Pure garage rock revival, capturing not only the guitar sound but the spirit of raging against the prevailing sound, of playing like you're talented and like it doesn't matter whether you're talented, playing for the sheer joy of making a hellacious racket.
That Diddy Wah Diddy cover sums it all up: exploding the notion of covering an oft-covered early rock song by doing it harder than just about anyone ever.
Ty Segall has been prolific as hell lately: I wasn't much moved by the sludgy Goodbye Bread, but Hair (with White Fence) was a staggering blow and this is the finishing move. Iggy Stooge in a robotic suit, browing minds and crushing skulls, Segall's the only one who seems to understand what rock and roll's about these days 4.5/5
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
#544 Japandroids - Celebration Rock
The Hold Steady had an interesting arc: begining as a gritty, baladic band they pushed their sound into epic hooks and shoutalong choruses, seemingly as an overt move to create more concert-ready music. And why not? The guys seem at home on stage, and what better place to put their rock and roll populism into practice? But it never quite worked for them, a band that started so grounded struggled to really soar.
Japandroids though, especially on this album, have no such problems. Listening to this album you can just nearly hear drunken dudes shouting along with the words, feel the jumping, stomping, head shaking the chords inspire. And it works! The energy here is contagious, infectious, and liable to send you googling "japandroids tour dates" before you know it.
As you might expect, its a little exhausting, but its a trick the album pulls off so well you'd have to be a harder-hearted man than I to resist it 4/5
Japandroids though, especially on this album, have no such problems. Listening to this album you can just nearly hear drunken dudes shouting along with the words, feel the jumping, stomping, head shaking the chords inspire. And it works! The energy here is contagious, infectious, and liable to send you googling "japandroids tour dates" before you know it.
As you might expect, its a little exhausting, but its a trick the album pulls off so well you'd have to be a harder-hearted man than I to resist it 4/5
#543 Sonic Youth - Dirty
It's Sonic Youth!
I couldn't honestly tell you how this compares to the rest of theirs, other than that it seems more interested in noise and big walls of sound than the arpeggios that crop up later, and thunders with more volume and vitriol than on the comparatively graceful Daydream Nation.
As on all their early albums, Sonic Youth sounds like nothing else, a bizarre crush-up of hard 90's guitar muscle and art-rock noise screeds: fairly unlistenable, fairly unmissable 4/5
I couldn't honestly tell you how this compares to the rest of theirs, other than that it seems more interested in noise and big walls of sound than the arpeggios that crop up later, and thunders with more volume and vitriol than on the comparatively graceful Daydream Nation.
As on all their early albums, Sonic Youth sounds like nothing else, a bizarre crush-up of hard 90's guitar muscle and art-rock noise screeds: fairly unlistenable, fairly unmissable 4/5
Sunday, July 29, 2012
#542 The Impressions - This is My Country
As positive and heartbroken and soulful at turns as you might expect. The fast songs are the standouts, full of great skitterey beats and soaring, layered vocals from here to Sunday. The slower songs get a bit samey by the end though, with the inflected singing getting grating rather than gorgeous by the time you've heard the note cracked-up to for the nineteenth time.
Some classic sounds to be ound here, but albumwide its not a super excellent listen 3/5
Some classic sounds to be ound here, but albumwide its not a super excellent listen 3/5
Saturday, July 28, 2012
#541 Chris Thile - Deceiver
On paper, there's a lot of things to like here: hitched, jazzy delivery, non-traditional rock instrumentation, upright bass, proggy structures, angular chords, clever lyrics. At its best it evokes funky-arty folks like Buke and Gass, Bjork and the overall Spongebath sound (especially Fluid Ounces), and not as much bluegrass influence as you might expect given Thile's Nickel Creek origins (a band I'll confess I have only a passing familiarity with).
The problem lies with Thile himself, who by all accounts is very talented and probably very popular with impressionable young girls who are just discovering interesting music, but is just some kind of insufferable. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but his delivery is all John Mayer and Nickleback, clever and big in pop ways that are just too transparent to be cool.
Woah, hold on now there, you say. Why's it gotta be cool? Aren't we post-cool round these parts?
My motto lately is that listening to music involves a fantasy of being in the band: if you wouldn't want to be in a band with these people, you probably won't connect with listening to their music on a visceral, emotional level. I don't even really want this guy over to my house, at least not if he's going to sing. He's got talent, but his style doesn't connect with mine, and I don't really want to listen to it.
The whole thing is funky, but in a look-how-funky Jamiroquai kind of way that I'm just to old for.
Fine for the ladies, but I'm too old and stodgy for this kind of clever footwork 2/5
The problem lies with Thile himself, who by all accounts is very talented and probably very popular with impressionable young girls who are just discovering interesting music, but is just some kind of insufferable. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but his delivery is all John Mayer and Nickleback, clever and big in pop ways that are just too transparent to be cool.
Woah, hold on now there, you say. Why's it gotta be cool? Aren't we post-cool round these parts?
My motto lately is that listening to music involves a fantasy of being in the band: if you wouldn't want to be in a band with these people, you probably won't connect with listening to their music on a visceral, emotional level. I don't even really want this guy over to my house, at least not if he's going to sing. He's got talent, but his style doesn't connect with mine, and I don't really want to listen to it.
The whole thing is funky, but in a look-how-funky Jamiroquai kind of way that I'm just to old for.
Fine for the ladies, but I'm too old and stodgy for this kind of clever footwork 2/5
Friday, July 27, 2012
#540 Hot Chip - In Our Heads
I honestly am at a loss here, I have no way to differentiate this from every previous Hot Chip album. The beat goes thump thump thump thump, the boys since sweetly over top, some synths come in, everything takes its time, lingering like sadness over repeating beats beats beats beats.
The one major standout is Flutes, which layers an eerie vocal sample over slow builds and vulnerable synths, building to the album's biggest, most powerful moments.
On the other side of the coin there's Now There's Nothing, which seems awfully thin on ideas, repeating the same melodies limply, with only the barest late-Genesis-level proggy touches to recommend it.
The band's album art is telling, with their abstractions and colors, fitting the sound on the discs, engaged, but at a distance. I don't get the sense that the band's heart is in it, the iciness has just overcome the sentiment, and without heart, there's not a lot left to Hot Chip that you can't get better elsewhere 2/5
The one major standout is Flutes, which layers an eerie vocal sample over slow builds and vulnerable synths, building to the album's biggest, most powerful moments.
On the other side of the coin there's Now There's Nothing, which seems awfully thin on ideas, repeating the same melodies limply, with only the barest late-Genesis-level proggy touches to recommend it.
The band's album art is telling, with their abstractions and colors, fitting the sound on the discs, engaged, but at a distance. I don't get the sense that the band's heart is in it, the iciness has just overcome the sentiment, and without heart, there's not a lot left to Hot Chip that you can't get better elsewhere 2/5
#539 808 State - Utd. State 90
A seminal London Acid House album from the more electronic side of the Madchester scene, this album sounds like you'd expect given its legacy: persistent, predictable beats alongside swervy, squonky synth lines that kinda suggest you should move in a swervy, swonky kind of way.
Some of the lines are undeniably pretty great, and the production is solid, but to my ear it all sounds the same right quick. Which, hey, this is music that's more meant to be the strata for dancing, tripping, etc, not necessarily an attraction in its own right, so that's fine. I'll be its good for all that other stuff. But as a music album for listening time, there's not a lot going on here beyond standout opener Pacific 202, which sports an uncommonly catchy melodic line down its middle 3/5
Some of the lines are undeniably pretty great, and the production is solid, but to my ear it all sounds the same right quick. Which, hey, this is music that's more meant to be the strata for dancing, tripping, etc, not necessarily an attraction in its own right, so that's fine. I'll be its good for all that other stuff. But as a music album for listening time, there's not a lot going on here beyond standout opener Pacific 202, which sports an uncommonly catchy melodic line down its middle 3/5
#538 The KLF - The White Room
Hard to believe this is even the same act that put out Chill Out, but then these guys are pretty weird weirdos if the stories are to believed.
The White Room is a comparatively straightforward thumping techno raveup, full of questionable rap, keening female vocals or both, and so on.
Word is the album was tarted up with such 'Stadium House' elements after the initial sessions to broaden its appeal, and word is that was a genius move that was a minor revolution in house music. If you say so, maybe you had to be there when it broke, and maybe it deserves credit for taking house music bigger dumber places than it had ever been before, but I'm not a fan of questionable rap or keening female vocals, let alone big pulsing dub bass, crowd samples, or whatever the hell is going on Justified and Ancient. There's a compelling track or two buried in there somewhere, but too many of these songs are aggressively annoying for me to settle on much better than 1.5/5
The White Room is a comparatively straightforward thumping techno raveup, full of questionable rap, keening female vocals or both, and so on.
Word is the album was tarted up with such 'Stadium House' elements after the initial sessions to broaden its appeal, and word is that was a genius move that was a minor revolution in house music. If you say so, maybe you had to be there when it broke, and maybe it deserves credit for taking house music bigger dumber places than it had ever been before, but I'm not a fan of questionable rap or keening female vocals, let alone big pulsing dub bass, crowd samples, or whatever the hell is going on Justified and Ancient. There's a compelling track or two buried in there somewhere, but too many of these songs are aggressively annoying for me to settle on much better than 1.5/5
Thursday, July 26, 2012
#537 The KLF - Chill Out
A different kind of ambient album, evoking time and space rather than standing outside of them, filled with a soup of identifiable moments that infect your brain as false memories and insinuate themselves alongside the real ones, whispering tall tales to be repeated brain-wide as burgeoning myth. It is the memory of the dream of the road trip you never had, in every way that is possible at once.
This is soundscape music, but with an openness and open-endedness that you might not expect from that description. It has a certain magic. Think Endtroducing stretched beyond the horizon 4.5/5
* I know I use that as a reference point a lot, but at least among folks I know that's the main album of its kind that they know.
This is soundscape music, but with an openness and open-endedness that you might not expect from that description. It has a certain magic. Think Endtroducing stretched beyond the horizon 4.5/5
* I know I use that as a reference point a lot, but at least among folks I know that's the main album of its kind that they know.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
#536 Global Communication - 76.14
A decidedly ambient album, taking a cue from Aphex Twin perhaps and eschewing track names to leave you open for the abstractiest abstractness possible.
This strikes the right balance, building in just enough structure to keep thing from being formless, but maintaining that ethereal, beyond-space-and-time quality that is the hallmark of the best ambient music. Not quite hypnotic, not quite evocative, but there: a haunted house that trucks in eerie moments rather than jump scares. Great example of the style, great place to start if you're looking to dip a toe 4/5
This strikes the right balance, building in just enough structure to keep thing from being formless, but maintaining that ethereal, beyond-space-and-time quality that is the hallmark of the best ambient music. Not quite hypnotic, not quite evocative, but there: a haunted house that trucks in eerie moments rather than jump scares. Great example of the style, great place to start if you're looking to dip a toe 4/5
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
#535 Suede - Suede
A perfectly good 90's, Smithsy album, with hints of the Radiohead that would follow in the swooning sweeping vocals and the noisy guitars that crop up now and then, and more generally of the loud / quiet, hard / soft aesthetic that would dominate much of the underground / alternative era. The faster songs are certainly the strongest, sporting out some nuanced, energetic riffage, while the longer songs get too swirly for their own good, meandering off to nowhere.
This album was hotly anticipated in the UK and went on to be a massive hit. I don't hear anything here that justifies that, other than the fact this came out after Ten and Nevermind, but before the emergence of Blur and Oasis, so England might have just been hungry for rock relevance and swelled momentum behind this important, prescient, influential, but retroactively just-good album 3.5/5
This album was hotly anticipated in the UK and went on to be a massive hit. I don't hear anything here that justifies that, other than the fact this came out after Ten and Nevermind, but before the emergence of Blur and Oasis, so England might have just been hungry for rock relevance and swelled momentum behind this important, prescient, influential, but retroactively just-good album 3.5/5
#534 Passion Pit - Gossamer
Another of those shimmerey reverbcore albums that are so in right now, making this the most aptly named album of the year. The problem is that this album is so constantly reaching and euphoric that's numbing, like Michael Bay style wall to wall action. As Roger Ebert said, nothing is as boring as constant action: maybe in music nothing is as emotionally vacant as constant emotion. The last song is nice, and there are highlights here and there, but I've just lost patience with this style of music; crying wolf at daily epiphanies has left me worn out of it 2.5/5
#533 Can - Monster Movie
One of the big finds on this project has been Krautrock, which I am way into to this day.
This album, Can's debut full-length, has some of the trademarks of the sound they would help create: plenty of icy instrumentation and repetition. But there's also a much more raw, rock side that later krautrock would have buffed out, not to mention an even healthier-than-usual dallop of Velvet Underground inspiration, especially on the opener's keening guitar noise and strained vocals. It thoroughly works though, bristling with too-fast energy and desperation and tension. The influence continues on the spare, dissnonant detuned Mary, Mary So Contrary, after which Outside My Door suddenly veers into deranged, Stoogesesque territory. The band would never record a song that straight up rocked quite this hard again.
And then of course comes the crushing, meandering sidelong epic, Yoo Do Right. This is the origin of that brutally experimental Can that would inspire the Boredoms and countless other batshit noise experimenters. Even the Velvets rarely put out anything this nuts. In its own way though, its strangely compelling, a can't-tear-your-ears-away trainwreck in slow motion.
Which is all to say, this is a great, seminal example of proto-Krautrock and the broader avant rock scene of the late 60's 4.5/5
This album, Can's debut full-length, has some of the trademarks of the sound they would help create: plenty of icy instrumentation and repetition. But there's also a much more raw, rock side that later krautrock would have buffed out, not to mention an even healthier-than-usual dallop of Velvet Underground inspiration, especially on the opener's keening guitar noise and strained vocals. It thoroughly works though, bristling with too-fast energy and desperation and tension. The influence continues on the spare, dissnonant detuned Mary, Mary So Contrary, after which Outside My Door suddenly veers into deranged, Stoogesesque territory. The band would never record a song that straight up rocked quite this hard again.
And then of course comes the crushing, meandering sidelong epic, Yoo Do Right. This is the origin of that brutally experimental Can that would inspire the Boredoms and countless other batshit noise experimenters. Even the Velvets rarely put out anything this nuts. In its own way though, its strangely compelling, a can't-tear-your-ears-away trainwreck in slow motion.
Which is all to say, this is a great, seminal example of proto-Krautrock and the broader avant rock scene of the late 60's 4.5/5
Monday, July 23, 2012
#532 Pharoah Sanders - Karma
Continuing to hear everything ever from the immortal 1969.
This is basically a track review of the sprawling half-hour The Creator Has a Master Plan.
Is this jazz? It has the elements, but it seems to even transcend free jazz, dipping into some decidedly non-Western forms, drifting psychadelic and raw, full of horns making sounds beyond horns.
Free jazz is probably the right starting point - I've heard this compared to A Love Supreme, and at least for the first third or so, that seems like a good point of reference. Everything builds, and there is decidedly structure, but short of the core bass line that serves as the song's spine, none of this sounds the least bit planned, emerging from man like the creator's master plan. Things build beyond the boundaries of the Coltrane track though, as horns and piano rise infernal to lick the sky euphoric by the end.
The comparitively modest Colors seems like an afterthought by comparison, but provides a nice, tonal epilogue for the centerpiece.
If you've got the patience and the ambition, its an album that will take you places 3.5/5
This is basically a track review of the sprawling half-hour The Creator Has a Master Plan.
Is this jazz? It has the elements, but it seems to even transcend free jazz, dipping into some decidedly non-Western forms, drifting psychadelic and raw, full of horns making sounds beyond horns.
Free jazz is probably the right starting point - I've heard this compared to A Love Supreme, and at least for the first third or so, that seems like a good point of reference. Everything builds, and there is decidedly structure, but short of the core bass line that serves as the song's spine, none of this sounds the least bit planned, emerging from man like the creator's master plan. Things build beyond the boundaries of the Coltrane track though, as horns and piano rise infernal to lick the sky euphoric by the end.
The comparitively modest Colors seems like an afterthought by comparison, but provides a nice, tonal epilogue for the centerpiece.
If you've got the patience and the ambition, its an album that will take you places 3.5/5
Friday, July 20, 2012
#531 Aesop Rock - Skelethon
I can never get into this guy.
On paper I should love the songs on this album: the rhyming is dense and complex and clever. But the gravelley, strained menacing delivery just. does. not. work. It sounds like a not-tough guy trying to sound tough, trying to be intense, trying to be menacing.
Two things I expect from rap: that it should sound effortless and that it should sound cool. This is neither; it smacks of effort. Which we all know isn't cool.
The production is rockist, but in a sludgy, unfun way, sub-El-P mock-scary.
This is rap in the trappings, but it just provides none of the things I look for in rap. Maybe it scratches some other itch for other people, being seen as a rap-oriented rock album or some genre-transcendent piece of experimentation, but I can't say I've found a way to cast this album, or any of this guy's output, that makes me eager to listen to it 2/5
On paper I should love the songs on this album: the rhyming is dense and complex and clever. But the gravelley, strained menacing delivery just. does. not. work. It sounds like a not-tough guy trying to sound tough, trying to be intense, trying to be menacing.
Two things I expect from rap: that it should sound effortless and that it should sound cool. This is neither; it smacks of effort. Which we all know isn't cool.
The production is rockist, but in a sludgy, unfun way, sub-El-P mock-scary.
This is rap in the trappings, but it just provides none of the things I look for in rap. Maybe it scratches some other itch for other people, being seen as a rap-oriented rock album or some genre-transcendent piece of experimentation, but I can't say I've found a way to cast this album, or any of this guy's output, that makes me eager to listen to it 2/5
Thursday, July 19, 2012
#530 Decompoze - Decomposition
Frequent Binary Star collaborator, this is rap in roughly the same vein, though coming out more sedated, with some of the same levels of insane rhyming knots found on Waterworld/Masters of the Universe.
The main problem is the production, which is bare bones stone soup spare, adding a bit of headbobbery, but really no emotional depth, no tonal resonance. There's only so much you can do with repeated, open, jazzy basslines and some synthy snare taps.
Plus, as with so many rap albums, it overstays its welcome. At an hour of largely samey raps, this isn't something I'm ever listen to straight though ever again, which is kind of a deal breaker 3/5
The main problem is the production, which is bare bones stone soup spare, adding a bit of headbobbery, but really no emotional depth, no tonal resonance. There's only so much you can do with repeated, open, jazzy basslines and some synthy snare taps.
Plus, as with so many rap albums, it overstays its welcome. At an hour of largely samey raps, this isn't something I'm ever listen to straight though ever again, which is kind of a deal breaker 3/5
#529 Big K.R.I.T and Grillade - The 'Wuz Here' Sessions
A fabulously rich, soulful litte slice of hip hop. Full of rock guitars, R&B bass, and whipcrack rhymes, dripping with regret and pathos, this is an example of this proggy rap movement where trying and caring are acceptable, where being personal and bombastic and artful are welcomed alongside a tough guy delivery.
You can't just make sensitive rap. It doesn't work. What you can do is come out armored with weak points. Call it turtle rap, where the exposing of the underbelly means all the more when it feels like an aberration.
This works especially well because its just the four songs: this would be exhuasting as a full-length, but as it is the sentiment is deliciously tragic in its transience.
Solid.
4/5
You can't just make sensitive rap. It doesn't work. What you can do is come out armored with weak points. Call it turtle rap, where the exposing of the underbelly means all the more when it feels like an aberration.
This works especially well because its just the four songs: this would be exhuasting as a full-length, but as it is the sentiment is deliciously tragic in its transience.
Solid.
4/5
#528 Signal Path - MIXTAEP
Some remixes and violent twistings of some already pretty adventurous music. This is up there with early prefuse, squarepusher, and boards of canada in terms of balancing headbobbery with "wtf is this" factor. Every song rides a groove while blasting it apart, leaving divots in the wake. Keep an eye on these guys 4/5
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
#527 Bangkok Impact - Traveller
Oh god, I'm officially exactly 100 reviews behind. Double super speed time!
Accordingly, I can muster up anything to say about this, and I'm not going to force it. Vaguely Krautey, vaguely housey, vaguely trancy techno with spacy, slow moves, loops on loops, building little by little nothing jarring to break you out of whatever groove you're supposed to be riding. Just not the kind of music I have any particular use for, completely forgettable, all sounding roughly the same as itself. Maybe if I did more drugs 2.5/5
Accordingly, I can muster up anything to say about this, and I'm not going to force it. Vaguely Krautey, vaguely housey, vaguely trancy techno with spacy, slow moves, loops on loops, building little by little nothing jarring to break you out of whatever groove you're supposed to be riding. Just not the kind of music I have any particular use for, completely forgettable, all sounding roughly the same as itself. Maybe if I did more drugs 2.5/5
Monday, July 16, 2012
#526b The Frogs - Bananimals
Bananimals is a logical next step from It's Only Right and Natural: still catchy, still lo-fi, still surprising, still awfully enjoyable for how uncomfortable it is. The homoeroticism hangs around, but we're a degree away. This isn't an album about gayness anymore, its an album about being The Frogs, complete with a (strangely touching) screed against the muzik biz, a biting embodiment of those who couldn't handle IORaN (u bastards), and yes, some new angles on being young and horny and gay.
The lack of full-throated, full-throttle focus prevents Bananimals from reaching its predecessor's classic status, but its the best followup The Frogs could have possibly made, honoring and expanding and perverting their legacy along the way 4/5
The lack of full-throated, full-throttle focus prevents Bananimals from reaching its predecessor's classic status, but its the best followup The Frogs could have possibly made, honoring and expanding and perverting their legacy along the way 4/5
#526a Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
A damn smooth R&B album, slipping by like silk, nearly unnoticed, appreciated subliminally, like the most sultry Stevie Wonder. The fact Ocean's voice evoke's Wonder's doesn't hurt. And again, like the best of Stevie's stuff, the production's funky and sharp, full of atmosphere, with perfect album-level flow, with social commentary grand and personal alike.
But its all almost too smooth: the heavy subject matter lost in the folds, demanding careful listening while lulling you into sleep, time dilating in the microscopic gaps between tracks. A potentially brilliant album that's hard to appreciate fully, and I'm still working on it 3.5/5
But its all almost too smooth: the heavy subject matter lost in the folds, demanding careful listening while lulling you into sleep, time dilating in the microscopic gaps between tracks. A potentially brilliant album that's hard to appreciate fully, and I'm still working on it 3.5/5
Friday, July 13, 2012
#526 Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
Killer Mike got his start working with Outkast, and it shows: this is muscular, surging Southern rap, the beats huge bass and percussive, the rhyming sharp and hard. In fact a lot harder, huger, more aggressive than Outkast was on anything other than B.O.B. and Gasoline, its Godzilla stomping Atlanta. And its good, the rapping is goddamn good.
By the end it gets a bit exhausting, but if you're in the market for some Biggie-big, Big-Boi-hard rhymes this is about as good as you're gonna find 4/5
By the end it gets a bit exhausting, but if you're in the market for some Biggie-big, Big-Boi-hard rhymes this is about as good as you're gonna find 4/5
#525a The Frogs - It's Only Right and Natural
The legend is that these were improvised home recordings that were never intended to be released, created just for the amusement of the Flemion brothers and their friends, but who can say? There's a lot of mythology around this strange, beautiful bedroom pop gem.
Let's dodge the elephant in the room and talk about the music for a sec: the melodies are hooky and airy and brilliant, the songs full of delightful swerves and details that surprise every time you listen. It's a free, buoyantly lo-fi album; The Frogs are up there with Guided By Voices in their generous distribution of perfect moments captured to tape.
That elephant: this is a legendarily gay album, with lyrics in every song about men and having sex (and more!) with men, all cocks, balls, cum, assholes and the occasional "watermelon seeds up your snoot-snout", and as the references pile up and up...is it meant to shock straight-laced straights? To celebrate homosexuality? To make fun of it? To make fun of people who make fun of it? How does the fact that the brothers are presumed straight affect the question? Discuss.
On some level the album manages to be all of those things and none of them. Could anyone trying to be overtly pro-gay make a song as ridiculous as I Don't Care If U Disrespect Me? Could anyone trying to be overtly anti-gay make a song as poignant as Homos? The subject matter is engaged with too deeply to be done for novelty, too joyfully to be done out of homophobia, and yet seems engaged in some sonic, sexual version of blackface.
I'm reminded of a dinner where a seemingly-homophobic man was claiming that "buttsex" was inherently morally wrong. A few liberal-types were trying to diplomatically find a common ground, trying to rephrase his sentiment in less-judgmental terms, but he pushed back harder the more they tried, and the situation grew tense. I said out loud, to no-one in particular, "Buttsex is like skiing..." and noticed with dismay that everyone had stopped talking to listen to me, and that I sincerely had no idea where I was going with this, but finished "...some people like it, and some people don't".
Maybe it was the fact that people were expecting a joke, what with all that "A is like B" windup, but it but it got some laughs, some groans, and some ribbing, and managed, surprisingly, to defuse the situation. Maybe The Frogs don't want to gear anyone up about much of anything. Maybe they just made the gayest album they could, with no particular malice in mind, and the joke is on us for trying to deconstruct it 4.5/5
Let's dodge the elephant in the room and talk about the music for a sec: the melodies are hooky and airy and brilliant, the songs full of delightful swerves and details that surprise every time you listen. It's a free, buoyantly lo-fi album; The Frogs are up there with Guided By Voices in their generous distribution of perfect moments captured to tape.
That elephant: this is a legendarily gay album, with lyrics in every song about men and having sex (and more!) with men, all cocks, balls, cum, assholes and the occasional "watermelon seeds up your snoot-snout", and as the references pile up and up...is it meant to shock straight-laced straights? To celebrate homosexuality? To make fun of it? To make fun of people who make fun of it? How does the fact that the brothers are presumed straight affect the question? Discuss.
On some level the album manages to be all of those things and none of them. Could anyone trying to be overtly pro-gay make a song as ridiculous as I Don't Care If U Disrespect Me? Could anyone trying to be overtly anti-gay make a song as poignant as Homos? The subject matter is engaged with too deeply to be done for novelty, too joyfully to be done out of homophobia, and yet seems engaged in some sonic, sexual version of blackface.
I'm reminded of a dinner where a seemingly-homophobic man was claiming that "buttsex" was inherently morally wrong. A few liberal-types were trying to diplomatically find a common ground, trying to rephrase his sentiment in less-judgmental terms, but he pushed back harder the more they tried, and the situation grew tense. I said out loud, to no-one in particular, "Buttsex is like skiing..." and noticed with dismay that everyone had stopped talking to listen to me, and that I sincerely had no idea where I was going with this, but finished "...some people like it, and some people don't".
Maybe it was the fact that people were expecting a joke, what with all that "A is like B" windup, but it but it got some laughs, some groans, and some ribbing, and managed, surprisingly, to defuse the situation. Maybe The Frogs don't want to gear anyone up about much of anything. Maybe they just made the gayest album they could, with no particular malice in mind, and the joke is on us for trying to deconstruct it 4.5/5
#525 Lemon Jelly - 64'-95'
I refer to things as "good work music" a fair amount on this blog.
On one hand, that's backhanded, implying that something is inoffensive and undemanding; that it isn't worth really listening to.
On the other hand, there's something to be said about music that operates subconsciously, that provides mood without demanding your focus: architecture can be great art, even if it operates subconsciously. Some of the best rhetoric operates best when the listener doesn't understand what its trying to achieve.
Also, I work a lot. Music that I can listen to while I do that it pretty good to have around.
This album is about perfect as work music, packed with slowly evolving acid house that shifts from tone to tone and style to style seamlessly, alternating driving beats and ambient segments, but never veering too far in either direction. It is simply expertly produced music, silky smooth, but with a pulse. The closest comparison I can make (as someone who's not a real genre aficionado) is The Chemical Brothers' Surrender, a similarly housey turn from a band that didn't previously specialize in the style.
It seems strange to rate an album that is actually kind of unadventurous so highly, but it does what it does well, fitting the niche to a T, earning the low end of 4.5/5
On one hand, that's backhanded, implying that something is inoffensive and undemanding; that it isn't worth really listening to.
On the other hand, there's something to be said about music that operates subconsciously, that provides mood without demanding your focus: architecture can be great art, even if it operates subconsciously. Some of the best rhetoric operates best when the listener doesn't understand what its trying to achieve.
Also, I work a lot. Music that I can listen to while I do that it pretty good to have around.
This album is about perfect as work music, packed with slowly evolving acid house that shifts from tone to tone and style to style seamlessly, alternating driving beats and ambient segments, but never veering too far in either direction. It is simply expertly produced music, silky smooth, but with a pulse. The closest comparison I can make (as someone who's not a real genre aficionado) is The Chemical Brothers' Surrender, a similarly housey turn from a band that didn't previously specialize in the style.
It seems strange to rate an album that is actually kind of unadventurous so highly, but it does what it does well, fitting the niche to a T, earning the low end of 4.5/5
#524 The Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania
For a while there, the Pumpkins were the most overtly adventurous of the 90's alt-rock heavy hitters: Mellon Collie was a kaleidoscopic jaunt through more styles than any album of the era, and Adore's stark iciness was, if nothing else, a bold move. But then came the lukewarm Machina, and a strikingly samey comeback album in Zeitgeist. By the time Oceania dropped I'd more or less given up on Corgan and his increasingly dippy excursions into mesiahdom, but I decided to give it a chance. Heck, I'll listen to anything once.
The result is a good balance between Machina's forgettable messiness and Zeitgeist's forgettable saminess, which is actually kind of a good thing. The beats are crisp, the guitar parts shimmering as huge as they did on Mellon Collie, its a perfectly good album to have on in the background: it's all quite listenable, and rarely boring.
But its instructive that I sent this to Geoff and he commented that there weren't a lot of memorable moments. And he's right, after it was over I couldn't hum a single melody, repeat a single line, had no standout track I was dying to return to. This is partially to a powerfully overproduced sheen: raw grit has rarely been the Pumpkins' strength, but more so than usual everything is gelcap smooth. I guess the Cut/Copy bounce of One Diamond, One Heart is noteworthy, but I can't say its my favorite track on the album. Better than could be expected, but this is coming from someone who's spend a decade or two lowering expectations 3.5/5
The result is a good balance between Machina's forgettable messiness and Zeitgeist's forgettable saminess, which is actually kind of a good thing. The beats are crisp, the guitar parts shimmering as huge as they did on Mellon Collie, its a perfectly good album to have on in the background: it's all quite listenable, and rarely boring.
But its instructive that I sent this to Geoff and he commented that there weren't a lot of memorable moments. And he's right, after it was over I couldn't hum a single melody, repeat a single line, had no standout track I was dying to return to. This is partially to a powerfully overproduced sheen: raw grit has rarely been the Pumpkins' strength, but more so than usual everything is gelcap smooth. I guess the Cut/Copy bounce of One Diamond, One Heart is noteworthy, but I can't say its my favorite track on the album. Better than could be expected, but this is coming from someone who's spend a decade or two lowering expectations 3.5/5
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
#523 Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
Vaguely pretty, vaguely mushy, vaguely swooning pop crooning falling somewhere between Belle and Sebastien and The National, with a slightly artier edge, full of dissonant little touches and orchestral flourishes. The occaisional rollick, as on Fake Palindromes, inject a little bit of urgency, but for the most part things just lilt along, lithe but bloodless. The Thom Yorke nasality of Bird himself doesn't help, nor do forced little flourishes, like the whistling on Masterfade. This is an album that throws a lot at you, but for me, not a lot stuck 2.5/5
#522 Twin Shadow - Confess
Twin Shadow is probably the most successful of the vanguard of 80's revivalists out there these days: managing to build nostalgia for times that never existed via sounds that never quite actually have ever been made.
Even more so than on his debut, George Lewis weaves sounds that shimmer and beat and waver like nights come to life. The desperation and resignation evoke a real person behind the worlds and bristle with hope.There's a lynchian knack for seeming simultaneously familiar and uncanny, both for reasons that you can't quite grasp, in ways you're not even quite aware of. Suddenly you wake as if from a dream. This is never more true than on I Don't Care, which spins a staggering hallucination of a tale. I don't have much use for this particular angle, for this particular sound, but its the kind of album that will be some peoples favorite, like, ever, even if just for a month or two 3.5/5
Even more so than on his debut, George Lewis weaves sounds that shimmer and beat and waver like nights come to life. The desperation and resignation evoke a real person behind the worlds and bristle with hope.There's a lynchian knack for seeming simultaneously familiar and uncanny, both for reasons that you can't quite grasp, in ways you're not even quite aware of. Suddenly you wake as if from a dream. This is never more true than on I Don't Care, which spins a staggering hallucination of a tale. I don't have much use for this particular angle, for this particular sound, but its the kind of album that will be some peoples favorite, like, ever, even if just for a month or two 3.5/5
Monday, July 9, 2012
#521 Dire Straits - Making Movies
Here The Dire Straits make straightforward rock and roll songs stretched out to epic length, evoking Dylan and Springsteen in their ragged balladry, while the production is Steely Dan smooth and the sentiment is Steely Dan quietly-disaffected. The guitar sound is clean and the ballads full of a certain aching pathos, but the whole thing never quite goes for the throat, nor quite reaches for the stars (the solo at the end of Tunnel of Love being an exception, mabye). A quietly agreeable album that looms as large and ethereal as a cloud 3.5/5
Sunday, July 1, 2012
#520 Psycosis - In My G4 Over Da Sea
Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea meets raps. Call it the indie rock Grey Album. Will it transcend that overrated mess's legacy?
A desperately low percentage of two-song mashups have enough groove power and ideas to stay listenable for their entire running time: usually there's at most nice synergy between two particular parts of two songs, and that's it, at which point just Girl Talk 'em for a few bars and move on.
Half of these songs really transcend that: managing to actually bring rock power and pathos to otherwise one-dimensional boastfests / slapping some petty tight raps over even the most meandering NMH moments, giving them an irresistible shot of energy. Psycosis knows when he needs to bend the songs out of shape, when he needs to break out of their structures, and manages to deconstruct the songs thoroughly enough to make them work without betraying their nature.
But some of these songs just aren't meant to work, never settling into a groove, never working as rap or indie rock or mashup or anything.
A decidedly uneven album that somehow both disappoints and works better than it reasonably should 3/5
A desperately low percentage of two-song mashups have enough groove power and ideas to stay listenable for their entire running time: usually there's at most nice synergy between two particular parts of two songs, and that's it, at which point just Girl Talk 'em for a few bars and move on.
Half of these songs really transcend that: managing to actually bring rock power and pathos to otherwise one-dimensional boastfests / slapping some petty tight raps over even the most meandering NMH moments, giving them an irresistible shot of energy. Psycosis knows when he needs to bend the songs out of shape, when he needs to break out of their structures, and manages to deconstruct the songs thoroughly enough to make them work without betraying their nature.
But some of these songs just aren't meant to work, never settling into a groove, never working as rap or indie rock or mashup or anything.
A decidedly uneven album that somehow both disappoints and works better than it reasonably should 3/5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)