#1884 Krazy Baldhead - The B Suite

A Big Adventure:
  dubstep-adjacent buzz/wobble
    glitch bridges and breakdowns
      beats get broken
        mcs ride in in force, full on hip hop breaks out
          bleepbloop spacehighway
            buzzsaw burndowns
              sample shards in the wasteland
The first album from the worst-named act in electronica is as proggy as the great sophomore Noise in the Sky, but nastier, tighter, more exciting. Rockist bleepmaking that wants to see what's out there 4.5/5

#1883 Wand - Golem

The perfect psychedelic album. Gigantic riffs in step with meditative wanderings, stone hammer bludgeoning streaked with quicksilver strangitudes, terrible and mysterious, the ghost of Ty Segall. Full and soft, an embrace disguised as a punch in the face, flinch yourself to sleep, capped perfectly by The Drift, wake up wondering what happened 4.5/5

#1882 Astral Travelling - Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes

Been a long couple of weeks. Woke up early, decided to sleep till after traffic. Couldn't. Scrambled out before. Out the window it's trees and blankets of fog. Little oils in my breakfast bar find their way into my coffee and coil black black black. Organs push, drums turn, wobble, wander, a saxophone 4/5

#1881 King Sunny Ade - Juju Music

Rhythm section locks into some place beyond and matches many paces, never lets go, setting up waves on waves. Vocals on vocals, etherial un-guitar, zaps from beyond, time melts. Good, good, bye bye time 3.5/5

#1880 Cymande - Cymande

Dark water, smoldering ash, bass leads, slowing smoke or rolling spark. Bass is in the lead. Horns a throne around king bass. Everyone swaps for king bass. Fall asleep dreaming of slow motion dancing 3.5/5

#1879 Benji Hughes - A Love Extreme

Each song's dead simple. A lump of guitars and flourishes about some angle on love, Hughes' deep dark voice poured thick on top. Muggy little sundae. Of Montreal without the structural adventurousness, a pop fiddler somewhere between Self and Eels.

Once you hear the theme, you've got the basic trajectory. But together those 25 pile up into something strange and small and soothing, a meditation that beats 69 Love Songs for wistful wisdom and glimmer of personality forged by sheer endless persistence 3.5/5

#1878 Jobriath - Jobriath

Pure glam Bowie prototype, bold as Queen, full as ELO, packed to busting, overflowing with operatic fury and grace and desperation.

Less of the artful rock and roll mastery than Hunky // Ziggy, fewer remarkable landmarks, lost in a wash of watercolor pinks and purples by the end, but it sweeps me right up 4.5/5

#1877 Port O'Brien - All We Could Do Was Sing

I'm working on a theory of eras of rock music as stages of grief when it comes to your own death, with the late 90's -- 00's as the stage when we started to really look the truth in the face.

This album's not about death exactly, but it has that big shoutalong community thing going, that big railing against the world, that lone man falling over backwards into questions and disintegration, that smallness, that helplessness-together. All Modest Mouse croaking, all Microphones wonder, that Arcade Fire+Wilco+Mumford busy-ness, all prickling and twinkling and cold.

It sounds like something I'd like, but it doesn't quite click for me, my skin too thick, heart too jaded, ears that heard it all before. That I'd found this in 2008 it might have been a different story 3/5

#1876 Broken Social Scene - Bee Hives

B-sides collection from the You Forgot it in People days - it's got all the quiet//busy jammy atmosphere of the band in that era, but there's too little of that human touch, that insinuated, sensual intimacy that I've come to expect. YFiiP is a masterpiece that required some patience - the castoffs require more still. For the hardcore fan only, a drifting, ethereal curiosity 3/5

#1875 At the Drive-In - In/Casino/Out

Writing, knotty, start-stop angular art-punk - patterns intersect at oblique angles, with just enough sense for you to fall over sideways into and slide between. The shouting dripped over top is pretty heinous, swinging between emo-adjacent-half-rap and sub-hardcore shouting, but when it all blurs into soft focus and slithers in through the back door you come out the other side exhausted and cathartic 3.5/5

#1874 Hole - Celebrity Skin

If you're a fan of Billy Corgan's guitar production (I am!) and not so much Hole's code self-loathing (I'm not!) this'll win you over, at least for a handful of songs. Those riffs, those melodies, those downright pretty moments sure are polished up good. Damn tasty, those guitars. Hit So Hard // Malibu are downright convertible-ready.

But it's a badly frontloaded album, and there's nothing remotely memorable on the back half, leaving the whole thing understuffed and underexciting 3/5

#1873 Fishbone - Truth and Soul

Fishbone's a damn tight band, banging out whatever they please, whatever gets that toe tappin', whatever gets their Message across: funk, punk, ska, pop-metal, et cetera. We got these horns, we got these guitars, this guy can play some keys, these guys can sing - porque no los dos? It's a little too polished, a little too 80's to be cool, but you'll smile in spite of yourself once you get past it 3.5/5

#1872 The Velvet Illusions - Acid Head

Midtempo psychedelic // garage rock that falls all over itself: scuzzy, sloppy, overlayered, lurching along on broken legs until it gathers the lift to fly crashland fly again. Saxes, guitars, organs, the whole menagerie, all over that same deliberate beat and bass bop. Not all that hooky, not all that memorable, but with ramshackle energy that'll keep the rocklover grinnin' 3.5/5

#1871 You Am I - Hourly Daily

Perfectly fine, jangly alternative-lite pop-rock, packed with little touches: throbbing strings, popping horn moments, heartfelt updates of Beatles harmonies, and general washes of prettiness. This was a bit ahead of the curve in 1997, but after wave after wave of similar indie rock nothing stands out in 2015 3/5

#1870 Flo Rida - Only One Flo (Part 1)

Smashing together Girl Talk-ready party hip hop and big dumb EDM-lite house, here's the bottled sound of clubs-like-on-TV: top-tier douches and douchebaguettes go to get shitfaced and grind on eachother. It's that classic something-for-everyone fantasy: all the girls are the kind of girl that boys like. I LOVE THIS SONG! WHAT?! I LOVE THIS SONG! I DON'T THINK SO MAYBE LATER!! WHAT?! Main purpose: making your shitty apartment party feel like one of those clubs 2.5/5

#1869 Kurt Vile - B'lieve I'm Goin' Down

Sounds like any other recent Kurt Vile album, but missing some particular magic.

Vile's more personal than before, his lyrics more poetic and overtly strange. And there's little gestures of novelty; a piano here, a banjo there. Rumbling organ. But there's nothing strikingly new, it's an incremental refinement that actually feels like a step backwards: I miss the clouds, that atmosphere, that wonder, borne of some passing naivette and gritty necessity long gone 3/5

#1868 Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather

I like guitars, and the interplay's occaisionally pretty sweet. And this was ahead of its time, sure: this is the blueprint for hundreds of metal albums to come. But man its boring, always a step too slow, polished to a shine, with song after song that lays out its theme and rides it and rides it. An album lacking a single surprising moment in 2015 2.5/5

#1867 Spectral Bat - 16 Song Ep

Listen / buy here!

Disclosure: Vish's a friend and a good dude. And the gooddudism shows here: drum machine beats, plainstated psychedelic sentiments, crunchy punk chord start-stops, all filtered through bedroom-ready self-production - it's intimate, inviting, endearing

Crucial is that Guided by Voices MO: songs whip in, do their thing for one minute, and then disappear, keeping attention taut. All hooks, no filler, not a refrain that overstays. It's small, simple, but occasionally brilliant - if someone mentioned some underground cult classic and put an old record and this sound came out of the speakers, I wouldn't tell them to shut the fuck up 3.5/5

#1866 Standby - The New Space EP

Listen / buy here!

Intricate, mathy, proggy rock-lite made by sharp dudes with good chops.

I bet when they play live they are very focused on hitting their notes.

It's pretty, but its all so very clockwork - I kept wanting a greasefire to break out in the depths of the machine, but no greasefire ever came. I wish these oversweet, overachieving kids the best 3/5

#1865 Magic Dirt - Friends in Danger

Australian contemporaries who toured with the likes of Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr - they fit right into that sound. But for my money this's a much better listen. The songwriting rollercoasters all about: dirges, hardcore, hooky underground screeds, and tons of metal muscle. Not as wildly experimental as the heavy hitters from the scene, but a ton of fun. Plus, that roaring, loping distorted bass fucking kiiiiiiills, bringing so much visceral power to every track. Other than the overlong Bodysnatcher the pacing's mysterious and intricate and a blast to weather, slotting in right alongside the best Sabbath 4/5

#1864 Kylie Minogue - Impossible Princess

A perfectly fine pop album, the kind of thing Madonna might've made if she'd gotten out of her own damn way. It's mostly fluff but there's some dips into full-on electronica, trip-hop, etc; little flashes of a quirky Bjork-lite mini-masterpiece that didn't quite bake all the way through 3/5

#1863 Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen

I know these guys are from Ohio, but they've got a uniquely British kind of wailing, spare self-importance. Like the wildly-overrated Pulp, and to a lesser degree the less-overrated Smiths, they have a frontman in Greg Dulli who wheels and wrings operatic about his own weakness, wallowing in darktones that I guess I'm supposed to relate to

The noisy, start-stop backing's alright, some spawn of Built to Spill and The Dismemberment Plan, but it's also a bit much. There's not nearly enough payoff for all this self-importance - I am not won over 2.5/5

#1862 The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight

If The Beatles'd been around in 1980 they'd have made this album. In this world, some say that it's just a throwback to the Rubber Soul days. Some say it's just a swing at catching up to post-punkers like Gang of Four and The Jam, that new mod vanguard. And the rightminded love it in spite of // on account of all that, hearing a fearless, strange update of a golden age.

Back in this reality: some weirdos made this fearless, strange update of a golden age: lovesongs offset by Cronenbergian details (Kingdom of Love), glistening harmonies offset by sheetmetal jangle (I Got the Hots), everything wheeling off to some lookingglass wonderworld, familiar and bracing and slithering with menace 4/5

#1861 Dan Romer - Digging for Fire Soundtrack

A touching little minimalist meditation - the same themes coming up again and again, those rising flutes and falling synths. You could bluff and call this a 27 minute Brian Eno piece and not get called a liar. It works, in its small way, lifting just enough in its final refrains to cast itself as a cloud and out to sea as a memory 3.5/5

#1860 Malcolm McLaren - Duck Rock

A spiraling mix of South American and African styles, injected with hiphop, insistent loping bass, dancable post-disco, infectious chants, and more than one squaredance hoedown breakdown (!) all wrapped up in an underground radio package, complete with banter and callers. This must have been goddamn mindmelting in nineteen eighty fucking two.

The rhythms, the approaches, the irresistible groove, the vibe totally foreign to the West but so humanly relatable, its disorienting - calling it A Trip is about the only way I can do it justice. You might feel like you took a lil bit too much though - by the end I kind of want to get off and get my head straight, but I'll be back when the world gets boring again 3.5/5

#1859 Thin Lizzy - Fighting

Thin Lizzy, pre-Jailbreak: more desperate, more defiant, a bit most closely metal-adjacent. Fighting lacks the everyman charm I associate with their breakout, and some of the slower songs kill the momentum, but those twin guitars, goddammit do they sing, everworth the wait, pure quicksilver helix heaven every damn time 3.5/5

#1858 White Reaper - White Reaper Does it Again

Desperate, shouting garage rock that builds a launchpad of pure rumbling muscle and fires streaking guitar solos and signature hard-edged synth lines. Part Exploding Heart's pure energy, part Surfer Blood agreeable chug, part early Thermals all-in blitz - this caps it all with some special something, some uncanny blast of youthful fuckyes, spirals of light and dark until dawn. Gorgeous, awful stuff that builds all kinds of new ideas on their debut's shitkicking powertrip 4.5/5

#1857 Air Waves - Dungeon Dots

So much rumble this feels more like revival than rock: no real hooks to speak of, no real maneuvers, just a churning of chiming guitar wash, waves of understated cymbals, and everrolling bass, with Nicole Schneit's voice swooping over top, humble biplane over rolling seas. It works, mostly because that jumblejangle is so well crafted, partially because those vocals are pleasant and unassuming and flying you off to distant clouds 3.5/5

#1856 Breeders - Title TK

While I'm on the subject, I'll take the Breeders over Sleater Kinney anyday. There's no unspoken yelps or unfound non-chords, but the sound's so full and satisfying and *good* top to bottom.

And no, there's also nothing as catchy as career highlights Cannonball or Divine Hammer either, but Title TK sure hits a sweetspot between pop and noise: the slinking rumble of Sinister Foxx, the frail, overblown lo-fi of Off You, The She's laser-saw organ buzz. Inventive, tasty stuff 4/5

#1855 Sleater Kinney - Dig Me Out

An undeniably good rock record that overflows with clever noise, breakneck swerves, and a hitchy, hooky little sneer of attitude.

But I can't get past Carrie Brownstein's voice. She puts on a masterclass in voice as instrument, wringing yelps and emotion and razor edge out of every syllable, and on paper it's fucking brilliant, but it's just searingly miserable in the actual listening. It causes me pain, in the ears. If you can get past it, enjoy this album extra for me, because everything else on it is pretty goddamn kickin 3/5

#1854 Le Savvy Fav - Cat and the Cobra

Spastic, hectic art-punk with walls of noise, garotte-wire guitar chimes, shredded-throat barking, minimalist breakdowns, and swerves into outright prettiness. It's a blistering, splintering, exhausting ride, packed with ideas so densely you can barely pluck them at they streak by 4/5

#1853 Prefuse 73 - Every Color of Darkness

I stopped hoping for anything anywhere near the legendary One Word Extinguisher out of Prefuse a long time ago. Shit's been weak as hell since then.

But this has got a flash of that old magic: grooves pulse with power, frail details flicker in the maelstrom, a shotgun barrel of mirrored puzzle pieces that you interpret mid-flight. It's still a bit muddy, lacking that signature flow on the track and album scale, but it's an incremental nudge on his signature style that brings a glimmer of the new, while being solid to listen to. More than we could've hoped for at this point 3.5/5

#1852 Vladimir 518 - Idiot

Giant synth-backed Czech hip hop with swagger and muscle and thrilling little twists, a bewildering blitz through neon cyberpunk future-Europe dystopia. The words are lost on me, and the star is that insistent lasersword production, but the vocals work as abstract percussion counterpoint. Good shit for programming binges and night drives into the heart of the megadrome 4/5

#1851 Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats - Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats

Country, soul, gospel and blue-adjacent rock, never quite pigeonholing itself, never falling into a rut. It rarely ignites, just smolders on agreeably, a tenacious campfire on a brisk fall night 3.5/5

#1850 FIDLAR - Too

Shitkicking couldntgiveafuck wastrel stoner punks FIDLAR follow their couldntgiveashit debut (sample track title: Wake, Bake, Skate) with a concept album. A concept album! About Sobriety: Challenges Of!

You lose some of the frantic fun, sure, but its no American Idiot, more Separation Sunday, a surprisingly thoughtful whallop of manic romp, freakout rage, and pissy indignation, half Never Gonna Grow Up, half It Sucks to Grow Up. Sample line: I figured as i got older / life just sucks when you get sober // I figured out when I got sober / life just sucks when you get older. Occasionally profound, always one trip away from heavy - the exact moment at the party where you forget tomorrow for good.

It's exciting. The hooks are sharp, the energy electric: you never know what's next, but all those surprises hang together as an album, and afterwards you feel exhausted and sparked and ready to live life and ready to listen again 4/5

#1849 Todd Terje - It's Remix Time Time

Terje's album was built on atmosphere, on strutting energy, on grooves, on cool. That's all stripped away here, everything left soulless, the original's hooks skinned and dangled in place. Just as well that this is a slight little set of 4 tracks: the whole project was a bad idea in the first place 2/5

#1848 Regurgitator - Tu-Plang

I'd heard Art was this big later departure for Regurgitator, but they were doing the same basic stunt right away on their debut LP: jumping genres, fucking around with rap, funk, punk, and electronics, being mildly offensive, fairly hooky, and generally strange.

But where Art felt *new* this is pastiche, Limp Bizkit-worthy terrible takes on rap and proto-nu-metal noise. Also, these dudes just sound dumb as hell most of the time: spitting middle-school takes on misogyny, selling out, racism, and generally being super radical and punk rock and offensive. They're a concept band at heart, with shades of Ween, Beefheart, Frogs, but at this point in their career they didn't have the awareness, didn't have the will to twist hard enough to snap 2.5/5

#1847 Billy Corgan - The Future Embrace

The Pumpkins were my JAM in high school, but by the time this came out in the post-Adore, post-Zwan hangover, I was completely done with Billy Corgan's shit. So here I come back around, old as shit, ready to give a fair shake.

Everything you read says this was about doing what the Pumpkins wouldn't. The dead-simple drum machine beats are the opposite of Chamberlain's jazzy skitters, the single-take guitars are the opposite of the meticulously crafted walls of noise, and the strange fractured take on track composition, well that's just in defiance of how you're supposed to make music.

You can feel Corgan flailing: the guitar rock well's run dry, the patience for his shit is run out, so he's constructed a Rube Goldberg machine for making records hoping the radical process will make a radical record.

The process worked exactly twice, making two very good songs, and Mina Loy and Camera Eye are put right up front to give you false hope: twisty bass, floating vocals, and gorgeously textured guitars make for some really exciting shit. Those guitars, especially, are a highlight, buzzing with Trent Reznot // Atticus Ross intrigue and thrill. And even at the end a couple of frail tracks remind you of Adore's finest moments of vulnerability.

But in between, it's a mess. There's no heart, no soul, no hooks, no momentum: it sounds, sure enough, made by a Rube Goldberg machine: these tracks are those times a day when the stopped clock wasn't right. I found myself saying "is this song still going?" again and again, as I heard the same limp chorus limp by for the 8th or 9th time while endless tinny snares clicked by.

It's frustrating to see an artist once so prolific reduced to this - I'm reminded of Bowie, as we dare to hope again and again for a flash of that old magic, hear singers wondering Has the world changed or have I changed? 3/5

#1846 You Am I - Hi Fi Way

Acclaimed Australian 90's alt-rock that never really made a splash over here.

And sure, it's reasonably solid as 90's alt-rock goes: hooksome, scrappy, dotted with little inspirations (dat mellotron), but, eh. Lyrics are generic, chords standard, sounding only a little better than your average Pablo Honey track, poppy Nirvana b-side, local band's 3rd best track. Nothing that I'll remember tomorrow 2.5/5

#1845 Anthony Naples - Body Pil

Earthy, basic, analog house-adjacent atmospherics.

Beyond electronic-analog, beyond basic sines and squares and envelopes - Body Pil is electronic music as if churned off an early industrial assembly line. There's that alien quality of floating untouched by human hands, beats sound manufactured by iron pistons, synths scuffed on their way off of wooden rollers, as if carved expertly by unknown people with primitive tools, microscuffs and imperfections.

Warm, reflective, if modest, a well-crafted decoration with subtle character 3.5/5

#1844 Lost Animal - Ex Tropical

Slinky, soulful, strange - Ex Tropical bristles with island-adjacent rhythms, delivered via vintage keyboards, analog synths, Sonic Youth guitar squalls, dodgy chords, and other left-of-center tones, gloomy Grandaddy in too-bright paradise.

Much too bright.

It's all a bit off: a bit nervous, an alien recreation, vacation remembered long after // felt through a psychedelic haze. It's the sounds, and its the human crash: there's neo-soul seduction, mixed with indie vulnerability, mixed with a Dylanesque flatness. All that splitting and crossing keeps you on your toes, but keeps this from settling into any particular role or purpose or mood.

Maybe that's part of the idea: like a good hard trip, you're fascinated, but never quite comfortable, watching everything just shiiiiiiiiiift onby 3.5/5

#1843 Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

Four phases of listening to this album:

1) Well, I do hate Oasis, but this isn't too bad. They're going for it a little. Can't quite get past that Oasisness though (this last about 2 tracks)

2) Alright, alright, whoever these mystery British dudes are, they kinda rock. Propulsive and heavy. They kinds sound like Oasis, but like, good (this lasts about 2 more tracks)

3) This sounds kinda like the Beatles with the saturation turned down. Wait a minute... fuck! This *is* Oasis (you guys even copied being really into India from the Beatles, huh?) (4 tracks)

4) I'm bored.

I really tried to keep an open mind about this. And there are places where you forget that you're listening to Oasis, where you can hear the actual rock and roll chops through the dickish veneer. But they just can't keep it up. It gets sloggy and boring and pedestrian and phoned in and so very Oasis by the end. Still points for being better than expected on that first half there 3/5

#1842 CeeLo Green - CeeLo Green is the Soul Machine

"CeeLo's such a weirdo" I think to myself. Again and again, it comes to mind, with a reluctant smile. He wallows in it, calls out his own penchant for singing // rapping // sing-rapping, sultry and jokey and murder-rapping back to back.

"CeeLo's been given the power, to take you where you wanna go" the chorus of ladies declares. "He can do anything!" they follow.

He sure has, and he sure can. The Soul Machine is totally unbridled, an 18 track braindump meticulously constructed and left unedited outside hands. And CeeLo's such a weirdo. Shades of Andre 3000 is an understatement.

It's an hour long, but it feels longer. Luckily almost everything's catchy: bustling and bursting, and even as it slogs its charming and tuneful, overflowing with tripled up vocals, horn hits, soul guitars, synth buzzes, start-stops, and go go go's, all to make you smile despite yourself 3.5/5

#1841 The Auteurs - After Murder Park

Swooping and seasick - 90's British cheekiness offset by that Albini production, keeping the guitars sharpened, the drums loaded. Like an Arcade Fire ancestor, there's melodrama and ennui to spare, casting out with a swoon and a shout and a wallow and a woop.

The edge falls off too many songs, but when they go for it, like on the start-stop stabbing Land Lovers, there's thrilling stakes to explore 3.5/5

#1840 Nada Surf - Let Go

It's all there on the opening Blizzard of '77: obvious chords, acoustic strum, pretty vocals swinging through microballad detail-hopping...but with this little tinge of something special again and again: some small little turn of phrase, an off-center rhyme, an out-of-place tone, a hitch in the structure.

And so it goes: the 90's pop-rock shtick skeleton, dressed up with a dapper air that makes you want to buy it a drink.

It tips into pure saccharine at times (Inside of Love), and rides most of its choruses way too hard, but there's a little bit of magic, a little bit of These Guys Got It that makes Let Go well worth your listen 3.5/5

#1839 Rowland S. Howard - Teenage Snuff Film

Made #1 on that list I've been looking at - seems like that's a gotta checkit out.

Night dark, shapes moving, Howard sulking and slipping and strutting and slinking though every neon puddle and beerlight backalley, droning and muttering and melting down.

Thrilling bass keeps the knives out, a backdrop of mourning strings and guitar screech keeps the heat on, endless Joy Division throb meets Gang of Four bristle. We tingle with the spark and prick in the air, like something's about to happen. Or maybe it already happened - we and forgot it and live in shadow aftermath.

Words pour out oily and black, menacing in the specifics and their insinuations alike.

Brilliant and impossible, will probably yield endless details if you can make it through the listens, grim and harrowing and haunting and discouraging of any visitor to return 4/5

Month in Review: August '15

Mostly just keeping up with a trickle of new stuff, listening to new record by old favorites like an old person.

Album of the Month
 
The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms - a bristling, thrilling post-punk album bursting with nervous energy

Also Recommended!

Vundabar - Gawk - grownin'-up second record from my favorite local band, it's a propulsive, surf-flecked gem

Regurgitator - Art - Australian rock band makes their what-next 3rd album, watches dozens of ideas breaking off and burn up on re-entry

Royal Headache - High - Australia again! Less visceral energy than their trilling debut, but with hooks and hearts to spare