hosts to sign a fake brick facade and do a little dance before everyone eventually ended up in a frozen ta-dah! pose. Though Michael was all smiles on "The Jacksons," he later claimed that he "hated every minute" of it. During the show’s year-long run, he was smack in the middle of gangly teenagedom, acne and all. Raised in the limelight by an infamously strict father, Michael was painfully self-conscious, worried that he might never be able to shake his child stardom. He didn’t want to merely cling to his family’s fading notoriety. He wanted to break away from it completely. Off the Wall is the sound of that liberation. And he knew exactly what he was doing. On November 6, 1979, just as the album was starting to take off, Michael wrote a note to himself on the back of a tour itinerary, a proclamation of self so ambitious it could make Kanye blush. "MJ will be my new name, no more Michael Jackson. I want a whole new character, a whole new look, I should be a totally different person. People should never think of me as the kid who sang ‘ABC’ [and] ‘I Want You Back,’" he jotted down. "I should be a new incredible actor singer dancer that will shock the world. I will do no interviews. I will be magic. I will be a perfectionist, a researcher, a trainer, a masterer… I will study and look back on the whole world of entertainment and perfect it. Take it steps further from where the greats left off." Those words were eerily prescient in many ways, of course, but they also highlight one of Michael’s most important dualities: He wanted to be magical—to defy expectation and reality—but he knew that such skills could not materialize from thin air. He understood that exceptionalism took hard work. Growing up in the Motown system, he would often sit in on sessions, soaking up lessons from the greats: Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations. He studied the way James Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., and Fred Astaire moved their feet onstage, in movies, and on TV. At 17, he counted hallowed masters like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Duke Ellington among his favorite songwriters. He had released four solo albums in the early ’70s, but Off the Wall, which came out when he was 21, finally allowed him to flex all those hours of research into something that was his. It also marked a moment of idealism. Around the time of Off the Wall, Michael’s musical and physical changes felt natural—joyous extensions of the black American experience. Disco was overwhelmingly popular, breaking down color lines and radio formats while offering utopia on the dancefloor. Coming from the segregated, working-class city of Gary, Ind., Jackson's achievements and acceptance represented a rosy view of the country’s future. But 1979 was scarred by the beginning of the quasi-racist "disco sucks" backlash; Michael also got his first nose job that year, narrowing his nostrils. And though he would become even more successful in the '80s, those astronomical heights sometimes catered to white tastes—in both appearance and sound—in a way that could seem effortful, cynical, and sad. So part of the reason why Off the Wall remains so unabashedly fun to return to involves that lack of baggage. For 41 minutes, we can live in the eternally young Neverland Michael longed for, a universe largely without consequence or death. This lasting affection is reiterated by a new Spike Lee documentary, Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall, which is included in this CD/DVD reissue and finds Jackson family members and associates, along with more modern stars like the Weeknd’s Abel Tesfaye, ?uestlove, and Pharrell, paying tribute to Michael’s earliest incarnations. "Off the Wall was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing," says Tesfaye in the doc, which was in part produced by executors of Michael’s estate and barely mentions anything about the artist’s life after Off the Wall. The album was released toward the tail end of the disco era and it managed to encompass much of what made that style so infectious while also pushing out its edges. "Our underlying plan was to take disco out. That was the bottom line," the record’s producer, Quincy Jones, once said. "I admired disco, don’t get me wrong. I just thought it had gone far enough." Jones, a calm, jazzy Zen master who had worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, and Count Basie, helped Michael flesh out his own songs as well as tracks written by others, putting forth a record that is at once beautifully simple and sneakily complex. Most of these songs follow the most basic disco tenet: Put all of your worries behind you and just dance. Michael took part in this type of ecstasy while filming 1978’s The Wiz in New York City, when he would spend his downtime brushing shoulders with the likes of Woody Allen, Liza Minelli, Steven Tyler, and Jane Fonda at Studio 54. By all accounts, Michael didn’t take part in the club’s notorious orgies of sex and drugs, but he observed it, standing by the DJ booth and noticing which songs drew the biggest reactions. And he would dance, getting high off of the music and movement around him. Alongside Jones, Michael made his own disco anthems, but rather than merely copying what came before, he expanded the form with dense, orchestral arrangements that mixed in sophisticated layers of strings, horns, and syncopation while never never losing their underlying funk. This is heard on iconic opener "Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough," the first song Michael ever wrote by himself and the first of four record-breaking Top 10 hits from the album, which has now sold 30 million copies worldwide. It's an ode to the power of romantic love, something Michael had little experience with at that point. But the track’s intricacies, as well as the singer’s effortlessly rhythmic yelps and phrasing, suggest a deeper understanding, one that goes beyond words. Another Michael-penned track, "Working Day and Night," hints at the detrimental effects of his workaholic upbringing and an encroaching paranoia, though ricoch

Artist: Michael Jackson, Album: Off the Wall, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 10.0 Album review: "In the summer of 1976, a variety show called "The Jacksons" debuted on CBS. The program came about during a relatively fallow period for the showbiz brood, after the Jackson 5 ignited nationwide fervor with hits like "ABC" and "I’ll Be There" but before Michael Jackson set out for solo superstardom. Their future success seemed in doubt, and the show—with its glaring lights, sparkling costumes, and rampant cheesiness—was a Vegas-style extravaganza that played to well-worn pleasures. One recurring segment called "On the Wall" saw Michael inviting various guest hosts to sign a fake brick facade and do a little dance before everyone eventually ended up in a frozen ta-dah! pose. Though Michael was all smiles on "The Jacksons," he later claimed that he "hated every minute" of it. During the show’s year-long run, he was smack in the middle of gangly teenagedom, acne and all. Raised in the limelight by an infamously strict father, Michael was painfully self-conscious, worried that he might never be able to shake his child stardom. He didn’t want to merely cling to his family’s fading notoriety. He wanted to break away from it completely. Off the Wall is the sound of that liberation. And he knew exactly what he was doing. On November 6, 1979, just as the album was starting to take off, Michael wrote a note to himself on the back of a tour itinerary, a proclamation of self so ambitious it could make Kanye blush. "MJ will be my new name, no more Michael Jackson. I want a whole new character, a whole new look, I should be a totally different person. People should never think of me as the kid who sang ‘ABC’ [and] ‘I Want You Back,’" he jotted down. "I should be a new incredible actor singer dancer that will shock the world. I will do no interviews. I will be magic. I will be a perfectionist, a researcher, a trainer, a masterer… I will study and look back on the whole world of entertainment and perfect it. Take it steps further from where the greats left off." Those words were eerily prescient in many ways, of course, but they also highlight one of Michael’s most important dualities: He wanted to be magical—to defy expectation and reality—but he knew that such skills could not materialize from thin air. He understood that exceptionalism took hard work. Growing up in the Motown system, he would often sit in on sessions, soaking up lessons from the greats: Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations. He studied the way James Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., and Fred Astaire moved their feet onstage, in movies, and on TV. At 17, he counted hallowed masters like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Duke Ellington among his favorite songwriters. He had released four solo albums in the early ’70s, but Off the Wall, which came out when he was 21, finally allowed him to flex all those hours of research into something that was his. It also marked a moment of idealism. Around the time of Off the Wall, Michael’s musical and physical changes felt natural—joyous extensions of the black American experience. Disco was overwhelmingly popular, breaking down color lines and radio formats while offering utopia on the dancefloor. Coming from the segregated, working-class city of Gary, Ind., Jackson's achievements and acceptance represented a rosy view of the country’s future. But 1979 was scarred by the beginning of the quasi-racist "disco sucks" backlash; Michael also got his first nose job that year, narrowing his nostrils. And though he would become even more successful in the '80s, those astronomical heights sometimes catered to white tastes—in both appearance and sound—in a way that could seem effortful, cynical, and sad. So part of the reason why Off the Wall remains so unabashedly fun to return to involves that lack of baggage. For 41 minutes, we can live in the eternally young Neverland Michael longed for, a universe largely without consequence or death. This lasting affection is reiterated by a new Spike Lee documentary, Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall, which is included in this CD/DVD reissue and finds Jackson family members and associates, along with more modern stars like the Weeknd’s Abel Tesfaye, ?uestlove, and Pharrell, paying tribute to Michael’s earliest incarnations. "Off the Wall was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing," says Tesfaye in the doc, which was in part produced by executors of Michael’s estate and barely mentions anything about the artist’s life after Off the Wall. The album was released toward the tail end of the disco era and it managed to encompass much of what made that style so infectious while also pushing out its edges. "Our underlying plan was to take disco out. That was the bottom line," the record’s producer, Quincy Jones, once said. "I admired disco, don’t get me wrong. I just thought it had gone far enough." Jones, a calm, jazzy Zen master who had worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, and Count Basie, helped Michael flesh out his own songs as well as tracks written by others, putting forth a record that is at once beautifully simple and sneakily complex. Most of these songs follow the most basic disco tenet: Put all of your worries behind you and just dance. Michael took part in this type of ecstasy while filming 1978’s The Wiz in New York City, when he would spend his downtime brushing shoulders with the likes of Woody Allen, Liza Minelli, Steven Tyler, and Jane Fonda at Studio 54. By all accounts, Michael didn’t take part in the club’s notorious orgies of sex and drugs, but he observed it, standing by the DJ booth and noticing which songs drew the biggest reactions. And he would dance, getting high off of the music and movement around him. Alongside Jones, Michael made his own disco anthems, but rather than merely copying what came before, he expanded the form with dense, orchestral arrangements that mixed in sophisticated layers of strings, horns, and syncopation while never never losing their underlying funk. This is heard on iconic opener "Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough," the first song Michael ever wrote by himself and the first of four record-breaking Top 10 hits from the album, which has now sold 30 million copies worldwide. It's an ode to the power of romantic love, something Michael had little experience with at that point. But the track’s intricacies, as well as the singer’s effortlessly rhythmic yelps and phrasing, suggest a deeper understanding, one that goes beyond words. Another Michael-penned track, "Working Day and Night," hints at the detrimental effects of his workaholic upbringing and an encroaching paranoia, though ricoch"