Wednesday, March 30, 2016
#2089 America - Homecoming
Sometimes you come off your garage rock high horse and want to fall into soft rock's pillowey busom, let all those harmonies carry you to sleep. As pretty as Eagles but less lame by a third, like if Neil Young was a total pussy and could sing and there was 3 of him 4/5
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
#2088 Pantera - Cowboys from Hell
Perfectly solid groove-riding metal with only a little bit of shrieking/meedleemeedlee ingulgence. Good for when you don't want to go full Slayer but don't want to stoop to Metallica - not as good as Vulgar Display of Power though 3.5/5
Friday, March 25, 2016
#2087 John Oswald - Plexure
I've got a whole essay brewing about [mashup WHERE COUNT(songs) > 2;] ("plunerphonics"?). The central question is: are you using the sounds as starting points for subsounds (Prefuse), whole cloth as tuneful sounds (Avalanches), conceptual throughlines (Jason Forrest) or cultural landmarks (Girl Talk). There's a loose continuum along that list: how important were the original song's intentions?
Plexure, a precursor at least to all those examples, blasts way off the left side of the scale, chopping hundreds of songs to bits, blasting confetti point-blank, a microscopic ransom note spouting nonsense. Small recognizable fragments filter though, but they're islands in a sea of double-clusterfucked, the luckiest rapid-fire radio-station flipthrough you've ever had.
Conceptually? Good job setting the bar that everyone who came later would prudently duck. The man invented the game, and the rest came along and said "what if I did that...without making it completely fucking unlistenable?". Even at 19 minutes its an exhausting listen that I can't recommend against strongly enough: you probably already get the idea. Listen to a few minutes if you must, just out of deference, but it really is awful, awful music to listen to 2.5/5
Plexure, a precursor at least to all those examples, blasts way off the left side of the scale, chopping hundreds of songs to bits, blasting confetti point-blank, a microscopic ransom note spouting nonsense. Small recognizable fragments filter though, but they're islands in a sea of double-clusterfucked, the luckiest rapid-fire radio-station flipthrough you've ever had.
Conceptually? Good job setting the bar that everyone who came later would prudently duck. The man invented the game, and the rest came along and said "what if I did that...without making it completely fucking unlistenable?". Even at 19 minutes its an exhausting listen that I can't recommend against strongly enough: you probably already get the idea. Listen to a few minutes if you must, just out of deference, but it really is awful, awful music to listen to 2.5/5
#2086 Grateful Dead / John Oswald - Greyfolded
John Oswald folds together 2 hours of live performances of Dark Star into a gigantic 2-part opus.
I first heard a bit of this in the 90's and didn't know what to make of it - come to think of it, it probably colored my perception of the Dead for decades. I kept coming across downright straightforward albums like Workingman's Dead and asking, is this it? Thought yall were supposed to be a trip.
Older, wiser, more pretentious, I'm more willing to indulge in indulgence, and I do love that this goes all the way. Oswald finds the right balance between letting sections breathe and keeping his foot on the evolutionary gas, letting swirls shift into drones into meanders. If you're going to really space out, why let it ever end? Why not go all the way?
And the fact that you don't know where live ends and swirled-together begins, you just have to take it in as sounds, experimental on experimental, down the rabbit hole 4/5
I first heard a bit of this in the 90's and didn't know what to make of it - come to think of it, it probably colored my perception of the Dead for decades. I kept coming across downright straightforward albums like Workingman's Dead and asking, is this it? Thought yall were supposed to be a trip.
Older, wiser, more pretentious, I'm more willing to indulge in indulgence, and I do love that this goes all the way. Oswald finds the right balance between letting sections breathe and keeping his foot on the evolutionary gas, letting swirls shift into drones into meanders. If you're going to really space out, why let it ever end? Why not go all the way?
And the fact that you don't know where live ends and swirled-together begins, you just have to take it in as sounds, experimental on experimental, down the rabbit hole 4/5
Thursday, March 24, 2016
#2085 The Emperor Machine - Beyond the Space Egg
Space disco that distances itself from the standard Lindstrom/Prins/Terje pack via fetishistic obsession with textures and analog maneuvers, getting downright Enostic with those big warpy surges. There's a dose of wonky care poured into every tone that you can't help but appreciate.
Its less pure in structure too, willing to get a little rockist with its beats and pacing, sacrificing hypnosis for deigning to keep the listener entertained. Which sounds like a recipe for success, but I gotta admit: I miss the hypnosis, the purity. One of the few times where deviating from the blueprint might have been a net loss 3.5/5
Its less pure in structure too, willing to get a little rockist with its beats and pacing, sacrificing hypnosis for deigning to keep the listener entertained. Which sounds like a recipe for success, but I gotta admit: I miss the hypnosis, the purity. One of the few times where deviating from the blueprint might have been a net loss 3.5/5
#2084 Warren Zevon - Warron Zevon
What's my deal with LA?
I lived just south of that shithole for thirty years and in retrospect I fucking hated it. Hated driving through it, hated driving to it, the megamall castle, the fakeass casino, the billboards for shoes, gallons of effort poured into an cracked, ungrateful piece of earth devoid of humanity.
And every time I fly in to visit those who stayed behind I marvel, I shrivel and shrink and die at the
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
it is a place that goes on forever to nowhere.
and yet, something about it draws me in, from Mulholland Drive to Chinatown to LA Confidential, I can't resist something about it. The way that it lies as a desert, that its emptiness is big enough for us all, it draws me in.
from culver city's hidden treasures, to echo park's flashes, to silverlake's oasis, out to the outer outer reaches: into palm springs' escape, to orange county's bubblefuck microrefuges, to the grapevine's bleed into the central tiles, to santa barbara's flicker of escape into endless winding eternity.
and anything that catches one ray of that reflected light sometimes draws me in, as long as it's cast from a true place.
and Zevon catches that. he is not of Los Angeles, he sits at its outskirts, he wears out his hangover in its beerlight, he hunches at the cusp of the desert that's not there anymore, creeping along some edge into the tamed frontier. But he is not outside. Zevon has been in and through, he's the Eagles if they'd actually lived a fucking day, Phosphorescent's spirit guide, Nick Lowe without the energy to stay so fucking arch, just casting out a last breath frustration and awakening grateful.
All-time great moment in rock:
Zevon talks about "a girl at the rainbow bar; she asked me if I'd beat her / she took me back to the hyatt house - - - I don't want to talk about it"
"hyut! nevermind" he barks.
and you believe that he doesn't want to talk about it, but that he's haunted enough that he couldn't quite keep it out of his songs forever. and it does not sound like a move to move records. it does not at all. it is sincere as shit and its fucking bracing.
you get the idea that Zevon has come out of the den of insincerity with his soul intact. his tale's emphatically worth hearing, he says with his last breath of sincerity 4.5/5
I lived just south of that shithole for thirty years and in retrospect I fucking hated it. Hated driving through it, hated driving to it, the megamall castle, the fakeass casino, the billboards for shoes, gallons of effort poured into an cracked, ungrateful piece of earth devoid of humanity.
And every time I fly in to visit those who stayed behind I marvel, I shrivel and shrink and die at the
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l s p r a w l
it is a place that goes on forever to nowhere.
and yet, something about it draws me in, from Mulholland Drive to Chinatown to LA Confidential, I can't resist something about it. The way that it lies as a desert, that its emptiness is big enough for us all, it draws me in.
from culver city's hidden treasures, to echo park's flashes, to silverlake's oasis, out to the outer outer reaches: into palm springs' escape, to orange county's bubblefuck microrefuges, to the grapevine's bleed into the central tiles, to santa barbara's flicker of escape into endless winding eternity.
and anything that catches one ray of that reflected light sometimes draws me in, as long as it's cast from a true place.
and Zevon catches that. he is not of Los Angeles, he sits at its outskirts, he wears out his hangover in its beerlight, he hunches at the cusp of the desert that's not there anymore, creeping along some edge into the tamed frontier. But he is not outside. Zevon has been in and through, he's the Eagles if they'd actually lived a fucking day, Phosphorescent's spirit guide, Nick Lowe without the energy to stay so fucking arch, just casting out a last breath frustration and awakening grateful.
All-time great moment in rock:
Zevon talks about "a girl at the rainbow bar; she asked me if I'd beat her / she took me back to the hyatt house - - - I don't want to talk about it"
"hyut! nevermind" he barks.
and you believe that he doesn't want to talk about it, but that he's haunted enough that he couldn't quite keep it out of his songs forever. and it does not sound like a move to move records. it does not at all. it is sincere as shit and its fucking bracing.
you get the idea that Zevon has come out of the den of insincerity with his soul intact. his tale's emphatically worth hearing, he says with his last breath of sincerity 4.5/5
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
#2083 Yo La Tengo - The Sounds of The Sounds of Science
Pernicious context comes in again to rob me of my joy, as I learn that the band was kinda roped into the entire project, didn't really watch the undersea documentary shorts these songs were to accompany all that much.
Cast it off, Baker.
Taken on their own:
Deeply meditative, mildly surfy, meekly funky, mostly formless tracks, moving as slow as slow can go, but undeniably beautiful, evoking the kind of motion that the sea affords -- less effort needed just to stay aloft than for us land folk, lessons to be learned there perhaps, as we're drawn to float, as if we could just by choosing. I cast off just in the relisten.
There's no other band that could do this quite like this, and there's magic in that.
No rush, just that groove, no gravity that demands deviation from the drift, a thing that just exists out there somewhere out of reach and aren't we glad to know it, just afloat 3.5/5
Cast it off, Baker.
Taken on their own:
Deeply meditative, mildly surfy, meekly funky, mostly formless tracks, moving as slow as slow can go, but undeniably beautiful, evoking the kind of motion that the sea affords -- less effort needed just to stay aloft than for us land folk, lessons to be learned there perhaps, as we're drawn to float, as if we could just by choosing. I cast off just in the relisten.
There's no other band that could do this quite like this, and there's magic in that.
No rush, just that groove, no gravity that demands deviation from the drift, a thing that just exists out there somewhere out of reach and aren't we glad to know it, just afloat 3.5/5
#2082 Dan Haan - Gods from Outer Space
A pretty bangin' electronic / disco album, slathered in guitars, big beats and an effortless blast of LETSHAVEAGOODFUCKINGTIME. Knob turning washes knock against old-school synth pulses, chorus chants, guitar washes, and beats and beats and those beats they're goddamn relentless.
And look, out of diligence I should mention it's got 3 half-naked dudes on the cover, and tracks named Russian Boat Commander, Burning Desire, and Release the Beast. I sincerely don't know exactly what all that adds up to other than that it's possible I'm not the target audience, but I think it's a fucking blast 4/5
And look, out of diligence I should mention it's got 3 half-naked dudes on the cover, and tracks named Russian Boat Commander, Burning Desire, and Release the Beast. I sincerely don't know exactly what all that adds up to other than that it's possible I'm not the target audience, but I think it's a fucking blast 4/5
#2081 Black Devil Disco Club - Black Devil Disco Club
I'm uptight about scant few things, but I like me my albums-as-documents. No singles, no fucking around with mixes, no bonus tracks, no resequences, no George Lucas horseshit at all. We know the time by its artifacts and can't that be sancrofuckingsanct?
So the whole scam around this album has me rageblind. I believe for exactly zero beats that this "lost" "1978" album was "discovered" in 2004. Balloon boy, twerking girl catches fire, +1000 youtube videos of similar ilk - I have a bullshit detector that goes off seldom and is never wrong and its going off like crazy on this shit. This is exploiting our desire to go "you'll never believe this thing I found!" about something that came out in 1978, when we might just go "hey this is a pretty dope album" if it just came out in 2004.
That's what pisses me off; it got greedy. This is actually a solid album, but I'm here to hear about the music of 1978, or failing that, the music of 2004. I'm pretty sure the lesson I got was in The Music Scene of 2004: Douchebaggery Of.
Couldn't I just listen to a pretty cool, dark, minimal, DFA-esque little rumbler, mysterious and slinky and patient and strange? Full of ominous, inky energy?
But no, that just wasn't enough for yall though was it? You couldn't stand to be retro so you reconned yourself into being there on the ground floor. I call bullshit. Also fuck you with that cover art. This is hipster horseshit dumped all over the music itself. You guys are fucking traitors.
And I want to commit to this screed, but even now doubt creeps in. No Regrets, it makes me want to believe.
Maybe it's the world I hate: one where even if its not a lie, its reasonable to assume it is - because everything great is a scam, everything too good to be true -- usually is. Usually enough that, on the balance, belief is folly.
Thoroughly unsatisfied, deeply grumpy. Maybe its not 1978 or 2004 I hate, its 2016
3.5/5
So the whole scam around this album has me rageblind. I believe for exactly zero beats that this "lost" "1978" album was "discovered" in 2004. Balloon boy, twerking girl catches fire, +1000 youtube videos of similar ilk - I have a bullshit detector that goes off seldom and is never wrong and its going off like crazy on this shit. This is exploiting our desire to go "you'll never believe this thing I found!" about something that came out in 1978, when we might just go "hey this is a pretty dope album" if it just came out in 2004.
That's what pisses me off; it got greedy. This is actually a solid album, but I'm here to hear about the music of 1978, or failing that, the music of 2004. I'm pretty sure the lesson I got was in The Music Scene of 2004: Douchebaggery Of.
Couldn't I just listen to a pretty cool, dark, minimal, DFA-esque little rumbler, mysterious and slinky and patient and strange? Full of ominous, inky energy?
But no, that just wasn't enough for yall though was it? You couldn't stand to be retro so you reconned yourself into being there on the ground floor. I call bullshit. Also fuck you with that cover art. This is hipster horseshit dumped all over the music itself. You guys are fucking traitors.
And I want to commit to this screed, but even now doubt creeps in. No Regrets, it makes me want to believe.
Maybe it's the world I hate: one where even if its not a lie, its reasonable to assume it is - because everything great is a scam, everything too good to be true -- usually is. Usually enough that, on the balance, belief is folly.
Thoroughly unsatisfied, deeply grumpy. Maybe its not 1978 or 2004 I hate, its 2016
3.5/5
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
#2080 Strange Mangers - An Introduction to Garbage Theory
Monday, March 21, 2016
#2079 Paul Revere & The Raiders - Midnight Ride
[in which i shit on the genesis of all the modern music i love and generally disgrace the ancestors]
that bass tone, that fuzz, robed in organs and slashed with the occasional guitar - its what saves this. I do love that tone.
and sure - Kicks strikes at the heart of the 60's from an unexpected angle.
but in 1966 this has no squatters rights on any part of the sound, and brings little new and just generally is a pretty forgettable album circa now 3/5
that bass tone, that fuzz, robed in organs and slashed with the occasional guitar - its what saves this. I do love that tone.
and sure - Kicks strikes at the heart of the 60's from an unexpected angle.
but in 1966 this has no squatters rights on any part of the sound, and brings little new and just generally is a pretty forgettable album circa now 3/5
#2078 ? and the Mysterians - 96 Tears
Does "garage band" imply that they're a dime a dozen? That any jackshit with a guitar, a pen, a stapler, and parents could kick one off?
Is it a coincidence that I come upon this revelation while I relisten to [fuck you and all your band members and your band's various dumbshit names]'s album?
I should like this - those surfy guitars, those organs, that loose style. I almost do.
But I don't buy it, there's no real looseness, no real fire or chancetaking - it feels calculated, disposable, priced 25 cent / ea. Fancypants motherfuckers with your bluesey piano track.
I keep reading that these guys were on some vanguard but I don't hear it. I don't hear rebellion or sincerity, I hear shtick 2.5/5
Is it a coincidence that I come upon this revelation while I relisten to [fuck you and all your band members and your band's various dumbshit names]'s album?
I should like this - those surfy guitars, those organs, that loose style. I almost do.
But I don't buy it, there's no real looseness, no real fire or chancetaking - it feels calculated, disposable, priced 25 cent / ea. Fancypants motherfuckers with your bluesey piano track.
I keep reading that these guys were on some vanguard but I don't hear it. I don't hear rebellion or sincerity, I hear shtick 2.5/5
#2077 The Easybeats - Easy
There's something about Australian bands I can't get enough of: mostly modern stuff like Royal Headache // Courtney // King Gizzard, but here comes a totally forgettable beat blastfromthepast and yet, some weird backwards-toilet magic takes over.
It's just a little off, a little loose, a little confident - something less to prove. So eeeeasy maybe?
I'm reminded, of all things, of Gasoline Cowboy (New Zealand bands are the same // not the same kind of thing) a totally unknown New Zealand band that caught hold of my heart 10 something years ago. Shot a Cowboy, fucking, what a brilliant lost gem that does not, full stop exist on the internet in the lord's year two thousand and sixteen. You know what's weird? My whole review is derailed by the fact that all I want to do is link you to that badass song that obliquely relates to the nominal subject at hand and I can't. Song does not exist on the internet. And why should I expect it to. But I do! FUCK. Email me and I'll send you the mp3 like a mother fucking caveman.
okokok
Beatlesey sure, Kinksian even, but just a little offkilter, agreeable as shit, with a surfy, giveafuck, hairflippin vibe, packed with girl-group claps and rockabilly-revival guitars - peak 60's, with that little extra upsidedownin' 4/5
It's just a little off, a little loose, a little confident - something less to prove. So eeeeasy maybe?
I'm reminded, of all things, of Gasoline Cowboy (New Zealand bands are the same // not the same kind of thing) a totally unknown New Zealand band that caught hold of my heart 10 something years ago. Shot a Cowboy, fucking, what a brilliant lost gem that does not, full stop exist on the internet in the lord's year two thousand and sixteen. You know what's weird? My whole review is derailed by the fact that all I want to do is link you to that badass song that obliquely relates to the nominal subject at hand and I can't. Song does not exist on the internet. And why should I expect it to. But I do! FUCK. Email me and I'll send you the mp3 like a mother fucking caveman.
okokok
Beatlesey sure, Kinksian even, but just a little offkilter, agreeable as shit, with a surfy, giveafuck, hairflippin vibe, packed with girl-group claps and rockabilly-revival guitars - peak 60's, with that little extra upsidedownin' 4/5
Friday, March 18, 2016
#2076 Fang Island - Day of the Great Leap
I started on Fang Island with their their glorious self-titled, packed with euphoric, reaching riffs and senseless soaring vocals, tight as god's own asshole.
Their debut, 3 years prior, shows the same purpose, the same riff-driven aesthetic. But it's lacking those two things that really gave the self-titled wings: those communal vocals and that T1000 ratatat tightness. This is not the SR-71 endgame, this is dudes on the testbed, reaching beyond what they're capable of, missing notes, missing beats, careening downhill and out of control.
It's got excitement, a kind of highwire act that's even better when you know someday they're gonna stick the landing. Nowhere near as fun as their best stuff, but a sincere, buzzy, fuzzy, pure record, guys just making rock and roll a little hotter than they can handle 4/5
Their debut, 3 years prior, shows the same purpose, the same riff-driven aesthetic. But it's lacking those two things that really gave the self-titled wings: those communal vocals and that T1000 ratatat tightness. This is not the SR-71 endgame, this is dudes on the testbed, reaching beyond what they're capable of, missing notes, missing beats, careening downhill and out of control.
It's got excitement, a kind of highwire act that's even better when you know someday they're gonna stick the landing. Nowhere near as fun as their best stuff, but a sincere, buzzy, fuzzy, pure record, guys just making rock and roll a little hotter than they can handle 4/5
Thursday, March 17, 2016
#2075 Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Motorhead bounces back from Bomber, getting that looseness back, that giveafuck streak. Themes are violent (Shoot You in the Back), gross (Jailbait), dumb (Dance), but nothing's for shock value, just some rough'n'fuckit dudes blowing off steam. No more effort here, just blunt, relentless rock and roll, stomping along at its own clip. Title track's classic, too 3.5/5
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
#2074 Jon Benjamin - Well I Should Have...
The joke here is that Jon Benjamin can't play the piano. What makes it strangely worth hearing is that it's not a joke. Everybody takes the initial premise as given, sure. Jon on piano. And after that, nobody is trying to make this any more of a wank than it has to be.
Benjamin's got some legit players around him, and listening to them do their darndest to work with an . . unconventional player is a little thrill. If there was an Iron Chef for music, this'd be the giraffe balls battle.
And in spite of his doomed premise, Benjamin tries! He has some basic sense of melody, finds little fragments that work and goes back to them, hits the keys with spirit and restraint - he's not just fucking things up. He's dubbed himself a Jazz Daredevil, and its true: he's not just driving this thing off a cliff, he's trying to make it to the other side of that gorge, janky two-stroke be damned.
The big questions:
Is this taking the piss out of jazz? Sure, but it's not *just* taking the piss out of jazz. There's something fascinating about watching punk rock fuckit crash into a well-established system. In a way, it's a testament to jazz - what other style could be so fluid, so able to absorb this level of chaos and still emerge sounding just damn near almost kinda like its maybe sorta supposed to?
Is it enjoyable to listen to? It's better than you might think! At 30 minutes (including throwaway sketches and a joke song at the end) it doesn't beat the idea to death, and it's done with you around the time you're done with it. Benjamin's unconventional approach to comedic timing; a patience that knows juuuuuust how far to trust the audience; works with music too, as it turns out. It's absolutely worth hearing once, and I am terribly glad it exists. But Jon Benjamin is not very good at playing the piano 3.5/5
Benjamin's got some legit players around him, and listening to them do their darndest to work with an . . unconventional player is a little thrill. If there was an Iron Chef for music, this'd be the giraffe balls battle.
And in spite of his doomed premise, Benjamin tries! He has some basic sense of melody, finds little fragments that work and goes back to them, hits the keys with spirit and restraint - he's not just fucking things up. He's dubbed himself a Jazz Daredevil, and its true: he's not just driving this thing off a cliff, he's trying to make it to the other side of that gorge, janky two-stroke be damned.
The big questions:
Is this taking the piss out of jazz? Sure, but it's not *just* taking the piss out of jazz. There's something fascinating about watching punk rock fuckit crash into a well-established system. In a way, it's a testament to jazz - what other style could be so fluid, so able to absorb this level of chaos and still emerge sounding just damn near almost kinda like its maybe sorta supposed to?
Is it enjoyable to listen to? It's better than you might think! At 30 minutes (including throwaway sketches and a joke song at the end) it doesn't beat the idea to death, and it's done with you around the time you're done with it. Benjamin's unconventional approach to comedic timing; a patience that knows juuuuuust how far to trust the audience; works with music too, as it turns out. It's absolutely worth hearing once, and I am terribly glad it exists. But Jon Benjamin is not very good at playing the piano 3.5/5
#2073 Magazine - Real Life
I've got past most of my "how'm I just hearing this now?" moments by now.
But this is a classic, wildly ahead of its time, fearlessly embracing prog, burgeoning post-punk and all manner of thrilling, propulsive washes of rock, prescient waves of Pixies and Blur, at their most exciting.
It's heady, inventive, rolling ahead heedlessly and with great precision, everything catchy and cool you could want from rock and roll 4.5/5
But this is a classic, wildly ahead of its time, fearlessly embracing prog, burgeoning post-punk and all manner of thrilling, propulsive washes of rock, prescient waves of Pixies and Blur, at their most exciting.
It's heady, inventive, rolling ahead heedlessly and with great precision, everything catchy and cool you could want from rock and roll 4.5/5
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
#2072 Pop Levi - The Return to Form Black Magick Party
Boy does this lean hard on Electric Warrior, going for that glammy hyperspace hypnosis. It's peppered with upbeat glamrock swings, shades of Bryan Scary, Spacehog circa Chinese Album, Supergrass at their most laconic - but its heart is out past the clouds with Cosmic Dancer.
Each song's a one-groove move, and the album's make or break on those grooves. After a shaky start (Sugar Assault Me Now seems to think it's central pun is cleverer than it is) . . . Levi finds his footing. Crying Chic swirls you up right good, and while a couple tracks (Dollar Bill Rock, Flirting) get stretched thin, the backing four fill in your mind on the way out.
Uneven, derivative, but at least it's deriving from the right spot. While most of the 00's revival went for big tacky riffs, this was one of the few modern glam albums that drew from the slinkier, sleepier secret soul of the sound, and it's much more enchanting for it 3.5/5
Each song's a one-groove move, and the album's make or break on those grooves. After a shaky start (Sugar Assault Me Now seems to think it's central pun is cleverer than it is) . . . Levi finds his footing. Crying Chic swirls you up right good, and while a couple tracks (Dollar Bill Rock, Flirting) get stretched thin, the backing four fill in your mind on the way out.
Uneven, derivative, but at least it's deriving from the right spot. While most of the 00's revival went for big tacky riffs, this was one of the few modern glam albums that drew from the slinkier, sleepier secret soul of the sound, and it's much more enchanting for it 3.5/5
Monday, March 14, 2016
#2071 Lead Belly - Lead Belly's Last Sessions
If you're already a big Lead Belly acolyte then this is gold. What about the rest of us? You better be ready to commit, to really get wrapped up in the whole experience, because you're in for:
- 96 songs
- (35 are Lead Belly acapella)
- over the course of 4 hours
And I can't tell you to pick and choose, if you're going to do this you're all in. You're going to hear big soulful singing, snippets of banter, remembered desperation, rattling guitar strings, cracks of cranky attitude, sunlight through golden dust motes between floorboards. The same song done different ways, a meandering endless night of songs pouring out, and afterwards you will feel the man in ways beyond song.
It's a big investment, and it is no thrill ride, and I was not blown away musically exactly. But that full-through listen is an experience if you're looking for one 3.5/5
- 96 songs
- (35 are Lead Belly acapella)
- over the course of 4 hours
And I can't tell you to pick and choose, if you're going to do this you're all in. You're going to hear big soulful singing, snippets of banter, remembered desperation, rattling guitar strings, cracks of cranky attitude, sunlight through golden dust motes between floorboards. The same song done different ways, a meandering endless night of songs pouring out, and afterwards you will feel the man in ways beyond song.
It's a big investment, and it is no thrill ride, and I was not blown away musically exactly. But that full-through listen is an experience if you're looking for one 3.5/5
Friday, March 11, 2016
#2070 Deerhoof - La Isla Bonita
The same basic formula from Deerhoof, those keening guitar lines dueling with Satomi's mewling and yowling and cooing, set on boil over offkilter beats.
The artrock purists would certainly disagree, and I haven't heard all of their previous 11 (!) albums, but I think this might be my favorite I've heard - certainly the one I'd be most likely to put on again. It's less aggressively weird, but no less adventurous. The band's found the sweetspot between offkilter and sweet, keeping your interest with inventive textures, tones, and noises instead of just blasting you with angular apocalypse. Later tracks (Black Pitch) are beautiful, even!
A kinder, gentler breed of batshit noise-pop 3.5/5
The artrock purists would certainly disagree, and I haven't heard all of their previous 11 (!) albums, but I think this might be my favorite I've heard - certainly the one I'd be most likely to put on again. It's less aggressively weird, but no less adventurous. The band's found the sweetspot between offkilter and sweet, keeping your interest with inventive textures, tones, and noises instead of just blasting you with angular apocalypse. Later tracks (Black Pitch) are beautiful, even!
A kinder, gentler breed of batshit noise-pop 3.5/5
Thursday, March 10, 2016
#2069 Acid Baby Jesus - LP
Noisy, smashy, fuzzed-out psychedelic/garage rock, this should be right up my alley, but it's just kind of boring. The band sounds like they're stoned and stumbling their way though, layering noise on noise, but the tricks are all well-worn twice over by now, two half-speed Wavves songs played over top of eachother - style over substance in the one place that's supposed to be immune 2.5/5
#2068 Milosh - Jetlag
Milosh's voice is a little too smooth, a little too croony, a little too 2016 - but this album gets by on its warm, alien synth tones, glowing and glowering and lurking, pulling you close, the vocals and tones perfectly blended into something hypnotic and uncanny and safe 3.5/5
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
#2067 Rob Crow's Lonely Place - You're Doomed. Be Nice.
Those clean, thoughtful guitar knots take me right back to Rob Crow's Pinback, back to the Dismemberment Plan and Modest Mouse back to the early 2000's, where the underground rose up looking for a place in the next big thing.
It's mostly muso cat's cradle, but its best moments are where pure melody is allowed to shine through, where we get feel, like we did when we were on the cusp of our 20's, are worth the price of admission 3.5/5
It's mostly muso cat's cradle, but its best moments are where pure melody is allowed to shine through, where we get feel, like we did when we were on the cusp of our 20's, are worth the price of admission 3.5/5
Monday, March 7, 2016
#2066 Motorhead - Bomber
The difference between Motorhead's debut and their second album is right in the name:
Overkill had mania, frantic energy
Bomber's solid, hulking; a more focused killing machine
The pace is slower, bluesier, Motorhead coming for you, hammering each song's title into your head, riffs crushing more than they slash. It's a step backwards: less exciting, less memorable, would rather hear Overkill 9 times out of 10, but its solid enough as proto-metal goes 3/5
Overkill had mania, frantic energy
Bomber's solid, hulking; a more focused killing machine
The pace is slower, bluesier, Motorhead coming for you, hammering each song's title into your head, riffs crushing more than they slash. It's a step backwards: less exciting, less memorable, would rather hear Overkill 9 times out of 10, but its solid enough as proto-metal goes 3/5
#2065 Yuck - Stranger Things
Yuck sounds lost, like a band that's lost its leader, which it has.
It flops and thrashes, working its way into Weezer-via-Surfer Blood crunch, through Built to Spill searching arpegiation, right out via shoegazey texture.
It's a band awash in problems whose only solution is to throw more guitars at it.
And isn't that rock and roll? Should we complain?
There's something pure about the boys' desperation, even as they pace well-worn paths - don't we all by this point want something familiar, do we ding 'em too hard for taking the path we would take?
And bonus points for doing it well, for calling out to the elders with full hearts and deft fingers. A fun, familiar, sympathetic listen - its weaknesses are all the ones we have to, how can we judge from the blue couch? 3.5/5
It flops and thrashes, working its way into Weezer-via-Surfer Blood crunch, through Built to Spill searching arpegiation, right out via shoegazey texture.
It's a band awash in problems whose only solution is to throw more guitars at it.
And isn't that rock and roll? Should we complain?
There's something pure about the boys' desperation, even as they pace well-worn paths - don't we all by this point want something familiar, do we ding 'em too hard for taking the path we would take?
And bonus points for doing it well, for calling out to the elders with full hearts and deft fingers. A fun, familiar, sympathetic listen - its weaknesses are all the ones we have to, how can we judge from the blue couch? 3.5/5
#2064 Anna Meredith - Varmints
How rare to hear something truly new - in electronic music in 2016, doubly so.
A record that trips across modern classical, electronic, experimental, pop, etc - its at its best when it combines those first two, that majestic force of horns with that deep throb like only a hand-carved fuckyou bass tone can achieve: see worldcrushing opener Nautilus, also The Vapours.
An exercise in repetition, this digs a trench and puts you down in it and fire mortars over top, sings angel strings down through your shoestrings.
Inventive, beautiful, occasionally staggering, music with plenty of folds and concavities for the curious listener to get lost in 4/5
A record that trips across modern classical, electronic, experimental, pop, etc - its at its best when it combines those first two, that majestic force of horns with that deep throb like only a hand-carved fuckyou bass tone can achieve: see worldcrushing opener Nautilus, also The Vapours.
An exercise in repetition, this digs a trench and puts you down in it and fire mortars over top, sings angel strings down through your shoestrings.
Inventive, beautiful, occasionally staggering, music with plenty of folds and concavities for the curious listener to get lost in 4/5
Friday, March 4, 2016
#2063 Neon Indian - Vega Intl. Night School
This's the kind of sludgy, wobbled-for-its-own-sake bullshit I hate. But something got this around the horn for me.
Maybe it's the fullforce embrace of disco and weirdo funk, a Midnite Vultures fever-dream. Maybe its that pitch-perfect album cover and title, suggesting an alternate, sleazy, ketamine-fueled trip through Lost in Translation's karaoke bars and neon backalleys. After 51 minutes of not-right notes and slinky vocals I came out of a haze with a hangover, exhausted and cranky. But points for making me feel like I had an experience 3/5
Maybe it's the fullforce embrace of disco and weirdo funk, a Midnite Vultures fever-dream. Maybe its that pitch-perfect album cover and title, suggesting an alternate, sleazy, ketamine-fueled trip through Lost in Translation's karaoke bars and neon backalleys. After 51 minutes of not-right notes and slinky vocals I came out of a haze with a hangover, exhausted and cranky. But points for making me feel like I had an experience 3/5
Thursday, March 3, 2016
#2062 Chapterhouse - Whirlpool
Can I confess I never loved Loveless all that much ('Sometimes' aside)? For all its innovation and beard-scratching grist, it was such a ruined listen - all that shoegazey texture crashed by those screaming lead lines, those warped vocals, just a crass lack of balance.
Worse yet, for what it is, I actually like this also-ran album better: it's just prettier, with agreeable little beats that plod and pulse and skitter as the song demands. Top-shelf spaceout fuel 4/5
Worse yet, for what it is, I actually like this also-ran album better: it's just prettier, with agreeable little beats that plod and pulse and skitter as the song demands. Top-shelf spaceout fuel 4/5
#2061 Herzog and Chomp - Herzog / Chomp
Love me some Herzog, didn't think 7-minute multi-parters were in their reach - what a pleasant surprise! It's a slowburner with some long-road momentum and some sunny little rest stops, catchy swerves to look forward to and get lost between. A summertime version of Surfer Blood's Anchorage. Got me even more excited for their upcoming album.
The 2 Chomp songs on this split EP are fine, generic shouty punk songs like we've got pouring out of Allston by the dozens, nothing much to bring me back on that front 3.5/5
The 2 Chomp songs on this split EP are fine, generic shouty punk songs like we've got pouring out of Allston by the dozens, nothing much to bring me back on that front 3.5/5
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
#2060 Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
I have been emailing people an mp3 of Ultralight Beam in various states of drunkeness over the last couple weeks, because goddamn do that song take out my knees, a paean to the helpless of the modern time, frayed with weakness and desperation, the best of Kanye always comes when he's at his weakest (even if all the best moments on this track come from Chance). Those gospel blasts, that unexpected raw structure!
This is a loose album.
Kanye's made his point with Dark Twisted, blew off steam with Yeezus, and now what? A reach to empty skies. A thrashing.
And gospel, the euphoria, the askance, the redemption, it come through in flashes.
And through those first 12 tracks it works, a sum greater than its parts, all these facets of stretching, of trying, of wanting, every chord stretched to near-breaking, flames licking on every side, even as bullshit lines about bleached assholes and fucking Taylor there's the springloaded Catholic guilt of confession, hail mary hail mary counterpointing countless sins, splattering and smattering, a joyous Passion of the Christ gone Kingsmen.
Fucking brilliant moment circa I Love Kanye, likely the most cuttingly self-aware song ever done by any artist, and around then I went hot damn! I just want this album to stick the landing!
No song here (Ultralight excepted) stands out, but it works so damn well as flow. Up through track 12 that is.
Then it
just
drags
the hooting of Wolves
the pointless rambling of Silver Surfer Intermission
the interminable sloppiness of 30 Hours
the Madlib-gone-too far loopiness of No More Parties in LA
Madlib's a good point of reference, this's got the loose, tactless pacing of classic Doom albums.
which I love!
should I give this a pass then?
Nah, problem is you can't have it both ways.
If Kanye'd commited to making a loose-ass stoner record that'd be cool. But he wanted it to be a big bad good real record, and then he let the tail flop out at the end. It leaves you hanging.
MBDTF worked because it was so fucking TIGHT. This is half that then a ripcord into a ramble.
It's frustrating, 2 halves of 2 great albums that don't belong together.
Still think its pretty great. Still think Kanye's an asshole, still think he's just-pretty-good as a rapper, but man has some kind of magic as a recordmaker.
Latest news is that he's gonna release "3 albums a year".
I hope not. I hope he'll focus, coalesce - if he'd hacked this album together with another disc's worth of material he could've had 2 classics. Instead its a lurching undead beast, you're impressed and all, but ain't nothing like the real thing 4/5
This is a loose album.
Kanye's made his point with Dark Twisted, blew off steam with Yeezus, and now what? A reach to empty skies. A thrashing.
And gospel, the euphoria, the askance, the redemption, it come through in flashes.
And through those first 12 tracks it works, a sum greater than its parts, all these facets of stretching, of trying, of wanting, every chord stretched to near-breaking, flames licking on every side, even as bullshit lines about bleached assholes and fucking Taylor there's the springloaded Catholic guilt of confession, hail mary hail mary counterpointing countless sins, splattering and smattering, a joyous Passion of the Christ gone Kingsmen.
Fucking brilliant moment circa I Love Kanye, likely the most cuttingly self-aware song ever done by any artist, and around then I went hot damn! I just want this album to stick the landing!
No song here (Ultralight excepted) stands out, but it works so damn well as flow. Up through track 12 that is.
Then it
just
drags
the hooting of Wolves
the pointless rambling of Silver Surfer Intermission
the interminable sloppiness of 30 Hours
the Madlib-gone-too far loopiness of No More Parties in LA
Madlib's a good point of reference, this's got the loose, tactless pacing of classic Doom albums.
which I love!
should I give this a pass then?
Nah, problem is you can't have it both ways.
If Kanye'd commited to making a loose-ass stoner record that'd be cool. But he wanted it to be a big bad good real record, and then he let the tail flop out at the end. It leaves you hanging.
MBDTF worked because it was so fucking TIGHT. This is half that then a ripcord into a ramble.
It's frustrating, 2 halves of 2 great albums that don't belong together.
Still think its pretty great. Still think Kanye's an asshole, still think he's just-pretty-good as a rapper, but man has some kind of magic as a recordmaker.
Latest news is that he's gonna release "3 albums a year".
I hope not. I hope he'll focus, coalesce - if he'd hacked this album together with another disc's worth of material he could've had 2 classics. Instead its a lurching undead beast, you're impressed and all, but ain't nothing like the real thing 4/5
#2059 UFO - Strangers in the Night
I kept putting this on, liking it well enough, but turning it off after a couple songs.
It does what it sets out to do: generates waves of fistpumping, riffy 70's rock. It's got some guitar chops, some real swagger, all that AC/DC//Van Halen jockery without quite tipping over into childishness. Good live energy, some good live jams -- but something about it just leaves me cold. There's no soul, no heart, like a fistpumping 70's rock record put together by aliens with Earth wikipedia access and too much time on their hands 3/5
It does what it sets out to do: generates waves of fistpumping, riffy 70's rock. It's got some guitar chops, some real swagger, all that AC/DC//Van Halen jockery without quite tipping over into childishness. Good live energy, some good live jams -- but something about it just leaves me cold. There's no soul, no heart, like a fistpumping 70's rock record put together by aliens with Earth wikipedia access and too much time on their hands 3/5
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