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Drop the Lime

This Means Forever

Electronic

Cameron Macdonald

Luca Venezia (Drop the Lime) will probably hunt me down for this, but whenever I hear his debut album, This Means Forever-- with breakbeats and synth melodies that crash into each other like cruise ships and aircraft carriers-- it reminds me of the mixes made by high school dance squads. In this case, that's a proudly sentimental compliment. Such dancers typically slap together bits of a dozen songs into a five-minute mix. There are no seamless pause-edits to keep the groove; you can actually hear the tape machine stopping and re-recording between each cut, and yet there is an odd pleasure in grooves that work against dancing. Venezia almost rarely keeps his attention on a beat, sample, or melody for more than a couple of bars-- it's prime listening for the attention-deficient, like lysergic cartoon music that evokes the ghosts of Looney Tunes composers Carl Stalling and Raymond Scott. "Rad Girl Killy" nails that effect with a zigzagging, rubber-band violin, all bludgeoned by crashing "Amen" breaks. Nothing ever seems settled on This Means Forever-- before a sound can dig in its heels, it's slashed apart by a new sonic idea. Bedroom musicians have exploited that premise for years, but Venezia unleashes a genuine trash-punk vibe. He often sings like Fugazi's Guy Picciotto paying his bills as a rollerdisco DJ struggling to coax people onto the dancefloor. The audience response could be the breakbeats that shatter his DJ booth's glass after a thousand hits. "Wake the dead kids, one at a time!" Venezia belts out on opener "Shaken" over broken-footed beats, before DSP work gags his vocals with an ether-dipped cloth midway through. "Glassy Eyes" thumps a groove barely held by twittering synths, while the stronger "Rocker Party" focuses on a testosterone-poisoned rhythm. Standouts are the Alec Empire-on-Nickelodeon funk of "Never, Nah", the oxygen-depleted dancefloor strut of "Hushhushdance", and the diced-up serenades of "Dubbio". Most striking is closer "Tivoli Clinic (10.28.00)", a fading Polaroid of a ballad with brass drones that simmer into oblivion-- a prime comedown after all that delirium.

Artist: Drop the Lime, Album: This Means Forever, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Luca Venezia (Drop the Lime) will probably hunt me down for this, but whenever I hear his debut album, This Means Forever-- with breakbeats and synth melodies that crash into each other like cruise ships and aircraft carriers-- it reminds me of the mixes made by high school dance squads. In this case, that's a proudly sentimental compliment. Such dancers typically slap together bits of a dozen songs into a five-minute mix. There are no seamless pause-edits to keep the groove; you can actually hear the tape machine stopping and re-recording between each cut, and yet there is an odd pleasure in grooves that work against dancing. Venezia almost rarely keeps his attention on a beat, sample, or melody for more than a couple of bars-- it's prime listening for the attention-deficient, like lysergic cartoon music that evokes the ghosts of Looney Tunes composers Carl Stalling and Raymond Scott. "Rad Girl Killy" nails that effect with a zigzagging, rubber-band violin, all bludgeoned by crashing "Amen" breaks. Nothing ever seems settled on This Means Forever-- before a sound can dig in its heels, it's slashed apart by a new sonic idea. Bedroom musicians have exploited that premise for years, but Venezia unleashes a genuine trash-punk vibe. He often sings like Fugazi's Guy Picciotto paying his bills as a rollerdisco DJ struggling to coax people onto the dancefloor. The audience response could be the breakbeats that shatter his DJ booth's glass after a thousand hits. "Wake the dead kids, one at a time!" Venezia belts out on opener "Shaken" over broken-footed beats, before DSP work gags his vocals with an ether-dipped cloth midway through. "Glassy Eyes" thumps a groove barely held by twittering synths, while the stronger "Rocker Party" focuses on a testosterone-poisoned rhythm. Standouts are the Alec Empire-on-Nickelodeon funk of "Never, Nah", the oxygen-depleted dancefloor strut of "Hushhushdance", and the diced-up serenades of "Dubbio". Most striking is closer "Tivoli Clinic (10.28.00)", a fading Polaroid of a ballad with brass drones that simmer into oblivion-- a prime comedown after all that delirium."

William F. Gibbs

My Fellow Sophisticates

Joe Tangari

William F. Gibbs makes what I might term pop Americana. His music takes the country, folk, soul, and rock that fills our past and provides an indie rock distillation that's easily accessible and, if not terribly unique, pleasant to listen to. His tendency to leap into his falsetto range in otherwise normal-range passages is his most distinctive vocal calling card-- regardless of the register he sings in, his voice has just a touch of grit at the edges. On his debut album, My Fellow Sophisticates, the South Carolina songwriter sounds comfortable in his songs and gives the overall impression of mid-1990s Grant Lee Buffalo viewed through the lens of M. Ward. At the album's heart lie two songs that indicate Gibbs' future potential. "Brother John!", a song about an unbelieving priest, opens with a brief choral passage (not a full choir, just Gibbs and some friends) before leaping into a locomotive rhythm that buoys an excellent vocal melody that leans away from the falsetto in favor of a rapid-fire delivery that boosts the song's momentum. Shouted backing vocals and a wild, ragged guitar solo add even more frazzled energy to the song. "Here Comes Your Steamboat Brother! Here Comes Your Freightline Sister!" has a similar underlying rhythm, but the country-ish lead guitar lines and female backing vocals give it more of an Appalachian feel-- he sounds like he's learned from M. Ward's propensity for combining roots music with flowing electric guitar lines. The album's musical extremes provide its two other most pronounced high points. Gibbs spins a wonderful, organ-soaked ballad on "Oh Pollyanna", keeping the rhythm moving forward with acoustic guitar and piano as he sifts through love's contradictions, singing "If I could lie to make you happy/ I think I should." At the other end of the spectrum, "Streetfighter" is a tough, funky rock song with heavy drums and chicken-scratch guitars that offers a late burst of energy near the end of the album, where it feels needed after the slow and hazy "Operate" and "Ankle Deep in the Atlantic". On the former of those two, his falsetto trick begins to feel like a lazy ornament, though the guitar solo, which sounds a bit like George Harrison, is nice. The album's low point is "LA Money", which is just a generic slice of modern singer-songwriter fodder. Gibbs is at his best when he can cook up a good rhythm to push his songs along, and he does that often enough to make this a solid debut. He has clear talent as a songwriter and an interesting voice that he should be able to do great things with if he can break out of simply using his range to borrow an occasional note from a neighboring octave. While it may be uneven, the good parts of My Fellow Sophisticates outweigh the bland.

Artist: William F. Gibbs, Album: My Fellow Sophisticates, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.1 Album review: "William F. Gibbs makes what I might term pop Americana. His music takes the country, folk, soul, and rock that fills our past and provides an indie rock distillation that's easily accessible and, if not terribly unique, pleasant to listen to. His tendency to leap into his falsetto range in otherwise normal-range passages is his most distinctive vocal calling card-- regardless of the register he sings in, his voice has just a touch of grit at the edges. On his debut album, My Fellow Sophisticates, the South Carolina songwriter sounds comfortable in his songs and gives the overall impression of mid-1990s Grant Lee Buffalo viewed through the lens of M. Ward. At the album's heart lie two songs that indicate Gibbs' future potential. "Brother John!", a song about an unbelieving priest, opens with a brief choral passage (not a full choir, just Gibbs and some friends) before leaping into a locomotive rhythm that buoys an excellent vocal melody that leans away from the falsetto in favor of a rapid-fire delivery that boosts the song's momentum. Shouted backing vocals and a wild, ragged guitar solo add even more frazzled energy to the song. "Here Comes Your Steamboat Brother! Here Comes Your Freightline Sister!" has a similar underlying rhythm, but the country-ish lead guitar lines and female backing vocals give it more of an Appalachian feel-- he sounds like he's learned from M. Ward's propensity for combining roots music with flowing electric guitar lines. The album's musical extremes provide its two other most pronounced high points. Gibbs spins a wonderful, organ-soaked ballad on "Oh Pollyanna", keeping the rhythm moving forward with acoustic guitar and piano as he sifts through love's contradictions, singing "If I could lie to make you happy/ I think I should." At the other end of the spectrum, "Streetfighter" is a tough, funky rock song with heavy drums and chicken-scratch guitars that offers a late burst of energy near the end of the album, where it feels needed after the slow and hazy "Operate" and "Ankle Deep in the Atlantic". On the former of those two, his falsetto trick begins to feel like a lazy ornament, though the guitar solo, which sounds a bit like George Harrison, is nice. The album's low point is "LA Money", which is just a generic slice of modern singer-songwriter fodder. Gibbs is at his best when he can cook up a good rhythm to push his songs along, and he does that often enough to make this a solid debut. He has clear talent as a songwriter and an interesting voice that he should be able to do great things with if he can break out of simply using his range to borrow an occasional note from a neighboring octave. While it may be uneven, the good parts of My Fellow Sophisticates outweigh the bland."

Yo La Tengo

Prisoners of Love

Rock

David Raposa

In case you forgot why you clicked on the link leading to this article, or were distracted by a Neighborhoodies ad: Prisoners of Love is a retrospective of Yo La Tengo's 18 years of music making, using two CDs to cover both the obvious selections and the things you didn't expect to hear. Hey, there's "Autumn Sweater". Hey, there's the band's first single. Hey, it's a big day coming. Hey, it's a motherfucker. And, hey, it's a third bonus disc with 16 rarities and never-before released tracks! It's like the Kansas Jello mold I never knew I wanted! That is, until I heard Georgia Hubley singing both an acoustic demo of "Tom Courtenay" and a recording of Sun Ra's "Dreaming". Feel free to send back the unrecognizable mulching of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" for a full refund, and keep the rest of the music. Operators are standing by. Be warned, though-- instead of chronologically progressing through the band's catalog, Prisoners of Love wants the listener to consider Yo La Tengo's body of work as a timeless object, all songs rising from the same fertile ground. It's a disingenuous approach to take, in some respects-- the early early stuff, for the most part, sounds like Springsteen and R.E.M. happening all at once, and it can stick out like a pair of neon Zubaz when set against the assured and confident music the group made once they found themselves. The one exception to the earnest jangle of the group's salad days is "The Story of Jazz", a track from Yo La Tengo Album #2, New Wave Hot Dogs. It's that album's final track, a pisstakey indie-rock rave-up where Ira Kaplan works out his pigfucker tendencies by name-checking and emulating Steve Albini. "And I saw this band/ Their name escaped me by Thursday/ And the way it happened, looking, look for something to believe in." On this compilation, it's followed by their recently recorded version of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War", wherein the group, dropping f-bombs left and right like they're talking about the weather, sounds a lot meaner and ballsier. Talking tough was never Yo La Tengo's strong suit, though: Yes, they can sound just fine giving the thrash rock of Dead C a trial run (as they do on their version of "Bad Politics", available on the Kansas Jello mold), but Yo La Tengo is a lover, not a fighter. "Sugarcube", "Little Eyes", "You Can Have It All", "Autumn Sweater", "By The Time It Gets Dark"-- love love love. (Also, check the name of this collection.) Even when Kaplan's head splits open near the end of "Pablo and Andrea", it's all sunshine and lollipops. And when Kaplan sounds most like Thurston Moore (instead of Lou Reed), it's in the service of "Big Day Coming", a song that's unabashedly optimistic and ebullient. In some ways, it could be viewed as an answer to the studied rock-and-roll cynicism of "Teenage Riot"-- "We can play a Stones song, 'Sittin' on a Fence'/ And it'll sound pretty good, 'til I forget how it ends." There's Yo La Tengo's 20 years summarized neatly into two lines. If there is one problem with Prisoners of Love, it's the wonky pacing. The first four tracks on Disc One-- the mantra-like "Shaker", the organ-haze shimmer of "Sugarcube", the not-so-dull roar of "Barnaby, Hardly Working", and the gently shuffling "Little Eyes"-- are all good in and of themselves, but end up butting heads when laid back-to-back. It's only after the fifth track, "Stockholm Syndrome", that the disc finally seems to start. Also, each disc tosses in the seven-minute Yo La Tengo jam near the end, because every Yo La Tengo disc has the seven-minute jam. The end is also where the covers are dumped-- Disc One's penultimate track is the group's Casiotronic version "You Can Have It All", while Disc Two pulls into the garage with Sandy Denny's "By The Time It Gets Dark" hot on the heels of Sun Ra. And, of course, there's the caveat I offered earlier about the haphazard non-chronological song ordering. As odd as that approach might seem, it's a fitting way to pay tribute to the group's catch-all aesthetic. Even if the band's main influence is easily pegged (see: the Velvet Underground, if you haven't already), Yo La Tengo is informed by so many other musics (as their choice in covers will attest) that it's hard to say where one influence ends and another begins. It's an approach that's mirrored in how the group switches it up on the mic. If you're not paying attention, you might mistake Hubley's croon for Kaplan's warble, and you might mistake James McNew's high-pitched voice as either Hubley or Kaplan reaching for the high C over C. It's also mirrored in how they denote songwriting credit-- all songs written by members of Yo La Tengo are attributed to Yo La Tengo, not to individuals. Three people, one voice, one body of song. The subtitle to this collection calls Prisoners of Love "A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs". That 10-cent word in the subtitle-- senescent-- means "old" or "aging." As Byron Coley tells it in the liner notes, this "aging" involved the group transforming "from folk-rock reinvigorators into loose-stringed riff monsters, keyboard dream-pop hypnotizers, and beyond." Fine wines wish they could age as well as Yo La Tengo.

Artist: Yo La Tengo, Album: Prisoners of Love, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "In case you forgot why you clicked on the link leading to this article, or were distracted by a Neighborhoodies ad: Prisoners of Love is a retrospective of Yo La Tengo's 18 years of music making, using two CDs to cover both the obvious selections and the things you didn't expect to hear. Hey, there's "Autumn Sweater". Hey, there's the band's first single. Hey, it's a big day coming. Hey, it's a motherfucker. And, hey, it's a third bonus disc with 16 rarities and never-before released tracks! It's like the Kansas Jello mold I never knew I wanted! That is, until I heard Georgia Hubley singing both an acoustic demo of "Tom Courtenay" and a recording of Sun Ra's "Dreaming". Feel free to send back the unrecognizable mulching of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" for a full refund, and keep the rest of the music. Operators are standing by. Be warned, though-- instead of chronologically progressing through the band's catalog, Prisoners of Love wants the listener to consider Yo La Tengo's body of work as a timeless object, all songs rising from the same fertile ground. It's a disingenuous approach to take, in some respects-- the early early stuff, for the most part, sounds like Springsteen and R.E.M. happening all at once, and it can stick out like a pair of neon Zubaz when set against the assured and confident music the group made once they found themselves. The one exception to the earnest jangle of the group's salad days is "The Story of Jazz", a track from Yo La Tengo Album #2, New Wave Hot Dogs. It's that album's final track, a pisstakey indie-rock rave-up where Ira Kaplan works out his pigfucker tendencies by name-checking and emulating Steve Albini. "And I saw this band/ Their name escaped me by Thursday/ And the way it happened, looking, look for something to believe in." On this compilation, it's followed by their recently recorded version of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War", wherein the group, dropping f-bombs left and right like they're talking about the weather, sounds a lot meaner and ballsier. Talking tough was never Yo La Tengo's strong suit, though: Yes, they can sound just fine giving the thrash rock of Dead C a trial run (as they do on their version of "Bad Politics", available on the Kansas Jello mold), but Yo La Tengo is a lover, not a fighter. "Sugarcube", "Little Eyes", "You Can Have It All", "Autumn Sweater", "By The Time It Gets Dark"-- love love love. (Also, check the name of this collection.) Even when Kaplan's head splits open near the end of "Pablo and Andrea", it's all sunshine and lollipops. And when Kaplan sounds most like Thurston Moore (instead of Lou Reed), it's in the service of "Big Day Coming", a song that's unabashedly optimistic and ebullient. In some ways, it could be viewed as an answer to the studied rock-and-roll cynicism of "Teenage Riot"-- "We can play a Stones song, 'Sittin' on a Fence'/ And it'll sound pretty good, 'til I forget how it ends." There's Yo La Tengo's 20 years summarized neatly into two lines. If there is one problem with Prisoners of Love, it's the wonky pacing. The first four tracks on Disc One-- the mantra-like "Shaker", the organ-haze shimmer of "Sugarcube", the not-so-dull roar of "Barnaby, Hardly Working", and the gently shuffling "Little Eyes"-- are all good in and of themselves, but end up butting heads when laid back-to-back. It's only after the fifth track, "Stockholm Syndrome", that the disc finally seems to start. Also, each disc tosses in the seven-minute Yo La Tengo jam near the end, because every Yo La Tengo disc has the seven-minute jam. The end is also where the covers are dumped-- Disc One's penultimate track is the group's Casiotronic version "You Can Have It All", while Disc Two pulls into the garage with Sandy Denny's "By The Time It Gets Dark" hot on the heels of Sun Ra. And, of course, there's the caveat I offered earlier about the haphazard non-chronological song ordering. As odd as that approach might seem, it's a fitting way to pay tribute to the group's catch-all aesthetic. Even if the band's main influence is easily pegged (see: the Velvet Underground, if you haven't already), Yo La Tengo is informed by so many other musics (as their choice in covers will attest) that it's hard to say where one influence ends and another begins. It's an approach that's mirrored in how the group switches it up on the mic. If you're not paying attention, you might mistake Hubley's croon for Kaplan's warble, and you might mistake James McNew's high-pitched voice as either Hubley or Kaplan reaching for the high C over C. It's also mirrored in how they denote songwriting credit-- all songs written by members of Yo La Tengo are attributed to Yo La Tengo, not to individuals. Three people, one voice, one body of song. The subtitle to this collection calls Prisoners of Love "A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs". That 10-cent word in the subtitle-- senescent-- means "old" or "aging." As Byron Coley tells it in the liner notes, this "aging" involved the group transforming "from folk-rock reinvigorators into loose-stringed riff monsters, keyboard dream-pop hypnotizers, and beyond." Fine wines wish they could age as well as Yo La Tengo."

Daniel Martin Moore

Stray Age

Folk/Country

Matthew Murphy

The one big headline that accompanies Stray Age, the debut album from Kentucky-based singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore, is that Sub Pop signed him based solely upon the strength of an unsolicited 4-song demo. And given Moore's humble songwriting and performing style, one might easily assume that this could be the only headline he's ever interested in making. So understated is Stray Age, in fact, that it is at least initially difficult to hear what exactly sparked Sub Pop's immediate enthusiasm, as there is nothing about this music that exactly explodes out of the speakers. Co-produced by Joe Chiccarelli-- whose extensive credits include work with U2, Beck, and the Shins-- the album is so hushed and intimate that most of it sounds like it could have been recorded with Moore seated in his favorite chair beneath the backyard oak tree. Technically, Moore's gentle, folk-based Americana is not miles apart from labelmates Iron and Wine or Fleet Foxes, but there is a straightforward simplicity to his work that immediately positions him at the most sonically conservative end of the Sub Pop spectrum. As a vocalist, Moore can call to mind a less-mannered Will Oldham, or perhaps what Mark Lanegan might've sounded like several thousand cigarettes ago. On Stray Age Moore's plainspoken vocals are frequently accompanied by little more than a lone acoustic guitar or piano, placing an enormous burden directly on the songs themselves. This is always a risky strategy, as it virtually guarantees that a handful of the better songs here will outshine the rest, patching the album with several minor dips and lulls. (Of course, it doesn't help that there is nothing particularly distinctive or memorable about any of Moore's homespun lyrics.) On the album's best tracks Moore is able to display an unforced, instinctive grace, giving his songs the necessary space to move so they can eventually steal in like shadows, lodging themselves firmly in the rafters of memory.   Stray Age does feature several cameo appearances from guest musicians, including Petra Haden on violin, Justin Meldal-Johnsen on upright bass, and Jesca Hoop on backing vocals. In these spare surroundings, each subtle addition can make a crucial difference, such as the lift Haden's violin provides midway through "It's You" to pull the gentle love song out of its tranquil slumbers, or the way Hoop's bracing harmonies help "The Old Measure" sound downright frisky. Elsewhere, however, Moore keeps his music stripped to the essentials, an approach that succeeds on the richly melodic "By Dream" or the introspective title track, but that eventually stalls the album's momentum before the (perhaps appropriately) narcotic closing track "The Hour of Sleep" wheels around. In addition to Moore's ten original songs, the album also includes a cover of Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes", a track that serves as well as any to represent Stray Age's dreamy, wistful tenor. Well-rendered though this cover is, Moore does little to reinterpret or reinvent Denny's song to his own design, and in so doing illustrates a general disregard for innovation. Simply delivered and packaged, Stray Age requires a considerable amount of patience from its audience, and truth be told if it hadn't been for Sub Pop's patronage I probably wouldn't have given Moore as many chances as it took for even his best songs to sink in. Promising though Stray Age can be, next time hopefully Moore takes pains to make more headlines through his music itself.

Artist: Daniel Martin Moore, Album: Stray Age, Genre: Folk/Country, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "The one big headline that accompanies Stray Age, the debut album from Kentucky-based singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore, is that Sub Pop signed him based solely upon the strength of an unsolicited 4-song demo. And given Moore's humble songwriting and performing style, one might easily assume that this could be the only headline he's ever interested in making. So understated is Stray Age, in fact, that it is at least initially difficult to hear what exactly sparked Sub Pop's immediate enthusiasm, as there is nothing about this music that exactly explodes out of the speakers. Co-produced by Joe Chiccarelli-- whose extensive credits include work with U2, Beck, and the Shins-- the album is so hushed and intimate that most of it sounds like it could have been recorded with Moore seated in his favorite chair beneath the backyard oak tree. Technically, Moore's gentle, folk-based Americana is not miles apart from labelmates Iron and Wine or Fleet Foxes, but there is a straightforward simplicity to his work that immediately positions him at the most sonically conservative end of the Sub Pop spectrum. As a vocalist, Moore can call to mind a less-mannered Will Oldham, or perhaps what Mark Lanegan might've sounded like several thousand cigarettes ago. On Stray Age Moore's plainspoken vocals are frequently accompanied by little more than a lone acoustic guitar or piano, placing an enormous burden directly on the songs themselves. This is always a risky strategy, as it virtually guarantees that a handful of the better songs here will outshine the rest, patching the album with several minor dips and lulls. (Of course, it doesn't help that there is nothing particularly distinctive or memorable about any of Moore's homespun lyrics.) On the album's best tracks Moore is able to display an unforced, instinctive grace, giving his songs the necessary space to move so they can eventually steal in like shadows, lodging themselves firmly in the rafters of memory.   Stray Age does feature several cameo appearances from guest musicians, including Petra Haden on violin, Justin Meldal-Johnsen on upright bass, and Jesca Hoop on backing vocals. In these spare surroundings, each subtle addition can make a crucial difference, such as the lift Haden's violin provides midway through "It's You" to pull the gentle love song out of its tranquil slumbers, or the way Hoop's bracing harmonies help "The Old Measure" sound downright frisky. Elsewhere, however, Moore keeps his music stripped to the essentials, an approach that succeeds on the richly melodic "By Dream" or the introspective title track, but that eventually stalls the album's momentum before the (perhaps appropriately) narcotic closing track "The Hour of Sleep" wheels around. In addition to Moore's ten original songs, the album also includes a cover of Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes", a track that serves as well as any to represent Stray Age's dreamy, wistful tenor. Well-rendered though this cover is, Moore does little to reinterpret or reinvent Denny's song to his own design, and in so doing illustrates a general disregard for innovation. Simply delivered and packaged, Stray Age requires a considerable amount of patience from its audience, and truth be told if it hadn't been for Sub Pop's patronage I probably wouldn't have given Moore as many chances as it took for even his best songs to sink in. Promising though Stray Age can be, next time hopefully Moore takes pains to make more headlines through his music itself."

The Cribs

Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever

Rock

Stuart Berman

The Cribs' 2005 breakthrough single "Hey Scenesters!" was a curious thing: A pointed piss-take of the only demographic who would probably care to buy their records. But instead of distancing the Yorkshire trio from the striped-shirt/black-jeaned plebes, it left you wondering: If these guys hate the scene so much, why do they seem so eager to join it by giving themselves a just-another-The-band name and pumping out standard-issue student-disco fare? That the band namedrop indie iconoclasts like Calvin Johnson and Bobby Conn in their bio while sounding like their record collection begins with Is This It and ends with Up the Bracket only makes the gesture seem more misguided. Well the lads are nothing if not tenacious, opening their new album with another meta-missive-- albeit this one's directed at the herd-like masses. But the smug self-satisfaction of "Hey Scenesters!" has been displaced by the more sobering realization that the only way to rise above indie insularity is "to impress our bovine public." And so Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever spares no expense in making sure the cows come home: The Cribs' major-label debut was helmed by Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos (who assumes the famous-Scottish-producer role filled by Edwyn Collins on 2005's The New Fellas), mixed by alt-rock heavyweight Andy Wallace, and features perhaps the unlikeliest indie-celeb cameo since Laetitia Sadier showed up on a Common album. But all the marquee names in the world wouldn't mean a thing if the Cribs didn't step up in the songwriting department, and the trio answer Kapranos' ready-for-prime-time production with chart-gazing tunes. In contrast to The New Fellas' rough-sketch pub-rock slop, there's a marked increase in passion and precision-- it would appear Kapranos has taught frontman Ryan Jarman a thing or two about projecting his voice to the back rows. Opening trifecta "Our Bovine Public", "Girls Like Mystery", and "Men's Needs" charge out of the gate brandishing a familiar arsenal of morse-code guitar riffs, new-waved drumbeats and thick-accented shout-speak, but like the Futureheads on their first album (and unlike the Futureheads on their second), the Cribs have found a way to translate their twitchy tension into compact, exciting pop songs where the bridges are sturdy enough to be choruses. Though "Men's Needs" is answered later on by the Pixies-pinching "Women's Needs", the "Whatever" in the album title ultimately sums up the half-hearted attempt at conceptual narrative. And that's probably for the best, as the Cribs don't provide any probing insights into the mysteries of gender politics (in case you haven't heard: men are selfish pricks). And besides, Jarman's more charismatic when pointing the finger at himself: "I'm a realist/ I'm a romantic," he sings on "I'm a Realist", before drawing attention to that admission's inherent contradiction: "I'm an indecisive piece of shit." But the lyrics are ultimately secondary to the album's spirited momentum, which maintains a steady clip until being derailed by the late-game curveball of "Be Safe", featuring a surprising, spoken-word appearance from Lee Ranaldo (though his past production work with You Am I suggests a certain soft spot for fledgling power-pop bands). But rather than running wild with his patented sci-fi/beat-poet spiel, Ranaldo narrates this lugubrious power ballad with a trite, anti-consumerist screed that could've been ripped straight from the diary of one of the Cribs' more depressed 16-year-old fans; Jarman's climactic, emo-kid chorus confirms the song's status as a second-rate knock-off of Nada Surf's "Popular". It's an unnecessary incongruity on a record that had already done well to fulfill its loftier ambitions, and the Cribs seem to know it-- is it a coincidence that the album closes with a humbling acoustic ballad called "Shoot the Poets"?

Artist: The Cribs, Album: Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "The Cribs' 2005 breakthrough single "Hey Scenesters!" was a curious thing: A pointed piss-take of the only demographic who would probably care to buy their records. But instead of distancing the Yorkshire trio from the striped-shirt/black-jeaned plebes, it left you wondering: If these guys hate the scene so much, why do they seem so eager to join it by giving themselves a just-another-The-band name and pumping out standard-issue student-disco fare? That the band namedrop indie iconoclasts like Calvin Johnson and Bobby Conn in their bio while sounding like their record collection begins with Is This It and ends with Up the Bracket only makes the gesture seem more misguided. Well the lads are nothing if not tenacious, opening their new album with another meta-missive-- albeit this one's directed at the herd-like masses. But the smug self-satisfaction of "Hey Scenesters!" has been displaced by the more sobering realization that the only way to rise above indie insularity is "to impress our bovine public." And so Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever spares no expense in making sure the cows come home: The Cribs' major-label debut was helmed by Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos (who assumes the famous-Scottish-producer role filled by Edwyn Collins on 2005's The New Fellas), mixed by alt-rock heavyweight Andy Wallace, and features perhaps the unlikeliest indie-celeb cameo since Laetitia Sadier showed up on a Common album. But all the marquee names in the world wouldn't mean a thing if the Cribs didn't step up in the songwriting department, and the trio answer Kapranos' ready-for-prime-time production with chart-gazing tunes. In contrast to The New Fellas' rough-sketch pub-rock slop, there's a marked increase in passion and precision-- it would appear Kapranos has taught frontman Ryan Jarman a thing or two about projecting his voice to the back rows. Opening trifecta "Our Bovine Public", "Girls Like Mystery", and "Men's Needs" charge out of the gate brandishing a familiar arsenal of morse-code guitar riffs, new-waved drumbeats and thick-accented shout-speak, but like the Futureheads on their first album (and unlike the Futureheads on their second), the Cribs have found a way to translate their twitchy tension into compact, exciting pop songs where the bridges are sturdy enough to be choruses. Though "Men's Needs" is answered later on by the Pixies-pinching "Women's Needs", the "Whatever" in the album title ultimately sums up the half-hearted attempt at conceptual narrative. And that's probably for the best, as the Cribs don't provide any probing insights into the mysteries of gender politics (in case you haven't heard: men are selfish pricks). And besides, Jarman's more charismatic when pointing the finger at himself: "I'm a realist/ I'm a romantic," he sings on "I'm a Realist", before drawing attention to that admission's inherent contradiction: "I'm an indecisive piece of shit." But the lyrics are ultimately secondary to the album's spirited momentum, which maintains a steady clip until being derailed by the late-game curveball of "Be Safe", featuring a surprising, spoken-word appearance from Lee Ranaldo (though his past production work with You Am I suggests a certain soft spot for fledgling power-pop bands). But rather than running wild with his patented sci-fi/beat-poet spiel, Ranaldo narrates this lugubrious power ballad with a trite, anti-consumerist screed that could've been ripped straight from the diary of one of the Cribs' more depressed 16-year-old fans; Jarman's climactic, emo-kid chorus confirms the song's status as a second-rate knock-off of Nada Surf's "Popular". It's an unnecessary incongruity on a record that had already done well to fulfill its loftier ambitions, and the Cribs seem to know it-- is it a coincidence that the album closes with a humbling acoustic ballad called "Shoot the Poets"?"

Justice

Audio, Video, Disco

Electronic

Andrew Gaerig

Let's get something out of the way: prog. As in, it's impossible to discuss Justice's sophomore album, Audio, Video, Disco without noting just how thoroughly the Parisian duo has adopted the brash sounds of late-1970s progressive rock. The referents-- Yes for turbulent guitar lines, Goblin for sly italo beats, Queen for unapologetic bombast-- jump off the plastic, announcing that Justice will not re-hash the ornery, clubby obelisks that defined †. Their new direction is precocious, brave, and surprising even if it damns them by placing emphasis on qualities-- arrangement, fidelity, patience-- that Justice lack. Though it sparked a still-running debate about the duo's credentials, †, by accessing unexplored levels of sleaze and cheese, actually fit into dance music's long, proud tradition of not giving a fuck. That they did this in a rock context-- leather jackets; big live show; loud, terrible mastering-- seemed at the time reverent of peak-era Daft Punk but in retrospect appears prescient: Deadmau5 and Skrillex headline festivals, hellbent on teasing out the most seizure-inducing mix of lighting and music possible. In 2011 anyone looking to beef about "real" dance music stares into a smaller barrel filled with bigger fish. In this way, AVD is a natural progression for Justice. Their M.O. is bold irreverence, and they've found multiple ways to express it. Still, it's hard not to admire their choice: It threatens to alienate their core audience while endearing them to a group of fans unlikely to take up their cause (or realize they exist). Prog-rock has long been championed by experimental music fans for its complexity and ambition-- it was outsider art that made the mistake of actually selling records. Prog remains a mostly unclaimed orphan of rock history, and while certain corners of the indie establishment-- Fiery Furnaces, Sufjan Stevens, Dirty Projectors-- have adopted its structure and imagination, they've left the flute solos behind. (Dance acts like Aeroplane and Wolfram have mined this territory to mixed effect.) Justice take the opposite tack: AVD is composed of short, simple tracks stuffed with stairway-climbing solos, ascendant male vocalists, and starry-skied bridges. The duo has called AVD a "daylight" album, presumably in contrast with †'s nocturnal vibe. But just like a low-lit club can mask flaws, Justice's full-bore wall-of-dance bulldozed some of their compositional shortcomings. AVD is brighter and more diffuse (though, sadly, its recording style is no more dynamic), but the light shining through does Justice no favors. It's easy to admire progressive rock for its immersion and commitment to concept, as well as its musical prowess and scope. These are, sadly, the elements Justice strip away. Instead, they employ prog's sounds in short, distracting bursts, filling AVD with melodies that are curious but difficult to remember or enjoy. They do this in the style they know how-- with hoary, space-eating electronics-- which suggests supreme digital craftsmanship but doesn't do the listener any favors. The guitars sounds are uniformly shrill, the bass flatulent, the rhythms rudimentary. They employ singers more frequently than on †: male voices, pinched and bleating. I won't do you the disservice of examining their lyrics (they're hardly the point, for Justice or for us), but suffice to say they don't add much. AVD's finest moment is the title track, in which a voice is digitally manipulated into a current of high-strung, winsome tunefulness. "Helix", their most blatant disco move, is robotically funky, a reminder of what Justice are capable of when they commit fully to Daft pyrotechnics. The majority of AVD, though, is cheese-rock signifiers dressed up as dance music. Once you get over the fact that the band got a little Cerrone in your "Kashmir" ("On'n'on") or spiked your Moroder with Toto ("Horsepower") there's little reason to come back to AVD. Immersing yourself in the record is an exercise in liking Justice as a concept more while liking their actual output less. There's too much space between AVD and actual prog to accept that Justice are committed to this direction. They spent all their daring on concept, with little to spare for execution. Even for a duo as image-conscious and savvy as these guys, there is little style in their reduction.

Artist: Justice, Album: Audio, Video, Disco, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 5.3 Album review: "Let's get something out of the way: prog. As in, it's impossible to discuss Justice's sophomore album, Audio, Video, Disco without noting just how thoroughly the Parisian duo has adopted the brash sounds of late-1970s progressive rock. The referents-- Yes for turbulent guitar lines, Goblin for sly italo beats, Queen for unapologetic bombast-- jump off the plastic, announcing that Justice will not re-hash the ornery, clubby obelisks that defined †. Their new direction is precocious, brave, and surprising even if it damns them by placing emphasis on qualities-- arrangement, fidelity, patience-- that Justice lack. Though it sparked a still-running debate about the duo's credentials, †, by accessing unexplored levels of sleaze and cheese, actually fit into dance music's long, proud tradition of not giving a fuck. That they did this in a rock context-- leather jackets; big live show; loud, terrible mastering-- seemed at the time reverent of peak-era Daft Punk but in retrospect appears prescient: Deadmau5 and Skrillex headline festivals, hellbent on teasing out the most seizure-inducing mix of lighting and music possible. In 2011 anyone looking to beef about "real" dance music stares into a smaller barrel filled with bigger fish. In this way, AVD is a natural progression for Justice. Their M.O. is bold irreverence, and they've found multiple ways to express it. Still, it's hard not to admire their choice: It threatens to alienate their core audience while endearing them to a group of fans unlikely to take up their cause (or realize they exist). Prog-rock has long been championed by experimental music fans for its complexity and ambition-- it was outsider art that made the mistake of actually selling records. Prog remains a mostly unclaimed orphan of rock history, and while certain corners of the indie establishment-- Fiery Furnaces, Sufjan Stevens, Dirty Projectors-- have adopted its structure and imagination, they've left the flute solos behind. (Dance acts like Aeroplane and Wolfram have mined this territory to mixed effect.) Justice take the opposite tack: AVD is composed of short, simple tracks stuffed with stairway-climbing solos, ascendant male vocalists, and starry-skied bridges. The duo has called AVD a "daylight" album, presumably in contrast with †'s nocturnal vibe. But just like a low-lit club can mask flaws, Justice's full-bore wall-of-dance bulldozed some of their compositional shortcomings. AVD is brighter and more diffuse (though, sadly, its recording style is no more dynamic), but the light shining through does Justice no favors. It's easy to admire progressive rock for its immersion and commitment to concept, as well as its musical prowess and scope. These are, sadly, the elements Justice strip away. Instead, they employ prog's sounds in short, distracting bursts, filling AVD with melodies that are curious but difficult to remember or enjoy. They do this in the style they know how-- with hoary, space-eating electronics-- which suggests supreme digital craftsmanship but doesn't do the listener any favors. The guitars sounds are uniformly shrill, the bass flatulent, the rhythms rudimentary. They employ singers more frequently than on †: male voices, pinched and bleating. I won't do you the disservice of examining their lyrics (they're hardly the point, for Justice or for us), but suffice to say they don't add much. AVD's finest moment is the title track, in which a voice is digitally manipulated into a current of high-strung, winsome tunefulness. "Helix", their most blatant disco move, is robotically funky, a reminder of what Justice are capable of when they commit fully to Daft pyrotechnics. The majority of AVD, though, is cheese-rock signifiers dressed up as dance music. Once you get over the fact that the band got a little Cerrone in your "Kashmir" ("On'n'on") or spiked your Moroder with Toto ("Horsepower") there's little reason to come back to AVD. Immersing yourself in the record is an exercise in liking Justice as a concept more while liking their actual output less. There's too much space between AVD and actual prog to accept that Justice are committed to this direction. They spent all their daring on concept, with little to spare for execution. Even for a duo as image-conscious and savvy as these guys, there is little style in their reduction."

The Pinker Tones

Wild Animals

Pop/R&B

Marc Hogan

Should an alien race ever need a one-stop primer on the global diversity of the past few decades' pop music, Barcelona's the Pinker Tones ought to be able to keep them from laying waste to our major population centers for a night or two. The pseudonymous duo of Mister Furia and Professor Manso put something for every euro-waving reveler on their 2006 stateside debut, The Million Colour Revolution, dabbling in lounge, bossa nova, funk, and enough other genres to keep up with their Spanish, English, French, and German lyrics. Prodded along by dance beats, the album also hearkened back to the 1990s' internationalist indie pop of groups like Pizzicato Five and Cibo Matto. Wild Animals, which follows last year's More Colours! remix LP, plays around in the same pluralistic pool. Although its stylistic breadth still dizzies, the ideas have started to sound a little shallow. There's Daft Punk electro-kitsch here, woozy Air luxuriance over there, and plenty of Beta Band-esque harmonies all around, but the allusions are rarely as satisfying as the hypothetical record collection they represent. At a time when U.S. music listeners are already enjoying a particularly diverse assortment of global sounds-- from Bollywood to the Balkans, Kunduru to chanson, Afropop to gamelan, by American artists and international ones-- an album can't get by on its border-crossing eclecticism alone. Wild Animals is a party in international waters; what it lacks is an occasion. Not that Furia and Manso have lost their high, supple voices or jingle-ready melodies. With a squishily funky bass line, opener "Hold On" winds up sounding like a self-help Beck-- "Hold on to your dreams, 'cause it's a long way home," the singers repeat-- but not until after a choir-like intro that's the best homage to Brian Wilson's SMiLE opener "Our Prayer" since the Earlies did one back in 2004. "S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T.", meanwhile, is silly electro-house fun that soon wears out its welcome-- good luck getting that vocoder-like spelling lesson out of your head, though. The Pinker Tones do best when they set their globe-pillaging ideas to more fully-fledged songs, as on first single "Happy Everywhere", a scrambled acoustic-pop song with squelching synths, Mancini-esque strings, cowbell, and a chorus that's at once cheerful and a bit paranoid. The wordless "Fugaz" is thwomping blog-house, ready for its Modular signing; another standout, "24", confronts a quarter-life crisis with a horns-blasting chorus. The Pinker Tones' pan-genre versatility and fearless pursuit of fun could've made them a Spanish Super Furry Animals, but a few of these songs could do with a bit more super (possibly fur, too). "Biorganised"-- with some burbling bass, translucent acoustic guitar, and a harmonica solo-- follows the Moon Safari template too closely for its own good. "Working Bees" is tuneful, falsetto-led space-funk that likens the band to bees "making honey for your ears." Oh, and "The Whistling Song" is four minutes of ska about whistling. The Pinker Tones already tried much of this stuff more successfully on their last proper LP; as refreshing as it still is to hear a group so unconstrained by a single sound, the songs on Wild Animals can't quite fill the wider world their style envisions. I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

Artist: The Pinker Tones, Album: Wild Animals, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "Should an alien race ever need a one-stop primer on the global diversity of the past few decades' pop music, Barcelona's the Pinker Tones ought to be able to keep them from laying waste to our major population centers for a night or two. The pseudonymous duo of Mister Furia and Professor Manso put something for every euro-waving reveler on their 2006 stateside debut, The Million Colour Revolution, dabbling in lounge, bossa nova, funk, and enough other genres to keep up with their Spanish, English, French, and German lyrics. Prodded along by dance beats, the album also hearkened back to the 1990s' internationalist indie pop of groups like Pizzicato Five and Cibo Matto. Wild Animals, which follows last year's More Colours! remix LP, plays around in the same pluralistic pool. Although its stylistic breadth still dizzies, the ideas have started to sound a little shallow. There's Daft Punk electro-kitsch here, woozy Air luxuriance over there, and plenty of Beta Band-esque harmonies all around, but the allusions are rarely as satisfying as the hypothetical record collection they represent. At a time when U.S. music listeners are already enjoying a particularly diverse assortment of global sounds-- from Bollywood to the Balkans, Kunduru to chanson, Afropop to gamelan, by American artists and international ones-- an album can't get by on its border-crossing eclecticism alone. Wild Animals is a party in international waters; what it lacks is an occasion. Not that Furia and Manso have lost their high, supple voices or jingle-ready melodies. With a squishily funky bass line, opener "Hold On" winds up sounding like a self-help Beck-- "Hold on to your dreams, 'cause it's a long way home," the singers repeat-- but not until after a choir-like intro that's the best homage to Brian Wilson's SMiLE opener "Our Prayer" since the Earlies did one back in 2004. "S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T.", meanwhile, is silly electro-house fun that soon wears out its welcome-- good luck getting that vocoder-like spelling lesson out of your head, though. The Pinker Tones do best when they set their globe-pillaging ideas to more fully-fledged songs, as on first single "Happy Everywhere", a scrambled acoustic-pop song with squelching synths, Mancini-esque strings, cowbell, and a chorus that's at once cheerful and a bit paranoid. The wordless "Fugaz" is thwomping blog-house, ready for its Modular signing; another standout, "24", confronts a quarter-life crisis with a horns-blasting chorus. The Pinker Tones' pan-genre versatility and fearless pursuit of fun could've made them a Spanish Super Furry Animals, but a few of these songs could do with a bit more super (possibly fur, too). "Biorganised"-- with some burbling bass, translucent acoustic guitar, and a harmonica solo-- follows the Moon Safari template too closely for its own good. "Working Bees" is tuneful, falsetto-led space-funk that likens the band to bees "making honey for your ears." Oh, and "The Whistling Song" is four minutes of ska about whistling. The Pinker Tones already tried much of this stuff more successfully on their last proper LP; as refreshing as it still is to hear a group so unconstrained by a single sound, the songs on Wild Animals can't quite fill the wider world their style envisions. I for one welcome our new alien overlords."

Turzi

A

Rock

Adam Moerder

Whatever stereotypes you have reserved for French music acts, five-piece Turzi probably won't meet any of them. Handpicked by Air for their Record Makers label, where Turzi released their Made Under Authority EP in 2005, the band shares little in common with its more prominent compatriots. You won't find the techno bombast of Daft Punk or Justice, the sultry bedroom orchestrations of Air, or even the coke-dusted 1980s electro of Kavinsky. Instead, Turzi infuse A with a litany of austere, cerebral European sounds meant to accompany primary songwriter Romain Turzi's vision quest through history. Attila the Hun, Mozart, and Jesus Christ, among other historical celebs, receive shout-outs amidst a sensory overload of krautrock, psych, and shoegaze. Says Turzi in the band's press release, "Music, whether you are initiated in it or not, should make you have the same sensations as doing drugs," and despite the homogenized tracklist (every song begins with the letter "a"), the album strives to keep the listener chemically out of whack. Unlike the gradual, ecstasy-friendly build of techno, Turzi's heady motorik establishes steady beats and chants that burn hot but briefly. On "Are You Thinking About Jesus?", Turzi muses that "Jesus had never seen a dancefloor," yet he prematurely pulls the plug on this swelling maxim as if he never has either. While A flaunts a cultured blend of musical genres, Turzi's penchant for kitschy film score tropes serves as the glue holding the whole thing together. Besides the obvious Can or Silver Apples references, Turzi cites Hollywood composers like Ennio Morricone as major influences, a connection that quickly becomes apparent just a few tracks in. Tracks like "Alpes" or "Afghanistan" open according to the stoic German template, with subtle but skull-piercing guitar droning over a rudimentary drum part on the verge of Chinese water torture, the whole system immaculately interlocked and seemingly interminable. Quickly, though, the ascetic loses out to the aesthetic, the taut kraut drones slouch into dark surf-guitar riffs, and Turzi's deep vocals inject a James Dean-like coolness into the song's unfeeling machinery. However, A proves more than the extra butter on your action movie's popcorn. Just as any of these obsessive numbers can simultaneously explode into scene-stealing theatrics, so too can they get caught in a mind-melting feedback loop. "Attila Blues" starts eerily similar to A's more dramatic tracks, though Turzi reins in his breathy vocals, emulating Suicide's ability to reconcile clanging, anti-climactic repetition with warm-blooded Elvis crooning. Ironically, a topographically-challenged track like this adds more entertainment value than a dozen show-stopping themes strung together ever could. Nowhere on A does Turzi craft something wholly original or unpredictable on its own, but sequentially each track puts enough of a twist on its predecessor to keep this strung-out blockbuster score intriguing.

Artist: Turzi, Album: A, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Whatever stereotypes you have reserved for French music acts, five-piece Turzi probably won't meet any of them. Handpicked by Air for their Record Makers label, where Turzi released their Made Under Authority EP in 2005, the band shares little in common with its more prominent compatriots. You won't find the techno bombast of Daft Punk or Justice, the sultry bedroom orchestrations of Air, or even the coke-dusted 1980s electro of Kavinsky. Instead, Turzi infuse A with a litany of austere, cerebral European sounds meant to accompany primary songwriter Romain Turzi's vision quest through history. Attila the Hun, Mozart, and Jesus Christ, among other historical celebs, receive shout-outs amidst a sensory overload of krautrock, psych, and shoegaze. Says Turzi in the band's press release, "Music, whether you are initiated in it or not, should make you have the same sensations as doing drugs," and despite the homogenized tracklist (every song begins with the letter "a"), the album strives to keep the listener chemically out of whack. Unlike the gradual, ecstasy-friendly build of techno, Turzi's heady motorik establishes steady beats and chants that burn hot but briefly. On "Are You Thinking About Jesus?", Turzi muses that "Jesus had never seen a dancefloor," yet he prematurely pulls the plug on this swelling maxim as if he never has either. While A flaunts a cultured blend of musical genres, Turzi's penchant for kitschy film score tropes serves as the glue holding the whole thing together. Besides the obvious Can or Silver Apples references, Turzi cites Hollywood composers like Ennio Morricone as major influences, a connection that quickly becomes apparent just a few tracks in. Tracks like "Alpes" or "Afghanistan" open according to the stoic German template, with subtle but skull-piercing guitar droning over a rudimentary drum part on the verge of Chinese water torture, the whole system immaculately interlocked and seemingly interminable. Quickly, though, the ascetic loses out to the aesthetic, the taut kraut drones slouch into dark surf-guitar riffs, and Turzi's deep vocals inject a James Dean-like coolness into the song's unfeeling machinery. However, A proves more than the extra butter on your action movie's popcorn. Just as any of these obsessive numbers can simultaneously explode into scene-stealing theatrics, so too can they get caught in a mind-melting feedback loop. "Attila Blues" starts eerily similar to A's more dramatic tracks, though Turzi reins in his breathy vocals, emulating Suicide's ability to reconcile clanging, anti-climactic repetition with warm-blooded Elvis crooning. Ironically, a topographically-challenged track like this adds more entertainment value than a dozen show-stopping themes strung together ever could. Nowhere on A does Turzi craft something wholly original or unpredictable on its own, but sequentially each track puts enough of a twist on its predecessor to keep this strung-out blockbuster score intriguing."

Macha

Forget Tomorrow

Rock

Joe Tangari

It's been a while since we last heard from Macha, and with all the scenes that have risen and fallen in the interim, it's easy to forget that they were once viewed as one of indie rock's greatest hopes for the future-- a future that, at the time of their second album, was still a calendar century away. The Athens, GA trio got off to a quick start, gracing 1998 and 1999 each with a forward-looking, genre-defying album. In 2000, they dropped a highly-acclaimed collaboration with now-defunct slowcore nap-rockers Bedhead and then seemingly evaporated, leaving us to figure out where to redirect our anticipation. So forgive me if I didn't figure they even existed anymore. Four years is a long pause, but brothers Joshua and Mischo McKay, and their former housemate Kai Reidl, have emerged on the other end of their layoff with an album that, while not quite justification for the wait, nonetheless brims with the same restless creativity that spiked their early records, updated just enough to incorporate the moping massive's newfound fascination with all things rhythmic and pulsing. Macha still retain the passion for Indonesian gamelan and arcane instrumentation that made their initial burst so distinctive, but it's relatively played down, relegated mostly to the corners in favor of Neo-Tokyo synths and a river of bass: Forget Tomorrow is a futurist's sonic Eden, a soundtrack to the arcades and clinics of William Gibson's Chiba City. The album's first half cruises through this territory with the top down, breathing its air fully, and scooping up most of the good ideas that lie there. The title track ought to be a single, with its deadpanned, vacuum-sealed melody, plasticine synth, flourishes of koto, and polished steel neo-Moroder groove. It's sleeker than a Mitsubishi TV spot, but the recording's workmanlike nature renders it real. "(Do the) Inevitable" adds the clanking Indonesian percussion that we've so come to expect on a Macha record, but the funky bassline and kick/hihat boom-chik are all Macha Mk II. That beat comes back to support the echoing buzz of "Smash & Grab", which smacks slightly of The Faint without nearly as much aggressive edge. A sprinkling of instrumentals provide the best link with the band's exotica kick, "D-D-D" clanging with gamelan, "Paper Tiger" awash with repetitive hammer dulcimer figures, and Silk Road melodies wafting on synthetic strings through the vibe-cluttered buzz of "Sub II". All of this makes Forget Tomorrow a welcome return for Macha, who seem just as ready to expand their sound as ever. A few ponderous interludes (especially "While the People Sleep", a go-nowhere ambient drag) hamper the record's momentum at inopportune times, which is a shame, given that, along with the joys of rhythm, the world has also recently rediscovered the benefits of the 40-minute runtime. Still, this album confirms that Macha truly are long for this world, and I'll take that any day.

Artist: Macha, Album: Forget Tomorrow, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "It's been a while since we last heard from Macha, and with all the scenes that have risen and fallen in the interim, it's easy to forget that they were once viewed as one of indie rock's greatest hopes for the future-- a future that, at the time of their second album, was still a calendar century away. The Athens, GA trio got off to a quick start, gracing 1998 and 1999 each with a forward-looking, genre-defying album. In 2000, they dropped a highly-acclaimed collaboration with now-defunct slowcore nap-rockers Bedhead and then seemingly evaporated, leaving us to figure out where to redirect our anticipation. So forgive me if I didn't figure they even existed anymore. Four years is a long pause, but brothers Joshua and Mischo McKay, and their former housemate Kai Reidl, have emerged on the other end of their layoff with an album that, while not quite justification for the wait, nonetheless brims with the same restless creativity that spiked their early records, updated just enough to incorporate the moping massive's newfound fascination with all things rhythmic and pulsing. Macha still retain the passion for Indonesian gamelan and arcane instrumentation that made their initial burst so distinctive, but it's relatively played down, relegated mostly to the corners in favor of Neo-Tokyo synths and a river of bass: Forget Tomorrow is a futurist's sonic Eden, a soundtrack to the arcades and clinics of William Gibson's Chiba City. The album's first half cruises through this territory with the top down, breathing its air fully, and scooping up most of the good ideas that lie there. The title track ought to be a single, with its deadpanned, vacuum-sealed melody, plasticine synth, flourishes of koto, and polished steel neo-Moroder groove. It's sleeker than a Mitsubishi TV spot, but the recording's workmanlike nature renders it real. "(Do the) Inevitable" adds the clanking Indonesian percussion that we've so come to expect on a Macha record, but the funky bassline and kick/hihat boom-chik are all Macha Mk II. That beat comes back to support the echoing buzz of "Smash & Grab", which smacks slightly of The Faint without nearly as much aggressive edge. A sprinkling of instrumentals provide the best link with the band's exotica kick, "D-D-D" clanging with gamelan, "Paper Tiger" awash with repetitive hammer dulcimer figures, and Silk Road melodies wafting on synthetic strings through the vibe-cluttered buzz of "Sub II". All of this makes Forget Tomorrow a welcome return for Macha, who seem just as ready to expand their sound as ever. A few ponderous interludes (especially "While the People Sleep", a go-nowhere ambient drag) hamper the record's momentum at inopportune times, which is a shame, given that, along with the joys of rhythm, the world has also recently rediscovered the benefits of the 40-minute runtime. Still, this album confirms that Macha truly are long for this world, and I'll take that any day."

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Nocturama

Rock

Eric Carr

Until 1997, The Nick Cave Songbook read like a set of William Blake Mad Libs filled in by undertakers, jilted lovers and John Wayne Gacy, with a few American folk covers thrown in for variety. Cave had built his career and reputation on twenty glorious years of human misery; God was an alien creature to be feared, and true love was just the first step toward some poor soul meeting a gruesome end. But then, after the grisly Murder Ballads LP, it seems Nick and Jesus sat down and sorted out their differences. With The Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, the anger of Cave's youth had finally lapsed into spiritual angst; murderous desire had given way to simple longing. Now, I don't want to say specifically that Cave has been showing his age, but in a way, he's been driving with his turn signal on for the past couple albums. So when Nocturama was reported as an attempt to "do it like they used to do it," referencing the prodigious output of his elder folk influences as well as the sturm-und-drang of his own early work, I furrowed my brow with concern. Could the passive, contemplative evangelist of "As I Sat Sadly by Her Side" summon even an ounce of the sulfurous hellfire he so elegantly spewed as recently as the immaculate Let Love In? I sincerely hoped so; lyrically, the elder Cave hadn't lost more than a step in decades, and the overwhelming emotional sincerity he'd laid bare was often stunning, but such exhaustive preaching could make Billy Graham blush. The skepticism, fortunately, was largely unfounded-- seemingly incompatible halves-of-self, the righteous and the damned, have indeed both come to play in Nocturama. Also, as it turns out, that's not nearly as impressive as it ought to be-- neither half puts its best foot forward. The languor of newer Cave material remains, albeit with a darker, more sorrowful air. Certain songs ("Wonderful Life", "Bring It On") nod toward some of the apocalyptic prophecy of classics like "Tupelo", if minus the actual climaxes. He mercifully strays from redundant tales of religious salvation toward distinctly more personal issues of fulfillment (but never leaves Boatman's Call turf), and generally improves upon his last few outings. But with two (admittedly gigantic-- hold on) exceptions, Nocturama reneges on its promise-- something's still missing from most of these tracks. Where once the Mr. Cave and his Seeds unearthed the distinctive roots of Blues tradition, holding them aloft with bloody hands and the panache of a hellacious sideshow emcee, they continue to consciously avoid the schtick that made them indie darlings. Entertainingly dismal, piano-hearted tunes are the core instead, backed by uneasy strains of violins, haunting vocals, and funeral march percussion; in truth, it may still be the group's best work since Let Love In, but it had the potential to be so much more. Cave has clearly made a choice to embrace a more "mature" sound, and though I enjoyed older work more, it's hard to fault a man for a choice-- it's a strong album even if it doesn't stand up to his past greatness. Yet, when he goes and outdoes himself so remarkably on the very same album, it's even harder not to. Exhibits one and two: "Dead Man in My Bed" and "Babe, I'm on Fire". This is what a real fusion of the old firebrand and the mature musician should sound like; the passion and aggression of "Deanna", or "Janglin' Jack", minus the raunch, with superior arrangements and musicianship. "Fire" closes with fourteen minutes of flawless, incendiary madness; The Bad Seeds produce a Latin-and-blues-tinged collage of shredded organ and guitar strings, dub bass, and Cave at his howling, vitriolic best. It fits squarely in his personal hall of fame, and in particular makes a moldy joke of the remainder of Nocturama; they didn't all need to be this good, but a few more stormy rattlings of this caliber are sorely missed. He's obviously more than capable of it. Lyrically, at least, Nocturama demonstrates (like most everything he's done) why Cave consistently earns votes for all-time vocal achievement, but it's rarely more appreciated than on a tune of such grandiosity. Cave sings even such mind-bending lines as, "The Viennese vampire says it/ The cowboy 'round his campfire says it/ The game show panelist/ The Jungian analyst says/ Babe, I'm on fire," with convincing zealousness. What should never work does. There are supposedly a few more albums on the way soon, and all that can be done is hope that he picks up where the hot streak of "Babe, I'm on Fire" leaves off, the way it ought to, with Nick not merely smoldering, but blazing.

Artist: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Album: Nocturama, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "Until 1997, The Nick Cave Songbook read like a set of William Blake Mad Libs filled in by undertakers, jilted lovers and John Wayne Gacy, with a few American folk covers thrown in for variety. Cave had built his career and reputation on twenty glorious years of human misery; God was an alien creature to be feared, and true love was just the first step toward some poor soul meeting a gruesome end. But then, after the grisly Murder Ballads LP, it seems Nick and Jesus sat down and sorted out their differences. With The Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, the anger of Cave's youth had finally lapsed into spiritual angst; murderous desire had given way to simple longing. Now, I don't want to say specifically that Cave has been showing his age, but in a way, he's been driving with his turn signal on for the past couple albums. So when Nocturama was reported as an attempt to "do it like they used to do it," referencing the prodigious output of his elder folk influences as well as the sturm-und-drang of his own early work, I furrowed my brow with concern. Could the passive, contemplative evangelist of "As I Sat Sadly by Her Side" summon even an ounce of the sulfurous hellfire he so elegantly spewed as recently as the immaculate Let Love In? I sincerely hoped so; lyrically, the elder Cave hadn't lost more than a step in decades, and the overwhelming emotional sincerity he'd laid bare was often stunning, but such exhaustive preaching could make Billy Graham blush. The skepticism, fortunately, was largely unfounded-- seemingly incompatible halves-of-self, the righteous and the damned, have indeed both come to play in Nocturama. Also, as it turns out, that's not nearly as impressive as it ought to be-- neither half puts its best foot forward. The languor of newer Cave material remains, albeit with a darker, more sorrowful air. Certain songs ("Wonderful Life", "Bring It On") nod toward some of the apocalyptic prophecy of classics like "Tupelo", if minus the actual climaxes. He mercifully strays from redundant tales of religious salvation toward distinctly more personal issues of fulfillment (but never leaves Boatman's Call turf), and generally improves upon his last few outings. But with two (admittedly gigantic-- hold on) exceptions, Nocturama reneges on its promise-- something's still missing from most of these tracks. Where once the Mr. Cave and his Seeds unearthed the distinctive roots of Blues tradition, holding them aloft with bloody hands and the panache of a hellacious sideshow emcee, they continue to consciously avoid the schtick that made them indie darlings. Entertainingly dismal, piano-hearted tunes are the core instead, backed by uneasy strains of violins, haunting vocals, and funeral march percussion; in truth, it may still be the group's best work since Let Love In, but it had the potential to be so much more. Cave has clearly made a choice to embrace a more "mature" sound, and though I enjoyed older work more, it's hard to fault a man for a choice-- it's a strong album even if it doesn't stand up to his past greatness. Yet, when he goes and outdoes himself so remarkably on the very same album, it's even harder not to. Exhibits one and two: "Dead Man in My Bed" and "Babe, I'm on Fire". This is what a real fusion of the old firebrand and the mature musician should sound like; the passion and aggression of "Deanna", or "Janglin' Jack", minus the raunch, with superior arrangements and musicianship. "Fire" closes with fourteen minutes of flawless, incendiary madness; The Bad Seeds produce a Latin-and-blues-tinged collage of shredded organ and guitar strings, dub bass, and Cave at his howling, vitriolic best. It fits squarely in his personal hall of fame, and in particular makes a moldy joke of the remainder of Nocturama; they didn't all need to be this good, but a few more stormy rattlings of this caliber are sorely missed. He's obviously more than capable of it. Lyrically, at least, Nocturama demonstrates (like most everything he's done) why Cave consistently earns votes for all-time vocal achievement, but it's rarely more appreciated than on a tune of such grandiosity. Cave sings even such mind-bending lines as, "The Viennese vampire says it/ The cowboy 'round his campfire says it/ The game show panelist/ The Jungian analyst says/ Babe, I'm on fire," with convincing zealousness. What should never work does. There are supposedly a few more albums on the way soon, and all that can be done is hope that he picks up where the hot streak of "Babe, I'm on Fire" leaves off, the way it ought to, with Nick not merely smoldering, but blazing."

Julio Bashmore

Knockin' Boots

Electronic

Miles Raymer

A lot of grown-up club kids have felt gratified—vindicated, even—watching vintage house music finding large crossover audiences thanks to the efforts of Disclosure, Jamie xx, and a small army of lesser-known producers doing their best to channel the sounds and energy of the Warehouse and Paradise Garage. While this wave of revivalists has been good about citing their sources and highlighting the original artists in their DJ sets, their actual music occasionally suffers from an overabundance of respect. House music was born out of a hacker mindset, and treating it with kid gloves, instead of finding a way to innovate on the old sounds, robs the music of one of its most vital elements. Producer Matt Walker (aka Julio Bashmore) got his start in Bristol's dubstep scene, but he claims that his first exposure to dance music came through his older brother's vintage house records, and house seems to be his true calling. His breakout 2011 single "Battle for Middle You" combined classic house revivalism with a quintessentially Bristolian combination of sub bass frequencies and icy synths. The resulting track had all the feel of a long-lost Chicago treasure being rediscovered. Since then, Walker's lost some of the Bristol chill, but kept his focus on house, to impressive results. His debut album, Knockin' Boots, could actually be the best LP-length statement to come out of house's reawakening. Walker's a nonspecific revivalist who draws inspiration from every point on the genre's timeline—"Rhythm of Auld" emulates the kind of hard-edged disco funk that house was built on (including a spookily dead-on vocal part by J'Danna, who sings on three of the album's tracks), while "She Ain't" sounds like the funkily robotic stuff Cajmere was doing 20 years later with a dash of ghetto house raunch sprinkled on top. He's not bound to any sort of outsized sense of responsibility to authenticity, though, and he freely adds his own personalized flourishes to the recipes he's working from. "She Ain't" ends in a glitchy breakdown that would've been very out of place in the mid-'90s. On some tracks he goes even further—a gently percolating bump combined with BIXBY's aching vocals peg "Let Me Be Your Weakness" as a stab at circa-1988 soulful house, but the rest of the arrangement is a fascinating mutant mashup of '80s freestyle and turn-of-the-millennium UK garage. After "Battle for Middle You", Walker started collaborating with Jessie Ware, and some of her pop ambition seems to have rubbed off. It doesn't have anything as world-crushingly catchy as Disclosure's "Latch", but Knockin' Boots has enough pop hooks to interest people who don't normally listen to dance music outside the club. Much of the credit should go to the cast of vocal talent, which includes J'Danna, BIXBY, space-funk auteur Seven Davis Jr., star songwriter Sam Dew, and South African rapper Okmalumkoolkat (who helps to pull hip-house into pop's globally connected present on "Umuntu"), but Walker also has a talent for making tracks that can jack your body but also get stuck in your head. Walker's already carved out a spot for himself on the worldwide pop scene with the Dew-fronted "Holding On", which has been on heavy rotation on Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio. House's danceability and deep utopian streak have helped it take root around the globe, spinning off more variations than even the most ambitiously imaginative house music fan could have pictured back in the days when Ron Hardy was spinning the smooth soul chopped up over thumping beats that "Holding On" tries—very successfully—to emulate. Now that house has conquered the world, it's feels right that a younger generation is bringing back the sounds of its earliest days for a victory lap, but it feels even better to know that there are artists like Walker involved who can keep pushing them into the future.

Artist: Julio Bashmore, Album: Knockin' Boots, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "A lot of grown-up club kids have felt gratified—vindicated, even—watching vintage house music finding large crossover audiences thanks to the efforts of Disclosure, Jamie xx, and a small army of lesser-known producers doing their best to channel the sounds and energy of the Warehouse and Paradise Garage. While this wave of revivalists has been good about citing their sources and highlighting the original artists in their DJ sets, their actual music occasionally suffers from an overabundance of respect. House music was born out of a hacker mindset, and treating it with kid gloves, instead of finding a way to innovate on the old sounds, robs the music of one of its most vital elements. Producer Matt Walker (aka Julio Bashmore) got his start in Bristol's dubstep scene, but he claims that his first exposure to dance music came through his older brother's vintage house records, and house seems to be his true calling. His breakout 2011 single "Battle for Middle You" combined classic house revivalism with a quintessentially Bristolian combination of sub bass frequencies and icy synths. The resulting track had all the feel of a long-lost Chicago treasure being rediscovered. Since then, Walker's lost some of the Bristol chill, but kept his focus on house, to impressive results. His debut album, Knockin' Boots, could actually be the best LP-length statement to come out of house's reawakening. Walker's a nonspecific revivalist who draws inspiration from every point on the genre's timeline—"Rhythm of Auld" emulates the kind of hard-edged disco funk that house was built on (including a spookily dead-on vocal part by J'Danna, who sings on three of the album's tracks), while "She Ain't" sounds like the funkily robotic stuff Cajmere was doing 20 years later with a dash of ghetto house raunch sprinkled on top. He's not bound to any sort of outsized sense of responsibility to authenticity, though, and he freely adds his own personalized flourishes to the recipes he's working from. "She Ain't" ends in a glitchy breakdown that would've been very out of place in the mid-'90s. On some tracks he goes even further—a gently percolating bump combined with BIXBY's aching vocals peg "Let Me Be Your Weakness" as a stab at circa-1988 soulful house, but the rest of the arrangement is a fascinating mutant mashup of '80s freestyle and turn-of-the-millennium UK garage. After "Battle for Middle You", Walker started collaborating with Jessie Ware, and some of her pop ambition seems to have rubbed off. It doesn't have anything as world-crushingly catchy as Disclosure's "Latch", but Knockin' Boots has enough pop hooks to interest people who don't normally listen to dance music outside the club. Much of the credit should go to the cast of vocal talent, which includes J'Danna, BIXBY, space-funk auteur Seven Davis Jr., star songwriter Sam Dew, and South African rapper Okmalumkoolkat (who helps to pull hip-house into pop's globally connected present on "Umuntu"), but Walker also has a talent for making tracks that can jack your body but also get stuck in your head. Walker's already carved out a spot for himself on the worldwide pop scene with the Dew-fronted "Holding On", which has been on heavy rotation on Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio. House's danceability and deep utopian streak have helped it take root around the globe, spinning off more variations than even the most ambitiously imaginative house music fan could have pictured back in the days when Ron Hardy was spinning the smooth soul chopped up over thumping beats that "Holding On" tries—very successfully—to emulate. Now that house has conquered the world, it's feels right that a younger generation is bringing back the sounds of its earliest days for a victory lap, but it feels even better to know that there are artists like Walker involved who can keep pushing them into the future."

The Edge of Daybreak

Eyes of Love

Pop/R&B

Marcus J. Moore

There’s a moment near the end of the Edge of Daybreak’s Eyes of Love where the LP’s structured soul gives way to a brief, fluid jam session. It happens on "Your Destiny", and it’s the freest moment of a recording made in five hours in a Virginia federal prison. Released in 1979, Eyes of Love was recorded in one take on a $3,000 budget at the Powhatan Correctional Center in State Farm, Va. The band members were all inmates, incarcerated for armed robbery and assault, with sentences ranging from six to 60 years. The musicians, some of whom played in other bands before they were locked up, were allowed to play instruments at the prison complex. They covered songs by the Isley Brothers, Slave, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Jamal Jahal Nubi, the Edge of Daybreak’s lead singer and drummer, entered the Virginia prison in 1976 and established another group called Cosmic Conception with Edward Tucker and William Crawley. He’d later form Edge of Daybreak with fellow prisoners Harry Coleman on additional vocals, James Carrington on keys, Cornelius Cade on guitar, McEvoy Robinson on bass, and Willie Williams on percussion. The band didn't have equipment to overdub, so they brought in backup musicians to play instruments when the regulars had to sing. A few local media outlets covered Eyes of Love upon its release. Only 1,000 copies were pressed. "PM Magazine", a now-defunct television news show, produced a segment called "Cellblock Rock" that aired footage of Edge of Daybreak’s recording. The album arrived as the outside world was moving away from brassier sounds for the likes of disco and nu-wave. Up the road in Washington, D.C., musicians like Chuck Brown and Trouble Funk were putting their own unique twist on black music. Their blend was called go-go, a percussive strain of funk designed to keep the beat going without breaks. In a way, the Edge of Daybreak seemed influenced by the homegrown genre, and at certain points on Eyes of Love, you sense the band’s urge to break away from the literal and figurative structures that contained them. Given their circumstances, it would’ve been easy for the group to create something sullen. Yet on Eyes of Love, it’s as if the band wanted to uplift themselves through song, and to forget their living arrangements if only for a few hours. These songs are optimistic, touching on the brilliance of love and glorifying romance in all its sugary splendor. Songs like "Let Us" and "Let’s Be Friends" recall the 1960s doo-wop era, while "Edge of Daybreak" and "I Wanna Dance With You" are extensive dance grooves. Thematically, Eyes of Love is about a group of guys making the best of a tough situation. That a collection of inmates even recorded an album is a testament, and the fact that it’s so well done is a plus. The inmates couldn’t just go to the studio. Prison personnel required Alpha Audio—in nearby Richmond—to record the band at the Powhatan complex. They had to sing and play their instruments simultaneously, and get everything right the first time. The album’s last song, "Our Love", was recorded as prison guards told the band to wrap up recording. The group members were taken back to their cells as soon as the last song finished. Despite the duress, there aren’t any noticeable hiccups on the LP, making me wonder what could’ve been if the band had more time to perfect it. By the fall of 1980, keyboardist Carrington was transferred to another prison. Then vocalist Coleman. Then Cade, who was moved to Powhatan’s North Housing Unit, essentially breaking up the Edge of Daybreak. There were talks of a sophomore album, but with the musicians in separate prison facilities, it was impossible to rehearse. In the end, Eyes of Love would be the group’s swan song. Thirty-six years later, it’s still a living testament to what can be done in tumultuous conditions. It’s a push to make a way, and to persevere, even when the light is dim.

Artist: The Edge of Daybreak, Album: Eyes of Love, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.3 Album review: "There’s a moment near the end of the Edge of Daybreak’s Eyes of Love where the LP’s structured soul gives way to a brief, fluid jam session. It happens on "Your Destiny", and it’s the freest moment of a recording made in five hours in a Virginia federal prison. Released in 1979, Eyes of Love was recorded in one take on a $3,000 budget at the Powhatan Correctional Center in State Farm, Va. The band members were all inmates, incarcerated for armed robbery and assault, with sentences ranging from six to 60 years. The musicians, some of whom played in other bands before they were locked up, were allowed to play instruments at the prison complex. They covered songs by the Isley Brothers, Slave, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Jamal Jahal Nubi, the Edge of Daybreak’s lead singer and drummer, entered the Virginia prison in 1976 and established another group called Cosmic Conception with Edward Tucker and William Crawley. He’d later form Edge of Daybreak with fellow prisoners Harry Coleman on additional vocals, James Carrington on keys, Cornelius Cade on guitar, McEvoy Robinson on bass, and Willie Williams on percussion. The band didn't have equipment to overdub, so they brought in backup musicians to play instruments when the regulars had to sing. A few local media outlets covered Eyes of Love upon its release. Only 1,000 copies were pressed. "PM Magazine", a now-defunct television news show, produced a segment called "Cellblock Rock" that aired footage of Edge of Daybreak’s recording. The album arrived as the outside world was moving away from brassier sounds for the likes of disco and nu-wave. Up the road in Washington, D.C., musicians like Chuck Brown and Trouble Funk were putting their own unique twist on black music. Their blend was called go-go, a percussive strain of funk designed to keep the beat going without breaks. In a way, the Edge of Daybreak seemed influenced by the homegrown genre, and at certain points on Eyes of Love, you sense the band’s urge to break away from the literal and figurative structures that contained them. Given their circumstances, it would’ve been easy for the group to create something sullen. Yet on Eyes of Love, it’s as if the band wanted to uplift themselves through song, and to forget their living arrangements if only for a few hours. These songs are optimistic, touching on the brilliance of love and glorifying romance in all its sugary splendor. Songs like "Let Us" and "Let’s Be Friends" recall the 1960s doo-wop era, while "Edge of Daybreak" and "I Wanna Dance With You" are extensive dance grooves. Thematically, Eyes of Love is about a group of guys making the best of a tough situation. That a collection of inmates even recorded an album is a testament, and the fact that it’s so well done is a plus. The inmates couldn’t just go to the studio. Prison personnel required Alpha Audio—in nearby Richmond—to record the band at the Powhatan complex. They had to sing and play their instruments simultaneously, and get everything right the first time. The album’s last song, "Our Love", was recorded as prison guards told the band to wrap up recording. The group members were taken back to their cells as soon as the last song finished. Despite the duress, there aren’t any noticeable hiccups on the LP, making me wonder what could’ve been if the band had more time to perfect it. By the fall of 1980, keyboardist Carrington was transferred to another prison. Then vocalist Coleman. Then Cade, who was moved to Powhatan’s North Housing Unit, essentially breaking up the Edge of Daybreak. There were talks of a sophomore album, but with the musicians in separate prison facilities, it was impossible to rehearse. In the end, Eyes of Love would be the group’s swan song. Thirty-six years later, it’s still a living testament to what can be done in tumultuous conditions. It’s a push to make a way, and to persevere, even when the light is dim."

Yo Gotti

I Still Am

Rap

Sheldon Pearce

The cover for Yo Gotti’s 2013 album, I Am, references the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike that brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to the city. King was assassinated in Memphis during the strike, and both events had an impact on the city’s soul and (later) rap scenes. Many local artists, including Gotti, have maintained that there’s a throughline bonding the incidents in 1968, the sounds of Stax Records, and the dread in Memphis rap. “Soul is like—kinda like pain. You hear that even in the voice tone or the selection of music, and it just feel dark and painful, like the struggle,” he told NPR. And local legend Playa Fly once said, “There’s always been a dark cloud over the city. They killed the symbol for peace here.” Gotti has emerged in recent years as the Memphis mouthpiece, a blue-collar MC channeling that same darkness. “I am the struggle/I am the hustle/I am the city,” he rapped on I Am’s title track. The album’s unofficial sequel, I Still Am, Gotti’s ninth, finds him digging deeper into roles as struggler, hustler, and city spokesman. This time the self-proclaimed reality rapper takes his Memphis pride global—from hometown shoutouts inside the Ridgecrest Apartments to jet-setting across Europe and Asia. As he expands his horizons, the enduring cracks in his writing resurface. For years in Memphis rap, the buck stopped with Three 6 Mafia and Eightball & MJG, each act a tangent of the Memphis rap club culture. Gotti, who sounds unquestionably local in his language but panders more broadly to the sounds of the moment stylistically, has become the latest (and unlikeliest) flagship star in Memphis since the late Aughts. He buoys his more trap-angling deep cuts with surprise hits like “Down in the DM,” and his willingness to play ball has earned him national exposure and gold and platinum plaques. But still, there is very little separating him from his peers. He puts his scene on by emulating outsiders: He works mostly with Atlanta beatmakers like Mike WiLL Made-It, Southside, Zaytoven, and Drumma Boy, all of whom appear on I Still Am. The album also reunites Gotti with Miami producer and “Down in the DM” architect Ben Billion$. Inside their productions, he tackles all of the trap tropes. Yo Gotti is basically a Gucci Mane understudy, and his albums play out as if he’s been forced to replace the star last minute. Gotti is a competent rapper who allows his voice to do much of the work, pressing into beats with repetitive phrases and rhyme schemes, single syllable rapping, and tottering slow flows. His raps get right to the point—usually at the expense of scene-setting with very little exposition. He’s either talking passed unidentified subjects, or thinking out loud about dealing, flexing, or defending his territory, or in the act of doing those things. He doesn’t have a particularly compelling point of view; some songs move in circles. There is a sense of tension in his raps, but there is rarely the activity necessary to make them gripping. “Struggle” is a word that best describes most Gotti songs (sometimes as much in execution as in subject matter), but I Still Am has a more pointed focus on betrayal. The primary perpetrator is Gotti’s ex, but at different points on the album, he feels betrayed by close confidants, colleagues, snitches, and to a certain extent, God. On occasion, a faceless “they” are out to ruin all he’s worked for: “They had their hand out but I ain’t submissive/You tryin’ to extort a nigga, I’m from Memphis.” These betrayals open the door for deeply personal “reality raps” about small-time coke trafficking, life on the other side of dealing dope, and trying to balance hometown responsibility with world-conquering aspirations. Even as a rich man, Gotti’s struggle continues. On “One on One,” after setting the premise—“If I could talk to God like a real nigga one on one, I’d tell him”—he poses several hypothetical questions about doing the right thing, his misdeeds, and the friends he lost to prison and the cemetery. There’s apprehension in his voice as he weighs safety measures. He’s sneaking his gun into church and worrying about his security. Most of the violence on I Still Am is a reply, in defense of comrades or his position atop the Memphis rap world. “Old lady in the neighborhood said I’m the devil, she a damn liar,” he raps. “See me bustin’ that fire, tryna protect the guys from the other side.” The more poignant moments on I Still Am, like the stamping “2908” and “Don’t Wanna Go Back,” which laments time spent as a shooter and corner boy, are sometimes offset by the more unapologetic songs like “Brown Bag” and the chest-beating “Juice.” He can’t seem to decide which stance to take: proud street pharmacist or mournful, reformed peddler of toxins. But this conflict does produce songs like the understated and hypnotizing “Yellow Tape,” which finds Gotti at full tilt, leveraging his sandy caw for emphasis: “I’m bumpin’ slaughter gang, 21, back when I was 21/Drive-bys, homicides, switching sides, you were done/How we in the shootout four deep and I’m the only one/With an empty drum, where I’m from that’ll get you hung.” No matter how famous Gotti gets, you can’t take the hood out of him. On “Around the World,” backed by singing children, he travels to Dubai, the UK, and Japan, but always ends up back in the ‘Crest. It’s too bad that I Still Am has more to say about the city he represents than who he actually is.

Artist: Yo Gotti, Album: I Still Am, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.1 Album review: "The cover for Yo Gotti’s 2013 album, I Am, references the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike that brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to the city. King was assassinated in Memphis during the strike, and both events had an impact on the city’s soul and (later) rap scenes. Many local artists, including Gotti, have maintained that there’s a throughline bonding the incidents in 1968, the sounds of Stax Records, and the dread in Memphis rap. “Soul is like—kinda like pain. You hear that even in the voice tone or the selection of music, and it just feel dark and painful, like the struggle,” he told NPR. And local legend Playa Fly once said, “There’s always been a dark cloud over the city. They killed the symbol for peace here.” Gotti has emerged in recent years as the Memphis mouthpiece, a blue-collar MC channeling that same darkness. “I am the struggle/I am the hustle/I am the city,” he rapped on I Am’s title track. The album’s unofficial sequel, I Still Am, Gotti’s ninth, finds him digging deeper into roles as struggler, hustler, and city spokesman. This time the self-proclaimed reality rapper takes his Memphis pride global—from hometown shoutouts inside the Ridgecrest Apartments to jet-setting across Europe and Asia. As he expands his horizons, the enduring cracks in his writing resurface. For years in Memphis rap, the buck stopped with Three 6 Mafia and Eightball & MJG, each act a tangent of the Memphis rap club culture. Gotti, who sounds unquestionably local in his language but panders more broadly to the sounds of the moment stylistically, has become the latest (and unlikeliest) flagship star in Memphis since the late Aughts. He buoys his more trap-angling deep cuts with surprise hits like “Down in the DM,” and his willingness to play ball has earned him national exposure and gold and platinum plaques. But still, there is very little separating him from his peers. He puts his scene on by emulating outsiders: He works mostly with Atlanta beatmakers like Mike WiLL Made-It, Southside, Zaytoven, and Drumma Boy, all of whom appear on I Still Am. The album also reunites Gotti with Miami producer and “Down in the DM” architect Ben Billion$. Inside their productions, he tackles all of the trap tropes. Yo Gotti is basically a Gucci Mane understudy, and his albums play out as if he’s been forced to replace the star last minute. Gotti is a competent rapper who allows his voice to do much of the work, pressing into beats with repetitive phrases and rhyme schemes, single syllable rapping, and tottering slow flows. His raps get right to the point—usually at the expense of scene-setting with very little exposition. He’s either talking passed unidentified subjects, or thinking out loud about dealing, flexing, or defending his territory, or in the act of doing those things. He doesn’t have a particularly compelling point of view; some songs move in circles. There is a sense of tension in his raps, but there is rarely the activity necessary to make them gripping. “Struggle” is a word that best describes most Gotti songs (sometimes as much in execution as in subject matter), but I Still Am has a more pointed focus on betrayal. The primary perpetrator is Gotti’s ex, but at different points on the album, he feels betrayed by close confidants, colleagues, snitches, and to a certain extent, God. On occasion, a faceless “they” are out to ruin all he’s worked for: “They had their hand out but I ain’t submissive/You tryin’ to extort a nigga, I’m from Memphis.” These betrayals open the door for deeply personal “reality raps” about small-time coke trafficking, life on the other side of dealing dope, and trying to balance hometown responsibility with world-conquering aspirations. Even as a rich man, Gotti’s struggle continues. On “One on One,” after setting the premise—“If I could talk to God like a real nigga one on one, I’d tell him”—he poses several hypothetical questions about doing the right thing, his misdeeds, and the friends he lost to prison and the cemetery. There’s apprehension in his voice as he weighs safety measures. He’s sneaking his gun into church and worrying about his security. Most of the violence on I Still Am is a reply, in defense of comrades or his position atop the Memphis rap world. “Old lady in the neighborhood said I’m the devil, she a damn liar,” he raps. “See me bustin’ that fire, tryna protect the guys from the other side.” The more poignant moments on I Still Am, like the stamping “2908” and “Don’t Wanna Go Back,” which laments time spent as a shooter and corner boy, are sometimes offset by the more unapologetic songs like “Brown Bag” and the chest-beating “Juice.” He can’t seem to decide which stance to take: proud street pharmacist or mournful, reformed peddler of toxins. But this conflict does produce songs like the understated and hypnotizing “Yellow Tape,” which finds Gotti at full tilt, leveraging his sandy caw for emphasis: “I’m bumpin’ slaughter gang, 21, back when I was 21/Drive-bys, homicides, switching sides, you were done/How we in the shootout four deep and I’m the only one/With an empty drum, where I’m from that’ll get you hung.” No matter how famous Gotti gets, you can’t take the hood out of him. On “Around the World,” backed by singing children, he travels to Dubai, the UK, and Japan, but always ends up back in the ‘Crest. It’s too bad that I Still Am has more to say about the city he represents than who he actually is."

Early Day Miners

The Treatment

Rock

Joshua Klein

The first thing you notice about The Treatment, the sixth album from Bloomington, Indiana's Early Day Miners, is the relative lack of sonic cobwebs-- a bit unexpected from a band with a reputation for being shoegaze and slowcore revivalists. The percussion here is crisp, the tempos insistent-- even peppy at times-- and the guitar is slightly hazy but hardly dreamy. "In the Fire" and the Madchester echo of "How to Fall" are a far cry from musical wallpaper, and the band rarely embraces atmosphere for atmosphere's sake. The second thing you notice is that, for a band's sixth album (more, if you include Daniel Burton's parallel work in the instrumental Ativin), the disc doesn't sound like the latest endpoint in a gradual evolution as much as a new beginning, and this fresh-start theory makes some sense. The Treatment introduces Early Day Miners' latest lineup change, and with it has come a conscious shift in direction. Gone are the open-ended moodscapes and reverb excursions, making room for a newfound economy and an ear for greater accessibility. The Treatment's various studio effects are sympathetic to the songs rather than an end unto themselves. Daun Fields' backing vocals constitute perhaps the best effect of all. At the same time, the group doesn't always have a clear destination in mind. "The Surface of Things" and "Spaces" start off so cool, it's disappointing how static the tracks remain. What's missing is the kind of payoff songs like "So Slowly" or (the admittedly long and dreamy) "Becloud", to name two highlights, deserve. They glide along on cool basslines or swing with the weight of epic import, but fail to build up any melodic or emotional inertia to lend them greater force. That's not a real problem when crafting post-rock amorphousness or gauzy soundscapes are the tasks at hand; in those cases, lack of impact is partly the point. Here, however, Early Day Miners may have erred too strongly on the side of concision, overcompensating for past indulgence with a radical shift toward ec [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| onomy at the expense of edge and impact. It's rarely boring, and often full of promise, but it's a direction that calls for further tweaks, experiments, and exploration to get the balance just right.

Artist: Early Day Miners, Album: The Treatment, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.6 Album review: "The first thing you notice about The Treatment, the sixth album from Bloomington, Indiana's Early Day Miners, is the relative lack of sonic cobwebs-- a bit unexpected from a band with a reputation for being shoegaze and slowcore revivalists. The percussion here is crisp, the tempos insistent-- even peppy at times-- and the guitar is slightly hazy but hardly dreamy. "In the Fire" and the Madchester echo of "How to Fall" are a far cry from musical wallpaper, and the band rarely embraces atmosphere for atmosphere's sake. The second thing you notice is that, for a band's sixth album (more, if you include Daniel Burton's parallel work in the instrumental Ativin), the disc doesn't sound like the latest endpoint in a gradual evolution as much as a new beginning, and this fresh-start theory makes some sense. The Treatment introduces Early Day Miners' latest lineup change, and with it has come a conscious shift in direction. Gone are the open-ended moodscapes and reverb excursions, making room for a newfound economy and an ear for greater accessibility. The Treatment's various studio effects are sympathetic to the songs rather than an end unto themselves. Daun Fields' backing vocals constitute perhaps the best effect of all. At the same time, the group doesn't always have a clear destination in mind. "The Surface of Things" and "Spaces" start off so cool, it's disappointing how static the tracks remain. What's missing is the kind of payoff songs like "So Slowly" or (the admittedly long and dreamy) "Becloud", to name two highlights, deserve. They glide along on cool basslines or swing with the weight of epic import, but fail to build up any melodic or emotional inertia to lend them greater force. That's not a real problem when crafting post-rock amorphousness or gauzy soundscapes are the tasks at hand; in those cases, lack of impact is partly the point. Here, however, Early Day Miners may have erred too strongly on the side of concision, overcompensating for past indulgence with a radical shift toward ec [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| onomy at the expense of edge and impact. It's rarely boring, and often full of promise, but it's a direction that calls for further tweaks, experiments, and exploration to get the balance just right."

Miracle Fortress

Five Roses

Rock

Marc Hogan

It's telling that the title track here is an instrumental. As a member of wacky Montreal popsters Think About Life, Miracle Fortress' Graham Van Pelt has already demonstrated his ear for keyboard textures (and a gung-ho live show). On his debut album as Miracle Fortress, Van Pelt plays all the instruments (though he's since recruited a touring band that includes Sunset Rubdown's Jordan Robson-Cramer), and he embraces sonic textures as the defining element of a sunny auteur-pop aesthetic. Amid the post-Smile hoopla of 2004, I nervously predicted a Beach Boys backlash. Of course, I'm happy to report I couldn't have been more wrong: Panda Bear's everywhere-praised Person Pitch might be trippier, or the Crayon Fields' Animal Bells more charming, but Five Roses is as upfront as either about its debt to 2007's oft-name-checked Brian Wilson. Most overt is "Maybe Lately", which plays off the angelic verse melody of "Don't Worry Baby" before dissolving into shiny electronics. "And maybe when we're older I'll be less afraid/ And maybe when it gets colder you can come to stay," Van Pelt sings in a near-falsetto. Layers of high-pitched vocal harmonies likewise give a Pet Sounds sound to polished midtempo pop-rockers "Hold Your Secrets to Your Heart" and "Have You Seen in Your Dreams"; the sparkling arpeggios on "Beach Baby" could almost be a slowed-down recreation of the opening guitar chimes of "Wouldn't It Be Nice". You know, pleasant vibrations. Miracle Fortress' tracks can sound as much like cybernetic love songs as teenage symphonies, suggesting another influence on Van Pelt's studio exercise: fellow texture-lover Brian Eno. Van Pelt's washes of dreamy synths and synth-like guitar leads over straight-ahead strums on opener "Whirrs" or the atmospheric "Little Trees" recall the way Eno achieved like-minded combinations during his 70s peak-- though without similarly commanding tunes or vocal presence, the comparison isn't entirely complimentary. Moreover, Van Pelt doing Eno is blander than the real dude's best: On songs like cloying "Blasphemy", the myriad electronic effects barely disguise what's basically lackluster acoustic rock. "I know always we're on different trains/ Sunday meet me, see me here again," a multi-tracked Van Pelt peeks out from the whirring soundscapes on "Poetaster". Five Roses reveals Van Pelt as a talented producer who knows his way around summery pop songs. Still, the album at times indulges Van Pelt's ear for textures a bit much. Miracle Fortress' use of traditionally nonmusical sound effects-- cats meowing, birds chirping, or, on the title track, a propeller-like whir-- can end up being more memorable than the songs such noises adorn. In a perverse move, Van Pelt saves the strongest track, "This Thing About You", for last; bouncy tambourine and a gauze of effects-laden guitars put life into old love-song lyrical tropes. Like Eno, like Wilson, Miracle Fortress sounds best when the productions serve the songs.

Artist: Miracle Fortress, Album: Five Roses, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "It's telling that the title track here is an instrumental. As a member of wacky Montreal popsters Think About Life, Miracle Fortress' Graham Van Pelt has already demonstrated his ear for keyboard textures (and a gung-ho live show). On his debut album as Miracle Fortress, Van Pelt plays all the instruments (though he's since recruited a touring band that includes Sunset Rubdown's Jordan Robson-Cramer), and he embraces sonic textures as the defining element of a sunny auteur-pop aesthetic. Amid the post-Smile hoopla of 2004, I nervously predicted a Beach Boys backlash. Of course, I'm happy to report I couldn't have been more wrong: Panda Bear's everywhere-praised Person Pitch might be trippier, or the Crayon Fields' Animal Bells more charming, but Five Roses is as upfront as either about its debt to 2007's oft-name-checked Brian Wilson. Most overt is "Maybe Lately", which plays off the angelic verse melody of "Don't Worry Baby" before dissolving into shiny electronics. "And maybe when we're older I'll be less afraid/ And maybe when it gets colder you can come to stay," Van Pelt sings in a near-falsetto. Layers of high-pitched vocal harmonies likewise give a Pet Sounds sound to polished midtempo pop-rockers "Hold Your Secrets to Your Heart" and "Have You Seen in Your Dreams"; the sparkling arpeggios on "Beach Baby" could almost be a slowed-down recreation of the opening guitar chimes of "Wouldn't It Be Nice". You know, pleasant vibrations. Miracle Fortress' tracks can sound as much like cybernetic love songs as teenage symphonies, suggesting another influence on Van Pelt's studio exercise: fellow texture-lover Brian Eno. Van Pelt's washes of dreamy synths and synth-like guitar leads over straight-ahead strums on opener "Whirrs" or the atmospheric "Little Trees" recall the way Eno achieved like-minded combinations during his 70s peak-- though without similarly commanding tunes or vocal presence, the comparison isn't entirely complimentary. Moreover, Van Pelt doing Eno is blander than the real dude's best: On songs like cloying "Blasphemy", the myriad electronic effects barely disguise what's basically lackluster acoustic rock. "I know always we're on different trains/ Sunday meet me, see me here again," a multi-tracked Van Pelt peeks out from the whirring soundscapes on "Poetaster". Five Roses reveals Van Pelt as a talented producer who knows his way around summery pop songs. Still, the album at times indulges Van Pelt's ear for textures a bit much. Miracle Fortress' use of traditionally nonmusical sound effects-- cats meowing, birds chirping, or, on the title track, a propeller-like whir-- can end up being more memorable than the songs such noises adorn. In a perverse move, Van Pelt saves the strongest track, "This Thing About You", for last; bouncy tambourine and a gauze of effects-laden guitars put life into old love-song lyrical tropes. Like Eno, like Wilson, Miracle Fortress sounds best when the productions serve the songs."

Sampha

Process

Electronic

Marcus J. Moore

When Sampha Sisay was three years old, his father brought a piano into the family’s Morden, England home. It wasn’t a grand gesture—just a way to get his sons away from the TV. Yet for Sampha, the youngest of five siblings, the instrument became a vessel for his personal growth. It helped enlighten the young boy, offering solace and purpose, commencing a spiritual journey that he’s still navigating. In Sampha’s world, the piano is one of the few things that’s always been there. It’s never gotten sick or faded away from disease. “You would show me I had something some people call a soul,” he sings on “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” a gorgeous ballad and one of many standouts from Process, Sampha’s remarkable debut album. The song—much like the LP—comes from a deeply meditative place, reflecting the innermost thoughts of a man still coping with heavy loss. His father, Joe, passed away from lung cancer in 1998. His mother, Binty Sisay, died of cancer in September 2015. Throughout the spare electro-soul of Process, you feel his mom’s spirit in the stillness, pushing her son in his quest for understanding. Sampha’s endured his own health struggles as well. He once discovered a lump in his throat while on tour; despite an endoscopy, doctors couldn’t determine a cause. It became a catalyst for the singer to assess his own mortality here. “Sleeping with my worries,” goes the opener “Plastic 100ºC,” “I didn’t really know what that lump was.” Sampha’s career dates back to 2010 and the release of Sundanza, his first EP. In 2011, Sampha was featured heavily on producer SBTRKT’s debut album; his second EP, Dual, followed in 2013. Sampha played the background from there, turning up on tracks with Drake (“Too Much,” “The Motion”), Kanye West (“Saint Pablo”), Frank Ocean (“Alabama”), and Solange (“Don’t Touch My Hair”). His presence was strong, even if his voice—a gentle, shimmering falsetto—added light touches to the scenery. Despite its delicate texture, Sampha’s inflection hovers perfectly above the music, cracking at certain pitches to convey grief. In a way, Process feels like a concept album on which Sampha rediscovers himself. The musician’s mother was diagnosed with cancer the same year Sundaza came out, and as her primary caregiver, he naturally focused his attention on her well-being. Now, he’s attempting to reconnect with his core while coping with despair. In the past, he’d mix his voice to fit within the instrumental; on Process, he makes it the focal point. Co-produced with Rodaidh McDonald, *Process *brings to mind James Blake while nodding to mainstream hip-hop. On “Under,” in particular, Sampha utilizes a sleek trap beat. Even the album’s most upbeat tracks are shaded with tension. “You’ve been with me since the cradle,” Sampha recalls on “Kora Sings,” presumably referring to his mom. “You’ve been with me, you’re my angel, please don’t you disappear.” With “Blood on Me,” the album’s second single, the vocalist sings through heavy breaths, seemingly haunted by his own insecurities. It addresses the fear of moving forward after personal trauma, and for a quiet soul like Sampha, it also speaks to the panic of navigating the world by himself. “I’m on this road now,” he exclaims. “I’m so alone now/Swerving out of control now.” On album closer “What Shouldn’t I Be?,” you feel Sampha’s air of prolonged detachment. It catches the singer at his most vulnerable, trying to remember the sketches of his childhood. Close your eyes, and you can almost see Sampha’s family—happy, affectionate, and together. “I should visit my brother,” he ponders, “but I haven’t been there in months.” His self-imposed isolation doesn’t outweigh the song’s overall premise: “You can always come home.”

Artist: Sampha, Album: Process, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.6 Album review: "When Sampha Sisay was three years old, his father brought a piano into the family’s Morden, England home. It wasn’t a grand gesture—just a way to get his sons away from the TV. Yet for Sampha, the youngest of five siblings, the instrument became a vessel for his personal growth. It helped enlighten the young boy, offering solace and purpose, commencing a spiritual journey that he’s still navigating. In Sampha’s world, the piano is one of the few things that’s always been there. It’s never gotten sick or faded away from disease. “You would show me I had something some people call a soul,” he sings on “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” a gorgeous ballad and one of many standouts from Process, Sampha’s remarkable debut album. The song—much like the LP—comes from a deeply meditative place, reflecting the innermost thoughts of a man still coping with heavy loss. His father, Joe, passed away from lung cancer in 1998. His mother, Binty Sisay, died of cancer in September 2015. Throughout the spare electro-soul of Process, you feel his mom’s spirit in the stillness, pushing her son in his quest for understanding. Sampha’s endured his own health struggles as well. He once discovered a lump in his throat while on tour; despite an endoscopy, doctors couldn’t determine a cause. It became a catalyst for the singer to assess his own mortality here. “Sleeping with my worries,” goes the opener “Plastic 100ºC,” “I didn’t really know what that lump was.” Sampha’s career dates back to 2010 and the release of Sundanza, his first EP. In 2011, Sampha was featured heavily on producer SBTRKT’s debut album; his second EP, Dual, followed in 2013. Sampha played the background from there, turning up on tracks with Drake (“Too Much,” “The Motion”), Kanye West (“Saint Pablo”), Frank Ocean (“Alabama”), and Solange (“Don’t Touch My Hair”). His presence was strong, even if his voice—a gentle, shimmering falsetto—added light touches to the scenery. Despite its delicate texture, Sampha’s inflection hovers perfectly above the music, cracking at certain pitches to convey grief. In a way, Process feels like a concept album on which Sampha rediscovers himself. The musician’s mother was diagnosed with cancer the same year Sundaza came out, and as her primary caregiver, he naturally focused his attention on her well-being. Now, he’s attempting to reconnect with his core while coping with despair. In the past, he’d mix his voice to fit within the instrumental; on Process, he makes it the focal point. Co-produced with Rodaidh McDonald, *Process *brings to mind James Blake while nodding to mainstream hip-hop. On “Under,” in particular, Sampha utilizes a sleek trap beat. Even the album’s most upbeat tracks are shaded with tension. “You’ve been with me since the cradle,” Sampha recalls on “Kora Sings,” presumably referring to his mom. “You’ve been with me, you’re my angel, please don’t you disappear.” With “Blood on Me,” the album’s second single, the vocalist sings through heavy breaths, seemingly haunted by his own insecurities. It addresses the fear of moving forward after personal trauma, and for a quiet soul like Sampha, it also speaks to the panic of navigating the world by himself. “I’m on this road now,” he exclaims. “I’m so alone now/Swerving out of control now.” On album closer “What Shouldn’t I Be?,” you feel Sampha’s air of prolonged detachment. It catches the singer at his most vulnerable, trying to remember the sketches of his childhood. Close your eyes, and you can almost see Sampha’s family—happy, affectionate, and together. “I should visit my brother,” he ponders, “but I haven’t been there in months.” His self-imposed isolation doesn’t outweigh the song’s overall premise: “You can always come home.”"

Wavves X Cloud Nothings

No Life For Me

Rock

Ian Cohen

It's an algorithmic dream date: Google "Cloud Nothings" or "Wavves" and in each case the other band is one of the top entries in the "people also search" field. The overlap is inevitable: two critically acclaimed indie rock bands that actually rock, ones that qualify as pop and punk but somehow not pop-punk. Yet, Wavves X Cloud Nothings represents a sudden intersection after the two artists have spent the past five years aiming in opposite directions. Dylan Baldi wants esteemed producers to act like P90x coaches, helping him shed the flabby baggage of his earliest recording for something meaner, leaner, and shredded, whereas Nathan Williams employs them like high-end makeup artists. You'd have to go back to 2009 for the last time Wavves and Cloud Nothings were functionally similar, or No Life For Me can save you the trouble. Before the turn of the decade, both bands were solo projects manufacturing confectionary nuggets about being young, bitter and bored, wrapped in metallic hiss—the equivalent of eating chocolates without removing the foil. There's no obvious reason for either Baldi or Williams to be nostalgic for this period, as their careers have continued to evolve and prosper along with their music. Maybe they're eager to revisit a time when their every move wasn't subject to scrutiny, though slapping both of their highly recognizable brands on the cover doesn't exactly lower expectations, despite the modest rollout. Still, this album is the most effortless music either has produced in years, which ultimately serves as proof of how easy it is for both Baldi and Williams to write good songs and also the care it takes to make them great. There are solid hooks scattered all over No Life For Me, and they sound like they could've been knocked out in five minutes—each melodic note notches in the expected place over thrumming power chords and steady drums. The seven proper tracks are all opportunities to parse the fine difference between urgency and immediacy: much of No Life For Me happened without much noticeable struggle, but did it need to happen? In the end, "Wavves X Cloud Nothings" manages to be misleading on numerous levels. It implies a full partnership or at least participation from both bands—this is essentially "Wavves feat. Dylan Baldi", as it calls on Nathan's brother Joel as a producer and his drummer Brian Hill, who is not Jayson Gerycz. Hill is a fine drummer but he's not one of the few plus-value drummers in rock music, a guy who can singlehandedly change a band's trajectory and take a song from an 8 to a 10. This might've reflected more on Baldi than Hill had the dreamy, drumless closer "Nothing Hurts" not been the LP's highlight. However, "Come Down" and the title track are essentially Cloud Nothings deep cuts with a solid rhythm section that never pushes against Baldi's vocals, never threatens any kind of chaos. It's possible Hill could've provided these things had No Life For Me been the result of more protracted sessions, but you might come out of this record thinking Gerycz is somehow still underrated. Moreover, the nominal "X" implies a factorial relationship between the two acts—maybe this could've been a muscling up of Wavves' wiry surf-and-skate physique or the achromatic bleakness of Attack on Memory or Here and Nowhere Else given a suntan. Tilt that "X" 45 degrees and you've got a more accurate formula: This is more an example of addition, two artists with very similar writing styles piling on top of each other. In fact, Williams and Baldi are virtually indistinguishable emotionally or sonically here. The same themes of intransigence, ennui, and self-pity that serve as the basis for nearly every one of their previous songs is shuffled and endlessly reworded, Wavves and Cloud Nothings lyrics turned into magnetic poetry tiles grabbed out of a bag. Their blunt admissions never sound insincere despite being shared and workshopped, just pro forma—"I'm such a fucking mess/ Don't know at all how it's gonna go," "I feel it open up around me." "Sometimes, you'll find nothing ever comes down." Looking at the most recent, productive relationships between established songwriting entities—Run the Jewels, FFS, for example—there's a provision of contrast, a clear quid pro quo where each party has something the other wants or needs. Whether or not there's chemistry between Baldi and Williams, there's no volatility. They don't even sound like they're having fun: the bummer attitude was a given, but neither is inspired to go beyond their own sonic boundaries, nor is there any sign of friendly one-upmanship, no indication that a truly great idea from these sessions wouldn't be tucked away for private usage. That wouldn't be much of an issue had this partnership reflected its low-key creative process by having Wavves X Cloud Nothings go by a different name or having the results given away as a freebie or just a lark. But No Life For Me is a 21-minute record with two instrumentals that costs $10—the same price you could pay for Attack on Memory or King of the Beach. Which is to say that Wavves X Cloud Nothings didn't need to result in a good album to justify its existence, but No Life For Me did.

Artist: Wavves X Cloud Nothings, Album: No Life For Me, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "It's an algorithmic dream date: Google "Cloud Nothings" or "Wavves" and in each case the other band is one of the top entries in the "people also search" field. The overlap is inevitable: two critically acclaimed indie rock bands that actually rock, ones that qualify as pop and punk but somehow not pop-punk. Yet, Wavves X Cloud Nothings represents a sudden intersection after the two artists have spent the past five years aiming in opposite directions. Dylan Baldi wants esteemed producers to act like P90x coaches, helping him shed the flabby baggage of his earliest recording for something meaner, leaner, and shredded, whereas Nathan Williams employs them like high-end makeup artists. You'd have to go back to 2009 for the last time Wavves and Cloud Nothings were functionally similar, or No Life For Me can save you the trouble. Before the turn of the decade, both bands were solo projects manufacturing confectionary nuggets about being young, bitter and bored, wrapped in metallic hiss—the equivalent of eating chocolates without removing the foil. There's no obvious reason for either Baldi or Williams to be nostalgic for this period, as their careers have continued to evolve and prosper along with their music. Maybe they're eager to revisit a time when their every move wasn't subject to scrutiny, though slapping both of their highly recognizable brands on the cover doesn't exactly lower expectations, despite the modest rollout. Still, this album is the most effortless music either has produced in years, which ultimately serves as proof of how easy it is for both Baldi and Williams to write good songs and also the care it takes to make them great. There are solid hooks scattered all over No Life For Me, and they sound like they could've been knocked out in five minutes—each melodic note notches in the expected place over thrumming power chords and steady drums. The seven proper tracks are all opportunities to parse the fine difference between urgency and immediacy: much of No Life For Me happened without much noticeable struggle, but did it need to happen? In the end, "Wavves X Cloud Nothings" manages to be misleading on numerous levels. It implies a full partnership or at least participation from both bands—this is essentially "Wavves feat. Dylan Baldi", as it calls on Nathan's brother Joel as a producer and his drummer Brian Hill, who is not Jayson Gerycz. Hill is a fine drummer but he's not one of the few plus-value drummers in rock music, a guy who can singlehandedly change a band's trajectory and take a song from an 8 to a 10. This might've reflected more on Baldi than Hill had the dreamy, drumless closer "Nothing Hurts" not been the LP's highlight. However, "Come Down" and the title track are essentially Cloud Nothings deep cuts with a solid rhythm section that never pushes against Baldi's vocals, never threatens any kind of chaos. It's possible Hill could've provided these things had No Life For Me been the result of more protracted sessions, but you might come out of this record thinking Gerycz is somehow still underrated. Moreover, the nominal "X" implies a factorial relationship between the two acts—maybe this could've been a muscling up of Wavves' wiry surf-and-skate physique or the achromatic bleakness of Attack on Memory or Here and Nowhere Else given a suntan. Tilt that "X" 45 degrees and you've got a more accurate formula: This is more an example of addition, two artists with very similar writing styles piling on top of each other. In fact, Williams and Baldi are virtually indistinguishable emotionally or sonically here. The same themes of intransigence, ennui, and self-pity that serve as the basis for nearly every one of their previous songs is shuffled and endlessly reworded, Wavves and Cloud Nothings lyrics turned into magnetic poetry tiles grabbed out of a bag. Their blunt admissions never sound insincere despite being shared and workshopped, just pro forma—"I'm such a fucking mess/ Don't know at all how it's gonna go," "I feel it open up around me." "Sometimes, you'll find nothing ever comes down." Looking at the most recent, productive relationships between established songwriting entities—Run the Jewels, FFS, for example—there's a provision of contrast, a clear quid pro quo where each party has something the other wants or needs. Whether or not there's chemistry between Baldi and Williams, there's no volatility. They don't even sound like they're having fun: the bummer attitude was a given, but neither is inspired to go beyond their own sonic boundaries, nor is there any sign of friendly one-upmanship, no indication that a truly great idea from these sessions wouldn't be tucked away for private usage. That wouldn't be much of an issue had this partnership reflected its low-key creative process by having Wavves X Cloud Nothings go by a different name or having the results given away as a freebie or just a lark. But No Life For Me is a 21-minute record with two instrumentals that costs $10—the same price you could pay for Attack on Memory or King of the Beach. Which is to say that Wavves X Cloud Nothings didn't need to result in a good album to justify its existence, but No Life For Me did."

Deantoni Parks

Technoself

Electronic

Jonah Bromwich

In the mid-'00s, a combination of Dilla’s Donuts, easy-to-use digital production technology like Fruity Loops, and websites like SoundCloud gave aspiring producers of instrumental rap a muse, a method, and a destination. The beat music ecosystem exploded; Donuts was a record that launched 10,000 loopers, a globalized corps of dedicated amateurs, some of whom—Shungu, Teebs, Lee, Knxwledge—have been able to break out ahead of the pack. But the SoundCloud universe isn’t necessarily kind to aspiring producers with no formal sense of what they’re doing behind the boards. Some of the stronger beat albums of the past decade have come from knowledgeable studio musicians, people like Karriem Riggins, who cut his teeth playing behind some of the biggest names in the world (Paul McCartney, Diana Krall). Deantoni Parks has a comparably decorated background: He’s collaborated with canonical progressive acts of several different decades (John Cale, Sade, the Mars Volta, Flying Lotus) and is an astounding technical musician, as evidenced by his tenure teaching at the Berklee College of Music, or, if you prefer, this Nike ad. Parks’ latest solo, Technoself, is above all else a showcase for what the Georgia native can do with a drum kit, a sampler, and a limited number of hands. (He only has two.) Every track here is a live recording, an astounding feat given the percussive complexity present on something like "Graphite", which with its surround-sound distortion and riffage feels as if it were carefully engineered over the course of a month of lab work. Frequently, the aggression of the drumming itself is a thrill. "Automatic" is a fantastic pump-up track, with the same wall-to-wall excitement as Eminem’s "Til I Collapse" (and none of the yelling.) The ambition on Technoself is staggering, particularly given the technical limits that Parks has imposed on himself. Album opener "Black Axioms" uses alternating samples and BPMs to deliver a crash course on modern African-American music, hinting at different eras and genres (blues, house, hip-hop, footwork) by use of speed and musical association. Another track, "Fosse in the Grass", manages to deal cleverly (and wordlessly!) with the issue of appropriation, as it references the choreographer Bob Fosse, and Michael Jackson’s famous borrowing of his moves for "Billie Jean". (Beyoncé was also accused of stealing from Fosse for the "Single Ladies" dance, worth noting given Parks’ connection to the queen through his work with producer Boots.) And yet, when building upon those two sturdy legs of musicianship and conceptual heft, Parks is sometimes guilty of leaving the third leg of the tripod unstable. Several of the tracks here are not all that much fun to listen to, and it can seem as if Parks values astounding his audience over engaging them. Try watching the video for the track "Bombay" and then simply listening to the instrumental. When you can see what Parks is doing with his set-up, you can’t help but to be impressed. But the track alone isn't even half as compelling. As an exercise in musicianship and high-level conceptual art, Technoself is masterful. But over the course of an entire album, it becomes overwhelming and just a little bit masturbatory.

Artist: Deantoni Parks, Album: Technoself, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "In the mid-'00s, a combination of Dilla’s Donuts, easy-to-use digital production technology like Fruity Loops, and websites like SoundCloud gave aspiring producers of instrumental rap a muse, a method, and a destination. The beat music ecosystem exploded; Donuts was a record that launched 10,000 loopers, a globalized corps of dedicated amateurs, some of whom—Shungu, Teebs, Lee, Knxwledge—have been able to break out ahead of the pack. But the SoundCloud universe isn’t necessarily kind to aspiring producers with no formal sense of what they’re doing behind the boards. Some of the stronger beat albums of the past decade have come from knowledgeable studio musicians, people like Karriem Riggins, who cut his teeth playing behind some of the biggest names in the world (Paul McCartney, Diana Krall). Deantoni Parks has a comparably decorated background: He’s collaborated with canonical progressive acts of several different decades (John Cale, Sade, the Mars Volta, Flying Lotus) and is an astounding technical musician, as evidenced by his tenure teaching at the Berklee College of Music, or, if you prefer, this Nike ad. Parks’ latest solo, Technoself, is above all else a showcase for what the Georgia native can do with a drum kit, a sampler, and a limited number of hands. (He only has two.) Every track here is a live recording, an astounding feat given the percussive complexity present on something like "Graphite", which with its surround-sound distortion and riffage feels as if it were carefully engineered over the course of a month of lab work. Frequently, the aggression of the drumming itself is a thrill. "Automatic" is a fantastic pump-up track, with the same wall-to-wall excitement as Eminem’s "Til I Collapse" (and none of the yelling.) The ambition on Technoself is staggering, particularly given the technical limits that Parks has imposed on himself. Album opener "Black Axioms" uses alternating samples and BPMs to deliver a crash course on modern African-American music, hinting at different eras and genres (blues, house, hip-hop, footwork) by use of speed and musical association. Another track, "Fosse in the Grass", manages to deal cleverly (and wordlessly!) with the issue of appropriation, as it references the choreographer Bob Fosse, and Michael Jackson’s famous borrowing of his moves for "Billie Jean". (Beyoncé was also accused of stealing from Fosse for the "Single Ladies" dance, worth noting given Parks’ connection to the queen through his work with producer Boots.) And yet, when building upon those two sturdy legs of musicianship and conceptual heft, Parks is sometimes guilty of leaving the third leg of the tripod unstable. Several of the tracks here are not all that much fun to listen to, and it can seem as if Parks values astounding his audience over engaging them. Try watching the video for the track "Bombay" and then simply listening to the instrumental. When you can see what Parks is doing with his set-up, you can’t help but to be impressed. But the track alone isn't even half as compelling. As an exercise in musicianship and high-level conceptual art, Technoself is masterful. But over the course of an entire album, it becomes overwhelming and just a little bit masturbatory."

K.C. Accidental

Captured Anthems For an Empty Bathtub / Anthems For the Could've Bin Pills

Electronic,Rock

David Bevan

"This is a message for Charlie, so can you please save it? Thank you." That's how Kevin Drew, frontman for Toronto indie rock super collective Broken Social Scene, opened what would become K.C. Accidental's very first recording, an answering machine sketch-turned-jam that he and longtime bandmate Charles Spearin slyly called "Kev's Message For Charlie". That was back in 1996. Drew began to play a very simple, one-finger keyboard melody, and Spearin added additional instrumentation. A bass figure there, a few liquid guitar chords here, a bit of brushed snare drum, and wham-- a song was born in such an unexpected, accidental way that it prompted Drew and Spearin to continue recording together. The whole thing lasts only two-and-half minutes, but it's magic: You can hear the bedrock of what would become Broken Social Scene as it began to form. "Kev's Message For Charlie" was one part of K.C. Accidental's first album, Captured Anthems For an Empty Bathtub. That six-song, self-released record has been paired with the follow-up LP, Anthems For the Could've Bin Pills, and is being given a deluxe wide release via Drew's Arts & Crafts imprint. Empty Bathtub was recorded by Spearin and Drew in the latter's childhood bedroom over the course of five days. It's by far the moodier and less focused of the two efforts, though again, in the overdriven guitar charge of opener "Nancy and the Girdle Boy" or loose, funereal feel of "Save the Last Breath for Me", a great deal of early chemistry between Drew and Spearin can be heard on tape. That's not so much the case in the jazz strokes of "Something For Chicago" or trance-y "Anorexic He-Man", two other experiments that never really take hold or display much synergy. For Could've Bin Pill, the two upgraded their studio setup and hunkered down in a friend's living room. Rather than play all the instruments themselves (save for the trumpet work of BSS's Jimmy Shaw), they added further layers from future BSS members Justin Peroff, Emily Haines, and Jason Collett. Haines actually provides vocals in a duet with Drew on "Them (Pop Song #3333)", his very first recording as a vocalist. The additions make for a more muscular unit, one whose expanse you can hear stretch and congeal nicely across every cut. As a whole, that approach provides a listenable, clear bridge to You Forgot It in People and onward. "Instrumental Died in the Bathtub and Took the Daydreams With It" builds naturally and beautifully, its guitar and violin parts constantly on the climb. And "Silverfish Eyelashes" swaps those guitars for washed-out synths, daisy chaining them with sad-eyed string flourishes to elegant, pre-Postal Service effect. Though the improvisational feel is still present here throughout, the focus that galvanizes every second more or less belies the original, "accidental" nature from which they took their name. Full-bodied, completely immersive songs like the gauzy "Ruined in 84" don't so much capture an impromptu experiment as they capture a band at work.

Artist: K.C. Accidental, Album: Captured Anthems For an Empty Bathtub / Anthems For the Could've Bin Pills, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: ""This is a message for Charlie, so can you please save it? Thank you." That's how Kevin Drew, frontman for Toronto indie rock super collective Broken Social Scene, opened what would become K.C. Accidental's very first recording, an answering machine sketch-turned-jam that he and longtime bandmate Charles Spearin slyly called "Kev's Message For Charlie". That was back in 1996. Drew began to play a very simple, one-finger keyboard melody, and Spearin added additional instrumentation. A bass figure there, a few liquid guitar chords here, a bit of brushed snare drum, and wham-- a song was born in such an unexpected, accidental way that it prompted Drew and Spearin to continue recording together. The whole thing lasts only two-and-half minutes, but it's magic: You can hear the bedrock of what would become Broken Social Scene as it began to form. "Kev's Message For Charlie" was one part of K.C. Accidental's first album, Captured Anthems For an Empty Bathtub. That six-song, self-released record has been paired with the follow-up LP, Anthems For the Could've Bin Pills, and is being given a deluxe wide release via Drew's Arts & Crafts imprint. Empty Bathtub was recorded by Spearin and Drew in the latter's childhood bedroom over the course of five days. It's by far the moodier and less focused of the two efforts, though again, in the overdriven guitar charge of opener "Nancy and the Girdle Boy" or loose, funereal feel of "Save the Last Breath for Me", a great deal of early chemistry between Drew and Spearin can be heard on tape. That's not so much the case in the jazz strokes of "Something For Chicago" or trance-y "Anorexic He-Man", two other experiments that never really take hold or display much synergy. For Could've Bin Pill, the two upgraded their studio setup and hunkered down in a friend's living room. Rather than play all the instruments themselves (save for the trumpet work of BSS's Jimmy Shaw), they added further layers from future BSS members Justin Peroff, Emily Haines, and Jason Collett. Haines actually provides vocals in a duet with Drew on "Them (Pop Song #3333)", his very first recording as a vocalist. The additions make for a more muscular unit, one whose expanse you can hear stretch and congeal nicely across every cut. As a whole, that approach provides a listenable, clear bridge to You Forgot It in People and onward. "Instrumental Died in the Bathtub and Took the Daydreams With It" builds naturally and beautifully, its guitar and violin parts constantly on the climb. And "Silverfish Eyelashes" swaps those guitars for washed-out synths, daisy chaining them with sad-eyed string flourishes to elegant, pre-Postal Service effect. Though the improvisational feel is still present here throughout, the focus that galvanizes every second more or less belies the original, "accidental" nature from which they took their name. Full-bodied, completely immersive songs like the gauzy "Ruined in 84" don't so much capture an impromptu experiment as they capture a band at work."

The Faint

Danse Macabre

Electronic,Rock

Kristin Sage Rockermann

The agony, desire, that none rise above The sweet aching torture from one that you love For some shall believe, while many find hard There is nothing quite like, the song of Macabre! Okay, so I ripped that off some goth chick's "webcave," but short of a tragico-absurdist interpretive dance, it's the best way to sum up the feelings I have for The Faint's new album, Danse Macabre. Indie rock (with the exception of the obscure supergroup The Hattifatteners) has never expressed much of an interest in a "ring of corpses holding hands," but if the kids really want to fight the culture industry through song, they should embrace this, as death does not care for social standing or wealth. Nor does dance! But let's start from the beginning: long before The Faint released Danse Macabre last Tuesday, the Bubonic plague wiped out approximately one-third of Europe's population. Fear of falling victim to the plague's wrath became a part of everyday life for the people of the time, inspiring a lot of art, poetry, music, and most importantly, woodcuts, about death. The Danse Macabre usually referred to representations of skeletons dancing or playing musical instruments. Danse Macabre is also a symphony by Camille Saint-Saens, a progressive-metal band from Birmingham, and an 18+ night on Thursdays. From what I gathered in my days studying woodcuts, the music of the Danse Macabre would cast a diabolical spell over people, drawing them towards the dance into death. And The Faint's Danse Macabre is no exception. These songs may ride on new-wave synth swells but they've got a New Order-like urgency and art-punk edge that throws off comparisons to Depeche Mode and The Human League. The album is primarily driven by keyboards, though Joel Petersen's live bass, Todd Baechle's occasional acoustic drums, and Saddle Creek cellist Gretta Cohn help the album avoid a sterile sound. Right from the start, Danse Macabre casts a gothic light on the ordinary (as opposed, of course, to the extraordinary). A song title like "Agenda Suicide" suggests something more in the order of Heaven's Gate than career paralegaling, but instead, the song details the wasted days of mindless work in the name of an empty American dream: "Our work makes pretty little homes/ Agenda suicide, the drones work hard before they die/ And give up on pretty little homes." Meanwhile, "Let the Poison Spill from your Throat" is gossip from the crypt. Social climbing and bitter words motivated by insecurity are made physical and grotesque: "If there's dirt you've got on someone/ You let it loose without a thought/ You let the poison spill/ Spurt from your throat/ Hiss like steam." Though The Faint's last album, Blank-Wave Arcade, was lyrically obsessed with sex, Danse Macabre seems to keep coming back to gothic paradoxes; the living die by agenda suicide, and mannequins are brought to life. Paralysis and involuntary movement or actions are common themes-- although paralysis is more likely to mean being trapped in daily routines than in coffins, and involuntary movements are caused by social pressure rather than Satanic possession. Still, these subjects seem well suited for synth-heavy anthems that lack subtlety in their thumping draw towards the dancefloor. So, sure, it's dancy, and unquestionably new-wave, but the Danse Macabre is anything but retro. The Faint might be using Duran Duran's keyboards, but rather than mimicking the past, they play with new-wave, goth, punk rock, and some old woodcuts to make a record entirely fresh and oddly optimistic in the way that only an album which commands you to "Danse!/ Danse the Danse Macabre!" can.

Artist: The Faint, Album: Danse Macabre, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "The agony, desire, that none rise above The sweet aching torture from one that you love For some shall believe, while many find hard There is nothing quite like, the song of Macabre! Okay, so I ripped that off some goth chick's "webcave," but short of a tragico-absurdist interpretive dance, it's the best way to sum up the feelings I have for The Faint's new album, Danse Macabre. Indie rock (with the exception of the obscure supergroup The Hattifatteners) has never expressed much of an interest in a "ring of corpses holding hands," but if the kids really want to fight the culture industry through song, they should embrace this, as death does not care for social standing or wealth. Nor does dance! But let's start from the beginning: long before The Faint released Danse Macabre last Tuesday, the Bubonic plague wiped out approximately one-third of Europe's population. Fear of falling victim to the plague's wrath became a part of everyday life for the people of the time, inspiring a lot of art, poetry, music, and most importantly, woodcuts, about death. The Danse Macabre usually referred to representations of skeletons dancing or playing musical instruments. Danse Macabre is also a symphony by Camille Saint-Saens, a progressive-metal band from Birmingham, and an 18+ night on Thursdays. From what I gathered in my days studying woodcuts, the music of the Danse Macabre would cast a diabolical spell over people, drawing them towards the dance into death. And The Faint's Danse Macabre is no exception. These songs may ride on new-wave synth swells but they've got a New Order-like urgency and art-punk edge that throws off comparisons to Depeche Mode and The Human League. The album is primarily driven by keyboards, though Joel Petersen's live bass, Todd Baechle's occasional acoustic drums, and Saddle Creek cellist Gretta Cohn help the album avoid a sterile sound. Right from the start, Danse Macabre casts a gothic light on the ordinary (as opposed, of course, to the extraordinary). A song title like "Agenda Suicide" suggests something more in the order of Heaven's Gate than career paralegaling, but instead, the song details the wasted days of mindless work in the name of an empty American dream: "Our work makes pretty little homes/ Agenda suicide, the drones work hard before they die/ And give up on pretty little homes." Meanwhile, "Let the Poison Spill from your Throat" is gossip from the crypt. Social climbing and bitter words motivated by insecurity are made physical and grotesque: "If there's dirt you've got on someone/ You let it loose without a thought/ You let the poison spill/ Spurt from your throat/ Hiss like steam." Though The Faint's last album, Blank-Wave Arcade, was lyrically obsessed with sex, Danse Macabre seems to keep coming back to gothic paradoxes; the living die by agenda suicide, and mannequins are brought to life. Paralysis and involuntary movement or actions are common themes-- although paralysis is more likely to mean being trapped in daily routines than in coffins, and involuntary movements are caused by social pressure rather than Satanic possession. Still, these subjects seem well suited for synth-heavy anthems that lack subtlety in their thumping draw towards the dancefloor. So, sure, it's dancy, and unquestionably new-wave, but the Danse Macabre is anything but retro. The Faint might be using Duran Duran's keyboards, but rather than mimicking the past, they play with new-wave, goth, punk rock, and some old woodcuts to make a record entirely fresh and oddly optimistic in the way that only an album which commands you to "Danse!/ Danse the Danse Macabre!" can."

American Catastrophe

Excerpts from the Broken Bone Choir

Rock

Liz Colville

Search this band's name on Google and you'll find references to just the kind of cataclysms the songs evoke. These six tracks, remastered and reissued by OxBlood in the band's native Kansas City, Mo., create a fuller picture of a band than many longer albums; at 33 minutes this is an EP bursting at the seams with hefty pieces that boast, indulge, and haunt. At surface level the references are clear: leader Shaun Hamontree is a Tom Waits fanatic, and everywhere are up-to-the-minute contemporary draws-- a Tarantino scene change, a Neko Case bridge, a Low vocal-- that serve as modern touches to gothic artifacts. This can lead us to several neighboring places. For one, the vertiginous funereal comedown of "The Farm", which manages to be both the warmest and most alienating of the tracks. At nearly eight minutes it alternately drones on and picks us up, like an unpredictable wind, the mournful vocals switching dominance with a more energetic percussion section, both of which Hamontree conducts with his central and overpowering role at the microphone. So early in the album this song could prophesy a leaden second half, but as it turns out, the band prefer to intersperse tempo ranges, alternating slow, heavily reverbed guitar tracks with the faster, stormier pieces dominated by drums. The musical cues evoked when the four members come together are far more interesting: It's a tumultuous yet controlled breed of rock that appears to communicate deeper than some of the rangy dustbowl guitar solos and explosively sad choruses elsewhere. "Wither" is the best example of this, though melodically it's more familiar, with twinkling, ominous arpeggios skittering around thick resolutions in bass and guitar at the chorus. The references in "Wither" are as much to sophisticated metal as to country and blues. The bow-out, "Tension", has a scintillating beauty that will remind listeners of Explosions in the Sky, whose fascination with simple repetitive guitar lines performed in peaceably empty outer space is transformed here, branded with American Catastrophe's smoke-filled noise-making. A delicate few notes on the electric guitar build up through their own monotony, leading to the inevitable crash and burn of cymbals and bass in the final seconds. As a teaser to what this band is currently working on (these songs were first recorded in 2005), Excerpts is confusingly colorful, painted in various shades of gray and blood red.

Artist: American Catastrophe, Album: Excerpts from the Broken Bone Choir, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "Search this band's name on Google and you'll find references to just the kind of cataclysms the songs evoke. These six tracks, remastered and reissued by OxBlood in the band's native Kansas City, Mo., create a fuller picture of a band than many longer albums; at 33 minutes this is an EP bursting at the seams with hefty pieces that boast, indulge, and haunt. At surface level the references are clear: leader Shaun Hamontree is a Tom Waits fanatic, and everywhere are up-to-the-minute contemporary draws-- a Tarantino scene change, a Neko Case bridge, a Low vocal-- that serve as modern touches to gothic artifacts. This can lead us to several neighboring places. For one, the vertiginous funereal comedown of "The Farm", which manages to be both the warmest and most alienating of the tracks. At nearly eight minutes it alternately drones on and picks us up, like an unpredictable wind, the mournful vocals switching dominance with a more energetic percussion section, both of which Hamontree conducts with his central and overpowering role at the microphone. So early in the album this song could prophesy a leaden second half, but as it turns out, the band prefer to intersperse tempo ranges, alternating slow, heavily reverbed guitar tracks with the faster, stormier pieces dominated by drums. The musical cues evoked when the four members come together are far more interesting: It's a tumultuous yet controlled breed of rock that appears to communicate deeper than some of the rangy dustbowl guitar solos and explosively sad choruses elsewhere. "Wither" is the best example of this, though melodically it's more familiar, with twinkling, ominous arpeggios skittering around thick resolutions in bass and guitar at the chorus. The references in "Wither" are as much to sophisticated metal as to country and blues. The bow-out, "Tension", has a scintillating beauty that will remind listeners of Explosions in the Sky, whose fascination with simple repetitive guitar lines performed in peaceably empty outer space is transformed here, branded with American Catastrophe's smoke-filled noise-making. A delicate few notes on the electric guitar build up through their own monotony, leading to the inevitable crash and burn of cymbals and bass in the final seconds. As a teaser to what this band is currently working on (these songs were first recorded in 2005), Excerpts is confusingly colorful, painted in various shades of gray and blood red."

The Souljazz Orchestra

Inner Fire

Winston Cook-Wilson

In the mid-2000s, Souljazz Orchestra emerged playing West African funk and highlife rife with propulsive horn hooks, blown-out keyboards, and call-and-response refrains full of political fervor. On Inner Fire, the Ottawa collective sounds different. The program is once again curated by composer and bandleader Pierre Chrétien, who brings a crate-digger’s thirst for obscure and offbeat musical idioms. Under his direction, SJO patch together swatches of North American, African, and Latin styles to create hybrids that resist easy categorization. Much of Inner Fire consists of intricately arranged, harmonically adventurous Afro-Latin jazz; this sound, when paired with the lush piano and vibraphone backgrounds Chrétien favors, creates resonances with Mulatu Astatke’s Ethio-jazz. The driving polyrhythms of Nigerian folk music that marked their earlier work are set aside in favor of more laid-back percussion indigenous to the Americas. The album’s highlights are its most culturally ambiguous selections, like “One Life to Live”, which mixes rhumba and reggaeton rhythms, and “Sommet En Sommet”, a dense, three-against-four shuffle influenced partially by Guinean music. “As the Crow Flies”, the single finest track, unites an unsettled horn theme and modal chord changes that would be at home on a pre-electric Herbie Hancock record with a bossa nova backbeat. Equally fundamental to the ethos of Inner Fire is the school of spiritual jazz that blossomed in the wake of John Coltrane’s Eastern-influenced explorations of the mid–1960s. The band has always claimed the style as a source of inspiration—their 2007 album Freedom No Go Die features a rendition of Pharoah Sanders’ hypnotic half-hour opus “The Creator Has a Master Plan”. Steve Patterson and Ray Murray, the SJO’s tenor and baritone players, often channel the legendary saxophonist in their solos, and Chrétien frequently emulates the keyboard flourishes of McCoy Tyner and Alice Coltrane. Inner Fire falters when the ensemble attempts full pieces in the “spiritual” mold, as on “Black Orchid", a slick piece of lite-funk. The spare, blues-inflected dirge “East Flows the River” lacks some much-needed disruptive element or event to keep it from sounding like a jazzy piece of boom-bap rap production without an MC. “Celestial Blues”, a cover of a Roland Kirk-styled piece of 70s avant-soul by Gary Bartz NTU Troop makes one curious about the original record, but the SJO’s version itself ultimately comes off as inert. Inner Fire's biggest problem is a sporadic lack of energy. The band’s recent interest in more introspective and less tightly structured music doesn’t always play to their strengths, namely, their ability to devise and deliver taut and constantly mutating arrangements. But the group's impulse to dismantle and globalize their sound (or their refusal to settle on one) is admirable, and their efforts to do so result in some inventive moments.

Artist: The Souljazz Orchestra, Album: Inner Fire, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "In the mid-2000s, Souljazz Orchestra emerged playing West African funk and highlife rife with propulsive horn hooks, blown-out keyboards, and call-and-response refrains full of political fervor. On Inner Fire, the Ottawa collective sounds different. The program is once again curated by composer and bandleader Pierre Chrétien, who brings a crate-digger’s thirst for obscure and offbeat musical idioms. Under his direction, SJO patch together swatches of North American, African, and Latin styles to create hybrids that resist easy categorization. Much of Inner Fire consists of intricately arranged, harmonically adventurous Afro-Latin jazz; this sound, when paired with the lush piano and vibraphone backgrounds Chrétien favors, creates resonances with Mulatu Astatke’s Ethio-jazz. The driving polyrhythms of Nigerian folk music that marked their earlier work are set aside in favor of more laid-back percussion indigenous to the Americas. The album’s highlights are its most culturally ambiguous selections, like “One Life to Live”, which mixes rhumba and reggaeton rhythms, and “Sommet En Sommet”, a dense, three-against-four shuffle influenced partially by Guinean music. “As the Crow Flies”, the single finest track, unites an unsettled horn theme and modal chord changes that would be at home on a pre-electric Herbie Hancock record with a bossa nova backbeat. Equally fundamental to the ethos of Inner Fire is the school of spiritual jazz that blossomed in the wake of John Coltrane’s Eastern-influenced explorations of the mid–1960s. The band has always claimed the style as a source of inspiration—their 2007 album Freedom No Go Die features a rendition of Pharoah Sanders’ hypnotic half-hour opus “The Creator Has a Master Plan”. Steve Patterson and Ray Murray, the SJO’s tenor and baritone players, often channel the legendary saxophonist in their solos, and Chrétien frequently emulates the keyboard flourishes of McCoy Tyner and Alice Coltrane. Inner Fire falters when the ensemble attempts full pieces in the “spiritual” mold, as on “Black Orchid", a slick piece of lite-funk. The spare, blues-inflected dirge “East Flows the River” lacks some much-needed disruptive element or event to keep it from sounding like a jazzy piece of boom-bap rap production without an MC. “Celestial Blues”, a cover of a Roland Kirk-styled piece of 70s avant-soul by Gary Bartz NTU Troop makes one curious about the original record, but the SJO’s version itself ultimately comes off as inert. Inner Fire's biggest problem is a sporadic lack of energy. The band’s recent interest in more introspective and less tightly structured music doesn’t always play to their strengths, namely, their ability to devise and deliver taut and constantly mutating arrangements. But the group's impulse to dismantle and globalize their sound (or their refusal to settle on one) is admirable, and their efforts to do so result in some inventive moments."

Moon B

II

Andy Beta

It’s fitting that Sussegad, the first 12” offering from Moon B, was pressed onto wax whose swirl of black and gray resembled smoke. The Atlanta-based producer (also known as Wes Gray) makes music that has qualities similar to that peculiar element: the music obfuscates its origins, has an untenable aspect to its sound and, well, it sounds better when you’re smoking something on a basement couch, at once digging the beat while similarly forgetting just what it is you’re listening to. Gray’s debut album was released on the Washington, D.C. imprint Peoples Potential Unlimited in 2012 without much in the way of cover art, or even song titles. Much like the other releases on that imprint, Moon B’s music favors miasma over certainty, avoiding easy genre characterization while also drawing on distinct musical tropes of the early 1980s. Much like his fellow labelmate Benedek, the music that Moon B releases is made from a mix of hardware, drum machines and samples of cheap 12”s that might never get ID’d by anyone beyond the most obscure of DJs. In some ways, Moon B’s new album, II, is a step up: the production is a little crisper, the tracks have titles, and there’s actually sleeve art, in this case a peculiar painting of an African-American man standing in the middle of the road at night, a chicken in one hand, his other raised in a fist. Not much is expanded upon beyond that, though, and while the music itself has grown trickier, it hasn’t ranged far from what he laid down on his first singles. Opener “Gulls” begins with the sound of eerie analog keyboards from Music has the Right to Children-era Boards of Canada before canned handclaps take over, the track meandering into such disparate zones as synth-funk, '80s B-boy soundtracks, and smooth jazz without ever quite landing in one: pop and lock to it, or else just chill until the track dissolves back into white noise. The album standout is also the track with the best title: “Stank Tartare.” The synth bass is queasy and deep and slightly warped, as if originating from an obscure funk tape left on the dashboardone summer afternoon. “Green Sky” has the kind of stiff yet rubberbanding rhythm to it that connects the dots between Kraftwerk and Whodini. Funk, soul, boogie, jazz, R&B, electro, New Age, even touches of house music: all sorts of familiar yet unmoored sounds emerge from Moon B’s haze, and nothing remains in focus for long. When some tracks begin, it already seems like they have the potential to take divergent paths, from a thumping house track or else a woozy early garage house instrumental—or, if it's Moon B's wish, a narrow path between the two. Yet, in touching on all these genres and running them through all sorts of samplers and drum machines (among the listed equipment used: Kawai K1, ESQ-1, Roland Alpha Juno 1, Yamaha DX21, Korg Microsampler, Tascam 424), there’s one thing curiously absent from the above list of genres: hip-hop. His working methods are not dissimilar from any post-Dilla hip-hop producers, but Moon B presents a parallel world in which hip-hop never happened, where the beats are dope but not dope enough where someone would drop rhymes atop them. I wonder how these tracks might change with someone else on them, but for now, the music produces an uncanny feeling, like the presence of smoke but no real fire.

Artist: Moon B, Album: II, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "It’s fitting that Sussegad, the first 12” offering from Moon B, was pressed onto wax whose swirl of black and gray resembled smoke. The Atlanta-based producer (also known as Wes Gray) makes music that has qualities similar to that peculiar element: the music obfuscates its origins, has an untenable aspect to its sound and, well, it sounds better when you’re smoking something on a basement couch, at once digging the beat while similarly forgetting just what it is you’re listening to. Gray’s debut album was released on the Washington, D.C. imprint Peoples Potential Unlimited in 2012 without much in the way of cover art, or even song titles. Much like the other releases on that imprint, Moon B’s music favors miasma over certainty, avoiding easy genre characterization while also drawing on distinct musical tropes of the early 1980s. Much like his fellow labelmate Benedek, the music that Moon B releases is made from a mix of hardware, drum machines and samples of cheap 12”s that might never get ID’d by anyone beyond the most obscure of DJs. In some ways, Moon B’s new album, II, is a step up: the production is a little crisper, the tracks have titles, and there’s actually sleeve art, in this case a peculiar painting of an African-American man standing in the middle of the road at night, a chicken in one hand, his other raised in a fist. Not much is expanded upon beyond that, though, and while the music itself has grown trickier, it hasn’t ranged far from what he laid down on his first singles. Opener “Gulls” begins with the sound of eerie analog keyboards from Music has the Right to Children-era Boards of Canada before canned handclaps take over, the track meandering into such disparate zones as synth-funk, '80s B-boy soundtracks, and smooth jazz without ever quite landing in one: pop and lock to it, or else just chill until the track dissolves back into white noise. The album standout is also the track with the best title: “Stank Tartare.” The synth bass is queasy and deep and slightly warped, as if originating from an obscure funk tape left on the dashboardone summer afternoon. “Green Sky” has the kind of stiff yet rubberbanding rhythm to it that connects the dots between Kraftwerk and Whodini. Funk, soul, boogie, jazz, R&B, electro, New Age, even touches of house music: all sorts of familiar yet unmoored sounds emerge from Moon B’s haze, and nothing remains in focus for long. When some tracks begin, it already seems like they have the potential to take divergent paths, from a thumping house track or else a woozy early garage house instrumental—or, if it's Moon B's wish, a narrow path between the two. Yet, in touching on all these genres and running them through all sorts of samplers and drum machines (among the listed equipment used: Kawai K1, ESQ-1, Roland Alpha Juno 1, Yamaha DX21, Korg Microsampler, Tascam 424), there’s one thing curiously absent from the above list of genres: hip-hop. His working methods are not dissimilar from any post-Dilla hip-hop producers, but Moon B presents a parallel world in which hip-hop never happened, where the beats are dope but not dope enough where someone would drop rhymes atop them. I wonder how these tracks might change with someone else on them, but for now, the music produces an uncanny feeling, like the presence of smoke but no real fire."

Pink Floyd

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn [40th Anniversary Edition]

Rock

Joshua Klein

They say legendry lysergic prophet Timothy Leary used to dose the drinks at parties with LSD, but it might not have been necessary. By the tail end of the 1960s, something was already in the air (and water) marking a radical cultural shift; recreational drugs were just one part of the anti-establishment equation. By 1967, year of the Summer of Love, the counterculture made a valiant bid to supplant the dominant culture, and in retrospect a strong case can be made that the counter-culture won. At the forefront of this battle, in Britain, were acts like Pink Floyd, fixtures of the nascent underground psychedelic scene. Granted, they were fixtures of the infamous UFO Club and the toast of no less than Paul McCartney (allegedly a recent convert to the powers of psychotropic drugs), but the band never claimed to be spokespersons for the revolution. They weren't leaders but fellow travelers-- at least until their epochal debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Piper was recorded at Abbey Road at the same time the Beatles were there recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the results couldn't have been more at odds with one another. Where the Beatles exerted complete control over the tools of the studio, Pink Floyd used the studio to lose control. It didn't hurt that the band's primary songwriter and visionary Syd Barrett was on the verge of permanently losing control himself. Less than a year after the release of Piper, in 1967, Barrett was out of the band, one of the most prominent and tragic casualties of the rock era. Of course, while Barrett lived out the remainder of his life as one of the psychedelic age's walking wounded, Pink Floyd went on to much bigger (if not necessarily) better things. Their catalog remains an AOR goldmine, the gift that keeps on giving for the band's principals, who, all said and done, released relatively few records during their heyday, but who have benefited a thousand fold from their efforts. The 40th anniversary edition of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn-- overseen by producer James Guthrie, who engineered and co-produced The Wall and who first cleaned up Piper for its 1994 reissue-- is now available as either a 2xCD or 3xCD set, but don't get your hopes up for a bounty of rarities or other goodies. The former includes both the stereo version of the album as well as the mono version (which many Floyd fanatics find superior). The 3xCD edition includes an extra disc covering the group's classic 1967 singles "Arnold Layne" and "Apples and Oranges", their respective B-sides "Candy and a Currant Bun" and "Paintbox", an alternate take of "Matilda Mother", two alternate versions of "Interstellar Overdrive", and a stereo version of "Apples and Oranges". Only "Matilda Mother" and one take on "Interstellar Overdrive" are previously unreleased. A special edition of Piper was inevitable, but so was the failure of any reissue as incomprehensive as this one: This new edition underscores the reality that EMI and/or the surviving members of Pink Floyd-- especially since they shifted from band to de facto corporation-- have been either downright stingy with their unreleased archives or hopelessly coy about what may lie in there, leaving fans to settle for second-hand scraps like those on A Treeful of Secrets, a 17xCD fan-made rarities compilation. From a fan's perspective, Pink Floyd, Inc. has been either indifferent at best (or hostile at worst) to the notion of managing its legacy-- especially its formative years-- and has only reluctantly taken up caretaking duties as part and parcel of cordoning it off. Few would criticize the merits of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn itself (as reflected in the rating above)-- it's an essential album. While so many other products of the Summer of Love were positive and unifying, Piper was fractured and scary. Songs like "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive" captured the sustained improvisational freakouts of the band's live shows, but did so in more concise form. Other songs, like "Lucifer Sam," "Bike", and "The Gnome", split the difference between quirky pop songs and explorations of the nightmarish found-sound fringe, setting a twisted template for countless acts to come. By 1980's The Wall, Pink Floyd had become sterile and solipsistic. At this auspicious start, Pink Floyd were thrilling. Anything was possible. Those aforementioned singles, "Arnold Layne" (produced by early Floyd booster Joe Boyd) and "See Emily Play", probably remain the best distillations of early Pink Floyd, and in particular the pop genius of Syd Barrett. They set the stage not only for the more sustained vision of Piper, but also Barrett's all-too-brief subsequent solo output, before he receded into the background. In fact, it's the presence of Barrett (who wrote all but one song on Piper) that accounts for the album's influence as more than just a psychedelic relic. As a lyricist, his stream-of-conscious nonsense verses are every bit the match of Lewis Carroll. As a vocalist, often singing with keyboardist Rick Wright, his languid delivery lends the album a dreamy quality at odds with its menace. You can catch glimpses of Barrett's subconscious in a 12-page reproduction of one of his notebooks, hanging as bait for ardent fans to shell out for the deluxe 3xCD version (selling for around $40), but at least the tactile document is something you can't get anywhere else. That's not the case for the rest of this anniversary set. Even taking into account the remastering, the long-available stereo edition of Piper can now be discounted as little more than a novelty. Yet you can only buy the mono version on its own through iTunes. Double-dipping is one thing; compelling fans to double-dip is another, and the unavailability of the mono version as a stand-alone CD purchase is the kind of move that all but goads downloaders to do exactly what their gut tells them to do. Maybe Pink Floyd can't be bothered to troll through the BBC archives for live material, footage or lost tapes, or bake old masters to their sonic satisfaction, but certainly they can hire someone to do it for them. The appetite is there, which makes such a banal celebration of this psychedelic masterwork so disappointing.

Artist: Pink Floyd, Album: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn [40th Anniversary Edition], Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 9.4 Album review: "They say legendry lysergic prophet Timothy Leary used to dose the drinks at parties with LSD, but it might not have been necessary. By the tail end of the 1960s, something was already in the air (and water) marking a radical cultural shift; recreational drugs were just one part of the anti-establishment equation. By 1967, year of the Summer of Love, the counterculture made a valiant bid to supplant the dominant culture, and in retrospect a strong case can be made that the counter-culture won. At the forefront of this battle, in Britain, were acts like Pink Floyd, fixtures of the nascent underground psychedelic scene. Granted, they were fixtures of the infamous UFO Club and the toast of no less than Paul McCartney (allegedly a recent convert to the powers of psychotropic drugs), but the band never claimed to be spokespersons for the revolution. They weren't leaders but fellow travelers-- at least until their epochal debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Piper was recorded at Abbey Road at the same time the Beatles were there recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the results couldn't have been more at odds with one another. Where the Beatles exerted complete control over the tools of the studio, Pink Floyd used the studio to lose control. It didn't hurt that the band's primary songwriter and visionary Syd Barrett was on the verge of permanently losing control himself. Less than a year after the release of Piper, in 1967, Barrett was out of the band, one of the most prominent and tragic casualties of the rock era. Of course, while Barrett lived out the remainder of his life as one of the psychedelic age's walking wounded, Pink Floyd went on to much bigger (if not necessarily) better things. Their catalog remains an AOR goldmine, the gift that keeps on giving for the band's principals, who, all said and done, released relatively few records during their heyday, but who have benefited a thousand fold from their efforts. The 40th anniversary edition of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn-- overseen by producer James Guthrie, who engineered and co-produced The Wall and who first cleaned up Piper for its 1994 reissue-- is now available as either a 2xCD or 3xCD set, but don't get your hopes up for a bounty of rarities or other goodies. The former includes both the stereo version of the album as well as the mono version (which many Floyd fanatics find superior). The 3xCD edition includes an extra disc covering the group's classic 1967 singles "Arnold Layne" and "Apples and Oranges", their respective B-sides "Candy and a Currant Bun" and "Paintbox", an alternate take of "Matilda Mother", two alternate versions of "Interstellar Overdrive", and a stereo version of "Apples and Oranges". Only "Matilda Mother" and one take on "Interstellar Overdrive" are previously unreleased. A special edition of Piper was inevitable, but so was the failure of any reissue as incomprehensive as this one: This new edition underscores the reality that EMI and/or the surviving members of Pink Floyd-- especially since they shifted from band to de facto corporation-- have been either downright stingy with their unreleased archives or hopelessly coy about what may lie in there, leaving fans to settle for second-hand scraps like those on A Treeful of Secrets, a 17xCD fan-made rarities compilation. From a fan's perspective, Pink Floyd, Inc. has been either indifferent at best (or hostile at worst) to the notion of managing its legacy-- especially its formative years-- and has only reluctantly taken up caretaking duties as part and parcel of cordoning it off. Few would criticize the merits of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn itself (as reflected in the rating above)-- it's an essential album. While so many other products of the Summer of Love were positive and unifying, Piper was fractured and scary. Songs like "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive" captured the sustained improvisational freakouts of the band's live shows, but did so in more concise form. Other songs, like "Lucifer Sam," "Bike", and "The Gnome", split the difference between quirky pop songs and explorations of the nightmarish found-sound fringe, setting a twisted template for countless acts to come. By 1980's The Wall, Pink Floyd had become sterile and solipsistic. At this auspicious start, Pink Floyd were thrilling. Anything was possible. Those aforementioned singles, "Arnold Layne" (produced by early Floyd booster Joe Boyd) and "See Emily Play", probably remain the best distillations of early Pink Floyd, and in particular the pop genius of Syd Barrett. They set the stage not only for the more sustained vision of Piper, but also Barrett's all-too-brief subsequent solo output, before he receded into the background. In fact, it's the presence of Barrett (who wrote all but one song on Piper) that accounts for the album's influence as more than just a psychedelic relic. As a lyricist, his stream-of-conscious nonsense verses are every bit the match of Lewis Carroll. As a vocalist, often singing with keyboardist Rick Wright, his languid delivery lends the album a dreamy quality at odds with its menace. You can catch glimpses of Barrett's subconscious in a 12-page reproduction of one of his notebooks, hanging as bait for ardent fans to shell out for the deluxe 3xCD version (selling for around $40), but at least the tactile document is something you can't get anywhere else. That's not the case for the rest of this anniversary set. Even taking into account the remastering, the long-available stereo edition of Piper can now be discounted as little more than a novelty. Yet you can only buy the mono version on its own through iTunes. Double-dipping is one thing; compelling fans to double-dip is another, and the unavailability of the mono version as a stand-alone CD purchase is the kind of move that all but goads downloaders to do exactly what their gut tells them to do. Maybe Pink Floyd can't be bothered to troll through the BBC archives for live material, footage or lost tapes, or bake old masters to their sonic satisfaction, but certainly they can hire someone to do it for them. The appetite is there, which makes such a banal celebration of this psychedelic masterwork so disappointing."

Jackmaster

DJ-Kicks

Electronic

Nathan Reese

Glaswegian DJ Jackmaster (a.k.a Jack Revill) is best known for his ability to traverse genres, decades, and moods in a few sweaty hours. In one set he might jump from Hudson Mohawke to Anthony Shakir to Prince; an extended house jam might morph into crisp techno; those 808s or 909s you’re hearing could be a crate digger’s treasure or a soon-to-be chart topper. With Jackmaster, the *what’s next? *and *who’s that? *are part of the adventure. He’s a DJ’s DJ and a crowd pleaser, but not one before the other. Jackmaster is also famous for what he is not: a composer. At a time when “producer” and “DJ” are nearly synonymous, Revill’s emphasis on purely DJing is almost quaint—but also refreshing. He knows his job is to curate, mix, and recontextualize other people’s records, not make his own music, and he’s good at it. A side-effect is that releases with Jackmaster’s name attached have more significance than they might for another artist, for whom a mix might be seen as an afterthought to their LPs or singles. So, for Jackmaster, an entry in the prestigious DJ-Kicks series provides an opportunity for listeners to get a taste of what he offers in a live setting, albeit with more time for him to tinker and refine. This is as much of a Jackmaster record as we’re ever likely to get. Because Revill isn’t a producer, he’s had to build his fan base almost entirely by working in front of an audience. He plays a lot—some 200 times in a year, he’s said—and started in his teens. Today, Jackmaster remains a fixture at Numbers, the label he helps run and which has thrown an influential party for more than a decade. (The label has released music from SOPHIE, Rustie, SBTRKT, and Jamie xx, to name a few.) He’s the sort of name that is equally comfortable at festivals like the EDM-leaning Ultra or London's fabric, where you might find him on a bill with Ricardo Villalobos. At 30, Jackmaster isn’t old by any means, but he’s a veteran who can keep jaded audiences thirsty for the unexpected, and he brings that experience to his official releases. Like his live shows, Jackmaster’s DJ-Kicks selections are an eclectic, precise, and unflaggingly propulsive collection of old and new. Revill has said the album should been read as a love letter to the music of Detroit, Chicago, and Glasgow and it’s true that *DJ-Kicks *may be Jackmaster’s most streamlined release to date. (He’s also said that it’s a look back at his early days as a straight-forward techno DJ.) The record takes its time heating up with a mood-setting, scene-stealing cut from 1080p staple LNRDCROY before heading off to the races with an exclusive, deftly-edited vocal-driven track from Denis Sulta called “MSNJ”—already a club hit in advance of the mix. Other up-front winners include Massimiliano Pagliara’s “I Am Running All My Drum Machines At Once And Dancing,” whose title is an accurate description of its contents: it slides seamlessly into Chicago house legend Mike Dunn’s early ’90s cut “A Groove.” Another exclusive—Alcatraz Harry’s “Ode To Frankfurt”—is a fun and funky house track. Jackmaster saves the highest highs for the third of the mix, building to his finale slowly and assuredly. A fantastic, exclusive Tessela cut, “Up (Demo Version),” is paired with Riccardo Villalobos’ “Logohitz,” for a bit of driving techno. It’s Jackmaster at his best—a combination of the new and now with a beloved mainstay. The album ends with a three-punch denouement starting with Underground Resistance co-founder Robert Hood’s “The Pace,” then a trip to mid-’90s Detroit with Overmow’s “Convulsions,” and, finally, Pom Pom, who closes the mix breathlessly and beautifully with “POM POM 18 B2.” According to Jackmaster, putting together *DJ-Kicks *was marred by near disaster. Assembly started in a rush while DJing on a cruise, was set back by a lost hard drive, and took four or five complete revisions before he was happy with it. Listening to the record today, however, none of those seams show. Jackmaster lets his choices breathe and doesn’t hurry from cut to cut for the sake of covering more ground, even as tracks pool together and reform anew. A fun way to listen to the record might be to read the release dates of the tracks—’90s, ’00s, ’10s—as they fly by. It's the sort of fluidity that house and techno heads appreciate and dancefloors thrive on, something you don’t often notice until it's *not *happening or too awkwardly executed to ignore. With Jackmaster, laser-focused competency becomes its own sort of thrill.

Artist: Jackmaster, Album: DJ-Kicks, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Glaswegian DJ Jackmaster (a.k.a Jack Revill) is best known for his ability to traverse genres, decades, and moods in a few sweaty hours. In one set he might jump from Hudson Mohawke to Anthony Shakir to Prince; an extended house jam might morph into crisp techno; those 808s or 909s you’re hearing could be a crate digger’s treasure or a soon-to-be chart topper. With Jackmaster, the *what’s next? *and *who’s that? *are part of the adventure. He’s a DJ’s DJ and a crowd pleaser, but not one before the other. Jackmaster is also famous for what he is not: a composer. At a time when “producer” and “DJ” are nearly synonymous, Revill’s emphasis on purely DJing is almost quaint—but also refreshing. He knows his job is to curate, mix, and recontextualize other people’s records, not make his own music, and he’s good at it. A side-effect is that releases with Jackmaster’s name attached have more significance than they might for another artist, for whom a mix might be seen as an afterthought to their LPs or singles. So, for Jackmaster, an entry in the prestigious DJ-Kicks series provides an opportunity for listeners to get a taste of what he offers in a live setting, albeit with more time for him to tinker and refine. This is as much of a Jackmaster record as we’re ever likely to get. Because Revill isn’t a producer, he’s had to build his fan base almost entirely by working in front of an audience. He plays a lot—some 200 times in a year, he’s said—and started in his teens. Today, Jackmaster remains a fixture at Numbers, the label he helps run and which has thrown an influential party for more than a decade. (The label has released music from SOPHIE, Rustie, SBTRKT, and Jamie xx, to name a few.) He’s the sort of name that is equally comfortable at festivals like the EDM-leaning Ultra or London's fabric, where you might find him on a bill with Ricardo Villalobos. At 30, Jackmaster isn’t old by any means, but he’s a veteran who can keep jaded audiences thirsty for the unexpected, and he brings that experience to his official releases. Like his live shows, Jackmaster’s DJ-Kicks selections are an eclectic, precise, and unflaggingly propulsive collection of old and new. Revill has said the album should been read as a love letter to the music of Detroit, Chicago, and Glasgow and it’s true that *DJ-Kicks *may be Jackmaster’s most streamlined release to date. (He’s also said that it’s a look back at his early days as a straight-forward techno DJ.) The record takes its time heating up with a mood-setting, scene-stealing cut from 1080p staple LNRDCROY before heading off to the races with an exclusive, deftly-edited vocal-driven track from Denis Sulta called “MSNJ”—already a club hit in advance of the mix. Other up-front winners include Massimiliano Pagliara’s “I Am Running All My Drum Machines At Once And Dancing,” whose title is an accurate description of its contents: it slides seamlessly into Chicago house legend Mike Dunn’s early ’90s cut “A Groove.” Another exclusive—Alcatraz Harry’s “Ode To Frankfurt”—is a fun and funky house track. Jackmaster saves the highest highs for the third of the mix, building to his finale slowly and assuredly. A fantastic, exclusive Tessela cut, “Up (Demo Version),” is paired with Riccardo Villalobos’ “Logohitz,” for a bit of driving techno. It’s Jackmaster at his best—a combination of the new and now with a beloved mainstay. The album ends with a three-punch denouement starting with Underground Resistance co-founder Robert Hood’s “The Pace,” then a trip to mid-’90s Detroit with Overmow’s “Convulsions,” and, finally, Pom Pom, who closes the mix breathlessly and beautifully with “POM POM 18 B2.” According to Jackmaster, putting together *DJ-Kicks *was marred by near disaster. Assembly started in a rush while DJing on a cruise, was set back by a lost hard drive, and took four or five complete revisions before he was happy with it. Listening to the record today, however, none of those seams show. Jackmaster lets his choices breathe and doesn’t hurry from cut to cut for the sake of covering more ground, even as tracks pool together and reform anew. A fun way to listen to the record might be to read the release dates of the tracks—’90s, ’00s, ’10s—as they fly by. It's the sort of fluidity that house and techno heads appreciate and dancefloors thrive on, something you don’t often notice until it's *not *happening or too awkwardly executed to ignore. With Jackmaster, laser-focused competency becomes its own sort of thrill."

Mad Music Inc.

Mad Music

Andy Beta

Looking for concrete information on this obscure LP, pressed up by the conglomerate calling itself Mad Music Inc. in the greater Boston area circa 1977, is maddening. Ask the two record labels responsible for its being re-pressed after residing deep in obscurity for over 30 years and you might get answers like: "The album was created in part for research and therapeutic purposes, but that's all we can say," or, "a few of the names of the professional studio musicians who played on the record might be familiar to aficionados of the disco era." Also: "Play the record, and everything becomes more unclear still..." If it helps to muddy matters, there's a straight-faced PDF on the Yoga Records website that accompanies their reissue of this genre-sloughing, beguiling, idiosyncratic LP, as well as a Mad Music logo of what may be a laughing Lex Luthor with an 8-track player embedded in the side of his head, a long-since disconnected phone number underneath. Yet there are no answers for what Mad Music Inc. ever was, if it was in fact anything other than a self-funded whim undertaken in the late 70s. In talking to Yoga's Douglas Mcgowan, he insinuated that the project stemmed from one Bostonian in particular who dabbled in the piano and had the discretionary funds to hire a bunch of studio musicians to flesh out such musings. He then went on to compare the proceedings to when early 20th-century spiritual teacher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff had his hummings turned into piano music by composer and spiritual devotee Thomas de Hartmann. There is an ineffable spiritual feel to the 11 untitled tracks that constitute Mad Music, at times bolstered by what sounds like a sonic precursor to New Age music. And for readers who instinctively shiver at the latter genre, be forewarned the album has plenty of flute and harp coursing across its sides, especially on the opening track, suggesting a mellow moment from either an Alice Coltrane record or a privately pressed record that teaches you how to breathe. But for all of its seeming New Age earmarks, the ever-shifting music here courses and changes so that MMInc. soon never feels beholden to any one genre. The third track mingles piano, sitar, and a wordless female vocal that evokes middle-period Popul Vuh, as elegant and weightless as Ophelia's lace adrift in a river. But minutes later, on the fourth track, there's a funky, elastic bassline wrapping around the piano line, and a female voices cooing "aah" and "la" that briefly evoke the weird Steely Dan moment that occurs on adventurous composer Blue Gene Tyranny's 1978 album Out of the Blue. Of all the songs, this one seems most likely to correspond to a track called "Gospel Disco", the never-pressed 45 label art that also appears in that befuddling PDF. At other moments, the fastidious and distinct envisioning of how to make so many sounds come together remind me of certain aspects of Italian composer Luciano Cilio's devastating album from the year before, Dialoghi del presente. Most of the second half of the album emphasizes this mysterious creator's piano meditations, sometimes featuring a bit of French horn or cymbal (and in one instance, a creaking door), foretelling of the imminent "New Age" invasion just on the horizon. It's not for every reader's sensibilities, but fans of the aforementioned artists would enjoy such a mystery. And there's a peculiarity present, in part serious but also mischievous-- clues and red herrings both-- that dashes any pat classification. When it first appeared in 1977, each copy of Mad Music Inc. contained random ephemera perhaps associated with the recording process (which Drag City painstakingly recreates here), from photos of a Moog synthesizer to instructions for installing an underwater loudspeaker to a 1973 article published in The New Englander titled "Business Tries Meditating", surmising that the "Maharishi makes sense in board room." Which may be the most sensible statement here.

Artist: Mad Music Inc., Album: Mad Music, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "Looking for concrete information on this obscure LP, pressed up by the conglomerate calling itself Mad Music Inc. in the greater Boston area circa 1977, is maddening. Ask the two record labels responsible for its being re-pressed after residing deep in obscurity for over 30 years and you might get answers like: "The album was created in part for research and therapeutic purposes, but that's all we can say," or, "a few of the names of the professional studio musicians who played on the record might be familiar to aficionados of the disco era." Also: "Play the record, and everything becomes more unclear still..." If it helps to muddy matters, there's a straight-faced PDF on the Yoga Records website that accompanies their reissue of this genre-sloughing, beguiling, idiosyncratic LP, as well as a Mad Music logo of what may be a laughing Lex Luthor with an 8-track player embedded in the side of his head, a long-since disconnected phone number underneath. Yet there are no answers for what Mad Music Inc. ever was, if it was in fact anything other than a self-funded whim undertaken in the late 70s. In talking to Yoga's Douglas Mcgowan, he insinuated that the project stemmed from one Bostonian in particular who dabbled in the piano and had the discretionary funds to hire a bunch of studio musicians to flesh out such musings. He then went on to compare the proceedings to when early 20th-century spiritual teacher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff had his hummings turned into piano music by composer and spiritual devotee Thomas de Hartmann. There is an ineffable spiritual feel to the 11 untitled tracks that constitute Mad Music, at times bolstered by what sounds like a sonic precursor to New Age music. And for readers who instinctively shiver at the latter genre, be forewarned the album has plenty of flute and harp coursing across its sides, especially on the opening track, suggesting a mellow moment from either an Alice Coltrane record or a privately pressed record that teaches you how to breathe. But for all of its seeming New Age earmarks, the ever-shifting music here courses and changes so that MMInc. soon never feels beholden to any one genre. The third track mingles piano, sitar, and a wordless female vocal that evokes middle-period Popul Vuh, as elegant and weightless as Ophelia's lace adrift in a river. But minutes later, on the fourth track, there's a funky, elastic bassline wrapping around the piano line, and a female voices cooing "aah" and "la" that briefly evoke the weird Steely Dan moment that occurs on adventurous composer Blue Gene Tyranny's 1978 album Out of the Blue. Of all the songs, this one seems most likely to correspond to a track called "Gospel Disco", the never-pressed 45 label art that also appears in that befuddling PDF. At other moments, the fastidious and distinct envisioning of how to make so many sounds come together remind me of certain aspects of Italian composer Luciano Cilio's devastating album from the year before, Dialoghi del presente. Most of the second half of the album emphasizes this mysterious creator's piano meditations, sometimes featuring a bit of French horn or cymbal (and in one instance, a creaking door), foretelling of the imminent "New Age" invasion just on the horizon. It's not for every reader's sensibilities, but fans of the aforementioned artists would enjoy such a mystery. And there's a peculiarity present, in part serious but also mischievous-- clues and red herrings both-- that dashes any pat classification. When it first appeared in 1977, each copy of Mad Music Inc. contained random ephemera perhaps associated with the recording process (which Drag City painstakingly recreates here), from photos of a Moog synthesizer to instructions for installing an underwater loudspeaker to a 1973 article published in The New Englander titled "Business Tries Meditating", surmising that the "Maharishi makes sense in board room." Which may be the most sensible statement here."

Adrian Younge

Something About April II

Pop/R&B

kris ex

For most of his career as an artist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and band leader, Adrian Younge has devoted himself to a particular brand of soul, heavily indebted to the blaxploitation sounds of the early '70s, starting with his soundtrack to 2009's Black Dynamite—a theatrically-released spoof of the genre. While the movie was a sendup of the tropes of all things superfly and jive, the soundtrack was an earnest homage, full of wah-wah's, the vibes and echoes of Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, and 24-Carat Black. His next effort, 2011's Something About April (presented by his band, Venice Dawn) was also a soundtrack. Though it was full of psychedelic, trippy funk, doo-wop, and rhapsodic horns, it also called in the talents of the Funk Brothers' guitarist Dennis Coffey and Italian cinematic funkateers Calibro 35, and incorporated lessons learned from studying Ennio Morricone, resulting in a project that was more tender and nuanced. But the film—about a love affair between a young interracial couple in the '60s—did not exist, and the album brought to the fore Younge's "extreme obsession" (his own words) with the soundtrack format. Something About April II represents a return to this love for Younge, who masterminded two audio stories of Shaolin soul fronted by Ghostface Killah (Twelve Reasons to Die and its sequel), as well as projects with Souls of Mischief and the Delfonics in recent years. Where A**drian Younge Presents the Delfonics showcased what Younge was capable of as a producer when aided by strong songwriters, April II highlights his accomplishment on his own terms. For all of his leanings on history and reverence for the musical past, Younge has always been a child of hip-hop. The first April record was crafted by someone clearly in love with breakbeats and seemed to aspire to become new sources for crate diggers. (Tellingly, that album was used as source material twice on Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail—"Picasso Baby" and "Heaven"—and Younge's compositions provided the samples for DJ Premier's and Royce da 5'9"'s PRhyme album.) But on Something About April II, Younge emerges as someone more interested in creating new classics than new samples. As always, the music here leans heavily on a roughly five-year slice of Black soul from '68-'73 with Younge helming a Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes piano, vibraphone, and the Selene, a one-of-one hi-tech lo-fi Mellotron keyboard of his own creation. But the songs here are more fully formed than anything he's done on his own. "Sandrine," featuring frequent vocal collaborator Loren Oden, is breezy, with acoustic guitar and a lyrical confidence unseen in Younge's earlier work. "Let's treasure every moment that we share/ Cherish what we have for all time," Oden sings, stretching out and deepening the last two words into a small riff that sounds like it belongs in another song, but fits perfectly. A pair of duets by Laetitia Sadier (of Stereolab) and Bilal—"Step Beyond" and "La Ballade"—benefit from Sadier's cool phrasing, placed atop deep bass grooves that are smart enough to play the background and strong enough to disappear when they're not needed. When Younge revisits blaxploitation aesthetics—"Winter Is Here," with Israeli singer/songwriter Karolina; "Magic Music" featuring Raphael Saadiq; Karolina and Sadier's "Hands of God"—it's with an obeisance that dares to push things outward into soaring vocals and complex arrangements, making everything sound familiar and new. The music on Something About April II, although teasingly short—most numbers here clock in under three minutes—sounds like music for music's sake, not existing solely for samples or as reverence. Even when left largely to his own musings—on the instrumental "Sea Motet" and the sparsely accented "April Sonata"—Younge presents whole thoughts that move with a fluidity that he's seldom exhibited in the past. In short: he's gotten better at everything he does.

Artist: Adrian Younge, Album: Something About April II, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "For most of his career as an artist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and band leader, Adrian Younge has devoted himself to a particular brand of soul, heavily indebted to the blaxploitation sounds of the early '70s, starting with his soundtrack to 2009's Black Dynamite—a theatrically-released spoof of the genre. While the movie was a sendup of the tropes of all things superfly and jive, the soundtrack was an earnest homage, full of wah-wah's, the vibes and echoes of Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, and 24-Carat Black. His next effort, 2011's Something About April (presented by his band, Venice Dawn) was also a soundtrack. Though it was full of psychedelic, trippy funk, doo-wop, and rhapsodic horns, it also called in the talents of the Funk Brothers' guitarist Dennis Coffey and Italian cinematic funkateers Calibro 35, and incorporated lessons learned from studying Ennio Morricone, resulting in a project that was more tender and nuanced. But the film—about a love affair between a young interracial couple in the '60s—did not exist, and the album brought to the fore Younge's "extreme obsession" (his own words) with the soundtrack format. Something About April II represents a return to this love for Younge, who masterminded two audio stories of Shaolin soul fronted by Ghostface Killah (Twelve Reasons to Die and its sequel), as well as projects with Souls of Mischief and the Delfonics in recent years. Where A**drian Younge Presents the Delfonics showcased what Younge was capable of as a producer when aided by strong songwriters, April II highlights his accomplishment on his own terms. For all of his leanings on history and reverence for the musical past, Younge has always been a child of hip-hop. The first April record was crafted by someone clearly in love with breakbeats and seemed to aspire to become new sources for crate diggers. (Tellingly, that album was used as source material twice on Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail—"Picasso Baby" and "Heaven"—and Younge's compositions provided the samples for DJ Premier's and Royce da 5'9"'s PRhyme album.) But on Something About April II, Younge emerges as someone more interested in creating new classics than new samples. As always, the music here leans heavily on a roughly five-year slice of Black soul from '68-'73 with Younge helming a Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes piano, vibraphone, and the Selene, a one-of-one hi-tech lo-fi Mellotron keyboard of his own creation. But the songs here are more fully formed than anything he's done on his own. "Sandrine," featuring frequent vocal collaborator Loren Oden, is breezy, with acoustic guitar and a lyrical confidence unseen in Younge's earlier work. "Let's treasure every moment that we share/ Cherish what we have for all time," Oden sings, stretching out and deepening the last two words into a small riff that sounds like it belongs in another song, but fits perfectly. A pair of duets by Laetitia Sadier (of Stereolab) and Bilal—"Step Beyond" and "La Ballade"—benefit from Sadier's cool phrasing, placed atop deep bass grooves that are smart enough to play the background and strong enough to disappear when they're not needed. When Younge revisits blaxploitation aesthetics—"Winter Is Here," with Israeli singer/songwriter Karolina; "Magic Music" featuring Raphael Saadiq; Karolina and Sadier's "Hands of God"—it's with an obeisance that dares to push things outward into soaring vocals and complex arrangements, making everything sound familiar and new. The music on Something About April II, although teasingly short—most numbers here clock in under three minutes—sounds like music for music's sake, not existing solely for samples or as reverence. Even when left largely to his own musings—on the instrumental "Sea Motet" and the sparsely accented "April Sonata"—Younge presents whole thoughts that move with a fluidity that he's seldom exhibited in the past. In short: he's gotten better at everything he does."

Sisters

Ghost Fits

Experimental

Liz Colville

Sisters-- Aaron Pfannebecker on vocals and guitar and Matt Conboy on drums and keys-- are entrenched in Brooklyn's DIY scene. Conboy co-founded Williamsburg's Death By Audio venue, where the band found its footing playing impromptu hallway sets between regularly scheduled programming. The band eventually hit on a sound built on two elements: noise and hooks. Supported by engineer Jeremy Scott (Vivian Girls, Woods, These Are Powers), the two members make as much noise on Ghost Fits as a band three times its size. The songs can go beyond surface pleasures thanks to Conboy's ferocious rhythms and Pfannebecker's voice, which combines a sweet, boyish delivery with occasional hiccups, whines, and other charming imperfections. Between those two elements sits Pfannebecker's guitar, which he uses to brandish a handful of diverse textures. Sisters may be married to noise (their name is a nod to Sonic Youth's 1987 album, Sister), but their brand of it is friendly and oftentimes poppy. Ghost Fits is full of highly rhythmic, fast-paced songs made of staticky chord shifts and half-asleep vocals. Things get intriguing when the band pulls in new textures and sounds, like the gurgling, bass-like chord progressions on "Visions", the flanging, feedback-heavy "Ghost Fits", "Wake Me Up", and "Sky", and the acoustic guitar paired with a xylophone on the upbeat, fun "Highway Scratch". But these moments of adventure are fleeting, and the persistent noise in its place starts to sound monotonous. Part of the problem lies in the disconnect between Pfannebecker's lackadaisical vocal delivery and the relentless instrumentation, as if playing were so physically exertive that the vocals become an afterthought. But in place of sheer power, the singer employs a couple of interesting techniques: on standout "Highway Scratch", he detunes his vocals slightly, sliding down half a note for emphatic effect (the song also features some memorable lines, and Pfannebecker seems to know it, yelping passionately for the first and last time on the album: "Make up something to come true/ Set it free/ Before it breaks in two." If only this happened more often.) On "Synesthesia" he slices off certain lyrics to give them a punky, staccato bite, and he uses a similar sing-speak technique across the album. But there is a lot of verbal shrugging, and it doesn't come across as interestingly as the band might have hoped: It can render songs patchy and unhinged, especially if the songs don't go beyond vague melodies and percussive acrobatics. There is momentum behind every song on Ghost Fits, but momentum is different from drive. Sisters are clearly working within the framework of contemporaries like No Age, Wavves, and Women, but this debut lacks bravado: a willingness to make each song memorable and distinctive, through, say, cacophony, unique vocal delivery, or experimentation with effects-- all three of which Sisters only dabble in. The band achieves some success by dividing its time between catchy pop and the feedback-heavy rock of the previously mentioned acts, but too often the distance between the two styles feels vast and uneventful in Sisters' hands.

Artist: Sisters, Album: Ghost Fits, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "Sisters-- Aaron Pfannebecker on vocals and guitar and Matt Conboy on drums and keys-- are entrenched in Brooklyn's DIY scene. Conboy co-founded Williamsburg's Death By Audio venue, where the band found its footing playing impromptu hallway sets between regularly scheduled programming. The band eventually hit on a sound built on two elements: noise and hooks. Supported by engineer Jeremy Scott (Vivian Girls, Woods, These Are Powers), the two members make as much noise on Ghost Fits as a band three times its size. The songs can go beyond surface pleasures thanks to Conboy's ferocious rhythms and Pfannebecker's voice, which combines a sweet, boyish delivery with occasional hiccups, whines, and other charming imperfections. Between those two elements sits Pfannebecker's guitar, which he uses to brandish a handful of diverse textures. Sisters may be married to noise (their name is a nod to Sonic Youth's 1987 album, Sister), but their brand of it is friendly and oftentimes poppy. Ghost Fits is full of highly rhythmic, fast-paced songs made of staticky chord shifts and half-asleep vocals. Things get intriguing when the band pulls in new textures and sounds, like the gurgling, bass-like chord progressions on "Visions", the flanging, feedback-heavy "Ghost Fits", "Wake Me Up", and "Sky", and the acoustic guitar paired with a xylophone on the upbeat, fun "Highway Scratch". But these moments of adventure are fleeting, and the persistent noise in its place starts to sound monotonous. Part of the problem lies in the disconnect between Pfannebecker's lackadaisical vocal delivery and the relentless instrumentation, as if playing were so physically exertive that the vocals become an afterthought. But in place of sheer power, the singer employs a couple of interesting techniques: on standout "Highway Scratch", he detunes his vocals slightly, sliding down half a note for emphatic effect (the song also features some memorable lines, and Pfannebecker seems to know it, yelping passionately for the first and last time on the album: "Make up something to come true/ Set it free/ Before it breaks in two." If only this happened more often.) On "Synesthesia" he slices off certain lyrics to give them a punky, staccato bite, and he uses a similar sing-speak technique across the album. But there is a lot of verbal shrugging, and it doesn't come across as interestingly as the band might have hoped: It can render songs patchy and unhinged, especially if the songs don't go beyond vague melodies and percussive acrobatics. There is momentum behind every song on Ghost Fits, but momentum is different from drive. Sisters are clearly working within the framework of contemporaries like No Age, Wavves, and Women, but this debut lacks bravado: a willingness to make each song memorable and distinctive, through, say, cacophony, unique vocal delivery, or experimentation with effects-- all three of which Sisters only dabble in. The band achieves some success by dividing its time between catchy pop and the feedback-heavy rock of the previously mentioned acts, but too often the distance between the two styles feels vast and uneventful in Sisters' hands."

Various Artists

OHM+: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music: 1948-1980

Dominique Leone

I was leafing through Scientific American the other day at the library-- don't laugh, my alternative was the "beer barn" in the liquor store parking lot-- and noticed an article by noted artificial intelligence guru Ray Kurzweil. Actually, it was a thinly veiled plug for his new book on "the singularity," or the coming of an age when we will all be connected to each other via electronic networks, and little microscopic robots will help turn us into super people. Once I got over the "Star Trek"-ness of it, it started to seem less science fiction and more black comedy. To think that in only about 75 years we've gone from the idea that computers might be useful for some simple calculations to planning to use them to turn us into what our ancestors would have considered gods is both amazing and disturbing. Kurzweil's "law of accelerating returns" is indeed impressive, and when you think at all the good that might come of leaps in both technology and human evolution, the future looks pretty bright. That is, if we're still actually human. Music has been affected no less drastically. As Brian Eno points out in his forward to the recently reissued and expanded OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music 3xCD box set (now with the addition of a DVD, and re-dubbed OHM+), most of what we listen to is electronic in some fashion, contrary to the entire history of music prior to the 1920s. Whether over the radio, stereo, or amplified speaker, electronic music has all but made "natural" sound obsolete. And of course, this says nothing about the musicians who actually use electronics as instruments, manipulating digits, circuits, and bits to make music-- music that, for all intents and purposes, would have been as unimaginable as Martian rovers to your grandparents. Lucky for us, three generations into the technological revolution, much of the shock of innovation has given way to something of a learned instinct when it comes to this stuff. The groundbreaking experiments of composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaefer, Pierre Henry, and John Cage have led to an age where blips and beeps are not only taken for granted but form the basis of a musical education that for most people starts in pre-school with such "advanced" learning tools as Simon Says. OHM+, covering electronic music from the 1930s to the 1980s, documents a clear and steady path towards an age when most music simply couldn't be made without electronic assistance. The characters involved were undoubtedly experimenters working on the edges of both technology and good old human ingenuity. In many cases, their results will sound strange to ears accustomed to more refined uses of the available tools-- but in others, the sounds are eerily ahead of their time. Regardless, OHM+ is one of the best documents of its kind, and a model for archival compilations. OHM+'s first disc contains music from the earliest days of recorded electronic music, and as much as you might expect it to contain barely controlled squeaks and static, there are moments of surreal beauty. Olivier Messiaen, though hardly known as a preeminent electronic music composer, did use the ondes martenot (a keyboard using a ribbon and ring to change pitch) on "Oraison" from 1937. The melody (borrowed from his own "Louange a l'eternite de Jesus") is perfectly suited to the keyboard's theremin-like portamento (a technique of gliding smoothly from one note to another). Likewise, Clara Rockmore's performance of Tchaikovsky's Valse Sentimentale on theremin transcends gimmick, sounding like an alluring, retro-futuristic serenade. Of course, there is plenty of the hard stuff: check the animated audience reaction to Cage's revolutionary tape-edit piece Williams Mix from 1952, or Tod Dockstader's creepy sound collage "Apocalypse II" from 1961. Stockhausen predates both surround sound and Zaireeka with his four-channel Kontakte, while Edgard Varese's "Poem Electronique", using seemingly random snippets of found-sound and ancient synthesizer squeaks, is actually one of the great early examples of mastering electronic music bit by bit. And if you're left wanting some good old fashioned humanity, Milton Babbit's Philomel excerpt, a duet of sorts featuring synthesizer and female soprano, forecasts just how integrated electronics would become with live performance. Disc 2 picks up in 1959 with Raymond Scott's fairly amazing "Cindy Electronium", composed on a synthesizer Scott invented and sounding a lot like something you'd hear on a Mouse on Mars record. Seriously, someone needs to organize a Raymond Scott remix album stat. As it happens, Pauline Oliveros' psychedelic masterpiece "Bye Bye Butterfly" predicts the remix, using bits of old opera and state-of-the-60s delay to concoct a piece of prime haze fit to tie all of Brooklyn's hip noisemakers up on a very tall pole. In fact, there's a lot on this disc to feed the avant-rock crew: Can's Holger Czukay delivers the sample collage "Boat-Woman-Song" from his 1969 Canaxis LP, Terry Riley gets his freak on with "Poppy Nogood" and in some bizarre, out-of-time programming, the OHM+ folks use Sonic Youth's 1999 performance of Steve Reich's "Pendulum Music" (originally composed in 1968). Elsewhere, electronic music legends Morton Subotnick ("Silver Apples on the Moon, pt. 1"), Luc Ferrari ("Music Promenade"), and Iannis Xenakis ("Hibiki-Hana-Ma") demonstrate that you don't have to have ties to rock music to make head-fucked noize. The disc ends with Minimalist pioneer La Monte Young's precisely titled "31 I 60 c. 12:17:33-12:25:33 PM NYC" from 1969, a dissonant sine wave drone-- ordinarily, this would clear the room, but in light of what came before, it's practically a come-down*.* By Disc 3, electronic music's exponential rate of progress is evident. From the otherworldly, digitally harmonized vocals of Paul Lansky's "Six Fantasies on A Poem By Thomas Campion: Her Song" (which he programmed partially in the FORTRAN computer language) to Krautrock pioneer Klaus Schulze's ornery, beat-driven "Melange" to the massive, droney void in Maryanne Amacher's "Living Sound, Patent Pending", it's clear that by the late 1970s, composers were breaking down sonic barriers by the day. Growing out of the painstaking mold of punch cards and handmade circuitry, these musicians took one step closer to modern electronic production methods of sonic manipulation and construction. Ironically, they were also becoming masters of the acoustic, as in Alvin Lucier's ingenious use of the tension in a single wire ("Music On A Long Thin Wire 1" or Robert Ashley's collage of huma

Artist: Various Artists, Album: OHM+: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music: 1948-1980, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 9.0 Album review: "I was leafing through Scientific American the other day at the library-- don't laugh, my alternative was the "beer barn" in the liquor store parking lot-- and noticed an article by noted artificial intelligence guru Ray Kurzweil. Actually, it was a thinly veiled plug for his new book on "the singularity," or the coming of an age when we will all be connected to each other via electronic networks, and little microscopic robots will help turn us into super people. Once I got over the "Star Trek"-ness of it, it started to seem less science fiction and more black comedy. To think that in only about 75 years we've gone from the idea that computers might be useful for some simple calculations to planning to use them to turn us into what our ancestors would have considered gods is both amazing and disturbing. Kurzweil's "law of accelerating returns" is indeed impressive, and when you think at all the good that might come of leaps in both technology and human evolution, the future looks pretty bright. That is, if we're still actually human. Music has been affected no less drastically. As Brian Eno points out in his forward to the recently reissued and expanded OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music 3xCD box set (now with the addition of a DVD, and re-dubbed OHM+), most of what we listen to is electronic in some fashion, contrary to the entire history of music prior to the 1920s. Whether over the radio, stereo, or amplified speaker, electronic music has all but made "natural" sound obsolete. And of course, this says nothing about the musicians who actually use electronics as instruments, manipulating digits, circuits, and bits to make music-- music that, for all intents and purposes, would have been as unimaginable as Martian rovers to your grandparents. Lucky for us, three generations into the technological revolution, much of the shock of innovation has given way to something of a learned instinct when it comes to this stuff. The groundbreaking experiments of composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaefer, Pierre Henry, and John Cage have led to an age where blips and beeps are not only taken for granted but form the basis of a musical education that for most people starts in pre-school with such "advanced" learning tools as Simon Says. OHM+, covering electronic music from the 1930s to the 1980s, documents a clear and steady path towards an age when most music simply couldn't be made without electronic assistance. The characters involved were undoubtedly experimenters working on the edges of both technology and good old human ingenuity. In many cases, their results will sound strange to ears accustomed to more refined uses of the available tools-- but in others, the sounds are eerily ahead of their time. Regardless, OHM+ is one of the best documents of its kind, and a model for archival compilations. OHM+'s first disc contains music from the earliest days of recorded electronic music, and as much as you might expect it to contain barely controlled squeaks and static, there are moments of surreal beauty. Olivier Messiaen, though hardly known as a preeminent electronic music composer, did use the ondes martenot (a keyboard using a ribbon and ring to change pitch) on "Oraison" from 1937. The melody (borrowed from his own "Louange a l'eternite de Jesus") is perfectly suited to the keyboard's theremin-like portamento (a technique of gliding smoothly from one note to another). Likewise, Clara Rockmore's performance of Tchaikovsky's Valse Sentimentale on theremin transcends gimmick, sounding like an alluring, retro-futuristic serenade. Of course, there is plenty of the hard stuff: check the animated audience reaction to Cage's revolutionary tape-edit piece Williams Mix from 1952, or Tod Dockstader's creepy sound collage "Apocalypse II" from 1961. Stockhausen predates both surround sound and Zaireeka with his four-channel Kontakte, while Edgard Varese's "Poem Electronique", using seemingly random snippets of found-sound and ancient synthesizer squeaks, is actually one of the great early examples of mastering electronic music bit by bit. And if you're left wanting some good old fashioned humanity, Milton Babbit's Philomel excerpt, a duet of sorts featuring synthesizer and female soprano, forecasts just how integrated electronics would become with live performance. Disc 2 picks up in 1959 with Raymond Scott's fairly amazing "Cindy Electronium", composed on a synthesizer Scott invented and sounding a lot like something you'd hear on a Mouse on Mars record. Seriously, someone needs to organize a Raymond Scott remix album stat. As it happens, Pauline Oliveros' psychedelic masterpiece "Bye Bye Butterfly" predicts the remix, using bits of old opera and state-of-the-60s delay to concoct a piece of prime haze fit to tie all of Brooklyn's hip noisemakers up on a very tall pole. In fact, there's a lot on this disc to feed the avant-rock crew: Can's Holger Czukay delivers the sample collage "Boat-Woman-Song" from his 1969 Canaxis LP, Terry Riley gets his freak on with "Poppy Nogood" and in some bizarre, out-of-time programming, the OHM+ folks use Sonic Youth's 1999 performance of Steve Reich's "Pendulum Music" (originally composed in 1968). Elsewhere, electronic music legends Morton Subotnick ("Silver Apples on the Moon, pt. 1"), Luc Ferrari ("Music Promenade"), and Iannis Xenakis ("Hibiki-Hana-Ma") demonstrate that you don't have to have ties to rock music to make head-fucked noize. The disc ends with Minimalist pioneer La Monte Young's precisely titled "31 I 60 c. 12:17:33-12:25:33 PM NYC" from 1969, a dissonant sine wave drone-- ordinarily, this would clear the room, but in light of what came before, it's practically a come-down*.* By Disc 3, electronic music's exponential rate of progress is evident. From the otherworldly, digitally harmonized vocals of Paul Lansky's "Six Fantasies on A Poem By Thomas Campion: Her Song" (which he programmed partially in the FORTRAN computer language) to Krautrock pioneer Klaus Schulze's ornery, beat-driven "Melange" to the massive, droney void in Maryanne Amacher's "Living Sound, Patent Pending", it's clear that by the late 1970s, composers were breaking down sonic barriers by the day. Growing out of the painstaking mold of punch cards and handmade circuitry, these musicians took one step closer to modern electronic production methods of sonic manipulation and construction. Ironically, they were also becoming masters of the acoustic, as in Alvin Lucier's ingenious use of the tension in a single wire ("Music On A Long Thin Wire 1" or Robert Ashley's collage of huma"

Frank Black

Fast Man Raider Man

Rock

Joe Tangari

Frank Black has entered his Royalty Phase, the part of his career where, having carried his weight as an innovator, he tours the world playing his old band's greatest hits and hangs out with fellow royalty like Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, P.F. Sloan, and Levon Helm. With them and other studio demi-gods, he's gone from making bar band music with the Catholics to crafting sepia-toned visions of Americana and Stax/Volt 45s. Last year's Honeycomb established this new passage in Black's career, and it sounded tentative. On Fast Man Raider Man, Black seems more confident and brings better material to the table but the rock'n'soul approach still sometimes doesn't gel with his songs and voice-- especially when he reaches for a falsetto. Part of what keeps it from coming together is veteran Jon Tiven's production, which is flat and arid-- there's little sense of atmosphere or people playing together in a room. This is ironic:  The record came together through near-spontaneous collaboration, but that communal sensibility only comes through on a handful of songs. Black's duet with country singer Marty Brown on a cover of Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" is one of those, and here you get the feel of skilled musicians having their way with an old chestnut. The song has the natural build and dynamics of a group in its groove and it sounds like a lot of fun, which I think makes it a glimpse into what was going through Black's mind as he made this album. Fun is fun, but it's possible to have too much of it, and the 2xCD Fast Man Raider Man certainly does. Lacking an editor, Black includes everything from several Nashville sessions and an L.A. session-- even dusting off four tracks that were (correctly) left off of Honeycomb. You can insert the near-obligatory double album critique here: If you kept the best tracks, you'd have a great single disc. Hard rocker "Elijah", Tom Waits-inspired "If Your Poison Gets You", and "The End of the Summer"-- which benefits from the actual use of reverb-- are all great, but then you also get "Raider Man", a story-song about a laid-off Polish coal miner that's clumsy and awkwardly sung. "Dog Sleep" veers from a vague New Orleans vibe into a strange, off-kilter section that struggles to find real musicality in its rambling phrases. "Highway to Lowdown", left over from the Honeycomb sessions, just doesn't take off down the road its lyrics describe, derailing completely when Black and the lead guitar leave the rhythm section behind for a painfully stilted passage. "My Terrible Ways" is a well-intentioned post-Katrina ballad of self-redemption, but the song could have used a rewrite or three-- or perhaps just some rigorous rehearsal, as the sax solo, brushed drums, and rhythm guitar are its only parts that work well. I hate to focus on the negative because Black seems genuinely pleased with this work. But you get the feeling that if this material had been road-tested and honed a bit it could have been stronger. That said, there is a very good album here-- you just have to work for it. If you enjoyed Honeycomb, this improves on it, but not to the point where those who didn't like that album are apt to come around to Black's latest direction.

Artist: Frank Black, Album: Fast Man Raider Man, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.4 Album review: "Frank Black has entered his Royalty Phase, the part of his career where, having carried his weight as an innovator, he tours the world playing his old band's greatest hits and hangs out with fellow royalty like Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, P.F. Sloan, and Levon Helm. With them and other studio demi-gods, he's gone from making bar band music with the Catholics to crafting sepia-toned visions of Americana and Stax/Volt 45s. Last year's Honeycomb established this new passage in Black's career, and it sounded tentative. On Fast Man Raider Man, Black seems more confident and brings better material to the table but the rock'n'soul approach still sometimes doesn't gel with his songs and voice-- especially when he reaches for a falsetto. Part of what keeps it from coming together is veteran Jon Tiven's production, which is flat and arid-- there's little sense of atmosphere or people playing together in a room. This is ironic:  The record came together through near-spontaneous collaboration, but that communal sensibility only comes through on a handful of songs. Black's duet with country singer Marty Brown on a cover of Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" is one of those, and here you get the feel of skilled musicians having their way with an old chestnut. The song has the natural build and dynamics of a group in its groove and it sounds like a lot of fun, which I think makes it a glimpse into what was going through Black's mind as he made this album. Fun is fun, but it's possible to have too much of it, and the 2xCD Fast Man Raider Man certainly does. Lacking an editor, Black includes everything from several Nashville sessions and an L.A. session-- even dusting off four tracks that were (correctly) left off of Honeycomb. You can insert the near-obligatory double album critique here: If you kept the best tracks, you'd have a great single disc. Hard rocker "Elijah", Tom Waits-inspired "If Your Poison Gets You", and "The End of the Summer"-- which benefits from the actual use of reverb-- are all great, but then you also get "Raider Man", a story-song about a laid-off Polish coal miner that's clumsy and awkwardly sung. "Dog Sleep" veers from a vague New Orleans vibe into a strange, off-kilter section that struggles to find real musicality in its rambling phrases. "Highway to Lowdown", left over from the Honeycomb sessions, just doesn't take off down the road its lyrics describe, derailing completely when Black and the lead guitar leave the rhythm section behind for a painfully stilted passage. "My Terrible Ways" is a well-intentioned post-Katrina ballad of self-redemption, but the song could have used a rewrite or three-- or perhaps just some rigorous rehearsal, as the sax solo, brushed drums, and rhythm guitar are its only parts that work well. I hate to focus on the negative because Black seems genuinely pleased with this work. But you get the feeling that if this material had been road-tested and honed a bit it could have been stronger. That said, there is a very good album here-- you just have to work for it. If you enjoyed Honeycomb, this improves on it, but not to the point where those who didn't like that album are apt to come around to Black's latest direction."

The Pica Beats

Beating Back the Claws of the Cold

Rock

Joshua Klein

The Pica Beats' Ryan Barrett, a New Englander transplanted to the Pacific Northwest, sounds downright bummed to have come late to so many different parties. You can hear it in his fragile, warbly voice, if not always his somewhat glum songs. Strummy naïve C-86, lo-fi DIY, hyper-literate heart-on-sleeve twee-- oh, to have been born too late to partake in those forgiving and nurturing scenes while they were still alive and strong! Needless to say, the Pica Beats seem a little out of place in 2008, if not outright anachronistic in their stylistic leanings (and borrowings). Yet despite this, there's such a relatively unassuming vibe running throughout their second album Beating Back the Claws of the Cold that it makes up for the fact the antecedents are so easy to discern. It sure helps that the band doesn't seem so bigheaded that it pumps up its low-key geek rock with misplaced portent. Instead, they are innocuously slack where other acts might have gone for wound-up. The rickety anti-sheen of the basement studio production gives the disc the feeling of something homemade and defensively modest, a token the shy new kid at school might slip into the lockers of potentially likeminded peers by way of indirect introduction. That's the good news. The bad is that diffidence can only get you so far, and however fine a handful of individual songs may be here, the comprehensive end result is still oddly lifeless. Mellow might be the name of the game, but you can still sell songs with some conviction and spark without coming across as overconfident. There's a middle ground to be reached that's missed by the OK-enough title track or the otherwise standout "Summer Cutting Kale", which is just slightly more subdued than it needed to be to take advantage of the inner anthem waiting to emerge. Even the few more vibrant tunes, like "Shrinking Violets" or "Cognac & Rum", fall just short of all they could be, with the theatricality of the latter in particular failing to bring Barrett's narrative into sharper focus . Elsewhere, the occasional use of synths-- or, on the instrumental "Martine, As Heavy Lifter" and "Hikkomori & The Rental Sisters", sitar-- seems less novel than frivolous, while songs such as "Shallow Dive" and "Poor Old Ra" never quite justify the flowery, erudite logorrhea they're meant to support. Smug though the band may be, at least the Decemberists deliver their literariness dynamically. With the Pica Beats, it's harder to connect with Barrett's characters and colorful descriptors when the songs themselves never quite fully come to life. This is not to say Barrett and friends don't sound like they could be on the cusp of something a little more self-assured, but that's just it: Beating Back the Claws of the Cold only offers fleeting glimpses of potential greatness beneath the ho-hum surface. Right now the band (itself a relatively fresh and untested expansion on Barrett's originally solo conceit) comes off a tentative work in progress as well, a little too ensconced in its own little cocoon, in no particular hurry to get out.

Artist: The Pica Beats, Album: Beating Back the Claws of the Cold, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "The Pica Beats' Ryan Barrett, a New Englander transplanted to the Pacific Northwest, sounds downright bummed to have come late to so many different parties. You can hear it in his fragile, warbly voice, if not always his somewhat glum songs. Strummy naïve C-86, lo-fi DIY, hyper-literate heart-on-sleeve twee-- oh, to have been born too late to partake in those forgiving and nurturing scenes while they were still alive and strong! Needless to say, the Pica Beats seem a little out of place in 2008, if not outright anachronistic in their stylistic leanings (and borrowings). Yet despite this, there's such a relatively unassuming vibe running throughout their second album Beating Back the Claws of the Cold that it makes up for the fact the antecedents are so easy to discern. It sure helps that the band doesn't seem so bigheaded that it pumps up its low-key geek rock with misplaced portent. Instead, they are innocuously slack where other acts might have gone for wound-up. The rickety anti-sheen of the basement studio production gives the disc the feeling of something homemade and defensively modest, a token the shy new kid at school might slip into the lockers of potentially likeminded peers by way of indirect introduction. That's the good news. The bad is that diffidence can only get you so far, and however fine a handful of individual songs may be here, the comprehensive end result is still oddly lifeless. Mellow might be the name of the game, but you can still sell songs with some conviction and spark without coming across as overconfident. There's a middle ground to be reached that's missed by the OK-enough title track or the otherwise standout "Summer Cutting Kale", which is just slightly more subdued than it needed to be to take advantage of the inner anthem waiting to emerge. Even the few more vibrant tunes, like "Shrinking Violets" or "Cognac & Rum", fall just short of all they could be, with the theatricality of the latter in particular failing to bring Barrett's narrative into sharper focus . Elsewhere, the occasional use of synths-- or, on the instrumental "Martine, As Heavy Lifter" and "Hikkomori & The Rental Sisters", sitar-- seems less novel than frivolous, while songs such as "Shallow Dive" and "Poor Old Ra" never quite justify the flowery, erudite logorrhea they're meant to support. Smug though the band may be, at least the Decemberists deliver their literariness dynamically. With the Pica Beats, it's harder to connect with Barrett's characters and colorful descriptors when the songs themselves never quite fully come to life. This is not to say Barrett and friends don't sound like they could be on the cusp of something a little more self-assured, but that's just it: Beating Back the Claws of the Cold only offers fleeting glimpses of potential greatness beneath the ho-hum surface. Right now the band (itself a relatively fresh and untested expansion on Barrett's originally solo conceit) comes off a tentative work in progress as well, a little too ensconced in its own little cocoon, in no particular hurry to get out."

Black Milk, Danny Brown

Black and Brown

Rap

Jayson Greene

To say that Black and Brown, the new collaborative EP from Detroit indie-rap producer Black Milk and shock-rap loose cannon Danny Brown, feels "half-finished" would be over-generous. Covering 10 tracks in a scant 22 minutes and bearing a forehead-slap obvious title that probably existed before the project did, Black and Brown is hastily assembled, thoughtlessly sequenced, and conspicuously truncated. There are two songs, back to back, titled "WTF" and "LOL". Four songs don't exceed the two-minute mark. The overwhelming impression is that the EP exists because an assistant stumbled across an "in-progress" folder of mp3s on Black Milk's desktop and leaked the results. And yet, Black Milk is one of indie rap's best and most reliable producers, and Danny Brown, fresh off his brilliant XXX, is riding a white-hot creative streak: which means that Black and Brown is 22 hastily assembled, thoughtlessly sequenced minutes of vivid beats and incredible rapping. Black Milk's beats are boilerplate Black Milk-- post-Dilla instrumentals hitched to hard-knocking drums-- and Brown brings none of the songwriting skill or emotional range that marked XXX, with its tales of stripping hot water heaters from abandoned houses and harrowing accounts of substance abuse. It's a low-stakes affair, aiming at nothing more than head nods, but it induces some deep ones. Brown tamps down the keening high edge in his voice, with the result that he sounds more like Pharaohe Monch than usual. Lyrically, he mostly coasts, but even on autopilot he remains absurdly quotable. "Morphine metaphors make you do the shoulder lean," he spits on "Loosie", and the line is a finely tuned mini-marvel of alliteration and craft. Few rappers are as creatively disgusting as Brown-- his missing tooth is "perfect for lickin clits," he informs a potential partner-- but even his shock raps hit their target, more often than not, through some deft bit of linguistic three-card Monte: "Used to make out with runaways in crack houses/ Now I run away from making out with brick houses," he leers on "Loosie". Got that? Black Milk's production, meanwhile, continues his career-long argument for the power of immacuately prepared comfort food. His work gathers a lot of strength from old-fashioned flipped samples, but the sound he wrings from them is compellingly tactile, as if the samples were made of some dense-but-yielding material only he knows how to manipulate. His drums have so much character and texture they almost seem to hit twice; "Zap"'s bone-jarring backbeat lands somewhere indistinct in headphone-space, over a feebly quavering mini-choir of chipmunk-soul voices, and it sounds like you could reach out and run your fingers over it. Milk switches the beat up every one or two minutes, like impatient channel flicking, which both reinforces the beat-tape feeling of Black and Brown and handily keeps it from getting boring. The whole EP is over seemingly as soon as it begins and is the definition of a simple A+B proposition, right down to its name. But it works, and if it means there's a more considered full-length from these two on the way, even better.

Artist: Black Milk, Danny Brown, Album: Black and Brown, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "To say that Black and Brown, the new collaborative EP from Detroit indie-rap producer Black Milk and shock-rap loose cannon Danny Brown, feels "half-finished" would be over-generous. Covering 10 tracks in a scant 22 minutes and bearing a forehead-slap obvious title that probably existed before the project did, Black and Brown is hastily assembled, thoughtlessly sequenced, and conspicuously truncated. There are two songs, back to back, titled "WTF" and "LOL". Four songs don't exceed the two-minute mark. The overwhelming impression is that the EP exists because an assistant stumbled across an "in-progress" folder of mp3s on Black Milk's desktop and leaked the results. And yet, Black Milk is one of indie rap's best and most reliable producers, and Danny Brown, fresh off his brilliant XXX, is riding a white-hot creative streak: which means that Black and Brown is 22 hastily assembled, thoughtlessly sequenced minutes of vivid beats and incredible rapping. Black Milk's beats are boilerplate Black Milk-- post-Dilla instrumentals hitched to hard-knocking drums-- and Brown brings none of the songwriting skill or emotional range that marked XXX, with its tales of stripping hot water heaters from abandoned houses and harrowing accounts of substance abuse. It's a low-stakes affair, aiming at nothing more than head nods, but it induces some deep ones. Brown tamps down the keening high edge in his voice, with the result that he sounds more like Pharaohe Monch than usual. Lyrically, he mostly coasts, but even on autopilot he remains absurdly quotable. "Morphine metaphors make you do the shoulder lean," he spits on "Loosie", and the line is a finely tuned mini-marvel of alliteration and craft. Few rappers are as creatively disgusting as Brown-- his missing tooth is "perfect for lickin clits," he informs a potential partner-- but even his shock raps hit their target, more often than not, through some deft bit of linguistic three-card Monte: "Used to make out with runaways in crack houses/ Now I run away from making out with brick houses," he leers on "Loosie". Got that? Black Milk's production, meanwhile, continues his career-long argument for the power of immacuately prepared comfort food. His work gathers a lot of strength from old-fashioned flipped samples, but the sound he wrings from them is compellingly tactile, as if the samples were made of some dense-but-yielding material only he knows how to manipulate. His drums have so much character and texture they almost seem to hit twice; "Zap"'s bone-jarring backbeat lands somewhere indistinct in headphone-space, over a feebly quavering mini-choir of chipmunk-soul voices, and it sounds like you could reach out and run your fingers over it. Milk switches the beat up every one or two minutes, like impatient channel flicking, which both reinforces the beat-tape feeling of Black and Brown and handily keeps it from getting boring. The whole EP is over seemingly as soon as it begins and is the definition of a simple A+B proposition, right down to its name. But it works, and if it means there's a more considered full-length from these two on the way, even better."

Raekwon

The Wild

Rap

Matthew Ismael Ruiz

If there was any question as to where Raekwon stands with the Wu-Tang Clan in 2017, consider this: In the 23 years since he burst onto the scene with his brethren on Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the Chef has released seven solo LPs. His latest, The Wild, is the first to feature zero Clan members. His understandable frustration with the way the RZA has guided the Clan in the past has left him searching for a new voice, and the music industry’s rapid release cycle paradigm led him to make a few awkward attempts at reinvention. Rae has struggled to keep up with the expected output of a hip-hop artist in the mixtape era; his handful of recent mixtapes contained more forgettable moments than memorable ones. It’s been eight years since his stunning comeback sequel to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, prodding the question: Does Raekwon have gas left in the tank? The Wild’s answer is a definitive yes. Eschewing the bloated roster of features from his last LP (2015’s Fly International Luxurious Art) for just a few collaborators, The Wild is a 16-course meal representative of the Chef’s experience and legacy. Raekwon has always felt like the spiritual progeny of Slick Rick—an expert at vividly painted story raps—though his rhymes are perhaps laced with more vitriol. On one of the album’s strongest tracks, “Marvin,” Rae tells someone else’s story, crafting Marvin Gaye’s biography in three verses, from the Moonglows to Motown to his tragic murder at the hands of his father. Over a soulful Banks & Hampton sample, Cee-Lo’s croon soars over the hook, lending the track a somber gravitas. Throughout The Wild, amid the casual braggadocio and nimble wordplay, Rae is often in a reflective mood, considering past mistakes and the crazy risks that young hoods take in the streets. “That used to be me, young, ruthless, and carefree/Until I seen the bigger picture, shifted, my way of thinking/That 25 to life is real, so is the casket once it close on you,” he raps on “Visiting Hour.” It’s a refreshing perspective from one of Mafioso Rap’s biggest stars, taking the tone of a wise uncle who’s been there, done that, and knows better. The luxurious Rick Ross aesthetic Rae tried on for F.I.L.A. and his Unexpected Victory mixtape seemed to suit him poorly; if The Wild feels like a return to form, it’s because he’s embraced the way his growl adds grit to ’70s soul-sampling productions. The producer Xtreme freaks no less than three such samples on the record’s lead single, “This Is What It Comes Too,” laying some Al Green strings on top of some Melvin Bliss drums, working in a yelp from the Ohio Players’ “Ecstasy” that sounds almost instrumental in its new context. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but serves as the perfect platform for a middle-aged Raekwon—an expertly cooked boom-bap beat with enough energy to let him flex rhyme skills that rival any of the young bucks currently dominating the airwaves. Raekwon’s recent surge of productivity proves he’s not one of those “stuck in the 90s” cats—he seems to genuinely want to evolve. At 47, he’s still trying out new flows. His stutter-step delivery on “You Hear Me” loses impact with its mushy enunciation, but the fact that he would take the risk is commendable. A quick glance at a recent list of his favorite hip-hop records of all-time—rooted firmly in the golden and silver ages of hip-hop—reveals what inspires him most. When Raekwon leans into those sounds and themes, the rhymes that flow through him are evidence that this OG can still hang with the best of them.

Artist: Raekwon, Album: The Wild, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "If there was any question as to where Raekwon stands with the Wu-Tang Clan in 2017, consider this: In the 23 years since he burst onto the scene with his brethren on Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the Chef has released seven solo LPs. His latest, The Wild, is the first to feature zero Clan members. His understandable frustration with the way the RZA has guided the Clan in the past has left him searching for a new voice, and the music industry’s rapid release cycle paradigm led him to make a few awkward attempts at reinvention. Rae has struggled to keep up with the expected output of a hip-hop artist in the mixtape era; his handful of recent mixtapes contained more forgettable moments than memorable ones. It’s been eight years since his stunning comeback sequel to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, prodding the question: Does Raekwon have gas left in the tank? The Wild’s answer is a definitive yes. Eschewing the bloated roster of features from his last LP (2015’s Fly International Luxurious Art) for just a few collaborators, The Wild is a 16-course meal representative of the Chef’s experience and legacy. Raekwon has always felt like the spiritual progeny of Slick Rick—an expert at vividly painted story raps—though his rhymes are perhaps laced with more vitriol. On one of the album’s strongest tracks, “Marvin,” Rae tells someone else’s story, crafting Marvin Gaye’s biography in three verses, from the Moonglows to Motown to his tragic murder at the hands of his father. Over a soulful Banks & Hampton sample, Cee-Lo’s croon soars over the hook, lending the track a somber gravitas. Throughout The Wild, amid the casual braggadocio and nimble wordplay, Rae is often in a reflective mood, considering past mistakes and the crazy risks that young hoods take in the streets. “That used to be me, young, ruthless, and carefree/Until I seen the bigger picture, shifted, my way of thinking/That 25 to life is real, so is the casket once it close on you,” he raps on “Visiting Hour.” It’s a refreshing perspective from one of Mafioso Rap’s biggest stars, taking the tone of a wise uncle who’s been there, done that, and knows better. The luxurious Rick Ross aesthetic Rae tried on for F.I.L.A. and his Unexpected Victory mixtape seemed to suit him poorly; if The Wild feels like a return to form, it’s because he’s embraced the way his growl adds grit to ’70s soul-sampling productions. The producer Xtreme freaks no less than three such samples on the record’s lead single, “This Is What It Comes Too,” laying some Al Green strings on top of some Melvin Bliss drums, working in a yelp from the Ohio Players’ “Ecstasy” that sounds almost instrumental in its new context. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but serves as the perfect platform for a middle-aged Raekwon—an expertly cooked boom-bap beat with enough energy to let him flex rhyme skills that rival any of the young bucks currently dominating the airwaves. Raekwon’s recent surge of productivity proves he’s not one of those “stuck in the 90s” cats—he seems to genuinely want to evolve. At 47, he’s still trying out new flows. His stutter-step delivery on “You Hear Me” loses impact with its mushy enunciation, but the fact that he would take the risk is commendable. A quick glance at a recent list of his favorite hip-hop records of all-time—rooted firmly in the golden and silver ages of hip-hop—reveals what inspires him most. When Raekwon leans into those sounds and themes, the rhymes that flow through him are evidence that this OG can still hang with the best of them."

Memory Tapes

Grace/Confusion

Electronic,Rock

Ian Cohen

You can't keep a good narrative down: chillwave has been a reliable punchline the last couple of years even though most of its biggest targets have refused to cooperate. Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian, and Washed Out have all established themselves as career artists and made their 2011 LPs count in a major way, while their aesthetic bled into hip-hop by way of Clams Casino and cloud rap. Even genre godfather Ariel Pink is developing a new legacy by releasing some of the best songs of his life. It seems like only Memory Tapes, aka Dayve Hawk, failed to rise to the occasion, following up the excellent Seek Magic with Player Piano, a collection of wan indie rock that seemed like an attempt to backdoor a revival of his previous trad-alt band Hail Social. But then again, as a 30-something father and music industry vet, he was an outlier among the Urban Outfitters set to begin with. And if there's any silver lining to Player Piano, it's that the prolific and hermetic Hawk is free to do whatever the hell he wants without expectations. Last year, he hinted at a batch of Black Sabbath-esque dirges. Which is certainly intriguing and also about a billion miles away from the meandering pop of Grace/Confusion. The most immediately striking aspect of Memory Tapes' third proper LP is the tracklisting: It's only six songs long and the shortest cut is just shy of five minutes; nominal lead single "Sheila" clocks in at about eight and a half. This seems daunting until you remember Seek Magic had only eight songs and, besides his unquestionable peak "Bicycle", its strengths lay in lengthier dance-leaning numbers like "Stop Talking" and "Graphics". So Grace/Confusion is certainly not the pop record Player Piano was. Here, Hawk employs a watercolor palette to his benefit: Despite its unnerving chorus, "I watch you sleep," the first half of "Neighborhood Watch" is given to the sounds of bleary sunrises, loosely strummed acoustics, and distant harmonies. Likewise, the brisk and perky "Thru the Field" is "Bicycle"-gone-Tour de France, while the first half of "Sheila" unifies two prominent artistic memes by sounding like Tango in the Night dubbed onto VHS. That constitutes about half of Grace/Confusion, likely the "grace" part. Hawke has called this record "messier" than his previous work. But with the exception of the strikingly distorted coda of "Neighborhood Watch" (maybe that's where the Sabbath fix went?), most of Grace/Confusion pads out past four minutes by establishing a foothold before softly pivoting towards a far less interesting destination. And the immersion demanded by Grace/Confusion is undermined by Hawk's drizzly production; as an avid remixer, you'd hope he would be more accommodating to some outside input or at least an upgrade in gear. The same tones and textures that worked for "Bicycle" or "Plain Material" are unnecessarily restrictive in a format that requires more depth and dynamic range. And while it casts a nice spell during the earliest hours when your day is either beginning or ending, lifestyle depending, it's ultimately interrupted by Hawk's proclivity for chintzy sound effects; the second half of "Thru the Field" trails off into a wheedling, harmonized guitar solo; "Neighborhood Watch" breaks its tense grind with overeager synth lines, and Hawk bisects "Sheila" with a garish laser beam like some sort of supervillain ploy. While Grace/Confusion may lean too heavily on Hawk's production, it's a hair better than Player Piano. But it's hard to call it an "improvement" or "progression" considering it's hardly outside the scope of what Memory Tapes has done so far. In a sense his artistic trajectory seems to be working in reverse-- Seek Magic feels like it should be the culmination of what he's done separately on Player Piano and now Grace/Confusion, not the starting point. So it's hard to take Hawk at his word as he once again claims that his next record will sound nothing like Grace/Confusion; without some true commitment to a sonic reconfiguration, his gift/curse is that it'll probably still sound like something he's already done.

Artist: Memory Tapes, Album: Grace/Confusion, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "You can't keep a good narrative down: chillwave has been a reliable punchline the last couple of years even though most of its biggest targets have refused to cooperate. Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian, and Washed Out have all established themselves as career artists and made their 2011 LPs count in a major way, while their aesthetic bled into hip-hop by way of Clams Casino and cloud rap. Even genre godfather Ariel Pink is developing a new legacy by releasing some of the best songs of his life. It seems like only Memory Tapes, aka Dayve Hawk, failed to rise to the occasion, following up the excellent Seek Magic with Player Piano, a collection of wan indie rock that seemed like an attempt to backdoor a revival of his previous trad-alt band Hail Social. But then again, as a 30-something father and music industry vet, he was an outlier among the Urban Outfitters set to begin with. And if there's any silver lining to Player Piano, it's that the prolific and hermetic Hawk is free to do whatever the hell he wants without expectations. Last year, he hinted at a batch of Black Sabbath-esque dirges. Which is certainly intriguing and also about a billion miles away from the meandering pop of Grace/Confusion. The most immediately striking aspect of Memory Tapes' third proper LP is the tracklisting: It's only six songs long and the shortest cut is just shy of five minutes; nominal lead single "Sheila" clocks in at about eight and a half. This seems daunting until you remember Seek Magic had only eight songs and, besides his unquestionable peak "Bicycle", its strengths lay in lengthier dance-leaning numbers like "Stop Talking" and "Graphics". So Grace/Confusion is certainly not the pop record Player Piano was. Here, Hawk employs a watercolor palette to his benefit: Despite its unnerving chorus, "I watch you sleep," the first half of "Neighborhood Watch" is given to the sounds of bleary sunrises, loosely strummed acoustics, and distant harmonies. Likewise, the brisk and perky "Thru the Field" is "Bicycle"-gone-Tour de France, while the first half of "Sheila" unifies two prominent artistic memes by sounding like Tango in the Night dubbed onto VHS. That constitutes about half of Grace/Confusion, likely the "grace" part. Hawke has called this record "messier" than his previous work. But with the exception of the strikingly distorted coda of "Neighborhood Watch" (maybe that's where the Sabbath fix went?), most of Grace/Confusion pads out past four minutes by establishing a foothold before softly pivoting towards a far less interesting destination. And the immersion demanded by Grace/Confusion is undermined by Hawk's drizzly production; as an avid remixer, you'd hope he would be more accommodating to some outside input or at least an upgrade in gear. The same tones and textures that worked for "Bicycle" or "Plain Material" are unnecessarily restrictive in a format that requires more depth and dynamic range. And while it casts a nice spell during the earliest hours when your day is either beginning or ending, lifestyle depending, it's ultimately interrupted by Hawk's proclivity for chintzy sound effects; the second half of "Thru the Field" trails off into a wheedling, harmonized guitar solo; "Neighborhood Watch" breaks its tense grind with overeager synth lines, and Hawk bisects "Sheila" with a garish laser beam like some sort of supervillain ploy. While Grace/Confusion may lean too heavily on Hawk's production, it's a hair better than Player Piano. But it's hard to call it an "improvement" or "progression" considering it's hardly outside the scope of what Memory Tapes has done so far. In a sense his artistic trajectory seems to be working in reverse-- Seek Magic feels like it should be the culmination of what he's done separately on Player Piano and now Grace/Confusion, not the starting point. So it's hard to take Hawk at his word as he once again claims that his next record will sound nothing like Grace/Confusion; without some true commitment to a sonic reconfiguration, his gift/curse is that it'll probably still sound like something he's already done."

Marvin Gaye

Here, My Dear

Pop/R&B

Ryan Dombal

As a teenager in the 1950s, Marvin Gaye learned how to love from doo-wop songs, three-minute odes to innocence that didn’t curdle or grow up or live beyond their own pining harmonies. They were pure, and Gaye wanted to be pure too. “I was in love with the idea of love,” he once said. Which is sweet. But the fantasy of pop music should be just that—a fantasy. Believe it to the letter, and wait for your world to crumble. Vows break. Sadness sours. Divorce looms. Gaye was aware of these perils, but he spent much of his life haplessly wishing them away. His music always told a different story. Gaye married Anna Ruby Gordy in 1963. He was 24; she was 41. He was an aspiring singer; she was the sister of Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records. Looking back on the relationship years later, Gaye described it to biographer David Ritz as a mercenary move. “Marrying a queen might not make me king, but at least I’d have a shot at being prince,” he said. “I wanted her to help me cut into that long line in front of the recording studio.” For a few years, though, Gaye was able to approximate the fairytale love he had always dreamed about. The couple adopted a baby boy. And Gaye’s bounding heart can be heard in his hits of the era like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” where he beams, “You were better to me than I’ve been to myself/For me there’s you and there’s nobody else.” But soon enough, infidelities arose. Fights erupted. Raised in a strict religious household, Gaye had trouble reconciling ideas of love and sex, and though this struggle would lead to some of his most fascinating songs, it also doomed him as a husband. Complicating matters further was his extreme Oedipus and “Madonna-whore” complexes. He lost his virginity to a prostitute and went on to pay for sex through much of his life (and marriages). Meanwhile, he considered his mother to be the absolute pinnacle of womanhood, to a detrimental degree. “No other woman ever looked as good to me as Mother,” he said. He often referred to Anna as “Mama” as well. So as his wife helped her self-destructive husband become a star with her connections and encouragement throughout the ’60s, she could never be his mythical savior. Nobody could. Gaye described his own conundrum in typically candid terms: “Without Anna, how could I reach my next plateau? With Anna, though, how could I ever be a happy man?” By the late ’60s, the couple was decidedly on the outs. Gaye was still part of Motown’s hit factory at that point and wasn’t writing his own songs, but he still offered performances that mirrored his emotions. He laced the skulking “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” with paranoia just as he and Anna were cheating on each other. He even recorded something of a breakup album, M.P.G., in 1969, filled with chugging songs that put love in past tense. But Gaye and Anna didn’t get divorced. Both were scared what would happen; Gaye was worried he would fall out of Berry Gordy’s good graces, while Anna, accustomed to the celebrity lifestyle, didn’t want to give up on her superstar husband. As the ’70s began, Gaye entered his auteur period, breaking out of the Motown mold with What’s Going On. In 1973, at age 33, he fell in love once more, with a 16-year-old named Janis Hunter. A year later, they had a baby together. Gaye and Anna were still married. Finally, in 1975, as Hunter became pregnant with another child, Anna filed for divorce. She had the right to be fed up, but the timing also made sense in the greater context of American marriage. In ’75, the number of divorces and annulments in the U.S. exceeded one million for the first time, more than doubling the tally from just a decade before. Reasons for the uptick were plentiful: evolving social mores, the declining role of religion, laws that simplified the process, and an overall sense of personal entitlement. In a previous generation, Gaye’s mother considered divorcing her husband, who never really loved Marvin and beat him relentlessly as a child, but she didn’t out of what she called “loyalty and responsibility.” But times had changed. “This is an era in which many Americans are far more concerned with their rights than with their responsibilities,” declared a 1976 New York Times article titled “Divorce Epidemic,” “and also a time when little premium is put upon patience or accommodation to less than ideal situations.” Though Anna was trying to move forward, Gaye dragged his feet. He was ordered to pay $6,000 a month in alimony and child support, but he refused, allegedly telling Anna: “I’m not going to obey any court order no matter what they try to do me. The only thing I am going to do is take off my hat when I enter the courtroom.” For all the sympathy and understanding of Marvin Gaye’s music, the man could be a boor. He once claimed to be “the last of the great chauvinists. I’ll never change. I like to see women serve me—and that’s that.” But no amount of ball swinging was going to settle his divorce. Gaye was terrible with money, often investing in bogus schemes and blowing untold sums on pot and coke, so when Anna asked for $1 million, he simply didn’t have the funds. So his lawyer proposed an interesting solution: Gaye would pay $600,000, half of which would come from the advance for his next album, with the other half coming from that album’s royalties. It was an insane idea. Of course Gaye agreed to it. Recorded in 1977, around the time Gaye’s divorce became final, the singer originally planned to produce something quick and mediocre, but the subject matter was too rich. The result was Here, My Dear, a 73-minute epic and the only double-LP he would ever make. Though birthed from contentious circumstances, the album still retains its power because it’s not just a heated diatribe, a peeved he-said to infinity. Unlike some of Gaye’s real-life actions, the album is nuanced, thoughtful, progressive. After a scene-setting intro—“I guess I’ll have to say this album is dedicated to you”—the story begins in earnest with, fittingly, a doo-wop song. “I Met a Little Girl” boasts all the longing and vocal stacking of Gaye’s beloved ’50s music, but with the perspective flipped—he’s singing not as a green teen but as a man in his late 30s who has tried and failed at love, and is no closer to figuring it out. Gaye exquisitely sings all of the parts himself, creating an echo chamber of hurt. Though the singer spoke out against the women’s liberation movement of the era, there’s a generousness to his voice and sentiments, and a shared blame. “Then time would change you,” he squeals, “as time would really

Artist: Marvin Gaye, Album: Here, My Dear, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 8.7 Album review: "As a teenager in the 1950s, Marvin Gaye learned how to love from doo-wop songs, three-minute odes to innocence that didn’t curdle or grow up or live beyond their own pining harmonies. They were pure, and Gaye wanted to be pure too. “I was in love with the idea of love,” he once said. Which is sweet. But the fantasy of pop music should be just that—a fantasy. Believe it to the letter, and wait for your world to crumble. Vows break. Sadness sours. Divorce looms. Gaye was aware of these perils, but he spent much of his life haplessly wishing them away. His music always told a different story. Gaye married Anna Ruby Gordy in 1963. He was 24; she was 41. He was an aspiring singer; she was the sister of Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records. Looking back on the relationship years later, Gaye described it to biographer David Ritz as a mercenary move. “Marrying a queen might not make me king, but at least I’d have a shot at being prince,” he said. “I wanted her to help me cut into that long line in front of the recording studio.” For a few years, though, Gaye was able to approximate the fairytale love he had always dreamed about. The couple adopted a baby boy. And Gaye’s bounding heart can be heard in his hits of the era like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” where he beams, “You were better to me than I’ve been to myself/For me there’s you and there’s nobody else.” But soon enough, infidelities arose. Fights erupted. Raised in a strict religious household, Gaye had trouble reconciling ideas of love and sex, and though this struggle would lead to some of his most fascinating songs, it also doomed him as a husband. Complicating matters further was his extreme Oedipus and “Madonna-whore” complexes. He lost his virginity to a prostitute and went on to pay for sex through much of his life (and marriages). Meanwhile, he considered his mother to be the absolute pinnacle of womanhood, to a detrimental degree. “No other woman ever looked as good to me as Mother,” he said. He often referred to Anna as “Mama” as well. So as his wife helped her self-destructive husband become a star with her connections and encouragement throughout the ’60s, she could never be his mythical savior. Nobody could. Gaye described his own conundrum in typically candid terms: “Without Anna, how could I reach my next plateau? With Anna, though, how could I ever be a happy man?” By the late ’60s, the couple was decidedly on the outs. Gaye was still part of Motown’s hit factory at that point and wasn’t writing his own songs, but he still offered performances that mirrored his emotions. He laced the skulking “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” with paranoia just as he and Anna were cheating on each other. He even recorded something of a breakup album, M.P.G., in 1969, filled with chugging songs that put love in past tense. But Gaye and Anna didn’t get divorced. Both were scared what would happen; Gaye was worried he would fall out of Berry Gordy’s good graces, while Anna, accustomed to the celebrity lifestyle, didn’t want to give up on her superstar husband. As the ’70s began, Gaye entered his auteur period, breaking out of the Motown mold with What’s Going On. In 1973, at age 33, he fell in love once more, with a 16-year-old named Janis Hunter. A year later, they had a baby together. Gaye and Anna were still married. Finally, in 1975, as Hunter became pregnant with another child, Anna filed for divorce. She had the right to be fed up, but the timing also made sense in the greater context of American marriage. In ’75, the number of divorces and annulments in the U.S. exceeded one million for the first time, more than doubling the tally from just a decade before. Reasons for the uptick were plentiful: evolving social mores, the declining role of religion, laws that simplified the process, and an overall sense of personal entitlement. In a previous generation, Gaye’s mother considered divorcing her husband, who never really loved Marvin and beat him relentlessly as a child, but she didn’t out of what she called “loyalty and responsibility.” But times had changed. “This is an era in which many Americans are far more concerned with their rights than with their responsibilities,” declared a 1976 New York Times article titled “Divorce Epidemic,” “and also a time when little premium is put upon patience or accommodation to less than ideal situations.” Though Anna was trying to move forward, Gaye dragged his feet. He was ordered to pay $6,000 a month in alimony and child support, but he refused, allegedly telling Anna: “I’m not going to obey any court order no matter what they try to do me. The only thing I am going to do is take off my hat when I enter the courtroom.” For all the sympathy and understanding of Marvin Gaye’s music, the man could be a boor. He once claimed to be “the last of the great chauvinists. I’ll never change. I like to see women serve me—and that’s that.” But no amount of ball swinging was going to settle his divorce. Gaye was terrible with money, often investing in bogus schemes and blowing untold sums on pot and coke, so when Anna asked for $1 million, he simply didn’t have the funds. So his lawyer proposed an interesting solution: Gaye would pay $600,000, half of which would come from the advance for his next album, with the other half coming from that album’s royalties. It was an insane idea. Of course Gaye agreed to it. Recorded in 1977, around the time Gaye’s divorce became final, the singer originally planned to produce something quick and mediocre, but the subject matter was too rich. The result was Here, My Dear, a 73-minute epic and the only double-LP he would ever make. Though birthed from contentious circumstances, the album still retains its power because it’s not just a heated diatribe, a peeved he-said to infinity. Unlike some of Gaye’s real-life actions, the album is nuanced, thoughtful, progressive. After a scene-setting intro—“I guess I’ll have to say this album is dedicated to you”—the story begins in earnest with, fittingly, a doo-wop song. “I Met a Little Girl” boasts all the longing and vocal stacking of Gaye’s beloved ’50s music, but with the perspective flipped—he’s singing not as a green teen but as a man in his late 30s who has tried and failed at love, and is no closer to figuring it out. Gaye exquisitely sings all of the parts himself, creating an echo chamber of hurt. Though the singer spoke out against the women’s liberation movement of the era, there’s a generousness to his voice and sentiments, and a shared blame. “Then time would change you,” he squeals, “as time would really "

Jennifer Gentle

Valende

Rock

Matthew Murphy

It requires a peculiar extreme of self-assurance for two guys to name their band Jennifer Gentle, thereby ensuring themselves a continuous career of potential listeners mistaking them for a solo female act. However, you don't have to listen long to the crazed psych-pop created by the Italian duo of Marco Fasolo and Alessio Gastaldello to realize that these fellows possess a ridiculous abundance of just such confidence. Valende is Jennifer Gentle's domestic debut, following two self-released albums back home, and it reveals a manic, uncommon glint in their inventive fires, the unmistakable fervid gleam which accompanies artists who know exactly what they're doing, even if the rest of us don't. Syd Barrett fans should recognize the name Jennifer Gentle from a lyric in Pink Floyd's "Lucifer Sam", and if you think that's the end of the duo's Barrett allusions I'm afraid you're a woefully bad guesser. Thankfully, though, Valende proves Piper at the Gates of Dawn-era Floyd to be just one influence among many, and the rapturous melting pot of their sound also incorporates Joe Meek-inspired sci-fi daffiness, the adventurous instrumental textures of Nino Rota's film music, as well as tender-hearted loner-folk. And it's all combined with enough sheer homespun oddity that Jennifer Gentle's unique sound has even managed to awe the enlightened likes of the Sun City Girls and Acid Mothers Temple (whose Kawabata Makato has toured and cut a live radio session with the duo.) The album opens with the relatively restrained ditty "Universal Daughter", a brief number with a melodic structure similar to that of Barrett's "Terrapin", sung by Marco in a heightened toothache pitch that suggests he may have just sucked all the helium out of the Goodyear blimp. Though actually more subtle and reined-in than much of the material from earlier Jennifer Gentle albums like 2002's Funny Creatures Lane, the initial rush of this track hits like a quick puff of laughing gas, and immediately sets the album's alien tone. Speaking of helium, the boys issue still more on the following "I Do Dream You", releasing it slowly from a toy balloon (every toddler's favorite instrument) as a solo in the middle of the frantic number, which otherwise sounds like a prime 13th Floor Elevator single played at 78 rpm, complete with hairpin organ licks. After this breathless introduction clears away that first wave of big-game jitters, Jennifer Gentle settle down enough to allow Valende out for some fresh air, using acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, and a phased-out violin to conjure sadly sweet pastoral visions on "Circle of Sorrow", Field recordings of chirping birdies are brought in on the lovely folk sprawl of "The Garden", which is split into two sections. Although on acoustic guitar Marco lacks the technical prowess of a Ben Chasny or Matt (MV) Valentine, his enthusiasm and melodic economy help make these genteel excursions memorable. Less successful is the extended free-form track "Hessesopoa", a cacophonous improvisation that oddly enough feels like the most retro cut on the album, recalling the instrumental freak-outs of the Red Crayola's Parable of Arable Land in a manner that bears little new fruit. Clocking in at more than seven minutes, "Hessesopoa" does little to reward repeat listens, and its appearance mid-album unfortunately slows Valende's momentum considerably. The two quickly recover from that misstep, however, and the album closes with the insane cartoonish glee of "Nothing Makes Sense", where the boys' sped-up voices eventually reach true Alvin and the Chipmunks velocity. And although it's the type of conclusion that might just prompt your annoyed spouse to come into the room to ask, "what the hell IS that?" something tells me that the men of Jennifer Gentle would proudly consider such a response to be a resounding success.

Artist: Jennifer Gentle, Album: Valende, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "It requires a peculiar extreme of self-assurance for two guys to name their band Jennifer Gentle, thereby ensuring themselves a continuous career of potential listeners mistaking them for a solo female act. However, you don't have to listen long to the crazed psych-pop created by the Italian duo of Marco Fasolo and Alessio Gastaldello to realize that these fellows possess a ridiculous abundance of just such confidence. Valende is Jennifer Gentle's domestic debut, following two self-released albums back home, and it reveals a manic, uncommon glint in their inventive fires, the unmistakable fervid gleam which accompanies artists who know exactly what they're doing, even if the rest of us don't. Syd Barrett fans should recognize the name Jennifer Gentle from a lyric in Pink Floyd's "Lucifer Sam", and if you think that's the end of the duo's Barrett allusions I'm afraid you're a woefully bad guesser. Thankfully, though, Valende proves Piper at the Gates of Dawn-era Floyd to be just one influence among many, and the rapturous melting pot of their sound also incorporates Joe Meek-inspired sci-fi daffiness, the adventurous instrumental textures of Nino Rota's film music, as well as tender-hearted loner-folk. And it's all combined with enough sheer homespun oddity that Jennifer Gentle's unique sound has even managed to awe the enlightened likes of the Sun City Girls and Acid Mothers Temple (whose Kawabata Makato has toured and cut a live radio session with the duo.) The album opens with the relatively restrained ditty "Universal Daughter", a brief number with a melodic structure similar to that of Barrett's "Terrapin", sung by Marco in a heightened toothache pitch that suggests he may have just sucked all the helium out of the Goodyear blimp. Though actually more subtle and reined-in than much of the material from earlier Jennifer Gentle albums like 2002's Funny Creatures Lane, the initial rush of this track hits like a quick puff of laughing gas, and immediately sets the album's alien tone. Speaking of helium, the boys issue still more on the following "I Do Dream You", releasing it slowly from a toy balloon (every toddler's favorite instrument) as a solo in the middle of the frantic number, which otherwise sounds like a prime 13th Floor Elevator single played at 78 rpm, complete with hairpin organ licks. After this breathless introduction clears away that first wave of big-game jitters, Jennifer Gentle settle down enough to allow Valende out for some fresh air, using acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, and a phased-out violin to conjure sadly sweet pastoral visions on "Circle of Sorrow", Field recordings of chirping birdies are brought in on the lovely folk sprawl of "The Garden", which is split into two sections. Although on acoustic guitar Marco lacks the technical prowess of a Ben Chasny or Matt (MV) Valentine, his enthusiasm and melodic economy help make these genteel excursions memorable. Less successful is the extended free-form track "Hessesopoa", a cacophonous improvisation that oddly enough feels like the most retro cut on the album, recalling the instrumental freak-outs of the Red Crayola's Parable of Arable Land in a manner that bears little new fruit. Clocking in at more than seven minutes, "Hessesopoa" does little to reward repeat listens, and its appearance mid-album unfortunately slows Valende's momentum considerably. The two quickly recover from that misstep, however, and the album closes with the insane cartoonish glee of "Nothing Makes Sense", where the boys' sped-up voices eventually reach true Alvin and the Chipmunks velocity. And although it's the type of conclusion that might just prompt your annoyed spouse to come into the room to ask, "what the hell IS that?" something tells me that the men of Jennifer Gentle would proudly consider such a response to be a resounding success."

Veronica Falls

Waiting for Something to Happen

Experimental,Rock

Lindsay Zoladz

Struggling to pin down Veronica Falls' sound, an interviewer recently told frontwoman Roxanne Clifford, "You know, you aren't twee." To which she replied, with exaggerated enthusiasm and perfect comedic timing, "Thanks!" It's easy to understand why people were quick to tack ready made labels onto Veronica Falls' sound when they first appeared on the indie pop scene several years ago. There's something familiar and retro-leaning about the London-based quartet-- a band daring to jangle in the long shadow of C86, copping a moody pose that's equally indebted to Morrissey and the Jesus and Mary Chain. But since their earliest singles, Veronica Falls seem to have figured out the deceptively simple, age-old secret to transcending influences: They just keep writing really good songs. If people need to put a label on Veronica Falls' sound, Clifford told me when I interviewed her last year that she prefers the phrase "horror rock"-- a nod to her idol, garage rock pioneer Roky Erickson. (His band, cult favorites the 13th Floor Elevators, drew lyrical inspiration from old slasher flicks.) Veronica Falls released a sunny, serviceable cover of Erickson's "Starry Eyes" shortly after they formed in 2009, but it was on their excellent self-titled debut that they really came into the term. From the magnificently spooky "Found Love in a Graveyard" to the abrasive, zombified surf rock of "Beachy Head" (an ode to a craggy, coastline cliff in Sussex infamous for its suicides), a thematic chill ran throughout the album. And yet, Veronica Falls had a restraint and tasteful balance you don't often hear on debut records. They knew how to push their goth impulses just enough to be devotedly macabre, but not so far that their smartly arranged songs drowned in kitschy gimmicks. Even their most melodramatic and fantastical tracks like "Graveyard" were still grounded by relatable, down-to-earth emotions. This remains true on the band's second album, Waiting for Something to Happen, which is not a huge departure from the debut but instead a showcase for subtle, wise tune-ups in the band's machinery. The chemistry between Clifford and James Hoare's dueling lead guitars is still strong, and the band's signature multi-part harmonies are as lush as they've ever been. Perhaps the most noticeable change is that Waiting feels like a warmer record. True to its "horror rock" ethos, the harmonies on Veronica Falls sometimes sounded like the work of an undead 60s girl group, but here, everybody sounds like they've got a little more color in their cheeks. Waiting still broods with the intensity of teenage love poems, but the approach here is more Romantic than Gothic. These aren't songs about heartbreak caused by ghosts, spirits, or dead poets; they're about the more ordinary variety of heartbreak between real, live people. As the current rosters of labels like Slumberland and Captured Tracks attest, Veronica Falls aren't the only jangly, guitar-driven band out there that can write a memorable pop hook. What sets them at the head of the pack isn't so much their songwriting chops (though they've definitely got them) as it is the lush, full-screen scope of their sound. This atmosphere sounds fully realized on Waiting for Something to Happen, which was recorded mostly without overdubs and with all four band members playing live in the studio. (Clifford says they scrapped some early demos because they "didn't like how it sounded when we started tracking everything individually.") You can tell Veronica Falls approach the interplay between guitars, bass and drums as carefully as they do their vocal harmonies, and that sense of interlocking group energy gives their sound a roughness, but also fullness and a warmth. You can hear it on the album's most melancholy moment, "Falling Out": Clifford paints a solitary scene of "standing in the headlights, falling in the snow," but as her bandmates' instruments and voices join hers in the chorus, that collective energy makes her begin to sound slightly resilient, as if bolstered by the fact that she's no longer alone. "Everybody's changing, I remain the same," Clifford sings on "Everybody's Changing", a side B highlight with a chiming melody that sounds like a long lost Teenage Fanclub tune. Whether slyly intentional or not, its title lyric beats the haters to the punch: Veronica Falls haven't changed much in the year-and-a-half since their debut. If you were expecting a bounding artistic leap forward on Waiting, or standalone tracks as immediate and memorable as "Bad Feeling" and "Graveyard", you might be slightly disappointed that their second record doesn't stray much from their established blueprint. But taken apart from the high expectations set by their debut, Waiting is another strong collection of guitar pop gems from a band quickly proving itself to be a better, more elusive quantity than any easy genre tag might suggest.

Artist: Veronica Falls, Album: Waiting for Something to Happen, Genre: Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Struggling to pin down Veronica Falls' sound, an interviewer recently told frontwoman Roxanne Clifford, "You know, you aren't twee." To which she replied, with exaggerated enthusiasm and perfect comedic timing, "Thanks!" It's easy to understand why people were quick to tack ready made labels onto Veronica Falls' sound when they first appeared on the indie pop scene several years ago. There's something familiar and retro-leaning about the London-based quartet-- a band daring to jangle in the long shadow of C86, copping a moody pose that's equally indebted to Morrissey and the Jesus and Mary Chain. But since their earliest singles, Veronica Falls seem to have figured out the deceptively simple, age-old secret to transcending influences: They just keep writing really good songs. If people need to put a label on Veronica Falls' sound, Clifford told me when I interviewed her last year that she prefers the phrase "horror rock"-- a nod to her idol, garage rock pioneer Roky Erickson. (His band, cult favorites the 13th Floor Elevators, drew lyrical inspiration from old slasher flicks.) Veronica Falls released a sunny, serviceable cover of Erickson's "Starry Eyes" shortly after they formed in 2009, but it was on their excellent self-titled debut that they really came into the term. From the magnificently spooky "Found Love in a Graveyard" to the abrasive, zombified surf rock of "Beachy Head" (an ode to a craggy, coastline cliff in Sussex infamous for its suicides), a thematic chill ran throughout the album. And yet, Veronica Falls had a restraint and tasteful balance you don't often hear on debut records. They knew how to push their goth impulses just enough to be devotedly macabre, but not so far that their smartly arranged songs drowned in kitschy gimmicks. Even their most melodramatic and fantastical tracks like "Graveyard" were still grounded by relatable, down-to-earth emotions. This remains true on the band's second album, Waiting for Something to Happen, which is not a huge departure from the debut but instead a showcase for subtle, wise tune-ups in the band's machinery. The chemistry between Clifford and James Hoare's dueling lead guitars is still strong, and the band's signature multi-part harmonies are as lush as they've ever been. Perhaps the most noticeable change is that Waiting feels like a warmer record. True to its "horror rock" ethos, the harmonies on Veronica Falls sometimes sounded like the work of an undead 60s girl group, but here, everybody sounds like they've got a little more color in their cheeks. Waiting still broods with the intensity of teenage love poems, but the approach here is more Romantic than Gothic. These aren't songs about heartbreak caused by ghosts, spirits, or dead poets; they're about the more ordinary variety of heartbreak between real, live people. As the current rosters of labels like Slumberland and Captured Tracks attest, Veronica Falls aren't the only jangly, guitar-driven band out there that can write a memorable pop hook. What sets them at the head of the pack isn't so much their songwriting chops (though they've definitely got them) as it is the lush, full-screen scope of their sound. This atmosphere sounds fully realized on Waiting for Something to Happen, which was recorded mostly without overdubs and with all four band members playing live in the studio. (Clifford says they scrapped some early demos because they "didn't like how it sounded when we started tracking everything individually.") You can tell Veronica Falls approach the interplay between guitars, bass and drums as carefully as they do their vocal harmonies, and that sense of interlocking group energy gives their sound a roughness, but also fullness and a warmth. You can hear it on the album's most melancholy moment, "Falling Out": Clifford paints a solitary scene of "standing in the headlights, falling in the snow," but as her bandmates' instruments and voices join hers in the chorus, that collective energy makes her begin to sound slightly resilient, as if bolstered by the fact that she's no longer alone. "Everybody's changing, I remain the same," Clifford sings on "Everybody's Changing", a side B highlight with a chiming melody that sounds like a long lost Teenage Fanclub tune. Whether slyly intentional or not, its title lyric beats the haters to the punch: Veronica Falls haven't changed much in the year-and-a-half since their debut. If you were expecting a bounding artistic leap forward on Waiting, or standalone tracks as immediate and memorable as "Bad Feeling" and "Graveyard", you might be slightly disappointed that their second record doesn't stray much from their established blueprint. But taken apart from the high expectations set by their debut, Waiting is another strong collection of guitar pop gems from a band quickly proving itself to be a better, more elusive quantity than any easy genre tag might suggest."

SahBabii

S.A.N.D.A.S

Rap

Sheldon Pearce

In early 2017, SahBabii’s “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” became a sleeper hit, continuing a trend of light-hearted youngsters infiltrating the Atlanta trap scene with impishly playful romps. The Chicago transplant has identified his sound as “melodic trap” and likened it to racing a Mario Kart beach track on Wii. He is a surrealist who finds delight in the bizarre, emphasizing melody over meaning and concentrating on the little vocal flourishes and ad-libs to flesh out songs. The kaleidoscopic quality to his music beams in vibrant colorways. Few seemed to follow “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” back to the 2016 mixtape that produced it called S.A.N.D.A.S., or Suck a Nigga Dick Ah Something, a beta test for a polished product just about ready to go to market. The song was one of several tracks that proved a relative compositional acumen, but it was “Pull Up” that stuck with audiences, and with good reason; it synthesizes some of the most interesting things happening in Atlanta in recent months with relative ease. Soon the song had remixes from T-Pain, Fetty Wap, and Wiz Khalifa. A label bidding war ensued, and Warner won the rights to the upstart, who feels built for the streaming era, playlists, and virality. The newly remastered S.A.N.D.A.S. is an attempt to capitalize on Sah’s healthy buzz. It’s a bit like slapping a fresh coat of paint on a used car and pushing it back onto the showroom floor, but it can serve as a suitable crash course in his spasms and bird calls for the uninitiated. Aside from the title track, the project is largely the same, just with a noticeable improvement in sound quality. The only new additions are the recently released “Marsupial Superstars” with his brother T3 and the long-teased “Geronimo,” both of which put into action all of his strengths, twitching in and out of phrases and moving in little leaps and bounds. The charm is the seamlessness: the seemingly endless propulsion and how fluidly everything happens. Since stepping into the spotlight, Sah has acknowledged Young Thug as his forbear, whose influence cannot be ignored. Sah is less dynamic, significantly less captivating in action, and the recently released “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” remix featuring Thug only magnified the gap between the two. He’s nowhere near as unpredictable as Thug and he smooths out some of his predecessor’s kinkier flows. Sah’s style is steadier and less gnarly, but more certainty doesn’t mean there’s more purpose. Actions and words are both often aimlessly assembled here, even when you know what’s coming next. The tape has a very loosely recurring jungle theme, particularly on “King of the Jungle,” “Purple Ape,” and “Titanoboa,” where he compares himself to animals without explanation. The components of his songs are mostly the same—the phrase “animal planet,” armed robberies, hundred round drums, lots and lots of fellatio—and after a few listens a compositional formula emerges: triplet flows constructed on repetitive melodic phrases. But then there are songs like “Chit Chat,” which transcend their basic moving parts to form something nearly supernal. At his sharpest, he can string together haymakers (“That Glock get to burning like gonorrhea/That chopper sound off, onomatopoeia”) and flat-out outlandish non sequiturs (“Recording that hoe with no kissing scene/How you suck dick but don't eat string beans”) that anchor his more delicate tunes. There’s a fun scheme where he rattles off references to various Steves (Irwin, Urkel, Harvey, Jobs, the family from the Disney Channel show “Even Stevens”) in quick succession. But at his most derivative, he exposes the things separating him from the stars he emulates. “Bullshit” sounds like a low-budget rework of a Future and Zaytoven collaboration. “Cracks & Crevices” is a half-mumbled, half-crooned ditty that relies heavily on the laziest Young Thug tropes. Even “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” marries midgrade Thug vocal turns with dead-eyed 21 Savage gun talk. It can be difficult to reconcile the SahBabii appearing in interviews—the one who turned the number of the beast into a symbol for the most basic element of life, worries about the ozone layer, decries capitalism, and wants to design video games—with the one who appears on S.A.N.D.A.S., simply because his melodic musings don’t seem to share the same thoughtfulness. That isn’t because his SoundCloud persona isn’t as philosophical, or because these topics don’t make their way into his music—no 20 year old should have to rap about global warming; it’s that his music doesn’t provide the same window into his personality. So far, he’s spent more time projecting images of his sires than growing into his own. Re-releasing S.A.N.D.A.S. is a lateral move reiterating his defining truth thus far: he has yet to find his voice.

Artist: SahBabii, Album: S.A.N.D.A.S, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "In early 2017, SahBabii’s “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” became a sleeper hit, continuing a trend of light-hearted youngsters infiltrating the Atlanta trap scene with impishly playful romps. The Chicago transplant has identified his sound as “melodic trap” and likened it to racing a Mario Kart beach track on Wii. He is a surrealist who finds delight in the bizarre, emphasizing melody over meaning and concentrating on the little vocal flourishes and ad-libs to flesh out songs. The kaleidoscopic quality to his music beams in vibrant colorways. Few seemed to follow “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” back to the 2016 mixtape that produced it called S.A.N.D.A.S., or Suck a Nigga Dick Ah Something, a beta test for a polished product just about ready to go to market. The song was one of several tracks that proved a relative compositional acumen, but it was “Pull Up” that stuck with audiences, and with good reason; it synthesizes some of the most interesting things happening in Atlanta in recent months with relative ease. Soon the song had remixes from T-Pain, Fetty Wap, and Wiz Khalifa. A label bidding war ensued, and Warner won the rights to the upstart, who feels built for the streaming era, playlists, and virality. The newly remastered S.A.N.D.A.S. is an attempt to capitalize on Sah’s healthy buzz. It’s a bit like slapping a fresh coat of paint on a used car and pushing it back onto the showroom floor, but it can serve as a suitable crash course in his spasms and bird calls for the uninitiated. Aside from the title track, the project is largely the same, just with a noticeable improvement in sound quality. The only new additions are the recently released “Marsupial Superstars” with his brother T3 and the long-teased “Geronimo,” both of which put into action all of his strengths, twitching in and out of phrases and moving in little leaps and bounds. The charm is the seamlessness: the seemingly endless propulsion and how fluidly everything happens. Since stepping into the spotlight, Sah has acknowledged Young Thug as his forbear, whose influence cannot be ignored. Sah is less dynamic, significantly less captivating in action, and the recently released “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” remix featuring Thug only magnified the gap between the two. He’s nowhere near as unpredictable as Thug and he smooths out some of his predecessor’s kinkier flows. Sah’s style is steadier and less gnarly, but more certainty doesn’t mean there’s more purpose. Actions and words are both often aimlessly assembled here, even when you know what’s coming next. The tape has a very loosely recurring jungle theme, particularly on “King of the Jungle,” “Purple Ape,” and “Titanoboa,” where he compares himself to animals without explanation. The components of his songs are mostly the same—the phrase “animal planet,” armed robberies, hundred round drums, lots and lots of fellatio—and after a few listens a compositional formula emerges: triplet flows constructed on repetitive melodic phrases. But then there are songs like “Chit Chat,” which transcend their basic moving parts to form something nearly supernal. At his sharpest, he can string together haymakers (“That Glock get to burning like gonorrhea/That chopper sound off, onomatopoeia”) and flat-out outlandish non sequiturs (“Recording that hoe with no kissing scene/How you suck dick but don't eat string beans”) that anchor his more delicate tunes. There’s a fun scheme where he rattles off references to various Steves (Irwin, Urkel, Harvey, Jobs, the family from the Disney Channel show “Even Stevens”) in quick succession. But at his most derivative, he exposes the things separating him from the stars he emulates. “Bullshit” sounds like a low-budget rework of a Future and Zaytoven collaboration. “Cracks & Crevices” is a half-mumbled, half-crooned ditty that relies heavily on the laziest Young Thug tropes. Even “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” marries midgrade Thug vocal turns with dead-eyed 21 Savage gun talk. It can be difficult to reconcile the SahBabii appearing in interviews—the one who turned the number of the beast into a symbol for the most basic element of life, worries about the ozone layer, decries capitalism, and wants to design video games—with the one who appears on S.A.N.D.A.S., simply because his melodic musings don’t seem to share the same thoughtfulness. That isn’t because his SoundCloud persona isn’t as philosophical, or because these topics don’t make their way into his music—no 20 year old should have to rap about global warming; it’s that his music doesn’t provide the same window into his personality. So far, he’s spent more time projecting images of his sires than growing into his own. Re-releasing S.A.N.D.A.S. is a lateral move reiterating his defining truth thus far: he has yet to find his voice."

Coldair

The Provider

Stuart Berman

The city of Warsaw has two (equally dour) associations in rock history. It was the original name of a certain morose Mancunian post-punk band before they got all inside-baseball with their World War II references, and it was the inspiration for "Warszawa," the haunting ambient symphony that heralds the foreboding second act of David Bowie's Low. As the first Warsaw-based musician in years to plug into the North American indie industrial complex, Tobiasz Biliński doesn't do much to dispel those grim allusions. He may possess the gentle voice of a sensitive folksinger and the byzantine mind of a composer, but at the core of his music beats the blackened heart of a goth. The Provider is Biliński's third album as Coldair, but the first to land in the U.S. (through a publishing and digital distribution deal with Sub Pop). And from an aesthetic standpoint, it may as well be his proper debut, because it's less a full realization of what he's been working toward than a wholesale reformulation of it. Coldair's previous efforts were more like warm gusts: gentle Nick Drakean serenades guided by winsome, wandering melodies and buttressed by brass fanfares. But 2013's Whose Blood suggested a creeping unease, with digital jolts and foreboding, Swans-like percussion that poked black holes in the scenery. On The Provider, Biliński reaches into those fissures and tears them wide open, allowing that darkness to become all-consuming. Listen close and you can still hear the acoustic strums and trombone trills that underpinned his earlier work, but here they're subservient to frosty synth drones, icy 808s, and synthetic handclaps that sting like smacks to the face on a winter's night. As the arresting opener "Endear" emerges from a misty haze into an urgent, industrial-grade throb, Biliński is transformed from humble troubadour to the high priest at black mass, complete with an ominous church-organ hum that powers the song's intense finale. But there's a bit of a Wizard of Oz effect at play on The Provider—the songs may project a majestic ultraviolet glow, but the dry ice eventually clears to reveal the lonely, wounded soul pulling the levers behind the curtain. Biliński's language has become brutally direct: "My whole life is falling apart so fast," he sings at one point, and The Provider can be heard as his attempt to put the pieces back together, resulting in songs that seem both fragile and imposing in their construction, all jagged edges and exposed wires. The overwhelming mood of distress is reflected in the unsettled arrangements—electro-shocked beats clash with militaristic drum fills, pianos and shoegaze guitar drizzle rub up against anxious tick-tock rhythms, meditative melodies hover above dirty dancefloor grinds. But that internal tension dissipates when the songs start to sprawl out, as on the synth-smeared title track or the sputtering bombast of "Suit Yourself." The Provider is most compelling when its textural expanse induces claustrophobia. Beneath the clatter, The Provider elicits the discomfiting sensation of eavesdropping on Biliński's private conversations—with family members, with ex-lovers, with himself—about his feelings of inadequacy in the face of parental and societal pressures. But his voice remains as light as the subject matter is heavy, and is often double-tracked into angelic harmonies that help smooth over the songs' corrosive surfaces. And even when working with electro-sonics and brittle beats, Biliński's classically-trained approach to songcraft prevails—on strobe-lit standouts like "Perfect Son" and "Denounce," he builds big hooks out of scraps and shards, skilfully layering and arranging his minimal elements to maximize their dramatic impact. Ironically, the more oppressive environs of The Provider prove to be a more effective showcase for Biliński's emotionally charged songcraft than his heart-on-sleeve folkie phase. Because that's the funny thing about cold air—when the weather turns so frigid that your exhalation produces visible vapors, it feels like you're breathing fire.

Artist: Coldair, Album: The Provider, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "The city of Warsaw has two (equally dour) associations in rock history. It was the original name of a certain morose Mancunian post-punk band before they got all inside-baseball with their World War II references, and it was the inspiration for "Warszawa," the haunting ambient symphony that heralds the foreboding second act of David Bowie's Low. As the first Warsaw-based musician in years to plug into the North American indie industrial complex, Tobiasz Biliński doesn't do much to dispel those grim allusions. He may possess the gentle voice of a sensitive folksinger and the byzantine mind of a composer, but at the core of his music beats the blackened heart of a goth. The Provider is Biliński's third album as Coldair, but the first to land in the U.S. (through a publishing and digital distribution deal with Sub Pop). And from an aesthetic standpoint, it may as well be his proper debut, because it's less a full realization of what he's been working toward than a wholesale reformulation of it. Coldair's previous efforts were more like warm gusts: gentle Nick Drakean serenades guided by winsome, wandering melodies and buttressed by brass fanfares. But 2013's Whose Blood suggested a creeping unease, with digital jolts and foreboding, Swans-like percussion that poked black holes in the scenery. On The Provider, Biliński reaches into those fissures and tears them wide open, allowing that darkness to become all-consuming. Listen close and you can still hear the acoustic strums and trombone trills that underpinned his earlier work, but here they're subservient to frosty synth drones, icy 808s, and synthetic handclaps that sting like smacks to the face on a winter's night. As the arresting opener "Endear" emerges from a misty haze into an urgent, industrial-grade throb, Biliński is transformed from humble troubadour to the high priest at black mass, complete with an ominous church-organ hum that powers the song's intense finale. But there's a bit of a Wizard of Oz effect at play on The Provider—the songs may project a majestic ultraviolet glow, but the dry ice eventually clears to reveal the lonely, wounded soul pulling the levers behind the curtain. Biliński's language has become brutally direct: "My whole life is falling apart so fast," he sings at one point, and The Provider can be heard as his attempt to put the pieces back together, resulting in songs that seem both fragile and imposing in their construction, all jagged edges and exposed wires. The overwhelming mood of distress is reflected in the unsettled arrangements—electro-shocked beats clash with militaristic drum fills, pianos and shoegaze guitar drizzle rub up against anxious tick-tock rhythms, meditative melodies hover above dirty dancefloor grinds. But that internal tension dissipates when the songs start to sprawl out, as on the synth-smeared title track or the sputtering bombast of "Suit Yourself." The Provider is most compelling when its textural expanse induces claustrophobia. Beneath the clatter, The Provider elicits the discomfiting sensation of eavesdropping on Biliński's private conversations—with family members, with ex-lovers, with himself—about his feelings of inadequacy in the face of parental and societal pressures. But his voice remains as light as the subject matter is heavy, and is often double-tracked into angelic harmonies that help smooth over the songs' corrosive surfaces. And even when working with electro-sonics and brittle beats, Biliński's classically-trained approach to songcraft prevails—on strobe-lit standouts like "Perfect Son" and "Denounce," he builds big hooks out of scraps and shards, skilfully layering and arranging his minimal elements to maximize their dramatic impact. Ironically, the more oppressive environs of The Provider prove to be a more effective showcase for Biliński's emotionally charged songcraft than his heart-on-sleeve folkie phase. Because that's the funny thing about cold air—when the weather turns so frigid that your exhalation produces visible vapors, it feels like you're breathing fire."

Fairmont

Coloured in Memory

Electronic

Andy Battaglia

Jake Fairley is one of a few North Americans to figure into the grand narrative of techno over the past few years. He made his name in Toronto before moving to Berlin, where he joined hordes of expatriate DJ/producers-- is there a census yet to track such an epochal migration?-- keen to play routine gigs bigger than what would qualify as career highlights at home. In his transplanted role, Fairley was one of many, another promising player on a deep bench busy making Berlin a story. So what made him special? Not much, at the start. Or, in another fashion: versatility. The ability to wander meaningfully between different styles isn't often valorized within the delirious techno glut, but Fairley is a prime example of the kind of artist who benefits from time on the sidelines. He made solid but less-than-starry singles for good labels (Traum, Sender, Kompakt), and in 2004 he crafted an album, Touch Not the Cat, that failed to win due appreciation even though it ranks now with the best realizations of the late glam-stomp techno style known as "schaffel." Then he blew up. Under his guise as Fairmont, at the end of 2005, Fairley made one of those storied dance tracks that introduce a new sound (not a style, but a specific sound) to mark a time and place on techno's long-term trajectory. In the case of "Gazebo", it was an ethereal synth bauble thrown into a perpetual falling action over the span of several bars, a protracted melodic idea that suggested the structure of a "round" but teasingly refused to coalesce. "Gazebo" played as an instant anthem at the time, and its influence remains in a realm where significance is measured in terms of months more often than years. Nothing on Fairmont's Coloured in Memory proves quite as wondrous, but the craft remains. "Fade and Saturate" opens in a dramatic mood, with series of reversed-tape smears and ashen synths building over vocals by Fairley himself. Unlike on Touch Not the Cat, which cast him as a bashful singer not quite sure how to hold a microphone, Fairley sounds now like he means it. And his hissy whisper haunts even when he's not there: In similarly keyed highlights like "Darling's Waltz" and "Mobula", suggestive shadows of songs fall over tracks made up of just washes and beats, all of which hit big but rustle or spray accents to make them register as more holistically musical. A lot of Coloured in Memory sounds like Superpitcher and Michael Mayer, two fellow song-minded producers (and reigning icons of the Kompakt label) whom Fairley clearly reveres. Superpitcher plays out in the matter of moods-- brooding, gray, sensuously in love with sadness and detachment-- while Mayer figures into Fairley's dramatic knack for moving parts in and out of place like a DJ. "I Need Medicine", the biggest dance track on the album, showcases the latter with movements arranged around throbs, taps, snaps, and finally a beat that bangs with all the concision of a stamping machine. The final third of Coloured in Memory downshifts into a spell of midtempo meditations and ambient murmurs. It's the kind of direction known to derail techno albums by even the best, but Fairley makes good on the habit for expansiveness he's earned. Coloured in Memory meanders, but never less than meaningfully so.

Artist: Fairmont, Album: Coloured in Memory, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "Jake Fairley is one of a few North Americans to figure into the grand narrative of techno over the past few years. He made his name in Toronto before moving to Berlin, where he joined hordes of expatriate DJ/producers-- is there a census yet to track such an epochal migration?-- keen to play routine gigs bigger than what would qualify as career highlights at home. In his transplanted role, Fairley was one of many, another promising player on a deep bench busy making Berlin a story. So what made him special? Not much, at the start. Or, in another fashion: versatility. The ability to wander meaningfully between different styles isn't often valorized within the delirious techno glut, but Fairley is a prime example of the kind of artist who benefits from time on the sidelines. He made solid but less-than-starry singles for good labels (Traum, Sender, Kompakt), and in 2004 he crafted an album, Touch Not the Cat, that failed to win due appreciation even though it ranks now with the best realizations of the late glam-stomp techno style known as "schaffel." Then he blew up. Under his guise as Fairmont, at the end of 2005, Fairley made one of those storied dance tracks that introduce a new sound (not a style, but a specific sound) to mark a time and place on techno's long-term trajectory. In the case of "Gazebo", it was an ethereal synth bauble thrown into a perpetual falling action over the span of several bars, a protracted melodic idea that suggested the structure of a "round" but teasingly refused to coalesce. "Gazebo" played as an instant anthem at the time, and its influence remains in a realm where significance is measured in terms of months more often than years. Nothing on Fairmont's Coloured in Memory proves quite as wondrous, but the craft remains. "Fade and Saturate" opens in a dramatic mood, with series of reversed-tape smears and ashen synths building over vocals by Fairley himself. Unlike on Touch Not the Cat, which cast him as a bashful singer not quite sure how to hold a microphone, Fairley sounds now like he means it. And his hissy whisper haunts even when he's not there: In similarly keyed highlights like "Darling's Waltz" and "Mobula", suggestive shadows of songs fall over tracks made up of just washes and beats, all of which hit big but rustle or spray accents to make them register as more holistically musical. A lot of Coloured in Memory sounds like Superpitcher and Michael Mayer, two fellow song-minded producers (and reigning icons of the Kompakt label) whom Fairley clearly reveres. Superpitcher plays out in the matter of moods-- brooding, gray, sensuously in love with sadness and detachment-- while Mayer figures into Fairley's dramatic knack for moving parts in and out of place like a DJ. "I Need Medicine", the biggest dance track on the album, showcases the latter with movements arranged around throbs, taps, snaps, and finally a beat that bangs with all the concision of a stamping machine. The final third of Coloured in Memory downshifts into a spell of midtempo meditations and ambient murmurs. It's the kind of direction known to derail techno albums by even the best, but Fairley makes good on the habit for expansiveness he's earned. Coloured in Memory meanders, but never less than meaningfully so."

High on Fire

Death Is This Communion

Metal

Brandon Stosuy

Death Is This Communion, High on Fire's fourth album, was one of my 10 favorite albums in 2007, and I was far from alone. If you aren't already in the know, though, let this serve as some sort of wakeup call to the Oakland band's best collection to date. Don't worry about arriving late at the party: Despite the music's unrelenting roll, my entire experience with Death has been laid back...I listened to it a dozen times before bothering to check the song titles. After memorizing each track, the shifts in those torching guitar riffs, the names didn't come as much of a surprise. For instance, "Fury Whip" is the perfect way to describe the lashing opener. It starts with more than a minute of galloping guitar, drums (note Des Kensel's double bass thumping), and bass from new member Jeff Matz, before guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike tears in with his hoarse chipped-tooth snarl. More than ever before, Pike's singing, not just his guitar playing, is a power onto itself. We already knew from his Sleep days he could pick an axe like a motherfucker, but man...maybe it's the cleaner, bigger, ballsier Jack Endino production, or the proper combination of whiskey and cigarettes and time, but Pike's at the point where his vocal and guitar chords have grizzled and wizened perfectly. (Lemmy, sir, watch your back.) When discussing Death you need to focus on Pike, but also go back to Endino. To the collection (and Jack's) credit, it ends up a deflating experience listening to 2005's Blessed Black Wings in tandem. At the time of the earlier album's release, it seemed like Joe Preston's bass and Steve Albini's production had given High on Fire their most monumental, thunderous sound to date, but weirdly, it's pretty limp in comparison. Musically, Blessed Black was punkier, and in restrospect, the songwriting just isn't as good. Outside of production, Death is both streamlined and epic. There are a number of rollicking patterns and shifts to the usual hard-edged rock, like the Eastern-tinged instrumental "Khanrad's Wall", the rising clatter drum solo of "Headhunter", or the jangle that establishes itself behind the smokiness of "Waste of Tiamat". The shimmering acoustic intro jangle to "Cyclopian Scape" offers a whiff of pastoral Sabbathian doom before the riff explosion. High on Fire are getting uncanny at knowing when to insert these sorts of details, but for all the awesome adds to the music, it's the rawest moments that feel the best: From its opening Celtic Frost grunt onward, "Rumors of War" rollicks all bad-ass and overdriven like a mathier spin on Motörhead's "Ace of Spades". The fucking mighty "Turk" reels through War Metal until it slides into groovier (but just as heavy) bong waters and "black psychology": "My cage's walls are closing in on me/ The rage that surfaces is not my soul/ It's like a devil taking control/ The violence lives in me and will not leave/ Like a magician with pain up his sleeve." Pike has said he was inspired by conspiracy theories and H.P. Lovecraft on the album (what metal band isn't these days?), and a number of the songs have that enjoyable occult tinge to their lyrics, though maybe nothing as D&D as something like "Surrounded By Thieves" (OK, minus "Cyclopian Scape"'s reptilian alien race, "lemurian throne," and etc). In terms of Sleep-- because those terms refuse to go away-- this is High on Fire's Jerusalem. Outside of HoF's ascent, it's interesting to see Pike hit his peak just as his ex-Sleep bandmates in Om moved toward theirs with the appropriately titled Pilgrimage-- they continue chiseling into a sparer minimalist realm, while High on Fire inscribe additional accents into their crusty rock. It's rare to see such a cohesive trio split into two groups that both become so powerful, ascending at the same time with such distinct aesthetics. Here, actually, the title track's vocal lines are kinda Om-- that smearier stoner incantation slide-- but Pike and Co. otherwise continue moving deeper into their amphetamine-laced rock monster. Much less the old dope smoke. So, high on a different sort of fire. If you haven't already, make sure to inhale both.

Artist: High on Fire, Album: Death Is This Communion, Genre: Metal, Score (1-10): 8.2 Album review: "Death Is This Communion, High on Fire's fourth album, was one of my 10 favorite albums in 2007, and I was far from alone. If you aren't already in the know, though, let this serve as some sort of wakeup call to the Oakland band's best collection to date. Don't worry about arriving late at the party: Despite the music's unrelenting roll, my entire experience with Death has been laid back...I listened to it a dozen times before bothering to check the song titles. After memorizing each track, the shifts in those torching guitar riffs, the names didn't come as much of a surprise. For instance, "Fury Whip" is the perfect way to describe the lashing opener. It starts with more than a minute of galloping guitar, drums (note Des Kensel's double bass thumping), and bass from new member Jeff Matz, before guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike tears in with his hoarse chipped-tooth snarl. More than ever before, Pike's singing, not just his guitar playing, is a power onto itself. We already knew from his Sleep days he could pick an axe like a motherfucker, but man...maybe it's the cleaner, bigger, ballsier Jack Endino production, or the proper combination of whiskey and cigarettes and time, but Pike's at the point where his vocal and guitar chords have grizzled and wizened perfectly. (Lemmy, sir, watch your back.) When discussing Death you need to focus on Pike, but also go back to Endino. To the collection (and Jack's) credit, it ends up a deflating experience listening to 2005's Blessed Black Wings in tandem. At the time of the earlier album's release, it seemed like Joe Preston's bass and Steve Albini's production had given High on Fire their most monumental, thunderous sound to date, but weirdly, it's pretty limp in comparison. Musically, Blessed Black was punkier, and in restrospect, the songwriting just isn't as good. Outside of production, Death is both streamlined and epic. There are a number of rollicking patterns and shifts to the usual hard-edged rock, like the Eastern-tinged instrumental "Khanrad's Wall", the rising clatter drum solo of "Headhunter", or the jangle that establishes itself behind the smokiness of "Waste of Tiamat". The shimmering acoustic intro jangle to "Cyclopian Scape" offers a whiff of pastoral Sabbathian doom before the riff explosion. High on Fire are getting uncanny at knowing when to insert these sorts of details, but for all the awesome adds to the music, it's the rawest moments that feel the best: From its opening Celtic Frost grunt onward, "Rumors of War" rollicks all bad-ass and overdriven like a mathier spin on Motörhead's "Ace of Spades". The fucking mighty "Turk" reels through War Metal until it slides into groovier (but just as heavy) bong waters and "black psychology": "My cage's walls are closing in on me/ The rage that surfaces is not my soul/ It's like a devil taking control/ The violence lives in me and will not leave/ Like a magician with pain up his sleeve." Pike has said he was inspired by conspiracy theories and H.P. Lovecraft on the album (what metal band isn't these days?), and a number of the songs have that enjoyable occult tinge to their lyrics, though maybe nothing as D&D as something like "Surrounded By Thieves" (OK, minus "Cyclopian Scape"'s reptilian alien race, "lemurian throne," and etc). In terms of Sleep-- because those terms refuse to go away-- this is High on Fire's Jerusalem. Outside of HoF's ascent, it's interesting to see Pike hit his peak just as his ex-Sleep bandmates in Om moved toward theirs with the appropriately titled Pilgrimage-- they continue chiseling into a sparer minimalist realm, while High on Fire inscribe additional accents into their crusty rock. It's rare to see such a cohesive trio split into two groups that both become so powerful, ascending at the same time with such distinct aesthetics. Here, actually, the title track's vocal lines are kinda Om-- that smearier stoner incantation slide-- but Pike and Co. otherwise continue moving deeper into their amphetamine-laced rock monster. Much less the old dope smoke. So, high on a different sort of fire. If you haven't already, make sure to inhale both."

Demolition Doll Rods

There Is a Difference

Electronic,Rock

Zach Baron

In Detroit's racial hall of mirrors, the Doll Rods' rock'n'roll minstrel show registers about as much as another building collapse. Forget their Brother J.C. Crawford moments on "Open Up Your Door" and their pseudo-spiritual, plantation-aping "ain't nobody do me like Jesus" "Medley"; they have still duller weapons in store. Among them: Ramones familial surnames, Stooges attitude, and New York Dolls boy-as-girl-in-the-city (or Joan Jett, girl-as-boy-in-the-city) looking for action. Their sex life could be as fictional as their Doll Rod last names-- even if they play shows without clothes on, and call their new record There Is a Difference, as in two gender-opposite kids looking down their little shorts. Remember how on-the-way-to-school-we-broke-all-the-rules we once were? Sometimes I think I do-- on "Where My Baby Be", say, where they do the chorus like debauched Angels, or on "Booty Call", where she calls Danny Doll Rod and says she wants action, and he tells her action is his middle name, and I imagine this happened to me once. Is "action" anybody's real middle name? Lies do clear the way for good fiction. Demolition Doll Rods tell a bedtime story, the only one: Getting laid, over and over again. Drummer Christine Doll Rod is a Meg White-like bass-and-tom kicker, steady and pumping, though she's not really any good at the instrument. Add that to infinitely repetitive hooks, like "She don't like nobody but me" ("Baby Say Unh!") and "Honey yeah I wanna take you home" ("Take You Home"), and loop the same blues lick they stick between each one, and you've got yourself a decent approximation of your standard missionary old-school sex-rock. OG jaded pervert Iggy Pop took 'em on tour with him once, and he would know. Suppose they're not very likable, and they're nihilists in their endless focus on one idea-- fucking-- till it seems as tired as brushing your teeth, and their blues revival screech and three-chord skronk and big chorus are pushing for the grave faster every time they do them. Suppose that's the big idea. "The first thing that you'll know? You'll be ready for the grand finale, so come on baby let's go let's go let's go let's go."

Artist: Demolition Doll Rods, Album: There Is a Difference, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "In Detroit's racial hall of mirrors, the Doll Rods' rock'n'roll minstrel show registers about as much as another building collapse. Forget their Brother J.C. Crawford moments on "Open Up Your Door" and their pseudo-spiritual, plantation-aping "ain't nobody do me like Jesus" "Medley"; they have still duller weapons in store. Among them: Ramones familial surnames, Stooges attitude, and New York Dolls boy-as-girl-in-the-city (or Joan Jett, girl-as-boy-in-the-city) looking for action. Their sex life could be as fictional as their Doll Rod last names-- even if they play shows without clothes on, and call their new record There Is a Difference, as in two gender-opposite kids looking down their little shorts. Remember how on-the-way-to-school-we-broke-all-the-rules we once were? Sometimes I think I do-- on "Where My Baby Be", say, where they do the chorus like debauched Angels, or on "Booty Call", where she calls Danny Doll Rod and says she wants action, and he tells her action is his middle name, and I imagine this happened to me once. Is "action" anybody's real middle name? Lies do clear the way for good fiction. Demolition Doll Rods tell a bedtime story, the only one: Getting laid, over and over again. Drummer Christine Doll Rod is a Meg White-like bass-and-tom kicker, steady and pumping, though she's not really any good at the instrument. Add that to infinitely repetitive hooks, like "She don't like nobody but me" ("Baby Say Unh!") and "Honey yeah I wanna take you home" ("Take You Home"), and loop the same blues lick they stick between each one, and you've got yourself a decent approximation of your standard missionary old-school sex-rock. OG jaded pervert Iggy Pop took 'em on tour with him once, and he would know. Suppose they're not very likable, and they're nihilists in their endless focus on one idea-- fucking-- till it seems as tired as brushing your teeth, and their blues revival screech and three-chord skronk and big chorus are pushing for the grave faster every time they do them. Suppose that's the big idea. "The first thing that you'll know? You'll be ready for the grand finale, so come on baby let's go let's go let's go let's go.""

Airhead

For Years

Rock

Mike Powell

Rob McAndrews, a.k.a. Airhead, is best known for collaborating with James Blake, which will do as much to foster an audience for his own albums as it will threaten to overshadow them. Like Blake (and his associates in Mount Kimbie), McAndrews makes low-key electronic music that never lets you forget the human presence behind it. In Blake's case, it's his ghostly pillow talk; in McAndrews', it's delicately plucked guitars, grainy field recordings, and a naturalistic sense of drift more akin to ambient music than techno. Portions of his debut, For Years, sound like crosstalk coming in from an open window; others appear to be happening under a pile of leaves. The album is rooted in the hip-hop mosaics of producers like J Dilla and a subdued take on post-rock. At first it might be hard to figure out what the two styles have to do with each other, and if nothing else For Years connects them as dots in a constellation of instrumental music that favors abstract forms while clinging to an almost classical sense of beauty and grandeur. (The same qualities make duly clear its popularity among stoners.) Aside from the mid-album exclamation point "Pyramid Lake", For Years doesn't beg for attention. It is downtempo music, subtle but paradoxically best heard at a distance. Its highlights are tracks that become memorable after multiple listens but are just as easily tuned out: the Karen O-sampling "Wait", "Autumn", and Blake collaboration "Knives", whose contorted gospel keyboard progressions are mixed under so much atmosphere they're practically subliminal. In a recent Pitchfork interview, McAdams said that he spent a lot of time growing up listening to music while sitting in front of a computer, "which I'm sure [the music] wasn't intended for". Consciously or not, it's a relationship to sound that has seeped completely into For Years, which has an even-keel, almost analgesic quality when played in the background of otherwise uneventful moments. It takes skill to make music this way-- to exist without disturbing, to engage without interrupting, and to please without sounding like you're going out of your way to do it. But there are tracks on For Years that feel like 30-second ideas stretched to four minutes, or where the music becomes so airy and loose I wonder if even McAdams is convinced it absolutely needs to exist. Ironically, what drew me to For Years on first listen is what held me back on the tenth: Despite its clever syntheses, there are times when it's not much more than pretty. But the good is not only good, it's promising. Some of For Years was recorded as early as 2009, and McAndrews expressed no interest in changing how he makes music in order to keep so-called pace with his peers. That's noble. His earliest singles-- "Paper Street" and the Blake collaborations "Pembroke" and "Lock in the Lion"-- still have an isolated, thrillingly idiosyncratic sound, like blueprints for buildings that nobody ever got around to. Think of For Years as a brick.

Artist: Airhead, Album: For Years, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "Rob McAndrews, a.k.a. Airhead, is best known for collaborating with James Blake, which will do as much to foster an audience for his own albums as it will threaten to overshadow them. Like Blake (and his associates in Mount Kimbie), McAndrews makes low-key electronic music that never lets you forget the human presence behind it. In Blake's case, it's his ghostly pillow talk; in McAndrews', it's delicately plucked guitars, grainy field recordings, and a naturalistic sense of drift more akin to ambient music than techno. Portions of his debut, For Years, sound like crosstalk coming in from an open window; others appear to be happening under a pile of leaves. The album is rooted in the hip-hop mosaics of producers like J Dilla and a subdued take on post-rock. At first it might be hard to figure out what the two styles have to do with each other, and if nothing else For Years connects them as dots in a constellation of instrumental music that favors abstract forms while clinging to an almost classical sense of beauty and grandeur. (The same qualities make duly clear its popularity among stoners.) Aside from the mid-album exclamation point "Pyramid Lake", For Years doesn't beg for attention. It is downtempo music, subtle but paradoxically best heard at a distance. Its highlights are tracks that become memorable after multiple listens but are just as easily tuned out: the Karen O-sampling "Wait", "Autumn", and Blake collaboration "Knives", whose contorted gospel keyboard progressions are mixed under so much atmosphere they're practically subliminal. In a recent Pitchfork interview, McAdams said that he spent a lot of time growing up listening to music while sitting in front of a computer, "which I'm sure [the music] wasn't intended for". Consciously or not, it's a relationship to sound that has seeped completely into For Years, which has an even-keel, almost analgesic quality when played in the background of otherwise uneventful moments. It takes skill to make music this way-- to exist without disturbing, to engage without interrupting, and to please without sounding like you're going out of your way to do it. But there are tracks on For Years that feel like 30-second ideas stretched to four minutes, or where the music becomes so airy and loose I wonder if even McAdams is convinced it absolutely needs to exist. Ironically, what drew me to For Years on first listen is what held me back on the tenth: Despite its clever syntheses, there are times when it's not much more than pretty. But the good is not only good, it's promising. Some of For Years was recorded as early as 2009, and McAndrews expressed no interest in changing how he makes music in order to keep so-called pace with his peers. That's noble. His earliest singles-- "Paper Street" and the Blake collaborations "Pembroke" and "Lock in the Lion"-- still have an isolated, thrillingly idiosyncratic sound, like blueprints for buildings that nobody ever got around to. Think of For Years as a brick."

La Big Vic

Dub the World! Actually Remixed

Pop/R&B

Martin Douglas

The law of diminishing returns is exceedingly relevant when it comes to remix albums. Generally, the practice is to take an album that was already good, put its songs in the hands of other artists, and cross your fingers in hopes that they'll turn in something interesting. Then, they give it to the label, pick the best (and/or catchiest) songs, and repeat the album release cycle with minimal legwork. At best, you'll have an interesting collection of tunes, one that does things the artist would have probably never tried. At worst, the whole process will be every bit as cynical as it sounds. In rare cases, you'll end up with an album that can hold its own against your best material. That said, the idea of a band reinterpreting its own work, in spite of its also being a crapshoot, rarely ceases to be a fascinating venture. Even if it manages to be a drudge of a listen, minimal to the point of being skeletal, or simply a mess, there's always the thought process-- whether a clear musical narrative, an exploration into uncharted territory, or simply an attempt to improve the original-- that serves as a conceptual anchor. For a band as wildly cosmopolitan as Brooklyn's La Big Vic, a trio that includes Pitchfork contributor Emilie Friedlander, it serves as a chance to recontextualize itself without dulling its sonic expansiveness. In fact, the group's sound houses so many components that paring them down and using a clear focal point yields some tremendous results. As a lot of Actually was built on the improvisational instincts of the band, it's no surprise that the dub plates used here are simply a foundation for them to mess with the (already loose) structure of the originals, to venture off into even more far-out territory. Fragments of the original songs are chopped, blurred, and stretched to fit their new grooves, while new harmonies, instruments, and even looped snatches of digital ephemera from other songs (and what sounds like a retro radio commercial) are woven into the whole. "Mr. Broken Bird Dub" dulls the propulsive bounce of its source song into something of an anticlimax when filtered into dub-- the opposite effect of the original-- but most of the tracks do a fine job of adjusting. La Big Vic's proclivity for improvisation is best exemplified on "LYNY Dub" and opener "Everybody Needs Jah (FAO Dub)", where they take the most recognizable melodies of their originals and fuse them with a host of elements: pedal-treated synths, exploratory guitar work, even a section of uncut dialogue from Friedlander, trying to make heads or tails of a freshly recorded take. The concentration required to seamlessly merge as many styles as they do is the calling card of La Big Vic, but just as important is their innate ability to go off-script, creating a sound as natural, imperfect, and human as it is out of this world. When you think about it-- as far-flung as their members are, as many world-music elements are subtly used in their music-- La Big Vic making a dub album isn't very far out of the realm of possibility. Dub is essentially a platform for experimental artists to utilize their most improvisational techniques and couple them with a strong (but not unbendable) rhythmic anchor. Actually was an album that achieved these goals by throwing out the rule book. It's not surprising then that a remix album that sets a clear template, while allowing the band to explore the outer recesses of its sound, is every bit as vital as the work from which it was derived.

Artist: La Big Vic, Album: Dub the World! Actually Remixed, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "The law of diminishing returns is exceedingly relevant when it comes to remix albums. Generally, the practice is to take an album that was already good, put its songs in the hands of other artists, and cross your fingers in hopes that they'll turn in something interesting. Then, they give it to the label, pick the best (and/or catchiest) songs, and repeat the album release cycle with minimal legwork. At best, you'll have an interesting collection of tunes, one that does things the artist would have probably never tried. At worst, the whole process will be every bit as cynical as it sounds. In rare cases, you'll end up with an album that can hold its own against your best material. That said, the idea of a band reinterpreting its own work, in spite of its also being a crapshoot, rarely ceases to be a fascinating venture. Even if it manages to be a drudge of a listen, minimal to the point of being skeletal, or simply a mess, there's always the thought process-- whether a clear musical narrative, an exploration into uncharted territory, or simply an attempt to improve the original-- that serves as a conceptual anchor. For a band as wildly cosmopolitan as Brooklyn's La Big Vic, a trio that includes Pitchfork contributor Emilie Friedlander, it serves as a chance to recontextualize itself without dulling its sonic expansiveness. In fact, the group's sound houses so many components that paring them down and using a clear focal point yields some tremendous results. As a lot of Actually was built on the improvisational instincts of the band, it's no surprise that the dub plates used here are simply a foundation for them to mess with the (already loose) structure of the originals, to venture off into even more far-out territory. Fragments of the original songs are chopped, blurred, and stretched to fit their new grooves, while new harmonies, instruments, and even looped snatches of digital ephemera from other songs (and what sounds like a retro radio commercial) are woven into the whole. "Mr. Broken Bird Dub" dulls the propulsive bounce of its source song into something of an anticlimax when filtered into dub-- the opposite effect of the original-- but most of the tracks do a fine job of adjusting. La Big Vic's proclivity for improvisation is best exemplified on "LYNY Dub" and opener "Everybody Needs Jah (FAO Dub)", where they take the most recognizable melodies of their originals and fuse them with a host of elements: pedal-treated synths, exploratory guitar work, even a section of uncut dialogue from Friedlander, trying to make heads or tails of a freshly recorded take. The concentration required to seamlessly merge as many styles as they do is the calling card of La Big Vic, but just as important is their innate ability to go off-script, creating a sound as natural, imperfect, and human as it is out of this world. When you think about it-- as far-flung as their members are, as many world-music elements are subtly used in their music-- La Big Vic making a dub album isn't very far out of the realm of possibility. Dub is essentially a platform for experimental artists to utilize their most improvisational techniques and couple them with a strong (but not unbendable) rhythmic anchor. Actually was an album that achieved these goals by throwing out the rule book. It's not surprising then that a remix album that sets a clear template, while allowing the band to explore the outer recesses of its sound, is every bit as vital as the work from which it was derived."

Shlohmo

Laid Out EP

Electronic

Jonah Bromwich

Shlohmo (real name is Henry Laufer) is the flagship artist of Friends of Friends, a label whose artists are making it more and more difficult to distinguish between genres. The producers in FoF's stable draw on every musical ingredient available to them; they source samples and influences from any decade, genre, or style that they're interested in. What's most impressive about what Shlohmo and his peers are doing, and what's epitomized on Laid Out, is the way that they can transform vocal samples into instrumental elements while retaining the immediacy and accessibility we normally associate with pop vocals. Two sections of the Shlohmo's new EP, Laid Out, have an uncanny catchiness. The first is from the single "Don't Say No", featuring Tom Krell of How to Dress Well singing in his most desperate falsetto. The other sticky section is the loop from the best track on the EP, "Out of Hand". There's an obvious difference between the two: one features a singer emoting as best he can, with provocative, romantic lyrics. The other has just the ghost of a vocal, with words that are difficult to make out. But there's no difference in the intensity of the emotion that both songs conjure and the instrumentation in both is geared towards emphasizing those central refrains. "Later" the six-minute centerpiece of the album is similar to "Out of Hand" with its looped, anguished vocal sample. Only here, the voice is blurred beyond the point of recognition. The track doesn't have the same kind of grab as its predecessors (perhaps because the repeating loop is less recognizable as a human voice), but it's equally intense, with waxing and waning drum machines that surround and heighten that go-for-broke sample. Laufer's last project, the Vacation EP, played around with these kinds of melodies and samples, but that record largely avoided pop leanings. It was withdrawn, soft, pretty, akin to Nicolas Jaar's debut Space is Only Noise or to Teebs' Ardour. And while it was solid, Vacation was made for people who were already comfortable listening to electronic music. The first three tracks on Laid Out have far more ambition: they're meant to pull in pop and R&B listeners who might not otherwise be drawn towards electronic music. The last two songs on the EP, "Put It" and "Without", hold more back and function almost as sketches of the songs that come before them. Each has an instrumental through-line that one can imagine being replaced by a stronger sample. They're smart and well-constructed but they can seem out of place, and dwarfed by what came before. Still, those first three: Shlohmo's already one of the better producers of his young generation and Laid Out should add substantially to his growing reputation.

Artist: Shlohmo, Album: Laid Out EP, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Shlohmo (real name is Henry Laufer) is the flagship artist of Friends of Friends, a label whose artists are making it more and more difficult to distinguish between genres. The producers in FoF's stable draw on every musical ingredient available to them; they source samples and influences from any decade, genre, or style that they're interested in. What's most impressive about what Shlohmo and his peers are doing, and what's epitomized on Laid Out, is the way that they can transform vocal samples into instrumental elements while retaining the immediacy and accessibility we normally associate with pop vocals. Two sections of the Shlohmo's new EP, Laid Out, have an uncanny catchiness. The first is from the single "Don't Say No", featuring Tom Krell of How to Dress Well singing in his most desperate falsetto. The other sticky section is the loop from the best track on the EP, "Out of Hand". There's an obvious difference between the two: one features a singer emoting as best he can, with provocative, romantic lyrics. The other has just the ghost of a vocal, with words that are difficult to make out. But there's no difference in the intensity of the emotion that both songs conjure and the instrumentation in both is geared towards emphasizing those central refrains. "Later" the six-minute centerpiece of the album is similar to "Out of Hand" with its looped, anguished vocal sample. Only here, the voice is blurred beyond the point of recognition. The track doesn't have the same kind of grab as its predecessors (perhaps because the repeating loop is less recognizable as a human voice), but it's equally intense, with waxing and waning drum machines that surround and heighten that go-for-broke sample. Laufer's last project, the Vacation EP, played around with these kinds of melodies and samples, but that record largely avoided pop leanings. It was withdrawn, soft, pretty, akin to Nicolas Jaar's debut Space is Only Noise or to Teebs' Ardour. And while it was solid, Vacation was made for people who were already comfortable listening to electronic music. The first three tracks on Laid Out have far more ambition: they're meant to pull in pop and R&B listeners who might not otherwise be drawn towards electronic music. The last two songs on the EP, "Put It" and "Without", hold more back and function almost as sketches of the songs that come before them. Each has an instrumental through-line that one can imagine being replaced by a stronger sample. They're smart and well-constructed but they can seem out of place, and dwarfed by what came before. Still, those first three: Shlohmo's already one of the better producers of his young generation and Laid Out should add substantially to his growing reputation."

Ramona Falls

Prophet

Rock

Paul Thompson

Just about every song on Prophet, the second album from ex-Menomena multi-instrumentalist Brent Knopf's Ramona Falls, borrows its title from one natural phenomenon or another: "Spore", "Bodies of Water", "Helium", that sort of thing. Knopf, the guy who introduced the Digital Looping Recorder to Menomena, has a longstanding fascination with the tensions between the natural and the mechanical. The intricately arranged album is a good showcase for Knopf's cut-and-paste perfectionism; Prophet, like 2009's Intuit, is vast and symphonic one moment, stark and intimate the next. As his music grows grander, though, Knopf's human side gets a little lost amidst all the elaborate knob-and-wire work. It's next to impossible to suss out exactly who's doing what in Menomena's hypercollaborative, every-which-way songs, an approach Knopf's carried over to the more pastoral, less proggy Ramona Falls. Intuit found Knopf calling on friends across the indie rock spectrum, offering little indication as to which bleep or rumble came from where; Prophet's guest list is pared down considerably, but the new effect's still the same. No matter who's doing the playing, this is Knopf's show; he's the one wrangling all this swirling stuff into songs, his voice in the center of it all. As on Intuit, the sound of Prophet is exceptionally fussy but sumptuous, all these widescreen vistas of richly detailed sound. Any music this intricately arranged is at constant risk of bloodlessness, but Knopf's got a flair for juxtaposition that plays the synthetic off the organic in such a way that feels very much alive. But all the effort Knopf's expended on instrumental complexities often seems to crowd out the person at the center of it all; as he himself says on opener "Bodies of Water", "I have to, have to, have to let go of total control," and too often, the sonic intricacies overwhelm Knopf's voice. Knopf does plenty of singing here, but it's rare that he lets his voice serve as the focal point of the songs. On Intuit, the expansive arrangements and Knopf's intimate vocals worked in tandem, but here, the balance has shifted, and Prophet's musical enormity, gorgeous as it is, overshadows for Knopf's alternately delicate and disjointed lyrics. Almost any hint of vulnerability Knopf spikes with a kind of detached sci-fi or yet another instrumental detour. "What I'd give if you'd feel my love," he delivers with just the right kind of tenderness, but what that heart-on-sleeve sentiment has to do with "Archimedes Plutonium" is anybody's guess. And whatever's meant by that initial hint of sweetness seems, over time, to almost dislodge itself from the song. Throughout Prophet, he seems to be suggesting just how small one person is in this big old universe of ours. But Knopf's taken his own ego-whittling a few steps too far, as though he'd really rather let the dramatic sonics do the talking for him. There just seems a little too much distance between Knopf and the emotions he's trying to convey-- galaxies' worth, in the case of "Spore"-- and the effect proves weirdly unaffecting, almost alien. Prophet's widescreen music is wonderful to listen to; it's just hard to really feel.

Artist: Ramona Falls, Album: Prophet, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.5 Album review: "Just about every song on Prophet, the second album from ex-Menomena multi-instrumentalist Brent Knopf's Ramona Falls, borrows its title from one natural phenomenon or another: "Spore", "Bodies of Water", "Helium", that sort of thing. Knopf, the guy who introduced the Digital Looping Recorder to Menomena, has a longstanding fascination with the tensions between the natural and the mechanical. The intricately arranged album is a good showcase for Knopf's cut-and-paste perfectionism; Prophet, like 2009's Intuit, is vast and symphonic one moment, stark and intimate the next. As his music grows grander, though, Knopf's human side gets a little lost amidst all the elaborate knob-and-wire work. It's next to impossible to suss out exactly who's doing what in Menomena's hypercollaborative, every-which-way songs, an approach Knopf's carried over to the more pastoral, less proggy Ramona Falls. Intuit found Knopf calling on friends across the indie rock spectrum, offering little indication as to which bleep or rumble came from where; Prophet's guest list is pared down considerably, but the new effect's still the same. No matter who's doing the playing, this is Knopf's show; he's the one wrangling all this swirling stuff into songs, his voice in the center of it all. As on Intuit, the sound of Prophet is exceptionally fussy but sumptuous, all these widescreen vistas of richly detailed sound. Any music this intricately arranged is at constant risk of bloodlessness, but Knopf's got a flair for juxtaposition that plays the synthetic off the organic in such a way that feels very much alive. But all the effort Knopf's expended on instrumental complexities often seems to crowd out the person at the center of it all; as he himself says on opener "Bodies of Water", "I have to, have to, have to let go of total control," and too often, the sonic intricacies overwhelm Knopf's voice. Knopf does plenty of singing here, but it's rare that he lets his voice serve as the focal point of the songs. On Intuit, the expansive arrangements and Knopf's intimate vocals worked in tandem, but here, the balance has shifted, and Prophet's musical enormity, gorgeous as it is, overshadows for Knopf's alternately delicate and disjointed lyrics. Almost any hint of vulnerability Knopf spikes with a kind of detached sci-fi or yet another instrumental detour. "What I'd give if you'd feel my love," he delivers with just the right kind of tenderness, but what that heart-on-sleeve sentiment has to do with "Archimedes Plutonium" is anybody's guess. And whatever's meant by that initial hint of sweetness seems, over time, to almost dislodge itself from the song. Throughout Prophet, he seems to be suggesting just how small one person is in this big old universe of ours. But Knopf's taken his own ego-whittling a few steps too far, as though he'd really rather let the dramatic sonics do the talking for him. There just seems a little too much distance between Knopf and the emotions he's trying to convey-- galaxies' worth, in the case of "Spore"-- and the effect proves weirdly unaffecting, almost alien. Prophet's widescreen music is wonderful to listen to; it's just hard to really feel."

Quintron

Sucre du Sauvage

Electronic,Rock

Stephen M. Deusner

Sucre du Sauvage is as much an exhibition catalog as it is an album. Quintron and wife/collaborator/puppeteer Miss Pussycat recorded these tracks during a three-month residency at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where he built a makeshift studio and hung a few 19th century portraits for inspiration. Each morning he would clock in and spend the day laying down heavy beats, short jams, snippets of melody, and random sonic sketches, all in full view of every museumgoer who wandered over to his corner of the gallery. The creative process became the end product, which makes the resulting album a curious chronicle of its creation as well as a musical statement. That environment proves particularly inspiring for the duo, whose oddball grooves and puppet-show vocals come across as Deep South outsider art among the Gauguins and Pissarros, and their comic-book imagery-- full of anthropomorphic petting zoos, glam-rock bands, and shampoo lather-- acts as a pop contrast to the fine art on the walls. These songs are all commotion: eccentric grooves that never bend or move as expected, as if Quintron has tapped an infinite variety of raunchy organ riffs and Drum Buddy beats. If in the past his songs have been austere in their jubilant energy, employing only the instruments he could play at one time, he takes advantage of the museum environs and paints with a wider palette of sounds, from birdcalls to timpani to what sounds like a xylophone made of frogs. Opener "Ring the Alarm", fiercely jittery rather than outright aggressive, features a solo that could have been played on every keyboard-based instrument all at once, and "Spirit Hair", with Pussycat on vocals, hinges on a dexterous whistle sample courtesy of Grace Wilson, the museum's Manager of Communications and Marketing. Occasionally, the living exhibition becomes interactive, with Quintron playing the crowd for handclaps, clatter, and backing vocals. "So what so what so what!" they chant on "Kicked Out of Zolar X", and it's not hard-- but it is extremely entertaining-- to imagine the long-dead portrait subjects chanting along from inside their frames. Sucre du Sauvage begins loud and dense, with organ licks that sound like several planes landing on the same strip, but as it progresses, Quintron pares the music to its most basic elements, creating an increasingly deeper sense of space with each song. During the final weeks on display, he set up a tent in the sculpture garden and lived on the grounds, making extensive field recordings of bird screeches, traffic, trains, wind, and thunder, among other clatter. On the album's second half, these sounds coalesce into strange assemblages, and at first the effect is like seeing a Robert Ryman after spending an hour in front of a Miró: The seeming absence of stimuli makes it sound dull by comparison, but eventually subtle shapes begin to form. Wind noise becomes a phalanx of drummers, quack sounds suggest a band of ducks, and the grounds come across as a naturally musical environment. While such transformations are pleasant, if not exactly commanding, they do manage to slyly deconstruct the "real" songs into the most basic building blocks, which are very specific to this setting. In that sense Sucre du Sauvage plays like a companion to Quintron's 2010 7" single "Tire Shop", which featured vocals by local personality King Lee and sound effects recorded at the St. Claude Tire Shop, which was one of the few businesses to remain open during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Both that single and the new album sound like loving odes to the city itself, as Quintron turns all of New Orleans into a musical instrument.

Artist: Quintron, Album: Sucre du Sauvage, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.9 Album review: "Sucre du Sauvage is as much an exhibition catalog as it is an album. Quintron and wife/collaborator/puppeteer Miss Pussycat recorded these tracks during a three-month residency at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where he built a makeshift studio and hung a few 19th century portraits for inspiration. Each morning he would clock in and spend the day laying down heavy beats, short jams, snippets of melody, and random sonic sketches, all in full view of every museumgoer who wandered over to his corner of the gallery. The creative process became the end product, which makes the resulting album a curious chronicle of its creation as well as a musical statement. That environment proves particularly inspiring for the duo, whose oddball grooves and puppet-show vocals come across as Deep South outsider art among the Gauguins and Pissarros, and their comic-book imagery-- full of anthropomorphic petting zoos, glam-rock bands, and shampoo lather-- acts as a pop contrast to the fine art on the walls. These songs are all commotion: eccentric grooves that never bend or move as expected, as if Quintron has tapped an infinite variety of raunchy organ riffs and Drum Buddy beats. If in the past his songs have been austere in their jubilant energy, employing only the instruments he could play at one time, he takes advantage of the museum environs and paints with a wider palette of sounds, from birdcalls to timpani to what sounds like a xylophone made of frogs. Opener "Ring the Alarm", fiercely jittery rather than outright aggressive, features a solo that could have been played on every keyboard-based instrument all at once, and "Spirit Hair", with Pussycat on vocals, hinges on a dexterous whistle sample courtesy of Grace Wilson, the museum's Manager of Communications and Marketing. Occasionally, the living exhibition becomes interactive, with Quintron playing the crowd for handclaps, clatter, and backing vocals. "So what so what so what!" they chant on "Kicked Out of Zolar X", and it's not hard-- but it is extremely entertaining-- to imagine the long-dead portrait subjects chanting along from inside their frames. Sucre du Sauvage begins loud and dense, with organ licks that sound like several planes landing on the same strip, but as it progresses, Quintron pares the music to its most basic elements, creating an increasingly deeper sense of space with each song. During the final weeks on display, he set up a tent in the sculpture garden and lived on the grounds, making extensive field recordings of bird screeches, traffic, trains, wind, and thunder, among other clatter. On the album's second half, these sounds coalesce into strange assemblages, and at first the effect is like seeing a Robert Ryman after spending an hour in front of a Miró: The seeming absence of stimuli makes it sound dull by comparison, but eventually subtle shapes begin to form. Wind noise becomes a phalanx of drummers, quack sounds suggest a band of ducks, and the grounds come across as a naturally musical environment. While such transformations are pleasant, if not exactly commanding, they do manage to slyly deconstruct the "real" songs into the most basic building blocks, which are very specific to this setting. In that sense Sucre du Sauvage plays like a companion to Quintron's 2010 7" single "Tire Shop", which featured vocals by local personality King Lee and sound effects recorded at the St. Claude Tire Shop, which was one of the few businesses to remain open during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Both that single and the new album sound like loving odes to the city itself, as Quintron turns all of New Orleans into a musical instrument."

Death Cab for Cutie

Something About Airplanes

Rock

Ian Cohen

It took six albums, three EPs, countless singles, four or five record labels, a much-loved side project, numerous guest productions, and a thoroughly boring solo LP to get to this point, but Death Cab for Cutie will end 2008 as a big-font festival band. And yet, though their sound has grown increasingly muscular, and their outdoor sets tend to only reach as far back as "We Laugh Indoors", they still seem ill-suited to wide-open spaces. As I watched two high-out-of-their mind, shirtless, thirtysomething acid casualties make out during Coachella while a rickety version of "Soul Meets Body" played in the distance, it just seemed to go against everything Death Cab has come to stand for. In other words, they still manage to carry themselves like a small band from a tiny Washington college town. Upon re-release, the most striking aspects about Death Cab's debut, Something About Airplanes, were how modest it sounded and how removed it was from the Modest Mouse/Built to Spill template of the Pacific Northwest. If there was any resemblance to their regional forefathers, it was in their ability to create a sonic blueprint that's subtly innovative. Few were writing lyrics-- formed almost as complete sentences and melodically structured the same-- like Death Cab's Ben Gibbard at the time. The bridge of "President of What?" sounds like it's taking the wrong step with each chord turn, moving in an opposite direction to the melody, but the resolution makes complete sense: "Nothing hurts like nothing at all/ When imagination takes full control." In a strikingly candid interview with Paste magazine, Gibbard admitted that he goes back to this record and rarely has any idea what he was talking about. While it's typical for a lyricist to embrace straightforwardness in his later years, recent tracks like "You Can Do Better Than Me" are no more rewarding for their directness. Something About Airplanes instead sounds like a private affair, which is one reason it's so treasured amongst diehards. Like so many other fledgling songwriters, Gibbard cloaked his voice in reverb and occasional distortion (even on the sweet and sour harmonies of "Pictures in an Exhibition") and danced around sentiment. For a band inextricably linked with heart-on-sleeve emoting, Death Cab could be delectably difficult to parse. You can also hear how naturally and incrementally the group progressed from a fully formed blueprint. Regardless of Narrow Stairs' heavy-handed addition of new textures, you can trace a straight line to that point from the carefully considered guitar lattices of Airplanes' "Your Bruise". "Sleep Spent" is a direct descendent of mid-90s slowcore with better hooks. "Amputations", the most full-bodied track, features rumbling and almost mockingly chiming guitar hooks that sugarcoat the lyric "he's unresponsive 'cause you're irresponsible"-- a stronger precursor to their more recent theater sing-along lines like "you are beautiful, but you don't mean a thing to me." While the deluxe package does include selections from their nervous first live show in Seattle and a cover of the Smiths' "Sweet and Tender Hooligan" featuring Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson, the real draw here is the chance to re-evaluate the band itself, often underrated or deemed as a group people "used to like" before getting into harder and more challenging music. And yet, while most of the indie crowd now embraces pop music in all its forms, something about dudes like Death Cab, who hit a little close to home but aren't considered "cool," is still considered a dealbreaker. Certainly, Something About Airplanes isn't Death Cab's best album-- in retrospect, it sounds like a dry run for 2000's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, where the lyrics got more pointed, the hooks more emphatic, and the dirges more steely and purposeful. The studio tricks would become more sympathetic as well: In addition to the dated samples that adorn "President of What?", "Amputations" closes with a snippet of a motivational record called "You Can Better Your Best" that proclaims "if everybody's making fun of you or criticizing, you know you're on the right track." Granted, the song itself is about the futility of becoming someone you're not to win someone over, but the line unwittingly serves as a mission statement for a band that went Gold while rarely answering to anyone but itself.

Artist: Death Cab for Cutie, Album: Something About Airplanes, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.1 Album review: "It took six albums, three EPs, countless singles, four or five record labels, a much-loved side project, numerous guest productions, and a thoroughly boring solo LP to get to this point, but Death Cab for Cutie will end 2008 as a big-font festival band. And yet, though their sound has grown increasingly muscular, and their outdoor sets tend to only reach as far back as "We Laugh Indoors", they still seem ill-suited to wide-open spaces. As I watched two high-out-of-their mind, shirtless, thirtysomething acid casualties make out during Coachella while a rickety version of "Soul Meets Body" played in the distance, it just seemed to go against everything Death Cab has come to stand for. In other words, they still manage to carry themselves like a small band from a tiny Washington college town. Upon re-release, the most striking aspects about Death Cab's debut, Something About Airplanes, were how modest it sounded and how removed it was from the Modest Mouse/Built to Spill template of the Pacific Northwest. If there was any resemblance to their regional forefathers, it was in their ability to create a sonic blueprint that's subtly innovative. Few were writing lyrics-- formed almost as complete sentences and melodically structured the same-- like Death Cab's Ben Gibbard at the time. The bridge of "President of What?" sounds like it's taking the wrong step with each chord turn, moving in an opposite direction to the melody, but the resolution makes complete sense: "Nothing hurts like nothing at all/ When imagination takes full control." In a strikingly candid interview with Paste magazine, Gibbard admitted that he goes back to this record and rarely has any idea what he was talking about. While it's typical for a lyricist to embrace straightforwardness in his later years, recent tracks like "You Can Do Better Than Me" are no more rewarding for their directness. Something About Airplanes instead sounds like a private affair, which is one reason it's so treasured amongst diehards. Like so many other fledgling songwriters, Gibbard cloaked his voice in reverb and occasional distortion (even on the sweet and sour harmonies of "Pictures in an Exhibition") and danced around sentiment. For a band inextricably linked with heart-on-sleeve emoting, Death Cab could be delectably difficult to parse. You can also hear how naturally and incrementally the group progressed from a fully formed blueprint. Regardless of Narrow Stairs' heavy-handed addition of new textures, you can trace a straight line to that point from the carefully considered guitar lattices of Airplanes' "Your Bruise". "Sleep Spent" is a direct descendent of mid-90s slowcore with better hooks. "Amputations", the most full-bodied track, features rumbling and almost mockingly chiming guitar hooks that sugarcoat the lyric "he's unresponsive 'cause you're irresponsible"-- a stronger precursor to their more recent theater sing-along lines like "you are beautiful, but you don't mean a thing to me." While the deluxe package does include selections from their nervous first live show in Seattle and a cover of the Smiths' "Sweet and Tender Hooligan" featuring Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson, the real draw here is the chance to re-evaluate the band itself, often underrated or deemed as a group people "used to like" before getting into harder and more challenging music. And yet, while most of the indie crowd now embraces pop music in all its forms, something about dudes like Death Cab, who hit a little close to home but aren't considered "cool," is still considered a dealbreaker. Certainly, Something About Airplanes isn't Death Cab's best album-- in retrospect, it sounds like a dry run for 2000's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, where the lyrics got more pointed, the hooks more emphatic, and the dirges more steely and purposeful. The studio tricks would become more sympathetic as well: In addition to the dated samples that adorn "President of What?", "Amputations" closes with a snippet of a motivational record called "You Can Better Your Best" that proclaims "if everybody's making fun of you or criticizing, you know you're on the right track." Granted, the song itself is about the futility of becoming someone you're not to win someone over, but the line unwittingly serves as a mission statement for a band that went Gold while rarely answering to anyone but itself."

Various Artists

All Tomorrow's Parties v1.1

Kevin Adickes

I recently succumbed to temptation and purchased one of those Premium Cable Packages, rationalizing it as a vital and illuminating cultural window. As I surfed around, hoping to find something that would truly justify my reasoning (aside from the 40+ cooking channels), I came across Mark Kitchell's Oscar-nominated documentary, Berkeley in the Sixties. Though the film explored a number of topics, its theme seemed to suggest that the counter-culture revolution of the 60s was prone to fail because it lacked a single coherent vision of what the post-revolutionary world should be comprised of. Having no first-hand experience with the 60s, I instead drew parallels from my knowledge of the infinetly more profit-oriented Seattle-wave of the early 90s. Both were adorned with seemingly anti-commercial sentiments which were flagrantly touted and oft-professed, yet rarely put into action, and both seemed to coincide with a burgeoning musical movement. But by the 90s, artists were well aware of the price their insolence afforded them and the few who took up The Cause basically signed their own death warrants. Subtly, advertising, commercialism, and all things counter-productive worked their way from the barroom to the concert hall and, finally, into your local indie venue. Eventually, most artists and clubs were perfectly willing to offer Coke the chance to equate their soda with an enjoyable social event for the right amount of funding. Luckily, as the old guard died away, a line of new blood was slowly consolidating their power; refusing to dilineate between music and politics. A few years ago, Belle and Sebastian, perhaps better known as the thorn in the ass of the industry, took the high-minded ranting of Naomi Klein and Karl Marx to the next level and organized the "Bowlie Weekender," an attempt to remedy the recent corporate transgresses while also avoiding the common pratfalls that seem to marr similar efforts. The "Bowlie Weekender" was a three-day festival held in Pontins, Camber Sands, Sussex, where performers of a similar ideology (such as Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Mogwai, the Pastels, the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, and Sleater-Kinney) convened with their fans, free of advertisements, press, and all the trappings of a commercial event. When the festival was reprised in 2000, its name had been changed to "All Tomorrow's Parties" but the environs and intent remained the same. 2002 will see the marriage of Belle and Sebastian's brainchild with American sensibility as, for three days in March, Los Angeles will be the ironic home of ATP. Now, the orchestrators of that event have independently produced, compiled, and distributed an album featuring primarily rare and unreleased tracks from many of the artists who contributed to the festival. All said, there's something kinda beautiful about the whole thing. The disc commences with Sonic Youth's "Fauxhemians," a musical ode to fellow festival curators, Tortoise. Sonic Youth's decade-spanning knee-jerk reaction to Daydream Nation has left many heads good and scratched and, if you haven't given up on another Dirty, Sister, or Evol yet, accepting the truth is the first step on your road to recovery. The rest of us can sleep a little easier tonight, though, as "Fauxhemians" does what NYC Ghosts and Flowers failed to: go somewhere. Similarly, former-punks turned knob-twiddlers Unwound contribute the enthralling "Behold the Salt," a testament to the emotional scope their music has come to encompass since "Corpse Pose." So far, there's nothing but an early morning breeze wafting throughout these tracks. Stephen Malkmus makes an appearance with "Good Kids Egg," further cementing his reputation as a bottomless oasis of insightful wit. After ten years, his patented off-kilter voice can still pull off lines like, "Do what the good kids do/ And screw who the good screw.../ A million of us came here with our pockets turned out." Elsewhere, Cannibal Ox contributes "Pidgeon" off last year's excellent The Cold Vein. Such a diverse selection of styles generally gives rise to needless continuity complications, but in this instance, the dynamic created by the contrasting genres is what lends the album so much of its bent appeal. Stereolab have performed at every ATP since its inception and they're represented here with "Old Lungs" which finds the band's more experimental side remarkably healthy (a relief to those who've longed for a return to the days of Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements). Cat Power's cover of the Robert Johnson classic "Come On in My Kitchen" finds Chan Marshall's milky vocals breathing a sense of life into lyrics which have had some 80 years to decompose, and Papa M follows suit with the heart-wrenching "How Can I Tell You I Love You?" But to say that this disc is a sugary-sweet affair is to miss some of the album's most rewarding tracks. Early on, Bardo Pond indicate that all is not well in the world of "demographic evasion" as they indulge in dispensing poetry over a free arrangement of guitar, drums, and bass. But it's the latter half of the disc which features Dead C, the Boredoms, Kevin Drumm, and Satans Tornade unleashing an avant-noise maelstrom of epic proportions that truly makes the album worth owning. Dead C's sonic collage of dissonant mechanical noise, field recordings, abstract flourishes of percussion, and feedback on "Load Segment" are all coated with an ethereal reverb, slightly muting what would otherwise be a very confrontational track. Yet, as the disarming ambience of "Load Segment" slowly dissolves, the Boredoms begin to interject the peace with shards of skeletal white-noise before establishing the chaotic tribal beat of "Super Are," which sustains its incontinence for over ten minutes only to collapse into the crass and callous arms of Kevin Drumm's "My Tree Bears No Nuts - Part 2." Drumm (and likeminded composer, Satans Tornade) work like a more schizophrenic Merzbow, sharply cutting, layering, and varying the tone of their sonic exorcisms, daring the listener to find the hidden rhythm to their madness. All of this can make for a very intense, introspective assault, depending on the listener's level of participation. There's a sense of nihilistic isolation permeating the surface of the songs compiled on All Tomorrow's Parties v1.1. Even the album's happiest moments are mired in feelings of regret or unrequited desire. As records go, it's far above-par and should provide you with hours of consolation and enjoyment. But if the disc is meant to act as a mission statement, its intended message seems to be

Artist: Various Artists, Album: All Tomorrow's Parties v1.1, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "I recently succumbed to temptation and purchased one of those Premium Cable Packages, rationalizing it as a vital and illuminating cultural window. As I surfed around, hoping to find something that would truly justify my reasoning (aside from the 40+ cooking channels), I came across Mark Kitchell's Oscar-nominated documentary, Berkeley in the Sixties. Though the film explored a number of topics, its theme seemed to suggest that the counter-culture revolution of the 60s was prone to fail because it lacked a single coherent vision of what the post-revolutionary world should be comprised of. Having no first-hand experience with the 60s, I instead drew parallels from my knowledge of the infinetly more profit-oriented Seattle-wave of the early 90s. Both were adorned with seemingly anti-commercial sentiments which were flagrantly touted and oft-professed, yet rarely put into action, and both seemed to coincide with a burgeoning musical movement. But by the 90s, artists were well aware of the price their insolence afforded them and the few who took up The Cause basically signed their own death warrants. Subtly, advertising, commercialism, and all things counter-productive worked their way from the barroom to the concert hall and, finally, into your local indie venue. Eventually, most artists and clubs were perfectly willing to offer Coke the chance to equate their soda with an enjoyable social event for the right amount of funding. Luckily, as the old guard died away, a line of new blood was slowly consolidating their power; refusing to dilineate between music and politics. A few years ago, Belle and Sebastian, perhaps better known as the thorn in the ass of the industry, took the high-minded ranting of Naomi Klein and Karl Marx to the next level and organized the "Bowlie Weekender," an attempt to remedy the recent corporate transgresses while also avoiding the common pratfalls that seem to marr similar efforts. The "Bowlie Weekender" was a three-day festival held in Pontins, Camber Sands, Sussex, where performers of a similar ideology (such as Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Mogwai, the Pastels, the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, and Sleater-Kinney) convened with their fans, free of advertisements, press, and all the trappings of a commercial event. When the festival was reprised in 2000, its name had been changed to "All Tomorrow's Parties" but the environs and intent remained the same. 2002 will see the marriage of Belle and Sebastian's brainchild with American sensibility as, for three days in March, Los Angeles will be the ironic home of ATP. Now, the orchestrators of that event have independently produced, compiled, and distributed an album featuring primarily rare and unreleased tracks from many of the artists who contributed to the festival. All said, there's something kinda beautiful about the whole thing. The disc commences with Sonic Youth's "Fauxhemians," a musical ode to fellow festival curators, Tortoise. Sonic Youth's decade-spanning knee-jerk reaction to Daydream Nation has left many heads good and scratched and, if you haven't given up on another Dirty, Sister, or Evol yet, accepting the truth is the first step on your road to recovery. The rest of us can sleep a little easier tonight, though, as "Fauxhemians" does what NYC Ghosts and Flowers failed to: go somewhere. Similarly, former-punks turned knob-twiddlers Unwound contribute the enthralling "Behold the Salt," a testament to the emotional scope their music has come to encompass since "Corpse Pose." So far, there's nothing but an early morning breeze wafting throughout these tracks. Stephen Malkmus makes an appearance with "Good Kids Egg," further cementing his reputation as a bottomless oasis of insightful wit. After ten years, his patented off-kilter voice can still pull off lines like, "Do what the good kids do/ And screw who the good screw.../ A million of us came here with our pockets turned out." Elsewhere, Cannibal Ox contributes "Pidgeon" off last year's excellent The Cold Vein. Such a diverse selection of styles generally gives rise to needless continuity complications, but in this instance, the dynamic created by the contrasting genres is what lends the album so much of its bent appeal. Stereolab have performed at every ATP since its inception and they're represented here with "Old Lungs" which finds the band's more experimental side remarkably healthy (a relief to those who've longed for a return to the days of Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements). Cat Power's cover of the Robert Johnson classic "Come On in My Kitchen" finds Chan Marshall's milky vocals breathing a sense of life into lyrics which have had some 80 years to decompose, and Papa M follows suit with the heart-wrenching "How Can I Tell You I Love You?" But to say that this disc is a sugary-sweet affair is to miss some of the album's most rewarding tracks. Early on, Bardo Pond indicate that all is not well in the world of "demographic evasion" as they indulge in dispensing poetry over a free arrangement of guitar, drums, and bass. But it's the latter half of the disc which features Dead C, the Boredoms, Kevin Drumm, and Satans Tornade unleashing an avant-noise maelstrom of epic proportions that truly makes the album worth owning. Dead C's sonic collage of dissonant mechanical noise, field recordings, abstract flourishes of percussion, and feedback on "Load Segment" are all coated with an ethereal reverb, slightly muting what would otherwise be a very confrontational track. Yet, as the disarming ambience of "Load Segment" slowly dissolves, the Boredoms begin to interject the peace with shards of skeletal white-noise before establishing the chaotic tribal beat of "Super Are," which sustains its incontinence for over ten minutes only to collapse into the crass and callous arms of Kevin Drumm's "My Tree Bears No Nuts - Part 2." Drumm (and likeminded composer, Satans Tornade) work like a more schizophrenic Merzbow, sharply cutting, layering, and varying the tone of their sonic exorcisms, daring the listener to find the hidden rhythm to their madness. All of this can make for a very intense, introspective assault, depending on the listener's level of participation. There's a sense of nihilistic isolation permeating the surface of the songs compiled on All Tomorrow's Parties v1.1. Even the album's happiest moments are mired in feelings of regret or unrequited desire. As records go, it's far above-par and should provide you with hours of consolation and enjoyment. But if the disc is meant to act as a mission statement, its intended message seems to be"

Tomas Barfod

Love Me

Jamieson Cox

Tomas Barfod churned out more new material over the first three months of 2014 than most artists produce in a full year: with a solo EP, a handful of one-off singles, and an album with his band WhoMadeWho all released before the end of March, nobody would’ve looked sideways if he spent the rest of the year on vacation. But just three months after the release of the Pulsing EP, Barfod is back with a proper follow-up to his 2012 debut Salton Sea, and the title of his new record, Love Me, seems like a bit of a laugh on Barfod’s part. Even if you feel the least bit lukewarm about his music, he’ll wear you down with an hour of mild, mid-tempo body music until you grant him your grudging admiration. Pulsing was a stopgap effort where Barfod began to straddle vocal electro-pop and abstract, instrumental fare in equal measure; with Love Me, he devotes an unprecedented amount of his energy to the former realm, realizing his vision with the help of a small group of close collaborators. He's steadily built a diverse personal universe of songwriting partners, guest vocalists, and associates who feature on Love Me: Barfod’s WhoMadeWho bandmate Jeppe Kjellberg, fellow countryman Brian Batz (who records slow, strange dream pop as Sleep Party People), Night Beds' Winston Yellen, New Orleans rapper/singer Pell. The strongest of these collaborations give the album an eclectic, nicely varied feel, especially Yellen's turn on "Sell You", which is rendered lonely and distant by way of vocal processing. Barfod’s prinicipal collaborator is Swedish vocalist Nina K, who appeared on Salton Sea highlight “November Skies” and Pulsing’s title track, the latter of which also appears on Love Me. Nina is featured on four of the album’s eleven tracks, all of which can be counted among its finest moments; their chemistry remains palpable, as they’ve learned to strike just the right balance between Barfod’s beat-heavy, rhythmically forward production and the lightness of Nina’s vocals. The moody, string-swooning “Aftermath” sets a new high water mark for their partnership; yearning and raw, it comes off as their own downcast version of Robyn and Kleerup’s masterful “With Every Heartbeat”, still a standard-bearer for heartbroken electro-pop balladry. The success of the non-Nina K collaborations scattered throughout the remainder of Love Me depend on the vocalist: “Bell House” thrives thanks to a alien performance from pop-folk nomad and Here We Go Magic frontman Luke Temple, while back-half features by Kjellberg and Pell sink unmemorably into the morass. One downside to Barfod’s chosen compositional style—tempos that rarely stray from middle-ground territory, standard-issue electronic tones, rhythms that split the difference between organic and machine-based—is that the onus to shape his songs is largely on his collaborators, so when he's not working with Nina K, his hit rate’s more scattershot as a result. Love Me ultimately confirms what we already knew about Barfod’s solo work: he plays well with others, but a greater overall consistency might garner him the love he’s seeking.

Artist: Tomas Barfod, Album: Love Me, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Tomas Barfod churned out more new material over the first three months of 2014 than most artists produce in a full year: with a solo EP, a handful of one-off singles, and an album with his band WhoMadeWho all released before the end of March, nobody would’ve looked sideways if he spent the rest of the year on vacation. But just three months after the release of the Pulsing EP, Barfod is back with a proper follow-up to his 2012 debut Salton Sea, and the title of his new record, Love Me, seems like a bit of a laugh on Barfod’s part. Even if you feel the least bit lukewarm about his music, he’ll wear you down with an hour of mild, mid-tempo body music until you grant him your grudging admiration. Pulsing was a stopgap effort where Barfod began to straddle vocal electro-pop and abstract, instrumental fare in equal measure; with Love Me, he devotes an unprecedented amount of his energy to the former realm, realizing his vision with the help of a small group of close collaborators. He's steadily built a diverse personal universe of songwriting partners, guest vocalists, and associates who feature on Love Me: Barfod’s WhoMadeWho bandmate Jeppe Kjellberg, fellow countryman Brian Batz (who records slow, strange dream pop as Sleep Party People), Night Beds' Winston Yellen, New Orleans rapper/singer Pell. The strongest of these collaborations give the album an eclectic, nicely varied feel, especially Yellen's turn on "Sell You", which is rendered lonely and distant by way of vocal processing. Barfod’s prinicipal collaborator is Swedish vocalist Nina K, who appeared on Salton Sea highlight “November Skies” and Pulsing’s title track, the latter of which also appears on Love Me. Nina is featured on four of the album’s eleven tracks, all of which can be counted among its finest moments; their chemistry remains palpable, as they’ve learned to strike just the right balance between Barfod’s beat-heavy, rhythmically forward production and the lightness of Nina’s vocals. The moody, string-swooning “Aftermath” sets a new high water mark for their partnership; yearning and raw, it comes off as their own downcast version of Robyn and Kleerup’s masterful “With Every Heartbeat”, still a standard-bearer for heartbroken electro-pop balladry. The success of the non-Nina K collaborations scattered throughout the remainder of Love Me depend on the vocalist: “Bell House” thrives thanks to a alien performance from pop-folk nomad and Here We Go Magic frontman Luke Temple, while back-half features by Kjellberg and Pell sink unmemorably into the morass. One downside to Barfod’s chosen compositional style—tempos that rarely stray from middle-ground territory, standard-issue electronic tones, rhythms that split the difference between organic and machine-based—is that the onus to shape his songs is largely on his collaborators, so when he's not working with Nina K, his hit rate’s more scattershot as a result. Love Me ultimately confirms what we already knew about Barfod’s solo work: he plays well with others, but a greater overall consistency might garner him the love he’s seeking."

Fly Pan Am

N'ecoutez Pas

Rock

Matthew Murphy

Led by Godspeed You Black Emperor! guitarist Roger Tellier-Craig, Fly Pan Am are but one of many storefront operations spun off from that multi-limbed Montreal-based behemoth. And, as has been the case with other branch offices like Set Fire to Flames, Do Make Say Think, or A Silver Mt. Zion, Fly Pan Am have experienced some difficulty establishing an identity distinct from their parent organization. Due primarily to Tellier-Craig's instantly recognizable playing style, the angular instrumental art-funk that predominated the group's first two albums too often resembled a pared-back, less engaging GYBE! But that all changes dramatically on N'Ecoutez Pas (which, unless my pidgin French has failed me, translates to "Don't Listen".) Here, on their third full-length, Fly Pan Am complete a Black Dice-caliber personality shift, abandoning all previous formulae and pushing their sound outward in all directions. For the first time, they incorporate vocals into their attack along with an unruly array of electronics, keyboards, and field recordings-- all of which results in their finest and most fully realized work to date. The album is erected around the twin pillars of "Autunt Zig-Zag" and "Trés Trés Retro", two 11-minute showpieces that give Fly Pan Am enough elbow room to flex their suddenly considerable Krautrock-nourished muscles over massive hunks of terrain. "Zig-Zag" is Fly Pan Am's noisiest and perhaps best piece yet, combining layers of hissing electronics with a wriggling edifice of distorted guitar worthy of My Bloody Valentine, all while garbled voices whisper and conspire malevolently. In French, no less. Eventually, the fog lifts enough to reveal the charred tree stumps that pass by your railcar window as countless little bug-sized motors chug away ineffectually. "Trés Trés Retro" is a somewhat simpler affair, and its stuttering drums and hypnotic, loping bass hearken back to Fly Pan Am's 1999 debut, on which they dabbled extensively with minimalism and the beauty of repetition (most memorably when Tellier-Craig at one point plucked the same simple chord repeatedly for over 10 minutes). Here, though, the band gives the rhythm section plenty of traffic to weave through, with blinking stoplight keyboards and strange cut-up vocal edits constantly emerging to ensure that you don't get too mesmerized by that centerline. The shorter tracks assembled around these two epics are something of a motley bunch, though impressive in their scope and variety. The handsomely dissonant opener "Br\xFBlez Suivant, Suivante!" brings Fly Pan Am about as close to conventional song structure as they've ever been, calling to mind Evol-era Sonic Youth. The jagged, muttering "Pas à Pas Step Until" should cause Boredoms fans to crane their necks. Less successful are brief electronic morsels like "Buvez Nos Larmes de Métal" (translation: "Drink Our Metal Tears") or the burbling, appropriately titled "..." which, at best, functions as a palate cleanser. So while N'Ecoutez Pas might not be the most consistent record you'll ever hear, at its best it finds Fly Pan Am approaching peaks of intensity and ragged splendor that few bands even acknowledge, let alone attempt to scale. Even better is that the whole thing is too damaged sounding to even remotely resemble GY!BE: For the first time, Fly Pan Am soar on their own wings.

Artist: Fly Pan Am, Album: N'ecoutez Pas, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.0 Album review: "Led by Godspeed You Black Emperor! guitarist Roger Tellier-Craig, Fly Pan Am are but one of many storefront operations spun off from that multi-limbed Montreal-based behemoth. And, as has been the case with other branch offices like Set Fire to Flames, Do Make Say Think, or A Silver Mt. Zion, Fly Pan Am have experienced some difficulty establishing an identity distinct from their parent organization. Due primarily to Tellier-Craig's instantly recognizable playing style, the angular instrumental art-funk that predominated the group's first two albums too often resembled a pared-back, less engaging GYBE! But that all changes dramatically on N'Ecoutez Pas (which, unless my pidgin French has failed me, translates to "Don't Listen".) Here, on their third full-length, Fly Pan Am complete a Black Dice-caliber personality shift, abandoning all previous formulae and pushing their sound outward in all directions. For the first time, they incorporate vocals into their attack along with an unruly array of electronics, keyboards, and field recordings-- all of which results in their finest and most fully realized work to date. The album is erected around the twin pillars of "Autunt Zig-Zag" and "Trés Trés Retro", two 11-minute showpieces that give Fly Pan Am enough elbow room to flex their suddenly considerable Krautrock-nourished muscles over massive hunks of terrain. "Zig-Zag" is Fly Pan Am's noisiest and perhaps best piece yet, combining layers of hissing electronics with a wriggling edifice of distorted guitar worthy of My Bloody Valentine, all while garbled voices whisper and conspire malevolently. In French, no less. Eventually, the fog lifts enough to reveal the charred tree stumps that pass by your railcar window as countless little bug-sized motors chug away ineffectually. "Trés Trés Retro" is a somewhat simpler affair, and its stuttering drums and hypnotic, loping bass hearken back to Fly Pan Am's 1999 debut, on which they dabbled extensively with minimalism and the beauty of repetition (most memorably when Tellier-Craig at one point plucked the same simple chord repeatedly for over 10 minutes). Here, though, the band gives the rhythm section plenty of traffic to weave through, with blinking stoplight keyboards and strange cut-up vocal edits constantly emerging to ensure that you don't get too mesmerized by that centerline. The shorter tracks assembled around these two epics are something of a motley bunch, though impressive in their scope and variety. The handsomely dissonant opener "Br\xFBlez Suivant, Suivante!" brings Fly Pan Am about as close to conventional song structure as they've ever been, calling to mind Evol-era Sonic Youth. The jagged, muttering "Pas à Pas Step Until" should cause Boredoms fans to crane their necks. Less successful are brief electronic morsels like "Buvez Nos Larmes de Métal" (translation: "Drink Our Metal Tears") or the burbling, appropriately titled "..." which, at best, functions as a palate cleanser. So while N'Ecoutez Pas might not be the most consistent record you'll ever hear, at its best it finds Fly Pan Am approaching peaks of intensity and ragged splendor that few bands even acknowledge, let alone attempt to scale. Even better is that the whole thing is too damaged sounding to even remotely resemble GY!BE: For the first time, Fly Pan Am soar on their own wings."

Trepaneringsritualen

Perfection & Permanence

Kim Kelly

Trepaneringsritualen is the solo project of Swedish noise artist Thomas Ekelund, known previously for his work with Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, Nullvoid, and Th. Tot. He’s kept awfully busy in the years following the project’s 2008 inception, releasing or appearing on a total of 17 albums, EPs, and compilations (most notably on split releases with Deathstench and Sutekh Hexen). His latest work, Perfection & Permanence, was recently released by UK institution Cold Spring, and marks his most strangely listenable output yet. Trepaneringsritualen christens itself “Götisk Dödsindustri”, or "death industrial", and the project delivers on thats promise by saturating Ekelund’s scrapings with gloomy, gothic atmospheres and a heavy ritual ambient influence. The songs are molded upon burly loops that shudder and sway beneath Ekelund’s perpetually mutating vocals. Laden with distortion and effects, hints of melody pulse ominously beneath the heavy synth lines and bludgeoning rhythmic core. It’s disturbing and appealing in equal measure, and its droning characteristics lend an almost psychedelic quality to some of the longer, more convoluted passages that litter tracks like the murky “Liken Ingen Jord Vill Svälja”. “Venerated & Despised” opens the album carefully, lulling the listener into a false sense of security before revealing the true horrors it holds. There’s no lack of aggression on tracks like the menacing “Alone/A/Cross/Abyss” or the genuinely frightening “Castrate Christ”, which finds Ekelund’s vocals devolving into a nasty reptilian croak buried under noxious waves of distortion and reverb. Minimalist interlude “39 Lashes” offers a brief respite before the hoarse, repetitive abrasion of “The Seventh Man” kicks in. Even the relatively restrained “A Black Egg” seeks to unnerve with its skittering percussion, hovering, ghostly loops, and Ekelund’s strident spoken meditations on spectres in black and depravity.  The songs are quite short, only surpassing the five minute mark on the ultra-distorted closing hellscape of “He Who Is My Mirror.” Unlike so many projects that labor beneath the wide banner of power electronics, Trepaneringsritualen overlooks humanity’s sickness and instead concerns itself with matters of magick, religion, and the occult. The ritualistic feel to much of Ekelund’s output is no accident, and Perfection & Permanence delves bone-deep into the dark recesses that fuel his need to create. Bleak, apocalyptic dirges and mechanical menace abound. The most insidious aspect to this album lies within its accessibility and crossover appeal. As much as this project owes to noise and ambient music, there are similarities to the most extreme metal as well, especially in aesthetics and intent. Trepaneringsritualen often plays gigs in and around its native Sweden with occult-minded black metal bands like One Tail, One Head, and even appeared at this past year’s Inferno Metal Festival in Norway alongside Watain, Blasphemy, and Mgła. He performs covered in animal blood, wild-eyed and violent; his long hair and beard stream with offal, and his brutally confrontational approach leaves audience members reeling. Ekelund’s sworn allegiance to distortion, decaying atmosphere, and all-around depravity mirrors a good deal of what many of black metal’s best new bands are doing. The two genres have long enjoyed a cozy relationship, and while Dominick Fernow’s now-defunct Hospital Productions enclave was perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the ties between raw black metal and harsh noise, bands like Trepaneringsritualen make it crystal clear that its effects were felt far and wide. Perfection & Permanence is not a black metal record, but it’s no coincidence that it has resonated so strongly with those who perform and consume black metal. Culumatively, the album makes for a perversely satisfying experience. With Perfection & Permanence, Ekelund has created that most chimeric of beasts: an accessible, even what some might say commercial, noise album. The shadowy world of power electronics and by extension death industrial can be tough for a novice to navigate, but Trepaneringsritualen makes for an excellent starting point.

Artist: Trepaneringsritualen, Album: Perfection & Permanence, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "Trepaneringsritualen is the solo project of Swedish noise artist Thomas Ekelund, known previously for his work with Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, Nullvoid, and Th. Tot. He’s kept awfully busy in the years following the project’s 2008 inception, releasing or appearing on a total of 17 albums, EPs, and compilations (most notably on split releases with Deathstench and Sutekh Hexen). His latest work, Perfection & Permanence, was recently released by UK institution Cold Spring, and marks his most strangely listenable output yet. Trepaneringsritualen christens itself “Götisk Dödsindustri”, or "death industrial", and the project delivers on thats promise by saturating Ekelund’s scrapings with gloomy, gothic atmospheres and a heavy ritual ambient influence. The songs are molded upon burly loops that shudder and sway beneath Ekelund’s perpetually mutating vocals. Laden with distortion and effects, hints of melody pulse ominously beneath the heavy synth lines and bludgeoning rhythmic core. It’s disturbing and appealing in equal measure, and its droning characteristics lend an almost psychedelic quality to some of the longer, more convoluted passages that litter tracks like the murky “Liken Ingen Jord Vill Svälja”. “Venerated & Despised” opens the album carefully, lulling the listener into a false sense of security before revealing the true horrors it holds. There’s no lack of aggression on tracks like the menacing “Alone/A/Cross/Abyss” or the genuinely frightening “Castrate Christ”, which finds Ekelund’s vocals devolving into a nasty reptilian croak buried under noxious waves of distortion and reverb. Minimalist interlude “39 Lashes” offers a brief respite before the hoarse, repetitive abrasion of “The Seventh Man” kicks in. Even the relatively restrained “A Black Egg” seeks to unnerve with its skittering percussion, hovering, ghostly loops, and Ekelund’s strident spoken meditations on spectres in black and depravity.  The songs are quite short, only surpassing the five minute mark on the ultra-distorted closing hellscape of “He Who Is My Mirror.” Unlike so many projects that labor beneath the wide banner of power electronics, Trepaneringsritualen overlooks humanity’s sickness and instead concerns itself with matters of magick, religion, and the occult. The ritualistic feel to much of Ekelund’s output is no accident, and Perfection & Permanence delves bone-deep into the dark recesses that fuel his need to create. Bleak, apocalyptic dirges and mechanical menace abound. The most insidious aspect to this album lies within its accessibility and crossover appeal. As much as this project owes to noise and ambient music, there are similarities to the most extreme metal as well, especially in aesthetics and intent. Trepaneringsritualen often plays gigs in and around its native Sweden with occult-minded black metal bands like One Tail, One Head, and even appeared at this past year’s Inferno Metal Festival in Norway alongside Watain, Blasphemy, and Mgła. He performs covered in animal blood, wild-eyed and violent; his long hair and beard stream with offal, and his brutally confrontational approach leaves audience members reeling. Ekelund’s sworn allegiance to distortion, decaying atmosphere, and all-around depravity mirrors a good deal of what many of black metal’s best new bands are doing. The two genres have long enjoyed a cozy relationship, and while Dominick Fernow’s now-defunct Hospital Productions enclave was perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the ties between raw black metal and harsh noise, bands like Trepaneringsritualen make it crystal clear that its effects were felt far and wide. Perfection & Permanence is not a black metal record, but it’s no coincidence that it has resonated so strongly with those who perform and consume black metal. Culumatively, the album makes for a perversely satisfying experience. With Perfection & Permanence, Ekelund has created that most chimeric of beasts: an accessible, even what some might say commercial, noise album. The shadowy world of power electronics and by extension death industrial can be tough for a novice to navigate, but Trepaneringsritualen makes for an excellent starting point."

Betty Davis

Nasty Gal

Pop/R&B

Rebecca Bengal

A decade ago, Light in the Attic set about reissuing the long dormant, early ’70s funk catalog of Betty Davis, starting with her self-titled 1973 opus. That album featured her standout “Anti Love Song,” a cover photo of the singer wearing a pair of thigh-high silver platform boots that Rick James probably wished he could have borrowed, and a backing band culled from a large swath of the Family Stone. Moving on to albums They Say I’m Different, Nasty Gal, and the previously unreleased Is It Love or Desire and Betty Davis: The Columbia Years 1968–1969, the whole project sought to clue in new audiences to the legacy of a singer formerly footnoted as the second wife of Miles Davis, who is said to have convinced her husband to change his tamer album title to Bitches Brew. Now, her 1976 album Nasty Gal, with its equally unsubtle title, is being released once again, this time as a long player. While the physical gratification of a deluxe vinyl treatment is reason enough for a new edition, it also marks a new occasion for listening, even more deeply and resonantly than its first reissue nine years ago. What does it mean to be an artist ahead of her time—twice in her lifetime? In 1975, despite label support and heavy touring, Island Records’ release of Nasty Gal failed to take off in the way those behind it had hoped; shortly after, Davis receded from the public eye. Now at 72, she is the subject of a recent documentary (Betty - They Say I’m Different opened in Amsterdam in November) and otherwise leads a very private life in Pittsburgh. “I even turned your head around now,” Davis unleashes in the titular song, with characteristic formidable, seductive delivery, in what sounds now like lyric self-fulfilling prophecy. “You said I love you every way but your way/And my way was too dirty for you now.” In 2009, Nasty Gal continued the job of contextualizing Davis, placing her among peers like Parliament and the Isley Brothers; acknowledging her imprint on musicians from Rick James (“She was what funk was,” he has said), Chaka Khan and Lil’ Kim to Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrema and, especially, on Prince, who said of Davis to a reporter in 2012: “This is what we aim for.” To listen the record now—when the album shares a name with both a fashion brand inspired by Davis’ provocative, space-age style and a widely reclaimed slur uttered by the president of the United States—is another thing entirely. Nasty Gal is still as revolutionary and unbending as it was in 1975. In another preternaturally self-aware moment, amid the deep grooves of “F.U.N.K.,” Davis willfully seizes her place in the wider canon of funk, soul, and R&B: “Help me, Barry White!” she calls out and goes on to shout out to “Isaac Hayes, y’all,” Al Green, the O’Jays, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, and Ann Peebles, and ultimately, her good friend Jimi Hendrix (to whom she famously introduced her ex-husband; Miles doesn’t merit a shout-out in this anthem). The musical roots of Betty Davis, née Betty Mabry, are not widely acknowledged in North Carolina, but she and the band she put together have deep ties to Reidsville, once a town of textile mills and cigarette factories founded on the border of Little Troublesome Creek (Davis also spent a lot of her childhood in Durham, N.C., where she leaned heavily on her grandmother’s record collection): “B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James and all those people,” she once said. “I know some English guitarist who would love to get their hands on it.” Around the age of 12, she wrote her first song, “I’m Gonna Bake That Cake of Love.” The Mabrys moved to Homestead, Pa. where her father got a job in steel-boom Pittsburgh, and at 16, Davis took off for New York City. When she spotted her future husband at a club in the Village, she didn’t recognize the jazz trumpeter, but she liked his style; as the story goes, she told a friend she wanted to meet the “dude with the shoes.” On Nasty Gal, her prowling caterwaul snakes and oozes through the album, over dirty bass and deep grooves. She trades lyrics with keyboardist Fred Mills on the raw, declarative statement of “Nasty Gal” and over a heavy riffing guitar on “Talkin Trash.” Image was central to the music: On the cover of Nasty Gal, Davis sheds her cosmic leotards and short-shorts for lacy lingerie and fishnets. She recruited a backing band from her home state—drummer Nicky Neal and bassist Larry Johnson were first cousins, Fred Mills lived in her hometown, and she added Carlos Morales on guitar. Davis choreographed their stage moves and insisted the band members play shirtless; she lathered the band members in baby oil so their muscles would shine under the lights. She wanted to change their name from Funkhouse to the Sleazes. Nasty Gal is certainly in service of sleaze and of sex, but first and foremost, to classic, solid dance grooves that pulse under Davis’ snarl on “Shut Off the Light,” her bedroom vocals on “Getting Kicked Off, Havin Fun,” and the saucy, sultry “The Lone Ranger.” Davis has been chastised by some critics for her reliance on that howl; it’s her weapon of seduction and also her line of defense. But on this album, she briefly and astonishingly reveals a wider range. “You and I,” a lover’s lament about the impossibility of reconciliation co-written with Miles and arranged by Gil Evans, features a trumpet solo by him and orchestration by Gil Evans. It’s a gorgeously steamy slow burner of a ballad, the most lyrical song on the album, and feels spilled out of an open window on some city night. It’s Davis at her most vulnerable, as she sings, “I love you I love you I love you/But it’s so hard for me to be me I wish I could give to you/I’d be free I’d be free I’d be free.” And it’s also fleeting, followed immediately by the revved-up “Feelins,” which delivers Davis back to her foundational structure of gritty, fearless seduction over a strutting, percolating rhythm. It’s tempting to wonder what might have been had Davis chosen or had the support to continue her career and perhaps to forge together some of these two poles of her work—the tough and the tender. Davis rose to fame but not widespread acceptance in an era when black women in this country were allowed to be seen but not heard—and certainly not to exercise artistic control as a musician. In the 1970s, the Rolling Stone Record Guide called Nasty Gal the work of a “black Marlene Dietrich”—a twisted show of admiration. But plenty of black audiences weren’t ready for Davis either—the NAACP urged a boycott of her work on the grounds that it perpetuated negative stereotypes about African Americans

Artist: Betty Davis, Album: Nasty Gal, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "A decade ago, Light in the Attic set about reissuing the long dormant, early ’70s funk catalog of Betty Davis, starting with her self-titled 1973 opus. That album featured her standout “Anti Love Song,” a cover photo of the singer wearing a pair of thigh-high silver platform boots that Rick James probably wished he could have borrowed, and a backing band culled from a large swath of the Family Stone. Moving on to albums They Say I’m Different, Nasty Gal, and the previously unreleased Is It Love or Desire and Betty Davis: The Columbia Years 1968–1969, the whole project sought to clue in new audiences to the legacy of a singer formerly footnoted as the second wife of Miles Davis, who is said to have convinced her husband to change his tamer album title to Bitches Brew. Now, her 1976 album Nasty Gal, with its equally unsubtle title, is being released once again, this time as a long player. While the physical gratification of a deluxe vinyl treatment is reason enough for a new edition, it also marks a new occasion for listening, even more deeply and resonantly than its first reissue nine years ago. What does it mean to be an artist ahead of her time—twice in her lifetime? In 1975, despite label support and heavy touring, Island Records’ release of Nasty Gal failed to take off in the way those behind it had hoped; shortly after, Davis receded from the public eye. Now at 72, she is the subject of a recent documentary (Betty - They Say I’m Different opened in Amsterdam in November) and otherwise leads a very private life in Pittsburgh. “I even turned your head around now,” Davis unleashes in the titular song, with characteristic formidable, seductive delivery, in what sounds now like lyric self-fulfilling prophecy. “You said I love you every way but your way/And my way was too dirty for you now.” In 2009, Nasty Gal continued the job of contextualizing Davis, placing her among peers like Parliament and the Isley Brothers; acknowledging her imprint on musicians from Rick James (“She was what funk was,” he has said), Chaka Khan and Lil’ Kim to Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrema and, especially, on Prince, who said of Davis to a reporter in 2012: “This is what we aim for.” To listen the record now—when the album shares a name with both a fashion brand inspired by Davis’ provocative, space-age style and a widely reclaimed slur uttered by the president of the United States—is another thing entirely. Nasty Gal is still as revolutionary and unbending as it was in 1975. In another preternaturally self-aware moment, amid the deep grooves of “F.U.N.K.,” Davis willfully seizes her place in the wider canon of funk, soul, and R&B: “Help me, Barry White!” she calls out and goes on to shout out to “Isaac Hayes, y’all,” Al Green, the O’Jays, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, and Ann Peebles, and ultimately, her good friend Jimi Hendrix (to whom she famously introduced her ex-husband; Miles doesn’t merit a shout-out in this anthem). The musical roots of Betty Davis, née Betty Mabry, are not widely acknowledged in North Carolina, but she and the band she put together have deep ties to Reidsville, once a town of textile mills and cigarette factories founded on the border of Little Troublesome Creek (Davis also spent a lot of her childhood in Durham, N.C., where she leaned heavily on her grandmother’s record collection): “B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James and all those people,” she once said. “I know some English guitarist who would love to get their hands on it.” Around the age of 12, she wrote her first song, “I’m Gonna Bake That Cake of Love.” The Mabrys moved to Homestead, Pa. where her father got a job in steel-boom Pittsburgh, and at 16, Davis took off for New York City. When she spotted her future husband at a club in the Village, she didn’t recognize the jazz trumpeter, but she liked his style; as the story goes, she told a friend she wanted to meet the “dude with the shoes.” On Nasty Gal, her prowling caterwaul snakes and oozes through the album, over dirty bass and deep grooves. She trades lyrics with keyboardist Fred Mills on the raw, declarative statement of “Nasty Gal” and over a heavy riffing guitar on “Talkin Trash.” Image was central to the music: On the cover of Nasty Gal, Davis sheds her cosmic leotards and short-shorts for lacy lingerie and fishnets. She recruited a backing band from her home state—drummer Nicky Neal and bassist Larry Johnson were first cousins, Fred Mills lived in her hometown, and she added Carlos Morales on guitar. Davis choreographed their stage moves and insisted the band members play shirtless; she lathered the band members in baby oil so their muscles would shine under the lights. She wanted to change their name from Funkhouse to the Sleazes. Nasty Gal is certainly in service of sleaze and of sex, but first and foremost, to classic, solid dance grooves that pulse under Davis’ snarl on “Shut Off the Light,” her bedroom vocals on “Getting Kicked Off, Havin Fun,” and the saucy, sultry “The Lone Ranger.” Davis has been chastised by some critics for her reliance on that howl; it’s her weapon of seduction and also her line of defense. But on this album, she briefly and astonishingly reveals a wider range. “You and I,” a lover’s lament about the impossibility of reconciliation co-written with Miles and arranged by Gil Evans, features a trumpet solo by him and orchestration by Gil Evans. It’s a gorgeously steamy slow burner of a ballad, the most lyrical song on the album, and feels spilled out of an open window on some city night. It’s Davis at her most vulnerable, as she sings, “I love you I love you I love you/But it’s so hard for me to be me I wish I could give to you/I’d be free I’d be free I’d be free.” And it’s also fleeting, followed immediately by the revved-up “Feelins,” which delivers Davis back to her foundational structure of gritty, fearless seduction over a strutting, percolating rhythm. It’s tempting to wonder what might have been had Davis chosen or had the support to continue her career and perhaps to forge together some of these two poles of her work—the tough and the tender. Davis rose to fame but not widespread acceptance in an era when black women in this country were allowed to be seen but not heard—and certainly not to exercise artistic control as a musician. In the 1970s, the Rolling Stone Record Guide called Nasty Gal the work of a “black Marlene Dietrich”—a twisted show of admiration. But plenty of black audiences weren’t ready for Davis either—the NAACP urged a boycott of her work on the grounds that it perpetuated negative stereotypes about African Americans"

Shuggie Otis

Inter-Fusion

Rock

Robert Ham

Cut Shuggie Otis some slack. After decades in the wilderness, the L.A. native is finally enjoying the acclaim and attention that eluded him the first time around. His second act started in 2001 with an acclaimed Luaka Bop reissue of his haunted ’70s psych-soul classic Inspiration Information, and kept going with re-releases of his other studio albums from that era. The man who was once a small mystery, known only to hip-hop producers and anyone who looked up the writing credits for the Brothers Johnson’s hit cover of his “Strawberry Letter 23,” is now able to play stages around the world. It’s an appealing story of redemption—which in some ways makes it even more disappointing that Otis’ first collection of new music in over 40 years is such a chore to listen to. Inter-Fusion is the kind of plodding, overdriven blues-jazz odyssey that Otis has occasionally hinted at during his recent run of live performances. He shows no interest here in touching on the zonked-out brilliance of Inspiration Information highlight “Happy House” or the deep funk of his 1970 debut, Here Comes Shuggie Otis. Instead, he calls back to his early days backing up his father, ’50s R&B pioneer Johnny Otis, and perhaps previews a future showing off his instrumental virtuosity in bars. That facility with a guitar is the one element that Otis really has going for him on Inter-Fusion. He attacks each song ferociously, peeling off solos that are just showy enough to prove why he was qualified to jump in the fire as Frank Zappa’s bassist on “Peaches En Regalia” at age 16. His fuzzed-out breakdowns on a meaty re-recording of “Ice Cold Daydream” (originally found on his 1971 album Freedom Flight) crack through the light funk groove nicely, kicking out a subtle nod to Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun” for good measure. And each song is anchored by his sturdy yet flexible rhythm work. What Otis needed was a creative partner who could help him plot a course between the extremes of his past achievements and whatever he’s attempting here. Instead, he hitches his star to Kyle Hamood, a member of L.A. rock nobodies Them Guns, who buffs and polishes every last inch of Inter-Fusion until you can practically see your reflection. Otis cedes almost all control to the producer and the rhythm section—drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tony Franklin, both studio lifers—letting them write all the songs and clutter them up with showy fills and sickly synth tones. It’s enough to make you wish someone had given him Dan Auerbach’s number instead, or Daptone Records leader Bosco Mann’s. There’s no getting around the fact that Inter-Fusion is a missed opportunity. For all its failings, though, at least Otis sounds engaged with the material—he’s having fun, even if no one else is. This isn’t the leap forward fans might have hoped for, but if it gives him the momentum to keep writing and recording, that’s better than nothing.

Artist: Shuggie Otis, Album: Inter-Fusion, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 4.6 Album review: "Cut Shuggie Otis some slack. After decades in the wilderness, the L.A. native is finally enjoying the acclaim and attention that eluded him the first time around. His second act started in 2001 with an acclaimed Luaka Bop reissue of his haunted ’70s psych-soul classic Inspiration Information, and kept going with re-releases of his other studio albums from that era. The man who was once a small mystery, known only to hip-hop producers and anyone who looked up the writing credits for the Brothers Johnson’s hit cover of his “Strawberry Letter 23,” is now able to play stages around the world. It’s an appealing story of redemption—which in some ways makes it even more disappointing that Otis’ first collection of new music in over 40 years is such a chore to listen to. Inter-Fusion is the kind of plodding, overdriven blues-jazz odyssey that Otis has occasionally hinted at during his recent run of live performances. He shows no interest here in touching on the zonked-out brilliance of Inspiration Information highlight “Happy House” or the deep funk of his 1970 debut, Here Comes Shuggie Otis. Instead, he calls back to his early days backing up his father, ’50s R&B pioneer Johnny Otis, and perhaps previews a future showing off his instrumental virtuosity in bars. That facility with a guitar is the one element that Otis really has going for him on Inter-Fusion. He attacks each song ferociously, peeling off solos that are just showy enough to prove why he was qualified to jump in the fire as Frank Zappa’s bassist on “Peaches En Regalia” at age 16. His fuzzed-out breakdowns on a meaty re-recording of “Ice Cold Daydream” (originally found on his 1971 album Freedom Flight) crack through the light funk groove nicely, kicking out a subtle nod to Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun” for good measure. And each song is anchored by his sturdy yet flexible rhythm work. What Otis needed was a creative partner who could help him plot a course between the extremes of his past achievements and whatever he’s attempting here. Instead, he hitches his star to Kyle Hamood, a member of L.A. rock nobodies Them Guns, who buffs and polishes every last inch of Inter-Fusion until you can practically see your reflection. Otis cedes almost all control to the producer and the rhythm section—drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tony Franklin, both studio lifers—letting them write all the songs and clutter them up with showy fills and sickly synth tones. It’s enough to make you wish someone had given him Dan Auerbach’s number instead, or Daptone Records leader Bosco Mann’s. There’s no getting around the fact that Inter-Fusion is a missed opportunity. For all its failings, though, at least Otis sounds engaged with the material—he’s having fun, even if no one else is. This isn’t the leap forward fans might have hoped for, but if it gives him the momentum to keep writing and recording, that’s better than nothing."

Nosaj Thing

Fated

Electronic

Clayton Purdom

Science fiction is not cool. We can quibble about the particulars—are robots cool? sure, robots are cool—but in practice, there is no arguing that sci-fi is not cool. Even the Sci-Fi Channel hedged its bet and changed its name to Syfy. I am talking about dimly lit basements and damp, beige convention centers: these are not cool spaces. But Nosaj Thing, god bless him, has done his best to rebuke that notion, to find the sexiness buried under the jumpsuits. Along with Flying Lotus, the Brainfeeder continuum, a bunch of West Coast glitch-hop, and their spiritual forefather, El-P, Nosaj creates music that evokes at once the infinite blackness of deep space and the curving, gleaming chrome that moves through it. It is what plays when you type "Andromeda galaxy" in as your Uber destination. Fated is Jason Chung’s third album in six years, and, zoomed out, it’s not so much an evolution as a continuation of the style he’s established. There’s an unearthly sense of calm to the entire affair: the beats skitter, sure, but the hi-hats on "Erase" sound like they’re echoing through an empty hull, not going haywire. Opener "Sci" takes a minute to breathe to life, runs a finger down some Vangelis chimes, then takes a minute to slowly retire. (At 2:22, it’s one of the longer tracks here.) Listen closer, though, and you can hear the progression Chung’s made over time, perhaps most clearly by looking at the series of "Light" tracks that stretch through to his first record. "Light #1", from 2009, recalls the laser-fire panic of Ikonika’s debut, which would come out the next year; 2013’s "Light 3", which closed off the warmer Home, looked toward '90s drum'n'bass while still making room for keening, heart-sick melodies; this album’s "Light 5" is a series of de-escalating pulses, at times registering as little more than a heartbeat. Fated, in other words, is Chung’s case for himself as one of hip-hop’s preeminent modern minimalists, and the results are frequently sublime. You can imagine Thom Yorke hearing the pattering melancholy of "Medic" and quietly snapping his copy of King of Limbs over his knee. The otherworldly Primo boom-bap of "Realize", at 90 seconds, almost evokes the Midnight Eez or one of Dilla’s dusty old beat tapes, were it not for the wheezing cyborg synthesizers. All of the sonic choices on previous records were similarly meticulous, but here they’re assembled with the almost architectural grace of a Oneohtrix Point Never composition. While Fated follows a direct throughline from earlier Nosaj Thing albums, one can also draw a clear line to R Plus Seven’s fixation on dated computer tones, as well as its sense of slow-burn, alien awe. This is not without its dangers. Splitting the difference between ambient and hip-hop is generally a fast track toward adderall-core study music—shout out to Blue Sky Black Death—and, to be fair, Fated is an overwhelmingly pleasant listen. It is decidedly un-dazzling. But quiet doesn’t mean it can’t also be daring. So many of Nosaj Thing’s contemporaries deal with in-the-red maximalism, all hyper-compressed drums and lens-flare dynamics. But while FlyLo looked at Blade Runner and saw great plumes of fire and neon street fights, Nosaj Thing saw something else: two robots falling in love. Accordingly, Fated’s deeply electronic soundscape is most striking for its humanity. Throughout the record, Chung extracts vocal lines like threads of gossamer, treating human voices like violas to bow in much the same way that, say, Prefuse 73 treated them as toms to thwack. On "Cold Stares", the most vocal track of Nosaj Thing’s discography, Chance the Rapper charts the dark corners of this possibility space, musing and sighing and crooning in a robot-human duet. This is a very small sort of revolution, suggesting, like Spike Jonze’s Her, that the delineations between hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi might not be so rigid, and that our transhumanist future might still find room for some of life’s more corporeal pleasures.

Artist: Nosaj Thing, Album: Fated, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Science fiction is not cool. We can quibble about the particulars—are robots cool? sure, robots are cool—but in practice, there is no arguing that sci-fi is not cool. Even the Sci-Fi Channel hedged its bet and changed its name to Syfy. I am talking about dimly lit basements and damp, beige convention centers: these are not cool spaces. But Nosaj Thing, god bless him, has done his best to rebuke that notion, to find the sexiness buried under the jumpsuits. Along with Flying Lotus, the Brainfeeder continuum, a bunch of West Coast glitch-hop, and their spiritual forefather, El-P, Nosaj creates music that evokes at once the infinite blackness of deep space and the curving, gleaming chrome that moves through it. It is what plays when you type "Andromeda galaxy" in as your Uber destination. Fated is Jason Chung’s third album in six years, and, zoomed out, it’s not so much an evolution as a continuation of the style he’s established. There’s an unearthly sense of calm to the entire affair: the beats skitter, sure, but the hi-hats on "Erase" sound like they’re echoing through an empty hull, not going haywire. Opener "Sci" takes a minute to breathe to life, runs a finger down some Vangelis chimes, then takes a minute to slowly retire. (At 2:22, it’s one of the longer tracks here.) Listen closer, though, and you can hear the progression Chung’s made over time, perhaps most clearly by looking at the series of "Light" tracks that stretch through to his first record. "Light #1", from 2009, recalls the laser-fire panic of Ikonika’s debut, which would come out the next year; 2013’s "Light 3", which closed off the warmer Home, looked toward '90s drum'n'bass while still making room for keening, heart-sick melodies; this album’s "Light 5" is a series of de-escalating pulses, at times registering as little more than a heartbeat. Fated, in other words, is Chung’s case for himself as one of hip-hop’s preeminent modern minimalists, and the results are frequently sublime. You can imagine Thom Yorke hearing the pattering melancholy of "Medic" and quietly snapping his copy of King of Limbs over his knee. The otherworldly Primo boom-bap of "Realize", at 90 seconds, almost evokes the Midnight Eez or one of Dilla’s dusty old beat tapes, were it not for the wheezing cyborg synthesizers. All of the sonic choices on previous records were similarly meticulous, but here they’re assembled with the almost architectural grace of a Oneohtrix Point Never composition. While Fated follows a direct throughline from earlier Nosaj Thing albums, one can also draw a clear line to R Plus Seven’s fixation on dated computer tones, as well as its sense of slow-burn, alien awe. This is not without its dangers. Splitting the difference between ambient and hip-hop is generally a fast track toward adderall-core study music—shout out to Blue Sky Black Death—and, to be fair, Fated is an overwhelmingly pleasant listen. It is decidedly un-dazzling. But quiet doesn’t mean it can’t also be daring. So many of Nosaj Thing’s contemporaries deal with in-the-red maximalism, all hyper-compressed drums and lens-flare dynamics. But while FlyLo looked at Blade Runner and saw great plumes of fire and neon street fights, Nosaj Thing saw something else: two robots falling in love. Accordingly, Fated’s deeply electronic soundscape is most striking for its humanity. Throughout the record, Chung extracts vocal lines like threads of gossamer, treating human voices like violas to bow in much the same way that, say, Prefuse 73 treated them as toms to thwack. On "Cold Stares", the most vocal track of Nosaj Thing’s discography, Chance the Rapper charts the dark corners of this possibility space, musing and sighing and crooning in a robot-human duet. This is a very small sort of revolution, suggesting, like Spike Jonze’s Her, that the delineations between hard sci-fi and soft sci-fi might not be so rigid, and that our transhumanist future might still find room for some of life’s more corporeal pleasures."

Rivers Cuomo

Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo

Rock

Jason Crock

Somewhere along the way, someone told Rivers Cuomo that he needed to rein it in. To the world's dismay, he listened, and made three records of faceless, predictable approximations of what the public supposedly wanted his band Weezer to be. Demo collection Alone does the opposite, collecting all sorts of goofy and indulgent ideas-- robot voices, barbershop-quartet harmonies, over-emoting, an Ice Cube cover-- reminding us why we fell for dorks with horn-rimmed glasses and flying-V guitars in the first place. Casual fans and/or haters might wonder what, after three records that were stagnant at best, could be possibly left in the vaults; the superfans know exactly what he's holding back. The inside cover shows off a crammed collection of cassette tapes, their spines promising untold treasures-- Songs From the Black Hole is there, as well as previously unheard of titles and bandnames-waiting-to-happen like Psoriasis Babies and Angst Muffins. As far as basement tapes go, Alone ranges wildly in fidelity and style while still hanging together as a surprisingly cohesive whole. Its liner notes have detailed histories and inspirations for each song-- with lyrics, even-- and photos that exhibit a disconcerting lack of shame. (Bearded Basoon-playing Rivers, Despondent Glam Rivers, collect 'em all!) Best of all: More than two-thirds of the material here was recorded before 1996. As for the rest... we'll get to that. A lost Weezer record it isn't, even if fans have been waiting on one. Songs From the Black Hole was reportedly a full concept album meant to follow the "Blue Album" that was scrapped completely before recording what would become Pinkerton. Its story arc follows a five-person (plus one mechanoid) crew of a spaceship on an important mission, our noble protagonist Jonas (hmm...) is given a meaty role while crewmates Wuan and Dondo (seriously, it's in the liners) are one-dimensional avatars for womanizing and partying. That only sort of matters in "Blast Off!", the collection's crown jewel and such a fleeting rush of distortion-driven joy that the edges of the supposed dialogue are entirely blurred, and are hardly essential to enjoy it. Not so when it segues directly into "Who You Callin' Bitch?", the lament of the unfairly maligned female spaceship cook, whom Cuomo brings to life with some fairly operatic solo vocal moments. More narrative confusion and dick references follow in the cheery a cappella "Dude, We're Finally Landing" and the twee-cranked-to-11 of "Superfriend", which is at least on par with Pinkerton's stellar B-sides (many of which would have made up this "lost" album). If it sounds silly on paper, go over the lyrics to your favorite Weezer song in your mind for a moment, and then take into account that these were written with the help of painkillers as Cuomo healed from leg surgery. These hopelessly corny, irrepressibly infectious songs are the stuff that Weezer freaks are forged in. The rest of the songs come from more familiar territory. "Lemonade" borrows its paunchy low-end straight from the Blue Album, while more introspective tracks like the would-be teen-flick soundtrack cut "Wanda (You're My Only Love)" and piano ballad "Longtime Sunshine" will satisfy the Pinkerton lover on your Christmas list. There's only one previously released Weezer song in the bunch, however. While its plodding tempo nearly turns it into a dirge, "Buddy Holly" still sounds pretty great in any incarnation, but doesn't reveal much in demo form besides some silly keyboard presets; it's not as if a Weezer song has ever been ruined by over-production. It does show that Cuomo has his compositions nearly finalized before they get to the band, right down to the falsetto harmonies and lightning-quick licks tucked into the verses. There are more unexpected pleasures as well, like hearing Cuomo moonlighting as frontman for the band Sloan on a strutting cover of oldie "Little Diane". Even the compilation's rough spots reveal something: The choked angst of "The World We Love So Much" is intimate enough to cause embarrassment by proxy, but it's worth noting that it's a Gregg Alexander cover (yes, the guy from the New Radicals). It divulges an unexpectedly modern influence, and from a relative peer of Cuomo's at that; either could have switched career trajectories if the cards had fallen just a bit differently. And yet, the biggest surprise is that Weezer's latest material is not the bottom of the barrel, and that crossover smash "Beverly Hills" only hinted at the depths Cuomo has yet to plumb. Recorded in 2007, "This Is the Way" is a stab at MOR urban pop, with what are likely his least inspired lyrics yet. He rhymes "love" with "heaven above" over a track that, even for a demo, makes old Jon Secada look like old Timbaland, finally indulging in the supposed funk influence he once so studiously avoided. The chorus: "This is the way a man loves his lady." It's as if "Beverly Hills" was a black hole, and this was the extra-dimensional hell on the other end. But more than being adrift in an unfamiliar genre, "This Is the Way" is crippled by the same thing that drags down "I Was Made for You", a 2004 demo that closes the compilation. The mostly chronological track list of Alone exposes the same drawbacks of Weezer's later records by the end: By chasing down broad notions of universality in his lyrics and melodies, Cuomo's songs have become increasingly impersonal and vacuous, even when they're as pretty as "I Was Made For You". There's nothing about angst-ridden singer-songwriters, forgotten power-poppers, or rappers that we can't all relate to; nor do songs that draw inspirations from science fiction or Madame Butterfly necessarily appeal to a niche audience. It's frustrating that Cuomo has sidelined these weirder, often endearing influences. If nothing else, Alone reminds us that a lot of those over-ambitious, silly-on-paper ideas often blossomed in Cuomo's hands, and there was more to Weezer in their early days than just crisp power-pop and cute videos.

Artist: Rivers Cuomo, Album: Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Somewhere along the way, someone told Rivers Cuomo that he needed to rein it in. To the world's dismay, he listened, and made three records of faceless, predictable approximations of what the public supposedly wanted his band Weezer to be. Demo collection Alone does the opposite, collecting all sorts of goofy and indulgent ideas-- robot voices, barbershop-quartet harmonies, over-emoting, an Ice Cube cover-- reminding us why we fell for dorks with horn-rimmed glasses and flying-V guitars in the first place. Casual fans and/or haters might wonder what, after three records that were stagnant at best, could be possibly left in the vaults; the superfans know exactly what he's holding back. The inside cover shows off a crammed collection of cassette tapes, their spines promising untold treasures-- Songs From the Black Hole is there, as well as previously unheard of titles and bandnames-waiting-to-happen like Psoriasis Babies and Angst Muffins. As far as basement tapes go, Alone ranges wildly in fidelity and style while still hanging together as a surprisingly cohesive whole. Its liner notes have detailed histories and inspirations for each song-- with lyrics, even-- and photos that exhibit a disconcerting lack of shame. (Bearded Basoon-playing Rivers, Despondent Glam Rivers, collect 'em all!) Best of all: More than two-thirds of the material here was recorded before 1996. As for the rest... we'll get to that. A lost Weezer record it isn't, even if fans have been waiting on one. Songs From the Black Hole was reportedly a full concept album meant to follow the "Blue Album" that was scrapped completely before recording what would become Pinkerton. Its story arc follows a five-person (plus one mechanoid) crew of a spaceship on an important mission, our noble protagonist Jonas (hmm...) is given a meaty role while crewmates Wuan and Dondo (seriously, it's in the liners) are one-dimensional avatars for womanizing and partying. That only sort of matters in "Blast Off!", the collection's crown jewel and such a fleeting rush of distortion-driven joy that the edges of the supposed dialogue are entirely blurred, and are hardly essential to enjoy it. Not so when it segues directly into "Who You Callin' Bitch?", the lament of the unfairly maligned female spaceship cook, whom Cuomo brings to life with some fairly operatic solo vocal moments. More narrative confusion and dick references follow in the cheery a cappella "Dude, We're Finally Landing" and the twee-cranked-to-11 of "Superfriend", which is at least on par with Pinkerton's stellar B-sides (many of which would have made up this "lost" album). If it sounds silly on paper, go over the lyrics to your favorite Weezer song in your mind for a moment, and then take into account that these were written with the help of painkillers as Cuomo healed from leg surgery. These hopelessly corny, irrepressibly infectious songs are the stuff that Weezer freaks are forged in. The rest of the songs come from more familiar territory. "Lemonade" borrows its paunchy low-end straight from the Blue Album, while more introspective tracks like the would-be teen-flick soundtrack cut "Wanda (You're My Only Love)" and piano ballad "Longtime Sunshine" will satisfy the Pinkerton lover on your Christmas list. There's only one previously released Weezer song in the bunch, however. While its plodding tempo nearly turns it into a dirge, "Buddy Holly" still sounds pretty great in any incarnation, but doesn't reveal much in demo form besides some silly keyboard presets; it's not as if a Weezer song has ever been ruined by over-production. It does show that Cuomo has his compositions nearly finalized before they get to the band, right down to the falsetto harmonies and lightning-quick licks tucked into the verses. There are more unexpected pleasures as well, like hearing Cuomo moonlighting as frontman for the band Sloan on a strutting cover of oldie "Little Diane". Even the compilation's rough spots reveal something: The choked angst of "The World We Love So Much" is intimate enough to cause embarrassment by proxy, but it's worth noting that it's a Gregg Alexander cover (yes, the guy from the New Radicals). It divulges an unexpectedly modern influence, and from a relative peer of Cuomo's at that; either could have switched career trajectories if the cards had fallen just a bit differently. And yet, the biggest surprise is that Weezer's latest material is not the bottom of the barrel, and that crossover smash "Beverly Hills" only hinted at the depths Cuomo has yet to plumb. Recorded in 2007, "This Is the Way" is a stab at MOR urban pop, with what are likely his least inspired lyrics yet. He rhymes "love" with "heaven above" over a track that, even for a demo, makes old Jon Secada look like old Timbaland, finally indulging in the supposed funk influence he once so studiously avoided. The chorus: "This is the way a man loves his lady." It's as if "Beverly Hills" was a black hole, and this was the extra-dimensional hell on the other end. But more than being adrift in an unfamiliar genre, "This Is the Way" is crippled by the same thing that drags down "I Was Made for You", a 2004 demo that closes the compilation. The mostly chronological track list of Alone exposes the same drawbacks of Weezer's later records by the end: By chasing down broad notions of universality in his lyrics and melodies, Cuomo's songs have become increasingly impersonal and vacuous, even when they're as pretty as "I Was Made For You". There's nothing about angst-ridden singer-songwriters, forgotten power-poppers, or rappers that we can't all relate to; nor do songs that draw inspirations from science fiction or Madame Butterfly necessarily appeal to a niche audience. It's frustrating that Cuomo has sidelined these weirder, often endearing influences. If nothing else, Alone reminds us that a lot of those over-ambitious, silly-on-paper ideas often blossomed in Cuomo's hands, and there was more to Weezer in their early days than just crisp power-pop and cute videos."

Juju & Jordash

Sis-boom-bah!

Electronic

Philip Sherburne

It is entirely possible that Juju & Jordash’s Sis-boom-bah! is the only techno record you will hear this year that features wah-wah guitar. But then, the Israeli-Dutch duo is hardly your typical club-music proposition. Gal Aner and Jordan Czamanski, both jazz aficionados, approach their live gigs in the spirit of pure improvisation, heaping their gear table high with sundry machines, many of them years if not decades old, and jamming away. They start from scratch—no preset synth patches, no pre-programmed rhythms—and make it up as they go along, building woozy, wooly, and sometimes downright noodly grooves out of nothing but the circuitry they brought with them. They approach their records in much the same way. The only difference is that the recording studio offers many more possibilities for cutting away the excess and honing in on the meat of the idea, the sinew of the groove. Sis-boom-bah! is their fifth and most streamlined record yet. Juju & Jordash typically oscillate between freeform abstraction and Detroit-inspired techno, but this is more like their take on new age. Where they were once happy to whack away on a fat 909 snare, here they’ve whittled all the drum sounds down until they’re little more than suggestions of percussive energy: neatly filed hi-hats, shadows of kick drums, snares that are all rattle and no smack. A few songs have no recognizable drums at all, and on several tracks, liquid tones drip like a serum squeezed from an eyedropper, reinforcing the sense that the two musicians have distilled their sound to its essence. Though it’s still recognizable as dance music, this is a vision of techno that has wandered far from the dancefloor and has no great interest in going back—a little like a raver who has wandered into the woods and is happy to remain there, communing with the trees, while pinging droplets and distant synth riffs filter through the foliage. “Herkie” opens the album like a statement of intent: part electric Miles, part Motor City synths, it rolls elliptical rings of Rhodes keyboards, plucked guitar, and greasy bass tones around rattling, metallic percussion. The circular vamping serves as a kind of scene-setting, building energy without arriving at any particular destination; swelling synth pads and lilting tambourine amplify the sense of drift. “Rah-Rah” picks up the same palette and adds trickling liquids, Hammond flutter, and guttural chants, for a skipping house groove that only hits cruising altitude in its final minute. With the third track, “Back Tuck Basket Toss,” Juju & Jordash ease into the syncopated chords of piano house (and, for fun, some gnarly digital slap bass). It’s the record’s clubbiest cut yet, even though it’s slower than the two that have preceded it. The album’s sequencing follows a curious organizing principle: Each successive track across the first half of the album is slower than the last. The effect is not so much to lessen the energy level as to darken the mood and deepen the intensity of every pulse, and with the following track, “Deadman,” things get truly entrancing. There’s a hint of a talking drum in the toms; a low wind blows through the track’s ample empty space. Knowing when not to play is one of the most important instincts an improviser can develop. Here, and across the album, they flex those chops brilliantly. The tempos bottom out with “Paper Dolls” and “Hanging Pyramid,” a pair of tracks that hover around the 90-BPM mark, and which collectively comprise the record’s beating heart. “Paper Dolls” plays highlife-inspired guitar off delicately detuned synthesizer, and its triplet pulse lends to a dizzy sort of slow/fast quality, while “Hanging Pyramid,” the album’s most unassuming cut, applies double-time pulses to a barely-there array of marimba and handclaps, like a drum ‘n’ bass remix of Jon Hassell. Both are dazzlingly pointillistic. The remaining three tracks build up the energy once more, but it’s here at the album’s cavernous center that the duo's skills shine brightest, as they carefully (but never fussily) polish their sounds to a dull gleam, weaving everything into a loose lattice of pluck and ping. Keeping one finger on the pulse without ever submitting entirely to it, they highlight the tension between the rhythmic grid—rigid, unrelenting—and the slipperiness of the objects that pass through it. Sis-boom-bah! is a celebration of techno at its most elastic.

Artist: Juju & Jordash, Album: Sis-boom-bah!, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "It is entirely possible that Juju & Jordash’s Sis-boom-bah! is the only techno record you will hear this year that features wah-wah guitar. But then, the Israeli-Dutch duo is hardly your typical club-music proposition. Gal Aner and Jordan Czamanski, both jazz aficionados, approach their live gigs in the spirit of pure improvisation, heaping their gear table high with sundry machines, many of them years if not decades old, and jamming away. They start from scratch—no preset synth patches, no pre-programmed rhythms—and make it up as they go along, building woozy, wooly, and sometimes downright noodly grooves out of nothing but the circuitry they brought with them. They approach their records in much the same way. The only difference is that the recording studio offers many more possibilities for cutting away the excess and honing in on the meat of the idea, the sinew of the groove. Sis-boom-bah! is their fifth and most streamlined record yet. Juju & Jordash typically oscillate between freeform abstraction and Detroit-inspired techno, but this is more like their take on new age. Where they were once happy to whack away on a fat 909 snare, here they’ve whittled all the drum sounds down until they’re little more than suggestions of percussive energy: neatly filed hi-hats, shadows of kick drums, snares that are all rattle and no smack. A few songs have no recognizable drums at all, and on several tracks, liquid tones drip like a serum squeezed from an eyedropper, reinforcing the sense that the two musicians have distilled their sound to its essence. Though it’s still recognizable as dance music, this is a vision of techno that has wandered far from the dancefloor and has no great interest in going back—a little like a raver who has wandered into the woods and is happy to remain there, communing with the trees, while pinging droplets and distant synth riffs filter through the foliage. “Herkie” opens the album like a statement of intent: part electric Miles, part Motor City synths, it rolls elliptical rings of Rhodes keyboards, plucked guitar, and greasy bass tones around rattling, metallic percussion. The circular vamping serves as a kind of scene-setting, building energy without arriving at any particular destination; swelling synth pads and lilting tambourine amplify the sense of drift. “Rah-Rah” picks up the same palette and adds trickling liquids, Hammond flutter, and guttural chants, for a skipping house groove that only hits cruising altitude in its final minute. With the third track, “Back Tuck Basket Toss,” Juju & Jordash ease into the syncopated chords of piano house (and, for fun, some gnarly digital slap bass). It’s the record’s clubbiest cut yet, even though it’s slower than the two that have preceded it. The album’s sequencing follows a curious organizing principle: Each successive track across the first half of the album is slower than the last. The effect is not so much to lessen the energy level as to darken the mood and deepen the intensity of every pulse, and with the following track, “Deadman,” things get truly entrancing. There’s a hint of a talking drum in the toms; a low wind blows through the track’s ample empty space. Knowing when not to play is one of the most important instincts an improviser can develop. Here, and across the album, they flex those chops brilliantly. The tempos bottom out with “Paper Dolls” and “Hanging Pyramid,” a pair of tracks that hover around the 90-BPM mark, and which collectively comprise the record’s beating heart. “Paper Dolls” plays highlife-inspired guitar off delicately detuned synthesizer, and its triplet pulse lends to a dizzy sort of slow/fast quality, while “Hanging Pyramid,” the album’s most unassuming cut, applies double-time pulses to a barely-there array of marimba and handclaps, like a drum ‘n’ bass remix of Jon Hassell. Both are dazzlingly pointillistic. The remaining three tracks build up the energy once more, but it’s here at the album’s cavernous center that the duo's skills shine brightest, as they carefully (but never fussily) polish their sounds to a dull gleam, weaving everything into a loose lattice of pluck and ping. Keeping one finger on the pulse without ever submitting entirely to it, they highlight the tension between the rhythmic grid—rigid, unrelenting—and the slipperiness of the objects that pass through it. Sis-boom-bah! is a celebration of techno at its most elastic."

Feral

Nexus

Electronic

Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

“100 Fold,” the leadoff track on this sophomore EP from DJ/producer Caleb Halter (a.k.a. Feral) begins with a soothing keyboard fade-in that lasts all of 20 seconds before Halter interrupts it with rolling layers of abrasion. First comes a supremely fat bass note, then a jarring touch of glitch, followed by a pitch-shifted four-note hook that sounds like a digitized blend of human vocals and wood flutes. If you’ve set foot anywhere near a dance floor in the past, oh, 15 years or so, you instinctively expect a tune like this to unfold with a bass drop followed by a forceful groove based on the hook, with some whiplash-inducing glitch thrown in for good measure. In a club setting, Halter could’ve easily ridden that stereotype into a repetitive trance. But the bass drop and groove never arrive. Instead, Halter teases at both while “100 Fold” froths with atmospheres that threaten to reclaim the spotlight. After a minute and a half, the music simply fades away, but in that space Halter establishes the central dynamic at the core of the five tunes that comprise this EP: From start to finish, he keeps one foot in an ambient headspace and another in the ear-rattling clamor of the club. On Feral’s first EP, last year’s Relay, as well as on his contributions to comps by Ghostly and Lucky Me, Halter appeared to be searching for a comfortable medium between those two modes. On this new material, he sounds restless and focused on sonic opposition as much as balance. If you like the element of surprise—or if you enjoy hearing boisterous dance-floor gestures through headphones and, in reverse, gauzy ambient nuance at loud volumes—Nexus keeps in perpetual flux, never quite resting in one world or the other. Nexus also demonstrates Halter’s deliberate attention to timing. After he leaves you pining for a beat at the abrupt conclusion of “100 Fold,” he delivers on the remaining four songs, all of which are either anchored by strong beats (“Hyphen,” “We Feel You”), arrangements that suggest them even without any percussion (“Sum”), or a combination of both (“Wasp”). In all four cases, though, Halter continuously throws curveballs, some more subtle than others. “Wasp” starts off with a digital frost-like coating of atmosphere that appears to be heading straight for ambient territory, which makes the sudden onset of brash 808 pomp feel almost rude. From this point onwards, Halter allows the grooves to establish themselves enough to bob your head or move your body to them. However if you actually try to dance to this music, you’ll be presented with challenges. In the middle of “Wasp” there’s a section where the groove drops out and the music just hovers, suspended, before it’s clear where things are going to go next. Meanwhile, when he captures the ham-fisted bombast of drum‘n’bass and glitch on “Hyphen,” for example, one gets the sense that some of his choices verge on satire. (“Nexus” is also the name of a software plug-in that Halter describes as dated and cheesy.) It takes attentive listening to notice that Halter often undercuts his gaudier sounds with finer details. Nexus ends with “We Feel You,” a track whose triumphant overtones and skittering rhythm recall Middle* of Nowhere*-era Orbital. It sounds like the fabricated optimism of a closing credits sequence to a Hollywood blockbuster. But when you compare it to the more overtly uplifting “Ceremony,” the tune that closes Relay, it’s clear that Halter is moving away from emotional directness and into more guileful self-presentation. At times, Nexus appears to overstate what it is, only to leave you questioning whether you've properly read or even misread its intentions. Given Halter’s sense of precision, the push-pull of his music is both intentional and very rewarding.

Artist: Feral, Album: Nexus, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "“100 Fold,” the leadoff track on this sophomore EP from DJ/producer Caleb Halter (a.k.a. Feral) begins with a soothing keyboard fade-in that lasts all of 20 seconds before Halter interrupts it with rolling layers of abrasion. First comes a supremely fat bass note, then a jarring touch of glitch, followed by a pitch-shifted four-note hook that sounds like a digitized blend of human vocals and wood flutes. If you’ve set foot anywhere near a dance floor in the past, oh, 15 years or so, you instinctively expect a tune like this to unfold with a bass drop followed by a forceful groove based on the hook, with some whiplash-inducing glitch thrown in for good measure. In a club setting, Halter could’ve easily ridden that stereotype into a repetitive trance. But the bass drop and groove never arrive. Instead, Halter teases at both while “100 Fold” froths with atmospheres that threaten to reclaim the spotlight. After a minute and a half, the music simply fades away, but in that space Halter establishes the central dynamic at the core of the five tunes that comprise this EP: From start to finish, he keeps one foot in an ambient headspace and another in the ear-rattling clamor of the club. On Feral’s first EP, last year’s Relay, as well as on his contributions to comps by Ghostly and Lucky Me, Halter appeared to be searching for a comfortable medium between those two modes. On this new material, he sounds restless and focused on sonic opposition as much as balance. If you like the element of surprise—or if you enjoy hearing boisterous dance-floor gestures through headphones and, in reverse, gauzy ambient nuance at loud volumes—Nexus keeps in perpetual flux, never quite resting in one world or the other. Nexus also demonstrates Halter’s deliberate attention to timing. After he leaves you pining for a beat at the abrupt conclusion of “100 Fold,” he delivers on the remaining four songs, all of which are either anchored by strong beats (“Hyphen,” “We Feel You”), arrangements that suggest them even without any percussion (“Sum”), or a combination of both (“Wasp”). In all four cases, though, Halter continuously throws curveballs, some more subtle than others. “Wasp” starts off with a digital frost-like coating of atmosphere that appears to be heading straight for ambient territory, which makes the sudden onset of brash 808 pomp feel almost rude. From this point onwards, Halter allows the grooves to establish themselves enough to bob your head or move your body to them. However if you actually try to dance to this music, you’ll be presented with challenges. In the middle of “Wasp” there’s a section where the groove drops out and the music just hovers, suspended, before it’s clear where things are going to go next. Meanwhile, when he captures the ham-fisted bombast of drum‘n’bass and glitch on “Hyphen,” for example, one gets the sense that some of his choices verge on satire. (“Nexus” is also the name of a software plug-in that Halter describes as dated and cheesy.) It takes attentive listening to notice that Halter often undercuts his gaudier sounds with finer details. Nexus ends with “We Feel You,” a track whose triumphant overtones and skittering rhythm recall Middle* of Nowhere*-era Orbital. It sounds like the fabricated optimism of a closing credits sequence to a Hollywood blockbuster. But when you compare it to the more overtly uplifting “Ceremony,” the tune that closes Relay, it’s clear that Halter is moving away from emotional directness and into more guileful self-presentation. At times, Nexus appears to overstate what it is, only to leave you questioning whether you've properly read or even misread its intentions. Given Halter’s sense of precision, the push-pull of his music is both intentional and very rewarding."

Artanker Convoy

Cozy Endings

Rock

Matthew Murphy

With their alluring cover art and a bunch of song titles ("Open Up", "Geyser", "The Happy Minotaur") that might also double as the names of exotic sex positions, it might appear that Artanker Convoy are actively courting the swank bachelor pad market. It can also occasionally sound that way on Cozy Endings, the Brooklyn instrumental sextet's second album for Social Registry, but typically with a lot else going on besides. Incorporating elements of jazz and dub, the eclectic group can recall some of the Beastie Boys' better homegrown funk instrumentals, as well as the dusky post-rock of Chicago's Tortoise / Isotope 217 contingent. Whatever it is they're up to, Artanker Convoy deliver it all with a laidback, cultured flair that seems specifically designed to complement your personal activities rather than compete with them. Drummer/ band leader Artanker and bassist Joe Fiorentino played with LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy in the short-lived Jimi Clambake Explosion, and their easy chemistry anchors Cozy Endings with a graceful, self-assured authority. The rest of the players-- most notably saxophonist Jake Oas and multi-instrumentalist Chris Seeds-- all display considerable chops as well, but the emphasis here is less on soloing or individual voices than it is on joint exploration. Though the Convoy's sound can point in the direction of the electric 70s grooves of Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock, there is a hazy sense of restraint here that keeps noisier commotion at bay, as the musicians concentrate their energies on servicing the album's hypnotic, understated melodies. This strategy works to near perfection on the first track "Open Up", which builds with exquisite patience from an extended intro of glassy drones and fluttering percussion into a loose-limbed Krautrock stride, with narcotic guitar figures joining Oas' sax in midair for some tranquil dialogue. Less ambitious, but no less pleasant, are the more funk-oriented likes of "Geyser" or "Black Dauphin", whose smoky organ flourishes and organic rhythms ride with a relaxed, cocktail-hour motion. Sturdy though these performances are, however, there's little here that'll likely leave the listener with more than a few residual traces of perfume or second-hand smoke, and one can soon begin to wish that Artanker Convoy had taken a few more wild chances with their production or arrangements. The only vocals to speak of are Artanker's indecipherable space-whispers on "Ejector", one of the few tracks here that threatens to come loose from its moorings. The addition of his voice does bring a welcome element of disorientation, with the song's trajectory aided by Jon Warren's extra percussion and an electronic shimmer that recalls the humid jazz-funk fusion of Herbie Hancock's Sextant. Even more surprising is the presence of pedal steel on "The Happy Minotaur"; a brief exercise that illustrates how much more intriguing Artanker Convoy can be when they alter just one or two ingredients in their formula. Cozy Endings comes packaged with an extra DVD of visuals supplied by the art and dance collective MUX, whose members have also frequently performed with Artanker Convoy in concert. And though the addition of these videos does greatly enhance the appeal of the album, they also serve to accentuate the impression that this music might be best appreciated when there's other sensual stimulation available at the same time.

Artist: Artanker Convoy, Album: Cozy Endings, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.3 Album review: "With their alluring cover art and a bunch of song titles ("Open Up", "Geyser", "The Happy Minotaur") that might also double as the names of exotic sex positions, it might appear that Artanker Convoy are actively courting the swank bachelor pad market. It can also occasionally sound that way on Cozy Endings, the Brooklyn instrumental sextet's second album for Social Registry, but typically with a lot else going on besides. Incorporating elements of jazz and dub, the eclectic group can recall some of the Beastie Boys' better homegrown funk instrumentals, as well as the dusky post-rock of Chicago's Tortoise / Isotope 217 contingent. Whatever it is they're up to, Artanker Convoy deliver it all with a laidback, cultured flair that seems specifically designed to complement your personal activities rather than compete with them. Drummer/ band leader Artanker and bassist Joe Fiorentino played with LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy in the short-lived Jimi Clambake Explosion, and their easy chemistry anchors Cozy Endings with a graceful, self-assured authority. The rest of the players-- most notably saxophonist Jake Oas and multi-instrumentalist Chris Seeds-- all display considerable chops as well, but the emphasis here is less on soloing or individual voices than it is on joint exploration. Though the Convoy's sound can point in the direction of the electric 70s grooves of Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock, there is a hazy sense of restraint here that keeps noisier commotion at bay, as the musicians concentrate their energies on servicing the album's hypnotic, understated melodies. This strategy works to near perfection on the first track "Open Up", which builds with exquisite patience from an extended intro of glassy drones and fluttering percussion into a loose-limbed Krautrock stride, with narcotic guitar figures joining Oas' sax in midair for some tranquil dialogue. Less ambitious, but no less pleasant, are the more funk-oriented likes of "Geyser" or "Black Dauphin", whose smoky organ flourishes and organic rhythms ride with a relaxed, cocktail-hour motion. Sturdy though these performances are, however, there's little here that'll likely leave the listener with more than a few residual traces of perfume or second-hand smoke, and one can soon begin to wish that Artanker Convoy had taken a few more wild chances with their production or arrangements. The only vocals to speak of are Artanker's indecipherable space-whispers on "Ejector", one of the few tracks here that threatens to come loose from its moorings. The addition of his voice does bring a welcome element of disorientation, with the song's trajectory aided by Jon Warren's extra percussion and an electronic shimmer that recalls the humid jazz-funk fusion of Herbie Hancock's Sextant. Even more surprising is the presence of pedal steel on "The Happy Minotaur"; a brief exercise that illustrates how much more intriguing Artanker Convoy can be when they alter just one or two ingredients in their formula. Cozy Endings comes packaged with an extra DVD of visuals supplied by the art and dance collective MUX, whose members have also frequently performed with Artanker Convoy in concert. And though the addition of these videos does greatly enhance the appeal of the album, they also serve to accentuate the impression that this music might be best appreciated when there's other sensual stimulation available at the same time. "

Eadonmm

Aqonis

Patrick St. Michel

Eadonmm has a knack for being out of place. The solo project of Osaka’s Shinya Wada emerged in 2011 during a boom period for Japanese electronic music in the city, but while his counterparts dabbled in Brainfeeder-inspired cosmic beats or maximalist dance sounds, he crafted spacious tracks focused on inducing shivers rather than getting people moving. Other producers around him performed in front of colorful geometric visuals, while Eadonmm plays in front of projections of flames. With his debut, Aqonis, he’s made a shadowy, captivating album that would have easily been lumped in with the micro genre witch house—if it hadn’t become a punch line. Despite sharing a love of pitched vocal samples and goth-leaning visuals, Aqonis stands out  because Eadonmm establishes a genuinely unsettling mood, something most of the bigger names in witch house never did. He avoids the sonic suffocation and aggression of Salem, instead leaning toward the sparse structures of Balam Acab and oOoOO. Moments of beauty emerged from the dark corners of those artists' best songs, bits that were often built from warped R&B vocals or YouTube-ripped audio. With Eadonmm, the space only hides more mysteries, each layer revealing a creepier detail nudged forward by skittering beats. He has a specific, very dark sound in mind, and maintains it throughout the album’s run time. Wada manages this by making sure the music never settles for one loop, letting new sounds creep in whenever possible. “Oblivio Throb” pulses forward, but several vocal whines swirl about and a carnival-appropriate synth line pops up underneath, adding a woozy charm. “Gothic Anamnesis” achieves a similar vibe with rat-a-tat drum programming and water splashes, while lurching centerpiece “If You Melted” unnerves with extended, muffled dialogue and the occasional throaty whisper. These aren’t sonic jump scares, but a bunch of small details creating a larger, unsettling mood. It's easy to overdo this sort of thing, but Eadonmm paces the album well. Several brief, drumless passages offer space between tracks, allowing for breathing room without sacrificing the ominous feel. Then there are the reminders that, for all the darkness, this project has roots in the club (Wada himself started his own party around Osaka in 2011). Shuffling numbers such as “Tide Up” and “Dim” sound like a more disorienting Holy Other, and they have enough of a bounce to offer a break from the brooding. Wada only falters when his work comes too close to pure loop music. Ironically, “Perpetual Goes” fails to go anywhere beyond the hiccuping vocal sample at its core. He fares better on “Alder”, which is also built around a wisp of a voice, though it could've been trimmed down without surrendering any of the otherworldly atmosphere. The one time he pulls off this sort of repetition is on closer, “Post Obit”, a surging noise cut that hits harder thanks to its sudden loudness appearing after the subtler tracks. It's moments like this that showcase the overall strength of Eadonmm's work—he's a producer with an unnerving approach, one where the smallest details come together to form a larger whole that lingers.

Artist: Eadonmm, Album: Aqonis, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Eadonmm has a knack for being out of place. The solo project of Osaka’s Shinya Wada emerged in 2011 during a boom period for Japanese electronic music in the city, but while his counterparts dabbled in Brainfeeder-inspired cosmic beats or maximalist dance sounds, he crafted spacious tracks focused on inducing shivers rather than getting people moving. Other producers around him performed in front of colorful geometric visuals, while Eadonmm plays in front of projections of flames. With his debut, Aqonis, he’s made a shadowy, captivating album that would have easily been lumped in with the micro genre witch house—if it hadn’t become a punch line. Despite sharing a love of pitched vocal samples and goth-leaning visuals, Aqonis stands out  because Eadonmm establishes a genuinely unsettling mood, something most of the bigger names in witch house never did. He avoids the sonic suffocation and aggression of Salem, instead leaning toward the sparse structures of Balam Acab and oOoOO. Moments of beauty emerged from the dark corners of those artists' best songs, bits that were often built from warped R&B vocals or YouTube-ripped audio. With Eadonmm, the space only hides more mysteries, each layer revealing a creepier detail nudged forward by skittering beats. He has a specific, very dark sound in mind, and maintains it throughout the album’s run time. Wada manages this by making sure the music never settles for one loop, letting new sounds creep in whenever possible. “Oblivio Throb” pulses forward, but several vocal whines swirl about and a carnival-appropriate synth line pops up underneath, adding a woozy charm. “Gothic Anamnesis” achieves a similar vibe with rat-a-tat drum programming and water splashes, while lurching centerpiece “If You Melted” unnerves with extended, muffled dialogue and the occasional throaty whisper. These aren’t sonic jump scares, but a bunch of small details creating a larger, unsettling mood. It's easy to overdo this sort of thing, but Eadonmm paces the album well. Several brief, drumless passages offer space between tracks, allowing for breathing room without sacrificing the ominous feel. Then there are the reminders that, for all the darkness, this project has roots in the club (Wada himself started his own party around Osaka in 2011). Shuffling numbers such as “Tide Up” and “Dim” sound like a more disorienting Holy Other, and they have enough of a bounce to offer a break from the brooding. Wada only falters when his work comes too close to pure loop music. Ironically, “Perpetual Goes” fails to go anywhere beyond the hiccuping vocal sample at its core. He fares better on “Alder”, which is also built around a wisp of a voice, though it could've been trimmed down without surrendering any of the otherworldly atmosphere. The one time he pulls off this sort of repetition is on closer, “Post Obit”, a surging noise cut that hits harder thanks to its sudden loudness appearing after the subtler tracks. It's moments like this that showcase the overall strength of Eadonmm's work—he's a producer with an unnerving approach, one where the smallest details come together to form a larger whole that lingers."

Jan Jelinek

Tierbeobachtungen

Experimental

Mark Richardson

There's a tendency with Jan Jelinek to lean on record titles and release notes for clues about the content of his music. As his latest is called Tierbeobachtungen, German for "animal observations," some have been hearing an "animal like" quality in these tracks. And as he's said that he recorded these tracks in various locations while between studios, others are hearing something restless and displaced. It's an understandable tendency with projects as abstract and focused on pure sound as Jelinek's, to search for a concept around which to orient the music. And perhaps there's something to these ideas. But I'm hearing a record that continues very much in the vein of last year's Kosmischer Pitch, Jelinek's subtle (almost subliminal) homage to Krautrock, with a couple of noticeable differences. Like his last record, Tierbeobachtungen discards the sleek, gleaming microsound detail of Jelinek's earlier work for oddly cut loops of creaky old instruments like guitar and organ. Whatever the sound sources-- whether the instruments were recorded live or sampled-- the grainy distortion of the recording is highlighted and the almost imperceptible air of the room is preserved. This is warm, loose, fuzzy music; in its unfussiness it's almost the exact opposite of the perfectionism Jelinek exhibited when he first came on the scene. But where Kosmischer Pitch still made judicious use of beats, *Tierbeobachtungen * drifts untethered, the rhythms created only by the overlapping loops that are, for the moment, his sole mode of composition. Though Jelinek is still presumably working with software, his music presently bears a sharp resemblance to that of turntable artist Philip Jeck, minus the disembodied voices the latter usually cycles into his loops. Both the duration and quality of Jelinek's base segments have the sense of skipping vinyl. Most tracks consist of a half-dozen or so fragments ranging from a couple seconds to almost 10, which are set in motion, played off of each other, and tweaked in the mix. The effect is both static and oddly propulsive, with swells of sound shoving the tracks toward something even as everything seems to be simultaneously spinning in place. The tension between movement and stasis is the most enticing thing about Tierbeobachtungen, creating a sort of woozy, disorienting headspace that winds up being psychedelic and more than a little heavy, despite the absence of extreme dynamic range or noise. The music is hypnotic and meditative but also quietly unsettling and sometimes even a little creepy. At this point Jelinek's preference for widely variable "head" music-- even in his dance work, people talked more about texture than swing-- may well be his defining characteristic. He's not interested in drama, narrative arc, specific emotional states, or music scenes; Jelinek, more than just about anyone going, is exploring sound as an end in itself, the way a painter might explore the line or a filmmaker, light. Farben, his house alias, is the German word for "colors," after all. That he chose this specific word strikes me as the truest use of language on any of his albums to date.

Artist: Jan Jelinek, Album: Tierbeobachtungen, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "There's a tendency with Jan Jelinek to lean on record titles and release notes for clues about the content of his music. As his latest is called Tierbeobachtungen, German for "animal observations," some have been hearing an "animal like" quality in these tracks. And as he's said that he recorded these tracks in various locations while between studios, others are hearing something restless and displaced. It's an understandable tendency with projects as abstract and focused on pure sound as Jelinek's, to search for a concept around which to orient the music. And perhaps there's something to these ideas. But I'm hearing a record that continues very much in the vein of last year's Kosmischer Pitch, Jelinek's subtle (almost subliminal) homage to Krautrock, with a couple of noticeable differences. Like his last record, Tierbeobachtungen discards the sleek, gleaming microsound detail of Jelinek's earlier work for oddly cut loops of creaky old instruments like guitar and organ. Whatever the sound sources-- whether the instruments were recorded live or sampled-- the grainy distortion of the recording is highlighted and the almost imperceptible air of the room is preserved. This is warm, loose, fuzzy music; in its unfussiness it's almost the exact opposite of the perfectionism Jelinek exhibited when he first came on the scene. But where Kosmischer Pitch still made judicious use of beats, *Tierbeobachtungen * drifts untethered, the rhythms created only by the overlapping loops that are, for the moment, his sole mode of composition. Though Jelinek is still presumably working with software, his music presently bears a sharp resemblance to that of turntable artist Philip Jeck, minus the disembodied voices the latter usually cycles into his loops. Both the duration and quality of Jelinek's base segments have the sense of skipping vinyl. Most tracks consist of a half-dozen or so fragments ranging from a couple seconds to almost 10, which are set in motion, played off of each other, and tweaked in the mix. The effect is both static and oddly propulsive, with swells of sound shoving the tracks toward something even as everything seems to be simultaneously spinning in place. The tension between movement and stasis is the most enticing thing about Tierbeobachtungen, creating a sort of woozy, disorienting headspace that winds up being psychedelic and more than a little heavy, despite the absence of extreme dynamic range or noise. The music is hypnotic and meditative but also quietly unsettling and sometimes even a little creepy. At this point Jelinek's preference for widely variable "head" music-- even in his dance work, people talked more about texture than swing-- may well be his defining characteristic. He's not interested in drama, narrative arc, specific emotional states, or music scenes; Jelinek, more than just about anyone going, is exploring sound as an end in itself, the way a painter might explore the line or a filmmaker, light. Farben, his house alias, is the German word for "colors," after all. That he chose this specific word strikes me as the truest use of language on any of his albums to date."

DJ Shadow

I Gotta Rokk EP

Electronic

Nate Patrin

DJ Shadow has been skirting predictability for a good long while. The Outsider might have been a critical and fanbase fiasco, but at least it proved he was trying to engage with the greater hip-hop world and make something that didn't fit the precedent of Endtroducing.... (And we got a pretty damn good E-40 track out of it.) Shadow could be excused for testing his limits, for reacting to the sounds currently reverberating through the instrumental hip-hop arena he helped build. And it's tempting to speculate what his next move might be. He could be ricocheting off recent psychedelic L.A. bass music, or trying to see how his beat-building/breakdown technique could spar against UK funky rhythms, or maybe just stripping things back to the point of minimalism. The fact that he's calling his upcoming album The Less You Know, the Better says something about his M.O., at least. Then again, the I Gotta Rokk EP contains a few singles drawn from that album, and they suggest a new direction more along the lines of what people expected from him 10 years ago. Any of the three original tracks on this EP would've fit well stylistically as follow-ups to the prog-skewing aspirations of The Private Press, representing a gradual evolution from his sample-virtuoso approach. As they stand in 2011, these songs are a bit of a mixed bag, flirting with sounds that could qualify as trendy or forward-thinking in bass music without jumping into the thick of it. It's not so much the scattershot styles that register as strange; if there's anywhere hard rock, psych-folk, and electro-glitch all share a root context, it's in the scrapyard assemblage of an ecclectic cratedigger like Shadow. It's more of a structural disconnect, where it's possible to hear what he's reaching for but harder to grasp just how he plans to get there. The title track lurches around in a stoner-rock plod, as a creeping armada of metal guitars eventually bleeds through its slow build to a manic false-ending. The hesher trappings are novel enough, but its drums are uniquely Shadow's: clipped yet heavy-sounding snares, hi-hats, and claps that sound culled from a dozen long-buried sources, but which coalesce into a dense vortex of percussion. The other two originals debuted last year as a digital single, and if they're both distinctly Shadow, they also prove how nebulous that descriptor really is. "I've Been Trying" leans toward the same vaguely soulful psych-folk that informed "Six Days" and "This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)", but it sounds less like an actual sample-based construction than a song with overdubs-- it's one of those cuts that might feel more alive if the seams were less concealed. "Def Surrounds Us" is the more intriguing proposition, Shadow loosely toying with dubstep in a somewhat self-aware mode. The Southern-bounce digital snare rolls and hornet-sting synthesizers approach Benga's more jittery moments, but only until the song takes a left turn into glitchy drum'n'bass. It may be the most manic thing he's done since the similarly structured "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain", and it's proof positive that he can still do exhilarating, spectacular things with drum breaks. Out of three additional remixes, the one that pulls it off the best ironically has the weakest source material: Various' take on "I've Been Trying" scatters that track's weedy vocals into lonely dub echoes, bringing out the same sense of isolation with a completely different mood. The other two-- Irn Mnky's Pendulum-style "Swagger Mix" of "I Gotta Rokk" and Rockwell's twitchy, overstuffed remix of "Def Surrounds Us"-- show just how tacky contemporary drum'n'bass bombast can be, weirdly managing to use all the prominent elements of their originals to create remixes that miss all the things that make Shadow's tracks slice instead of bludgeon. At least the first three tracks prove that Shadow himself still knows how that approach works.

Artist: DJ Shadow, Album: I Gotta Rokk EP, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "DJ Shadow has been skirting predictability for a good long while. The Outsider might have been a critical and fanbase fiasco, but at least it proved he was trying to engage with the greater hip-hop world and make something that didn't fit the precedent of Endtroducing.... (And we got a pretty damn good E-40 track out of it.) Shadow could be excused for testing his limits, for reacting to the sounds currently reverberating through the instrumental hip-hop arena he helped build. And it's tempting to speculate what his next move might be. He could be ricocheting off recent psychedelic L.A. bass music, or trying to see how his beat-building/breakdown technique could spar against UK funky rhythms, or maybe just stripping things back to the point of minimalism. The fact that he's calling his upcoming album The Less You Know, the Better says something about his M.O., at least. Then again, the I Gotta Rokk EP contains a few singles drawn from that album, and they suggest a new direction more along the lines of what people expected from him 10 years ago. Any of the three original tracks on this EP would've fit well stylistically as follow-ups to the prog-skewing aspirations of The Private Press, representing a gradual evolution from his sample-virtuoso approach. As they stand in 2011, these songs are a bit of a mixed bag, flirting with sounds that could qualify as trendy or forward-thinking in bass music without jumping into the thick of it. It's not so much the scattershot styles that register as strange; if there's anywhere hard rock, psych-folk, and electro-glitch all share a root context, it's in the scrapyard assemblage of an ecclectic cratedigger like Shadow. It's more of a structural disconnect, where it's possible to hear what he's reaching for but harder to grasp just how he plans to get there. The title track lurches around in a stoner-rock plod, as a creeping armada of metal guitars eventually bleeds through its slow build to a manic false-ending. The hesher trappings are novel enough, but its drums are uniquely Shadow's: clipped yet heavy-sounding snares, hi-hats, and claps that sound culled from a dozen long-buried sources, but which coalesce into a dense vortex of percussion. The other two originals debuted last year as a digital single, and if they're both distinctly Shadow, they also prove how nebulous that descriptor really is. "I've Been Trying" leans toward the same vaguely soulful psych-folk that informed "Six Days" and "This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)", but it sounds less like an actual sample-based construction than a song with overdubs-- it's one of those cuts that might feel more alive if the seams were less concealed. "Def Surrounds Us" is the more intriguing proposition, Shadow loosely toying with dubstep in a somewhat self-aware mode. The Southern-bounce digital snare rolls and hornet-sting synthesizers approach Benga's more jittery moments, but only until the song takes a left turn into glitchy drum'n'bass. It may be the most manic thing he's done since the similarly structured "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain", and it's proof positive that he can still do exhilarating, spectacular things with drum breaks. Out of three additional remixes, the one that pulls it off the best ironically has the weakest source material: Various' take on "I've Been Trying" scatters that track's weedy vocals into lonely dub echoes, bringing out the same sense of isolation with a completely different mood. The other two-- Irn Mnky's Pendulum-style "Swagger Mix" of "I Gotta Rokk" and Rockwell's twitchy, overstuffed remix of "Def Surrounds Us"-- show just how tacky contemporary drum'n'bass bombast can be, weirdly managing to use all the prominent elements of their originals to create remixes that miss all the things that make Shadow's tracks slice instead of bludgeon. At least the first three tracks prove that Shadow himself still knows how that approach works."

Grandaddy

Signal to Snow Ratio EP

Rock

Brent DiCrescenzo

Americans, we have to take the power back. Grandaddy have become darlings of the British press, that cruel lover. We must love them more. Grandaddy could easily drum up stateside affection with their new EP, Signal to Snow Ratio. A brief burst of infectious ideas, while sometimes specious, the EP packs as many subtle effects and pleasurable references that seem possible before bursting the po-mo bubble in its 13 minutes. Maybe it's just the beards, but Grandaddy insouciantly pull off this lo-fi pastiche material with apparent reverence and minimal irony. Beards strangely instill a sense of sincerity in artists. Would Doug Martsch get away with his muppety voice if he looked like... say, Jon Spencer? Similarly, the Beta Band carry an air of sylvan devotion thanks to unchecked face follicles. Even hardcore bands have picked up on this simple formula: beards = intense cred. Bonus points for neck beards. Well, Grandaddy have the hooks to back up the beards. "Hand Crank Transmitter" rambles along like a folky Flaming Lips, complete with psychedelic speed- strum solos and twinkling keys. Robotic vocoder voices lazily mumble over hissing cymbal samples and synthetic strings in "Jeddy 3's Poem." The upbeat, fuzz- bass driven "MGM Grand" bounces along with cheesy Styx sounds over Pavement riffs. "Protected from the Rain" opens like a homemade Who rock opera before melting into a tender piano ballad. Yet it's impossible to disassociate Grandaddy from their mentors-- Built To Spill, the Flaming Lips, and Pavement. Is there an echo in Pitchfork's cavernous archive of indie pop? I've gotten Carpal Tunnel just from typing "Built to Spill" so damn many times. Even worse, it's impossible to get past the name Grandaddy! Come on, Grandaddy?! The 13 minute duration blows the wispy memories of Signal to Snow Ratio with the brisk wind of disposability. You'll need the beards more than ever, guys.

Artist: Grandaddy, Album: Signal to Snow Ratio EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "Americans, we have to take the power back. Grandaddy have become darlings of the British press, that cruel lover. We must love them more. Grandaddy could easily drum up stateside affection with their new EP, Signal to Snow Ratio. A brief burst of infectious ideas, while sometimes specious, the EP packs as many subtle effects and pleasurable references that seem possible before bursting the po-mo bubble in its 13 minutes. Maybe it's just the beards, but Grandaddy insouciantly pull off this lo-fi pastiche material with apparent reverence and minimal irony. Beards strangely instill a sense of sincerity in artists. Would Doug Martsch get away with his muppety voice if he looked like... say, Jon Spencer? Similarly, the Beta Band carry an air of sylvan devotion thanks to unchecked face follicles. Even hardcore bands have picked up on this simple formula: beards = intense cred. Bonus points for neck beards. Well, Grandaddy have the hooks to back up the beards. "Hand Crank Transmitter" rambles along like a folky Flaming Lips, complete with psychedelic speed- strum solos and twinkling keys. Robotic vocoder voices lazily mumble over hissing cymbal samples and synthetic strings in "Jeddy 3's Poem." The upbeat, fuzz- bass driven "MGM Grand" bounces along with cheesy Styx sounds over Pavement riffs. "Protected from the Rain" opens like a homemade Who rock opera before melting into a tender piano ballad. Yet it's impossible to disassociate Grandaddy from their mentors-- Built To Spill, the Flaming Lips, and Pavement. Is there an echo in Pitchfork's cavernous archive of indie pop? I've gotten Carpal Tunnel just from typing "Built to Spill" so damn many times. Even worse, it's impossible to get past the name Grandaddy! Come on, Grandaddy?! The 13 minute duration blows the wispy memories of Signal to Snow Ratio with the brisk wind of disposability. You'll need the beards more than ever, guys."

William Basinski

Shortwave Music

Experimental

Joe Tangari

Unless you bought the original LP-only issue of Shortwave Music, released on Germany's Raster-Noton in 1997, there's a good chance you've never heard Muzak like this. Even then, Shortwave Music wasn't new-- it comprises recordings made all the way back in 1982 by William Basinski, during an especially prolific phase of musical experimentation that generated an archive that sat dormant until the last ten years, when the multimedia artist's release schedule has suddenly become quite busy. All of that work involved looped sound in one way or another, and this is no exception. By 1982, Basinski had already created most of the great stockpile of loops that have brought him recent acclaim, and seeking a new source of sounds, he turned to radio. He sampled short phrases of Muzak and slowed them down until they were unrecognizable, drifting ghosts of themselves. The samples were then looped at varying lengths and combined two at a time with the crunchy surface texture of shortwave broadcasts. The pieces of music that result are tense, droning and dissonant to the point that they barely qualify as ambient-- you really can't help noticing them (my wife certainly does, and they drive her nuts). If you followed Basinski's releases on Raster-Noton, you've already heard the fullest realization of this approach on The River, one of Basinski's defining works. If you haven't started listening to him yet, I'd recommend hearing that before taking in the five tracks compiled here, as it's the most impressive of his shortwave works yet released. This is the experimentation that lead him there, and it's for listeners who want a deeper understanding of the process and the sound. There are two main points of dynamic tension in the music: the shifting of the main musical phrases as two loops of varying length repeat out of sync, and the random rise and fall of shortwave static set against the two steady loops. The best of the five pieces here ("Particle Showers" is a bonus track not on the original LP) is the 23-minute "On a Frontier of Wires", which really lets you marinate in the technique. One of the loops is also an especially intriguing phrase that sounds like it's searching its way through the soup of static and reverb. The other pieces are shorter, though no more direct. "Evening Scars" is perhaps the most interesting texturally, the way it takes place in extremely low registers and is built off of eerie loops that convey an underwater feeling. Basinski has carved out an unmistakable sound, and though he's walking familiar ground here, it's a beautiful and striking place to return to.

Artist: William Basinski, Album: Shortwave Music, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Unless you bought the original LP-only issue of Shortwave Music, released on Germany's Raster-Noton in 1997, there's a good chance you've never heard Muzak like this. Even then, Shortwave Music wasn't new-- it comprises recordings made all the way back in 1982 by William Basinski, during an especially prolific phase of musical experimentation that generated an archive that sat dormant until the last ten years, when the multimedia artist's release schedule has suddenly become quite busy. All of that work involved looped sound in one way or another, and this is no exception. By 1982, Basinski had already created most of the great stockpile of loops that have brought him recent acclaim, and seeking a new source of sounds, he turned to radio. He sampled short phrases of Muzak and slowed them down until they were unrecognizable, drifting ghosts of themselves. The samples were then looped at varying lengths and combined two at a time with the crunchy surface texture of shortwave broadcasts. The pieces of music that result are tense, droning and dissonant to the point that they barely qualify as ambient-- you really can't help noticing them (my wife certainly does, and they drive her nuts). If you followed Basinski's releases on Raster-Noton, you've already heard the fullest realization of this approach on The River, one of Basinski's defining works. If you haven't started listening to him yet, I'd recommend hearing that before taking in the five tracks compiled here, as it's the most impressive of his shortwave works yet released. This is the experimentation that lead him there, and it's for listeners who want a deeper understanding of the process and the sound. There are two main points of dynamic tension in the music: the shifting of the main musical phrases as two loops of varying length repeat out of sync, and the random rise and fall of shortwave static set against the two steady loops. The best of the five pieces here ("Particle Showers" is a bonus track not on the original LP) is the 23-minute "On a Frontier of Wires", which really lets you marinate in the technique. One of the loops is also an especially intriguing phrase that sounds like it's searching its way through the soup of static and reverb. The other pieces are shorter, though no more direct. "Evening Scars" is perhaps the most interesting texturally, the way it takes place in extremely low registers and is built off of eerie loops that convey an underwater feeling. Basinski has carved out an unmistakable sound, and though he's walking familiar ground here, it's a beautiful and striking place to return to."

Nirvana

In Utero: 20th Anniversary Edition

Rock

Stuart Berman

For the past two decades, we've essentially been living with two versions of I**n Utero. The first was officially released Sept. 21, 1993, though its legend was established several months prior. As the intensely anticipated follow-up to the most transformative rock album of the 1990s, Nirvana’s third record was pre-destined to become a battlefield in the heightening clash between indie and corporate culture, as mediated by a band that was philosophically faithful to the former but contractually beholden to the latter. While Kurt Cobain famously used the liner notes for 1992 rarities compilation Incesticide to call out the jocks, racists, and homophobes in Nirvana’s ever-expanding audience, In Utero promised a more aggressively hands-on process of weeding out the mooks, a concerted effort to realign Nirvana with the artists they actually listened to and away from those they were credited with spawning. And where the album’s title would reflect Cobain’s lyrical yearning for a back-to-the-womb retreat from celebrity scrutiny, it also proved emblematic of the record's messy birth: A by-all-reports harmonious two-week quickie session with recording engineer Steve Albini in a rural Minnesota studio would lead to months of acrimonious exchanges in the press among the band, DGC, and Albini over the purportedly unlistenable nature of the results, requests for cleaner mixes, and cruddy cassette copies leaked to radio that falsely reinforced the label’s misgivings. (The second-guessing circumstances were not that dissimilar to those of the preceding Nevermind-- wherein Butch Vig's original recordings were eventually handed over to Andy Wallace for a platinum-plated finish-- only this time, the outcome had the potential to affect Geffen's share price.) Upon release, In Utero may have debuted at number one, but initially it was something of a pyrrhic victory: Rather than lead a wave of Jesus Lizard-inspired noise bands to the top of the Billboard charts, In Utero would send millions of Nirvana’s more casual crossover fans scurrying into the warm embrace of Pearl Jam’s record-setting October '93 release Vs., an album that, from a music-biz perspective, was the true blockbuster sequel to Nevermind. In that sense, this first version of In Utero resonates as much today as a symbolic gesture as a collection of 12 unrelentingly visceral rock songs, a how-to manual for any artist at the top of their game-- from Kid A-era Radiohead to Kanye West circa Yeezus-- that would rather use their elevated position to provoke their audience than pander to it. The second version of In Utero came to be on April 8, 1994, from which point the album would be forever known as the rough draft for rock‘n’roll’s most famous suicide note. In the wake of Cobain’s shotgunned sign-off, it became nigh impossible to hear In Utero in any other context. The infamous album-opening lyric that once dripped with sarcasm-- “Teenage angst has paid off well/ Now I’m bored and old”-- now sounded coldly nihilistic. Where the seismic stomper “Scentless Apprentice” invoked Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume as metaphor for Cobain’s festering disgust with the music press and industry, the song’s grueling shriek of “get awwwwwaaaayyyy” suddenly seemed to be directed at humanity itself. The “Leonard Cohen after-world” fantasy of “Pennyroyal Tea” turned into wish fulfillment; “All Apologies” ceased to be an innocently plaintive pop song and was instead permanently etched into its writer's epitaph. But with this two-disc 20th-anniversary reissue, we now have a third version of In Utero, and I’m not just referring to the newly remixed iteration of the album. Taken as a whole, the package-- which also includes a remastered version of the original mix, B-sides, outtakes, a slew of embryonic demos, and a cheeky but affecting liner-note essay by comedian/tourmate Bobcat Goldthwait-- puts lie to the notion that In Utero is the soundtrack to a suicide, commercial or otherwise. In charting the songs’ evolution from rough instrumentals to the militaristic blasts of fury heard on the album proper, and through the outré experiments scrapped along the way, we hear a band that was on the cusp of an intriguing new phase. In a surprisingly conciliatory Musique Plus interview conducted just prior to the album’s release, Cobain stated that In Utero would mark the end of Nirvana as grunge torchbearers and, throughout the record, the band screech and howl like they're skinning themselves alive to expedite their reinvention. But not a lyric goes by on the album where Cobain doesn’t sound conflicted between what he wants to do and what he feels he has to do. The scowling verses of “Serve the Servants” are countered by the chorus’ soothing incantation of the song’s title, as if Cobain had to anesthetize himself in order to answer his audience’s populist demands. You didn’t need to hear the feedback assault of “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” to sense the irony reeking from its title, while the sludgy savagery of “Milk It” deploys Cobain’s fascinations with bodily fluids and birthing to depict a soul being run through the music-industry wringer. Though Cobain claimed in the aforementioned interview that the deliberately bald language of “Rape Me” was his response to misinterpretations of Nirvana’s more ambiguous portraits of sexual/power dynamics (“Polly”, “About a Girl”), the fact that it cops the riff to his most famous song unsubtly directs the titular demand to his hit-seeking minders; when he answers his request by repeating “I’m not the only one,” he seems to be placating himself with the knowledge that he’s not the first punk-rocker caught in a boardroom power play. (And, in light of Cobain’s mounting disdain for the media, I can’t be the only person who’s always heard that line in “All Apologies” as “choking on the ashes of her NME.”) But this set supports the theory that Cobain didn’t necessarily fear or hate success; his real struggle was achieving it on his own terms. If he really wanted to clear the room, he could’ve made In Utero a lot weirder than it actually turned out to be: among the outtakes here is “Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through the Strip” (which previously surfaced stateside on the barrel-scraping 2004 box set With the Lights Out), an exceedingly odd, stream-of-consciousness ramble that sees Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl adopting the art-damaged inscrutability of then-underground darlings Pavement. Also included are Albini’s supposedly contentious original mixes for In Utero’s two singles, “Heart-Shaped Box” and “All Apologies”, whi

Artist: Nirvana, Album: In Utero: 20th Anniversary Edition, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 10.0 Album review: "For the past two decades, we've essentially been living with two versions of I**n Utero. The first was officially released Sept. 21, 1993, though its legend was established several months prior. As the intensely anticipated follow-up to the most transformative rock album of the 1990s, Nirvana’s third record was pre-destined to become a battlefield in the heightening clash between indie and corporate culture, as mediated by a band that was philosophically faithful to the former but contractually beholden to the latter. While Kurt Cobain famously used the liner notes for 1992 rarities compilation Incesticide to call out the jocks, racists, and homophobes in Nirvana’s ever-expanding audience, In Utero promised a more aggressively hands-on process of weeding out the mooks, a concerted effort to realign Nirvana with the artists they actually listened to and away from those they were credited with spawning. And where the album’s title would reflect Cobain’s lyrical yearning for a back-to-the-womb retreat from celebrity scrutiny, it also proved emblematic of the record's messy birth: A by-all-reports harmonious two-week quickie session with recording engineer Steve Albini in a rural Minnesota studio would lead to months of acrimonious exchanges in the press among the band, DGC, and Albini over the purportedly unlistenable nature of the results, requests for cleaner mixes, and cruddy cassette copies leaked to radio that falsely reinforced the label’s misgivings. (The second-guessing circumstances were not that dissimilar to those of the preceding Nevermind-- wherein Butch Vig's original recordings were eventually handed over to Andy Wallace for a platinum-plated finish-- only this time, the outcome had the potential to affect Geffen's share price.) Upon release, In Utero may have debuted at number one, but initially it was something of a pyrrhic victory: Rather than lead a wave of Jesus Lizard-inspired noise bands to the top of the Billboard charts, In Utero would send millions of Nirvana’s more casual crossover fans scurrying into the warm embrace of Pearl Jam’s record-setting October '93 release Vs., an album that, from a music-biz perspective, was the true blockbuster sequel to Nevermind. In that sense, this first version of In Utero resonates as much today as a symbolic gesture as a collection of 12 unrelentingly visceral rock songs, a how-to manual for any artist at the top of their game-- from Kid A-era Radiohead to Kanye West circa Yeezus-- that would rather use their elevated position to provoke their audience than pander to it. The second version of In Utero came to be on April 8, 1994, from which point the album would be forever known as the rough draft for rock‘n’roll’s most famous suicide note. In the wake of Cobain’s shotgunned sign-off, it became nigh impossible to hear In Utero in any other context. The infamous album-opening lyric that once dripped with sarcasm-- “Teenage angst has paid off well/ Now I’m bored and old”-- now sounded coldly nihilistic. Where the seismic stomper “Scentless Apprentice” invoked Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume as metaphor for Cobain’s festering disgust with the music press and industry, the song’s grueling shriek of “get awwwwwaaaayyyy” suddenly seemed to be directed at humanity itself. The “Leonard Cohen after-world” fantasy of “Pennyroyal Tea” turned into wish fulfillment; “All Apologies” ceased to be an innocently plaintive pop song and was instead permanently etched into its writer's epitaph. But with this two-disc 20th-anniversary reissue, we now have a third version of In Utero, and I’m not just referring to the newly remixed iteration of the album. Taken as a whole, the package-- which also includes a remastered version of the original mix, B-sides, outtakes, a slew of embryonic demos, and a cheeky but affecting liner-note essay by comedian/tourmate Bobcat Goldthwait-- puts lie to the notion that In Utero is the soundtrack to a suicide, commercial or otherwise. In charting the songs’ evolution from rough instrumentals to the militaristic blasts of fury heard on the album proper, and through the outré experiments scrapped along the way, we hear a band that was on the cusp of an intriguing new phase. In a surprisingly conciliatory Musique Plus interview conducted just prior to the album’s release, Cobain stated that In Utero would mark the end of Nirvana as grunge torchbearers and, throughout the record, the band screech and howl like they're skinning themselves alive to expedite their reinvention. But not a lyric goes by on the album where Cobain doesn’t sound conflicted between what he wants to do and what he feels he has to do. The scowling verses of “Serve the Servants” are countered by the chorus’ soothing incantation of the song’s title, as if Cobain had to anesthetize himself in order to answer his audience’s populist demands. You didn’t need to hear the feedback assault of “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” to sense the irony reeking from its title, while the sludgy savagery of “Milk It” deploys Cobain’s fascinations with bodily fluids and birthing to depict a soul being run through the music-industry wringer. Though Cobain claimed in the aforementioned interview that the deliberately bald language of “Rape Me” was his response to misinterpretations of Nirvana’s more ambiguous portraits of sexual/power dynamics (“Polly”, “About a Girl”), the fact that it cops the riff to his most famous song unsubtly directs the titular demand to his hit-seeking minders; when he answers his request by repeating “I’m not the only one,” he seems to be placating himself with the knowledge that he’s not the first punk-rocker caught in a boardroom power play. (And, in light of Cobain’s mounting disdain for the media, I can’t be the only person who’s always heard that line in “All Apologies” as “choking on the ashes of her NME.”) But this set supports the theory that Cobain didn’t necessarily fear or hate success; his real struggle was achieving it on his own terms. If he really wanted to clear the room, he could’ve made In Utero a lot weirder than it actually turned out to be: among the outtakes here is “Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through the Strip” (which previously surfaced stateside on the barrel-scraping 2004 box set With the Lights Out), an exceedingly odd, stream-of-consciousness ramble that sees Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl adopting the art-damaged inscrutability of then-underground darlings Pavement. Also included are Albini’s supposedly contentious original mixes for In Utero’s two singles, “Heart-Shaped Box” and “All Apologies”, whi"

Troye Sivan

Bloom

Pop/R&B

Jamieson Cox

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Troye Sivan gets it. The Australian YouTuber-turned-pop star has all the qualifications you’d look for in a modern-day gay icon—a devoted army of long-time fans, elfin features, celebrities and designers on speed dial—and the good sense to recognize how meaningless and outmoded that kind of title is. “I just don’t represent everybody, because I’m extraordinarily lucky,” Sivan told British style magazine Another Man in May. “I come from a middle-class white family in Australia, and all of my dreams have come true by 22. I had the easiest coming out in the world… There are plenty of other people who need to be heard first.” Give him an opportunity, and he’ll happily rattle off the names of other musicians at the vanguard of queer representation: Sam Smith, Halsey, Kehlani, Perfume Genius, Kevin Abstract, Hayley Kiyoko. He invited Kim Petras on tour as an opening act and deftly handled the ensuing backlash over her work with Dr. Luke, making donations to the Ally Coalition and RAINN. His humility would feel performative and cynical if it weren’t so thorough. Blink and you might forget why Sivan is holding court on these topics in the first place: He’s an evolutionary artist, one whose existence and career is the product of decades of baby steps and boundary-pushing. Being gay is an integral and visible part of Sivan’s art, just as much as his voice or his choice of collaborators. Bloom, Sivan’s second studio album, is best described in terms you rarely see associated with male pop stars: delicacy, transparency, and vulnerability. He sings about experiences that are commonplace for young gay men in 2018 but feel totally transgressive in a broader pop context. He wrote opener “Seventeen” about sneaking onto Grindr with a fake ID and hooking up with older men, and the title track captures bottoming for the first time in all of its agony and ecstasy. The subject matter draws headlines, but it’s less revelatory than what’s between the lines. You can feel the power dynamics underpinning each of these songs shifting in unpredictable ways. Sivan starts both “Seventeen” and “Bloom” in a playful mood, teasing his partner, flirting, issuing commands. He’s an object of desire, and that puts him in control. “I got these beliefs that I think you wanna break,” he taunts on “Seventeen.” “Got something here to lose that I think you wanna take from me.” Just a few seconds later, he’s lost his footing: the older man he’s sought out for a virgin fling might not be so easy to manipulate in the heat of the moment. The “Bloom” pre-chorus is a nervous whimper—“I need you to tell me right before it goes down/Promise me you’ll hold my hand if I get scared now”—just before Sivan relaxes and enjoys the ride. There’s a remarkable amount of tension in those moments, and Bloom would feel exhausting if every song was built around those kinds of formative experiences. It also offers less complicated pleasures, songs that are simpler yet still breathtakingly tender. Sivan is comfortable with desperation. He knows how it can feel like life and death hinge on scheduling a second date or sending a postcard. Lead single “My My My!” feels euphoric because of the interplay between its growled verses and pulse-pounding chorus; it feels uniquely Sivan’s because of the stakes. He’s found a guy who makes him feel like he’ll “die every night,” and when he reaches the bridge, he dares to dream of a life spent that satisfied. (He calls his lover a “treasure” and inhales sharply through clenched teeth, and it feels like the most consequential breath he’s ever taken.) Sivan also has a knack for gorgeous, concise imagery. On “Plum,” a relationship that’s nearing its end is “like bitter tangerine/like sirens in the streets.” He wants to “skip stones on [the] skin” of a boy who tastes like Lucky Strikes. Bloom’s fragility makes for an interesting contrast with its surprisingly conservative sound. Sivan largely works with the same team and palette that defined his 2015 debut Blue Neighborhood: mid-tempo, richly hued post-Lorde pop. And while there are some welcome flourishes from unexpected sources—Ariel Rechtshaid and cult fave Jam City add celestial sparkle to regretful ballad “The Good Side,” and massive closer “Animal” swerves from a menacing rumble (courtesy of Rechtshaid, Jam City, and the Haxan Cloak) to a bridge clearly inspired by Frank Ocean’s Blonde—too much of Bloom congeals into a tasteful, muted lump. Beyond “My My My!” and the title track, its melodies and arrangements lack the urgency that defines its writing. You can draw an interesting comparison between Sivan and his friend and collaborator Ariana Grande. They duet on “Dance to This,” an understated celebration of the pleasures of domesticity: Why go out on the town when you could stay in and have a party for two? Sivan and Grande have both made albums about how love and sex can make you feel: safe, secure, and joyous in one moment, nervous but thrilled in the next. Bloom isn’t as consistent or engaging a musical experience as Sweetener, but it still feels meaningful. If Sivan is the product of baby steps, then maybe this is one of his: bonding with one of the planet’s biggest pop stars over quiet moments with the men they love, with absolutely nothing to hide.

Artist: Troye Sivan, Album: Bloom, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Troye Sivan gets it. The Australian YouTuber-turned-pop star has all the qualifications you’d look for in a modern-day gay icon—a devoted army of long-time fans, elfin features, celebrities and designers on speed dial—and the good sense to recognize how meaningless and outmoded that kind of title is. “I just don’t represent everybody, because I’m extraordinarily lucky,” Sivan told British style magazine Another Man in May. “I come from a middle-class white family in Australia, and all of my dreams have come true by 22. I had the easiest coming out in the world… There are plenty of other people who need to be heard first.” Give him an opportunity, and he’ll happily rattle off the names of other musicians at the vanguard of queer representation: Sam Smith, Halsey, Kehlani, Perfume Genius, Kevin Abstract, Hayley Kiyoko. He invited Kim Petras on tour as an opening act and deftly handled the ensuing backlash over her work with Dr. Luke, making donations to the Ally Coalition and RAINN. His humility would feel performative and cynical if it weren’t so thorough. Blink and you might forget why Sivan is holding court on these topics in the first place: He’s an evolutionary artist, one whose existence and career is the product of decades of baby steps and boundary-pushing. Being gay is an integral and visible part of Sivan’s art, just as much as his voice or his choice of collaborators. Bloom, Sivan’s second studio album, is best described in terms you rarely see associated with male pop stars: delicacy, transparency, and vulnerability. He sings about experiences that are commonplace for young gay men in 2018 but feel totally transgressive in a broader pop context. He wrote opener “Seventeen” about sneaking onto Grindr with a fake ID and hooking up with older men, and the title track captures bottoming for the first time in all of its agony and ecstasy. The subject matter draws headlines, but it’s less revelatory than what’s between the lines. You can feel the power dynamics underpinning each of these songs shifting in unpredictable ways. Sivan starts both “Seventeen” and “Bloom” in a playful mood, teasing his partner, flirting, issuing commands. He’s an object of desire, and that puts him in control. “I got these beliefs that I think you wanna break,” he taunts on “Seventeen.” “Got something here to lose that I think you wanna take from me.” Just a few seconds later, he’s lost his footing: the older man he’s sought out for a virgin fling might not be so easy to manipulate in the heat of the moment. The “Bloom” pre-chorus is a nervous whimper—“I need you to tell me right before it goes down/Promise me you’ll hold my hand if I get scared now”—just before Sivan relaxes and enjoys the ride. There’s a remarkable amount of tension in those moments, and Bloom would feel exhausting if every song was built around those kinds of formative experiences. It also offers less complicated pleasures, songs that are simpler yet still breathtakingly tender. Sivan is comfortable with desperation. He knows how it can feel like life and death hinge on scheduling a second date or sending a postcard. Lead single “My My My!” feels euphoric because of the interplay between its growled verses and pulse-pounding chorus; it feels uniquely Sivan’s because of the stakes. He’s found a guy who makes him feel like he’ll “die every night,” and when he reaches the bridge, he dares to dream of a life spent that satisfied. (He calls his lover a “treasure” and inhales sharply through clenched teeth, and it feels like the most consequential breath he’s ever taken.) Sivan also has a knack for gorgeous, concise imagery. On “Plum,” a relationship that’s nearing its end is “like bitter tangerine/like sirens in the streets.” He wants to “skip stones on [the] skin” of a boy who tastes like Lucky Strikes. Bloom’s fragility makes for an interesting contrast with its surprisingly conservative sound. Sivan largely works with the same team and palette that defined his 2015 debut Blue Neighborhood: mid-tempo, richly hued post-Lorde pop. And while there are some welcome flourishes from unexpected sources—Ariel Rechtshaid and cult fave Jam City add celestial sparkle to regretful ballad “The Good Side,” and massive closer “Animal” swerves from a menacing rumble (courtesy of Rechtshaid, Jam City, and the Haxan Cloak) to a bridge clearly inspired by Frank Ocean’s Blonde—too much of Bloom congeals into a tasteful, muted lump. Beyond “My My My!” and the title track, its melodies and arrangements lack the urgency that defines its writing. You can draw an interesting comparison between Sivan and his friend and collaborator Ariana Grande. They duet on “Dance to This,” an understated celebration of the pleasures of domesticity: Why go out on the town when you could stay in and have a party for two? Sivan and Grande have both made albums about how love and sex can make you feel: safe, secure, and joyous in one moment, nervous but thrilled in the next. Bloom isn’t as consistent or engaging a musical experience as Sweetener, but it still feels meaningful. If Sivan is the product of baby steps, then maybe this is one of his: bonding with one of the planet’s biggest pop stars over quiet moments with the men they love, with absolutely nothing to hide."

Air

Love 2

Electronic

Nate Patrin

There are a few things I'm impressed with Air for doing: resuscitating crusty, decades-old Moog blorps amidst the frenzy of millennial techno-utopian futurism, turning a new generation on to a certain vintage Gallic notion of jet-set sophistication, and getting indie- and punk-dominated college rock stations to play what essentially amounted to lounge prog. Most of all, there's the way they composed their music as an unapologetically frothy sort of cheese-pop without letting it get dominated by snorting insincerity or self-conscious hokeyness. You could still hear the kitsch, but it wasn't the driving force, and they had a sneaky way of lulling you into forgetting you weren't "supposed" to like this kind of thing. Hell, lots of people actually had sex to Moon Safari, which is about as unironic as you can get. (At least I hope they were being unironic.) A half-decade of Balearic/glo-fi/'lude-house has since refined that mellow aesthetic to the point where taste-conscious end-runs around potential irony have become increasingly unnecessary. But while that refinement applied readily to the subtle songcraft of Talkie Walkie and Pocket Symphony, both of which provided ample evidence of Air's vintage pop smarts, they've somehow stumbled their way into a pit of lite-FM treacle on their new album. Love 2-- as titles go, a bad pun disguised as a sequel nobody needed-- is a dopey little slice of not-much that feels like a noodly rendering of yacht-pop weightlessness. Much has been made about Air's new independence in the process of making this album; it's the first one to come out of their new recording studio, Atlas, and the first to be written and recorded without the input of any major outside producers (though they still brought in Moon Safari engineer Stephane "Alf" Briat to tinker behind the boards). Far be it from me to accuse Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin of being a couple empty vessels who need a Nigel Godrich to whip them into shape, but maybe they could've used someone looking over their shoulders to warn them away from indulging in some bad ideas. Bad ideas like, say, "Tropical Disease". This song is the album's longest, worst, and most emblematic of Love 2's problems, nearly seven minutes of malaise that bookends a preciously chipper, tin whistle-punctuated slab of Playskool krautrock with two movements of plastic surgeon's waiting-office Muzak. It's laughably oily when its Econolodge-noir sax oozes in crotch-first, and even more uncomfortable in its second half when Dunckel's pitched-up voice chirps, "Woman/ Make me feel... warm inside." God, it's awkward. That empty yet still uncomfortable theme of louche, inarticulate romance is all over the record's ill-advised vocal tracks: pining over a walking (albeit softly walking) cliché in "So Light Is Her Footfall"; trying to milk intrigue out of the lifeless phrase, "there is something going on between us," in "You Can Tell It to Everybody"; murmuring about love in "Love" (lyrics: "Love/ Love/ Love/ Love/ Love"). The lyrics read less like the work of someone who didn't grow up speaking English than someone who knows it well and thinks it's kind of a stupid, pointless language. That'd explain the empty, tense-based babble-talk in "Sing Sang Sung", at least. Maybe they've always been perpetrators of petty crimes against lyrical songwriting and it's only now that their music's been weak enough to avoid hiding it. The exoticism that made their instantly recognizable brand of music compelling-- the outmoded technology, the unexpected world-music left turns, the almost detached baroqueness-- has been diluted to the point where all their old tricks sound listless. Leadoff track "Do the Joy" is maybe the least-botched attempt at doing something new, though its fuzzed-out slo-motion strut is quickly rendered absurd by a "spooky" B-movie synthesizer melody. Most everything else runs a diverse gamut of uninspiring retreads: uptempo krautpunk that sounds a bit like The Virgin Suicides standout "Dead Bodies" without the intensity ("Be a Bee"), lightheaded, minimalist tweaks of hotel-lounge disco ("Love", which scans like George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby" in a coma), mid-80s David Bowie with gastrointestinal discomfort ("Missing the Light of the Day"), a half-baked instrumental caricature of Blondie-sans-Debby ("Eat My Beat"), and a couple of pretty unconvincing attempts to incorporate Afrobeat ("Night Hunter") and township music ("African Velvet"-- I wish I were making up that title). Thing is, it still sounds entirely like an Air album-- just a remarkably bland one. The complementary piano/synth lines that Dunckel and Godin made their stock in trade still dredge up a few legitimately nice melodies, though they typically prove fleeting. And session drummer-turned-auxiliary member Joey Waronker, well, he tries; he's one of the better motorik beat-deployment specialists going, and even he can't jostle much excitement into the proceedings, especially when his job most of the time is to tap out minimalist beats in one of the many tracks that pushes downtempo rhythms into complete stasis. Love 2 exhibits the band's style by just about every familiar metric, except the one that made them fascinating in the first place-- that uncanny ability to make schlock sound beautiful. In its place is a strange reversal: beauty rendered schlock, pop melodies and space-age wonder curdled by damaged whimsy.

Artist: Air, Album: Love 2, Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 4.0 Album review: "There are a few things I'm impressed with Air for doing: resuscitating crusty, decades-old Moog blorps amidst the frenzy of millennial techno-utopian futurism, turning a new generation on to a certain vintage Gallic notion of jet-set sophistication, and getting indie- and punk-dominated college rock stations to play what essentially amounted to lounge prog. Most of all, there's the way they composed their music as an unapologetically frothy sort of cheese-pop without letting it get dominated by snorting insincerity or self-conscious hokeyness. You could still hear the kitsch, but it wasn't the driving force, and they had a sneaky way of lulling you into forgetting you weren't "supposed" to like this kind of thing. Hell, lots of people actually had sex to Moon Safari, which is about as unironic as you can get. (At least I hope they were being unironic.) A half-decade of Balearic/glo-fi/'lude-house has since refined that mellow aesthetic to the point where taste-conscious end-runs around potential irony have become increasingly unnecessary. But while that refinement applied readily to the subtle songcraft of Talkie Walkie and Pocket Symphony, both of which provided ample evidence of Air's vintage pop smarts, they've somehow stumbled their way into a pit of lite-FM treacle on their new album. Love 2-- as titles go, a bad pun disguised as a sequel nobody needed-- is a dopey little slice of not-much that feels like a noodly rendering of yacht-pop weightlessness. Much has been made about Air's new independence in the process of making this album; it's the first one to come out of their new recording studio, Atlas, and the first to be written and recorded without the input of any major outside producers (though they still brought in Moon Safari engineer Stephane "Alf" Briat to tinker behind the boards). Far be it from me to accuse Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin of being a couple empty vessels who need a Nigel Godrich to whip them into shape, but maybe they could've used someone looking over their shoulders to warn them away from indulging in some bad ideas. Bad ideas like, say, "Tropical Disease". This song is the album's longest, worst, and most emblematic of Love 2's problems, nearly seven minutes of malaise that bookends a preciously chipper, tin whistle-punctuated slab of Playskool krautrock with two movements of plastic surgeon's waiting-office Muzak. It's laughably oily when its Econolodge-noir sax oozes in crotch-first, and even more uncomfortable in its second half when Dunckel's pitched-up voice chirps, "Woman/ Make me feel... warm inside." God, it's awkward. That empty yet still uncomfortable theme of louche, inarticulate romance is all over the record's ill-advised vocal tracks: pining over a walking (albeit softly walking) cliché in "So Light Is Her Footfall"; trying to milk intrigue out of the lifeless phrase, "there is something going on between us," in "You Can Tell It to Everybody"; murmuring about love in "Love" (lyrics: "Love/ Love/ Love/ Love/ Love"). The lyrics read less like the work of someone who didn't grow up speaking English than someone who knows it well and thinks it's kind of a stupid, pointless language. That'd explain the empty, tense-based babble-talk in "Sing Sang Sung", at least. Maybe they've always been perpetrators of petty crimes against lyrical songwriting and it's only now that their music's been weak enough to avoid hiding it. The exoticism that made their instantly recognizable brand of music compelling-- the outmoded technology, the unexpected world-music left turns, the almost detached baroqueness-- has been diluted to the point where all their old tricks sound listless. Leadoff track "Do the Joy" is maybe the least-botched attempt at doing something new, though its fuzzed-out slo-motion strut is quickly rendered absurd by a "spooky" B-movie synthesizer melody. Most everything else runs a diverse gamut of uninspiring retreads: uptempo krautpunk that sounds a bit like The Virgin Suicides standout "Dead Bodies" without the intensity ("Be a Bee"), lightheaded, minimalist tweaks of hotel-lounge disco ("Love", which scans like George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby" in a coma), mid-80s David Bowie with gastrointestinal discomfort ("Missing the Light of the Day"), a half-baked instrumental caricature of Blondie-sans-Debby ("Eat My Beat"), and a couple of pretty unconvincing attempts to incorporate Afrobeat ("Night Hunter") and township music ("African Velvet"-- I wish I were making up that title). Thing is, it still sounds entirely like an Air album-- just a remarkably bland one. The complementary piano/synth lines that Dunckel and Godin made their stock in trade still dredge up a few legitimately nice melodies, though they typically prove fleeting. And session drummer-turned-auxiliary member Joey Waronker, well, he tries; he's one of the better motorik beat-deployment specialists going, and even he can't jostle much excitement into the proceedings, especially when his job most of the time is to tap out minimalist beats in one of the many tracks that pushes downtempo rhythms into complete stasis. Love 2 exhibits the band's style by just about every familiar metric, except the one that made them fascinating in the first place-- that uncanny ability to make schlock sound beautiful. In its place is a strange reversal: beauty rendered schlock, pop melodies and space-age wonder curdled by damaged whimsy."

Jill Scott

Woman

Rock

Safy-Hallan Farah

Jill Scott's voice is familiar like hair being braided on a stoop, like a fire hydrant pouring out into the street, like a slow summer. Woman, her fifth studio album, is slow in the way that the familiar is slow: we already know what to expect. With Scott, it's mom-and-pop, all-you-can-eat R&B; sexy fun for grown folk over the age of 40, like speed dating at church. Woman's first track, "Wild Cookie", initially seems like a spoken word ode to "Empire"'s Cookie Lyon, but the lyrics quickly suggest that "Cookie" is a euphemism for the vagina. "Wild Cookie choices lead to lonely pregnancy," Scott says over strings and drums. The vagina in "Wild Cookie", personified, acts on its own. Desirous, it does not have a mind of its own, but it would seem that way. "Just the other day my girlfriend said she was watching TV and her wild cookie detached from its seat." That detachment, that Jill speaks of—that desire—is a magnetizing energy. Beyond "Wild Cookie", there are other food references. After all, Scott perpetually sings like she's about to cook dinner for a family that isn't even hers. She wants domesticity, craves it. "Prepared", the track that follows the intro poem, has the lyrics "I've been getting recipes off the Internet" and "I've been eating more greens", which come as no surprise for anyone who's ever listened to "The Way" off her first album. Food is a big part of Scott's music. Additionally, in the track "Closure", Scott sings about not making a man quiches and homemade waffles anymore, how he shouldn't expect breakfast. "I'm on my way, I'm almost there," Scott sings in "Coming to You", a percussion-laden, breathless track, the most urgent on a decidedly slow record. "Coming to You" is a funky, upbeat jam, but for a faster song, it's not necessarily more fun. The fun tracks are the ones that shimmer. "Fool's Gold", arguably the best song, is about a disillusioned Scott who finds herself in a relationship that might as well have been a pipe dream. "I was living the dream/ Believing things that just ain't true/ Oh, I can't believe I ever believed in you/ Had me chasing fool's gold," she sings over a bouncy, enchanting instrumental. Another strong track is "Lighthouse", a somberly reassuring lullaby of a ballad about supporting a lover through trying, burdensome times. "I'm your shelter," Scott sings like an overprotective siren, striking a balance between sexy and soothing. Intimate and slow-moving, Woman is good but underwhelming. It lacks the dynamism of Who Is Jill Scott?**, the rap features of Light of the Sun. What was new, interesting, and different 15 years ago isn't anymore. Scott's mastered the formula of candlelit, slow-cooker music. Her sense of humor and sensuality, fine-tuned, endearing and bold, is infused throughout this album, but it doesn't feel like enough. It misses the mark, like a lot of great music does, because it's less inventive.

Artist: Jill Scott, Album: Woman, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "Jill Scott's voice is familiar like hair being braided on a stoop, like a fire hydrant pouring out into the street, like a slow summer. Woman, her fifth studio album, is slow in the way that the familiar is slow: we already know what to expect. With Scott, it's mom-and-pop, all-you-can-eat R&B; sexy fun for grown folk over the age of 40, like speed dating at church. Woman's first track, "Wild Cookie", initially seems like a spoken word ode to "Empire"'s Cookie Lyon, but the lyrics quickly suggest that "Cookie" is a euphemism for the vagina. "Wild Cookie choices lead to lonely pregnancy," Scott says over strings and drums. The vagina in "Wild Cookie", personified, acts on its own. Desirous, it does not have a mind of its own, but it would seem that way. "Just the other day my girlfriend said she was watching TV and her wild cookie detached from its seat." That detachment, that Jill speaks of—that desire—is a magnetizing energy. Beyond "Wild Cookie", there are other food references. After all, Scott perpetually sings like she's about to cook dinner for a family that isn't even hers. She wants domesticity, craves it. "Prepared", the track that follows the intro poem, has the lyrics "I've been getting recipes off the Internet" and "I've been eating more greens", which come as no surprise for anyone who's ever listened to "The Way" off her first album. Food is a big part of Scott's music. Additionally, in the track "Closure", Scott sings about not making a man quiches and homemade waffles anymore, how he shouldn't expect breakfast. "I'm on my way, I'm almost there," Scott sings in "Coming to You", a percussion-laden, breathless track, the most urgent on a decidedly slow record. "Coming to You" is a funky, upbeat jam, but for a faster song, it's not necessarily more fun. The fun tracks are the ones that shimmer. "Fool's Gold", arguably the best song, is about a disillusioned Scott who finds herself in a relationship that might as well have been a pipe dream. "I was living the dream/ Believing things that just ain't true/ Oh, I can't believe I ever believed in you/ Had me chasing fool's gold," she sings over a bouncy, enchanting instrumental. Another strong track is "Lighthouse", a somberly reassuring lullaby of a ballad about supporting a lover through trying, burdensome times. "I'm your shelter," Scott sings like an overprotective siren, striking a balance between sexy and soothing. Intimate and slow-moving, Woman is good but underwhelming. It lacks the dynamism of Who Is Jill Scott?**, the rap features of Light of the Sun. What was new, interesting, and different 15 years ago isn't anymore. Scott's mastered the formula of candlelit, slow-cooker music. Her sense of humor and sensuality, fine-tuned, endearing and bold, is infused throughout this album, but it doesn't feel like enough. It misses the mark, like a lot of great music does, because it's less inventive."

Perfume Genius

Put Your Back N 2 It

Pop/R&B

Larry Fitzmaurice

How do we deal with personal trauma? After it's over, what comes next? These are some of the Big Questions Seattle singer/songwriter Mike Hadreas addresses on his second album as Perfume Genius. Put Your Back N 2 It follows Hadreas' overlooked 2010 debut, Learning, and it feels like a proper sequel to that album's suite of dysfunction and devastation. On his first album, Hadreas tackled subjects such as molestation, substance abuse, suicide, the complications of inappropriate sexual relationships, and the struggle for acceptance from those you love. The morose subject matter and melodic simplicity of Learning's piano-based songs drew comparisons to indie-pop artists like Stephin Merritt and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's Owen Ashworth. But Hadreas' ability to set a scene and convey detail, which brought to mind Sufjan Stevens circa Seven Swans, lent the songs extra force. There were moments of impressionistic, synth-smeared beauty on that first record, but the overriding sense of despair and hopelessness could be overwhelming. On Put Your Back N 2 It, there's a crack of light coming through the darkness. Hadreas is still exploring the more harrowing corners of human behavior. "Dark Parts" details the abuse his mother suffered at the hands of her grandfather; opener "AWOL Marine" takes inspiration from a tape of homemade pornography that Hadreas viewed, in which one of the participants admits, camera still rolling, that he's just trying to get medication for his wife. "Floating Spit" also deals with drug addiction, "Take Me Home" explores prostitution in the context of the need to be loved, while "17" uses a metaphor of a body stuffed into a violin, covered in semen, and hung up on a fence to shine a light on corrosive self-loathing. So don't let the whimsical album title fool you: If you're looking for something low-key to vibe out to, you've come to the wrong place. The "light" the album allows has to do with how Hadreas approaches the material. He has a brilliant feel for poetic imagery ("The hands of God were bigger than grandpa's eyes/ But still he broke the elastic on your waist," from "Dark Parts", is particularly haunting), but he's mostly moved away from storytelling to explore emotional themes at their most fundamental. Put Your Back N 2 It is an album about love-- what happens when we feel sheltered by it, how we fail to love ourselves and the people around us-- but amidst the heartache and bruised tenderness, there's hope, too. Hadreas sums it all up in the hollowed-out torch song "No Tear": "I will carry on with grace." For all its violence, Back radiates warmth. Much of the beauty is due to the expanded instrumentation, from the swooning, countryish guitar bends of "Take Me Home" to the interspersed snare rolls on "No Tear". The brutal low fidelity of Learning is gone, replaced with clarity and sonic intimacy that, when paired with these rich songs, raises every hair on the back of your neck. The more expansive sound gives room for experimentation, from the submerged electronic percussion on "Floating Spit" (contributed by UK producer David Edwards, aka Minotaur Shock) to the robust and surprising full-band blast of "Hood". The latter, with its bloom-and-burst structure, is the perfect example of Hadreas' growth as a melodic songwriter, having moved well beyond the the functional melodies that marked Learning. Many of these songs-- "Hood", "All Waters", "Take Me Home", "17"-- forego resolution and basically build tension and drop everything, in silence. Hadreas likes to steer clear of cathartic release, since in this world, there is no easy way out. On "All Waters", he begins singing in a low register and ends in his highest falsetto, as the song dissolves in wordless cries and frissons of far-away distortion. The song is a wish for a world where he and his boyfriend, Alan Wyffels (who also serves as his main musical collaborator), can hold hands in public without fear, and the lyrics ("When all waters still/ And flowers cover the earth") suggest that it's not going to happen any time soon. Mike Hadreas is gay, and many of the songs here focus on the issues that young gay men face in their lives (he referred to "17" in a press release as "a gay suicide letter"), even as Back's sustained exploration of love and hate has resonance for anyone. There is a lot of him in this music, the minutiae obviously pulled from a single person's life and experiences. But the album is less about confession as a form of release and more about trying to bring something positive into the world. "I don't want it to seem like I've been through more than other people...", he says in promotional materials for the album. "Staying healthy can be more depressing and confusing than being fucked up. But I want to make music that's honest and hopeful." With so much recent conversation about marriage equality and gay teen suicide, and with the predictable election-year demonization of homosexuality, Mike Hadreas' work is not only satisfying on a purely musical level, it also feels of-the-moment and above all necessary (it's so topical, he found himself in the middle of a standards-of-decency "family values" battle earlier this year between his label, Matador, and internet-media titans Google and YouTube). Independent music has woefully few artists dealing with these issues and asking difficult questions, and doing so in a context that never forgets about the importance of songwriting. That's a disappointment, but at least a handful of people like Hadreas are doing something about it.

Artist: Perfume Genius, Album: Put Your Back N 2 It, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 8.4 Album review: "How do we deal with personal trauma? After it's over, what comes next? These are some of the Big Questions Seattle singer/songwriter Mike Hadreas addresses on his second album as Perfume Genius. Put Your Back N 2 It follows Hadreas' overlooked 2010 debut, Learning, and it feels like a proper sequel to that album's suite of dysfunction and devastation. On his first album, Hadreas tackled subjects such as molestation, substance abuse, suicide, the complications of inappropriate sexual relationships, and the struggle for acceptance from those you love. The morose subject matter and melodic simplicity of Learning's piano-based songs drew comparisons to indie-pop artists like Stephin Merritt and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's Owen Ashworth. But Hadreas' ability to set a scene and convey detail, which brought to mind Sufjan Stevens circa Seven Swans, lent the songs extra force. There were moments of impressionistic, synth-smeared beauty on that first record, but the overriding sense of despair and hopelessness could be overwhelming. On Put Your Back N 2 It, there's a crack of light coming through the darkness. Hadreas is still exploring the more harrowing corners of human behavior. "Dark Parts" details the abuse his mother suffered at the hands of her grandfather; opener "AWOL Marine" takes inspiration from a tape of homemade pornography that Hadreas viewed, in which one of the participants admits, camera still rolling, that he's just trying to get medication for his wife. "Floating Spit" also deals with drug addiction, "Take Me Home" explores prostitution in the context of the need to be loved, while "17" uses a metaphor of a body stuffed into a violin, covered in semen, and hung up on a fence to shine a light on corrosive self-loathing. So don't let the whimsical album title fool you: If you're looking for something low-key to vibe out to, you've come to the wrong place. The "light" the album allows has to do with how Hadreas approaches the material. He has a brilliant feel for poetic imagery ("The hands of God were bigger than grandpa's eyes/ But still he broke the elastic on your waist," from "Dark Parts", is particularly haunting), but he's mostly moved away from storytelling to explore emotional themes at their most fundamental. Put Your Back N 2 It is an album about love-- what happens when we feel sheltered by it, how we fail to love ourselves and the people around us-- but amidst the heartache and bruised tenderness, there's hope, too. Hadreas sums it all up in the hollowed-out torch song "No Tear": "I will carry on with grace." For all its violence, Back radiates warmth. Much of the beauty is due to the expanded instrumentation, from the swooning, countryish guitar bends of "Take Me Home" to the interspersed snare rolls on "No Tear". The brutal low fidelity of Learning is gone, replaced with clarity and sonic intimacy that, when paired with these rich songs, raises every hair on the back of your neck. The more expansive sound gives room for experimentation, from the submerged electronic percussion on "Floating Spit" (contributed by UK producer David Edwards, aka Minotaur Shock) to the robust and surprising full-band blast of "Hood". The latter, with its bloom-and-burst structure, is the perfect example of Hadreas' growth as a melodic songwriter, having moved well beyond the the functional melodies that marked Learning. Many of these songs-- "Hood", "All Waters", "Take Me Home", "17"-- forego resolution and basically build tension and drop everything, in silence. Hadreas likes to steer clear of cathartic release, since in this world, there is no easy way out. On "All Waters", he begins singing in a low register and ends in his highest falsetto, as the song dissolves in wordless cries and frissons of far-away distortion. The song is a wish for a world where he and his boyfriend, Alan Wyffels (who also serves as his main musical collaborator), can hold hands in public without fear, and the lyrics ("When all waters still/ And flowers cover the earth") suggest that it's not going to happen any time soon. Mike Hadreas is gay, and many of the songs here focus on the issues that young gay men face in their lives (he referred to "17" in a press release as "a gay suicide letter"), even as Back's sustained exploration of love and hate has resonance for anyone. There is a lot of him in this music, the minutiae obviously pulled from a single person's life and experiences. But the album is less about confession as a form of release and more about trying to bring something positive into the world. "I don't want it to seem like I've been through more than other people...", he says in promotional materials for the album. "Staying healthy can be more depressing and confusing than being fucked up. But I want to make music that's honest and hopeful." With so much recent conversation about marriage equality and gay teen suicide, and with the predictable election-year demonization of homosexuality, Mike Hadreas' work is not only satisfying on a purely musical level, it also feels of-the-moment and above all necessary (it's so topical, he found himself in the middle of a standards-of-decency "family values" battle earlier this year between his label, Matador, and internet-media titans Google and YouTube). Independent music has woefully few artists dealing with these issues and asking difficult questions, and doing so in a context that never forgets about the importance of songwriting. That's a disappointment, but at least a handful of people like Hadreas are doing something about it."

Imagine Dragons

Origins

Rock

Corban Goble

Imagine Dragons have become a case study for rock music fading out of the zeitgeist. The rise of the Las Vegas rock band in 2013 coincided with the lull in the format’s popularity, yet, remarkably, they were a runaway success. Their breakthrough hit, “Radioactive,” stayed on the Hot 100 chart for a record-setting 87 weeks. They turned down their guitars and turned up every expensive synth pad known to man, and exactly one collaboration with Kendrick Lamar later, they were one of the biggest new rock bands in the country. How did Imagine Dragons become so huge despite the fact that the average American couldn’t pick out a single Dragon in a lineup? Their sound is kind of like the machine learning output of the Lumineers, the Chainsmokers, and a SoulCycle playlist. After the breakout success of “Radioactive,” Imagine Dragons’ sophomore record, Smoke + Mirrors, topped the Billboard chart in its first week. Their third album, 2017’s Evolve, sold 147,000 copies in its first week, an incredible amount in the streaming era. It had the inescapable “Thunder,” a song that bored itself deep into the collective consciousness thanks in part to a mind-numbingly catchy chorus and ubiquitous Microsoft and Jeep ads. Since Imagine Dragons scaled to a mass audience so quickly, their songs have had to stay just as huge. They make low-hanging-fruit music, which can be great in theory, but because of all the styles it stitches together, their songs something more distant and mutated. On their new album, Origins, Reynolds finds himself on the other side of the personal darkness that shaded Evolve, emerging with a more positive outlook, a world-weary curiosity now turned outward. Reynolds feels compelled to turn his attention to this modern life, outlining his grievances in language that feels almost too accessible: “How many artists fear the light? Fear the pain, go insane?” he asks on “Bullet in a Gun.” On closer “Real Life” he ponders, “Hey, turn your phone off, won’t you look me in my eye?/Can we live that real life?” Do we live in a society? Imagine Dragons are almost positive we do. The music is categorically soaring and sometimes pleasant, because sometimes the algorithm finds you where you want to be found. The anthems—“Natural,” “Bad Liar,” “Machine”—lean heavily on the trusty loud-quiet-loud dynamic that buoyed the bands’ past hits. Reynolds, though, uses that tension to increasingly hollow effect. Stylistically, the singer tries on enough hats to differentiate Origins’ collection of music from the more homogenous Evolve, in particular, the Bleachers-meets-Coldplay pop of single “Zero,” a nod to soul music on “Cool Out,” and the “Wake Me Up”-core country textures of “West Coast.” But with its tired aphorisms and eerily familiar sonic environments, it never adds up to be much of a comment on the music Imagine Dragons is referencing. Since their songs scan like a competent survey of the entirety of mid-aughts pop rock, there’s no real personality to identify within the songs. Origins wants to conversate with the current moment, but it never amounts to a coherent statement. In TV terms, it’s like a hoary crossover episode of “Black Mirror” and “This Is Us.” Although Origins leans far too heavily on Instagram-quote culture—the idea that any snippet of thought, removed from context, can build a base of inspiration—Reynolds is a passionate and versatile singer. It courses through his veins. In June, HBO released a documentary called Believer, which follows Reynolds as he learns about LGBTQ Mormon youth and their struggles to find an identity within an oppressive church. In Believer, Reynolds tells a story with a powerful message—the film showcases Reynolds as a likable, empathetic figure who works hard to earn a new point of view. Listening to Origins, you wouldn’t know that this was the same person behind the music, that this was the same person singing, “Nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost, tell me/Will the stars align?” with such embarrassing conviction. Reynolds has a story to tell, but the music fails to be the ideal delivery system.

Artist: Imagine Dragons, Album: Origins, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.3 Album review: "Imagine Dragons have become a case study for rock music fading out of the zeitgeist. The rise of the Las Vegas rock band in 2013 coincided with the lull in the format’s popularity, yet, remarkably, they were a runaway success. Their breakthrough hit, “Radioactive,” stayed on the Hot 100 chart for a record-setting 87 weeks. They turned down their guitars and turned up every expensive synth pad known to man, and exactly one collaboration with Kendrick Lamar later, they were one of the biggest new rock bands in the country. How did Imagine Dragons become so huge despite the fact that the average American couldn’t pick out a single Dragon in a lineup? Their sound is kind of like the machine learning output of the Lumineers, the Chainsmokers, and a SoulCycle playlist. After the breakout success of “Radioactive,” Imagine Dragons’ sophomore record, Smoke + Mirrors, topped the Billboard chart in its first week. Their third album, 2017’s Evolve, sold 147,000 copies in its first week, an incredible amount in the streaming era. It had the inescapable “Thunder,” a song that bored itself deep into the collective consciousness thanks in part to a mind-numbingly catchy chorus and ubiquitous Microsoft and Jeep ads. Since Imagine Dragons scaled to a mass audience so quickly, their songs have had to stay just as huge. They make low-hanging-fruit music, which can be great in theory, but because of all the styles it stitches together, their songs something more distant and mutated. On their new album, Origins, Reynolds finds himself on the other side of the personal darkness that shaded Evolve, emerging with a more positive outlook, a world-weary curiosity now turned outward. Reynolds feels compelled to turn his attention to this modern life, outlining his grievances in language that feels almost too accessible: “How many artists fear the light? Fear the pain, go insane?” he asks on “Bullet in a Gun.” On closer “Real Life” he ponders, “Hey, turn your phone off, won’t you look me in my eye?/Can we live that real life?” Do we live in a society? Imagine Dragons are almost positive we do. The music is categorically soaring and sometimes pleasant, because sometimes the algorithm finds you where you want to be found. The anthems—“Natural,” “Bad Liar,” “Machine”—lean heavily on the trusty loud-quiet-loud dynamic that buoyed the bands’ past hits. Reynolds, though, uses that tension to increasingly hollow effect. Stylistically, the singer tries on enough hats to differentiate Origins’ collection of music from the more homogenous Evolve, in particular, the Bleachers-meets-Coldplay pop of single “Zero,” a nod to soul music on “Cool Out,” and the “Wake Me Up”-core country textures of “West Coast.” But with its tired aphorisms and eerily familiar sonic environments, it never adds up to be much of a comment on the music Imagine Dragons is referencing. Since their songs scan like a competent survey of the entirety of mid-aughts pop rock, there’s no real personality to identify within the songs. Origins wants to conversate with the current moment, but it never amounts to a coherent statement. In TV terms, it’s like a hoary crossover episode of “Black Mirror” and “This Is Us.” Although Origins leans far too heavily on Instagram-quote culture—the idea that any snippet of thought, removed from context, can build a base of inspiration—Reynolds is a passionate and versatile singer. It courses through his veins. In June, HBO released a documentary called Believer, which follows Reynolds as he learns about LGBTQ Mormon youth and their struggles to find an identity within an oppressive church. In Believer, Reynolds tells a story with a powerful message—the film showcases Reynolds as a likable, empathetic figure who works hard to earn a new point of view. Listening to Origins, you wouldn’t know that this was the same person behind the music, that this was the same person singing, “Nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost, tell me/Will the stars align?” with such embarrassing conviction. Reynolds has a story to tell, but the music fails to be the ideal delivery system."

Various Artists

Rumble in the Jungle

Jess Harvell

Rumble in the Jungle, a new Soul Jazz collection of classic early 1990s jungle, is not necessarily the perfect introduction to a genre that's become something of a forgotten story now that Germany has taken out a 99-year lease on all dance music coverage. But since new fans (i.e. most people reading this) will find it easy to look past the deficiencies that longtime jungle obsessives (including myself) have been complaining about on message boards and blogs-- the obviousness of the tracklisting, the deathly dry packaging, the deeply contentious liner notes, the preponderance of tracks by renegade hip-housers Shut Up and Dance-- Rumble may still one of the best (or at least easy to actually procure) old-school jungle comps for newbies that's currently out there. Even if it is deeply circumscribed from a stylistic standpoint, with a selection of tracks errs towards anthems, with a few deep pocket wild cards designed to prick the ears of the converted. All of the tracks on Rumble in the Jungle are linked by their attempt to squeeze as much Jamaica into their brief running times as possible. Of course, the England of Caribbean immigrants already had plenty of reggae lying around, and as the story famously goes, its children demanded something new, with epochal cut-and-paste jobs like Shy FX's "Original Nuttah" and M-Beat's "Incredible" also being the place where those raw, digitally dusted breakbeats met dancehall and dub. Without that 21st century twist to the funk (instantly recognizable but still improbable over a decade later), that mutated input from New York and L.A., these tracks wouldn't be half so exhilarating or infectious. Like the witty, blubbery low-end of DJ Zinc's "Super Sharp Shooter" expanding hip-hop's waistline until it almost bursts--you can't hear it and not smile. This is "futurism" that makes you sweat and bounce, sensation-juiced tracks that are arguably closer to the dreaded "Switch tune at +8" or "homemade Lil Mama breakbeat remix" than modern techno or even dubstep. If Rumble rarely relaxes, explores beauty for its own sake, or fails to pay due deference to rave, jungle's emotional and sonic range always precluded an all-inclusive, one-disc introduction. Anyway, you should be jumping up and down too much to really give a shit about historicity. Meanwhile Greensleeves' new collection, Ragga Jungle Dubs, follows the label's excellent 1996 cash-in Ragga Jungle Anthems, and its appearance so close to Rumble in the Jungle seems to be a cosmic accident rather than a retro marketing push. And the two compilations couldn't be more different. Far from Rumble's rubbery rhythmic personality, the tracks on Ragga Jungle Dubs are even less rave-y (fewer bright synth hooks, wriggling acid basslines, and stick-in-your-head rap samples) and more ruthlessly mechanical, flecked with subtler hooks and heart-attack syncopations like the machine gun spray of "Gangster Don't Joke (Drum & Bass Dub)". When they're on, the producers of these faceless "dubs" work miracles out of just lonesome keyboard ripples [the knock-off 4Hero eeriness of "New Blood Spilt (Drum & Bass Dub)"] or gunshot sound effects [the self-explanatory "People Dead (Jungle Dub)"], playing the gun play nursery rhymes [the murder-minded doo wop of "Gun Talk (Original Dub Plate Lick)"] and clamoring party chants of yard stars like Ninjaman and Bounty Killer off rhythms that have the grinding exactitude of subway cars at high speed. Ragga Jungle Dubs is less interested in being a highlights reel, more about the kind of serious grooves that separate fans from dabblers. Buy the former, however, and you'll probably want the latter soon enough.

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Rumble in the Jungle, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Rumble in the Jungle, a new Soul Jazz collection of classic early 1990s jungle, is not necessarily the perfect introduction to a genre that's become something of a forgotten story now that Germany has taken out a 99-year lease on all dance music coverage. But since new fans (i.e. most people reading this) will find it easy to look past the deficiencies that longtime jungle obsessives (including myself) have been complaining about on message boards and blogs-- the obviousness of the tracklisting, the deathly dry packaging, the deeply contentious liner notes, the preponderance of tracks by renegade hip-housers Shut Up and Dance-- Rumble may still one of the best (or at least easy to actually procure) old-school jungle comps for newbies that's currently out there. Even if it is deeply circumscribed from a stylistic standpoint, with a selection of tracks errs towards anthems, with a few deep pocket wild cards designed to prick the ears of the converted. All of the tracks on Rumble in the Jungle are linked by their attempt to squeeze as much Jamaica into their brief running times as possible. Of course, the England of Caribbean immigrants already had plenty of reggae lying around, and as the story famously goes, its children demanded something new, with epochal cut-and-paste jobs like Shy FX's "Original Nuttah" and M-Beat's "Incredible" also being the place where those raw, digitally dusted breakbeats met dancehall and dub. Without that 21st century twist to the funk (instantly recognizable but still improbable over a decade later), that mutated input from New York and L.A., these tracks wouldn't be half so exhilarating or infectious. Like the witty, blubbery low-end of DJ Zinc's "Super Sharp Shooter" expanding hip-hop's waistline until it almost bursts--you can't hear it and not smile. This is "futurism" that makes you sweat and bounce, sensation-juiced tracks that are arguably closer to the dreaded "Switch tune at +8" or "homemade Lil Mama breakbeat remix" than modern techno or even dubstep. If Rumble rarely relaxes, explores beauty for its own sake, or fails to pay due deference to rave, jungle's emotional and sonic range always precluded an all-inclusive, one-disc introduction. Anyway, you should be jumping up and down too much to really give a shit about historicity. Meanwhile Greensleeves' new collection, Ragga Jungle Dubs, follows the label's excellent 1996 cash-in Ragga Jungle Anthems, and its appearance so close to Rumble in the Jungle seems to be a cosmic accident rather than a retro marketing push. And the two compilations couldn't be more different. Far from Rumble's rubbery rhythmic personality, the tracks on Ragga Jungle Dubs are even less rave-y (fewer bright synth hooks, wriggling acid basslines, and stick-in-your-head rap samples) and more ruthlessly mechanical, flecked with subtler hooks and heart-attack syncopations like the machine gun spray of "Gangster Don't Joke (Drum & Bass Dub)". When they're on, the producers of these faceless "dubs" work miracles out of just lonesome keyboard ripples [the knock-off 4Hero eeriness of "New Blood Spilt (Drum & Bass Dub)"] or gunshot sound effects [the self-explanatory "People Dead (Jungle Dub)"], playing the gun play nursery rhymes [the murder-minded doo wop of "Gun Talk (Original Dub Plate Lick)"] and clamoring party chants of yard stars like Ninjaman and Bounty Killer off rhythms that have the grinding exactitude of subway cars at high speed. Ragga Jungle Dubs is less interested in being a highlights reel, more about the kind of serious grooves that separate fans from dabblers. Buy the former, however, and you'll probably want the latter soon enough."

RetcH

Finesse the World

Rap

Sheldon Pearce

On "Disclaimer", the mean-mugging opener to RetcH’s dark Finesse the World mixtape, the New Jersey rapper issues a series of warnings for listeners colored in with pop culture references: "This ain’t no Wale, this ain’t no Makonnen/ This junkie's dying in the stairwell ‘cause the dope is potent." It’s an abrupt introduction, a shoulder check that announces itself with its sudden sting, and it’s a fitting entrance for RetcH, who is best described as a menace. RetcH is a small-time drug dealer, a corner boy passing off product through closed-hand transactions on the block. Dealing opens doors to violent crime and petty larceny. There isn’t any of the chest beating bravado that helped mythologize drug impresarios like Reasonable Doubt-era Jay Z or (to an entirely different extent) Rick Ross. This isn’t glamorous. This is felony possession with intent to distribute. This is "selling smack and tucking bread with your granny." This isn’t Scarface, it’s Pusher. RetcH, or RetcHy P, first began to gain traction on the indie rap circuit with his soul-chopping 2013 mixtape, Polo Sporting Goods, which was entirely produced by Thelonious Martin. The tape, and especially the brilliantly composed "Special Jim", which was endorsed by Earl Sweatshirt, showcased his colorful storytelling and his angling perspective. RetcH often takes a winding approach to writing that supplements dramatic scene-setting with lesser, more arresting details. He has a keen sense for exactly what makes his stories worth telling—the visceral nature in which he presents them—and he constantly frames his verses like he’s describing a first person shooter to a blind person. But many of the soul samples on Polo Sporting Goods weren’t equipped to fully utilize his skillset. After doing a bid in county last year, RetcHy P returns better than he’s ever been, in his element, on Finesse the World, a super sinister segue into his vivid underworld. As a proud street urchin, RetcH is a poster boy for Keeping It Real, one who won’t hesitate to snuff a show-off for his jewelry just to laugh about it. On "Still With It", which employs the "fame hasn’t changed me" trope with a twist, he raps, "Still rock polo that I stole on me/ Still fuck up niggas that done told on me." He’s at his best when he unapologetically explores the murky depths of villainy. There were glimpses of it on Polo Sporting Goods, but, as the title implies, that tape had a focus on flair over felonies. With Finesse the World, RetcHy P fully embraces being a scoundrel. This is the darkest he’s ever been, and he rips through ominous productions from noted gloom casters A$AP P on the Boards, H.N.I.C., and Antwon Carrera. There are no moments of reprieve; this is a labyrinth of dark alleyways. Turning the corner just introduces more unscrupulous characters. Things really heat up on Finesse the World when the beats warp into sonic distillations of evil and RetcH barrels through them with a snarl. On "Affiliation" he locks eyes with his foes, firing literal and figurative shots in all directions over a forbidding, distorted piano riff. He writes engrossing tales about small-time drug trafficking on "Cheap Work", which makes use of its rumbling bass and a wailing train horn sample. RetcH is at his most venomous on the title track over grim production from H.N.I.C., rapping phrases like "Ready to shoot the next thing that's breathing, nigga/ I'm fucking heated, a fucking heathen, policing demons" with real fury. The deeper he crawls inside the sparse, shadowy soundscapes, the better he raps. The tape does have a somewhat singular sound, but RetcH is most at home beneath a cloak of darkness. Somehow, through all the snarling and terrorizing on Finesse the World, RetcHy P retains his knack for storytelling, penning street epics as captivating as they are chilling. He does some of his best writing on "Amedei Procelana", which finds him posing naked for a sketch artist and dealing during chem class. He does some of his best rapping on the A$AP P-produced "Round Here", where he raps in compact bursts, stressing syllables like he’s trying to rip them. When he spits, "Nigga you could get smoked eating jerked chicken/ In front of everybody and still won't be no witness," the juxtaposition of his phrasing with his cadence almost makes the act seem comical. There’s even a reunion with Thelonious Martin for "Bad Luck", which plays like a wicked outtake from the Polo Sporting Goods sessions. But he really puts it all together on Finesse the World’s most interesting cut, "Product of Da Block", layering an elastic riff with one of his most ferocious flows. He opens the song with a speech that condemns friendliness in rap: "When the fuck did everyone become so friendly… When you see me, don’t even approach me because I ain’t friendly." It only takes one listen for that same malice to become contagious.

Artist: RetcH, Album: Finesse the World, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "On "Disclaimer", the mean-mugging opener to RetcH’s dark Finesse the World mixtape, the New Jersey rapper issues a series of warnings for listeners colored in with pop culture references: "This ain’t no Wale, this ain’t no Makonnen/ This junkie's dying in the stairwell ‘cause the dope is potent." It’s an abrupt introduction, a shoulder check that announces itself with its sudden sting, and it’s a fitting entrance for RetcH, who is best described as a menace. RetcH is a small-time drug dealer, a corner boy passing off product through closed-hand transactions on the block. Dealing opens doors to violent crime and petty larceny. There isn’t any of the chest beating bravado that helped mythologize drug impresarios like Reasonable Doubt-era Jay Z or (to an entirely different extent) Rick Ross. This isn’t glamorous. This is felony possession with intent to distribute. This is "selling smack and tucking bread with your granny." This isn’t Scarface, it’s Pusher. RetcH, or RetcHy P, first began to gain traction on the indie rap circuit with his soul-chopping 2013 mixtape, Polo Sporting Goods, which was entirely produced by Thelonious Martin. The tape, and especially the brilliantly composed "Special Jim", which was endorsed by Earl Sweatshirt, showcased his colorful storytelling and his angling perspective. RetcH often takes a winding approach to writing that supplements dramatic scene-setting with lesser, more arresting details. He has a keen sense for exactly what makes his stories worth telling—the visceral nature in which he presents them—and he constantly frames his verses like he’s describing a first person shooter to a blind person. But many of the soul samples on Polo Sporting Goods weren’t equipped to fully utilize his skillset. After doing a bid in county last year, RetcHy P returns better than he’s ever been, in his element, on Finesse the World, a super sinister segue into his vivid underworld. As a proud street urchin, RetcH is a poster boy for Keeping It Real, one who won’t hesitate to snuff a show-off for his jewelry just to laugh about it. On "Still With It", which employs the "fame hasn’t changed me" trope with a twist, he raps, "Still rock polo that I stole on me/ Still fuck up niggas that done told on me." He’s at his best when he unapologetically explores the murky depths of villainy. There were glimpses of it on Polo Sporting Goods, but, as the title implies, that tape had a focus on flair over felonies. With Finesse the World, RetcHy P fully embraces being a scoundrel. This is the darkest he’s ever been, and he rips through ominous productions from noted gloom casters A$AP P on the Boards, H.N.I.C., and Antwon Carrera. There are no moments of reprieve; this is a labyrinth of dark alleyways. Turning the corner just introduces more unscrupulous characters. Things really heat up on Finesse the World when the beats warp into sonic distillations of evil and RetcH barrels through them with a snarl. On "Affiliation" he locks eyes with his foes, firing literal and figurative shots in all directions over a forbidding, distorted piano riff. He writes engrossing tales about small-time drug trafficking on "Cheap Work", which makes use of its rumbling bass and a wailing train horn sample. RetcH is at his most venomous on the title track over grim production from H.N.I.C., rapping phrases like "Ready to shoot the next thing that's breathing, nigga/ I'm fucking heated, a fucking heathen, policing demons" with real fury. The deeper he crawls inside the sparse, shadowy soundscapes, the better he raps. The tape does have a somewhat singular sound, but RetcH is most at home beneath a cloak of darkness. Somehow, through all the snarling and terrorizing on Finesse the World, RetcHy P retains his knack for storytelling, penning street epics as captivating as they are chilling. He does some of his best writing on "Amedei Procelana", which finds him posing naked for a sketch artist and dealing during chem class. He does some of his best rapping on the A$AP P-produced "Round Here", where he raps in compact bursts, stressing syllables like he’s trying to rip them. When he spits, "Nigga you could get smoked eating jerked chicken/ In front of everybody and still won't be no witness," the juxtaposition of his phrasing with his cadence almost makes the act seem comical. There’s even a reunion with Thelonious Martin for "Bad Luck", which plays like a wicked outtake from the Polo Sporting Goods sessions. But he really puts it all together on Finesse the World’s most interesting cut, "Product of Da Block", layering an elastic riff with one of his most ferocious flows. He opens the song with a speech that condemns friendliness in rap: "When the fuck did everyone become so friendly… When you see me, don’t even approach me because I ain’t friendly." It only takes one listen for that same malice to become contagious."

Stas THEE Boss

S’WOMEN

Rap

Karas Lamb

Stas THEE Boss, best known as one-half of the futurist rap and R&B duo THEESatisfaction, bops through a string of breakups on her self-released solo album S’WOMEN. Pronounced “swimming,” and billed as “an aquatic explanation of failed female companionships,” the 11-track project is a meditation on Stas’ knack for falling out of love that follows her 2014 Stas For Hire instrumental EP. S’WOMEN is buoyed by nostalgic sample selection, Stas’ post-Digable flow, and a collection of innuendos that deliver bravado and honesty with ease. The project’s narrative, however, is disrupted by frequent returns to the well where she pulls from the deep black aesthetic that defined THEESatisfaction, whose 2012 debut awE naturalE and 2015 follow-up EarthEE positioned the duo as the feminist star children of Missy Elliott, Erykah Badu, and Audre Lorde. Though infrequent, the places where S’WOMEN falters ultimately become a testament to Stas THEE Boss’ growth, which remains imminent but incomplete. S’WOMEN is the fruit of three failed relationships in as many years. At points cold and cocky, at points vulnerable and introspective, the project is a meditation on getting it wrong. Stas doesn’t consult the “please baby, please” handbook of R&B to secure a do-over, she gets things off of her chest like they’re extended riffs on angsty text message threads. Though Stas obviously grapples with disappointment, she is also resigned to diplomacy—the odd ways that it can fill the divide between estranged lovers. Vocal distortion, playful harmonies, and rich basslines mingle with cheeky samples that show her love for bogle-ready basement party anthems. Stas speaks with impressive fluency through the music that has spoken to her through her life, like an encyclopedic recall of the jams of her youth. She checks another girl for being an opportunist over a mesmerizing sample of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Smoke In Bed” on “Solo.” Echoing Simone’s sentiments, she fashions curses into salty pleasantries on the clear star of the album. “Bummer” sports a flip of Wreckx-N-Effects’ “Rump Shaker.” “Before Anyone Else” and “Melt” are derived from Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly standout “Beep Me 911,” and Erykah Badu’s “Other Side of the Game,” respectively. The latter is propelled by Stas’ search for a suitable partner, which comes with a warning that her bite is much worse than her bars; “You been waiting from the get go/[...]Scary at my best so you should never let your fret go.” Deviating from her infatuation with the otherworldly, S’WOMEN eventually brings Stas back down to earth to navigate her feelings. But the way she crowds the production makes it difficult for the heart of these songs to be made plain. She plunges into familiar territory with references to the black cool and ancestral memory that girded THEESatisfaction’s catalog. “Melt,” “Gon Phishing,” and “Diamond Doris”—a cool nod to notorious jewel thief Doris Payne—suffer when Stas acts upon the urge to reiterate, despite her dating woes, how authentically black she is. Like her talent, her identity is never in question. Her measurable growth, however, is. While Stas is consistent across S’WOMEN, it is not clear that she makes a sustained effort to ditch her comfort zone. Transformation was not the stated purpose of the project, but a bit of sonic bravery and tighter storytelling would have made the final mix that much more refreshing.

Artist: Stas THEE Boss, Album: S’WOMEN, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "Stas THEE Boss, best known as one-half of the futurist rap and R&B duo THEESatisfaction, bops through a string of breakups on her self-released solo album S’WOMEN. Pronounced “swimming,” and billed as “an aquatic explanation of failed female companionships,” the 11-track project is a meditation on Stas’ knack for falling out of love that follows her 2014 Stas For Hire instrumental EP. S’WOMEN is buoyed by nostalgic sample selection, Stas’ post-Digable flow, and a collection of innuendos that deliver bravado and honesty with ease. The project’s narrative, however, is disrupted by frequent returns to the well where she pulls from the deep black aesthetic that defined THEESatisfaction, whose 2012 debut awE naturalE and 2015 follow-up EarthEE positioned the duo as the feminist star children of Missy Elliott, Erykah Badu, and Audre Lorde. Though infrequent, the places where S’WOMEN falters ultimately become a testament to Stas THEE Boss’ growth, which remains imminent but incomplete. S’WOMEN is the fruit of three failed relationships in as many years. At points cold and cocky, at points vulnerable and introspective, the project is a meditation on getting it wrong. Stas doesn’t consult the “please baby, please” handbook of R&B to secure a do-over, she gets things off of her chest like they’re extended riffs on angsty text message threads. Though Stas obviously grapples with disappointment, she is also resigned to diplomacy—the odd ways that it can fill the divide between estranged lovers. Vocal distortion, playful harmonies, and rich basslines mingle with cheeky samples that show her love for bogle-ready basement party anthems. Stas speaks with impressive fluency through the music that has spoken to her through her life, like an encyclopedic recall of the jams of her youth. She checks another girl for being an opportunist over a mesmerizing sample of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Smoke In Bed” on “Solo.” Echoing Simone’s sentiments, she fashions curses into salty pleasantries on the clear star of the album. “Bummer” sports a flip of Wreckx-N-Effects’ “Rump Shaker.” “Before Anyone Else” and “Melt” are derived from Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly standout “Beep Me 911,” and Erykah Badu’s “Other Side of the Game,” respectively. The latter is propelled by Stas’ search for a suitable partner, which comes with a warning that her bite is much worse than her bars; “You been waiting from the get go/[...]Scary at my best so you should never let your fret go.” Deviating from her infatuation with the otherworldly, S’WOMEN eventually brings Stas back down to earth to navigate her feelings. But the way she crowds the production makes it difficult for the heart of these songs to be made plain. She plunges into familiar territory with references to the black cool and ancestral memory that girded THEESatisfaction’s catalog. “Melt,” “Gon Phishing,” and “Diamond Doris”—a cool nod to notorious jewel thief Doris Payne—suffer when Stas acts upon the urge to reiterate, despite her dating woes, how authentically black she is. Like her talent, her identity is never in question. Her measurable growth, however, is. While Stas is consistent across S’WOMEN, it is not clear that she makes a sustained effort to ditch her comfort zone. Transformation was not the stated purpose of the project, but a bit of sonic bravery and tighter storytelling would have made the final mix that much more refreshing."

Wire

Object 47

Rock

Joe Tangari

Object 47 marks an unexpected turning point in the 30-year history of Wire: It's their first album that doesn't feature all the original members. When drummer Robert Gotobed (née Robert Grey) temporarily fired himself from the band in 1990, reasoning that drum machines had rendered him redundant, the remaining members shortened the bandname to Wir. For whatever reason, the recent departure of Bruce Gilbert-- who made only minimal contributions to the Read & Burn 03 EP-- hasn't led to the same symbolic gesture. The album opens with a rush on "One of Us", with Graham Lewis' sharp and strongly melodic bassline, Grey's efficient beat, and a Colin Newman vocal that may be his best since the band reunited in 1999-- his refrain ("one of us will live to rue the day we met each other") is both ominous and oddly celebratory. In fact, the track is so strong that the rest of the record feels like a bit of a let-down in contrast. At least at first. While none of the other songs share the opener's bracing immediacy, they eventually reveal more subtle charms and innovations on repeated listens. Part of this replayability stems from the fact that the album's nine songs are widely varied. "Perspex Icon" finds Newman layering guitar tracks and filtering his voice to fit the straightforward punk his bandmates give him-- one of few times the band attempts to compensate for Gilbert's absence with overdubs. On "Circumspect", they simply let Newman's circular guitar figure get swallowed by undulating bass while he sings in a subdued, almost tired tone. "Four Long Years" is effortlessly rhythmic, but it still has that very distinctive sonic coloration-- mechanistic but warm-- that's characterized Wire's reunion records. The sound of Object 47 is generally clean. Even when the vocals are being run through processors and the guitars are distorted, it still feels managed, and a lack of high-range makes it inviting and easy to listen to even at its noisiest. This rings especially true for the buzzing "All Fours", featuring feedback courtesy of Helmet's Page Hamilton. The clear production doesn't serve "Patient Flees" as well, though-- it's the only track here that genuinely doesn't work. The list of spoken words that stands in for a chorus just doesn't have the intended impact, and the floundering verses can't make up for it. Still, on the whole, it's another strong outing from post-comeback Wire. Though Gilbert was an essential member and his contributions are missed here, there's still no mistaking Object 47 for the work of any other band.

Artist: Wire, Album: Object 47, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: " Object 47 marks an unexpected turning point in the 30-year history of Wire: It's their first album that doesn't feature all the original members. When drummer Robert Gotobed (née Robert Grey) temporarily fired himself from the band in 1990, reasoning that drum machines had rendered him redundant, the remaining members shortened the bandname to Wir. For whatever reason, the recent departure of Bruce Gilbert-- who made only minimal contributions to the Read & Burn 03 EP-- hasn't led to the same symbolic gesture. The album opens with a rush on "One of Us", with Graham Lewis' sharp and strongly melodic bassline, Grey's efficient beat, and a Colin Newman vocal that may be his best since the band reunited in 1999-- his refrain ("one of us will live to rue the day we met each other") is both ominous and oddly celebratory. In fact, the track is so strong that the rest of the record feels like a bit of a let-down in contrast. At least at first. While none of the other songs share the opener's bracing immediacy, they eventually reveal more subtle charms and innovations on repeated listens. Part of this replayability stems from the fact that the album's nine songs are widely varied. "Perspex Icon" finds Newman layering guitar tracks and filtering his voice to fit the straightforward punk his bandmates give him-- one of few times the band attempts to compensate for Gilbert's absence with overdubs. On "Circumspect", they simply let Newman's circular guitar figure get swallowed by undulating bass while he sings in a subdued, almost tired tone. "Four Long Years" is effortlessly rhythmic, but it still has that very distinctive sonic coloration-- mechanistic but warm-- that's characterized Wire's reunion records. The sound of Object 47 is generally clean. Even when the vocals are being run through processors and the guitars are distorted, it still feels managed, and a lack of high-range makes it inviting and easy to listen to even at its noisiest. This rings especially true for the buzzing "All Fours", featuring feedback courtesy of Helmet's Page Hamilton. The clear production doesn't serve "Patient Flees" as well, though-- it's the only track here that genuinely doesn't work. The list of spoken words that stands in for a chorus just doesn't have the intended impact, and the floundering verses can't make up for it. Still, on the whole, it's another strong outing from post-comeback Wire. Though Gilbert was an essential member and his contributions are missed here, there's still no mistaking Object 47 for the work of any other band."

Mudhoney

Digital Garbage

Rock

Stuart Berman

There are several readily available metrics that can help determine just how doomed our world truly is: increasing temperatures, rising ocean levels, species extinction rates, and so forth. But there is a less visible, arguably more accurate measure of gauging whether we’re flat out fucked: those moments when Mudhoney get political. While they’re never lacking in agitation and spite, the Seattle scuzz-punk pioneers tend to direct their ire at more, fish-in-a-barrel targets: posers, douchebags, themselves. But you know things in the world are really getting bad whenever Mudhoney remove tongue from cheek to deliver a grave diagnosis of a festering societal condition, be it the rise of evangelical extremism or neocon war pigs. And, in the never-ending shit show that is 2018, that latent impulse has been rudely re-awakened: Mudhoney’s latest album, Digital Garbage, feels less like a collection of songs than a news-saturated social-media feed filled with all the profane polemics of a 2 a.m. drunk-Tweet. Earlier, this year, Mudhoney celebrated its 30th-anniversary by releasing LiE, a career-spanning live compilation that reified the timeless quality of their snot-nosed noise. Digital Garbage, on the other hand, is an album with no greater desire than to be dated as soon as possible—because that would at least be an encouraging sign that we’ve emerged from the world of shit in which this record is steeped. As the title suggests, Digital Garbage is Mudhoney’s comment on life in the internet age, though it’s most concerned with the insidious offline side effects of unfettered information dissemination. By Mudhoney standards, Digital Garbage’s relentless topicality practically makes it their first true concept album. Mudhoney are hardly the only band fretting about the fate of humanity these days, but they are the only band with Mark Arm, whose sneering presence ensures that even the most woke proclamations will be in gloriously bad taste. Take the garage-rocker “Paranoid Core,” whose breathless stream of dog-whistled outrage—“Robots and aliens stealing jobs, they’re bringing drugs, they’ll rape your mom!/Beware the city’s dazzling lights where dykes are waiting to steal your wife!”—renders it a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” directed at InfoWars wackos. And as “Please Mr. Gunman” illustrates, dark days inevitably yield the blackest of humour, with Arm requesting that the titular shooter at least have the decency to mow him down “in church.” That may seem like an especially twisted way to commemorate the victims of Charleston; for Mudhoney, it’s a suitably absurd response to an absurd nation where even the most sacred public spaces aren’t safe from assault-rifle rampages. But even Arm’s most acidic lyrics are tempered by some of the band’s tidiest performances to date. After spending much of 2013’s Vanishing Point fully inhabiting the role of aging cranks waging war on the kidz, Digital Garbage sounds more relaxed in its dad-punk skin. With few exceptions (like the Bad Seeds-style ICE-age lament “Night and Fog”), the spirit here is loose and playful, more Back in the USA than Kick Out the Jams. Arm and guitarist Steve Turner’s usual toxic-sludge fuzz is molded into more refined riffs and arrangements; look past the shotgunned guitar blasts and anti-religion rants of “21st Century Pharisees” and you’ll find a surprisingly soothing synth line holding it all together. Still, even when compared to Mudhoney’s typical anti-pop, Digital Garbage makes few concessions to melodic accessibility, with Arm’s verbal splatter often forsaking such formalities as verse/chorus structure or rhyme schemes in favor of bluntly unsubtle diatribes. The album hits its manic peak with “Prosperity Gospel,” a rapid-fire inventory of late capitalism’s most odious traits (“Price-gouge medicine!/Let them eat death!/Get rich!/You win!”) that ends with a juvenile yet totally cathartic “fuck off!” But the track finds an unlikely sequel in “Messiah’s Lament,” wherein Arm gets to play the role of Jesus Christ, frowning upon the money-grubbing conservatives who like to thump the bible but seemingly pay no mind to the charity preached within. “Look at what they’re doing in my name,” Arm moans, as the song floats off in an acoustic psychedelic sway. It’s an uncharacteristically wistful turn, both in the context of this otherwise enraged album and Mudhoney’s entire muckraking career. But, thirty years after sardonically begging Jesus to take him to a higher place, the least Arm can do is sincerely return the favour.

Artist: Mudhoney, Album: Digital Garbage, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "There are several readily available metrics that can help determine just how doomed our world truly is: increasing temperatures, rising ocean levels, species extinction rates, and so forth. But there is a less visible, arguably more accurate measure of gauging whether we’re flat out fucked: those moments when Mudhoney get political. While they’re never lacking in agitation and spite, the Seattle scuzz-punk pioneers tend to direct their ire at more, fish-in-a-barrel targets: posers, douchebags, themselves. But you know things in the world are really getting bad whenever Mudhoney remove tongue from cheek to deliver a grave diagnosis of a festering societal condition, be it the rise of evangelical extremism or neocon war pigs. And, in the never-ending shit show that is 2018, that latent impulse has been rudely re-awakened: Mudhoney’s latest album, Digital Garbage, feels less like a collection of songs than a news-saturated social-media feed filled with all the profane polemics of a 2 a.m. drunk-Tweet. Earlier, this year, Mudhoney celebrated its 30th-anniversary by releasing LiE, a career-spanning live compilation that reified the timeless quality of their snot-nosed noise. Digital Garbage, on the other hand, is an album with no greater desire than to be dated as soon as possible—because that would at least be an encouraging sign that we’ve emerged from the world of shit in which this record is steeped. As the title suggests, Digital Garbage is Mudhoney’s comment on life in the internet age, though it’s most concerned with the insidious offline side effects of unfettered information dissemination. By Mudhoney standards, Digital Garbage’s relentless topicality practically makes it their first true concept album. Mudhoney are hardly the only band fretting about the fate of humanity these days, but they are the only band with Mark Arm, whose sneering presence ensures that even the most woke proclamations will be in gloriously bad taste. Take the garage-rocker “Paranoid Core,” whose breathless stream of dog-whistled outrage—“Robots and aliens stealing jobs, they’re bringing drugs, they’ll rape your mom!/Beware the city’s dazzling lights where dykes are waiting to steal your wife!”—renders it a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” directed at InfoWars wackos. And as “Please Mr. Gunman” illustrates, dark days inevitably yield the blackest of humour, with Arm requesting that the titular shooter at least have the decency to mow him down “in church.” That may seem like an especially twisted way to commemorate the victims of Charleston; for Mudhoney, it’s a suitably absurd response to an absurd nation where even the most sacred public spaces aren’t safe from assault-rifle rampages. But even Arm’s most acidic lyrics are tempered by some of the band’s tidiest performances to date. After spending much of 2013’s Vanishing Point fully inhabiting the role of aging cranks waging war on the kidz, Digital Garbage sounds more relaxed in its dad-punk skin. With few exceptions (like the Bad Seeds-style ICE-age lament “Night and Fog”), the spirit here is loose and playful, more Back in the USA than Kick Out the Jams. Arm and guitarist Steve Turner’s usual toxic-sludge fuzz is molded into more refined riffs and arrangements; look past the shotgunned guitar blasts and anti-religion rants of “21st Century Pharisees” and you’ll find a surprisingly soothing synth line holding it all together. Still, even when compared to Mudhoney’s typical anti-pop, Digital Garbage makes few concessions to melodic accessibility, with Arm’s verbal splatter often forsaking such formalities as verse/chorus structure or rhyme schemes in favor of bluntly unsubtle diatribes. The album hits its manic peak with “Prosperity Gospel,” a rapid-fire inventory of late capitalism’s most odious traits (“Price-gouge medicine!/Let them eat death!/Get rich!/You win!”) that ends with a juvenile yet totally cathartic “fuck off!” But the track finds an unlikely sequel in “Messiah’s Lament,” wherein Arm gets to play the role of Jesus Christ, frowning upon the money-grubbing conservatives who like to thump the bible but seemingly pay no mind to the charity preached within. “Look at what they’re doing in my name,” Arm moans, as the song floats off in an acoustic psychedelic sway. It’s an uncharacteristically wistful turn, both in the context of this otherwise enraged album and Mudhoney’s entire muckraking career. But, thirty years after sardonically begging Jesus to take him to a higher place, the least Arm can do is sincerely return the favour."

Parquet Courts

Live at Third Man Records

Rock

Stuart Berman

Indie rock’s post-millennial promotion from subcultural soundtrack to mainstream muzak has often been framed as a happy byproduct of an industry in turmoil, with the kingmaking powers once wielded by major labels, MTV, and commercial radio ceded to online file-sharing, iPod commercials, and Natalie Portman namedrops. But there’s another big reason why veteran alt-rock acts who were playing clubs 20 years ago—the Flaming Lips, Wilco, Modest Mouse—now find themselves headlining festivals: jam-band fans. Relentlessly loyal to artists and financially secure enough to follow them across the country, jam-band heads are the unsung benefactors helping to keep the enterprise afloat. And if ever there was a band that should capitalize on this crossover, it’s Parquet Courts. Like their patron saint Stephen Malkmus—who could see the proverbial weed cloud looming on the horizon when he titled a song on the last Pavement album "Folk Jam"—Parquet Courts’ sarcastic verbosity can’t fully conceal their latent desire to lock into a groove, zone out, and coast on that perfect sound forever. And in terms of appealing to jam-band enthusiasts—well, what demographic can better relate to a song like "Stoned and Starving"? Alas, that standout from Parquet Courts’ 2012 breakthrough Light Up Gold is nowhere to be found on the band’s new live album. But in lieu of such readymade 420 clarion calls, Parquet Courts assert their jam-band bona fides the old fashioned way: by stretching four-minute songs into 10-minute songs. Cut last June at Third Man’s intimate Blue Room venue-cum-recording studio, Live at Third Man Records is essentially Parquet Court’s 2014 Sunbathing Animal (of its 11 tracks, this release features 10 songs from that record) if it were left to scorch in the desert a little longer. Listening to this album, I’m reminded of an old legend about the Pixies playing select concerts backwards—i.e., opening the concert with the encore, leaving the stage, and then returning to play their proper set in reverse order. Because in this context, the blitzkrieged banter of "Duckin & Dodgin" sounds less like an introduction than the sort of delirious high point a band hits two hours into a marathon set, when they’re running on nothing but adrenaline. Following that, it’s actually something of a miracle that singer/guitarist Andrew Savage has anything left for the rest of the show, but his increasingly hoarse hectoring actually serves to streamline Sunbathing Animal’s grab-bag selections, investing the proto-punk shimmy of "Black & White" and the Minutemen-esque oddity "Vienna II" with the same brutish urgency. So when the alternately comforting and needling riff to "Instant Disassembly" emerges at the halfway point, it not only presents the band with a deserved opportunity to exhale, but also nudges Savage and Austin Brown toward a twin-guitar fadeout that effectively transforms the song from Parquet Courts’ "Here" into its "Free Bird". But Parquet Courts take their greatest liberties with the roughshod rumble of "Raw Milk", which gets distended to more than twice its original length through an extended feedback meltdown that proves to be an unexpectedly affecting setup for Sunbathing Animal’s closing ballad "Into the Garden". Parquet Courts may not be playing Bonnaroo this year, though in many respects, they're already there. However, the closing charge through Sunbathing Animal’s hardcore-hammered title track serves as a warning that you hacky-sack to these guys at your own risk.

Artist: Parquet Courts, Album: Live at Third Man Records, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Indie rock’s post-millennial promotion from subcultural soundtrack to mainstream muzak has often been framed as a happy byproduct of an industry in turmoil, with the kingmaking powers once wielded by major labels, MTV, and commercial radio ceded to online file-sharing, iPod commercials, and Natalie Portman namedrops. But there’s another big reason why veteran alt-rock acts who were playing clubs 20 years ago—the Flaming Lips, Wilco, Modest Mouse—now find themselves headlining festivals: jam-band fans. Relentlessly loyal to artists and financially secure enough to follow them across the country, jam-band heads are the unsung benefactors helping to keep the enterprise afloat. And if ever there was a band that should capitalize on this crossover, it’s Parquet Courts. Like their patron saint Stephen Malkmus—who could see the proverbial weed cloud looming on the horizon when he titled a song on the last Pavement album "Folk Jam"—Parquet Courts’ sarcastic verbosity can’t fully conceal their latent desire to lock into a groove, zone out, and coast on that perfect sound forever. And in terms of appealing to jam-band enthusiasts—well, what demographic can better relate to a song like "Stoned and Starving"? Alas, that standout from Parquet Courts’ 2012 breakthrough Light Up Gold is nowhere to be found on the band’s new live album. But in lieu of such readymade 420 clarion calls, Parquet Courts assert their jam-band bona fides the old fashioned way: by stretching four-minute songs into 10-minute songs. Cut last June at Third Man’s intimate Blue Room venue-cum-recording studio, Live at Third Man Records is essentially Parquet Court’s 2014 Sunbathing Animal (of its 11 tracks, this release features 10 songs from that record) if it were left to scorch in the desert a little longer. Listening to this album, I’m reminded of an old legend about the Pixies playing select concerts backwards—i.e., opening the concert with the encore, leaving the stage, and then returning to play their proper set in reverse order. Because in this context, the blitzkrieged banter of "Duckin & Dodgin" sounds less like an introduction than the sort of delirious high point a band hits two hours into a marathon set, when they’re running on nothing but adrenaline. Following that, it’s actually something of a miracle that singer/guitarist Andrew Savage has anything left for the rest of the show, but his increasingly hoarse hectoring actually serves to streamline Sunbathing Animal’s grab-bag selections, investing the proto-punk shimmy of "Black & White" and the Minutemen-esque oddity "Vienna II" with the same brutish urgency. So when the alternately comforting and needling riff to "Instant Disassembly" emerges at the halfway point, it not only presents the band with a deserved opportunity to exhale, but also nudges Savage and Austin Brown toward a twin-guitar fadeout that effectively transforms the song from Parquet Courts’ "Here" into its "Free Bird". But Parquet Courts take their greatest liberties with the roughshod rumble of "Raw Milk", which gets distended to more than twice its original length through an extended feedback meltdown that proves to be an unexpectedly affecting setup for Sunbathing Animal’s closing ballad "Into the Garden". Parquet Courts may not be playing Bonnaroo this year, though in many respects, they're already there. However, the closing charge through Sunbathing Animal’s hardcore-hammered title track serves as a warning that you hacky-sack to these guys at your own risk."

Sleeping States

There the Open Spaces

Rock

Amanda Petrusich

The past decade has seen a slew of younger musicians re-appropriate and re-imagine folk paradigms, crafting tracks for people less interested in earnest emoting than the (endless) possibilities of cross-genre pollination. The brainchild of London's spectacularly named Markland Starkie, Sleeping States' debut LP is packed with gentle, lapping compositions (most comprised of electric guitar and sugary vocals, exclusively) that tend to come off nauseatingly bucolic on paper. But Starkie's lilting electric folksongs are just as indebted to Metal Machine Music as they are the Carter Family, and There the Open Spaces is peppered with just enough sour notes, off-tuned guitars, and atonal skronks to keep listeners fully agitated and engaged. Plenty have speculated that There the Open Spaces is very much a record about shacking up in London, and, accordingly, focuses on the claustrophobia, disassociation, and loneliness inherent to urban living. It seems plausible: Musically, Starkie favors spare, ghostly sounds, and his electric guitar work feels sticky, soft, and unsettling, like stepping face-first into a spider web. Lyrically, Starkie doesn't make definitive claims either way, but the record's cool, slightly unhinged atmospherics will make perfect, eerie sense to anyone who's ever felt trapped by skyscrapers, concrete, and hoards of human beings. Opener "Rain Check"-- a fey, a capella ditty with doubled (and tripled and quadrupled) vocals and limited lyrics ("When I'm getting ready/ In spite of the rain/ You sometimes ring me up and say/ Another time")-- is pleasant enough, but ultimately feels like a bit of a false start. "Rivers", first released as a Tome 7" in 2006, is a far more suitable introduction to Sleeping States' particular sound, with its flurry of nonsensical blipping and rolling guitar. "I Wonder", which Caspian released as a 7" earlier this summer, is one of the record's most addictive (and straightforward) cuts, a spinning mess of guitar and smooth vocals. The record finishes with "Life vs. Love", a grim, droning lament accented by the slightest hint of found sound. From the confessional poets through Joan Baez, the notion of the singer-songwriter as a self-indulgent whiner has endured, and plenty-- like Starkie-- are making huge strides to reinvent the idea of the bedroom poet with a guitar: There the Open Spaces is an impressive start.

Artist: Sleeping States, Album: There the Open Spaces, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.9 Album review: "The past decade has seen a slew of younger musicians re-appropriate and re-imagine folk paradigms, crafting tracks for people less interested in earnest emoting than the (endless) possibilities of cross-genre pollination. The brainchild of London's spectacularly named Markland Starkie, Sleeping States' debut LP is packed with gentle, lapping compositions (most comprised of electric guitar and sugary vocals, exclusively) that tend to come off nauseatingly bucolic on paper. But Starkie's lilting electric folksongs are just as indebted to Metal Machine Music as they are the Carter Family, and There the Open Spaces is peppered with just enough sour notes, off-tuned guitars, and atonal skronks to keep listeners fully agitated and engaged. Plenty have speculated that There the Open Spaces is very much a record about shacking up in London, and, accordingly, focuses on the claustrophobia, disassociation, and loneliness inherent to urban living. It seems plausible: Musically, Starkie favors spare, ghostly sounds, and his electric guitar work feels sticky, soft, and unsettling, like stepping face-first into a spider web. Lyrically, Starkie doesn't make definitive claims either way, but the record's cool, slightly unhinged atmospherics will make perfect, eerie sense to anyone who's ever felt trapped by skyscrapers, concrete, and hoards of human beings. Opener "Rain Check"-- a fey, a capella ditty with doubled (and tripled and quadrupled) vocals and limited lyrics ("When I'm getting ready/ In spite of the rain/ You sometimes ring me up and say/ Another time")-- is pleasant enough, but ultimately feels like a bit of a false start. "Rivers", first released as a Tome 7" in 2006, is a far more suitable introduction to Sleeping States' particular sound, with its flurry of nonsensical blipping and rolling guitar. "I Wonder", which Caspian released as a 7" earlier this summer, is one of the record's most addictive (and straightforward) cuts, a spinning mess of guitar and smooth vocals. The record finishes with "Life vs. Love", a grim, droning lament accented by the slightest hint of found sound. From the confessional poets through Joan Baez, the notion of the singer-songwriter as a self-indulgent whiner has endured, and plenty-- like Starkie-- are making huge strides to reinvent the idea of the bedroom poet with a guitar: There the Open Spaces is an impressive start."

Robert Glasper Trio

Covered

Jazz

Marcus J. Moore

For years, Robert Glasper has been hip-hop's go-to jazzman. Along with saxophonists Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin, and bassist Thundercat, Glasper was featured prominently on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, which gives the pianist greater name recognition with hip-hop fans. On songs with rapper Black Milk and multi-instrumentalist Taylor McFerrin, Glasper played the background, yet you could easily distinguish him from the other sonic elements. As frontman of the Robert Glasper Experiment—his eclectic side band—Glasper takes on an aggressive, rock-infused edge, and his Black Radio albums for Blue Note won Grammy awards. He, bassist Derrick Hodge, drummer Mark Colenburg, and vocalist Casey Benjamin put compelling spins on the likes of J Dilla, Nirvana, and Radiohead (the Experiment's 13-minute rendition of "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" is essential listening, for sure.) However, if you're looking for the Experiment's raw electric outbursts, you won't find them on Covered. For this release, Glasper reverts to the jazz trio with which he recorded his first two Blue Note albums—2005's Canvas and 2007's In My Element. With bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Damion Reid, Glasper recreates instrumentals from Black Radio and Black Radio 2, remixing tracks from occasional collaborators Musiq Soulchild ("So Beautiful") and Bilal ("Levels"). Much like his work with the Experiment, Glasper tackles all genres, though on Covered, the results are more straightforward than anything with his other band. The B**lack Radio albums were decidedly soulful, even if they drifted occasionally across genre lines. For Covered, "I wanted to do a nice happy medium, and do songs that I like, basically from my iPod," Glasper says on the LP's introduction. Recorded live before an audience at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, Covered is driven entirely by piano, percussion, and bass. It's a no-frills record that recedes into the background without much fuss, which works for and against the album's overall impact. While Covered is technically jazz, the trio drifts into R&B while keeping a deliberate pace. This is light fare and, at times, it's easy to forget Covered is playing, which feels strange for a Glasper project. Aside from the playful "In Case You Forgot", in which Glasper interpolates a moment of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" before letting it crash into a heap to audience chuckles, there isn't a lot of energy here. Some of these arrangements are hampered by the overly meditative vibe, and the album feels tedious in certain spots. The trio covers Radiohead's "Reckoner" and John Legend's "Good Morning", but the versions feel flat without the original vocals and hew too closely to the studio recordings. In a way, Covered suffers because of the music that came before it: On both Black Radio editions, Glasper blended the roots of jazz with a sultry R&B ethos, effectively speaking to the Blue Note audience while reaching out to other demographics. Covered is a decent recording, but unless you attended its live taping and saw the band's interplay in person, it's tough to get invigorated by this. Perhaps that's the point: Covered seems driven by the need for calm amidst societal chaos. The final song of Glasper's Black Radio 2 was a remake of Stevie Wonder's "Jesus Children of America", dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. Glasper makes similar reflections with Covered—on "Got Over", a brief interlude in which actor/activist Harry Belafonte ponders his journey as a black man in the United States, and on the album's final track, a remix of Kendrick Lamar's "I'm Dying of Thirst", which doubles as an extended roll call of minorities killed by police. It's a sobering end to a reflective record, and a conclusion that properly advocates for the importance of black life. As current events spiral out of control, even Glasper had to slow down for a moment.

Artist: Robert Glasper Trio, Album: Covered, Genre: Jazz, Score (1-10): 6.7 Album review: "For years, Robert Glasper has been hip-hop's go-to jazzman. Along with saxophonists Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin, and bassist Thundercat, Glasper was featured prominently on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, which gives the pianist greater name recognition with hip-hop fans. On songs with rapper Black Milk and multi-instrumentalist Taylor McFerrin, Glasper played the background, yet you could easily distinguish him from the other sonic elements. As frontman of the Robert Glasper Experiment—his eclectic side band—Glasper takes on an aggressive, rock-infused edge, and his Black Radio albums for Blue Note won Grammy awards. He, bassist Derrick Hodge, drummer Mark Colenburg, and vocalist Casey Benjamin put compelling spins on the likes of J Dilla, Nirvana, and Radiohead (the Experiment's 13-minute rendition of "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" is essential listening, for sure.) However, if you're looking for the Experiment's raw electric outbursts, you won't find them on Covered. For this release, Glasper reverts to the jazz trio with which he recorded his first two Blue Note albums—2005's Canvas and 2007's In My Element. With bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Damion Reid, Glasper recreates instrumentals from Black Radio and Black Radio 2, remixing tracks from occasional collaborators Musiq Soulchild ("So Beautiful") and Bilal ("Levels"). Much like his work with the Experiment, Glasper tackles all genres, though on Covered, the results are more straightforward than anything with his other band. The B**lack Radio albums were decidedly soulful, even if they drifted occasionally across genre lines. For Covered, "I wanted to do a nice happy medium, and do songs that I like, basically from my iPod," Glasper says on the LP's introduction. Recorded live before an audience at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, Covered is driven entirely by piano, percussion, and bass. It's a no-frills record that recedes into the background without much fuss, which works for and against the album's overall impact. While Covered is technically jazz, the trio drifts into R&B while keeping a deliberate pace. This is light fare and, at times, it's easy to forget Covered is playing, which feels strange for a Glasper project. Aside from the playful "In Case You Forgot", in which Glasper interpolates a moment of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" before letting it crash into a heap to audience chuckles, there isn't a lot of energy here. Some of these arrangements are hampered by the overly meditative vibe, and the album feels tedious in certain spots. The trio covers Radiohead's "Reckoner" and John Legend's "Good Morning", but the versions feel flat without the original vocals and hew too closely to the studio recordings. In a way, Covered suffers because of the music that came before it: On both Black Radio editions, Glasper blended the roots of jazz with a sultry R&B ethos, effectively speaking to the Blue Note audience while reaching out to other demographics. Covered is a decent recording, but unless you attended its live taping and saw the band's interplay in person, it's tough to get invigorated by this. Perhaps that's the point: Covered seems driven by the need for calm amidst societal chaos. The final song of Glasper's Black Radio 2 was a remake of Stevie Wonder's "Jesus Children of America", dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. Glasper makes similar reflections with Covered—on "Got Over", a brief interlude in which actor/activist Harry Belafonte ponders his journey as a black man in the United States, and on the album's final track, a remix of Kendrick Lamar's "I'm Dying of Thirst", which doubles as an extended roll call of minorities killed by police. It's a sobering end to a reflective record, and a conclusion that properly advocates for the importance of black life. As current events spiral out of control, even Glasper had to slow down for a moment."

Daniel Menche

Marriage of Metals

Electronic,Experimental,Rock

Grayson Currin

Daniel Menche does not create albums in as much as he creates atmospheres. For the last two decades, the Portland, OR, musician has built dozens of massive, teeming spans of sound, deliberately sculpting a cacophony of static, hum, and rhythm into objects of inescapable gravity. In the past, his best work-- 2002’s subwoofer rattling Face of Vehemence, for instance, or 2006’s seasick induction Creatures of Cadence-- has tended to be impenetrable from both sides: That is, his strident layers of noise and concussion make hard, instant demands of the listener’s durability. Once you’re in, however, Menche’s work tends to keep you there, waiting for the next subtle shifts within his generally overwhelming musical framework. Menche is a wizard of tone and a master of pacing, toggling expertly between tedium and restlessness, a linked pair that’s something of a holy grail in such long-tone experimental fare. Another key aspect of Menche’s output is its prolific pace. Indeed, keeping track of his catalogue has often felt like a task best suited for librarians or, better yet, hoarders. To wit, his Bandcamp page offers 49 separate volumes, and that’s only a partial discography. Menche has been working at that frantic pace for the majority of his career, too, issuing several albums, collaborations and contributions with each new calendar. Between 2005 and 2009, he seemed unstoppable, releasing a feverish amount of material that felt ever significant and never tossed-off. During that period, I collected everything he released. Recently, though, Menche’s aesthetic had started to feel a bit tired, at least to me. I’m still not sure if the problem was with Menche or me-- perhaps I’d heard too much too quickly and grown too obsessive, or perhaps he’d actually stalled out. After all, he’d gone deep with visceral bass and high with wrenching noise, fast with industrial wash cycles of percussion and slow with drones that blossomed like orchids. What was left? Last year’s aggressive Guts was good, sure, but it also felt like stylistic mannerism, an irascible body blow from a guy trying to fight his way outside of the cloister of his own construction. But already in 2013, Menche has released two remarkable records that not only stand alone as magnificent marathon trips but stand apart within his own canon, too. Previously, Menche’s oeuvre might only be described as beautiful from the inside looking in; spend enough time learning his vocabulary and becoming accustomed to the customary din, and the harshness begins to glow. But Marriage of Metals, his first for Editions Mego since Guts, is his most identifiably pretty music to date and one of the best albums of his career. For recording, Menche entered the studio of the Venerable Showers of Beauty, a Gamelan ensemble that “foster artistic exchanges between Java and the Portland community.” He captured the range of available gongs and metallophones and then routed the recordings through his electronics, shaping the sounds into two tracks. Pieces of liminal wonder, the dual protracted pieces test the boundaries between attack and decay, between consonance and dissonance, between motion and stillness, between disasters and dreams. Tiny melodies bubble from beneath cloaks of distortion and disappear, leaving you to wonder if they were ever there at all. Rhythms pepper the space like fireflies in the dark. Everything about these pieces is intentional, but Menche somehow makes it all feel incidental and instinctive, as if you’ve simply stumbled into the sound of another world-- part Gamelan and part electronic, sure, but mostly alien. Menche’s music has long tended to pull listeners away from reality, suspending time and expectations for vast stretches. Marriage of Metals, however, creates its own reality. Vilké dovetails more with Menche’s past. On a series of four 19 or 20 minute tracks, he uses tumbles of warped digital percussion and swelling-and-subsiding drones to create harrowing environments where something sinister always seems to lurk just ahead. These are gauntlets of abrasion and anxiety. Taking its name from the Lithuanian vocative noun for female wolf, Menche hints at wildlife mimesis within these 80 minutes, the drums occasionally galloping like lupine paws and the distended tones howling like the wind or the animal itself. Still, Vilké feels soft around the edges, as though the animalistic wrath of similarly structured Menche records has now been augmented by a more balanced and honest view of the world around him. Vilké tempers Menche’s usual approach without dulling it. Perhaps the joys of dog ownership have finally started to moderate Menche’s work, or perhaps he’s finally learning how to let more people in the front door of his atmospheres, even as he’s smartly sealing the exits.

Artist: Daniel Menche, Album: Marriage of Metals, Genre: Electronic,Experimental,Rock, Score (1-10): 8.3 Album review: "Daniel Menche does not create albums in as much as he creates atmospheres. For the last two decades, the Portland, OR, musician has built dozens of massive, teeming spans of sound, deliberately sculpting a cacophony of static, hum, and rhythm into objects of inescapable gravity. In the past, his best work-- 2002’s subwoofer rattling Face of Vehemence, for instance, or 2006’s seasick induction Creatures of Cadence-- has tended to be impenetrable from both sides: That is, his strident layers of noise and concussion make hard, instant demands of the listener’s durability. Once you’re in, however, Menche’s work tends to keep you there, waiting for the next subtle shifts within his generally overwhelming musical framework. Menche is a wizard of tone and a master of pacing, toggling expertly between tedium and restlessness, a linked pair that’s something of a holy grail in such long-tone experimental fare. Another key aspect of Menche’s output is its prolific pace. Indeed, keeping track of his catalogue has often felt like a task best suited for librarians or, better yet, hoarders. To wit, his Bandcamp page offers 49 separate volumes, and that’s only a partial discography. Menche has been working at that frantic pace for the majority of his career, too, issuing several albums, collaborations and contributions with each new calendar. Between 2005 and 2009, he seemed unstoppable, releasing a feverish amount of material that felt ever significant and never tossed-off. During that period, I collected everything he released. Recently, though, Menche’s aesthetic had started to feel a bit tired, at least to me. I’m still not sure if the problem was with Menche or me-- perhaps I’d heard too much too quickly and grown too obsessive, or perhaps he’d actually stalled out. After all, he’d gone deep with visceral bass and high with wrenching noise, fast with industrial wash cycles of percussion and slow with drones that blossomed like orchids. What was left? Last year’s aggressive Guts was good, sure, but it also felt like stylistic mannerism, an irascible body blow from a guy trying to fight his way outside of the cloister of his own construction. But already in 2013, Menche has released two remarkable records that not only stand alone as magnificent marathon trips but stand apart within his own canon, too. Previously, Menche’s oeuvre might only be described as beautiful from the inside looking in; spend enough time learning his vocabulary and becoming accustomed to the customary din, and the harshness begins to glow. But Marriage of Metals, his first for Editions Mego since Guts, is his most identifiably pretty music to date and one of the best albums of his career. For recording, Menche entered the studio of the Venerable Showers of Beauty, a Gamelan ensemble that “foster artistic exchanges between Java and the Portland community.” He captured the range of available gongs and metallophones and then routed the recordings through his electronics, shaping the sounds into two tracks. Pieces of liminal wonder, the dual protracted pieces test the boundaries between attack and decay, between consonance and dissonance, between motion and stillness, between disasters and dreams. Tiny melodies bubble from beneath cloaks of distortion and disappear, leaving you to wonder if they were ever there at all. Rhythms pepper the space like fireflies in the dark. Everything about these pieces is intentional, but Menche somehow makes it all feel incidental and instinctive, as if you’ve simply stumbled into the sound of another world-- part Gamelan and part electronic, sure, but mostly alien. Menche’s music has long tended to pull listeners away from reality, suspending time and expectations for vast stretches. Marriage of Metals, however, creates its own reality. Vilké dovetails more with Menche’s past. On a series of four 19 or 20 minute tracks, he uses tumbles of warped digital percussion and swelling-and-subsiding drones to create harrowing environments where something sinister always seems to lurk just ahead. These are gauntlets of abrasion and anxiety. Taking its name from the Lithuanian vocative noun for female wolf, Menche hints at wildlife mimesis within these 80 minutes, the drums occasionally galloping like lupine paws and the distended tones howling like the wind or the animal itself. Still, Vilké feels soft around the edges, as though the animalistic wrath of similarly structured Menche records has now been augmented by a more balanced and honest view of the world around him. Vilké tempers Menche’s usual approach without dulling it. Perhaps the joys of dog ownership have finally started to moderate Menche’s work, or perhaps he’s finally learning how to let more people in the front door of his atmospheres, even as he’s smartly sealing the exits."

Paul de Jong

You Fucken Sucker

Experimental

Daniel Martin-McCormick

As one half of the the Books, Paul de Jong was responsible for some of the early aughts’ coziest, stoniest reveries. On albums like Thought for Food and The Lemon of Pink, the folktronica duo attracted a cult following with warm audio collages that stitched together left-field hip-hop, melancholic minimalism, spoken word, and emo’s self-seriousness into an expansive mishmash. Their sound was tailor-made for college students: a wide-eyed, world un-weary affirmation of every late-night dorm debate and weedy epiphany. It expressed a nostalgia for the present moment, a sense of trembling fragility and poignancy that can seem indelibly real yet rarely lasts once one joins the workforce. On his new solo record, You Fucken Sucker, de Jong returns to this familiar terrain of proggy flourishes, fingerpicked guitar, and unhurried jam sessions woven into intricate electronic mosaics and drifting mood pieces. This should be manna from heaven for Books devotees. But the album suffers from a solipsistic haziness, struggling to maintain that youthful magic. If his duo soundtracked a time of heady self-discovery, Sucker is trapped, years later, in the dull roar of a hangover. Starting with its title, Sucker fixates on futility, immobility and the grinding frustrations of making it through the day. The album is framed as navigating “personal tragedy and emotional fatigue,” but it does little to transmute that pain into something meaningful for the audience. Instead, it freely dumps diaristic scribblings and nihilistic asides and asks the listener to sift for meaning. Take opener “Embowelment,” which rolls out with energized percussion and impressively swerving melodic interplay. Less than 90 seconds in, it unleashes an unearned primal-scream session. Unceremoniously plopped into the mix and delivered with a minimum of skill or precision, it neatly illustrates one of the album’s central rubs. For every nuanced compositional zig, there’s a sloppy, half-baked zag waiting around the bend. Action and inaction are recurring themes. “Doings” critiques self-help slogans—“Keep in mind that whatever you’re doing, it’s part of your doing”—then gradually sinks into hopelessness: “When you’re dead, you’re done.” It segues right into “Dimples,” which continues the same theme: “I don’t enjoy what I’m doing/It has all been done before.” Even the winding melody is intoned in monosyllabic tones of do-do-do. On “Doomed,” we get “I can’t do anything” before an overeager chorus of “Fuck you up your ass” and clipped dog barks. This kind of despondency can be fertile artistic ground, but de Jong doesn’t, well, do that much with it, preferring to wallow in the mire. From time to time he’ll jump into action and bring in some movement with high-speed scalar runs or a deft turnaround, but these accents and asides feel like the spasms of energy that punctuate an otherwise crushing depression. The two tracks that most overtly succumb to those blank, closed-circuit comforts of despondence are respectively the strongest and weakest on the album. “Pipe Dream” offers four and a half minutes of low-key synthesizer bells that drift without melody, momentum, or apparent development; it’s the only time where de Jong lays back and lets the music do the talking. As unambitious as a day spent hiding in bed, it nonetheless engages in a way nothing else on Sucker does. But at the close of the LP, “Breaking Up” attempts a cringeworthy confrontation. A woman screams snippets of dialogue atop some inconsequential noodling. “There’s a girl in a bed,” and “You’re disgusting” give way to “Mad, mad, mad, mad… sad or glad” and “Good better best.” Hardly harrowing, these feel less like catharsis than a drunken tantrum from next door, or a sub-par student theater group. Suddenly we’re back in college, but de Jong is no longer the super-smart, shroomy Derrida fan across the hall. Looking at the title again, one wonders who he thinks the “sucker” is? Is it de Jong, the victim of some unnamed and devastating deception, or is it others who are able to see hope where he sees only despair? Either way, having brought us into the heart of his darkness, we’re left with precious little to guide us back into the light.

Artist: Paul de Jong, Album: You Fucken Sucker, Genre: Experimental, Score (1-10): 5.5 Album review: "As one half of the the Books, Paul de Jong was responsible for some of the early aughts’ coziest, stoniest reveries. On albums like Thought for Food and The Lemon of Pink, the folktronica duo attracted a cult following with warm audio collages that stitched together left-field hip-hop, melancholic minimalism, spoken word, and emo’s self-seriousness into an expansive mishmash. Their sound was tailor-made for college students: a wide-eyed, world un-weary affirmation of every late-night dorm debate and weedy epiphany. It expressed a nostalgia for the present moment, a sense of trembling fragility and poignancy that can seem indelibly real yet rarely lasts once one joins the workforce. On his new solo record, You Fucken Sucker, de Jong returns to this familiar terrain of proggy flourishes, fingerpicked guitar, and unhurried jam sessions woven into intricate electronic mosaics and drifting mood pieces. This should be manna from heaven for Books devotees. But the album suffers from a solipsistic haziness, struggling to maintain that youthful magic. If his duo soundtracked a time of heady self-discovery, Sucker is trapped, years later, in the dull roar of a hangover. Starting with its title, Sucker fixates on futility, immobility and the grinding frustrations of making it through the day. The album is framed as navigating “personal tragedy and emotional fatigue,” but it does little to transmute that pain into something meaningful for the audience. Instead, it freely dumps diaristic scribblings and nihilistic asides and asks the listener to sift for meaning. Take opener “Embowelment,” which rolls out with energized percussion and impressively swerving melodic interplay. Less than 90 seconds in, it unleashes an unearned primal-scream session. Unceremoniously plopped into the mix and delivered with a minimum of skill or precision, it neatly illustrates one of the album’s central rubs. For every nuanced compositional zig, there’s a sloppy, half-baked zag waiting around the bend. Action and inaction are recurring themes. “Doings” critiques self-help slogans—“Keep in mind that whatever you’re doing, it’s part of your doing”—then gradually sinks into hopelessness: “When you’re dead, you’re done.” It segues right into “Dimples,” which continues the same theme: “I don’t enjoy what I’m doing/It has all been done before.” Even the winding melody is intoned in monosyllabic tones of do-do-do. On “Doomed,” we get “I can’t do anything” before an overeager chorus of “Fuck you up your ass” and clipped dog barks. This kind of despondency can be fertile artistic ground, but de Jong doesn’t, well, do that much with it, preferring to wallow in the mire. From time to time he’ll jump into action and bring in some movement with high-speed scalar runs or a deft turnaround, but these accents and asides feel like the spasms of energy that punctuate an otherwise crushing depression. The two tracks that most overtly succumb to those blank, closed-circuit comforts of despondence are respectively the strongest and weakest on the album. “Pipe Dream” offers four and a half minutes of low-key synthesizer bells that drift without melody, momentum, or apparent development; it’s the only time where de Jong lays back and lets the music do the talking. As unambitious as a day spent hiding in bed, it nonetheless engages in a way nothing else on Sucker does. But at the close of the LP, “Breaking Up” attempts a cringeworthy confrontation. A woman screams snippets of dialogue atop some inconsequential noodling. “There’s a girl in a bed,” and “You’re disgusting” give way to “Mad, mad, mad, mad… sad or glad” and “Good better best.” Hardly harrowing, these feel less like catharsis than a drunken tantrum from next door, or a sub-par student theater group. Suddenly we’re back in college, but de Jong is no longer the super-smart, shroomy Derrida fan across the hall. Looking at the title again, one wonders who he thinks the “sucker” is? Is it de Jong, the victim of some unnamed and devastating deception, or is it others who are able to see hope where he sees only despair? Either way, having brought us into the heart of his darkness, we’re left with precious little to guide us back into the light."

Barcelona

Simon Basic

Electronic,Rock

Zach Hooker

Part of what made new wave so appealing-- at least, to those of us who were middle schoolers at the time-- was its earnestness. Of course, this is exactly the quality that makes most of it all but unlistenable 15 years later. So many of those bands were just so fucking serious about what they were doing, about their music and themselves. They didn't let up for a second. They just pouted away on 12" sleeves, t-shirts and huge concert video displays, evidently secure in the knowledge that their featherweight finger- and- thumb keyboard melodies were the nodal point around which the future evolution of the human species rotated. With all that's happened since, though, even the most die-hard Depeche Mode fans must wince when confronted with the bleeping of Speak and Spell or the lyrics to, say, "People are People." Go ahead and try it: identify the most hardcore Mode fan you know, call 'em up, and read them those lyrics. Their first reaction will probably be nervous laughter, which will slowly trail off, and by the first time through the chorus you should be able to hear-- even over the phone-- their butt squirming in their chair. "Who is this?" they'll ask. "Why are you doing this to me?" Of course, there were bands that avoided the self- important New Wave posturing (though, not many). Erasure at least has camp value. The Pet Shop Boys seemed down- to- earth enough. New Order is almost unassailable, probably due to the fact that Bernard Sumner waited until the records were almost released before he tossed off their lyrics. It's the absence of this grandiosity that makes a lot of today's new New Wave bands-- like Orange Cake Mix, Godzuki, and Barcelona-- so good. Simply put, their lyrics aren't embarrassing. Okay, they're silly, sure-- maybe even tongue- in- cheek at times. But they're not Camouflage. Barcelona, in particular, takes fairly faithfully rendered synth- pop and adds lyrics about such things as IRC, computer camp, and Commodore 64's-- it's nerd-pop in the nicest possible way. It's fluffy, yeah, but it's consistently endearing. And the music, while never exactly innovative, managed to provide some enjoyment. The guitar is more prominent here than it usually is on new wave records, and the songs don't lean too heavily on their electronic bases. Some, like "Sunshine Delay" and the excellent "The Downside of Computer Camp," are downright rockin'. But Simon Basic's highlight lies in "I Know What You Think of Me," a track that sounds so much like Brotherhood- era New Order that it may as well be a cover. (To Barcelona's credit, the song skirts plagiarism and lands squarely in homage territory.) Simon Basic isn't gonna rock any boats. It's harmless. Moreover, the band's lyrics probably won't be appreciated outside of a certain demographic that consists primarily of those who are in college now (or recently graduated), have owned Ataris or Commodore-64s, or have ever donned a fake stick-on bindi. But this album has at least a few sunny afternoons with friends in it. If you have any friends.

Artist: Barcelona, Album: Simon Basic, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 6.6 Album review: "Part of what made new wave so appealing-- at least, to those of us who were middle schoolers at the time-- was its earnestness. Of course, this is exactly the quality that makes most of it all but unlistenable 15 years later. So many of those bands were just so fucking serious about what they were doing, about their music and themselves. They didn't let up for a second. They just pouted away on 12" sleeves, t-shirts and huge concert video displays, evidently secure in the knowledge that their featherweight finger- and- thumb keyboard melodies were the nodal point around which the future evolution of the human species rotated. With all that's happened since, though, even the most die-hard Depeche Mode fans must wince when confronted with the bleeping of Speak and Spell or the lyrics to, say, "People are People." Go ahead and try it: identify the most hardcore Mode fan you know, call 'em up, and read them those lyrics. Their first reaction will probably be nervous laughter, which will slowly trail off, and by the first time through the chorus you should be able to hear-- even over the phone-- their butt squirming in their chair. "Who is this?" they'll ask. "Why are you doing this to me?" Of course, there were bands that avoided the self- important New Wave posturing (though, not many). Erasure at least has camp value. The Pet Shop Boys seemed down- to- earth enough. New Order is almost unassailable, probably due to the fact that Bernard Sumner waited until the records were almost released before he tossed off their lyrics. It's the absence of this grandiosity that makes a lot of today's new New Wave bands-- like Orange Cake Mix, Godzuki, and Barcelona-- so good. Simply put, their lyrics aren't embarrassing. Okay, they're silly, sure-- maybe even tongue- in- cheek at times. But they're not Camouflage. Barcelona, in particular, takes fairly faithfully rendered synth- pop and adds lyrics about such things as IRC, computer camp, and Commodore 64's-- it's nerd-pop in the nicest possible way. It's fluffy, yeah, but it's consistently endearing. And the music, while never exactly innovative, managed to provide some enjoyment. The guitar is more prominent here than it usually is on new wave records, and the songs don't lean too heavily on their electronic bases. Some, like "Sunshine Delay" and the excellent "The Downside of Computer Camp," are downright rockin'. But Simon Basic's highlight lies in "I Know What You Think of Me," a track that sounds so much like Brotherhood- era New Order that it may as well be a cover. (To Barcelona's credit, the song skirts plagiarism and lands squarely in homage territory.) Simon Basic isn't gonna rock any boats. It's harmless. Moreover, the band's lyrics probably won't be appreciated outside of a certain demographic that consists primarily of those who are in college now (or recently graduated), have owned Ataris or Commodore-64s, or have ever donned a fake stick-on bindi. But this album has at least a few sunny afternoons with friends in it. If you have any friends."

French Toast

Ingleside Terrace

Metal

Grayson Currin

Quick, name the last Dischord band you heard hyped. Fugazi? The Evens, maybe? Never? In a music marketplace where, sadly, the chart position that may matter most is who's climbing the port side of elbo.ws' homepage the fastest, a label like Dischord-- purposefully small, resourceful, and geographically focused-- often skates just beneath the world-wide wheel of publicity. To wit, while everyone was busy forming a mid-autumn opinion on Annuals, White Whale, and Matt & Kim last year, Dischord was busy doing what it's done for 27 years: Putting out fine records by District of Columbia bands from a small office on Beecher Street. While you were streaming, the Evens, Soccer Team ("Traffic Patterns" kills), and-- most notably-- French Toast released largely unbuzzed, very good records. Indeed, elbo.ws reveals exactly one blog hosted one song from French Toast's excellent second album, Ingleside Terrace. In an even more damnable deed, Ingleside Terrace was released in October. This is finally our review. Ingleside Terrace is no groundbreaking album, but it does represent a long step forward in French Toast's short evolution. In a Cave, French Toast's debut as the duo of James Canty and Jerry Busher, was just fine, its ramshackle looseness worn best by Canty's imprecise guitar playing splayed out beneath his sociopolitical screeds and Busher's convoluted grooves building a base for his weary observations. Multi-instrumentalists both, Canty and Busher split drum, bass, guitar and lead vocal duties almost exactly in half. That in mind, In a Cave often felt wobbly and overly stylized. Ingleside Terrace, though, adds third member and songwriter Ben Gilligan, and that changes everything. His thick-tongued flair and proletarian logic ("I'd be better at kissing if my teeth were all straight") supply French Toast with equal parts Television thrum ("Take Me All the Way") and mid-'90s alt.rock jangle ("Settle In"). Gilligan's addition gives the rest of the band room to breathe, too. Ideas and songs seem fully realized: The pop pops and the sulk sulks, and, over 12 tracks, three strong, separate, ultimately connected voices emerge. Busher, for instance, supplies two of the record's best moments with tracks recorded in his bedroom using loops, E-bow, acoustic guitar, keyboards, and tape decks. Busher's "Treason" and the eerie, perfectly couched rant "Brejnev" are the least rock songs on this record, and they seem perfectly comfortable with that rank. Closing track "Fork in the Road"-- a full-band affair with Busher on guitar and James and Brendan Canty shaping a taut, automated rhythm-- even lets Busher imply a psychedelic oeuvre to French Toast, multiple guitars washing over one another and a stardust of staggered, dissonant keyboards. But French Toast are plenty grounded here: Even as a three-piece, they sound leaner and more focused, thanks in no small part to the production work of older brother, Fugazi drummer and Burn to Shine co-founder Brendan Canty. The kiss-off opener "The Letter" keeps the bros-in-a-basement rough edge intact, but its hinges swing better than anything from In a Cave, low-key three-part harmonies and a simple, driving rhythm invoking Leo at his most direct. It's a James Canty track that falls perfectly into "Protest Sign", a parallel Busher kiss-off that sounds like Mission of Burma throwing its hands in the air at political reform. Bad relationships and misguided political efforts eschewed by way of introduction, French Toast is free to coalesce as a three-piece for the entirety of Terrace, and that's exactly what they do. Ingleside Terrace boasts impeccable pacing, especially for a new lineup built on the backs of three divergent songwriters. Sure, they don't have a shtick and they don't have a PR machine at their back, but let this humble Dischord entry ($10 post-paid and available by mail order, as always) spin more than once, and you'll wish it was still October and you ran a blog.

Artist: French Toast, Album: Ingleside Terrace, Genre: Metal, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "Quick, name the last Dischord band you heard hyped. Fugazi? The Evens, maybe? Never? In a music marketplace where, sadly, the chart position that may matter most is who's climbing the port side of elbo.ws' homepage the fastest, a label like Dischord-- purposefully small, resourceful, and geographically focused-- often skates just beneath the world-wide wheel of publicity. To wit, while everyone was busy forming a mid-autumn opinion on Annuals, White Whale, and Matt & Kim last year, Dischord was busy doing what it's done for 27 years: Putting out fine records by District of Columbia bands from a small office on Beecher Street. While you were streaming, the Evens, Soccer Team ("Traffic Patterns" kills), and-- most notably-- French Toast released largely unbuzzed, very good records. Indeed, elbo.ws reveals exactly one blog hosted one song from French Toast's excellent second album, Ingleside Terrace. In an even more damnable deed, Ingleside Terrace was released in October. This is finally our review. Ingleside Terrace is no groundbreaking album, but it does represent a long step forward in French Toast's short evolution. In a Cave, French Toast's debut as the duo of James Canty and Jerry Busher, was just fine, its ramshackle looseness worn best by Canty's imprecise guitar playing splayed out beneath his sociopolitical screeds and Busher's convoluted grooves building a base for his weary observations. Multi-instrumentalists both, Canty and Busher split drum, bass, guitar and lead vocal duties almost exactly in half. That in mind, In a Cave often felt wobbly and overly stylized. Ingleside Terrace, though, adds third member and songwriter Ben Gilligan, and that changes everything. His thick-tongued flair and proletarian logic ("I'd be better at kissing if my teeth were all straight") supply French Toast with equal parts Television thrum ("Take Me All the Way") and mid-'90s alt.rock jangle ("Settle In"). Gilligan's addition gives the rest of the band room to breathe, too. Ideas and songs seem fully realized: The pop pops and the sulk sulks, and, over 12 tracks, three strong, separate, ultimately connected voices emerge. Busher, for instance, supplies two of the record's best moments with tracks recorded in his bedroom using loops, E-bow, acoustic guitar, keyboards, and tape decks. Busher's "Treason" and the eerie, perfectly couched rant "Brejnev" are the least rock songs on this record, and they seem perfectly comfortable with that rank. Closing track "Fork in the Road"-- a full-band affair with Busher on guitar and James and Brendan Canty shaping a taut, automated rhythm-- even lets Busher imply a psychedelic oeuvre to French Toast, multiple guitars washing over one another and a stardust of staggered, dissonant keyboards. But French Toast are plenty grounded here: Even as a three-piece, they sound leaner and more focused, thanks in no small part to the production work of older brother, Fugazi drummer and Burn to Shine co-founder Brendan Canty. The kiss-off opener "The Letter" keeps the bros-in-a-basement rough edge intact, but its hinges swing better than anything from In a Cave, low-key three-part harmonies and a simple, driving rhythm invoking Leo at his most direct. It's a James Canty track that falls perfectly into "Protest Sign", a parallel Busher kiss-off that sounds like Mission of Burma throwing its hands in the air at political reform. Bad relationships and misguided political efforts eschewed by way of introduction, French Toast is free to coalesce as a three-piece for the entirety of Terrace, and that's exactly what they do. Ingleside Terrace boasts impeccable pacing, especially for a new lineup built on the backs of three divergent songwriters. Sure, they don't have a shtick and they don't have a PR machine at their back, but let this humble Dischord entry ($10 post-paid and available by mail order, as always) spin more than once, and you'll wish it was still October and you ran a blog."

Spoon

Transference

Rock

Matthew Perpetua

Up to this point, Spoon have employed their signature tight pocket grooves as a shorthand for authority, certainty, and swagger. It's one of the most appealing things about the band, and the sound has made even Britt Daniel's most vulnerable moments seem grounded and forthright. They've turned it all inside-out on Transference, subtly shifting the leading signifiers of Spoon-iness just so for a destabilizing effect. Their go-to trick for the first half of the album is to include bits of sound that abruptly cut off, usually sung phrases that drop entirely out of the mix mid-syllable. This may be aggravating for some listeners, but this counterintuitive move makes sense in context, indicating distraction and tongue-tied indecision. This is a perfect example of the group's genius as a studio band: They get very cerebral in arranging their material, but every clever move is entirely in the service of maximizing physical impact and gut-level response. These are not simply recordings of a top-notch rock quartet playing in a room; this is art built to hit precise emotional marks with an impressive balance of off-the-cuff improvisation and rigid discipline. Though their previous records have opened with stylish, immediately thrilling numbers like "Small Stakes" and "The Beast and Dragon, Adored", Transference begins with "Before Destruction", a pensive slow-burner that's more of a muted prelude than a flashy entrance. We're knocked off-balance from the beginning, and the next few songs sustain a sense of confusion and disorientation. "Is Love Forever?", a jaunty cut that sounds as though Daniel were aiming to write a much dizzier version of Phoenix's "Listzomania", bumps right into "The Mystery Zone", an excellent late-night groover that hits the same sweet spot as older gems like "Don't You Evah" and "I Turn My Camera On". When that track ends suddenly, it's like walking right into a wall before "Who Makes Your Money" has you wobbling along with Daniel in a concussed haze. The album sobers up as it moves along, and the progression always makes a certain emotional sense, but it's ultimately a big pile-up of unorthodox creative decisions. On first pass, Transference seems a bit off, even somewhat sloppy for a band known for keeping things focused and snappy. However, upon closer listening it becomes obvious that these guys have made a meticulously crafted "mess" that conveys the feeling of flailing around and failing in search of meaningful connections. The name of the album refers to the Freudian concept of unconsciously projecting feelings for one person or thing to another. It's also the term used to describe when a patient develops a romantic attachment to their analyst, mistaking the intimacy of that relationship for actual love. Transference isn't a concept album, but it's not hard to figure out why they might have chosen the title. There's a nagging desperation for "real" love at the core of this record, tangled up in a genuine cluelessness about what it is or how it works. "The Mystery Zone" finds Daniel theorizing about relationships and unknowable fates like a rambling, semi-coherent drunk, stumbling up to big ideas but trailing off or nodding out before saying anything that makes complete sense. "Written in Reverse" seethes with the bitterness of unrequited love, and Daniel's larynx-shredding vocal hits the right note of resentment and resignation as he spits out lines like, "I wanna show you how I love you, but there's nothing there." Even the most stable tracks seem frustrated or tentative. The gorgeous "Out Go the Lights" sounds as exhausted as it is lovesick, and the scorching "Got Nuffin" confronts neuroses head-on with plucky courage, but also a chugging riff that evokes gut-churning anxiety. It's hardly uncommon for Spoon songs to deal with failed love and thwarted desire, but Daniel has rarely sounded so vulnerable and his feelings have never seemed so unresolved. Some may hear Transference and get the impression that it's an incomplete or uneven work, but its elliptical nature is ultimately the key to its charm. All through the record, Britt Daniel sounds like a guy left hanging by life, waiting around to figure out the answers to all his questions. It wouldn't make sense for him to tell you anything he doesn't know himself. Though the band produced the album themselves, half of the songs on Transference are presented in their original "demo" form, resulting in unexpected shifts between raw and slick audio textures. Since Daniel and drummer Jim Eno are experienced engineers, almost nothing on the album could rightly be considered lo-fi, but there is a disarming immediacy to these less polished tracks that makes the record as a whole seem very relaxed and informal in comparison to their previous efforts. "Goodnight Laura", a straightforward ballad on the album's second side, gains a lot from this approach, with an intimate "live" sound that gives the impression that you've accidentally stumbled into a Spoon rehearsal. "Trouble Comes Running" has the opposite effect with its dramatic stereo separations, but the low-key feeling of the recording preserves an energy that may have been flattened with a more full production. Both of these tracks could be considered "minor" Spoon songs, but they reveal just how high the bar has been set for Daniel and company, and how easily their skill can be taken for granted. Following the creative strides made on their last few Merge releases, the only big surprise on Transference is that they've become willing to let their hair down a bit. It can be a bit of a let down if you come in expecting another blockbuster like Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, but something of a revelation if you meet them halfway.

Artist: Spoon, Album: Transference, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.8 Album review: "Up to this point, Spoon have employed their signature tight pocket grooves as a shorthand for authority, certainty, and swagger. It's one of the most appealing things about the band, and the sound has made even Britt Daniel's most vulnerable moments seem grounded and forthright. They've turned it all inside-out on Transference, subtly shifting the leading signifiers of Spoon-iness just so for a destabilizing effect. Their go-to trick for the first half of the album is to include bits of sound that abruptly cut off, usually sung phrases that drop entirely out of the mix mid-syllable. This may be aggravating for some listeners, but this counterintuitive move makes sense in context, indicating distraction and tongue-tied indecision. This is a perfect example of the group's genius as a studio band: They get very cerebral in arranging their material, but every clever move is entirely in the service of maximizing physical impact and gut-level response. These are not simply recordings of a top-notch rock quartet playing in a room; this is art built to hit precise emotional marks with an impressive balance of off-the-cuff improvisation and rigid discipline. Though their previous records have opened with stylish, immediately thrilling numbers like "Small Stakes" and "The Beast and Dragon, Adored", Transference begins with "Before Destruction", a pensive slow-burner that's more of a muted prelude than a flashy entrance. We're knocked off-balance from the beginning, and the next few songs sustain a sense of confusion and disorientation. "Is Love Forever?", a jaunty cut that sounds as though Daniel were aiming to write a much dizzier version of Phoenix's "Listzomania", bumps right into "The Mystery Zone", an excellent late-night groover that hits the same sweet spot as older gems like "Don't You Evah" and "I Turn My Camera On". When that track ends suddenly, it's like walking right into a wall before "Who Makes Your Money" has you wobbling along with Daniel in a concussed haze. The album sobers up as it moves along, and the progression always makes a certain emotional sense, but it's ultimately a big pile-up of unorthodox creative decisions. On first pass, Transference seems a bit off, even somewhat sloppy for a band known for keeping things focused and snappy. However, upon closer listening it becomes obvious that these guys have made a meticulously crafted "mess" that conveys the feeling of flailing around and failing in search of meaningful connections. The name of the album refers to the Freudian concept of unconsciously projecting feelings for one person or thing to another. It's also the term used to describe when a patient develops a romantic attachment to their analyst, mistaking the intimacy of that relationship for actual love. Transference isn't a concept album, but it's not hard to figure out why they might have chosen the title. There's a nagging desperation for "real" love at the core of this record, tangled up in a genuine cluelessness about what it is or how it works. "The Mystery Zone" finds Daniel theorizing about relationships and unknowable fates like a rambling, semi-coherent drunk, stumbling up to big ideas but trailing off or nodding out before saying anything that makes complete sense. "Written in Reverse" seethes with the bitterness of unrequited love, and Daniel's larynx-shredding vocal hits the right note of resentment and resignation as he spits out lines like, "I wanna show you how I love you, but there's nothing there." Even the most stable tracks seem frustrated or tentative. The gorgeous "Out Go the Lights" sounds as exhausted as it is lovesick, and the scorching "Got Nuffin" confronts neuroses head-on with plucky courage, but also a chugging riff that evokes gut-churning anxiety. It's hardly uncommon for Spoon songs to deal with failed love and thwarted desire, but Daniel has rarely sounded so vulnerable and his feelings have never seemed so unresolved. Some may hear Transference and get the impression that it's an incomplete or uneven work, but its elliptical nature is ultimately the key to its charm. All through the record, Britt Daniel sounds like a guy left hanging by life, waiting around to figure out the answers to all his questions. It wouldn't make sense for him to tell you anything he doesn't know himself. Though the band produced the album themselves, half of the songs on Transference are presented in their original "demo" form, resulting in unexpected shifts between raw and slick audio textures. Since Daniel and drummer Jim Eno are experienced engineers, almost nothing on the album could rightly be considered lo-fi, but there is a disarming immediacy to these less polished tracks that makes the record as a whole seem very relaxed and informal in comparison to their previous efforts. "Goodnight Laura", a straightforward ballad on the album's second side, gains a lot from this approach, with an intimate "live" sound that gives the impression that you've accidentally stumbled into a Spoon rehearsal. "Trouble Comes Running" has the opposite effect with its dramatic stereo separations, but the low-key feeling of the recording preserves an energy that may have been flattened with a more full production. Both of these tracks could be considered "minor" Spoon songs, but they reveal just how high the bar has been set for Daniel and company, and how easily their skill can be taken for granted. Following the creative strides made on their last few Merge releases, the only big surprise on Transference is that they've become willing to let their hair down a bit. It can be a bit of a let down if you come in expecting another blockbuster like Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, but something of a revelation if you meet them halfway."

Various Artists

Guilt by Association

Stephen M. Deusner

Do guilty pleasures even exist anymore? It seems like everything, no matter how reviled, can be argued as legitimate and meaningful with varying sincerity and irony ratios. After all, Justin "N'Sync" Timberlake (deservedly) scored Pitchfork's top single of 2006, and last week Chris Dahlen interviewed Daryl Hall. Maybe you scoff, but guilt is totally subjective: What shames one listener may be openly admired by another. Besides, pleasure is pleasure, whether you find it in Rock Plaza Central, New Young Pony Club, R. Kelly, or Sixpence None the Richer. Maybe it's just a misnomer: A guilty pleasure might just be a song that doesn't conform to your typical listening habits, in which case it can become an important horizon expander. If that happens, though, the song also becomes an integral part of those same listening habits. My (admittedly anecdotal) evidence: Not too long ago, I read a blog entry on guilty pleasures, and the comments section quickly became a very intense game of one-upmanship as readers proudly announced their own guilty pleasures. Where was the guilt in all the grandstanding? Into this forum steps New York City's Engine Room Recordings, which spent three years coaxing 15 indie artists into covering their own guilty pleasures. The long-in-the-making album is called Guilt by Association, and the covers are as dubious as that title. Either by design or by accident, the compilation seems to define the term as anything that is not white, male, hetero indie rock, revealing the casual elitism in the idea that one style of music is somehow more legitimate than another. Nobody's covering Har Mar Superstar here, although more than a few acts manage to turn 1970s rock or contemporary r&b into white, male, hetero indie rock. Apologies to Superchunk, but is "Say My Name" really a guilty pleasure? Do we need a folksy "sensitive" reading of System of a Down's "Chop Suey" to convince us that headbangers might have something interesting to say? Guilt by Association is just a strange collection of songs, with curious highs and lows that make it sound like an update on early 90s comps like Super Fantastic Mega Smash Hits or Star Power! (on which artists rescued songs like "I'm Not in Love" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" from K-Tel obscurity). The highs include Goat's take on "Sugar, We're Going Down", the disc's most recent source material and emo's sole representative, even if his quieter, mock-serious arrangement manages to sap some of the self-satisfaction from Fall Out Boy's lyrics. Luna reinterprets Paula Abdul's ultimatum "Straight Up" as a desperately co-dependent anthem, and Devendra Banhart grafts bossa nova rhythms to Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger", making it so coyly seductive that the original seems comparatively hamfisted. Between this and his version of Antony's "Fistful of Love", Banhart might consider a covers album next. The comp's best track, though, is its first: Petra Haden's inventive reconsideration of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". "The Sopranos" may have forever lifted it out of a cheeseball ghetto it never deserved, but Haden's version, recorded before the series ended, joyfully re-creates the song through multi-tracked, a cappella vocalizations (her duel guitars are the clincher) that are downright affectionate, preserving the song's rock'n'roll romance even as she breaks into Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" during the outro. But amazingly, Guilt by Association doesn't hold onto that feeling and actually stops believin'. For every spirited rendition here, there's an uninspired run-through or an apathetic rehash. Mark Mulcahy makes "From This Moment On" sound safe for Starbucks everywhere; Jim O'Rourke just makes the Spice Girls' "Viva Forever" sound dour; and the Mooney Suzuki's retread of "Just Like Jesse James" goes limp without Cher's theatricality. Eddie Money's "Two Tickets to Paradise" gets the folksy treatment from Karate frontman Geoff Farina, totally destroying the original's sense of "speeding down the highway with the windows rolled down" freedom. Not even bothering to meet the song halfway, his version embodies the compilation's most discouraging problem: Risking so little adventurousness or unpredictability, too many of these artists really do sound like they feel guilty.

Artist: Various Artists, Album: Guilt by Association, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 5.1 Album review: "Do guilty pleasures even exist anymore? It seems like everything, no matter how reviled, can be argued as legitimate and meaningful with varying sincerity and irony ratios. After all, Justin "N'Sync" Timberlake (deservedly) scored Pitchfork's top single of 2006, and last week Chris Dahlen interviewed Daryl Hall. Maybe you scoff, but guilt is totally subjective: What shames one listener may be openly admired by another. Besides, pleasure is pleasure, whether you find it in Rock Plaza Central, New Young Pony Club, R. Kelly, or Sixpence None the Richer. Maybe it's just a misnomer: A guilty pleasure might just be a song that doesn't conform to your typical listening habits, in which case it can become an important horizon expander. If that happens, though, the song also becomes an integral part of those same listening habits. My (admittedly anecdotal) evidence: Not too long ago, I read a blog entry on guilty pleasures, and the comments section quickly became a very intense game of one-upmanship as readers proudly announced their own guilty pleasures. Where was the guilt in all the grandstanding? Into this forum steps New York City's Engine Room Recordings, which spent three years coaxing 15 indie artists into covering their own guilty pleasures. The long-in-the-making album is called Guilt by Association, and the covers are as dubious as that title. Either by design or by accident, the compilation seems to define the term as anything that is not white, male, hetero indie rock, revealing the casual elitism in the idea that one style of music is somehow more legitimate than another. Nobody's covering Har Mar Superstar here, although more than a few acts manage to turn 1970s rock or contemporary r&b into white, male, hetero indie rock. Apologies to Superchunk, but is "Say My Name" really a guilty pleasure? Do we need a folksy "sensitive" reading of System of a Down's "Chop Suey" to convince us that headbangers might have something interesting to say? Guilt by Association is just a strange collection of songs, with curious highs and lows that make it sound like an update on early 90s comps like Super Fantastic Mega Smash Hits or Star Power! (on which artists rescued songs like "I'm Not in Love" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" from K-Tel obscurity). The highs include Goat's take on "Sugar, We're Going Down", the disc's most recent source material and emo's sole representative, even if his quieter, mock-serious arrangement manages to sap some of the self-satisfaction from Fall Out Boy's lyrics. Luna reinterprets Paula Abdul's ultimatum "Straight Up" as a desperately co-dependent anthem, and Devendra Banhart grafts bossa nova rhythms to Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger", making it so coyly seductive that the original seems comparatively hamfisted. Between this and his version of Antony's "Fistful of Love", Banhart might consider a covers album next. The comp's best track, though, is its first: Petra Haden's inventive reconsideration of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". "The Sopranos" may have forever lifted it out of a cheeseball ghetto it never deserved, but Haden's version, recorded before the series ended, joyfully re-creates the song through multi-tracked, a cappella vocalizations (her duel guitars are the clincher) that are downright affectionate, preserving the song's rock'n'roll romance even as she breaks into Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" during the outro. But amazingly, Guilt by Association doesn't hold onto that feeling and actually stops believin'. For every spirited rendition here, there's an uninspired run-through or an apathetic rehash. Mark Mulcahy makes "From This Moment On" sound safe for Starbucks everywhere; Jim O'Rourke just makes the Spice Girls' "Viva Forever" sound dour; and the Mooney Suzuki's retread of "Just Like Jesse James" goes limp without Cher's theatricality. Eddie Money's "Two Tickets to Paradise" gets the folksy treatment from Karate frontman Geoff Farina, totally destroying the original's sense of "speeding down the highway with the windows rolled down" freedom. Not even bothering to meet the song halfway, his version embodies the compilation's most discouraging problem: Risking so little adventurousness or unpredictability, too many of these artists really do sound like they feel guilty."

awakebutstillinbed

what people call low self​-​esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you

Rock

Ian Cohen

The San Jose band awakebutstillinbed have succeeded at being so emo that they necessitated a new Bandcamp genre tag. Behold the dawn of “extremo.” Where some bands will preempt the emo label with a kind of self-reflexive joke about it, nothing about the young band’s debut album is played for laughs. You can’t call awakebutstillinbed “melodramatic” because that would imply overstatement or exaggeration, or that drama itself can’t be a resting state. Both “awake but still in bed” and “what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you” are lyrics verbatim from the album and there’s no particular emphasis on either of those lines when they arrive. On average, they’re slightly less acute than anything else that comes from vocalist Shannon Taylor as a coo, a yell, or whatever you want to call the irreplicable moments where it sounds like she’s trying to remove a ball of steel shavings from her throat with a rusty fork. While some albums use a spectrum or rainbow for their emotional palette, low self-esteem needs a fire code: Every moment sounds an alarm, they’re only differentiated by its state of emergency. This isn’t cinematic music as the term is usually understood, i.e., “lots of strings” or “eight-minute songs.” Rather, it’s a unification of sound and vision, a vivid rendering of a life spent standing on a precipice, where the weight of guilt is somehow the only thing keeping you from jumping. It demands an immediate comparison to the last time a previously unheralded emo band did it this well; “Opener” follows nearly the exact trajectory of the Hotelier’s ”An Introduction to the Album” and low self-esteem shares many of Home, Like NoPlace Is There’s qualities: certainly some of its suburban scenery and themes, but also its brazenly screamed hooks, fitful dynamics, and meticulous sequencing. But at no point does awakebutstillinbed sound unduly derivative of any band, even if “Safe” and “Saved” are more classic Rainer Maria than the last Rainer Maria album; they’re just drawing from a similar wellspring of emotion. If Taylor’s going to break down at a funeral where she feels somehow responsible, of course it would sound as searching and devastating as “Saved.” Of course a song about freeing oneself from the bondage of patriarchal inheritance would be as feverishly driven as “Fathers.” The full-band plummet of “Opener” hits with seismic impact because what else is supposed to happen when a person just cannot take their depression being invalidated for one more second? Taylor’s vocals pull most of the focus here, and even when she takes on a more amenable tone, her ability to go nuclear ensures no moment of low self-esteem is passive listening. But she knows when to smash the button, which she does on “Life” before the very first line. Even if it’s couched in one those streaking post-punk arrangements that connect early U2 with Makthaverskan, Taylor’s hook, “I couldn’t get my life back/I couldn’t save myself,” would be notated on sheet music by jamming a pencil straight through the paper. It’s easy to think of this all as a result of being purely impulsive or serendipitous. That tends to happen in this realm, where even the masterpieces are seen as happening despite themselves: singers who can’t sing hitting the wrong notes just right, guitars chiming in unintuitive yet beautiful harmonies, bands who keep it together for just long enough to create a legacy before they implode six months later. Yet awakebutstillinbed are just freakishly adept at making this creative impulse work for them, especially when these are the first songs they’ve ever released. As the cliche goes, the debut album takes a lifetime to write and the most toxic, profound, and impactful moments were the only ones Taylor saw fit to document. Is it all too much? awakebutstillinbed have a better question: Why would you want anything less?

Artist: awakebutstillinbed, Album: what people call low self​-​esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "The San Jose band awakebutstillinbed have succeeded at being so emo that they necessitated a new Bandcamp genre tag. Behold the dawn of “extremo.” Where some bands will preempt the emo label with a kind of self-reflexive joke about it, nothing about the young band’s debut album is played for laughs. You can’t call awakebutstillinbed “melodramatic” because that would imply overstatement or exaggeration, or that drama itself can’t be a resting state. Both “awake but still in bed” and “what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you” are lyrics verbatim from the album and there’s no particular emphasis on either of those lines when they arrive. On average, they’re slightly less acute than anything else that comes from vocalist Shannon Taylor as a coo, a yell, or whatever you want to call the irreplicable moments where it sounds like she’s trying to remove a ball of steel shavings from her throat with a rusty fork. While some albums use a spectrum or rainbow for their emotional palette, low self-esteem needs a fire code: Every moment sounds an alarm, they’re only differentiated by its state of emergency. This isn’t cinematic music as the term is usually understood, i.e., “lots of strings” or “eight-minute songs.” Rather, it’s a unification of sound and vision, a vivid rendering of a life spent standing on a precipice, where the weight of guilt is somehow the only thing keeping you from jumping. It demands an immediate comparison to the last time a previously unheralded emo band did it this well; “Opener” follows nearly the exact trajectory of the Hotelier’s ”An Introduction to the Album” and low self-esteem shares many of Home, Like NoPlace Is There’s qualities: certainly some of its suburban scenery and themes, but also its brazenly screamed hooks, fitful dynamics, and meticulous sequencing. But at no point does awakebutstillinbed sound unduly derivative of any band, even if “Safe” and “Saved” are more classic Rainer Maria than the last Rainer Maria album; they’re just drawing from a similar wellspring of emotion. If Taylor’s going to break down at a funeral where she feels somehow responsible, of course it would sound as searching and devastating as “Saved.” Of course a song about freeing oneself from the bondage of patriarchal inheritance would be as feverishly driven as “Fathers.” The full-band plummet of “Opener” hits with seismic impact because what else is supposed to happen when a person just cannot take their depression being invalidated for one more second? Taylor’s vocals pull most of the focus here, and even when she takes on a more amenable tone, her ability to go nuclear ensures no moment of low self-esteem is passive listening. But she knows when to smash the button, which she does on “Life” before the very first line. Even if it’s couched in one those streaking post-punk arrangements that connect early U2 with Makthaverskan, Taylor’s hook, “I couldn’t get my life back/I couldn’t save myself,” would be notated on sheet music by jamming a pencil straight through the paper. It’s easy to think of this all as a result of being purely impulsive or serendipitous. That tends to happen in this realm, where even the masterpieces are seen as happening despite themselves: singers who can’t sing hitting the wrong notes just right, guitars chiming in unintuitive yet beautiful harmonies, bands who keep it together for just long enough to create a legacy before they implode six months later. Yet awakebutstillinbed are just freakishly adept at making this creative impulse work for them, especially when these are the first songs they’ve ever released. As the cliche goes, the debut album takes a lifetime to write and the most toxic, profound, and impactful moments were the only ones Taylor saw fit to document. Is it all too much? awakebutstillinbed have a better question: Why would you want anything less?"

Figurines

Skeleton

Rock

Adam Moerder

Catchiness is a card seasoned listeners dislike playing or having played on them. To call a record "catchy" reveals almost nothing. Without it there would be very little left of Guided by Voices, Nirvana, or Buzzcocks, but nor would there be any Ace of Base, Steve Miller Band, or Huey Lewis & The News. Yet, despite endless failures on the behalf of both critics and fans to quantify this ineffable force, "catchy" is unquestionably the word with which to begin on Skeleton, the sophomore album from Denmark's Figurines. Glossing over this young quartet's infectiousness would mean lumping them indiscriminately into the ever-growing phalanx of Modest Mouse/Built to Spill acolytes. Sure, frontman Christian Hjelm uncannily mixes Isaac Brock's nervous vocal tics with Doug Martsch's nasal croon, and yes, they deploy the same octave riffs and slapdash lo-fi production work that served as a staple for any number of indie legends. But Figurines carve their own niche thanks to an arsenal of refreshing, energetic hooks over a straightforward, non-disruptive palette. While debut Shake a Mountain stumbled over gawky guitars and Hjelm's overly twangy vocals, Skeleton delivers gigantic pop hooks in stride, with charm to boot. Misleading opening ballad "Race You" encapsulates the band's newfound boldness by copping more from Antony and the Johnsons than from any 90s behemoths. Here, in spurts of tortured falsetto, Hjelm nods to Neil Young circa After the Gold Rush-- though he and his band quickly prove capable of a broader range than stark emoting and classic rock pilgrimages. By the following track, the almost unthinkably hooky "The Wonder", Hjelm is shouting one embraceable indie maxim after another, resulting in one of the sharpest indie rock songs of the young year so far. And this, Skeleton's de facto opener, is where things really begin to heat up: Furious strummed riffs send the song charging ahead anthemically, its guitars emitting fret buzz and pick scrapes like sparks off Claus Salling Johansen's sixteenth-note assault. From there, the record cruises through a series of familiar indie rock signifiers and off-kilter rhythms, but as with that inescapable signifier "catchy," elements that on paper read as tame or familiar instead congeal into something strikingly refreshing and engaging. Part of Skeleton's appeal lies in the songwriting's lead-to-gold alchemy; most tracks begin fairly nondescript before unsuspectingly blossoming into glorious pop gems. "I Remember" kicks off with a geeky Kinks riff and Hjelm's self-consciously cool drawl before launching into a howling exclamation-- Johansen's guitar soaring alongside Hjelm's ascending hook. Likewise, "Ambush" nods to one of Hjelm's few admitted influences with its CCR-fried blues verse, but again, hooks trump hulk as the classic rock-sculpted verse melts into a quirky sensitive guy chorus on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, Hjelm's hooks only burn so bright for so long, and while several of the album's more adventurous tracks earn points for diversity, some never quite register. "Back in the Day" highlights the acoustic guitar nicely, though all the Led Zeppelin III maskings can't hide Hjelm's uninspired delivery, and "Ghost Towns" slacks off as a midtempo ballad. Despite these tribulations, "Release Me on the Floor" borrows from the tradition of Built to Spill's great closers, an introspective yet jam-worthy number on urban loneliness. Figurines take a risk with an album built mostly on hum-worthiness, but these hookniks show why Denmark is wise to dedicate a portion of their GDP on promoting the band overseas. Former single "Silver Pond" updates the typically retrofit dead end of jangly power-pop with contemporary signifiers. It's a feat the band manages to pull off again and again, track after track, over the course of Skeleton, and the true heart of the record: making the familiar seem fresh and giddy pop seem like indie manna. Though Figurines won't necessarily be the coolest band you'll hear this year, they may yet become your favorite.

Artist: Figurines, Album: Skeleton, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.3 Album review: "Catchiness is a card seasoned listeners dislike playing or having played on them. To call a record "catchy" reveals almost nothing. Without it there would be very little left of Guided by Voices, Nirvana, or Buzzcocks, but nor would there be any Ace of Base, Steve Miller Band, or Huey Lewis & The News. Yet, despite endless failures on the behalf of both critics and fans to quantify this ineffable force, "catchy" is unquestionably the word with which to begin on Skeleton, the sophomore album from Denmark's Figurines. Glossing over this young quartet's infectiousness would mean lumping them indiscriminately into the ever-growing phalanx of Modest Mouse/Built to Spill acolytes. Sure, frontman Christian Hjelm uncannily mixes Isaac Brock's nervous vocal tics with Doug Martsch's nasal croon, and yes, they deploy the same octave riffs and slapdash lo-fi production work that served as a staple for any number of indie legends. But Figurines carve their own niche thanks to an arsenal of refreshing, energetic hooks over a straightforward, non-disruptive palette. While debut Shake a Mountain stumbled over gawky guitars and Hjelm's overly twangy vocals, Skeleton delivers gigantic pop hooks in stride, with charm to boot. Misleading opening ballad "Race You" encapsulates the band's newfound boldness by copping more from Antony and the Johnsons than from any 90s behemoths. Here, in spurts of tortured falsetto, Hjelm nods to Neil Young circa After the Gold Rush-- though he and his band quickly prove capable of a broader range than stark emoting and classic rock pilgrimages. By the following track, the almost unthinkably hooky "The Wonder", Hjelm is shouting one embraceable indie maxim after another, resulting in one of the sharpest indie rock songs of the young year so far. And this, Skeleton's de facto opener, is where things really begin to heat up: Furious strummed riffs send the song charging ahead anthemically, its guitars emitting fret buzz and pick scrapes like sparks off Claus Salling Johansen's sixteenth-note assault. From there, the record cruises through a series of familiar indie rock signifiers and off-kilter rhythms, but as with that inescapable signifier "catchy," elements that on paper read as tame or familiar instead congeal into something strikingly refreshing and engaging. Part of Skeleton's appeal lies in the songwriting's lead-to-gold alchemy; most tracks begin fairly nondescript before unsuspectingly blossoming into glorious pop gems. "I Remember" kicks off with a geeky Kinks riff and Hjelm's self-consciously cool drawl before launching into a howling exclamation-- Johansen's guitar soaring alongside Hjelm's ascending hook. Likewise, "Ambush" nods to one of Hjelm's few admitted influences with its CCR-fried blues verse, but again, hooks trump hulk as the classic rock-sculpted verse melts into a quirky sensitive guy chorus on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, Hjelm's hooks only burn so bright for so long, and while several of the album's more adventurous tracks earn points for diversity, some never quite register. "Back in the Day" highlights the acoustic guitar nicely, though all the Led Zeppelin III maskings can't hide Hjelm's uninspired delivery, and "Ghost Towns" slacks off as a midtempo ballad. Despite these tribulations, "Release Me on the Floor" borrows from the tradition of Built to Spill's great closers, an introspective yet jam-worthy number on urban loneliness. Figurines take a risk with an album built mostly on hum-worthiness, but these hookniks show why Denmark is wise to dedicate a portion of their GDP on promoting the band overseas. Former single "Silver Pond" updates the typically retrofit dead end of jangly power-pop with contemporary signifiers. It's a feat the band manages to pull off again and again, track after track, over the course of Skeleton, and the true heart of the record: making the familiar seem fresh and giddy pop seem like indie manna. Though Figurines won't necessarily be the coolest band you'll hear this year, they may yet become your favorite. "

Man Forever with So Percussion

Ryonen

Marc Masters

The union of Man Forever and So Percussion is so natural, it could have been caused by gravity. Both acts seek new sounds and ideas via percussion, and both embrace devout repetition as a tool for finding unbeaten paths. Granted, they’ve arrived at that task from different angles: Man Forever is Oneida drummer Kid Millions alongside many partners from the underground rock world, while So Percussion is a quartet of former Yale grad students who perform works by heavyweights like Steve Reich and David Lang. But both share a vision of percussion as exploratory and expansive rather than supplementary. In fact, their visions are so expansive that combining them could be too much of a good thing. There’s already a lot to absorb in the respective work of Man Forever and So Percussion, so their big, active sounds might crowd each other, perhaps even cancel each other out. Neither happens on Ryonen, which spreads 30 minutes of music across two tracks. There’s clarity throughout, even when drums overlap and rhythms blur, as well as a precision that gives a sense of purpose to every move. The whole isn’t greater than the sum of its parts; that’d be too much to expect of two entities with such high-quality individual track records. But Ryonen is an engaging first strike. What makes it engaging is its continual forward motion. Both pieces are loop-based, their cores formed by cycles of percussion that repeat for long stretches. Yet both also make progress, rarely dragged down by the weight of their over-and-over beats. Part of this progress comes from sonic variety: multiple types of drums and cymbals are employed, and one piece requires that each instrument be played "in a different time signature at the same tempo.” But progress also comes in the way participants use energy to create kinetic waves. They’re able to make the same figure sound different through the intensity and force of their playing. Those waves are most obvious on opener “The Clear Realization,” since the percussion recedes to let in a dreamy voice that sounds uncannily like HEALTH’s Jake Duzsik. Adding singing is an interesting move—I wouldn’t have guessed vocals would have anything to do with this collaboration—and the choice gives dramatic tint to a piece that’s otherwise about physicality. But it also makes “The Clear Realization” oddly light. It’s as if the musicians felt compelled to filter their ideas through something literal like speech, rather than letting the drumming do the talking. The song might be more broadly communicative as a result, but it’s also more generic. Vocals emerge on Ryonen’s closing title track too, but they come much later in the game, and they’re more about adding texture than taking the lead. The percussion in turn is also more complex and subtle. It begins like a collection of offset drumrolls, but gradually masses into a growling drone, then returns even more pointed and hypnotic than it began. As hummed voices rise with the final percussion climax, “Ryonen” scales heights despite few overt, attention-grabbing changes. In doing so, it gives the collection an ideal ending point: it's both the album's peak and a ramp Man Forever and So Percussion could use to shoot higher, if we’re lucky enough to get a second meeting of these skillful minds.

Artist: Man Forever with So Percussion, Album: Ryonen, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "The union of Man Forever and So Percussion is so natural, it could have been caused by gravity. Both acts seek new sounds and ideas via percussion, and both embrace devout repetition as a tool for finding unbeaten paths. Granted, they’ve arrived at that task from different angles: Man Forever is Oneida drummer Kid Millions alongside many partners from the underground rock world, while So Percussion is a quartet of former Yale grad students who perform works by heavyweights like Steve Reich and David Lang. But both share a vision of percussion as exploratory and expansive rather than supplementary. In fact, their visions are so expansive that combining them could be too much of a good thing. There’s already a lot to absorb in the respective work of Man Forever and So Percussion, so their big, active sounds might crowd each other, perhaps even cancel each other out. Neither happens on Ryonen, which spreads 30 minutes of music across two tracks. There’s clarity throughout, even when drums overlap and rhythms blur, as well as a precision that gives a sense of purpose to every move. The whole isn’t greater than the sum of its parts; that’d be too much to expect of two entities with such high-quality individual track records. But Ryonen is an engaging first strike. What makes it engaging is its continual forward motion. Both pieces are loop-based, their cores formed by cycles of percussion that repeat for long stretches. Yet both also make progress, rarely dragged down by the weight of their over-and-over beats. Part of this progress comes from sonic variety: multiple types of drums and cymbals are employed, and one piece requires that each instrument be played "in a different time signature at the same tempo.” But progress also comes in the way participants use energy to create kinetic waves. They’re able to make the same figure sound different through the intensity and force of their playing. Those waves are most obvious on opener “The Clear Realization,” since the percussion recedes to let in a dreamy voice that sounds uncannily like HEALTH’s Jake Duzsik. Adding singing is an interesting move—I wouldn’t have guessed vocals would have anything to do with this collaboration—and the choice gives dramatic tint to a piece that’s otherwise about physicality. But it also makes “The Clear Realization” oddly light. It’s as if the musicians felt compelled to filter their ideas through something literal like speech, rather than letting the drumming do the talking. The song might be more broadly communicative as a result, but it’s also more generic. Vocals emerge on Ryonen’s closing title track too, but they come much later in the game, and they’re more about adding texture than taking the lead. The percussion in turn is also more complex and subtle. It begins like a collection of offset drumrolls, but gradually masses into a growling drone, then returns even more pointed and hypnotic than it began. As hummed voices rise with the final percussion climax, “Ryonen” scales heights despite few overt, attention-grabbing changes. In doing so, it gives the collection an ideal ending point: it's both the album's peak and a ramp Man Forever and So Percussion could use to shoot higher, if we’re lucky enough to get a second meeting of these skillful minds."

Stricken City

Songs About People I Know

Pop/R&B

Paul Thompson

Songs About People I Know, the glassy, slightly grimy London-based post-punk foursome Stricken City's debut, sits somewhere between an EP and LP. Featuring 24 minutes of reverby guitars and spluttery drums careening around singer/keyboardist Rebekah Raa's hook-heavy character sketches, it's a fine record; despite its length, it's fleshed out and full of flourish. If anything, it's all over way too soon. If only they knew more people. There's something wonderfully ramshackle and even a little weird about the songs on Songs, from the creaky Victrola of opener "Gifted" (apparently recorded in a London bus) to the unspooling C86 haze that covers the rest. Bleary guitars, tricky rhythms, and Raa's ascendant vocal melodies seem engaged in a tug of war, and even the odd ballad feels, well, odd when cast in their able amble. The best tunes here aren't too fitful to be unruly or even undancable, yet their muddled construction always seems to threaten a topple. It's Raa who holds it all together, her voice dipping and soaring over these tunes, a little like a looser Sue Tompkins from Life Without Buildings. Even with an oddball backdrop, an unlikely vocal melody, over an unruly pile of guitars, Raa finds a way to captivate, and without much apparent effort. The intimate portraits promised in the title don't quite materialize-- most songs are about people you know, y'know-- but the legit pangs of longing in Raa's voice lead one to believe she entered the booth for every tune with somebody specific in mind, even when the sentiments feel a little general. The accordion-led "Sometimes I Love You" leans that way-- sometimes she hates you, too-- but, on the strength of its unique arrangement and Raa's resigned vocal, you'll barely notice. Stark closer "Terrible Things" smacks of PJ Harvey's bleak White Chalk, and Raa, much like Polly Jean Harvey, conveys an awful lot even when she doesn't seem to be saying much. There's just so much ground covered here that throwing something else at them, like a more complicated lyric, might prove their tipping point. As it stands, though, Songs is a series of small successes in slightly askew songcraft.

Artist: Stricken City, Album: Songs About People I Know, Genre: Pop/R&B, Score (1-10): 7.5 Album review: "Songs About People I Know, the glassy, slightly grimy London-based post-punk foursome Stricken City's debut, sits somewhere between an EP and LP. Featuring 24 minutes of reverby guitars and spluttery drums careening around singer/keyboardist Rebekah Raa's hook-heavy character sketches, it's a fine record; despite its length, it's fleshed out and full of flourish. If anything, it's all over way too soon. If only they knew more people. There's something wonderfully ramshackle and even a little weird about the songs on Songs, from the creaky Victrola of opener "Gifted" (apparently recorded in a London bus) to the unspooling C86 haze that covers the rest. Bleary guitars, tricky rhythms, and Raa's ascendant vocal melodies seem engaged in a tug of war, and even the odd ballad feels, well, odd when cast in their able amble. The best tunes here aren't too fitful to be unruly or even undancable, yet their muddled construction always seems to threaten a topple. It's Raa who holds it all together, her voice dipping and soaring over these tunes, a little like a looser Sue Tompkins from Life Without Buildings. Even with an oddball backdrop, an unlikely vocal melody, over an unruly pile of guitars, Raa finds a way to captivate, and without much apparent effort. The intimate portraits promised in the title don't quite materialize-- most songs are about people you know, y'know-- but the legit pangs of longing in Raa's voice lead one to believe she entered the booth for every tune with somebody specific in mind, even when the sentiments feel a little general. The accordion-led "Sometimes I Love You" leans that way-- sometimes she hates you, too-- but, on the strength of its unique arrangement and Raa's resigned vocal, you'll barely notice. Stark closer "Terrible Things" smacks of PJ Harvey's bleak White Chalk, and Raa, much like Polly Jean Harvey, conveys an awful lot even when she doesn't seem to be saying much. There's just so much ground covered here that throwing something else at them, like a more complicated lyric, might prove their tipping point. As it stands, though, Songs is a series of small successes in slightly askew songcraft."

Dave Gahan

Hourglass

Rock

Nitsuh Abebe

This has presumably been a strange and exciting decade to be a member of Depeche Mode: Seven years during which dark, blustery electro-pop has come back as a mainstream force, especially in their native UK, and sometimes in exactly the terms they were supplying it 15 or 20 years ago. They've noticed this, surely. Perhaps it's why, after sidetracking into a minimal, techy sound on 2001's Exciter, they ran right back to blaring, grainy bombast on 2005's Playing the Angel. And perhaps it's why, after a solo debut that differentiated itself from DM by putting a guitar up front, singer Dave Gahan has veered back toward the drama you expect of him. The problem is that while Hourglass has Gahan sounding a lot more assured and competent as a songwriter, it's also too much what you'd expect of him. Holed up in a New York studio with Depeche Mode's touring drummer and guitar player, he's constructed a Pro-Tooled set of dark rock grooves and electronic buzzing that won't shock anyone who's heard him or his band since, say, Songs of Faith and Devotion-- it's tasteful, professional, and as sophisticated as you'd expect from veterans. But it's also the kind of rote music that has very little purpose on its own. It's the kind that needs a very good singer-- and a very good songwriter-- to give it a reason to exist. Gahan isn't that guy right now, and his presence here seems as rote as the music. He's addicted to the grand, prophetic register he's been singing in for years now, but he's not so good these days at making it seem like there's a reason for him to stay in that place. Lyrics about religion and self-doubt may be Depeche Mode's stock in trade, but none of them necessarily support the sinister breathing and chest-beating drama Gahan goes for-- drama that seems awfully routine here, like a product he's manufacturing. It's a feeling that infects a lot of the tracks here, among which even the better ones can be too transparently professional, faultless but inessential. "Endless" looks to recapture the 00s with a minimized glam beat, the same T Rex shuffle that's put acts like Goldfrapp on the charts-- but Gahan seems to be copping his hook from Depeche Mode's "I Feel You", and all the sensual atmosphere he's pumping out feels more like branding than substance. The single, "Kingdom", sounds limp and listless, a big melody in a song that feels like it came out of a box. The tracks here that actually surprise-- the ones that take risks, jump out of the realm of expectations, or at least push Gahan's usual persona to the point of self-parody-- just wind up underlining the lack of spark in the songs around them. "Deeper and Deeper" is great precisely because it's so potentially embarrassing: Gahan is growling, play-acting a little monster, anteing up and putting something in the game. It's too rare of an occurrence here, and a little more of it would have provided much better context for the tracks-- "Down", "Miracles", "Saw Something"-- where Gahan does what Gahan does perfectly well. It's possible to give albums like this a sense of risk and vigor, as proven just a couple months back by another 80s-alternative mainstay, someone Gahan has surely sat next to in a whole lot of record collections: Siouxsie Sioux burst out with exactly the same kind of deep, dark, guitars-and-electro solo pop record, and it was packed with all the verve this one's missing. I don't doubt that those who have followed Gahan and Depeche Mode for years will find things to like in Hourglass and enjoy hearing him continue to struggle with the topics he and his lyrics always do; he's eloquent and interesting, and I have no doubt that he's feeling every word and note here. But I'm guessing that for most, on this record, hearing Gahan feel it will be as exciting as watching any other professional perform the task he's a pro at, whether it's chopping down trees or rebuilding car engines.

Artist: Dave Gahan, Album: Hourglass, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 5.7 Album review: "This has presumably been a strange and exciting decade to be a member of Depeche Mode: Seven years during which dark, blustery electro-pop has come back as a mainstream force, especially in their native UK, and sometimes in exactly the terms they were supplying it 15 or 20 years ago. They've noticed this, surely. Perhaps it's why, after sidetracking into a minimal, techy sound on 2001's Exciter, they ran right back to blaring, grainy bombast on 2005's Playing the Angel. And perhaps it's why, after a solo debut that differentiated itself from DM by putting a guitar up front, singer Dave Gahan has veered back toward the drama you expect of him. The problem is that while Hourglass has Gahan sounding a lot more assured and competent as a songwriter, it's also too much what you'd expect of him. Holed up in a New York studio with Depeche Mode's touring drummer and guitar player, he's constructed a Pro-Tooled set of dark rock grooves and electronic buzzing that won't shock anyone who's heard him or his band since, say, Songs of Faith and Devotion-- it's tasteful, professional, and as sophisticated as you'd expect from veterans. But it's also the kind of rote music that has very little purpose on its own. It's the kind that needs a very good singer-- and a very good songwriter-- to give it a reason to exist. Gahan isn't that guy right now, and his presence here seems as rote as the music. He's addicted to the grand, prophetic register he's been singing in for years now, but he's not so good these days at making it seem like there's a reason for him to stay in that place. Lyrics about religion and self-doubt may be Depeche Mode's stock in trade, but none of them necessarily support the sinister breathing and chest-beating drama Gahan goes for-- drama that seems awfully routine here, like a product he's manufacturing. It's a feeling that infects a lot of the tracks here, among which even the better ones can be too transparently professional, faultless but inessential. "Endless" looks to recapture the 00s with a minimized glam beat, the same T Rex shuffle that's put acts like Goldfrapp on the charts-- but Gahan seems to be copping his hook from Depeche Mode's "I Feel You", and all the sensual atmosphere he's pumping out feels more like branding than substance. The single, "Kingdom", sounds limp and listless, a big melody in a song that feels like it came out of a box. The tracks here that actually surprise-- the ones that take risks, jump out of the realm of expectations, or at least push Gahan's usual persona to the point of self-parody-- just wind up underlining the lack of spark in the songs around them. "Deeper and Deeper" is great precisely because it's so potentially embarrassing: Gahan is growling, play-acting a little monster, anteing up and putting something in the game. It's too rare of an occurrence here, and a little more of it would have provided much better context for the tracks-- "Down", "Miracles", "Saw Something"-- where Gahan does what Gahan does perfectly well. It's possible to give albums like this a sense of risk and vigor, as proven just a couple months back by another 80s-alternative mainstay, someone Gahan has surely sat next to in a whole lot of record collections: Siouxsie Sioux burst out with exactly the same kind of deep, dark, guitars-and-electro solo pop record, and it was packed with all the verve this one's missing. I don't doubt that those who have followed Gahan and Depeche Mode for years will find things to like in Hourglass and enjoy hearing him continue to struggle with the topics he and his lyrics always do; he's eloquent and interesting, and I have no doubt that he's feeling every word and note here. But I'm guessing that for most, on this record, hearing Gahan feel it will be as exciting as watching any other professional perform the task he's a pro at, whether it's chopping down trees or rebuilding car engines."

Melvins

The Bride Screamed Murder

Metal,Rock

David Raposa

From the first 90 seconds of The Bride Screamed Murder (the sort of trashy B-movie title perfect for the group's school-binder-metal MO), it seems like this most recent incarnation of the Melvins-- longtime mainstays Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, backed by Big Business' Jared Warren and Coady Willis-- is content to stay the course and follow the return-to-form lead of their last two albums. That said, staying the course isn't exactly what the Melvins are best known for, so while the transformation of "The Water Glass" mid-track from state-of-the-art sludge into an honest-to-goodness marching song is unexpected, the fact that the Melvins opted to switch gears isn't a shocker. After all, it's following those sorts of counterintuitive impulses, for better (various B-sides from their 1997 AmRep singles collection) or worse (their Leif Garrett-flavored cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), that make this band worth a damn as it proudly trudges into its third decade. Unfortunately, The Bride Screamed Murder is one of those cases where taking the road less traveled leads to nowhere. Some fans might beg to differ, of course. They'll roll with the punches offered by indecisive three-in-one tracks like "Inhumanity and Death” and "Electric Flower". Maybe they'll view the arch grunge moves of "Hospital Up" as a pithy meta-commentary, and get a chuckle out of the tune's Spinal Tap jazz odyssey rooster-crowing coda. They might also get a kick out of the twerpy ending to "I'll Finish You Off", where someone's scat-tastic be-bopping leads to the "My Sharona" hook is banged out while "My Generation" is sung over it. When it turns out that such an ending actually foreshadows a lugubrious Flipper-like stumble through "My Generation", what was a brief moment turns into a seven-minute-long joke. However, if that all doesn't sound appealing to you, you'll probably hear The Bride Screamed Murder as an album full of unfinished sketches and lazy doodles masquerading as proper tunes. The digressions will either come off as failed experiments or unfunny jokes, a handful of good ideas undercut by either their context or their brevity. Any patience engendered by the Melvins' countless good works will be tested by those willing to slog through this scattershot mess. The Bride Screamed Murder is the sort of album one might expect from a long-in-the-tooth group trying to rediscover its purpose and rejuvenate itself. That it comes on the heels of what seemed to be the band's rejuvenation makes it all the more disappointing.

Artist: Melvins, Album: The Bride Screamed Murder, Genre: Metal,Rock, Score (1-10): 5.2 Album review: "From the first 90 seconds of The Bride Screamed Murder (the sort of trashy B-movie title perfect for the group's school-binder-metal MO), it seems like this most recent incarnation of the Melvins-- longtime mainstays Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, backed by Big Business' Jared Warren and Coady Willis-- is content to stay the course and follow the return-to-form lead of their last two albums. That said, staying the course isn't exactly what the Melvins are best known for, so while the transformation of "The Water Glass" mid-track from state-of-the-art sludge into an honest-to-goodness marching song is unexpected, the fact that the Melvins opted to switch gears isn't a shocker. After all, it's following those sorts of counterintuitive impulses, for better (various B-sides from their 1997 AmRep singles collection) or worse (their Leif Garrett-flavored cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), that make this band worth a damn as it proudly trudges into its third decade. Unfortunately, The Bride Screamed Murder is one of those cases where taking the road less traveled leads to nowhere. Some fans might beg to differ, of course. They'll roll with the punches offered by indecisive three-in-one tracks like "Inhumanity and Death” and "Electric Flower". Maybe they'll view the arch grunge moves of "Hospital Up" as a pithy meta-commentary, and get a chuckle out of the tune's Spinal Tap jazz odyssey rooster-crowing coda. They might also get a kick out of the twerpy ending to "I'll Finish You Off", where someone's scat-tastic be-bopping leads to the "My Sharona" hook is banged out while "My Generation" is sung over it. When it turns out that such an ending actually foreshadows a lugubrious Flipper-like stumble through "My Generation", what was a brief moment turns into a seven-minute-long joke. However, if that all doesn't sound appealing to you, you'll probably hear The Bride Screamed Murder as an album full of unfinished sketches and lazy doodles masquerading as proper tunes. The digressions will either come off as failed experiments or unfunny jokes, a handful of good ideas undercut by either their context or their brevity. Any patience engendered by the Melvins' countless good works will be tested by those willing to slog through this scattershot mess. The Bride Screamed Murder is the sort of album one might expect from a long-in-the-tooth group trying to rediscover its purpose and rejuvenate itself. That it comes on the heels of what seemed to be the band's rejuvenation makes it all the more disappointing."

A Cloud Mireya

Singular

Rob Mitchum

The last time I reviewed a Scott Herren project, he responded by calling me an idiotic and ignorant American, which is probably about the worst thing I've been called by someone who didn't have a Weezer song in their e-mail address. Criticism is dangerous. Don't try this at home, kids. Ironically, Herren was taking violent issue with a largely positive review, albeit one in which my praise had been obscured by what, in retrospect, was an ill-conceived joke about cultural sensitivity. My main thesis, unclouded by the jest, was that Savath & Savalas' mini-album finale, Mañana, had outperformed the project's previous output because it started to tweak rather than reverently reproduce the Catalan folk music at its heart. Admirable as Herren's efforts to explore the music and culture of half his genetic background were, these excavations only truly took flight when he incorporated the rest of his heritage, up to and including his recent history as hyphenated-loop-splicer extraordinaire. Thankfully, A Cloud Mireya picks up somewhat from where that previous pseudonym left off, retaining that project's ethereal, soothing atmosphere. This time around, Herren trades in Eva Puyuelo Muns for Claudia Deheza, formerly of the excitably named On!Air!Library!, to fill the role of muse/singer/collaborator. Despite being detached from her twin sister Alley, Deheza still contributes characteristically strange but plush vocals, helped by Herren's manipulations and occasional low-part harmonization. Musically, Herren contributes a fascinating mélange of his international influences without tipping the balance toward any one locality or ignoring the technology of his work as Prefuse 73. Songs like "These Nights", with its mellow psychedelia simmering over a loosely funky drum kit, or "Illustional", which travels from skittery bossa nova to a vaguely Middle Eastern conclusion, reveal a more successful hybrid of Herren's myriad influences. It's enough to sustain songs much longer than the typical ADD Herren runtime, most notably the sprawling, 12-minute suite "Bliss Inseclusion", which repels boredom by evolving through several different phases of Savath-ish fingerpicking, post-rock crecendos, and backward-loop mayhem. Of course, this kind of music always runs the risk of altitude sickness, chilling out to the point of hypothermia. "Another Day" and "These Flowers" run afoul of this fine line, mostly due to Herren's decision to eschew the use of his signature itchy percussion; without his unpredictable ear for rhythm as a tether, Deheza's airy singing floats off all too easily. Those highly processed vocals, when coupled with relatively straight backing, also occasionally wander into dangerous Enya/Sade territory, as on "Safety in Number One". But to the duo's credit, these new-age moments are rare relative to placid but intricately detailed compositions like "Winter Sleep". Exotic without being curatorial, sparse without being simple, Singular suggests that A Cloud Mireya may be the first of Herren's personae to give the Prefuse 73 work serious competition for flagship status...and I'm not just saying that to avoid his hate mail.

Artist: A Cloud Mireya, Album: Singular, Genre: None, Score (1-10): 7.7 Album review: "The last time I reviewed a Scott Herren project, he responded by calling me an idiotic and ignorant American, which is probably about the worst thing I've been called by someone who didn't have a Weezer song in their e-mail address. Criticism is dangerous. Don't try this at home, kids. Ironically, Herren was taking violent issue with a largely positive review, albeit one in which my praise had been obscured by what, in retrospect, was an ill-conceived joke about cultural sensitivity. My main thesis, unclouded by the jest, was that Savath & Savalas' mini-album finale, Mañana, had outperformed the project's previous output because it started to tweak rather than reverently reproduce the Catalan folk music at its heart. Admirable as Herren's efforts to explore the music and culture of half his genetic background were, these excavations only truly took flight when he incorporated the rest of his heritage, up to and including his recent history as hyphenated-loop-splicer extraordinaire. Thankfully, A Cloud Mireya picks up somewhat from where that previous pseudonym left off, retaining that project's ethereal, soothing atmosphere. This time around, Herren trades in Eva Puyuelo Muns for Claudia Deheza, formerly of the excitably named On!Air!Library!, to fill the role of muse/singer/collaborator. Despite being detached from her twin sister Alley, Deheza still contributes characteristically strange but plush vocals, helped by Herren's manipulations and occasional low-part harmonization. Musically, Herren contributes a fascinating mélange of his international influences without tipping the balance toward any one locality or ignoring the technology of his work as Prefuse 73. Songs like "These Nights", with its mellow psychedelia simmering over a loosely funky drum kit, or "Illustional", which travels from skittery bossa nova to a vaguely Middle Eastern conclusion, reveal a more successful hybrid of Herren's myriad influences. It's enough to sustain songs much longer than the typical ADD Herren runtime, most notably the sprawling, 12-minute suite "Bliss Inseclusion", which repels boredom by evolving through several different phases of Savath-ish fingerpicking, post-rock crecendos, and backward-loop mayhem. Of course, this kind of music always runs the risk of altitude sickness, chilling out to the point of hypothermia. "Another Day" and "These Flowers" run afoul of this fine line, mostly due to Herren's decision to eschew the use of his signature itchy percussion; without his unpredictable ear for rhythm as a tether, Deheza's airy singing floats off all too easily. Those highly processed vocals, when coupled with relatively straight backing, also occasionally wander into dangerous Enya/Sade territory, as on "Safety in Number One". But to the duo's credit, these new-age moments are rare relative to placid but intricately detailed compositions like "Winter Sleep". Exotic without being curatorial, sparse without being simple, Singular suggests that A Cloud Mireya may be the first of Herren's personae to give the Prefuse 73 work serious competition for flagship status...and I'm not just saying that to avoid his hate mail."

Tears for Fears

Songs From the Big Chair

Rock

Tal Rosenberg

Welcome to your life. From the moment you enter the world, you’re traumatized, first by your very birth, then by every subsequent moment of your existence, each of which will have a profound and significant effect on your behavior; in childhood, when you experience emotional distress, that pain remains, buried underneath time and memory. In 1970, the psychologist Arthur Janov published The Primal Scream, in which he detailed his theory that the neuroses and baggage that adults carry with them are caused by repressed traumatic events from childhood. The same year, John Lennon and Yoko Ono underwent therapy sessions with Janov for about five months. Lennon channeled his experiences into his solo debut, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He created one album out of his encounters with Janov; Tears for Fears based their entire career off of Janov’s work. Even the band’s name is derived from The Primal Scream, on a theory of children’s nightmares. “Basically, if they are allowed to be themselves in their waking hours and are allowed to let their natural crying out, then they won’t dream up monsters at night to be scared of because they can’t face the reality of being scared of their parents,” bassist and co-singer Curt Smith told Will Hall, the author of Tears for Fears . . . Tales From the Big Chair. “Since emotional stress is the central issue here, the solution... is to encourage an emotional response so intense that the years of hidden anger and hurt are allowed to surface from the depths of the unconscious.” On their second LP, 1985’s Songs From the Big Chair, Tears for Fears took a cue from Lennon and applied what they’d learned from Janov toward studies of single subjects: money, power, love, war, faith. But where Lennon went small, Tears for Fears went huge. They took the goth and synth-pop foundation they constructed on their debut, 1983’s The Hurting, and piled on saxophone, Fairlights, guitar solos, samplers, and live drums on top of drum machines. They wrote cresting choruses, arena-ready anthems, elegant ballads, and multi-section songs that have more in common with prog-rock than most of new wave. And they improbably created not just one of the biggest albums of the 1980s, but an album that manages to exude the 1980s in the same way that Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours conveys the lonely narcissism and hedonism of the ’70s, or Love’s Forever Changes captures both the bliss and the ominousness of the Summer of Love. When Smith and Tears for Fears co-singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter Roland Orzabal went to record Songs From the Big Chair, the two possessed the kind of ambition necessary to produce an era-defining album. More than anything, Tears for Fears felt like they had something to prove to both critics and to themselves. The Hurting went to number one on the UK album charts, sold a million copies, and yielded three top-five singles—“Mad World,” “Pale Shelter,” and “Change”—but the UK music press approached it with near hostility. In his review of the album for NME, Gavin Martin writes, “Sure, they may be popular—so was the Reverend Jim Jones when he took 5,000 followers to Guyana to commit mass suicide.” Orzabal told The Quietus, in an interview, “We weren’t particularly liked by some of the music journals. If you were on the front cover of Smash Hits, you were doomed.” Part of the problem was that Tears for Fears came off as being too sincere—The Hurting was so explicit about its debt to Janov and The Primal Scream, and so lacking in subtlety, that the album cover depicted a child holding his head in his hands. But that sincerity belies the cosmetic gloss of the music. With its gleaming synthesizers, tight drum-machine programming, and minor-key melodies, The Hurting is a hallmark of early-80s dark wave and goth. That beauty came with a price: “It ended up taking a lot of time and costing a lot of money because we were fussy,” Smith told Hall. “The problem with it taking so long was that when we looked back at tracks we’d done months before we’d think, ‘Ooh, I don’t like that.’” For Songs From the Big Chair, the band regrouped at their keyboardist Ian Stanley’s home studio in Somerset and rehired Chris Hughes, who also produced The Hurting. After a few false starts, Orzabal formed a brain trust of himself, Hughes, and Stanley, with Dave Bascombe providing engineering assistance and Smith signing off on ideas and making suggestions. They took inspiration from the music they were listening to, cerebral art-rock by Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, and Peter Gabriel. Smith confessed that his favorite album at the time was the Blue Nile’s A Walk Across the Rooftops. He could tell the Blue Nile had total artistic control—the music sounded calculated, finessed, meticulous. In the documentary Scenes From the Big Chair, Orzabal revealed that the method Tears for Fears adopted was “fitting songs into interesting sounds.” To create the sounds, the squad in Somerset set up a formidable assembly of equipment: “a LinnDrum II box, a Drumulator drum box, a Roland Super Jupiter synthesizer, a Fairlight synthesizer, a DX7 keyboard, a rack of guitars, a Steinberger Bass, a Fender Stratocaster and a Gretsch maple drum kit,” according to Hughes. The main foursome would go in the studio from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., five days a week. They started by experimenting with individual fragments and then building them out. They took their time and loosened up their approach. Most importantly, they enjoyed themselves. No track on Songs From the Big Chair exemplifies this free-roaming, tessellating approach more than its opener, the No. 1 single “Shout.” As Hughes told RBMA, “[Roland] set up a little drum box and a little synthesizer with a bass tone. He pressed the button on the drum box, and he programmed this little beat and it had these little chimey bells and a clapping drum beat. He pressed one of the keys and started singing, ‘Shout. Shout. Let it all out.’” The template was an opportunity for Hughes, Orzabal, and Stanley to indulge. The structure of “Shout” is minimal, just one or two vocal melodies played over a steady drumbeat for around six-and-a-half minutes. But the thrust of the song is repetition, because as the hook grows and grows, the band keeps adding patches and instruments that compound the potency of the songwriting: a Fairlight-programmed ghostly synth-flute line, chippy guitar licks, and then a perfectly timed breakdown at 2:40, with a warped keyboard patch followed by a huge rush of Hammond organ and then a return to that earlier synth-flute, in a sequence that sounds like a br

Artist: Tears for Fears, Album: Songs From the Big Chair, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 8.9 Album review: "Welcome to your life. From the moment you enter the world, you’re traumatized, first by your very birth, then by every subsequent moment of your existence, each of which will have a profound and significant effect on your behavior; in childhood, when you experience emotional distress, that pain remains, buried underneath time and memory. In 1970, the psychologist Arthur Janov published The Primal Scream, in which he detailed his theory that the neuroses and baggage that adults carry with them are caused by repressed traumatic events from childhood. The same year, John Lennon and Yoko Ono underwent therapy sessions with Janov for about five months. Lennon channeled his experiences into his solo debut, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He created one album out of his encounters with Janov; Tears for Fears based their entire career off of Janov’s work. Even the band’s name is derived from The Primal Scream, on a theory of children’s nightmares. “Basically, if they are allowed to be themselves in their waking hours and are allowed to let their natural crying out, then they won’t dream up monsters at night to be scared of because they can’t face the reality of being scared of their parents,” bassist and co-singer Curt Smith told Will Hall, the author of Tears for Fears . . . Tales From the Big Chair. “Since emotional stress is the central issue here, the solution... is to encourage an emotional response so intense that the years of hidden anger and hurt are allowed to surface from the depths of the unconscious.” On their second LP, 1985’s Songs From the Big Chair, Tears for Fears took a cue from Lennon and applied what they’d learned from Janov toward studies of single subjects: money, power, love, war, faith. But where Lennon went small, Tears for Fears went huge. They took the goth and synth-pop foundation they constructed on their debut, 1983’s The Hurting, and piled on saxophone, Fairlights, guitar solos, samplers, and live drums on top of drum machines. They wrote cresting choruses, arena-ready anthems, elegant ballads, and multi-section songs that have more in common with prog-rock than most of new wave. And they improbably created not just one of the biggest albums of the 1980s, but an album that manages to exude the 1980s in the same way that Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours conveys the lonely narcissism and hedonism of the ’70s, or Love’s Forever Changes captures both the bliss and the ominousness of the Summer of Love. When Smith and Tears for Fears co-singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter Roland Orzabal went to record Songs From the Big Chair, the two possessed the kind of ambition necessary to produce an era-defining album. More than anything, Tears for Fears felt like they had something to prove to both critics and to themselves. The Hurting went to number one on the UK album charts, sold a million copies, and yielded three top-five singles—“Mad World,” “Pale Shelter,” and “Change”—but the UK music press approached it with near hostility. In his review of the album for NME, Gavin Martin writes, “Sure, they may be popular—so was the Reverend Jim Jones when he took 5,000 followers to Guyana to commit mass suicide.” Orzabal told The Quietus, in an interview, “We weren’t particularly liked by some of the music journals. If you were on the front cover of Smash Hits, you were doomed.” Part of the problem was that Tears for Fears came off as being too sincere—The Hurting was so explicit about its debt to Janov and The Primal Scream, and so lacking in subtlety, that the album cover depicted a child holding his head in his hands. But that sincerity belies the cosmetic gloss of the music. With its gleaming synthesizers, tight drum-machine programming, and minor-key melodies, The Hurting is a hallmark of early-80s dark wave and goth. That beauty came with a price: “It ended up taking a lot of time and costing a lot of money because we were fussy,” Smith told Hall. “The problem with it taking so long was that when we looked back at tracks we’d done months before we’d think, ‘Ooh, I don’t like that.’” For Songs From the Big Chair, the band regrouped at their keyboardist Ian Stanley’s home studio in Somerset and rehired Chris Hughes, who also produced The Hurting. After a few false starts, Orzabal formed a brain trust of himself, Hughes, and Stanley, with Dave Bascombe providing engineering assistance and Smith signing off on ideas and making suggestions. They took inspiration from the music they were listening to, cerebral art-rock by Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, and Peter Gabriel. Smith confessed that his favorite album at the time was the Blue Nile’s A Walk Across the Rooftops. He could tell the Blue Nile had total artistic control—the music sounded calculated, finessed, meticulous. In the documentary Scenes From the Big Chair, Orzabal revealed that the method Tears for Fears adopted was “fitting songs into interesting sounds.” To create the sounds, the squad in Somerset set up a formidable assembly of equipment: “a LinnDrum II box, a Drumulator drum box, a Roland Super Jupiter synthesizer, a Fairlight synthesizer, a DX7 keyboard, a rack of guitars, a Steinberger Bass, a Fender Stratocaster and a Gretsch maple drum kit,” according to Hughes. The main foursome would go in the studio from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., five days a week. They started by experimenting with individual fragments and then building them out. They took their time and loosened up their approach. Most importantly, they enjoyed themselves. No track on Songs From the Big Chair exemplifies this free-roaming, tessellating approach more than its opener, the No. 1 single “Shout.” As Hughes told RBMA, “[Roland] set up a little drum box and a little synthesizer with a bass tone. He pressed the button on the drum box, and he programmed this little beat and it had these little chimey bells and a clapping drum beat. He pressed one of the keys and started singing, ‘Shout. Shout. Let it all out.’” The template was an opportunity for Hughes, Orzabal, and Stanley to indulge. The structure of “Shout” is minimal, just one or two vocal melodies played over a steady drumbeat for around six-and-a-half minutes. But the thrust of the song is repetition, because as the hook grows and grows, the band keeps adding patches and instruments that compound the potency of the songwriting: a Fairlight-programmed ghostly synth-flute line, chippy guitar licks, and then a perfectly timed breakdown at 2:40, with a warped keyboard patch followed by a huge rush of Hammond organ and then a return to that earlier synth-flute, in a sequence that sounds like a br"

BlocBoy JB

Don’t Think That

Rap

Sheldon Pearce

Memphis rapper BlocBoy JB’s most important contribution to pop culture may never earn him the credit he deserves. He created the now-viral “Shoot” dance for a song of the same name. Fortnite ripped it off, Usain Bolt performed it as a celebration during his soccer debut, and it appeared at the World Cup this summer. A microcosm of the ways rap culture dominates culture at large without concomitant representation for the people who create it, “Shoot” will likely leave BlocBoy JB behind as its originator. BlocBoy’s year-capping, seven-track mixtape, Don’t Think That, feels like an overture made with relevance in mind, an effort to stay seen amid a fast-moving attention economy. Its songs are good but mostly inessential. Don’t Think That isn’t as strong as Simi, JB’s Drake-cosigned May breakout stacked with vivid off-brand quips and threats so bizarre they seemed only half-serious. He was respected in the hood like a preacher wearing Gucci and Louis sneakers, and you were dancing with the devil while he danced with Cinderellas. Bars about guns seemed almost whimsical; the songs themselves, fun. But these new tracks don’t press zonked-out shoot-’em-ups into minor-key thumpers. This is due, in part, to fewer Tay Keith beats. No beatmaker had a better year than he did, from “Look Alive” to “Nonstop,” but he produced only two songs on this tape, “Club Rock” and “Bacc Street Boys.” BlocBoy sounds best scooting through them, his voice sloping perfectly into their gaps. JB and Keith share an undeniable chemistry, one not even Drake could replicate in several attempts. His absence here changes the tenor of the entire tape. Beats from Babyxwater, DMacTooBangin, and Kyle Resto box BlocBoy into the sounds of the rap moment—spaced-out trap and Auto-Tune—and his songs lose their signature. The hooks aren’t as catchy here, either, and the verses aren’t as snappy as those of Simi. Like many of those songs, these only have one verse, too. But Simi’s verses were more purposeful and conscious of their economy, creating a 48-minute jaunt with a nice arc. In this 15-minute run, though, getting eight or 16 bars a pop means getting short-changed, especially with JB’s tottering rap style. The writing is less imaginative, plucking the lowest-hanging fruit for punchlines. He even recycles one such line—about “pulling cards like Yu-Gi-Oh”—from Simi. For a stopgap release, Don’t Think That is serviceable, producing at least one daring maneuver in “Crip Lit,” a left-field half-ballad that slathers Auto-Tuned croons onto guitar licks. But nothing about these songs indicates even lateral movement, much less progress. Still, BlocBoy can quickly seize momentum. Even when the songs are inert, his fitful performances suggest forward motion. “Rich Hoes” sounds like the scooped-out guts of G-Eazy’s “No Limit,” but BlocBoy salvages it with flows that fold where they shouldn’t. He jerks them out of pocket and then thrusts them abruptly back on beat. His greatest strength is that his raps are almost casually slapstick in performance and execution. And his sense for swing is almost as pointed as his comedic timing. He likes to drag out rhyme schemes, changing up the pace to throw you off. Stretching a scheme like this is an underrated skill that requires patience and finesse, like lining up dominos in an array. It’s one that BlocBoy regularly deploys. JB is at his best when he uses these lurching flows to construct lasting images. During one sequence of “Club Rock,” he spends $20,000 on soap while reminiscing about taking his gun to school and wearing matching Dickies. But he gets even better on “Bloc”: “Shots in your stomach, bitch, how you gon’ eat?/I’m gettin’ head while I’m brushin’ my teeth/Walk in this bitch like my name Mr. T,” he raps, sketching out a caricature. Such moments drive his songs, but there just aren’t nearly enough of them on Don’t Think That. This is BlocBoy JB’s attempt to stay as current as the things he helped make popular but are now more popular than he is—the “Shoot” dance and Tay Keith’s production, namely. In so doing, he only widens those gaps.

Artist: BlocBoy JB , Album: Don’t Think That, Genre: Rap, Score (1-10): 6.2 Album review: "Memphis rapper BlocBoy JB’s most important contribution to pop culture may never earn him the credit he deserves. He created the now-viral “Shoot” dance for a song of the same name. Fortnite ripped it off, Usain Bolt performed it as a celebration during his soccer debut, and it appeared at the World Cup this summer. A microcosm of the ways rap culture dominates culture at large without concomitant representation for the people who create it, “Shoot” will likely leave BlocBoy JB behind as its originator. BlocBoy’s year-capping, seven-track mixtape, Don’t Think That, feels like an overture made with relevance in mind, an effort to stay seen amid a fast-moving attention economy. Its songs are good but mostly inessential. Don’t Think That isn’t as strong as Simi, JB’s Drake-cosigned May breakout stacked with vivid off-brand quips and threats so bizarre they seemed only half-serious. He was respected in the hood like a preacher wearing Gucci and Louis sneakers, and you were dancing with the devil while he danced with Cinderellas. Bars about guns seemed almost whimsical; the songs themselves, fun. But these new tracks don’t press zonked-out shoot-’em-ups into minor-key thumpers. This is due, in part, to fewer Tay Keith beats. No beatmaker had a better year than he did, from “Look Alive” to “Nonstop,” but he produced only two songs on this tape, “Club Rock” and “Bacc Street Boys.” BlocBoy sounds best scooting through them, his voice sloping perfectly into their gaps. JB and Keith share an undeniable chemistry, one not even Drake could replicate in several attempts. His absence here changes the tenor of the entire tape. Beats from Babyxwater, DMacTooBangin, and Kyle Resto box BlocBoy into the sounds of the rap moment—spaced-out trap and Auto-Tune—and his songs lose their signature. The hooks aren’t as catchy here, either, and the verses aren’t as snappy as those of Simi. Like many of those songs, these only have one verse, too. But Simi’s verses were more purposeful and conscious of their economy, creating a 48-minute jaunt with a nice arc. In this 15-minute run, though, getting eight or 16 bars a pop means getting short-changed, especially with JB’s tottering rap style. The writing is less imaginative, plucking the lowest-hanging fruit for punchlines. He even recycles one such line—about “pulling cards like Yu-Gi-Oh”—from Simi. For a stopgap release, Don’t Think That is serviceable, producing at least one daring maneuver in “Crip Lit,” a left-field half-ballad that slathers Auto-Tuned croons onto guitar licks. But nothing about these songs indicates even lateral movement, much less progress. Still, BlocBoy can quickly seize momentum. Even when the songs are inert, his fitful performances suggest forward motion. “Rich Hoes” sounds like the scooped-out guts of G-Eazy’s “No Limit,” but BlocBoy salvages it with flows that fold where they shouldn’t. He jerks them out of pocket and then thrusts them abruptly back on beat. His greatest strength is that his raps are almost casually slapstick in performance and execution. And his sense for swing is almost as pointed as his comedic timing. He likes to drag out rhyme schemes, changing up the pace to throw you off. Stretching a scheme like this is an underrated skill that requires patience and finesse, like lining up dominos in an array. It’s one that BlocBoy regularly deploys. JB is at his best when he uses these lurching flows to construct lasting images. During one sequence of “Club Rock,” he spends $20,000 on soap while reminiscing about taking his gun to school and wearing matching Dickies. But he gets even better on “Bloc”: “Shots in your stomach, bitch, how you gon’ eat?/I’m gettin’ head while I’m brushin’ my teeth/Walk in this bitch like my name Mr. T,” he raps, sketching out a caricature. Such moments drive his songs, but there just aren’t nearly enough of them on Don’t Think That. This is BlocBoy JB’s attempt to stay as current as the things he helped make popular but are now more popular than he is—the “Shoot” dance and Tay Keith’s production, namely. In so doing, he only widens those gaps."

Twerps

Underlay EP

Rock

Evan Minsker

Melbourne's Twerps have cited the Clean and the Go-Betweens as influences, but their new EP, Underlay, doesn't skate by on jangle-centric nostalgia. With older tracks like "Jam Song", they proved that they could ride a central groove while exploring different avenues; on Underlay, they find a similar balance between precise and unsteady. "Hypocrite" is a stellar example of this, as Rick Milovanovic's bass climbs and rollicks, consistently competing with the guitar for the spotlight. Meanwhile, drummer Alex Macfarlane (no relation to bandmate Julia) darts in several directions throughout the song, ramping up at the chorus and simmering toward the finish. The only time the band ever sound stagnant is on the instrumental title track, which is utilitarian—an unvarying two minutes, but a needed transition between "Wait Til You Smile" and "Consecutive Seasons". It's boring, and it bolsters the argument that Twerps are at their best when they stray from their set path. If there's an MVP here, it's Julia, who sings the best two of the EP's eight songs. Her contributions are the most lyrically complex and melodically satisfying on the album; in the upbeat pop tune "Conditional Report", she notices a hole in the Flemish glass window, which is letting the wind into their house. "How did we end up like this," she asks, maybe about the situation with their house, maybe about something bigger. "Raft" is deceptively heavy, considering its warm melody, using a raft in a flood as a potent image that alludes to anything from emotional tumult to straightforward survival. McFarlane's songs here are excellent examples of how this band can communicate so much with such a sparsely populated lyric sheet. Lead singer Marty Frawley shares this talent: "I'm just so damn sick/ I'm so sick of it all," he sings on Underlay's closer "Consecutive Seasons", a line that underlines Twerps' skill at writing songs fraught with universal, emotionally familiar sentiments. Another line in "Consecutive Seasons", however, sounds more specific: "And I don't want to sing 'Dreamin'/ It's lost every single meaning." The line is a derisive namedrop of a highlight from 2011's Twerps, an album filled with lyrics inspired by the blossoming relationship between bandmates Frawley and Julia McFarlane—songs that Frawley said left him feeling "exposed." On "Consecutive Seasons", Frawley sounds uncertain, discontent, and tired, a look that pairs well with the song's soft, bittersweet, jangling melody. There's a video that the band made last year to tease their next album where Frawley "scolds" each member of the band, telling them to get back to work and that they haven't "earned" their soft drinks. It's a funny video, but even though Frawley is game to send up serious notions of recording music, he and his band made a well-performed, well-written, focused statement on Underlay.

Artist: Twerps, Album: Underlay EP, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "Melbourne's Twerps have cited the Clean and the Go-Betweens as influences, but their new EP, Underlay, doesn't skate by on jangle-centric nostalgia. With older tracks like "Jam Song", they proved that they could ride a central groove while exploring different avenues; on Underlay, they find a similar balance between precise and unsteady. "Hypocrite" is a stellar example of this, as Rick Milovanovic's bass climbs and rollicks, consistently competing with the guitar for the spotlight. Meanwhile, drummer Alex Macfarlane (no relation to bandmate Julia) darts in several directions throughout the song, ramping up at the chorus and simmering toward the finish. The only time the band ever sound stagnant is on the instrumental title track, which is utilitarian—an unvarying two minutes, but a needed transition between "Wait Til You Smile" and "Consecutive Seasons". It's boring, and it bolsters the argument that Twerps are at their best when they stray from their set path. If there's an MVP here, it's Julia, who sings the best two of the EP's eight songs. Her contributions are the most lyrically complex and melodically satisfying on the album; in the upbeat pop tune "Conditional Report", she notices a hole in the Flemish glass window, which is letting the wind into their house. "How did we end up like this," she asks, maybe about the situation with their house, maybe about something bigger. "Raft" is deceptively heavy, considering its warm melody, using a raft in a flood as a potent image that alludes to anything from emotional tumult to straightforward survival. McFarlane's songs here are excellent examples of how this band can communicate so much with such a sparsely populated lyric sheet. Lead singer Marty Frawley shares this talent: "I'm just so damn sick/ I'm so sick of it all," he sings on Underlay's closer "Consecutive Seasons", a line that underlines Twerps' skill at writing songs fraught with universal, emotionally familiar sentiments. Another line in "Consecutive Seasons", however, sounds more specific: "And I don't want to sing 'Dreamin'/ It's lost every single meaning." The line is a derisive namedrop of a highlight from 2011's Twerps, an album filled with lyrics inspired by the blossoming relationship between bandmates Frawley and Julia McFarlane—songs that Frawley said left him feeling "exposed." On "Consecutive Seasons", Frawley sounds uncertain, discontent, and tired, a look that pairs well with the song's soft, bittersweet, jangling melody. There's a video that the band made last year to tease their next album where Frawley "scolds" each member of the band, telling them to get back to work and that they haven't "earned" their soft drinks. It's a funny video, but even though Frawley is game to send up serious notions of recording music, he and his band made a well-performed, well-written, focused statement on Underlay."

Peaking Lights

936 Remixes 12"

Electronic

Jenn Pelly

The two full-lengths from Wisconsin-to-California duo Peaking Lights make the band alumni of both the Night-People and Not Not Fun labels. If you find that part of their biography a bit incomprehensible, you may also be unaware that their 2011 full-length, *936, *was something of a triumph among the subset of music fans who still buy cassettes. Peaking Lights are currently at the heart of a new crop of underground, psychedelic pop groups. Their primitive sun worship is underpinned by a murky foundation of dub and drone, the layers filtered through the aural equivalent of a Xerox machine. You feel as if you are listening in on Peaking Lights, and their mantric hit "All the Sun That Shines" has always reminded me of a description the poet Allen Ginsberg once offered of Arthur Russell: "Buddhist bubblegum." Peaking Lights are DIY in a raw sense; co-leader Aaron Coyes even makes his own synthesizers. That detail is worth rehashing as a reminder that the group has thus far produced distinctly bohemian music. Its slow, deadpan atmosphere could be most appropriately paired with incense and burning candles. But between the layers of 936's hissy meanderings, there's a lot of breathing room, making the songs prime canvases for remixing. Not Not Fun began commissioning a remix EP for its dance-oriented imprint 100% Silk in February 2011, but in the time required to finalize the release, Peaking Lights signed to Domino's Weird World label and issued a separate collection. The most successful reworkings on these releases are those that leave Peaking Lights' meditative character intact. While the idea of L.A.'s "Ambassador of Boogie Funk" Dâm-Funk remixing anything sounds worthy of a few spins, his take on "All the Sun That Shines" for Weird World is more or less a cover, transforming the track with a slick sheen and subtle four-on-the-floor click. It's imaginative and well executed, but by the nature of being a Dâm-Funk creation, it compromises Peaking Lights' earthy, breathing tones for something a little too polished. It feels as though it'd work better as his own B-side. The same goes for Oakland zoner-rap duo Main Attrakionz, who use elements of "Marshmellow Yellow" and "Amazing and Wonderful" as cloud-ground for a few skilled verses. Electronic duo Patten turn "Hey Sparrow" into something more esoteric, but drag it out to the point of feeling unedited. What the Weird World comp lacks is cohesion, which is unfortuante since dub and reggae connoisseur Adrian Sherwood's impressive remake of "Tiger Eyes (Laid Back)" is easily the best cut on either set. The British producer maintains the song's atmosphere and relaxed mystique, but makes its production boom, burying a subtle swarm of laser-like synths under crisp vocal melodies. The 100% Silk EP draws its remixers straight from the label's own pool of DIY dance producers, who since last year have emphasized a specific, low-budget sound inspired by Italo disco and early Detroit house and techno. It's hypnagogic dance music for misfits and outsiders, pinning a punk philosophy to one indebted in some sense to Ariel Pink and YouTube's endless free music archive. Ital's Daniel Martin-McCormick, who also fronts the punk trio Mi Ami, offers a standout expansion of "Marshmellow Yellow", adding a driving beat and thudding bass that quicken the original's pace while maintaining its two-dimensional cool. Xander Harris adds spiky, galactic synths to "Birds of Paradise", shedding the song of its echo wash while building the electronics in isolated layers, reminiscent of Peaking Lights' own technique. No remix of "All the Sun That Shines" is a match for the album cut's alien sing-song charm, but Innergaze offer a welcome twist with warped vocal samples and a cosmic chug. On "Tiger Eyes", Cuticle pushes the vocals high and swaps gloom for wavering, sky-high synths. The 100% Silk EP calls for repeat listens due to its maintenance of 936's cohesive, textured voice, and even more so for carrying on the album's ethos.

Artist: Peaking Lights, Album: 936 Remixes 12", Genre: Electronic, Score (1-10): 7.0 Album review: "The two full-lengths from Wisconsin-to-California duo Peaking Lights make the band alumni of both the Night-People and Not Not Fun labels. If you find that part of their biography a bit incomprehensible, you may also be unaware that their 2011 full-length, *936, *was something of a triumph among the subset of music fans who still buy cassettes. Peaking Lights are currently at the heart of a new crop of underground, psychedelic pop groups. Their primitive sun worship is underpinned by a murky foundation of dub and drone, the layers filtered through the aural equivalent of a Xerox machine. You feel as if you are listening in on Peaking Lights, and their mantric hit "All the Sun That Shines" has always reminded me of a description the poet Allen Ginsberg once offered of Arthur Russell: "Buddhist bubblegum." Peaking Lights are DIY in a raw sense; co-leader Aaron Coyes even makes his own synthesizers. That detail is worth rehashing as a reminder that the group has thus far produced distinctly bohemian music. Its slow, deadpan atmosphere could be most appropriately paired with incense and burning candles. But between the layers of 936's hissy meanderings, there's a lot of breathing room, making the songs prime canvases for remixing. Not Not Fun began commissioning a remix EP for its dance-oriented imprint 100% Silk in February 2011, but in the time required to finalize the release, Peaking Lights signed to Domino's Weird World label and issued a separate collection. The most successful reworkings on these releases are those that leave Peaking Lights' meditative character intact. While the idea of L.A.'s "Ambassador of Boogie Funk" Dâm-Funk remixing anything sounds worthy of a few spins, his take on "All the Sun That Shines" for Weird World is more or less a cover, transforming the track with a slick sheen and subtle four-on-the-floor click. It's imaginative and well executed, but by the nature of being a Dâm-Funk creation, it compromises Peaking Lights' earthy, breathing tones for something a little too polished. It feels as though it'd work better as his own B-side. The same goes for Oakland zoner-rap duo Main Attrakionz, who use elements of "Marshmellow Yellow" and "Amazing and Wonderful" as cloud-ground for a few skilled verses. Electronic duo Patten turn "Hey Sparrow" into something more esoteric, but drag it out to the point of feeling unedited. What the Weird World comp lacks is cohesion, which is unfortuante since dub and reggae connoisseur Adrian Sherwood's impressive remake of "Tiger Eyes (Laid Back)" is easily the best cut on either set. The British producer maintains the song's atmosphere and relaxed mystique, but makes its production boom, burying a subtle swarm of laser-like synths under crisp vocal melodies. The 100% Silk EP draws its remixers straight from the label's own pool of DIY dance producers, who since last year have emphasized a specific, low-budget sound inspired by Italo disco and early Detroit house and techno. It's hypnagogic dance music for misfits and outsiders, pinning a punk philosophy to one indebted in some sense to Ariel Pink and YouTube's endless free music archive. Ital's Daniel Martin-McCormick, who also fronts the punk trio Mi Ami, offers a standout expansion of "Marshmellow Yellow", adding a driving beat and thudding bass that quicken the original's pace while maintaining its two-dimensional cool. Xander Harris adds spiky, galactic synths to "Birds of Paradise", shedding the song of its echo wash while building the electronics in isolated layers, reminiscent of Peaking Lights' own technique. No remix of "All the Sun That Shines" is a match for the album cut's alien sing-song charm, but Innergaze offer a welcome twist with warped vocal samples and a cosmic chug. On "Tiger Eyes", Cuticle pushes the vocals high and swaps gloom for wavering, sky-high synths. The 100% Silk EP calls for repeat listens due to its maintenance of 936's cohesive, textured voice, and even more so for carrying on the album's ethos."

Pan American

Cloud Room, Glass Room

Electronic,Rock

Nick Neyland

New albums by Pan American, the project started by Labradford singer/guitarist Mark Nelson at the tail-end of the 1990s, have steadily become scarce. It's been four years since the last one, the ambient leaning White Bird Release. If that record was all long, wintery shadows, this one brings in a touch of warmth from earlier Pan American recordings. The slight shift in tone is mirrored by a change in personnel, with Nelson bringing past collaborator Steven Hess on board as a full-time member of the band. Labradford's Bobby Donne contributes bass on certain songs, helping underpin the harsher sounds by providing a soft bedrock for the players to lean into. Cloud Room, Glass Room was designed to be played live, suggesting a few frayed edges might have cut into the sound. In fact, the opposite is true, with Nelson's fondness for clear-eyed production values still firmly intact. Those subtle adjustments from the last Pan American record to this one haven't stopped Nelson from tooling around with customary fascinations. An undercurrent of dub sometimes swells up, the influence of Kompakt-style minimal techno can be felt. The way Nelson can beautifully guide a song via the peaks and troughs of his guitar playing must surely come easy to him at this point, although there's never a sense of him lapsing into auto-pilot. As such, anyone looking for a way in to Pan American would be wise to start at this relatively accessible point and work backward. Still, part of the charm of this project is the way it's staged in isolation, with little apparent concern for who is listening or where this music might sit with their peers. That sense of being loosely unanchored from the world gives Cloud Room its alien appeal, making its instrumental drift ripe for personal interpretation. The "live band" approach taken on this album makes it feel a little more human than some of the heavily processed material that's come out under the Pan American name, such as 2000's 360 Business/360 Bypass. It's especially apparent when Hess's percussion is given space to breathe, either as a root to the sound on the tender "Relays" or as a guiding force for the extended flashes of guitar squall on "Virginia Waveform". If that's disconcerting to longtime listeners, it shouldn't be; there's plenty of material that takes the "guys in a room" method and figures out how to make it sound like it couldn't have been made that way. "Fifth Avenue 1960" is a highlight, full of electronics treated with cavernous echo that fill out an undercurrent of menace that sporadically surfaces elsewhere. Like most of the material Nelson has released over the years, the primary takeaway from Cloud Room is a notion of the control he exercises over his work no matter where it takes him. He can work around the white-light loops that flicker through understated pieces like "Glass Room at the Airport", or he can amass a towering stack of splintery discordance on "Laurel South". But there's always a sense of an assured hand guiding it all, bringing each part together to serve the greater whole. Even his wilder guitar pieces never reach the point where it feels like he's letting go and there's a sense of order being maintained, of advances being carefully spun through a strict framework. It feels good to be back here again, in a place that's become increasingly rare, but one flushed with a warm feeling of familiarity.

Artist: Pan American, Album: Cloud Room, Glass Room, Genre: Electronic,Rock, Score (1-10): 7.1 Album review: "New albums by Pan American, the project started by Labradford singer/guitarist Mark Nelson at the tail-end of the 1990s, have steadily become scarce. It's been four years since the last one, the ambient leaning White Bird Release. If that record was all long, wintery shadows, this one brings in a touch of warmth from earlier Pan American recordings. The slight shift in tone is mirrored by a change in personnel, with Nelson bringing past collaborator Steven Hess on board as a full-time member of the band. Labradford's Bobby Donne contributes bass on certain songs, helping underpin the harsher sounds by providing a soft bedrock for the players to lean into. Cloud Room, Glass Room was designed to be played live, suggesting a few frayed edges might have cut into the sound. In fact, the opposite is true, with Nelson's fondness for clear-eyed production values still firmly intact. Those subtle adjustments from the last Pan American record to this one haven't stopped Nelson from tooling around with customary fascinations. An undercurrent of dub sometimes swells up, the influence of Kompakt-style minimal techno can be felt. The way Nelson can beautifully guide a song via the peaks and troughs of his guitar playing must surely come easy to him at this point, although there's never a sense of him lapsing into auto-pilot. As such, anyone looking for a way in to Pan American would be wise to start at this relatively accessible point and work backward. Still, part of the charm of this project is the way it's staged in isolation, with little apparent concern for who is listening or where this music might sit with their peers. That sense of being loosely unanchored from the world gives Cloud Room its alien appeal, making its instrumental drift ripe for personal interpretation. The "live band" approach taken on this album makes it feel a little more human than some of the heavily processed material that's come out under the Pan American name, such as 2000's 360 Business/360 Bypass. It's especially apparent when Hess's percussion is given space to breathe, either as a root to the sound on the tender "Relays" or as a guiding force for the extended flashes of guitar squall on "Virginia Waveform". If that's disconcerting to longtime listeners, it shouldn't be; there's plenty of material that takes the "guys in a room" method and figures out how to make it sound like it couldn't have been made that way. "Fifth Avenue 1960" is a highlight, full of electronics treated with cavernous echo that fill out an undercurrent of menace that sporadically surfaces elsewhere. Like most of the material Nelson has released over the years, the primary takeaway from Cloud Room is a notion of the control he exercises over his work no matter where it takes him. He can work around the white-light loops that flicker through understated pieces like "Glass Room at the Airport", or he can amass a towering stack of splintery discordance on "Laurel South". But there's always a sense of an assured hand guiding it all, bringing each part together to serve the greater whole. Even his wilder guitar pieces never reach the point where it feels like he's letting go and there's a sense of order being maintained, of advances being carefully spun through a strict framework. It feels good to be back here again, in a place that's become increasingly rare, but one flushed with a warm feeling of familiarity."

John Chantler

Monoke

Rock

Joe Tangari

Somewhere, deep in the vast blackness of the middle ocean, nautili are scuttling through the darkness, skimming tiny creatures and passing detritus from the water with freaky tendrils. Why does this matter? Well, it doesn't to you-- at least not directly-- but it's still something to think about. While you're waiting for the Jiffy Lube crew to finish up your oil and filter change, any number of life-and-death struggles are occurring in the animal kingdom; from the bat chasing the moth to the lion in pursuit of the bongo, and all the way back to my favorite evolutionary holdover-- the nautilus-- mindlessly plucking lives much tinier than itself from the sea, living on perpetual autopilot. This album reminded me of the nautili, as much of it conjures the echoing of distant sound through huge stretches of water, albeit with some crunchy drum machines added for good measure. Australian sound sculptor John Chantler has his way with sines and sawtooths on Monoke, concocting pieces with a sense of drift worthy of the continental plates. "Play. Play." moves in shuddering waves over twittering programmed percussion, a wash of rounded sound. The middle of the record is especially aquatic, with the lava-lamp bubbling of "Autu" and "Vendor". The latter is like listening to the sonar pulse of a modern submarine. A thumping kick drum and something similar to a dot-matrix noise join deep-space pings and rhythmic, muffled returns, forming a truly otherworldly piece of music. It's somewhat reminiscent of John Chowning's 1970s experiments with early FM synthesis that yielded a series of surprisingly accessible, enveloping soundscapes. "Slow Closure" ends the record in a mid-Pacific abyss of reverb and hollow, pulsing sound. Monoke is ultimately an album that falls about halfway between outright pop and outright minimalism: accessible but not exactly melodic, and simple without being especially sparse. There are times when the liquid sonics don't flow as smoothly as they could. In particular, "Personal Rock" is too thin an electronic wheeze, but on balance Monoke makes a nice slice of post-millennial electronica.

Artist: John Chantler, Album: Monoke, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.2 Album review: "Somewhere, deep in the vast blackness of the middle ocean, nautili are scuttling through the darkness, skimming tiny creatures and passing detritus from the water with freaky tendrils. Why does this matter? Well, it doesn't to you-- at least not directly-- but it's still something to think about. While you're waiting for the Jiffy Lube crew to finish up your oil and filter change, any number of life-and-death struggles are occurring in the animal kingdom; from the bat chasing the moth to the lion in pursuit of the bongo, and all the way back to my favorite evolutionary holdover-- the nautilus-- mindlessly plucking lives much tinier than itself from the sea, living on perpetual autopilot. This album reminded me of the nautili, as much of it conjures the echoing of distant sound through huge stretches of water, albeit with some crunchy drum machines added for good measure. Australian sound sculptor John Chantler has his way with sines and sawtooths on Monoke, concocting pieces with a sense of drift worthy of the continental plates. "Play. Play." moves in shuddering waves over twittering programmed percussion, a wash of rounded sound. The middle of the record is especially aquatic, with the lava-lamp bubbling of "Autu" and "Vendor". The latter is like listening to the sonar pulse of a modern submarine. A thumping kick drum and something similar to a dot-matrix noise join deep-space pings and rhythmic, muffled returns, forming a truly otherworldly piece of music. It's somewhat reminiscent of John Chowning's 1970s experiments with early FM synthesis that yielded a series of surprisingly accessible, enveloping soundscapes. "Slow Closure" ends the record in a mid-Pacific abyss of reverb and hollow, pulsing sound. Monoke is ultimately an album that falls about halfway between outright pop and outright minimalism: accessible but not exactly melodic, and simple without being especially sparse. There are times when the liquid sonics don't flow as smoothly as they could. In particular, "Personal Rock" is too thin an electronic wheeze, but on balance Monoke makes a nice slice of post-millennial electronica."

The Frames

The Roads Outgrown

Rock

Amanda Petrusich

Conceptually, the collection of B-sides, outtakes, and arbitrary live tracks is an underwhelming proposition. Usually packed fat with studio scraps, bits of live shows, dubious band experiments, covers, and a mess of other shit that doesn't quite fit anywhere else, outtakes discs are typically devised as a boon for completists, assembled without the internal and temporal cohesion of an album, and delivered to the public with minimal ceremony. Check the outtakes disc as the musical equivalent of a Sunday morning yard sale: a row of rickety folding tables overstocked with dusty, aging crap that was deemed too valuable to toss blindly, but not considered functional enough to keep around. Staple a construction paper sign to the nearest telephone pole, drag a rusty plastic lawn chair out from the garage, and sell every last thing for a dollar. Irish folk-rockers The Frames have been fractured and reassembled a ridiculous number of times since their original formation in 1990, and their latest release, The Roads Outgrown, features selected non-pieces and leftovers from their last three years as a performing unit: a Will Oldham cover ("Tomorrow's Too Long"), a Mic Christopher song ("Listen Girl"), an outtake from their 2000 Albini sessions ("Rise"), a handful of reworked tracks from their last full-length (2001's For the Birds) and a fiery, ten-minute live version of a cut from their second record ("Fitzcarraldo"). It's classic outtakes-collage, cobbled together from disparate sessions/periods/albums, but, surprisingly, The Roads Outgrown plays more like a cohesive project, its seemingly unrelated cuts assembled with an artful sense of unity. The Roads Outgrown also functions as an oddly convincing introduction to the band, showing how their different methods/lineups always reach the same earthy conclusion: earnest, vaguely melancholic folk songs punctuated by quivering violins and frontman Glen Hansard's shaky country croon. Excellent opener "Lay Me Down" (reworked and re-recorded at "Joan's house" before being selected for inclusion here) layers a light acoustic guitar melody over heavy bass-drum thumping, easing out in a haze of violin pulls, Hansard's voice flitting from whisper to coo. "Headlong" follows, sounding a bit like a Radiohead circa-The Bends B-side, as Hansard howls and strums with welcome intensity. The Oldham cover, meanwhile, is plumped up with whining fiddles and half-whispered vocals, The Frames' delicate instrumentation breathing new warmth into Will's obtuse poetics. The Frames' understanding of their own discography seems to have informed the fluidity of this collection, and its song-to-song coherence is both impressive and perplexing; while boldly varied in tempo, volume, and style, The Roads Outgrown is always concerned with its implicit mission-- namely, offering sincere, cerebral folk-pop crafted with the quiet confidence of a thirteen-year career.

Artist: The Frames, Album: The Roads Outgrown, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 7.4 Album review: "Conceptually, the collection of B-sides, outtakes, and arbitrary live tracks is an underwhelming proposition. Usually packed fat with studio scraps, bits of live shows, dubious band experiments, covers, and a mess of other shit that doesn't quite fit anywhere else, outtakes discs are typically devised as a boon for completists, assembled without the internal and temporal cohesion of an album, and delivered to the public with minimal ceremony. Check the outtakes disc as the musical equivalent of a Sunday morning yard sale: a row of rickety folding tables overstocked with dusty, aging crap that was deemed too valuable to toss blindly, but not considered functional enough to keep around. Staple a construction paper sign to the nearest telephone pole, drag a rusty plastic lawn chair out from the garage, and sell every last thing for a dollar. Irish folk-rockers The Frames have been fractured and reassembled a ridiculous number of times since their original formation in 1990, and their latest release, The Roads Outgrown, features selected non-pieces and leftovers from their last three years as a performing unit: a Will Oldham cover ("Tomorrow's Too Long"), a Mic Christopher song ("Listen Girl"), an outtake from their 2000 Albini sessions ("Rise"), a handful of reworked tracks from their last full-length (2001's For the Birds) and a fiery, ten-minute live version of a cut from their second record ("Fitzcarraldo"). It's classic outtakes-collage, cobbled together from disparate sessions/periods/albums, but, surprisingly, The Roads Outgrown plays more like a cohesive project, its seemingly unrelated cuts assembled with an artful sense of unity. The Roads Outgrown also functions as an oddly convincing introduction to the band, showing how their different methods/lineups always reach the same earthy conclusion: earnest, vaguely melancholic folk songs punctuated by quivering violins and frontman Glen Hansard's shaky country croon. Excellent opener "Lay Me Down" (reworked and re-recorded at "Joan's house" before being selected for inclusion here) layers a light acoustic guitar melody over heavy bass-drum thumping, easing out in a haze of violin pulls, Hansard's voice flitting from whisper to coo. "Headlong" follows, sounding a bit like a Radiohead circa-The Bends B-side, as Hansard howls and strums with welcome intensity. The Oldham cover, meanwhile, is plumped up with whining fiddles and half-whispered vocals, The Frames' delicate instrumentation breathing new warmth into Will's obtuse poetics. The Frames' understanding of their own discography seems to have informed the fluidity of this collection, and its song-to-song coherence is both impressive and perplexing; while boldly varied in tempo, volume, and style, The Roads Outgrown is always concerned with its implicit mission-- namely, offering sincere, cerebral folk-pop crafted with the quiet confidence of a thirteen-year career."

Yo La Tengo

Summer Sun

Rock

Eric Carr

Can there exist a fate worse than mediocrity for a band that's had a taste of greatness? How about for a band that's enjoyed perhaps one of the longest runs of greatness in indie rock's brief history? Yo La Tengo formed just as indie rock-as-we-know-it was getting its wings in the mid-80s. Sure, they didn't get really great until Painful dropped in 1993, pointing to a turn away from alt-country dynamics and toward dronier organ-rock and guitar freakouts-- but they sure as shit haven't let up since, kicking out consistently remarkable full-lengths roughly every three years. 2000's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out was the first sign that they might be running out of ideas. Though an incredibly strong record from any band that deep into a rock music career, and packed with touching breakup songs and beautiful, semi-experimental atmospheres, the across-the-map diversity the band had become known for was notably absent. Unfortunately, Summer Sun confirms suspicions, and, sadder still, marks Yo La Tengo's first album since their 1986 debut, Ride the Tiger, to lack invention altogether. Summer Sun is pleasant, if nothing else, but that's such a loaded word for an album that clearly aspires to (and ought to be) so much more than it accomplishes. At least if the album had been completely wretched, it could have been dismissed as an unwitting experiment or some such foolishness. But it ain't, and that's the shame of it all; Summer Sun consistently reaches a height of disposability so static and homogenous that it simply must be dispersed over an hour's worth of music. This isn't the sound of one of the most prominent institutions in independent music maturing; it's more like decomposing. It hurts to write that, but pipe the breezy, wistful blue skies of "Let's Be Still" through tinny elevator speakers, or the sound system of your local Wal-Mart, and it's nothing but indie-muzak. Call it a natural progression from And Then Nothing's moody, twilit explorations of texture and atmosphere, but progression or not, last year's instrumental The Sounds of the Sounds of Science had more creativity and dynamism in a single track than the entirety of Summer Sun, and that was a score to fucking nature documentaries-- never the most fertile ground for inspiration. For a band that once thrived on its stunning eclecticism, as well as a masterful assimilation of moods and styles, to produce an album that's merely pretty is tragic. Though, even if it smacks of gross underachievement, there is something to be said for the competence and simplicity of a record that understands how to gracefully fade into the background. Inasmuch as none of Summer Sun's songs aim for anything more than hushed, dulcet melodies and passive meditations, most of them basically hit their targets. The same smooth, rolling bass, delicate guitar lines, and airy percussion morph almost imperceptibly from the blue skies and bright eyes of "Beach Party Tonight" to the ghostly call of the Big Star cover "Take Care" and all intermediary points. Additional instrumentation of all stripes (strings, brass, piano, and the list goes on) seems added as necessary for cosmetic purposes, and the results are rarely less than soothing, if unremarkable. Truly memorable instances are few and far between, and often for the worse; the standout tracks on Summer Sun are primarily the beat-poetry jazz drone of "Nothing But You and Me" and the highly dubious post-fusion wankery of "Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo". It says something, I guess, about the relatively constant quality to be found here that the most notable tracks are the weaker ones, but that's kind of sad, isn't it? Who wants to remember an album for the lowlights? If any bright spot is to be found on Summer Sun, it belongs to Georgia Hubley, whose gorgeous, dusky alto comes closer to lighting up a room than anything else on this tepid body. Her voice alone stands counter to the various missteps and cardboard cutouts, and alone brings "Today Is the Day" and "Take Care" closest to genuinely intimate, affecting glimpses in the midst of tunes that are all too willing to remain at arm's length. In particular, "Take Care", as the finale to Summer Sun, steeps the preceding hour of beatific, automatic smiles in a beautiful melancholy, like a knowing and regretful farewell. I hope that's not the case, but if this is truly the next step in Yo La Tengo's move toward some abstract concept like artistic maturity, I don't think I want to stick around for the conclusion.

Artist: Yo La Tengo, Album: Summer Sun, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.0 Album review: "Can there exist a fate worse than mediocrity for a band that's had a taste of greatness? How about for a band that's enjoyed perhaps one of the longest runs of greatness in indie rock's brief history? Yo La Tengo formed just as indie rock-as-we-know-it was getting its wings in the mid-80s. Sure, they didn't get really great until Painful dropped in 1993, pointing to a turn away from alt-country dynamics and toward dronier organ-rock and guitar freakouts-- but they sure as shit haven't let up since, kicking out consistently remarkable full-lengths roughly every three years. 2000's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out was the first sign that they might be running out of ideas. Though an incredibly strong record from any band that deep into a rock music career, and packed with touching breakup songs and beautiful, semi-experimental atmospheres, the across-the-map diversity the band had become known for was notably absent. Unfortunately, Summer Sun confirms suspicions, and, sadder still, marks Yo La Tengo's first album since their 1986 debut, Ride the Tiger, to lack invention altogether. Summer Sun is pleasant, if nothing else, but that's such a loaded word for an album that clearly aspires to (and ought to be) so much more than it accomplishes. At least if the album had been completely wretched, it could have been dismissed as an unwitting experiment or some such foolishness. But it ain't, and that's the shame of it all; Summer Sun consistently reaches a height of disposability so static and homogenous that it simply must be dispersed over an hour's worth of music. This isn't the sound of one of the most prominent institutions in independent music maturing; it's more like decomposing. It hurts to write that, but pipe the breezy, wistful blue skies of "Let's Be Still" through tinny elevator speakers, or the sound system of your local Wal-Mart, and it's nothing but indie-muzak. Call it a natural progression from And Then Nothing's moody, twilit explorations of texture and atmosphere, but progression or not, last year's instrumental The Sounds of the Sounds of Science had more creativity and dynamism in a single track than the entirety of Summer Sun, and that was a score to fucking nature documentaries-- never the most fertile ground for inspiration. For a band that once thrived on its stunning eclecticism, as well as a masterful assimilation of moods and styles, to produce an album that's merely pretty is tragic. Though, even if it smacks of gross underachievement, there is something to be said for the competence and simplicity of a record that understands how to gracefully fade into the background. Inasmuch as none of Summer Sun's songs aim for anything more than hushed, dulcet melodies and passive meditations, most of them basically hit their targets. The same smooth, rolling bass, delicate guitar lines, and airy percussion morph almost imperceptibly from the blue skies and bright eyes of "Beach Party Tonight" to the ghostly call of the Big Star cover "Take Care" and all intermediary points. Additional instrumentation of all stripes (strings, brass, piano, and the list goes on) seems added as necessary for cosmetic purposes, and the results are rarely less than soothing, if unremarkable. Truly memorable instances are few and far between, and often for the worse; the standout tracks on Summer Sun are primarily the beat-poetry jazz drone of "Nothing But You and Me" and the highly dubious post-fusion wankery of "Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo". It says something, I guess, about the relatively constant quality to be found here that the most notable tracks are the weaker ones, but that's kind of sad, isn't it? Who wants to remember an album for the lowlights? If any bright spot is to be found on Summer Sun, it belongs to Georgia Hubley, whose gorgeous, dusky alto comes closer to lighting up a room than anything else on this tepid body. Her voice alone stands counter to the various missteps and cardboard cutouts, and alone brings "Today Is the Day" and "Take Care" closest to genuinely intimate, affecting glimpses in the midst of tunes that are all too willing to remain at arm's length. In particular, "Take Care", as the finale to Summer Sun, steeps the preceding hour of beatific, automatic smiles in a beautiful melancholy, like a knowing and regretful farewell. I hope that's not the case, but if this is truly the next step in Yo La Tengo's move toward some abstract concept like artistic maturity, I don't think I want to stick around for the conclusion."

Träden

Träden

Rock

Allison Hussey

When Träd, Gräs och Stenar got started in 1969, they were a one-of-a-kind counterculture act. As famous for their expansive, psychedelic jams as they were for their sincere DIY ethos, the Swedish ensemble didn’t just book their own shows and foster a scene—they built their own gear and even cooked macrobiotic meals for audiences at their performances, which were frequently held outdoors. Through these practices, the band (whose name translates to “Trees, Grass, and Stones”) developed a Be Here Now-adjacent ethos that resonated with left-leaning Swedes of the era. Today, the band endures as Träden (“The Trees”), with guitarist and vocalist Jakob Sjöholm as the sole holdover from those early days. The bandmates he’s recruited over the past decade include Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske and bassist Sigge Krantz, as well as drummer Hanna Östergren. On their self-titled LP, they reverently expand the Träd, Gräs och Stenar universe, building songs that sound both earthy and sublime. At first blush, Träden easily recalls the early work of Träd, Gräs och Stenar, making the same gestures toward woolly, choogling rock. The band’s winding songs aren’t familiar, per se, but it’s easy to guess their arcs: The rhythm section rumbles along hypnotic grooves while jagged electric guitar riffs spiral in different directions. “När Lingon Mognar (Lingonberries Forever)” makes for a stately and sober opener, before the brisk romp “Kung Karlsson (King Karlsson)” stirs in some sunshine with keys that flit in and out of the mix like butterflies early in the track. From there, the album’s moods vary from the airy, peaceful aura of “Hoppas Du Förstår (Hope You Understand)” to the oozing darkness of “OTO” and the brooding “Hymn.” With the exception of the stormy closing track “Det Finns Blått (There Is Blue),” the music of Träden feels softer, gentler, and the slightest bit clearer on this release, an attribute that is a credit to high-fidelity recording as much as it is to the musicians’ chemistry. It feels appropriate that the arboreal portion of the band’s original name has remained: Sjöholm’s weathered voice and the songs’ deliberate, unhurried pacing bring to mind a band made up of Ents, the anthropomorphic tree creatures from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, rather than human musicians. “Å Nej (Oh No),” which begins with rain sounds before a swampy acoustic guitar lick takes the lead, cements this impression. An electric guitar’s insectile buzzing furthers the song’s woodsy appeal. But Träden’s insistence on following the Träd, Gras och Stenar blueprint is also the band’s greatest liability. So much of what made the original group so special was its attachment to particular sentiments, ideals, and people. The band’s ideology—and thus its music—was built on a community in a specific time and place, so what does it mean to reach for similar (if not exactly the same) ends in the absence of the same conditions? In 2002, original Träd, Gräs och Stenar bassist Torbjörn Abelli (who died in 2010) wrote, “Our music was a sort of ritualistic battle cry, a call for people to be free, follow their own rhythm, their own harmony: set yourself free from your own oppressors.” The contemporary Träden offers one flavor of freedom, kicking open the gate to a new pasture in which listeners can frolic and find respite. If only the band could also break free of its own legacy.

Artist: Träden, Album: Träden, Genre: Rock, Score (1-10): 6.8 Album review: "When Träd, Gräs och Stenar got started in 1969, they were a one-of-a-kind counterculture act. As famous for their expansive, psychedelic jams as they were for their sincere DIY ethos, the Swedish ensemble didn’t just book their own shows and foster a scene—they built their own gear and even cooked macrobiotic meals for audiences at their performances, which were frequently held outdoors. Through these practices, the band (whose name translates to “Trees, Grass, and Stones”) developed a Be Here Now-adjacent ethos that resonated with left-leaning Swedes of the era. Today, the band endures as Träden (“The Trees”), with guitarist and vocalist Jakob Sjöholm as the sole holdover from those early days. The bandmates he’s recruited over the past decade include Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske and bassist Sigge Krantz, as well as drummer Hanna Östergren. On their self-titled LP, they reverently expand the Träd, Gräs och Stenar universe, building songs that sound both earthy and sublime. At first blush, Träden easily recalls the early work of Träd, Gräs och Stenar, making the same gestures toward woolly, choogling rock. The band’s winding songs aren’t familiar, per se, but it’s easy to guess their arcs: The rhythm section rumbles along hypnotic grooves while jagged electric guitar riffs spiral in different directions. “När Lingon Mognar (Lingonberries Forever)” makes for a stately and sober opener, before the brisk romp “Kung Karlsson (King Karlsson)” stirs in some sunshine with keys that flit in and out of the mix like butterflies early in the track. From there, the album’s moods vary from the airy, peaceful aura of “Hoppas Du Förstår (Hope You Understand)” to the oozing darkness of “OTO” and the brooding “Hymn.” With the exception of the stormy closing track “Det Finns Blått (There Is Blue),” the music of Träden feels softer, gentler, and the slightest bit clearer on this release, an attribute that is a credit to high-fidelity recording as much as it is to the musicians’ chemistry. It feels appropriate that the arboreal portion of the band’s original name has remained: Sjöholm’s weathered voice and the songs’ deliberate, unhurried pacing bring to mind a band made up of Ents, the anthropomorphic tree creatures from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, rather than human musicians. “Å Nej (Oh No),” which begins with rain sounds before a swampy acoustic guitar lick takes the lead, cements this impression. An electric guitar’s insectile buzzing furthers the song’s woodsy appeal. But Träden’s insistence on following the Träd, Gras och Stenar blueprint is also the band’s greatest liability. So much of what made the original group so special was its attachment to particular sentiments, ideals, and people. The band’s ideology—and thus its music—was built on a community in a specific time and place, so what does it mean to reach for similar (if not exactly the same) ends in the absence of the same conditions? In 2002, original Träd, Gräs och Stenar bassist Torbjörn Abelli (who died in 2010) wrote, “Our music was a sort of ritualistic battle cry, a call for people to be free, follow their own rhythm, their own harmony: set yourself free from your own oppressors.” The contemporary Träden offers one flavor of freedom, kicking open the gate to a new pasture in which listeners can frolic and find respite. If only the band could also break free of its own legacy."