I always liked Free Hand, swapping music tips with my dad over the holidays lead to getting some more Gentle Giant.
Oh prog, proggy prog prog. All the pomp, all the complexity, all the indulgence, the sweeping bombast, and based on this album, Gentle Giant just might be the proggiest band out there that's still listenable. More interested in legitimately weird time signatures and structures than Genesis and more adventurous in terms of instrumentation and sounds than Yes (but more exciting than the often-formless King Crimson), Acquiring the Taste is an album with one foot firmly planted in prog's classical influences and the other in the face of conventional rock's conventions, with its nose whiffing at a smoldering jazz corpse in the distance. In other words, the band stretches and stretches, sometimes seemingly for its own sake, but usually to good effect.
The House, The Street, The Roof provides a perfect example, the song seems formless, herky-jerking along, meandering, but suddenly the puzzle is solved and the song coalesces into straight up relentless overdriven, organ-drenched stomp, replete with killer guitars. And then, of course, the whole thing falls back apart and toddles off into the night.
There are hints of proto-math rock here, gestures suggesting that the structures represent hidden themes, driven my patterns outside the creative force of men, which is alienating, but human touches arise often enough to keep you engaged. Just as the title track finished twinkling along, Wreck throws you a bone, and The Moon is Down's rollicking organ lines are downright delightful.
These first impression reviews are impossible, more so with an album like this that indulges in so little repetition and convention, but that still gets my attention. A hedgey 4/5
You might like this if: you like complex, slightly jazzy, curiously pretty, genre-bending prog rock on the order of Yes, early Gabriel-era Genesis.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
#427 Atlas Sound - Parallax
Another one getting play on the end of year lists.
I could never really get into Deerhunter, and Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound side project makes roughly the same music: cottoney, sleepy pop that wafts into your ear and and echoes and echoes and expands until your brain is filled with clouds. This album is no great divergence from that pattern, the songs seem afraid of committing to a riff or hook, pulsing quantum around the borders of a sound, letting probabilities strike your ears, remaining largely unmemorable, leaving you feeling basically like you just spent all night listening The Kinks while more stoned than you've ever been in your entire life.
This reverb pop style has been in for a few years now and I'm done with it, every song sounds like the 10th track filler interlude between real songs, but the real songs never come 2/5
You might like this if: you think The Kinks ruined all their best songs by making sure you could hear the melodies.
I could never really get into Deerhunter, and Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound side project makes roughly the same music: cottoney, sleepy pop that wafts into your ear and and echoes and echoes and expands until your brain is filled with clouds. This album is no great divergence from that pattern, the songs seem afraid of committing to a riff or hook, pulsing quantum around the borders of a sound, letting probabilities strike your ears, remaining largely unmemorable, leaving you feeling basically like you just spent all night listening The Kinks while more stoned than you've ever been in your entire life.
This reverb pop style has been in for a few years now and I'm done with it, every song sounds like the 10th track filler interlude between real songs, but the real songs never come 2/5
You might like this if: you think The Kinks ruined all their best songs by making sure you could hear the melodies.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
#426 The Black Keys - El Camino
The Black Keys are always worth hearing.
These guys haven't quite made the same album again and again, but their growth has been about as glacially slow as humanly, musically possible. This is their seventh album. Seventh! And while the soulful sheen of Brothers stands apart from the Danger Mouse-dusted Attack and Release, only just barely.
Here the leap is bigger, the Keys' signature sinewey grit is rounded with bass, doubled guitars, organs and Radioheady electronics, and honest to god Stonesey gospel backing. It's all well-composed, well-balanced, downrich rich compared to their usual slimjim snap.
But most importantly, the band retains their songwriting knack for riffs, bridges, and hooks. Consider two of the album's standout tracks. Nova Baby is stripped to the basics in 4/4 bass, bass-snare-bass-snare stomp on the choruses, a soaring vocal line, and the usual killer ending riff and it all just works, sounding like a cover of a great lost early Weezer song.
Then there's centerpiece Little Black Submarines, which is all the most effective because of the structural fakeout it pulls. It starts off sounding like a White Stripes cover of Stairway to Heaven, copping White's blues-copping sneer and Zeppelin's exact progression, making this the most overrated-sounding song* of all time. But then it kicks into a shredding solo riff that bests Stairway's turning point, bending its original line into overdrive, blasts the kickin riff into overdrive, solo part 2 and we're out in 4:11. Can we start playing this song instead of Stairway to Heaven at the top of classic rock countdowns**? It does all the same things just as well in half the time.
This album represents kind of an incredible, is un-dramatic, transition for the band: the move from gritty garage to legitimately shimmering, swaggering glam is pulled off seamlessly. Or at very least the transition from the garage-via-90's to glam-via-90s. There's nothing truly new here, but the whole thing just hangs together, cementing The Black Key' status as a brilliant band made of nearly brilliant musicians who make nearly brilliant songs 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like all those crunchy guitar songs you've been hearing on all those commercials, but wish somebody would come along and glam em up a bit.
* Is there any non-Christmas song whose popularity is more fueled by nostalgia than Stairway to Heaven?
** I came across this list in my research. Is it or is it not the shittiest Greatest Rock Song list you've ever seen? If you can find a worse one I owe you a dollar.
These guys haven't quite made the same album again and again, but their growth has been about as glacially slow as humanly, musically possible. This is their seventh album. Seventh! And while the soulful sheen of Brothers stands apart from the Danger Mouse-dusted Attack and Release, only just barely.
Here the leap is bigger, the Keys' signature sinewey grit is rounded with bass, doubled guitars, organs and Radioheady electronics, and honest to god Stonesey gospel backing. It's all well-composed, well-balanced, downrich rich compared to their usual slimjim snap.
But most importantly, the band retains their songwriting knack for riffs, bridges, and hooks. Consider two of the album's standout tracks. Nova Baby is stripped to the basics in 4/4 bass, bass-snare-bass-snare stomp on the choruses, a soaring vocal line, and the usual killer ending riff and it all just works, sounding like a cover of a great lost early Weezer song.
Then there's centerpiece Little Black Submarines, which is all the most effective because of the structural fakeout it pulls. It starts off sounding like a White Stripes cover of Stairway to Heaven, copping White's blues-copping sneer and Zeppelin's exact progression, making this the most overrated-sounding song* of all time. But then it kicks into a shredding solo riff that bests Stairway's turning point, bending its original line into overdrive, blasts the kickin riff into overdrive, solo part 2 and we're out in 4:11. Can we start playing this song instead of Stairway to Heaven at the top of classic rock countdowns**? It does all the same things just as well in half the time.
This album represents kind of an incredible, is un-dramatic, transition for the band: the move from gritty garage to legitimately shimmering, swaggering glam is pulled off seamlessly. Or at very least the transition from the garage-via-90's to glam-via-90s. There's nothing truly new here, but the whole thing just hangs together, cementing The Black Key' status as a brilliant band made of nearly brilliant musicians who make nearly brilliant songs 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like all those crunchy guitar songs you've been hearing on all those commercials, but wish somebody would come along and glam em up a bit.
* Is there any non-Christmas song whose popularity is more fueled by nostalgia than Stairway to Heaven?
** I came across this list in my research. Is it or is it not the shittiest Greatest Rock Song list you've ever seen? If you can find a worse one I owe you a dollar.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
#425 Das Racist - Relax
Really still love Sit Down, Man, kinda liked Shut Up, Dude, gotta check out the new one.
On one hand, this has a lot to like. The rhymes are still complex and clever, and their previously straightforward approach to production has evolved to become a adventurous, wooly beast, with odd sounds, odd structures, plenty of noisy flailing and aggressive annoyingness. It sounds not a little like newer Spank Rock, full of neon and mirror ball glinting. It's exciting.
That said, it's just not that much fun. On Shut Up, Dude, the dudes sounded like rappers doing their thing. On the follow-up, they seemed giddy with the possibilities of their newfound success, tweaking expectations and frolicking in the fringes of rap, race, nostalgia, and anything else that flit through their minds, moving at blazing speeds. But now they seem to be trying to live up to something, not content to revel, they seem to need to engage and justify, to react instead of provoking reactions. The rapping comes across as alternately confrontational or aggressively disinterested, flaunting their ability to do whatever they want, instead of just doing whatever they want.
Sit Down, Man was a grower for me. Das Racists' rhymes can take a few passes to decipher, and are much more fun once they've worn grooves in your mind. There's a lot of promise here, with new sounds and angles around every corner, but it didn't make me smile. I like to smile!
On some level, Das Racist can't win. What else should they have done here? And if this was another group's debut, it would be a stunner. These guys, more than any band I can think of, engage with expectations, a double edged sword that splits us to around 4/5
Edit Jan 5th 2012: on further listening, this is almost certainly a brilliant album, full of weird production and structures and other things I love, shackled by the carefree blush of its predecesor, its probably at least a half a point higher
You might like this if: you like weird production, weird rapping, cleverness, and obnoxiousness, glittering sickly slickly.
On one hand, this has a lot to like. The rhymes are still complex and clever, and their previously straightforward approach to production has evolved to become a adventurous, wooly beast, with odd sounds, odd structures, plenty of noisy flailing and aggressive annoyingness. It sounds not a little like newer Spank Rock, full of neon and mirror ball glinting. It's exciting.
That said, it's just not that much fun. On Shut Up, Dude, the dudes sounded like rappers doing their thing. On the follow-up, they seemed giddy with the possibilities of their newfound success, tweaking expectations and frolicking in the fringes of rap, race, nostalgia, and anything else that flit through their minds, moving at blazing speeds. But now they seem to be trying to live up to something, not content to revel, they seem to need to engage and justify, to react instead of provoking reactions. The rapping comes across as alternately confrontational or aggressively disinterested, flaunting their ability to do whatever they want, instead of just doing whatever they want.
Sit Down, Man was a grower for me. Das Racists' rhymes can take a few passes to decipher, and are much more fun once they've worn grooves in your mind. There's a lot of promise here, with new sounds and angles around every corner, but it didn't make me smile. I like to smile!
On some level, Das Racist can't win. What else should they have done here? And if this was another group's debut, it would be a stunner. These guys, more than any band I can think of, engage with expectations, a double edged sword that splits us to around 4/5
Edit Jan 5th 2012: on further listening, this is almost certainly a brilliant album, full of weird production and structures and other things I love, shackled by the carefree blush of its predecesor, its probably at least a half a point higher
You might like this if: you like weird production, weird rapping, cleverness, and obnoxiousness, glittering sickly slickly.
#424 Clams Casino - Instrumentals
Another one that's getting good buzz on the best of 2011 circuit.
Here we have some really creaky instrumental hip hop, so bent as to transcend the label, taking on a strange timelessness. The obvious point of reference is Endtroducing, and it has a similar nostalgic soul, but everything is warped and imprecise, sounding beyond analog, beyond vinyl, like a successful version of Sam Baker's Album (which I mostly hated). It's also much more interested in repetition and tone and slow evolution, eschewing any kind of soundtracking or half-glimpsed narrative. A lot more interested in repetition, in fact, annoyingly so oftentimes, unfortunately.
Perhaps most importantly though, this sounds more personal, for better or for worse like music being made by a producer, where the man behind it all shows through in many of the transitions and gestures, while Endtroducing (and to a lesser degree Deadringer) sounded plucked from the universe itself. The finest moments are those rough-hewn details that trigger unidentifiable nostalgia, a la The Books or Grasscut.
I can't decide if I like it yet. There's something disquieting about the approach to the loops, the murky reverb, the bent speeds, the wobbly LFO amplitude, but I'll confess I'm not unintrigued 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like experimental, creaky, curiously personal, curiously off-putting instrumental hip hop.
Here we have some really creaky instrumental hip hop, so bent as to transcend the label, taking on a strange timelessness. The obvious point of reference is Endtroducing, and it has a similar nostalgic soul, but everything is warped and imprecise, sounding beyond analog, beyond vinyl, like a successful version of Sam Baker's Album (which I mostly hated). It's also much more interested in repetition and tone and slow evolution, eschewing any kind of soundtracking or half-glimpsed narrative. A lot more interested in repetition, in fact, annoyingly so oftentimes, unfortunately.
Perhaps most importantly though, this sounds more personal, for better or for worse like music being made by a producer, where the man behind it all shows through in many of the transitions and gestures, while Endtroducing (and to a lesser degree Deadringer) sounded plucked from the universe itself. The finest moments are those rough-hewn details that trigger unidentifiable nostalgia, a la The Books or Grasscut.
I can't decide if I like it yet. There's something disquieting about the approach to the loops, the murky reverb, the bent speeds, the wobbly LFO amplitude, but I'll confess I'm not unintrigued 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like experimental, creaky, curiously personal, curiously off-putting instrumental hip hop.
#423 EMA - Past Life Martyrd Saints
Some time on a plane let me get caught up on some albums making people's best of the year lists. I completely missed this when it came out, but it kept cropping up in my browsings.
Why is it that dense, complex, interesting, adventurous indie rock is so often accompanied by high-pitched, generally annoying crooning? I'm looking at Of Montreal, Fiery Furnaces, and the legendarily over-inflected Joanna Newsom here. EMA breaks that mold, though maybe I only even thought to put her in it because of the wonderful, epic, suddenly swerving opener The Grey Ship, which inspired me to dub her the un-annoying Joanna Newsom.
While it never reaches those heights again, the first half of the album retains that adventurous spirit, full of noise and seething fury and well-engineered left turns. I feel like I need to here some of those songs again and again to map their ever-shifting curves, at least for a moment.
The second half is a disappointment though, descending into too much murk, too much repetition, Marked and Butterfly Knife in particular striving for some kind of silky menace that never quite lands. It's an interesting one, wringing more newness from the broadly-defined indie sound than I thought was possible these days, largely admirable for trying even in the places where it falls oddly limp 4/5
You might like this if: you're looking for complex, undulating rock with a good sense of pacing and hook, at least for half an album or so.
Why is it that dense, complex, interesting, adventurous indie rock is so often accompanied by high-pitched, generally annoying crooning? I'm looking at Of Montreal, Fiery Furnaces, and the legendarily over-inflected Joanna Newsom here. EMA breaks that mold, though maybe I only even thought to put her in it because of the wonderful, epic, suddenly swerving opener The Grey Ship, which inspired me to dub her the un-annoying Joanna Newsom.
While it never reaches those heights again, the first half of the album retains that adventurous spirit, full of noise and seething fury and well-engineered left turns. I feel like I need to here some of those songs again and again to map their ever-shifting curves, at least for a moment.
The second half is a disappointment though, descending into too much murk, too much repetition, Marked and Butterfly Knife in particular striving for some kind of silky menace that never quite lands. It's an interesting one, wringing more newness from the broadly-defined indie sound than I thought was possible these days, largely admirable for trying even in the places where it falls oddly limp 4/5
You might like this if: you're looking for complex, undulating rock with a good sense of pacing and hook, at least for half an album or so.
#422 Das Racist - Shut Up, Dude
Sit Down, Man has been my go-to walking around town music, and I've decided its my favorite rap album in years. So why not check out its precursor mixtape?
On SDM you hear Heems and Victor reacting to the reaction to this album, creating a rapping-about-bullshit-about-rapping post-modern reference spiral for the ages. The genesis of that chain starts here, with a rap album that sheds some light on the pair's weed-rap reputation. They rap about weed plenty, but beyond that the languid pace, the heavy production, the meandering instrumentals, create something far more blunted than the wild ey'd mirrorballing of the followup. It sounds almost like an EL-P album, and he's featured on some of their later stuff, so maybe that's no coincidence, with bass rumble, laserfacing, and general murk and menace.
Of course, the clever turns, the cultural referenceballs, the smart-dumb switcheroos are all in place here. The seeds are certainly planted, but for my money, this is just too murky, lacking the clarity and swagger of Sit Down, Man. If I'd heard this first? I might have been charmed by it, but now its mostly useful, Almost Killed Me-style, as a provider of context for its better big brother. That said, this works better as background music to an activity than Sit Down, Man, which really requires your attention, which is a legitimate role for legitimate music 3.5/5
You might like this if: You want to listen to clever, dense rap, and prefer dense, stoned production to Sit Down, Man's comparatively playful approach.
On SDM you hear Heems and Victor reacting to the reaction to this album, creating a rapping-about-bullshit-about-rapping post-modern reference spiral for the ages. The genesis of that chain starts here, with a rap album that sheds some light on the pair's weed-rap reputation. They rap about weed plenty, but beyond that the languid pace, the heavy production, the meandering instrumentals, create something far more blunted than the wild ey'd mirrorballing of the followup. It sounds almost like an EL-P album, and he's featured on some of their later stuff, so maybe that's no coincidence, with bass rumble, laserfacing, and general murk and menace.
Of course, the clever turns, the cultural referenceballs, the smart-dumb switcheroos are all in place here. The seeds are certainly planted, but for my money, this is just too murky, lacking the clarity and swagger of Sit Down, Man. If I'd heard this first? I might have been charmed by it, but now its mostly useful, Almost Killed Me-style, as a provider of context for its better big brother. That said, this works better as background music to an activity than Sit Down, Man, which really requires your attention, which is a legitimate role for legitimate music 3.5/5
You might like this if: You want to listen to clever, dense rap, and prefer dense, stoned production to Sit Down, Man's comparatively playful approach.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
#421 Real Estate - Days
Further plumbing the popular consensus on the hotest 2011 hotness.
This is a perfectly pleasant piece of reverby, pleasant, meandering indie pop-rock to get washed away in, evoking the relentless pulse of Broken Social Scene, the lush bounce of early Shins, the guitar wash of early Swervedriver, in turn. Chiming guitars are everywhere, the drums chug, and the vocals bounce Band of Horses ethereal off of the heavens.
Its quite gorgeous actually, and in my artsincrafts first listen bliss it was about perfect. My main complaint is that the songs all sound a bit the same by the end, with that same chiming washing over everything in sight, front to back, with only standout It's Real managing to really distinguish itself with a legitimate hooky hook.
I'll have to see, I could see it being a You Forgot it In People meets Oh Inverted World grower, but I think its sameyness is going to hold it back for most listeners 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like pretty, chiming guitars and ethereal vocals. That's the third time I've said "chiming" in this post, but listen to this album and tell me I'm wrong.
This is a perfectly pleasant piece of reverby, pleasant, meandering indie pop-rock to get washed away in, evoking the relentless pulse of Broken Social Scene, the lush bounce of early Shins, the guitar wash of early Swervedriver, in turn. Chiming guitars are everywhere, the drums chug, and the vocals bounce Band of Horses ethereal off of the heavens.
Its quite gorgeous actually, and in my artsincrafts first listen bliss it was about perfect. My main complaint is that the songs all sound a bit the same by the end, with that same chiming washing over everything in sight, front to back, with only standout It's Real managing to really distinguish itself with a legitimate hooky hook.
I'll have to see, I could see it being a You Forgot it In People meets Oh Inverted World grower, but I think its sameyness is going to hold it back for most listeners 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like pretty, chiming guitars and ethereal vocals. That's the third time I've said "chiming" in this post, but listen to this album and tell me I'm wrong.
Friday, December 16, 2011
#420 Blondie - Blondie
One of those bands kicking around that I wanted to get caught up on.
I remember seeing Blondie on the (excellent) No Thanks punk compilation, and went, really? Blondie? Punk? On further listening...still don't see it. There's a disinterested disdain and sassy swagger that seems somewhere in the neighborhood of punk, but not on the same block. Too much melody, too much 50's copping, leaving us at New Wave Ave, at the closest.
Ok, enough about Blondie-as-Punk doctrine. The band has an undeniable ear for hooks, with rollicking bass, pre-REM jangly guitars, rolling synths and of course Debra Harry's keening over top. For the most part, its not for me, the vocals too annoying, the song structures a bit too clean, the whole sound too trebly, though the synth lines are a revelation, especially on tracks like In the Sun and Sharks in Jets Clothing, and Rifle Range's backing vocals give some needed body to the mix.
I'm left roughly where I started on the band - sassy new wave, not my scene 2.5/5
You might like this if: you like angular, synthy rock, with a brash ladysinger firmly at the fore
I remember seeing Blondie on the (excellent) No Thanks punk compilation, and went, really? Blondie? Punk? On further listening...still don't see it. There's a disinterested disdain and sassy swagger that seems somewhere in the neighborhood of punk, but not on the same block. Too much melody, too much 50's copping, leaving us at New Wave Ave, at the closest.
Ok, enough about Blondie-as-Punk doctrine. The band has an undeniable ear for hooks, with rollicking bass, pre-REM jangly guitars, rolling synths and of course Debra Harry's keening over top. For the most part, its not for me, the vocals too annoying, the song structures a bit too clean, the whole sound too trebly, though the synth lines are a revelation, especially on tracks like In the Sun and Sharks in Jets Clothing, and Rifle Range's backing vocals give some needed body to the mix.
I'm left roughly where I started on the band - sassy new wave, not my scene 2.5/5
You might like this if: you like angular, synthy rock, with a brash ladysinger firmly at the fore
Sunday, December 11, 2011
#419 Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
Tom Waits is another of those artists where I figured I knew what they were about and never really bothered to plumb the depths. Well, lets start plumbing, with this album, named the 2nd greatest of all time by an oddly aggressively non-conformist Spin list.
Here's where, I'm told, the hen-legged hut-lurching music machine got rollicking, and its wheezier and creakier than ever after here, sounding recorded on a concrete floor by men crusted from toils in dirty days. The tales are stark, the instrumentation wildly varied while within a particular threadbare spectrum but there's a simplicity to the tales, edges stained dark without sinking into inky pitifulness. The thinness of the mix, the harshness of the space, the tautness left in Wait's signature croak, make it more enjoyable than I expected, will need to revisit when I've (re)visited some of his other stuff on a kick that might be upcoming 3.5/5
You might like this if: if you like ramshackle, lurching rock, with leathery edges and a charcoal heart, sounding like a wasted, undead Aeroplane Over the Sea, just to retrofit the lineage.
Here's where, I'm told, the hen-legged hut-lurching music machine got rollicking, and its wheezier and creakier than ever after here, sounding recorded on a concrete floor by men crusted from toils in dirty days. The tales are stark, the instrumentation wildly varied while within a particular threadbare spectrum but there's a simplicity to the tales, edges stained dark without sinking into inky pitifulness. The thinness of the mix, the harshness of the space, the tautness left in Wait's signature croak, make it more enjoyable than I expected, will need to revisit when I've (re)visited some of his other stuff on a kick that might be upcoming 3.5/5
You might like this if: if you like ramshackle, lurching rock, with leathery edges and a charcoal heart, sounding like a wasted, undead Aeroplane Over the Sea, just to retrofit the lineage.
#418 Skrillex - My Name is Skrillex
I keep hearing this name. Apparently this guy is so popular the guys on BBC news bothered to take some "that's not music" sniffing disses at him, and it seems like everyone that likes dubstep, electronic music, or good music of any kind has deemed him a scourge. Anyone who manages to garner disdain from two such different circles of elitists has at least piqued my curiosity.
3 phases: I put this on a bit after listening to the Feed Me album, and after a first listen, it had basically passed cornlike through my brainbowels. I had no impression of it other than that it went "SQUOOONK" a bunch of times.
So I put on a second listen and really payed attention. I like squonky textured noises, I often like obnoxiousness (Dan Deacon, Spank Rock, Girl Talk, Muscles and Fuck Buttons all have passing overlap with this stuff), I like unpredictable structures like the ones features on the album's opener.
During listen 2, track 2-4 I had a growing impression. This guy truly is fucking terrible*. Look, I tried to give it a fair chance (see above), but this is unlistenable, artless, uninteresting, undancable, with no real sense of texture, movement or flow. Feed Me, Girl Talk and Fuck Buttons are masters of controlling a flow**, understanding where you're at, where you might like to go, how to get you there, in terms of tempo, emotion, mood, and essential heartbeat manipulation. Dan Deacon and Fuck Buttons know how to craft sounds over time to make rich hypnotic spaces. Muscles and Girl Talk know how to be a lot of goddamned fun, to make noise, but noise that is fun to listen to.
Skrillex has none of that. It is pop beyond pop, not even bothering to craft a chorus, or an entire hook, to repeat, simply finding 2 noises that go "SQUOOONK", and hitting a key that triggers them over and over and over again. And over and over and over again. There's no build, no cooldown, no change, no evolution, no journey. Just the same noise again and again and again, scarcely a change in dynamics or tempo, and those that do arrive do so seemingly at random, with no sense for when those kinds of changes are needed. Its like watching a badly dubbed version of a badly edited movie, where none of the subtly needed details are there. Its the Phantom Menace of dance albums. Even the bits that are decent (the insistent pulse of Do Da Oliphant) are beaten so badly to death and then horse-beaten further still that any Fruit Stripe rush you had is fast lost. It makes Lil Jon's Yeah look like Supper's Ready.
I also have no idea how this is being called dubstep other than the fact that every once in a while the noises stutter, but this is as dubstep as Tonight Tonight was classical. The opener has its moments, but the rest is uninteresting if you don't listen and annoying if you do. Pass 1.5/5
You might like this if: you like huge maximalist techno, want some squonky swerves, and don't mind getting really severely pummeled by the endless repetition of a single synth stab
* Edit March 5th: I really should have said this album is terrible. Here's my arc with what I think of Skrillex as a guy:
- 1) listen: to this album: this guy sure makes tooly music.
- 2) see: pictures of him: wow, this guy looks like a complete tool.
- 3) read: a rolling stone article about him: he actually seems like a pretty earnest, decent guy, and this was apparently his first record outside of his screamo background. So that's impressive, considering. Still don't like the album though.
** Edit December 21st: I found the perfect point of contrast: listen to the first two minutes of Feed Me's Grand Theft Ecstacy, especially that ever-hitched kick in at 1:30 or so, the restrained way that it works with and subverts the archetypical buildup, the dizzying, sickening way the bass interacts with the high synth line. There's repetition, but the parts are in balance and used to compose something affecting. That's how its done, my friends.
3 phases: I put this on a bit after listening to the Feed Me album, and after a first listen, it had basically passed cornlike through my brainbowels. I had no impression of it other than that it went "SQUOOONK" a bunch of times.
So I put on a second listen and really payed attention. I like squonky textured noises, I often like obnoxiousness (Dan Deacon, Spank Rock, Girl Talk, Muscles and Fuck Buttons all have passing overlap with this stuff), I like unpredictable structures like the ones features on the album's opener.
During listen 2, track 2-4 I had a growing impression. This guy truly is fucking terrible*. Look, I tried to give it a fair chance (see above), but this is unlistenable, artless, uninteresting, undancable, with no real sense of texture, movement or flow. Feed Me, Girl Talk and Fuck Buttons are masters of controlling a flow**, understanding where you're at, where you might like to go, how to get you there, in terms of tempo, emotion, mood, and essential heartbeat manipulation. Dan Deacon and Fuck Buttons know how to craft sounds over time to make rich hypnotic spaces. Muscles and Girl Talk know how to be a lot of goddamned fun, to make noise, but noise that is fun to listen to.
Skrillex has none of that. It is pop beyond pop, not even bothering to craft a chorus, or an entire hook, to repeat, simply finding 2 noises that go "SQUOOONK", and hitting a key that triggers them over and over and over again. And over and over and over again. There's no build, no cooldown, no change, no evolution, no journey. Just the same noise again and again and again, scarcely a change in dynamics or tempo, and those that do arrive do so seemingly at random, with no sense for when those kinds of changes are needed. Its like watching a badly dubbed version of a badly edited movie, where none of the subtly needed details are there. Its the Phantom Menace of dance albums. Even the bits that are decent (the insistent pulse of Do Da Oliphant) are beaten so badly to death and then horse-beaten further still that any Fruit Stripe rush you had is fast lost. It makes Lil Jon's Yeah look like Supper's Ready.
I also have no idea how this is being called dubstep other than the fact that every once in a while the noises stutter, but this is as dubstep as Tonight Tonight was classical. The opener has its moments, but the rest is uninteresting if you don't listen and annoying if you do. Pass 1.5/5
You might like this if: you like huge maximalist techno, want some squonky swerves, and don't mind getting really severely pummeled by the endless repetition of a single synth stab
* Edit March 5th: I really should have said this album is terrible. Here's my arc with what I think of Skrillex as a guy:
- 1) listen: to this album: this guy sure makes tooly music.
- 2) see: pictures of him: wow, this guy looks like a complete tool.
- 3) read: a rolling stone article about him: he actually seems like a pretty earnest, decent guy, and this was apparently his first record outside of his screamo background. So that's impressive, considering. Still don't like the album though.
** Edit December 21st: I found the perfect point of contrast: listen to the first two minutes of Feed Me's Grand Theft Ecstacy, especially that ever-hitched kick in at 1:30 or so, the restrained way that it works with and subverts the archetypical buildup, the dizzying, sickening way the bass interacts with the high synth line. There's repetition, but the parts are in balance and used to compose something affecting. That's how its done, my friends.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
#417 Feed Me - Feed Me's Big Adventure
Another album I heard a bit of at Mike's house that I decided to check out proper.
I feel like I shouldn't like this, maybe because he's affiliated with DeadMouseWitha5SomehowImNotGonnaGoogleIt and Skrillex, who I sense a backlash against these days. And sure its nothing new, big beats, jagged synth loops, the occaisional post-IDM squiggles. But man, he pull it together really nicely, and the devil's in the details. Sure its just a synth loop on White Spirit, but what a synth sound he gets, just so goddamned squonky, so noisy and buzzy and rich with texture, and then at 3 minute he wheels it out into proggy arpeggiation proper with raveup stab-and-build, and gets just choppy enough to be interesting without breaking flow. Fact is, its a goddamn well-executed song, with some real filth and organic slink to it.
And yeah, there's a hint of the D word in there, but its used to good effect here. You get a touch of wobble, a bit of chop, a bit of swerve, but all in service of the beat. Its Girl Talk vs Jason Forrest/Early Dan Deacon/Early Girl Talk, in that its well-tuned to the listener's needs and knows just how much to subvert expectations without breaking the spell. Maybe I'm a sucker or a philistine for falling for it, but I dig it.
And yeah, it gets a little wearying by the end, but I gotta give credit for the degree to which it got in my ear, even with a not-my-favorite-genre penalty in play 4/5
I feel like I shouldn't like this, maybe because he's affiliated with DeadMouseWitha5SomehowImNotGonnaGoogleIt and Skrillex, who I sense a backlash against these days. And sure its nothing new, big beats, jagged synth loops, the occaisional post-IDM squiggles. But man, he pull it together really nicely, and the devil's in the details. Sure its just a synth loop on White Spirit, but what a synth sound he gets, just so goddamned squonky, so noisy and buzzy and rich with texture, and then at 3 minute he wheels it out into proggy arpeggiation proper with raveup stab-and-build, and gets just choppy enough to be interesting without breaking flow. Fact is, its a goddamn well-executed song, with some real filth and organic slink to it.
And yeah, there's a hint of the D word in there, but its used to good effect here. You get a touch of wobble, a bit of chop, a bit of swerve, but all in service of the beat. Its Girl Talk vs Jason Forrest/Early Dan Deacon/Early Girl Talk, in that its well-tuned to the listener's needs and knows just how much to subvert expectations without breaking the spell. Maybe I'm a sucker or a philistine for falling for it, but I dig it.
And yeah, it gets a little wearying by the end, but I gotta give credit for the degree to which it got in my ear, even with a not-my-favorite-genre penalty in play 4/5
#416 Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve
Another offshoot of a night at Mike's when I got talking to his metal-loving buddy about his all time favorites. Word is this one is up there.
I don't know metal well enough to be able to say a whole lot here, but that's part of the point of the project, fixing that. What I can say is that this is fast and loud as Slayer or your speedy benchmark of choice, but that it within that framework its a squirely beast. There are extra beats in some places, beats missing in others, sudden time changes, and a dynamism that sometimes lets a keening guitar is allowed to rise over the fray. The songs exist in two modes, a frentic one where complexity is crammed into every corner, the corners are put under shells, the shells are set on fire, and thrown into a jet engine, and a patient one where a stomping metal machine is set in motion, churning out hypnotic sequences that get time to infiltrate your brainstem. This is to say, even change isn't constant on this album.
This album almost certainly would reward repeat listenings, sounding a bit like a much heavier Tool in its obliquely proggy gestures. But it's a beating, exhausting in its relentless restlessness, even more so than a lot of speed/death/heavy metal that has the decency to blur to noise after a while. I don't think its my scene, but I confess to liking it more on a second review-listen than I did the first time through 3.5/5
You might like this if: you want more headphone-ready complexity in your metal or more metal power in your headphone rock.
I don't know metal well enough to be able to say a whole lot here, but that's part of the point of the project, fixing that. What I can say is that this is fast and loud as Slayer or your speedy benchmark of choice, but that it within that framework its a squirely beast. There are extra beats in some places, beats missing in others, sudden time changes, and a dynamism that sometimes lets a keening guitar is allowed to rise over the fray. The songs exist in two modes, a frentic one where complexity is crammed into every corner, the corners are put under shells, the shells are set on fire, and thrown into a jet engine, and a patient one where a stomping metal machine is set in motion, churning out hypnotic sequences that get time to infiltrate your brainstem. This is to say, even change isn't constant on this album.
This album almost certainly would reward repeat listenings, sounding a bit like a much heavier Tool in its obliquely proggy gestures. But it's a beating, exhausting in its relentless restlessness, even more so than a lot of speed/death/heavy metal that has the decency to blur to noise after a while. I don't think its my scene, but I confess to liking it more on a second review-listen than I did the first time through 3.5/5
You might like this if: you want more headphone-ready complexity in your metal or more metal power in your headphone rock.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
#415 Kraftwerk - The Man Machine
I'm buggering the order of these albums all up, but I got curious for more after I enjoyed Computer World so much more than previous Kraftwerk albums.
This came right before computer world and right before Trans-Europe Express, and it shows. It has hints of the playfulness and future-obsession that was to come, while sticking with longer, icier composition (not to mention distorted vocals) of the band's previous work. There's less menace here, again, transitioning into the future-vulnerability found on Computer World, though the narratives still seem to be first person, still casting Kraftwerk as Daft Punk-like emissaries of the futuretimes. Musically, there's much less of TEE's harsh drums, pippy poppy synth noises sometimes keeping the beats instead.
It doesn't quite pull off whatever special thing Computer World does, and it doesn't quite have the spacing out value of legitimate early Kraftwerk, making this an awkward middle child in their discography 3.5/5
You might like this if: you found Kraftwerk too inaccessible, but want more edge than Computer World. Otherwise, look to the album after or before this one.
This came right before computer world and right before Trans-Europe Express, and it shows. It has hints of the playfulness and future-obsession that was to come, while sticking with longer, icier composition (not to mention distorted vocals) of the band's previous work. There's less menace here, again, transitioning into the future-vulnerability found on Computer World, though the narratives still seem to be first person, still casting Kraftwerk as Daft Punk-like emissaries of the futuretimes. Musically, there's much less of TEE's harsh drums, pippy poppy synth noises sometimes keeping the beats instead.
It doesn't quite pull off whatever special thing Computer World does, and it doesn't quite have the spacing out value of legitimate early Kraftwerk, making this an awkward middle child in their discography 3.5/5
You might like this if: you found Kraftwerk too inaccessible, but want more edge than Computer World. Otherwise, look to the album after or before this one.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
#414 Radiohead - TKOL RMX 1234567
Radiohead, cmon. Even though I'm not so hot on remixes as a concept, here I make an exception.
I suppose this was the only way to finish the Radiohead journey - the band has increasingly shown interest in sounding like various newest waves of electronic fiddlers and experimenters, why not just have all those people remix Radiohead songs. And while we're at it, why don't we make sure those people really put their respective signature sounds on these songs, and really thoroughly embrace the post-IDM Radiohead sound.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The album plays out as all 7 singles played in order, and jumps between tracks, but the back-to-back pairing of Harmonic 313 and Mark Pritchard's remixes of Bloom is the most illustrative sequence. The former is what's wrong with this album, just sludgy, aimless noisemaking, dipping the song in tar and throwing it against the wall, with a minute-long ambient outro slapped on seemingly as a last-ditch effort to put some movement on the track. The latter, meanwhile, throws buzzy loping bass over swarming synth lines, building profitably on the tension of the original version (though it too suffers from an overlong endgame). Unfortunately, most of the songs fall into the Harmonic 313 category: lazy, gimmicky, a Yorke vocal line away from Aphex Twin's infamous whole-cloth non-remixes.
There's a few ways to evaluate a remix:
1) Does it inspire the remixer to do something outside of what they would normally do?
2) Does it improve on the original track in some way?
2a) Failing that, does it at least make you see the original track in a new light?
Let's go from no to yes. The biggest problem with this album is that it just sounds like a lot of the current crop of electronic music, with Thom Yorke singing on it, as much a Radiohead song as Rabbit in Your Headlights. I'm only familiar with a handful of these remixers' original works, but for the most part, these sound like (feat. Thom Yorke) tracks.
They do diverge from the originals, there's no denying that, and while they're often not straight improvements, the rub is in the 2a of it all, I do feel like I came away with a new perspective on OG TKOL. The album's play with repetition is pulled in all manner of new directions here, with single threads stretched and spun into endless quilts of sound. And if nothing else, I appreciate the meticulous craftsmanship that went into the original, since only a few of these have any real claim to being improvements on the originals. It's a perfectly enjoyable, spacy listen in its own right, if a bit overlong. With 2.375 remixes per source track, there's a lot of repetition, which is the collection's greatest strength and weakness 3/5
You might like this if: You like the modern indie/experiemental electronic music scene. Or you really like The King of Limbs.
I suppose this was the only way to finish the Radiohead journey - the band has increasingly shown interest in sounding like various newest waves of electronic fiddlers and experimenters, why not just have all those people remix Radiohead songs. And while we're at it, why don't we make sure those people really put their respective signature sounds on these songs, and really thoroughly embrace the post-IDM Radiohead sound.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The album plays out as all 7 singles played in order, and jumps between tracks, but the back-to-back pairing of Harmonic 313 and Mark Pritchard's remixes of Bloom is the most illustrative sequence. The former is what's wrong with this album, just sludgy, aimless noisemaking, dipping the song in tar and throwing it against the wall, with a minute-long ambient outro slapped on seemingly as a last-ditch effort to put some movement on the track. The latter, meanwhile, throws buzzy loping bass over swarming synth lines, building profitably on the tension of the original version (though it too suffers from an overlong endgame). Unfortunately, most of the songs fall into the Harmonic 313 category: lazy, gimmicky, a Yorke vocal line away from Aphex Twin's infamous whole-cloth non-remixes.
There's a few ways to evaluate a remix:
1) Does it inspire the remixer to do something outside of what they would normally do?
2) Does it improve on the original track in some way?
2a) Failing that, does it at least make you see the original track in a new light?
Let's go from no to yes. The biggest problem with this album is that it just sounds like a lot of the current crop of electronic music, with Thom Yorke singing on it, as much a Radiohead song as Rabbit in Your Headlights. I'm only familiar with a handful of these remixers' original works, but for the most part, these sound like (feat. Thom Yorke) tracks.
They do diverge from the originals, there's no denying that, and while they're often not straight improvements, the rub is in the 2a of it all, I do feel like I came away with a new perspective on OG TKOL. The album's play with repetition is pulled in all manner of new directions here, with single threads stretched and spun into endless quilts of sound. And if nothing else, I appreciate the meticulous craftsmanship that went into the original, since only a few of these have any real claim to being improvements on the originals. It's a perfectly enjoyable, spacy listen in its own right, if a bit overlong. With 2.375 remixes per source track, there's a lot of repetition, which is the collection's greatest strength and weakness 3/5
You might like this if: You like the modern indie/experiemental electronic music scene. Or you really like The King of Limbs.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
#413 Kraftwerk - Computer World
Mike's buddy put this on while we played Boom Blox. You'd be surprised how well this worked.
While having previously glanced Kraftwerk, my real introduction came when I listened to Autobahn and Trans-Europe Express almost 400 albums ago, near the start of this project. Man, my attitude about these lil reviews has changed since then.
Those albums were, in retrospect, icy, impersonal, and had a Velvetsey, aggresive disdain for traditional human listening patterns of the time. Here, by comparison, things downright playful at times (especially on the singular Pocket Calculator, but also on opener Computer World), and downright moving at others (especially on Computer Love, with a riff so perfect that Coldplay built a completely different song, but failed to nail that incomparable buzzy bridge that is the song's actual soul).
In fact, Computer Love is the song that best represents what sets this album apart from previous Kraftwerk albums (or at least the albums I've heard). The themes of computers and technology and general futurism are nothing new, but where the Kraftwerk served as the icy overlord of the onrushing empire, here they are subjects of our society, on the receiving end of the crush of the future. Here the sound is downright vulnerable, serving as a harbinger of Radiohead albums to come. Even on Home Computer, where the narrator is the programmer of the computer, he exists as its victim more than its champion.
Musically, this is a much more fun listen, with great little melodies, and actually very little in terms of Motorik or general Krauty indulgend (do a shot). It's probably not as good for spacing out or working or driving to as their older stuff, but it makes for a mean Boom Blox soundtrack 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like quirky electronic music: this is accessible, inventive, fun, and doesn't even sound particularly dated.
While having previously glanced Kraftwerk, my real introduction came when I listened to Autobahn and Trans-Europe Express almost 400 albums ago, near the start of this project. Man, my attitude about these lil reviews has changed since then.
Those albums were, in retrospect, icy, impersonal, and had a Velvetsey, aggresive disdain for traditional human listening patterns of the time. Here, by comparison, things downright playful at times (especially on the singular Pocket Calculator, but also on opener Computer World), and downright moving at others (especially on Computer Love, with a riff so perfect that Coldplay built a completely different song, but failed to nail that incomparable buzzy bridge that is the song's actual soul).
In fact, Computer Love is the song that best represents what sets this album apart from previous Kraftwerk albums (or at least the albums I've heard). The themes of computers and technology and general futurism are nothing new, but where the Kraftwerk served as the icy overlord of the onrushing empire, here they are subjects of our society, on the receiving end of the crush of the future. Here the sound is downright vulnerable, serving as a harbinger of Radiohead albums to come. Even on Home Computer, where the narrator is the programmer of the computer, he exists as its victim more than its champion.
Musically, this is a much more fun listen, with great little melodies, and actually very little in terms of Motorik or general Krauty indulgend (do a shot). It's probably not as good for spacing out or working or driving to as their older stuff, but it makes for a mean Boom Blox soundtrack 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like quirky electronic music: this is accessible, inventive, fun, and doesn't even sound particularly dated.
Monday, November 14, 2011
#412 Ponytail - Do Whatever You Want All the Time
Loved Ice Cream Spiritual. Moremoremore.
Ponytail is spazzy, angular electronic guitars and frenetic yelping, evoking Deerhoof as the most obvious point of comparison. But where ICS was pure raw 12 year olds on speed energy, DWYWAOTT is actually pretty mellow. Mellow! Ponytail! Not quite mellow maybe, but it's build more on patience and tension and repetition than it is bursting off in every direction at once. Beyondersville burbles with synthy energy, Flabbermouse's guitars soar, and opener Easy Peasy counts off "one...one" ... "one" ... "one...one" in a parody of a rock countdown that actually makes any progress towards anything; "we're running out of time!" Molly Siegel exults, taunting us, just rubbing it in.
There's still plenty of gotta-see-these-guys-live bursting energy here though, like the psychocalypso swoon of AwayWay that explodes into chiming guitars and snare fills and joy just as it seems to be winding back down. There's also more buzzy electronic noise here, especially on the strangely-perfectly-titled Music Tunes. Fun stuff, even if the manic energy level is just a bit much for frequent listens 4/5
You might like this if: you like tense guitars and shameless yelping, and are looking for an album more toe-clenching than toe-tapping, squirming with manic energy.
Ponytail is spazzy, angular electronic guitars and frenetic yelping, evoking Deerhoof as the most obvious point of comparison. But where ICS was pure raw 12 year olds on speed energy, DWYWAOTT is actually pretty mellow. Mellow! Ponytail! Not quite mellow maybe, but it's build more on patience and tension and repetition than it is bursting off in every direction at once. Beyondersville burbles with synthy energy, Flabbermouse's guitars soar, and opener Easy Peasy counts off "one...one" ... "one" ... "one...one" in a parody of a rock countdown that actually makes any progress towards anything; "we're running out of time!" Molly Siegel exults, taunting us, just rubbing it in.
There's still plenty of gotta-see-these-guys-live bursting energy here though, like the psychocalypso swoon of AwayWay that explodes into chiming guitars and snare fills and joy just as it seems to be winding back down. There's also more buzzy electronic noise here, especially on the strangely-perfectly-titled Music Tunes. Fun stuff, even if the manic energy level is just a bit much for frequent listens 4/5
You might like this if: you like tense guitars and shameless yelping, and are looking for an album more toe-clenching than toe-tapping, squirming with manic energy.
#411 Passengers - Original Sountracks 1
I really liked Zooropa, the oft-dismissed post-Achtung U2 experiment, and got intruiged when I heard about this little-noticed collaboration with Brian Eno.
Only a few of these songs were actually used in the films suggested by the title, but the whole project was composed with an eye towards soundtrack-ready music - most ambient, more about feel, less vocally driven. The problem here is that this comes across basically like a Brian Eno album with Bono on it, and I don't want Bono on my ambient, experimental tunes. Conversely, Bono is at his best when he's at his most soaring or his most icy, and the soundtrackey approach precludes the former and there's surprisingly little room for the latter.
The finest moments are the subtle pieces of guitar noise and Enoism, especially on the swervey opener that evokes Zooropa's title track, and the Laurie Andersonism and subbass buzz of A Different Kind of Blue. A disappointingly limp album that doesn't quite work as ambient, doesn't take enough real chances, though I admire its nerve in places 2.5/5
You might like this if: you enjoy the songs on the middle of Brian Eno's ambient-to-pop spectrum, and don't mind if things are a bit slower-paced.
Only a few of these songs were actually used in the films suggested by the title, but the whole project was composed with an eye towards soundtrack-ready music - most ambient, more about feel, less vocally driven. The problem here is that this comes across basically like a Brian Eno album with Bono on it, and I don't want Bono on my ambient, experimental tunes. Conversely, Bono is at his best when he's at his most soaring or his most icy, and the soundtrackey approach precludes the former and there's surprisingly little room for the latter.
The finest moments are the subtle pieces of guitar noise and Enoism, especially on the swervey opener that evokes Zooropa's title track, and the Laurie Andersonism and subbass buzz of A Different Kind of Blue. A disappointingly limp album that doesn't quite work as ambient, doesn't take enough real chances, though I admire its nerve in places 2.5/5
You might like this if: you enjoy the songs on the middle of Brian Eno's ambient-to-pop spectrum, and don't mind if things are a bit slower-paced.
Friday, November 4, 2011
#410 The Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
My appreciation for these guys have been growing, doing my homework albumwise.
I've been trying on a move away from "personal reaction" to "actual reviews" on here, despite the fact that a single listen hardly qualifies me as an authority on any of these. But I don't think I can get away from the context this time - I put my headphones on and started this as I walked around NYC for the first time, riding trains, getting lost, getting crowded out circa 5pm, streets and beats. My theory is the universe got me lost just long enough so that the album wouldn't end until my train to Jersey started on its way. The whole debacle soundtracked. I was heading to Penn Station, and if I had listened closely to B-Boys Makin' with the Freak Freak I would have known that its up on 8th ave., which would have saved me a lot of trouble.
I've always loved Sure Shot, while there's nothing else on here that sounds like that - that's kind of the point. The energy of the album is all over the place, just blasting through megaphones, over static, overblown drums, guitars, and bass, with horns, organs and any damn thing you can imagine butting in at any damn moment. It's a messy mess, with the words sometimes so blasted that they work mostly as sounds (which is fine) with a meandering second half that doesn't quite live up to the energy of the first (less fine).
In all, it ends up being an assault, just wandering too long, too noisy for too long. One of those cases where a 40 minute version of the same album would have been mindblowing, this is just mindaching. A good one for picking and choosing, but a flawed album experience. 3.5/5
You might like this if: You like Sabotage? That's the only song like it on here, but its a pretty good representative for the tone of the album. It is what it is, shouty, noisy, brash, brassy; act accordingly.
I've been trying on a move away from "personal reaction" to "actual reviews" on here, despite the fact that a single listen hardly qualifies me as an authority on any of these. But I don't think I can get away from the context this time - I put my headphones on and started this as I walked around NYC for the first time, riding trains, getting lost, getting crowded out circa 5pm, streets and beats. My theory is the universe got me lost just long enough so that the album wouldn't end until my train to Jersey started on its way. The whole debacle soundtracked. I was heading to Penn Station, and if I had listened closely to B-Boys Makin' with the Freak Freak I would have known that its up on 8th ave., which would have saved me a lot of trouble.
I've always loved Sure Shot, while there's nothing else on here that sounds like that - that's kind of the point. The energy of the album is all over the place, just blasting through megaphones, over static, overblown drums, guitars, and bass, with horns, organs and any damn thing you can imagine butting in at any damn moment. It's a messy mess, with the words sometimes so blasted that they work mostly as sounds (which is fine) with a meandering second half that doesn't quite live up to the energy of the first (less fine).
In all, it ends up being an assault, just wandering too long, too noisy for too long. One of those cases where a 40 minute version of the same album would have been mindblowing, this is just mindaching. A good one for picking and choosing, but a flawed album experience. 3.5/5
You might like this if: You like Sabotage? That's the only song like it on here, but its a pretty good representative for the tone of the album. It is what it is, shouty, noisy, brash, brassy; act accordingly.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
#409 Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
I've been going through my mp3s on random at work lately, and keep coming across albums that I've had and never actually gotten around to listening to. Take this one, an album whose title track more or less completely overshadows it (and in fact, the band itself).
Because of that title track I had expected something heavier, but what you have here is sleepy, pretty, organ-laden psychadelia, landing somewhere between The Doors and Odyssey and Oracle, with some hints of the kind of heavy, progginess that Jethro Tull and Genesis would be getting into in a few years. In fact early Genesis highlight The Knife seems directly inspired by Are You Happy. The crunchy guitars and brisk drums on Termination are a fun highlight too.
And then there's the title track, running nearly as long as the rest of the album combined, about which there isn't a lot left to be said. You'd certainly recognize the riff, but if you haven't bothered, you really ought to just give the damn thing its full 17 minute playthrough. It's actually pretty good, being desert-road endless, but providing some compelling shifts and evolutions. Its nearly ambient for (very) long stretches, and therefore better used as accompaniment to doing something else, but its certainly no more difficult a listen than Green Typewriters 8, Shut Down, Revolution #9 or most Krautrock epics (do a shot).
In a weird mirroring to the Germs album, the contrast ends up creating an album that's more than the sum or its parts - some tight sections offset by a grand gesture. I can't say I'll listen to it often, but its a good one to have in my clip 4/5
You might like this if: You like good, trippy, organ-heavy psychadelia. You want to kind of space out, and little more, for 17 minutes.
Because of that title track I had expected something heavier, but what you have here is sleepy, pretty, organ-laden psychadelia, landing somewhere between The Doors and Odyssey and Oracle, with some hints of the kind of heavy, progginess that Jethro Tull and Genesis would be getting into in a few years. In fact early Genesis highlight The Knife seems directly inspired by Are You Happy. The crunchy guitars and brisk drums on Termination are a fun highlight too.
And then there's the title track, running nearly as long as the rest of the album combined, about which there isn't a lot left to be said. You'd certainly recognize the riff, but if you haven't bothered, you really ought to just give the damn thing its full 17 minute playthrough. It's actually pretty good, being desert-road endless, but providing some compelling shifts and evolutions. Its nearly ambient for (very) long stretches, and therefore better used as accompaniment to doing something else, but its certainly no more difficult a listen than Green Typewriters 8, Shut Down, Revolution #9 or most Krautrock epics (do a shot).
In a weird mirroring to the Germs album, the contrast ends up creating an album that's more than the sum or its parts - some tight sections offset by a grand gesture. I can't say I'll listen to it often, but its a good one to have in my clip 4/5
You might like this if: You like good, trippy, organ-heavy psychadelia. You want to kind of space out, and little more, for 17 minutes.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
#408 The Germs - (GI)
I got this ages ago, and realized I'd never actually listened to it for some reason - probably one of the biggest punk albums I've never heard.
Harder, faster, angrier than most of its predecessors, this is a shouty, thin jag of proto-hardcore that's place in the canon is well-deserved. The sloppy rage of the Sex Pistols and the hookiness of the Buzzcocks collide, everything is faster and more furious than either, planting the seeds of albums like Bad Brains and Raw Power to come.
The songs are actually a lot of fun, for the most part, charmingly messy, full of flubbed notes, missed beats and gutteral, yowling stumbles. There's a Minutemenesque balance here, with the drums, guitars, and bass taking their turns to rise to the fore, always with Crash's tortured, torturing wailing slathered over top.
There's also what I'm going to indulge in calling a proto-post-punk moment: the 9:30 closer, coming after 15 tracks running about 2 each. Building on early Stooges and predicting Liar's This Dust That Makes Mud, it's an early example of exploring the "punk" space, pissing the audience off by spitting in the face of notions of pacing and engagement. Much as with the Liars track, its a hint that these guys were in on the joke, that they might have more tricks up their sleeve than playing fast ad hard. Shame that, in the Germs' case, we never got to find out what they might have done next. A weirdly fascinating album, and awfully listenable for how ugly it is 4/5
You might like this if: You like punk, and you like is sloppy, fast, dumb, and smart.
Harder, faster, angrier than most of its predecessors, this is a shouty, thin jag of proto-hardcore that's place in the canon is well-deserved. The sloppy rage of the Sex Pistols and the hookiness of the Buzzcocks collide, everything is faster and more furious than either, planting the seeds of albums like Bad Brains and Raw Power to come.
The songs are actually a lot of fun, for the most part, charmingly messy, full of flubbed notes, missed beats and gutteral, yowling stumbles. There's a Minutemenesque balance here, with the drums, guitars, and bass taking their turns to rise to the fore, always with Crash's tortured, torturing wailing slathered over top.
There's also what I'm going to indulge in calling a proto-post-punk moment: the 9:30 closer, coming after 15 tracks running about 2 each. Building on early Stooges and predicting Liar's This Dust That Makes Mud, it's an early example of exploring the "punk" space, pissing the audience off by spitting in the face of notions of pacing and engagement. Much as with the Liars track, its a hint that these guys were in on the joke, that they might have more tricks up their sleeve than playing fast ad hard. Shame that, in the Germs' case, we never got to find out what they might have done next. A weirdly fascinating album, and awfully listenable for how ugly it is 4/5
You might like this if: You like punk, and you like is sloppy, fast, dumb, and smart.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
#407 Spank Rock - Everything is Boring and Everyone is a Fucking Liar
Loved YoYoYoYoYo, have been waiting on this one for a while.
The basic Spank Rock formula remains unchanged: ferocious rapping, ferociously filthy lyrics, equally filthy production. The song structures are unpredictable, the sampling erratic, the beats and sub-bass drones are hot-dog-reconstituted: processed, bad for you, disgusting, unrecognizable, delicious.
Here though, things are lighter, more deft, more agile. SR's debut squarely focused on blowing your mind, punching you in the gut and generally making you squirm, aggressively eschewing headbobbabiness and dancability. Now, believe it or not, there's real positive energy underneath the music. EiBaEiaFL revels in the filth instead of wallowing, a street fight elevated to mud wrestling elevated to one hell of a party. There's more space between the drones, more room in the mix for the vocals, faster, more traditional beats, and some joyously insane vocal samples tossed all over everything.
Paradoxically, the enthusiasm behind it all actually makes the album more unseemly in places. It's one thing when the rapper seems to grimace along with you, but here all the mapcap lines about fame, sex, and self-hating narcissism are cast off rooftops on oilslick rainbows.
YYYYY's singular adventurousness and general ability to take things too far will always be legendary, but here we have the spank rock sound tuned to actually be listenable, for better or for worse. I guess it depends on what you're looking for 4/5
You might like this if: You want some of the nastiest rap around that will still make you want to move your ass.
The basic Spank Rock formula remains unchanged: ferocious rapping, ferociously filthy lyrics, equally filthy production. The song structures are unpredictable, the sampling erratic, the beats and sub-bass drones are hot-dog-reconstituted: processed, bad for you, disgusting, unrecognizable, delicious.
Here though, things are lighter, more deft, more agile. SR's debut squarely focused on blowing your mind, punching you in the gut and generally making you squirm, aggressively eschewing headbobbabiness and dancability. Now, believe it or not, there's real positive energy underneath the music. EiBaEiaFL revels in the filth instead of wallowing, a street fight elevated to mud wrestling elevated to one hell of a party. There's more space between the drones, more room in the mix for the vocals, faster, more traditional beats, and some joyously insane vocal samples tossed all over everything.
Paradoxically, the enthusiasm behind it all actually makes the album more unseemly in places. It's one thing when the rapper seems to grimace along with you, but here all the mapcap lines about fame, sex, and self-hating narcissism are cast off rooftops on oilslick rainbows.
YYYYY's singular adventurousness and general ability to take things too far will always be legendary, but here we have the spank rock sound tuned to actually be listenable, for better or for worse. I guess it depends on what you're looking for 4/5
You might like this if: You want some of the nastiest rap around that will still make you want to move your ass.
#406 Wavves - Life Sux
I have mixed feelings about Wavves, with a couple great songs per album, and a lot of noisy filler, a listening experience that is charmingly sunburned and wasted, or messy and tuneless, depending on your mood.
Here though, the sudden garage superstar proves that he's got hooks that can stand on their own, rather than relying on lo-fi soft-focus to get by, bursting with Beulah-huge splendor (with better vocals) and GBV-worthy vocal melodies. And the actual lyrics are curiously charming, twisty and off-kilter. Little touches of production mastery abound (the stomach-dropping kickin from the chorus of standout I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl, the frayed guitar ambiance under Best Coast oohs on Nodding Off).
The last couple of songs lose some of the energy, getting into that sludgier territory that the first couple albums kept slipping into, TV Luv Song being too repetitive, and the Animal Collective-aping Mickey Mouse being just too, well, Animal Collectivey. But framed in an EP, these missteps are easier to forgive as experiments, and you can focus on the bits that stick in your joy-craw. Worth keeping an eye on this guy, who continues to show an uncommon balance of solid songwriting chops, spastic adventurousness and burnt charm 4/5
You might like this if: You like noisy, punk-dusted, post-grunge, with a lo fi edge, lo fi cred, and a dollop of sloppy experimentation.
Here though, the sudden garage superstar proves that he's got hooks that can stand on their own, rather than relying on lo-fi soft-focus to get by, bursting with Beulah-huge splendor (with better vocals) and GBV-worthy vocal melodies. And the actual lyrics are curiously charming, twisty and off-kilter. Little touches of production mastery abound (the stomach-dropping kickin from the chorus of standout I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl, the frayed guitar ambiance under Best Coast oohs on Nodding Off).
The last couple of songs lose some of the energy, getting into that sludgier territory that the first couple albums kept slipping into, TV Luv Song being too repetitive, and the Animal Collective-aping Mickey Mouse being just too, well, Animal Collectivey. But framed in an EP, these missteps are easier to forgive as experiments, and you can focus on the bits that stick in your joy-craw. Worth keeping an eye on this guy, who continues to show an uncommon balance of solid songwriting chops, spastic adventurousness and burnt charm 4/5
You might like this if: You like noisy, punk-dusted, post-grunge, with a lo fi edge, lo fi cred, and a dollop of sloppy experimentation.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
#405 Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
New Justice!
Its slippery why this album isn't any good.
Cross was a great, unashamedly rockist album, taking the lessons Daft Punk learned about repetition, texture and swerves to macro levels. Where techno-techno seduces you to move, Cross was a gun in your back, demanding you dance.
Here, the rock sound is even more obvious, with more vocals and a lot more actual guitars. In fact, they've shot right past rock into prog rock: the concepts are bigger, the structures fancier, the instrumentation more adventurous. That all sounds like a good thing if you like prog (and I do), but if your whole schtick is to move shake asses and thrash heads, you're taking a big chance by sounding like music that, traditionally, is more for stroking bears and furrowing brows. The pace is inexcusably ponderous on songs like Parade and Ohio and the vocals are weird, thin and superfluous. The whole thing feels drained out and amateurish compared to the blunt force of their debut.
The long bright spot is Canon, which finds a way to use prog for good instead of neutrality, channeling the tension, organs and buzzsaw guitar of Genesis's The Knife. But mostly, no, this isn't a way I'm interested in seeing Justice taking things, with ambition that doesn't lead anywhere it's music should be going 2.5/5
You might like this if: There's a tough sweet spot here. Do you want noisy, maximalist techno, but want it to sometimes mellow out and stretch and meander? Here's your best bet.
Its slippery why this album isn't any good.
Cross was a great, unashamedly rockist album, taking the lessons Daft Punk learned about repetition, texture and swerves to macro levels. Where techno-techno seduces you to move, Cross was a gun in your back, demanding you dance.
Here, the rock sound is even more obvious, with more vocals and a lot more actual guitars. In fact, they've shot right past rock into prog rock: the concepts are bigger, the structures fancier, the instrumentation more adventurous. That all sounds like a good thing if you like prog (and I do), but if your whole schtick is to move shake asses and thrash heads, you're taking a big chance by sounding like music that, traditionally, is more for stroking bears and furrowing brows. The pace is inexcusably ponderous on songs like Parade and Ohio and the vocals are weird, thin and superfluous. The whole thing feels drained out and amateurish compared to the blunt force of their debut.
The long bright spot is Canon, which finds a way to use prog for good instead of neutrality, channeling the tension, organs and buzzsaw guitar of Genesis's The Knife. But mostly, no, this isn't a way I'm interested in seeing Justice taking things, with ambition that doesn't lead anywhere it's music should be going 2.5/5
You might like this if: There's a tough sweet spot here. Do you want noisy, maximalist techno, but want it to sometimes mellow out and stretch and meander? Here's your best bet.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
#404 M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Always worth hearing the new M83.
The rap on M83 is that their sound is "big". Alternately "huge". It's kind of a cliche, but one well-earned, from the juggernaut that was their debut to the massive timewise longing of their later stuff, the sounds have been loud, dense, layered, complex and ever-changing.
But here the M83 sound expands, not just upward, but outward, benefiting from a double-length runtime to play with and a reduced reliance on the 80's for nostalgic heft. The album sprawls instead of towering, we're given distant thunderheads with time to loom and roll over plains incomprehensible in scope. There's a sense of movement throughout, aided by little palette-cleansing interludes that pepper the 22 tracks, serving as montages and ellipses around journeys over days. The track titles drive this home subliminally, evoking transport, places, the passage of time, the singularity of the moment.
This all comes together best, this new outwardly blasting M83, in the early Where the Boats Go/Wait/Raconte-Moi Une Histoire sequence, where the ridiculous, twee-toeing child-voiced musings on frogs and universal love somehow succeed, thanks to the space you've passed to get there, not to mention the perfectly executed Lemon Jelly ambience that surrounds it. Then the Train to Pluton lets you off easy, sweeping you to the next vista maglev smooth.
The overall effect is strangely listenable for being so epic. Much like an 8 hour drive, by virtue of the zenlike acceptance needed to embark on it at all, can seem more managable than a 2 hour errand-driven hassle, the commitment, the promise, the lack of demands that submitting implies, can be freeing.
The sounds are not groundbreakingly new, but their composition is honed to a laser edge. This feels like the culmination of M83, I don't know where he goes next. There's nothing stunningly new here, but the craft earns it the low end of a 4.5/5
You might like this if: You've got an hour+ to get lost in synths, and want to get taken for a pretty good ride.
The rap on M83 is that their sound is "big". Alternately "huge". It's kind of a cliche, but one well-earned, from the juggernaut that was their debut to the massive timewise longing of their later stuff, the sounds have been loud, dense, layered, complex and ever-changing.
But here the M83 sound expands, not just upward, but outward, benefiting from a double-length runtime to play with and a reduced reliance on the 80's for nostalgic heft. The album sprawls instead of towering, we're given distant thunderheads with time to loom and roll over plains incomprehensible in scope. There's a sense of movement throughout, aided by little palette-cleansing interludes that pepper the 22 tracks, serving as montages and ellipses around journeys over days. The track titles drive this home subliminally, evoking transport, places, the passage of time, the singularity of the moment.
This all comes together best, this new outwardly blasting M83, in the early Where the Boats Go/Wait/Raconte-Moi Une Histoire sequence, where the ridiculous, twee-toeing child-voiced musings on frogs and universal love somehow succeed, thanks to the space you've passed to get there, not to mention the perfectly executed Lemon Jelly ambience that surrounds it. Then the Train to Pluton lets you off easy, sweeping you to the next vista maglev smooth.
The overall effect is strangely listenable for being so epic. Much like an 8 hour drive, by virtue of the zenlike acceptance needed to embark on it at all, can seem more managable than a 2 hour errand-driven hassle, the commitment, the promise, the lack of demands that submitting implies, can be freeing.
The sounds are not groundbreakingly new, but their composition is honed to a laser edge. This feels like the culmination of M83, I don't know where he goes next. There's nothing stunningly new here, but the craft earns it the low end of a 4.5/5
You might like this if: You've got an hour+ to get lost in synths, and want to get taken for a pretty good ride.
Friday, October 14, 2011
#403 Jorge Ben - Africa Brasil
I'm not exactly sure how I came across this one, though I liked his previous Tropicalia-era stuff, and enjoyed Gil e Jorge, which came out just before this.
At its best, this is a pretty glorious, sun-drenched slice of something, with Portuguese crooning, skittery beats, bursts of guitar and organ prickling caipirinha cool, with the finest moments underscored by choruses of girls aaah-ing and la-la-ing. It's all Tarantino-ready groovy, with just enough exotic edge.
My main complaint is the goddamn cuica, with its HOO-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo HOO! Hoo! chirping intruding high in the mix on far too many songs. I know that its part of the samba sound and all, but man, I do not like that noise. On this album in particular it sounds like some kid playing with his toy on the track: it's not well-integrated, not in agreement with the tone of the song, decidedly superfluous, and often downright annoying. Honestly, it made plenty of tracks on here auto-skips for me going forward.
I know, I know, that's like complaining about guitars on a rock and roll song, but I'm sorry, I do not fucking like it. Where does that leave me? For the un-cuica-encumbered tracks, this is a hit. For the rest, its a miss, leading to an unsatisfying compromise landing roughly at 3/5
You might like this if: you like groovy, gorgeous, sunny tunes, and don't mind a sea of cuica cheeps.
At its best, this is a pretty glorious, sun-drenched slice of something, with Portuguese crooning, skittery beats, bursts of guitar and organ prickling caipirinha cool, with the finest moments underscored by choruses of girls aaah-ing and la-la-ing. It's all Tarantino-ready groovy, with just enough exotic edge.
My main complaint is the goddamn cuica, with its HOO-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo HOO! Hoo! chirping intruding high in the mix on far too many songs. I know that its part of the samba sound and all, but man, I do not like that noise. On this album in particular it sounds like some kid playing with his toy on the track: it's not well-integrated, not in agreement with the tone of the song, decidedly superfluous, and often downright annoying. Honestly, it made plenty of tracks on here auto-skips for me going forward.
I know, I know, that's like complaining about guitars on a rock and roll song, but I'm sorry, I do not fucking like it. Where does that leave me? For the un-cuica-encumbered tracks, this is a hit. For the rest, its a miss, leading to an unsatisfying compromise landing roughly at 3/5
You might like this if: you like groovy, gorgeous, sunny tunes, and don't mind a sea of cuica cheeps.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
#402 Booker T and the MG's - Green Onions
Hittin' all the missed hits of the 60's.
There are lots of places you might have heard the title track, so now you know who does that song. The rest of the album follows roughly the same model, with a shuffly beat, strutting bass and the guitar and organ taking turns taking the lead over top. Some of them are thrillingly fast, some ballad-slow, but its all instrumental, and the lineup never changes, the sound of the instruments never changes, the production approach never changes. It's consistent and steady and holistic, which is strange compared to everything modern I've been listening to (the Neon Indian album seemed compelled to wiggle every piece around after every track just to keep you interested), but it leads to a good groove you can settle into. It reminds me of driving around Laguna with John, listening to The Meters, who have a similar sound, if a slightly different, funkier, MO.
I dig it. I like the overall flow of the album and I love that organ sound. Great work music, if nothing else, soothing and energizing all at once 4/5
You might like this if: you like a soulful rock organ, and want it to move you and serenade you over waving, rolling rhythms.
There are lots of places you might have heard the title track, so now you know who does that song. The rest of the album follows roughly the same model, with a shuffly beat, strutting bass and the guitar and organ taking turns taking the lead over top. Some of them are thrillingly fast, some ballad-slow, but its all instrumental, and the lineup never changes, the sound of the instruments never changes, the production approach never changes. It's consistent and steady and holistic, which is strange compared to everything modern I've been listening to (the Neon Indian album seemed compelled to wiggle every piece around after every track just to keep you interested), but it leads to a good groove you can settle into. It reminds me of driving around Laguna with John, listening to The Meters, who have a similar sound, if a slightly different, funkier, MO.
I dig it. I like the overall flow of the album and I love that organ sound. Great work music, if nothing else, soothing and energizing all at once 4/5
You might like this if: you like a soulful rock organ, and want it to move you and serenade you over waving, rolling rhythms.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
#401 Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life
Loved David Comes to Life, figured I'd check out its predecessor.
Man, what an interesting progression between these two albums. Where David Comes to Life was single-mindedly relentless, this album is by comparison much bigger, much more ambitious, more varied and wild and wooly. It's pretty great.
Obviously there's plenty of Pink Eyes's gutteral shouting, and underneath the kind of pretty, noisy guitar work you'd expect given DCtL, but here things are monsterously ambitious for a band that sounds, at first blush, like such a blunt instrument. The arc of the album is a rant against God and religion and the wall of disillusionment that clever kids raised Christian seem to hit. Or something, after a listen or two, I can't say I've caught every throat-propelled syllable, but there's plenty of rage, spitting disdain, and furious disappointment directed generally skyward.
The variety of the songs is pretty amazing here too. The whole epic kicks off with a flute solo, and later sprightly congas, three-and-a-half-minute ambient pieces, and electronic beebles take their turns putting odd angles on the juggernaut's lapel. The backing vocals are great flourishes too, from chanting, to pretty-girls-make-graves-style shrieking, to the chiming indie gorgeous of album highlight Black Albino Bones.
Its kind of backwards. You'd expect the straightforward relentless beating album to come out first, followed by the extravagant, adventurous epic. But Fucked Up has actually gotten less and less adventurous as time has gone on. In this case, I don't know that David Comes to Life represents a regression so much as it represents a honing of the craft, a lessened reliance on gimmicks and the nerve to actually do something harder, longer, and more focused. If DCtL was hardcore, endless krautrock (do a shot), this album is swerving hardcore prog: both albums are daring, both are challenging, both are strange conflations of brute force and laser precision. Taken outside of the continuum of the band's history, they stand as epic companion pieces, taking on huge themes in a huge way 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like hard punk guitars and caveman shouting, but also like pretty guitars, complex structures and epic themes. The center of that venn diagram doesn't describe many people I know, but if you fit the bill, don't miss this one.
Man, what an interesting progression between these two albums. Where David Comes to Life was single-mindedly relentless, this album is by comparison much bigger, much more ambitious, more varied and wild and wooly. It's pretty great.
Obviously there's plenty of Pink Eyes's gutteral shouting, and underneath the kind of pretty, noisy guitar work you'd expect given DCtL, but here things are monsterously ambitious for a band that sounds, at first blush, like such a blunt instrument. The arc of the album is a rant against God and religion and the wall of disillusionment that clever kids raised Christian seem to hit. Or something, after a listen or two, I can't say I've caught every throat-propelled syllable, but there's plenty of rage, spitting disdain, and furious disappointment directed generally skyward.
The variety of the songs is pretty amazing here too. The whole epic kicks off with a flute solo, and later sprightly congas, three-and-a-half-minute ambient pieces, and electronic beebles take their turns putting odd angles on the juggernaut's lapel. The backing vocals are great flourishes too, from chanting, to pretty-girls-make-graves-style shrieking, to the chiming indie gorgeous of album highlight Black Albino Bones.
Its kind of backwards. You'd expect the straightforward relentless beating album to come out first, followed by the extravagant, adventurous epic. But Fucked Up has actually gotten less and less adventurous as time has gone on. In this case, I don't know that David Comes to Life represents a regression so much as it represents a honing of the craft, a lessened reliance on gimmicks and the nerve to actually do something harder, longer, and more focused. If DCtL was hardcore, endless krautrock (do a shot), this album is swerving hardcore prog: both albums are daring, both are challenging, both are strange conflations of brute force and laser precision. Taken outside of the continuum of the band's history, they stand as epic companion pieces, taking on huge themes in a huge way 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like hard punk guitars and caveman shouting, but also like pretty guitars, complex structures and epic themes. The center of that venn diagram doesn't describe many people I know, but if you fit the bill, don't miss this one.
Friday, October 7, 2011
#400 Howlin' Wolf - Howlin' Wolf
Another one from my run through 60's albums of note I'd not heard, my semi-systematic attempt to hear every album of note ever.
Here's another foundational blues album, and I found it a lot more listenable than Robert Johnson's similarly-timed album. Here the vocals are much richer and more imposing, the songs more structured, with some downright enjoyable rustle and bounce, creak and craw, sounding expert, sounding refined without sounding polished. Where the Johnson album was all about the man, his guitar, and his virtuoso skill therewith, here there is a full band, a full sound, and a full song. And maybe this makes me a blues philistine, but I like all that stuff. This is rich and listenable by comparison, and draws a more obvious line to plenty of later music, from Stones/Kinks Americana eras, to The White Stripes, The Black Keys and Tom Waits decades later.
Taken on its own, I don't know that its quite my cup of tea, but I dig it. It deepens the night, enriches the day, spirit creeping out and blooming. 3.5/5
You might like this if: you want some gritty guitar, some ragged vocals, some history lessons, and want to ease into something downright accessible before getting to the really early, really hardcore foundational blues.
Here's another foundational blues album, and I found it a lot more listenable than Robert Johnson's similarly-timed album. Here the vocals are much richer and more imposing, the songs more structured, with some downright enjoyable rustle and bounce, creak and craw, sounding expert, sounding refined without sounding polished. Where the Johnson album was all about the man, his guitar, and his virtuoso skill therewith, here there is a full band, a full sound, and a full song. And maybe this makes me a blues philistine, but I like all that stuff. This is rich and listenable by comparison, and draws a more obvious line to plenty of later music, from Stones/Kinks Americana eras, to The White Stripes, The Black Keys and Tom Waits decades later.
Taken on its own, I don't know that its quite my cup of tea, but I dig it. It deepens the night, enriches the day, spirit creeping out and blooming. 3.5/5
You might like this if: you want some gritty guitar, some ragged vocals, some history lessons, and want to ease into something downright accessible before getting to the really early, really hardcore foundational blues.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
#399 No Age - Everything In Between
[[ hah! oops. already reviewed as #188. I guess I'll leave this here -- 7/24/18 ]]
--
I'm pretty sure this had been sitting on my mp3 player unnoticed for months, until one train ride home I went, hey, what's this? Have I heard this? I pretty quickly found out, no I had not.
[[ correction: I had. ]]
And I was immediately glad I did. And then I was gladder still.
This is a good album, with plenty of signature No Age moments, sounding more stonedly sentimental and gorgeously noisefucked than ever; the 1-2 punch of Fever Dreaming and Depletion is, in particular, an asskicker.
But the reason these work so well is the album that lead up to them, and follows them. This is an perfectly paced album, pulling you through the ups and downs of buzzsaw peril and fuzzsaw ambiance at all the right moments, smothering you in tension, smothering the tension in hugs. The overall effect was pretty stunning.
Caveats: this was heard through headphones, loud beyond loud, on trains home on a late night. This is somehow the perfect setting for this album, and its wholly possible that your mileage (and, in fact, my future mileage) [[ and in fact my past mileage! ]] will vary. But in a record of my first impressions, this one knocked my socks off the way I have been wanting Deerhunter, Wavves, and previous No Age to for years. The newgaze/buzzpop/slackpunk/post-alternative/whatevver album of my dreams is, if fleetingly as a dream, finally here 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like noisy ambient pop punk on the order of Deerhuner/Wavves/A Place to Bury strangers and happen to be on a train, with your headphones on, and don't mind some hearing loss. [[ its weird I used to do this ]]
--
I'm pretty sure this had been sitting on my mp3 player unnoticed for months, until one train ride home I went, hey, what's this? Have I heard this? I pretty quickly found out, no I had not.
[[ correction: I had. ]]
And I was immediately glad I did. And then I was gladder still.
This is a good album, with plenty of signature No Age moments, sounding more stonedly sentimental and gorgeously noisefucked than ever; the 1-2 punch of Fever Dreaming and Depletion is, in particular, an asskicker.
But the reason these work so well is the album that lead up to them, and follows them. This is an perfectly paced album, pulling you through the ups and downs of buzzsaw peril and fuzzsaw ambiance at all the right moments, smothering you in tension, smothering the tension in hugs. The overall effect was pretty stunning.
Caveats: this was heard through headphones, loud beyond loud, on trains home on a late night. This is somehow the perfect setting for this album, and its wholly possible that your mileage (and, in fact, my future mileage) [[ and in fact my past mileage! ]] will vary. But in a record of my first impressions, this one knocked my socks off the way I have been wanting Deerhunter, Wavves, and previous No Age to for years. The newgaze/buzzpop/slackpunk/post-alternative/whatevver album of my dreams is, if fleetingly as a dream, finally here 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like noisy ambient pop punk on the order of Deerhuner/Wavves/A Place to Bury strangers and happen to be on a train, with your headphones on, and don't mind some hearing loss. [[ its weird I used to do this ]]
Thursday, September 15, 2011
#398 Battles - Gloss Drop
I actually cannot remember how I decided to look these guys up again, I wasn't really all that into Mirrored, but something outside my usual circles got me excited enough about this album to check it out.
Thing is, I really wanted to like Mirrored. The live drums, the offkilter Health-like energy, but other than Atlas, it just didn't end up moving me overmuch, just didn't quite have enough structure. Here though, it works, weaving some perfect electronic/rock balances together: ostinato that straddles trancy loop and rockist riff, buildup flow that straddles raveup techno and proggy extravagance, minimal spaciness against shoegazey density, experimental twist pitted against sudden guitar shredline, and on top of it all a crisp set of live drums that just pops and pops.
The overall effect strikes a really delightful balance of background and foreground, between atmosphere and energy that makes it nearly perfect work music. And then there are great pieces of swervy contrast, like Wall Street's switchback from skittery bleeps into a great Genesis organ-and-guitar-wall, moments that keep you on your toes and give you something to look forward to. I don't love the two vocals-featuring tracks at the album's core, and I think that this is one whose flame will dull to a persistent but unspectacular ember, but it's caught me nicely enough to earn the very high end of 4/5
You might like this if: You like rockist techno like Justice and Daft Punk, but don't might something a bit more jazzy and sprightly. You like live drums in your electronic beepbox.
Thing is, I really wanted to like Mirrored. The live drums, the offkilter Health-like energy, but other than Atlas, it just didn't end up moving me overmuch, just didn't quite have enough structure. Here though, it works, weaving some perfect electronic/rock balances together: ostinato that straddles trancy loop and rockist riff, buildup flow that straddles raveup techno and proggy extravagance, minimal spaciness against shoegazey density, experimental twist pitted against sudden guitar shredline, and on top of it all a crisp set of live drums that just pops and pops.
The overall effect strikes a really delightful balance of background and foreground, between atmosphere and energy that makes it nearly perfect work music. And then there are great pieces of swervy contrast, like Wall Street's switchback from skittery bleeps into a great Genesis organ-and-guitar-wall, moments that keep you on your toes and give you something to look forward to. I don't love the two vocals-featuring tracks at the album's core, and I think that this is one whose flame will dull to a persistent but unspectacular ember, but it's caught me nicely enough to earn the very high end of 4/5
You might like this if: You like rockist techno like Justice and Daft Punk, but don't might something a bit more jazzy and sprightly. You like live drums in your electronic beepbox.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
#397 Neon Indian - Era Extrana
Brit randomly played this in the car on the way back from cut / copy. Didn't even know they had a new one out!
Something was lost in the transition though. The first album had this humble, clumsy, lo-fi charm to it, the songs sounding strangely ancient despite their obvious 80's-via-aughts influences. Here things are much more polished, and even in places where they aren't they feel intentionally roughed up, seemingly wanting to press certain buttons, sound like m83/cut copy/starfucker, all of who do this kind of thing better.
There's also something weirdly disconnected about some of the electronic flourishes and squiggles, which often scurry off over and around the track, without really being connected to it rhymically or melodically or structurally, sounding outside the rest of the song somehow. This leads to a more quirky sound, but it feels a little tacked on, like someone went and pinned some extra flair onto an otherwise lumbering song.
Its a perfectly good album, and maybe it suffered from being heard in the middle of hanging out with 80's revival-obsessed Brit, and seeing cut / copy, the drums, and starfucker live over the span of 3 weeks. Maybe I was just overloaded on this kind of sound, but for whatever reason it really didn't move me 2.5/5
You might like this if: you like vaguely noisy, fairly pretty, slightly dancy 80's revival, with a squiggly edge, and haven't already overdosed on the sound.
Something was lost in the transition though. The first album had this humble, clumsy, lo-fi charm to it, the songs sounding strangely ancient despite their obvious 80's-via-aughts influences. Here things are much more polished, and even in places where they aren't they feel intentionally roughed up, seemingly wanting to press certain buttons, sound like m83/cut copy/starfucker, all of who do this kind of thing better.
There's also something weirdly disconnected about some of the electronic flourishes and squiggles, which often scurry off over and around the track, without really being connected to it rhymically or melodically or structurally, sounding outside the rest of the song somehow. This leads to a more quirky sound, but it feels a little tacked on, like someone went and pinned some extra flair onto an otherwise lumbering song.
Its a perfectly good album, and maybe it suffered from being heard in the middle of hanging out with 80's revival-obsessed Brit, and seeing cut / copy, the drums, and starfucker live over the span of 3 weeks. Maybe I was just overloaded on this kind of sound, but for whatever reason it really didn't move me 2.5/5
You might like this if: you like vaguely noisy, fairly pretty, slightly dancy 80's revival, with a squiggly edge, and haven't already overdosed on the sound.
Monday, September 12, 2011
#396 Wugazi - 13 Chambers
Slate, of all places, had an article that mentioned this (free!) album, seems promising.
I used to bristle when people would talk about Girl Talk making mashups: for a lot of people the term evokes taking two songs and combining them, which has historically been pretty boring, and fails to improve on either of the original tracks (I'm looking at you Grey Album). I much prefer the ADDJ mashup that revels in transitions, tripleups, and party dynamics for energy.
What we have here is the 2-track approach, taking (as you probably guessed by now) 1 each of a Wu Tang song and a Fugazi song. But in this case, it actually works. The two bands are a good match: Wu Tang is a diverse group that mixes bobbing energy and tension, and the same goes for Fugazi on each count: menace is matched with frayed guitars, clean riffs with hopscotch ryhme lines. And most importantly, the overall structure is restless and exciting - there may only be two tracks per track, but each is full of builds, drops, twists and surprises.
While it lacks some of the ADDJ cotton candy constant delight, it works as a nice piece of rock rap done right, full of frustration and release. Probably my favorite 2-track mashup album I've heard 4/5
You might like this if: you like hooks and melodies under your rap and want something to bob your head to.
I used to bristle when people would talk about Girl Talk making mashups: for a lot of people the term evokes taking two songs and combining them, which has historically been pretty boring, and fails to improve on either of the original tracks (I'm looking at you Grey Album). I much prefer the ADDJ mashup that revels in transitions, tripleups, and party dynamics for energy.
What we have here is the 2-track approach, taking (as you probably guessed by now) 1 each of a Wu Tang song and a Fugazi song. But in this case, it actually works. The two bands are a good match: Wu Tang is a diverse group that mixes bobbing energy and tension, and the same goes for Fugazi on each count: menace is matched with frayed guitars, clean riffs with hopscotch ryhme lines. And most importantly, the overall structure is restless and exciting - there may only be two tracks per track, but each is full of builds, drops, twists and surprises.
While it lacks some of the ADDJ cotton candy constant delight, it works as a nice piece of rock rap done right, full of frustration and release. Probably my favorite 2-track mashup album I've heard 4/5
You might like this if: you like hooks and melodies under your rap and want something to bob your head to.
#395 The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient
Pitch'd! The day they stop being so consistently good at picking BNM albums is the day I'll stop looking.
It's a solid, curiously absorbing album, considering how boring it is. The songs are mushy and repetitive, like a washed out, echo-chamber Wilco got a Scottish Bob Dylan to sing some songs for them while they laid out relentless motorik*.
The real strength of this album, though, is its overall pacing and composition, which gives it that tricky boring/absorbing quality. The (long, but just barely not too long) Your Love is Calling My Name is followed by a pretty ambient palette cleanser, and another ambient diversion follows just when it's needed a few tracks later, and another a few tracks later still. These contrasts left me feeling restless, but pulled me back again and again to the center.
It also helps that subtle shifts nudge the dense, mushy sound hither and tither, from the U2 anthem Come to the City to the Springsteen-via-Arcade-Fire pulse of Baby Missiles. The beats are constant, but the swooping tone of the sentiment winds new paths through the swamps, climaxing in the brilliantly crisp Blackwater, which sheds just enough of the album's reverb muck to emerge triumphant without betraying the road it closes.
I don't see this as a repeat listen for me, but I admire the way it overcomes its apparent shortcomings with grace. Could be a grower 3.5/5
You might like this if: You're feeling patient and wistful, and want a ghostly echo for a companion for 45 minutes or so.
*New my blog drinking game: do a shot every time I mention Krautrock or Motorik. Ever since I first encountered the sound I kind of started seeing it everywhere. But it totally applies here, especially on the doggedly churning Your Love is Calling My Name.
It's a solid, curiously absorbing album, considering how boring it is. The songs are mushy and repetitive, like a washed out, echo-chamber Wilco got a Scottish Bob Dylan to sing some songs for them while they laid out relentless motorik*.
The real strength of this album, though, is its overall pacing and composition, which gives it that tricky boring/absorbing quality. The (long, but just barely not too long) Your Love is Calling My Name is followed by a pretty ambient palette cleanser, and another ambient diversion follows just when it's needed a few tracks later, and another a few tracks later still. These contrasts left me feeling restless, but pulled me back again and again to the center.
It also helps that subtle shifts nudge the dense, mushy sound hither and tither, from the U2 anthem Come to the City to the Springsteen-via-Arcade-Fire pulse of Baby Missiles. The beats are constant, but the swooping tone of the sentiment winds new paths through the swamps, climaxing in the brilliantly crisp Blackwater, which sheds just enough of the album's reverb muck to emerge triumphant without betraying the road it closes.
I don't see this as a repeat listen for me, but I admire the way it overcomes its apparent shortcomings with grace. Could be a grower 3.5/5
You might like this if: You're feeling patient and wistful, and want a ghostly echo for a companion for 45 minutes or so.
*New my blog drinking game: do a shot every time I mention Krautrock or Motorik. Ever since I first encountered the sound I kind of started seeing it everywhere. But it totally applies here, especially on the doggedly churning Your Love is Calling My Name.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
#394 Yo La Tengo - Fakebook
Continuing the trip through Yo La Tengo's considerable catalog, this time with a well regarded album regarded an outlier in their catalog.
Here, the band's signature drones and heaviness and expanse are traded in for an entire album of spare, folky pop. As a further divergence, the album is mostly covers, and obscure ones at that - I may have some holes in my background, but I was still surprised that I only recognized The Kink's Oklahoma USA (and I only heard that a couple months ago!). Its a willfully obscure collection, to the extent that it barely reads like a cover album.
None of these songs would have been out of place on IANAoYaIWBYA's between-drone breaks, full as they are of bouncy pop moments, frail boy vocals, frail girl vocals, and plucky guitars. The thing that really makes it work is the excellent curation; the choices may be obscure, but they result in a remarkably cohesive covers album, with legitimate inter-song emotional arcs and strong themes of loves lost and found. Its all listenable and kind, rather sweet, stopping just this side of twee. Not what I traditionally look for in a Yo La Tengo album, but a perfectly agreeable listen that shows off the band's considerable musical wit in whole new ways 3.5/5
You might like this if: you want a sweet, curiously anachronistic bundle of lovelorn tunes, sung Yo La Tengo style, and won't be too disappointed when the drones and atmosphere fail to show up.
Here, the band's signature drones and heaviness and expanse are traded in for an entire album of spare, folky pop. As a further divergence, the album is mostly covers, and obscure ones at that - I may have some holes in my background, but I was still surprised that I only recognized The Kink's Oklahoma USA (and I only heard that a couple months ago!). Its a willfully obscure collection, to the extent that it barely reads like a cover album.
None of these songs would have been out of place on IANAoYaIWBYA's between-drone breaks, full as they are of bouncy pop moments, frail boy vocals, frail girl vocals, and plucky guitars. The thing that really makes it work is the excellent curation; the choices may be obscure, but they result in a remarkably cohesive covers album, with legitimate inter-song emotional arcs and strong themes of loves lost and found. Its all listenable and kind, rather sweet, stopping just this side of twee. Not what I traditionally look for in a Yo La Tengo album, but a perfectly agreeable listen that shows off the band's considerable musical wit in whole new ways 3.5/5
You might like this if: you want a sweet, curiously anachronistic bundle of lovelorn tunes, sung Yo La Tengo style, and won't be too disappointed when the drones and atmosphere fail to show up.
Monday, September 5, 2011
#393 Yo La Tengo - I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
Loved ICFtHBaO and Painful, but I think I was a little intimidated by the size of this band's catalog, never knew where to start. Why not here?
My favorite kind of Yo La Tengo song is the dense builder, heavy with texture and pulse, beamed into my brainstem via subliminal channels. Think Autumn Sweater, We're an American Band, Big Day Coming, and the too-short Superstar-Watcher. The album kicks off with a great new entry onto that list as Pass the Hachet, I Think I'm Goodkind winds through 10 minutes of relentless bass and drone-washed, tin-tunnel straining. There's a couple more like that peppered throughout, with The Room Got Heavy serving as the album's delightfully nightmarish lynchpin, followed much later by the album's epic closer.
Elsewhere YLT stretch their legs a bit more, bopping through baroque, poppy, slightly experimental numbers that evoke what I think Belle and Sebastian sound like*. And then there's frail little pieces of gorgeous like I Feel Like Going Home and the psychobilly 50's stomp of Watch Out for me Ronny. All over the map.
It's actually a good structure, with those 3 classic YLT drone numbers serving to anchor the experimental forays. I don't much enjoy the bouncier bits in isolation, but as a whole, it works as a lower calorie, slighty less rich Yo La Tengo experience, better, perhaps for tanktops than Autumn Sweaters, but a legitimate Yo La Tengo album. Which, is good 4/5
You might like this if: you like sweet pop, pretty drone rock, and plenty of what falls in between. If you like Belle and Sebastian (??)
*I don't actually know B&S nearly as well as well as several ladies I have known have suggested I should. Just can't get into them. Sorry ladies!
My favorite kind of Yo La Tengo song is the dense builder, heavy with texture and pulse, beamed into my brainstem via subliminal channels. Think Autumn Sweater, We're an American Band, Big Day Coming, and the too-short Superstar-Watcher. The album kicks off with a great new entry onto that list as Pass the Hachet, I Think I'm Goodkind winds through 10 minutes of relentless bass and drone-washed, tin-tunnel straining. There's a couple more like that peppered throughout, with The Room Got Heavy serving as the album's delightfully nightmarish lynchpin, followed much later by the album's epic closer.
Elsewhere YLT stretch their legs a bit more, bopping through baroque, poppy, slightly experimental numbers that evoke what I think Belle and Sebastian sound like*. And then there's frail little pieces of gorgeous like I Feel Like Going Home and the psychobilly 50's stomp of Watch Out for me Ronny. All over the map.
It's actually a good structure, with those 3 classic YLT drone numbers serving to anchor the experimental forays. I don't much enjoy the bouncier bits in isolation, but as a whole, it works as a lower calorie, slighty less rich Yo La Tengo experience, better, perhaps for tanktops than Autumn Sweaters, but a legitimate Yo La Tengo album. Which, is good 4/5
You might like this if: you like sweet pop, pretty drone rock, and plenty of what falls in between. If you like Belle and Sebastian (??)
*I don't actually know B&S nearly as well as well as several ladies I have known have suggested I should. Just can't get into them. Sorry ladies!
#392 The Magnetic Fields - i
A friend listed this among their favorite albums and I realized that I'd never heard it despite (mostly) liking 69 Love Songs and (somewhat) liking Distortion.
Stephin Merritt is a tough pill to swallow: endlessly morose, powerfully prolific, alternately heavy and frail, and generally seductively difficult as singer-songwriter types go. At least Young and Dylan and Darnielle have the decency to just throw down an album that bristles with obvious prickers, but Merritt is a silk bag of unhinged scissors. Plus, man, the man knows his way around a melody, can build an unassailable atmosphere from the frailest parts, and can spin a hell of a vocal turn. The strengths are most prominently on display on I Don't Believe You, with its gorgeous [guitar? mandolin??] solo and hitched lyrical lines, where the meaning doesn't pivot into place until 5 or 6 words after the mid-line punchline.
This is actually probably the most solid of The Magnetic Fields' albums that I've heard, remaining engaging throughout. The effect is cumulative without being oppressive, cathartic at least as often as it's crushing, building a damaged castle, brick after wounded brick, occasionally pausing to knock it to pieces. There are some missteps, some songs where Merrit doesn't seem to have much to do but repeat the name of the song (ok, ok, 'evil twin', 'late at night', got it) and the band doesn't seem to have much interest in providing much spark.
This seems like a very positive review as I write it. Fact is, the singer songwriter scene still isn't something I'm all that into, so we're still only going to end up at 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like lovelorn singer-songwriting, with lush, crushing production and lush crushing sentiment to match.
Stephin Merritt is a tough pill to swallow: endlessly morose, powerfully prolific, alternately heavy and frail, and generally seductively difficult as singer-songwriter types go. At least Young and Dylan and Darnielle have the decency to just throw down an album that bristles with obvious prickers, but Merritt is a silk bag of unhinged scissors. Plus, man, the man knows his way around a melody, can build an unassailable atmosphere from the frailest parts, and can spin a hell of a vocal turn. The strengths are most prominently on display on I Don't Believe You, with its gorgeous [guitar? mandolin??] solo and hitched lyrical lines, where the meaning doesn't pivot into place until 5 or 6 words after the mid-line punchline.
This is actually probably the most solid of The Magnetic Fields' albums that I've heard, remaining engaging throughout. The effect is cumulative without being oppressive, cathartic at least as often as it's crushing, building a damaged castle, brick after wounded brick, occasionally pausing to knock it to pieces. There are some missteps, some songs where Merrit doesn't seem to have much to do but repeat the name of the song (ok, ok, 'evil twin', 'late at night', got it) and the band doesn't seem to have much interest in providing much spark.
This seems like a very positive review as I write it. Fact is, the singer songwriter scene still isn't something I'm all that into, so we're still only going to end up at 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like lovelorn singer-songwriting, with lush, crushing production and lush crushing sentiment to match.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
#391 The Who - My Generation
It's funny the stuff you miss. I've listened to plenty of The Who's output, but in the midst of my year-by-year catchup project I noticed I'd never given their debut a proper playthrough.
I heard about The Who's legendary stage presence, with all its madness and fury, years before I heard any of their non-single tracks, so I remember being surprised at how tame it actually was. The Who Sell Out and Quadrophenia are perfectly respectable, well-respected albums, but the delivery is more warped and arty than blunt and brutal. Here, though, I see a bit more of their proto-punk side, particularly the rollicking opener Out in the Street, the inexorable sputtering lashout of the title track, and the pre-Waits sneering blues swagger of I'm a Man, which flames out in spectacular climax. The James Brown covers are also telling, as the band seems to strive for a bit of his infernal fury.
There's also seeds for the later, more composed work though, with flittering pianos, vocal harmonies, and spare, upbeat poppy structures cropping up throughout.
As an album, it hangs together pretty well, seeming like a missing link between earlyish Beatles, earlyish Stones, and early-to-middleish Kinks. A solid slice of 60's rock, and a missing piece I'm glad to have cleared up 4/5
You might like this if: You like earlyish Beatles, earlyish Stones, and early-to-middleish Kinks and have somehow missed this before now.
I heard about The Who's legendary stage presence, with all its madness and fury, years before I heard any of their non-single tracks, so I remember being surprised at how tame it actually was. The Who Sell Out and Quadrophenia are perfectly respectable, well-respected albums, but the delivery is more warped and arty than blunt and brutal. Here, though, I see a bit more of their proto-punk side, particularly the rollicking opener Out in the Street, the inexorable sputtering lashout of the title track, and the pre-Waits sneering blues swagger of I'm a Man, which flames out in spectacular climax. The James Brown covers are also telling, as the band seems to strive for a bit of his infernal fury.
There's also seeds for the later, more composed work though, with flittering pianos, vocal harmonies, and spare, upbeat poppy structures cropping up throughout.
As an album, it hangs together pretty well, seeming like a missing link between earlyish Beatles, earlyish Stones, and early-to-middleish Kinks. A solid slice of 60's rock, and a missing piece I'm glad to have cleared up 4/5
You might like this if: You like earlyish Beatles, earlyish Stones, and early-to-middleish Kinks and have somehow missed this before now.
#390 David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name
Still part of my lost years year-by-year trawl, this time jumping all the way to 1971. There's a few earlier ones still lined up, but it turns out I've actually heard more of the 60's biguns than I thought.
This is an album where the cover sums it up pretty nicely, all the hippie dippy trippiness implied by Crosby's floating face, all the languid vibe implied by the sunset, and all of the fire implied by the oranges and reds and yellows themselves, decomposed. The latter rears its head in the lurching swagger and drawl of Cowboy Movie and the proto-Zeppelin crawl of What are Their Names.
But the highlights are actually the moments, harmonious in sound and sentiment, that form the album's shimmering backbone, that flicker and stun like a sunset off the sea. The singular highlight is definitely Laughing, which sets a blueprint for the best Yo La Tengo and Songs: Ohia songs to come decades later. It builds on nuanced bass, layered guitars and flowery sentiment, but then cracks open into one of the finest musical moments I've heard in years, as high vocals and high guitars take the song higher and higher. I could listen to the 3:30-4:30 sequence for hours, and practically have, lately.
The rest of the album doesn't quite rise to those transcendental peaks, but it follows the same blueprint: lush, a little ridiculous if you think about it, but sublime if you allow yourself not to. Really quite gorgeous and perfectly executed as an album, with perfect flow and presence.
Other than Laughing, I don't know that it stands out to me. It fades into the background a bit, swooping effortlessly from track to track, from line to line, on the back of perfect harmonies that turn the songs to mush, but I'm not convinced that's such a bad thing. Definitely a find. Maybe I'm just in the right mood, and I suspect it will fall off for me, but my instinct is to set this on the low end of 4.5/5
You might like this if: you have patience enough for a bit of flower child goofiness, and long for harmonies, interlocking guitars, lush production and beauty.
This is an album where the cover sums it up pretty nicely, all the hippie dippy trippiness implied by Crosby's floating face, all the languid vibe implied by the sunset, and all of the fire implied by the oranges and reds and yellows themselves, decomposed. The latter rears its head in the lurching swagger and drawl of Cowboy Movie and the proto-Zeppelin crawl of What are Their Names.
But the highlights are actually the moments, harmonious in sound and sentiment, that form the album's shimmering backbone, that flicker and stun like a sunset off the sea. The singular highlight is definitely Laughing, which sets a blueprint for the best Yo La Tengo and Songs: Ohia songs to come decades later. It builds on nuanced bass, layered guitars and flowery sentiment, but then cracks open into one of the finest musical moments I've heard in years, as high vocals and high guitars take the song higher and higher. I could listen to the 3:30-4:30 sequence for hours, and practically have, lately.
The rest of the album doesn't quite rise to those transcendental peaks, but it follows the same blueprint: lush, a little ridiculous if you think about it, but sublime if you allow yourself not to. Really quite gorgeous and perfectly executed as an album, with perfect flow and presence.
Other than Laughing, I don't know that it stands out to me. It fades into the background a bit, swooping effortlessly from track to track, from line to line, on the back of perfect harmonies that turn the songs to mush, but I'm not convinced that's such a bad thing. Definitely a find. Maybe I'm just in the right mood, and I suspect it will fall off for me, but my instinct is to set this on the low end of 4.5/5
You might like this if: you have patience enough for a bit of flower child goofiness, and long for harmonies, interlocking guitars, lush production and beauty.
#389 Robert Johnson - King of the Delta Blues Singers
My thorough roll through 1969 got me thinking, let's do this up right, really plug all the holes left in my rock and roll background, born, as I was, 30+ years too late. I'm not quite in the mood for anything really reeeally early, so 1961 was as far back as I made it, to this very highly regarded, foundational blues compilation.
This is an album where you really need to know a lot about rock, the guitar, the blues, and everything to really get it. I think a lot of the draw is subtle, in knowing that Johnson did it first, in knowing that some little trick is actually quite a tricky trick on the guitar. I know a lot about rock, but maybe I just don't know enough, or maybe I just didn't pay close enough attention, or maybe I'm just not quite enough of a guitar wonk, but I didn't find myself loving this as much as I feel like I'm supposed to.
I recognize some of the greatness. The key is to realize this is one guy and one guitar, weaving proto-Lightning-Bolt double parts in some places, pulling pluck-strum-something-in-between-strum-pluckity-pluck-pluck-strum-and-back whoops and whirls and warps and woofs again and again. And on tracks like Preaching Blues, there is a absolutely a raw energy that I admire a lot, and even enjoy.
But, well. I feel like maybe this is great, but I don't feel like its great to listen to. It's reedy, erratic, mono, grating, really. It feels like a silent movie, where you watch it and respect it, but struggle to be as fully engaged as you would with something a bit more full-featured, and a bit more tied to your own actual reality. Maybe I'm bad at culture, and maybe I'll look back at this years from now and cringe (which is part of the fun of this blog, I suppose, the record of evolving impressions), but I didn't much enjoy this, and don't see revisiting it until, perhaps, I feel like I've obtained whatever muso insight is needed to appreciate it. I mean this mostly sincerely, but, admittedly, maybe a bit backhandedly. Guess I just don't get it 2.5/5
You might like this if: you want a history lesson on early blues, some deft guitar playing, and don't mind if the sound of it hurts your ears a bit in the process. If you have a record player and can rummage up a copy. I feel like this would potentially be a lot sweeter on vinyl.
This is an album where you really need to know a lot about rock, the guitar, the blues, and everything to really get it. I think a lot of the draw is subtle, in knowing that Johnson did it first, in knowing that some little trick is actually quite a tricky trick on the guitar. I know a lot about rock, but maybe I just don't know enough, or maybe I just didn't pay close enough attention, or maybe I'm just not quite enough of a guitar wonk, but I didn't find myself loving this as much as I feel like I'm supposed to.
I recognize some of the greatness. The key is to realize this is one guy and one guitar, weaving proto-Lightning-Bolt double parts in some places, pulling pluck-strum-something-in-between-strum-pluckity-pluck-pluck-strum-and-back whoops and whirls and warps and woofs again and again. And on tracks like Preaching Blues, there is a absolutely a raw energy that I admire a lot, and even enjoy.
But, well. I feel like maybe this is great, but I don't feel like its great to listen to. It's reedy, erratic, mono, grating, really. It feels like a silent movie, where you watch it and respect it, but struggle to be as fully engaged as you would with something a bit more full-featured, and a bit more tied to your own actual reality. Maybe I'm bad at culture, and maybe I'll look back at this years from now and cringe (which is part of the fun of this blog, I suppose, the record of evolving impressions), but I didn't much enjoy this, and don't see revisiting it until, perhaps, I feel like I've obtained whatever muso insight is needed to appreciate it. I mean this mostly sincerely, but, admittedly, maybe a bit backhandedly. Guess I just don't get it 2.5/5
You might like this if: you want a history lesson on early blues, some deft guitar playing, and don't mind if the sound of it hurts your ears a bit in the process. If you have a record player and can rummage up a copy. I feel like this would potentially be a lot sweeter on vinyl.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
#388 Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
1969'd!
I liked Zappa's early freaky acid flashback doowop albums with The Mothers of Invention pretty good, but never did hear this, his first post-mothers solo effort.
Nothing on the earlier Mothers albums prepared me for this, 50 minutes of (mostly) instrumental jazz-influenced jams. Really goddamn good instrumental jazz-influenced jams. Each track (except for maybe Little Umbellas, the shortest of the 6, which is a bit too unstructured) overflows with great hooks that you can't help but tap and bob to. The backing is complex and sinewy, with rollicking bass, jagged guitar texture, clenched-up beats, and on top are some incendiary guitar and horn solos. The whole album exudes talent, and exorcises the demons associated with most things dubbed "jams"; this is some legitimately listenable stuff, made by guys who either paid an un-jamly amount of attention to keeping the listener entertained, or just have good musicianship in their veins. I'm guessing a bit of both: this is clearly well-composed, but also really expertly executed, with plenty of raw, live energy. Throw some kickass, trippy production on top and this is the kind of undiscovered classic I rarely find anymore.
No sense really describing it all that much more. It's got hooks, perfectly balances repetition with change over time, and is bound to be a long-running favorite 4.5/5
Edit 9/2/11: Shoulda been a 5
You might like this if: If you liked The National Anthem (Radiohead) and want something tighter and woolier and heavier (see especially The Gumbo Variation). If you like guitar riffs, and have even a basic level of patience for length, experimentation and noise.
I liked Zappa's early freaky acid flashback doowop albums with The Mothers of Invention pretty good, but never did hear this, his first post-mothers solo effort.
Nothing on the earlier Mothers albums prepared me for this, 50 minutes of (mostly) instrumental jazz-influenced jams. Really goddamn good instrumental jazz-influenced jams. Each track (except for maybe Little Umbellas, the shortest of the 6, which is a bit too unstructured) overflows with great hooks that you can't help but tap and bob to. The backing is complex and sinewy, with rollicking bass, jagged guitar texture, clenched-up beats, and on top are some incendiary guitar and horn solos. The whole album exudes talent, and exorcises the demons associated with most things dubbed "jams"; this is some legitimately listenable stuff, made by guys who either paid an un-jamly amount of attention to keeping the listener entertained, or just have good musicianship in their veins. I'm guessing a bit of both: this is clearly well-composed, but also really expertly executed, with plenty of raw, live energy. Throw some kickass, trippy production on top and this is the kind of undiscovered classic I rarely find anymore.
No sense really describing it all that much more. It's got hooks, perfectly balances repetition with change over time, and is bound to be a long-running favorite 4.5/5
Edit 9/2/11: Shoulda been a 5
You might like this if: If you liked The National Anthem (Radiohead) and want something tighter and woolier and heavier (see especially The Gumbo Variation). If you like guitar riffs, and have even a basic level of patience for length, experimentation and noise.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
#387 Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen
Another pickup from my trawl through the lists of great 1969 albums, which lead me to Song from a Room, which lead me to read that his debut was maybe actually a better place to start. And here we are.
This is built, nearly entirely, on its lyrics. Which is tough for me, since I often tune words out a bit, and when they do get their hooks in, it often takes a lot of listens before they get scratched into my soul. But I made an effort to listen, giving this some long train rides and walks from train stations and a healthy dallop of my attention.
Things start off mostly strong. I dug the Norwegian Wood meets Chillout Tent tale of Suzanne, and Master Song's surging pluckings give a powerful undertone to its story. Through the middle though, some songs just don't quite pop for me - Stranger Song reads a bit half-baked and limp to my ear, and Sisters of Mercy is overbusy and cluttered given its slow pace.
I also have to remind myself though, 1967. This was some rich, heady stuff thenabouts, and its echoes can be heard in singer/songwriter types from Nick Drake to Stephin Merritt. And then there's that album closer, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, that is just a dense, masterful crusher of a song, the kind that I didn't know we knew how to make thenabouts, and that holds up to this day along such dense, monumental, building, quietly epic closers as The Bewlay Brothers, Two Headed Boy pt. 2, and Motion Picture Soundtrack, ebony obelisks, each, looming with dark, passive, inexorable power. That alone pushes this otherwise historically-interesting-but-not-quite-for-me album into the high end of 3.5/5
You might like this if: You like languidly paced, morose, dense, singer/songwriter ballads, and hunger for the occasional glint of beauty from the fog.
This is built, nearly entirely, on its lyrics. Which is tough for me, since I often tune words out a bit, and when they do get their hooks in, it often takes a lot of listens before they get scratched into my soul. But I made an effort to listen, giving this some long train rides and walks from train stations and a healthy dallop of my attention.
Things start off mostly strong. I dug the Norwegian Wood meets Chillout Tent tale of Suzanne, and Master Song's surging pluckings give a powerful undertone to its story. Through the middle though, some songs just don't quite pop for me - Stranger Song reads a bit half-baked and limp to my ear, and Sisters of Mercy is overbusy and cluttered given its slow pace.
I also have to remind myself though, 1967. This was some rich, heady stuff thenabouts, and its echoes can be heard in singer/songwriter types from Nick Drake to Stephin Merritt. And then there's that album closer, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, that is just a dense, masterful crusher of a song, the kind that I didn't know we knew how to make thenabouts, and that holds up to this day along such dense, monumental, building, quietly epic closers as The Bewlay Brothers, Two Headed Boy pt. 2, and Motion Picture Soundtrack, ebony obelisks, each, looming with dark, passive, inexorable power. That alone pushes this otherwise historically-interesting-but-not-quite-for-me album into the high end of 3.5/5
You might like this if: You like languidly paced, morose, dense, singer/songwriter ballads, and hunger for the occasional glint of beauty from the fog.
Friday, August 19, 2011
#386 Moe Pope - Life After God
Man, there is no rap in this town. I guess I kind of assumed that there was a bit everywhere. LA, Baltimore, NY, ATL, why not Boston? A quick pass over The Phoenix revealed that Moe was their recent rapper of the year, so let's start there.
The rapping's good here. Not amazing, but good. Deft, with some good clever turns; hard without going into shootyall territory; altogether solid, nary a stray syllable, without coming across overproduced or punched in. The pair of Rock Me songs are the stars, with part I pulling some nice Fumbling Over Words that Rhyme-style namedrop gymnastics, and Part II evoking Ratatat's remixes with its ethereal Stereolab sampling. That said, there are hardly any "oh shit!" rhymes on there, nothing to knock your socks off, and that's the kind of thing my favorite rap albums are built on.
Besides, the real star here is the production by Rain. He chops, loops, but gracefully, making this sound like the greatest hip-hop album The Avalanches never produced. Little whisps of soul here and there, clipped off, strained, surging, swooning, over horns, guitars, synths and bass, all braided elegantly.
I have to confess, too, that I'm still on kind of Boston tip, so all the references give me more of a thrill than they should. Has been a fun listen though, and holds a mostly-deserved special spot thanks to its role in my life, good for a solid 4/5
You might like this if: You like Avalances-style sample-driven, slightly-experimental, soul-dusted production, and have a taste for solid, if not spectacular, rapping. Or if you're from Boston.
The rapping's good here. Not amazing, but good. Deft, with some good clever turns; hard without going into shootyall territory; altogether solid, nary a stray syllable, without coming across overproduced or punched in. The pair of Rock Me songs are the stars, with part I pulling some nice Fumbling Over Words that Rhyme-style namedrop gymnastics, and Part II evoking Ratatat's remixes with its ethereal Stereolab sampling. That said, there are hardly any "oh shit!" rhymes on there, nothing to knock your socks off, and that's the kind of thing my favorite rap albums are built on.
Besides, the real star here is the production by Rain. He chops, loops, but gracefully, making this sound like the greatest hip-hop album The Avalanches never produced. Little whisps of soul here and there, clipped off, strained, surging, swooning, over horns, guitars, synths and bass, all braided elegantly.
I have to confess, too, that I'm still on kind of Boston tip, so all the references give me more of a thrill than they should. Has been a fun listen though, and holds a mostly-deserved special spot thanks to its role in my life, good for a solid 4/5
You might like this if: You like Avalances-style sample-driven, slightly-experimental, soul-dusted production, and have a taste for solid, if not spectacular, rapping. Or if you're from Boston.
#385 Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn
I realized all these great albums I liked came out in 1969. What else came out then? A lot of shit, most of which I've heard. But not this! And I did like the later-name-shortened-band-name'd T-Rex's stuff.
Here things are still pretty folky, and pretty messy, in a ratio of amazing to annoying of roughly 3-to-2. Good, but not dominant, that ratio. Bolan's whiny whinny of a voice trills and swoons and vibratos wildly, sounding at times a bit ridiculous. And the actual musicianship is often sloppy, repetitive and indulgent. Evenings of Damask sounds like open mic night gone wrong, or maybe a the bad end of a Jet Ski Accident session.
But sometimes that messiness works - with the oohs and ahhs and noises and ulations rising euphoric with tribal, simpler-than-now pulse. See Nijinsky Hind in particular, it just really just works. And in other places, structure and discipline and melody coalesce impossible, making these really timeless pieces of folk beauty shimmer into place. As in the next two late game tracks, Pilgrim's Tale and The Misty Coast of Albany both, which lift the album to new levels on the way out. Another case for my track-position-role analysis that I keep putting off.
You can also hear the echoes of the songs to come here, with Chariots of Silk setting the blueprint for that balance of stomp and swoon and mess and spine that we would see on tracks like Cosmic Dancer. Which is fun.
Overall, if you have any interest in glam, you better have an interest in T Rex, and from there you ought to have an interest in this. It's a listen I'm really glad to have taken the time for, bridging styles and band eras and sounds in ways that give a little bit of the cosmic shiver 4/5
You might like this if: you like slightly freaky folk, don't mind ramshackle, rough-edges trippy indulgence, and have an interest in some of glam's buried foundations.
Here things are still pretty folky, and pretty messy, in a ratio of amazing to annoying of roughly 3-to-2. Good, but not dominant, that ratio. Bolan's whiny whinny of a voice trills and swoons and vibratos wildly, sounding at times a bit ridiculous. And the actual musicianship is often sloppy, repetitive and indulgent. Evenings of Damask sounds like open mic night gone wrong, or maybe a the bad end of a Jet Ski Accident session.
But sometimes that messiness works - with the oohs and ahhs and noises and ulations rising euphoric with tribal, simpler-than-now pulse. See Nijinsky Hind in particular, it just really just works. And in other places, structure and discipline and melody coalesce impossible, making these really timeless pieces of folk beauty shimmer into place. As in the next two late game tracks, Pilgrim's Tale and The Misty Coast of Albany both, which lift the album to new levels on the way out. Another case for my track-position-role analysis that I keep putting off.
You can also hear the echoes of the songs to come here, with Chariots of Silk setting the blueprint for that balance of stomp and swoon and mess and spine that we would see on tracks like Cosmic Dancer. Which is fun.
Overall, if you have any interest in glam, you better have an interest in T Rex, and from there you ought to have an interest in this. It's a listen I'm really glad to have taken the time for, bridging styles and band eras and sounds in ways that give a little bit of the cosmic shiver 4/5
You might like this if: you like slightly freaky folk, don't mind ramshackle, rough-edges trippy indulgence, and have an interest in some of glam's buried foundations.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
#384 Washed Out - Within and Without
Brit'd! Well, partially. Several people have mentioned these guys lately, and they got fork'd pretty good, so I guess I'd better keep up. Recovering, recovering, cred returning, if slowly.
This treads some pretty well-traveled ground, wallowing in the kind of reverb-drenched, near-ambient, minimally-beated emotional soakins that are popular these days, sounding most obviously like Cut Copy (who they're sharing a stage with soon, I hear!) in their echoing-off-the-stars night-lasting-forever sentimentality.
Which is a backhanded assessment that's not inaccurate, but not really very fair. There's more here. For one, the production here is pretty darn brilliant, with plenty of tones, bleeps, surges, basslines and drums that are fraught with nuance and perfectly balanced. Listen to Far Away's Ratatat surges, crisp rattle skitches, nuanced bass, rumbling strings, perfectly honed thump thumps - whatever this scene's tricks are, these guys are performing them far better than is strictly necessary.
There are other details that elevate this too, most notably on Before, where a single, clipped, broken, incomprehensible vocal sample, repeated again and again builds an unbelievable amount of tension that the rest of the song strives (not altogether successfully) to sooth with synths. It reminds me quite a lot of early M83, America in particular, where fragments go by and flick your brainstem near-subliminally.
One last thing I appreciate is the album's brisk pacing, done in 40 minutes. It makes an otherwise overbearing experience a bit more precious, and inspires repeated listenings, and therefore the kind of track-level repetition needed to get music like this properly scratched into your soul. It's something few bands outside of Radiohead have figured out: shorter albums are sometimes better. Let a gesture be the size it naturally should be, it doesn't need to bloat to fit your concept of a 55 minute masterstroke.
I don't think this is quite my scene, but what it does, it does admirably enough to earn my respect and my interest 4/5
You might like this if: you want to hear synths upon synths upon samples upon samples, perfectly balanced, that will make you long, even if you don't know quite what for.
This treads some pretty well-traveled ground, wallowing in the kind of reverb-drenched, near-ambient, minimally-beated emotional soakins that are popular these days, sounding most obviously like Cut Copy (who they're sharing a stage with soon, I hear!) in their echoing-off-the-stars night-lasting-forever sentimentality.
Which is a backhanded assessment that's not inaccurate, but not really very fair. There's more here. For one, the production here is pretty darn brilliant, with plenty of tones, bleeps, surges, basslines and drums that are fraught with nuance and perfectly balanced. Listen to Far Away's Ratatat surges, crisp rattle skitches, nuanced bass, rumbling strings, perfectly honed thump thumps - whatever this scene's tricks are, these guys are performing them far better than is strictly necessary.
There are other details that elevate this too, most notably on Before, where a single, clipped, broken, incomprehensible vocal sample, repeated again and again builds an unbelievable amount of tension that the rest of the song strives (not altogether successfully) to sooth with synths. It reminds me quite a lot of early M83, America in particular, where fragments go by and flick your brainstem near-subliminally.
One last thing I appreciate is the album's brisk pacing, done in 40 minutes. It makes an otherwise overbearing experience a bit more precious, and inspires repeated listenings, and therefore the kind of track-level repetition needed to get music like this properly scratched into your soul. It's something few bands outside of Radiohead have figured out: shorter albums are sometimes better. Let a gesture be the size it naturally should be, it doesn't need to bloat to fit your concept of a 55 minute masterstroke.
I don't think this is quite my scene, but what it does, it does admirably enough to earn my respect and my interest 4/5
You might like this if: you want to hear synths upon synths upon samples upon samples, perfectly balanced, that will make you long, even if you don't know quite what for.
#383 Wu Lyf - Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
Brit rec'd!
I don't have time to write out whole words! I'm a busy guy!
This is kind of a gorgeous slice of something. There's a magical, ominous quality about the arrival of the first notes, with the drums, organs, bass, all interlocked and separate, flying in formation. It lies halfway between the classic Broken Social Scene unfoldenating openers and Wolf Parades melodic modest mousisms, bursting and bursting with careening energy, and then falling off a cliff to silence suddenly, gone and gone.
The rest of the album follows that latter reference point pretty closely, with Wolf Parade's shredded throat shouting, chiming guitars, and infectious desperation. But it's something more than that. There's something much more live about this, something of Man Man's manic grasping, early Animal Collective's wildman pulse, of tones unheard. It sounds a bit like Fielding would sound if Fielding was the opposite of Fielding; its possible that even the people who would get my usual watery domestic indie Fielding reference don't know what I'm talking about this time, but onward and onward, in the Wu Lyf spirit, onward.
Part of it is that the production is just unbelievable. It doesn't sound particularly overproduced, with all these ragged edges and overblown angles and the frailness in the details (holy shit the stick taps on Dirt), but has a perfect, looming dominant hugeness that cannot be achieved on accident. It's that bass too, that taps into something in my teen years that I can't place that and breaks my shit.
I feel like this needs more time. There's something universal and important in this that I can't put my finger on, and that's a rare feeling for a music listener as jaded as myself 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like indie with a frantic edge, and are willing to trade simplicity of hook for mystery.
I don't have time to write out whole words! I'm a busy guy!
This is kind of a gorgeous slice of something. There's a magical, ominous quality about the arrival of the first notes, with the drums, organs, bass, all interlocked and separate, flying in formation. It lies halfway between the classic Broken Social Scene unfoldenating openers and Wolf Parades melodic modest mousisms, bursting and bursting with careening energy, and then falling off a cliff to silence suddenly, gone and gone.
The rest of the album follows that latter reference point pretty closely, with Wolf Parade's shredded throat shouting, chiming guitars, and infectious desperation. But it's something more than that. There's something much more live about this, something of Man Man's manic grasping, early Animal Collective's wildman pulse, of tones unheard. It sounds a bit like Fielding would sound if Fielding was the opposite of Fielding; its possible that even the people who would get my usual watery domestic indie Fielding reference don't know what I'm talking about this time, but onward and onward, in the Wu Lyf spirit, onward.
Part of it is that the production is just unbelievable. It doesn't sound particularly overproduced, with all these ragged edges and overblown angles and the frailness in the details (holy shit the stick taps on Dirt), but has a perfect, looming dominant hugeness that cannot be achieved on accident. It's that bass too, that taps into something in my teen years that I can't place that and breaks my shit.
I feel like this needs more time. There's something universal and important in this that I can't put my finger on, and that's a rare feeling for a music listener as jaded as myself 4.5/5
You might like this if: you like indie with a frantic edge, and are willing to trade simplicity of hook for mystery.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
#382 The Drums - The Drums
Allston music scene's showing me how out of the loop I am. Get with it!
It's an album of two halves - the first is a lot of fun, with that early-aughts-relentless ts-ts-ts-ts-TS-ts-ts-ts-ts-ts-TS-ts cymbaltap wave of mutilation, sounding like an even-more-precise Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand or The Strokes*. Each of the first 5 or so songs has that perfectly crooned vocal hooks, rife with dancefloor longing, and at least one standout signature synth gesture. Let's Go Surfing in particular is kind of a a brilliant combination: Weezer-simple yearning, Young Folks whistles, all atop a relentless, hard-on-the-3 motorik. Music for taking the 405 to Malibu.
Surf Wax Germany.
Suddenly everything runs really ambient and heavy right as you hit Down by The Water though (which weirdly mirrors The Futureheads' debut's slowest track, Danger of the Water?). I'm all for a slow jam in the eye of the cymbalstorm, but the album doesn't ever quite rise out if it, sounding a step slow thereafter. Maybe you can only sustain that kind of pace for so long, but that energy drop kind of keeps this from being a straightthrough listen for me.
I mostly like it though. Each song is a bit too repetitive, running on a bit too long, but there's a good, steady little heart at the middle. Plus, I have to confess to some degree of nostalgia: see the namedrops above, not to mention the Ben Folds wink of Forever and Ever Amen. It strikes me as an album aimed squarely at the slightly older hipster set, which I guess I have to (reluctantly, on several levels) count myself among - well done then, The Drums 3.5/5
You might like this if: you spent your 20's listening to precise thrubthrubthrub bass and tststs drums and want to dance like its two thousand and five.
* and a little bit like something the World's Largest Band might have generated.
It's an album of two halves - the first is a lot of fun, with that early-aughts-relentless ts-ts-ts-ts-TS-ts-ts-ts-ts-ts-TS-ts cymbaltap wave of mutilation, sounding like an even-more-precise Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand or The Strokes*. Each of the first 5 or so songs has that perfectly crooned vocal hooks, rife with dancefloor longing, and at least one standout signature synth gesture. Let's Go Surfing in particular is kind of a a brilliant combination: Weezer-simple yearning, Young Folks whistles, all atop a relentless, hard-on-the-3 motorik. Music for taking the 405 to Malibu.
Surf Wax Germany.
Suddenly everything runs really ambient and heavy right as you hit Down by The Water though (which weirdly mirrors The Futureheads' debut's slowest track, Danger of the Water?). I'm all for a slow jam in the eye of the cymbalstorm, but the album doesn't ever quite rise out if it, sounding a step slow thereafter. Maybe you can only sustain that kind of pace for so long, but that energy drop kind of keeps this from being a straightthrough listen for me.
I mostly like it though. Each song is a bit too repetitive, running on a bit too long, but there's a good, steady little heart at the middle. Plus, I have to confess to some degree of nostalgia: see the namedrops above, not to mention the Ben Folds wink of Forever and Ever Amen. It strikes me as an album aimed squarely at the slightly older hipster set, which I guess I have to (reluctantly, on several levels) count myself among - well done then, The Drums 3.5/5
You might like this if: you spent your 20's listening to precise thrubthrubthrub bass and tststs drums and want to dance like its two thousand and five.
* and a little bit like something the World's Largest Band might have generated.
Friday, August 5, 2011
#381 Twin Sister - Color Your LIfe EP
I felt like I kept seeing these folks mentioned, figured I'd better find out what the fuss is. So out of touch.
It's interesting stuff. Heavy, ambient, textured, arty, slathered in reverb, all hooked together in unpredictable, interesting ways; so packed with details that this kind of first-listen review is even more useless than usual. I feel like I'm still kind of figuring it out. Some songs work better than others: Galaxy Plateau is just too ambient for me, but The Other Side of Your Face has a great motorik pulse at heart, while All Around and Away We Go sounds like something off a late Air album, from an alternate universe where they got more interesting as time when on, instead of more boring.
And of course, at the center is Andrea Estella's voice, which is one of those raspy, breathy, nervous, hyper-affected beasts that I never know quite what to make of, landing somewhere between a weirder Laurie Anderson and a toned-down Joanna Newsom. It's a curious one. It didn't quite move me, but it piqued my interest 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like interesting, dense, reverby, deliberately-paced art-rock and/or delicate, wily female vocals.
It's interesting stuff. Heavy, ambient, textured, arty, slathered in reverb, all hooked together in unpredictable, interesting ways; so packed with details that this kind of first-listen review is even more useless than usual. I feel like I'm still kind of figuring it out. Some songs work better than others: Galaxy Plateau is just too ambient for me, but The Other Side of Your Face has a great motorik pulse at heart, while All Around and Away We Go sounds like something off a late Air album, from an alternate universe where they got more interesting as time when on, instead of more boring.
And of course, at the center is Andrea Estella's voice, which is one of those raspy, breathy, nervous, hyper-affected beasts that I never know quite what to make of, landing somewhere between a weirder Laurie Anderson and a toned-down Joanna Newsom. It's a curious one. It didn't quite move me, but it piqued my interest 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like interesting, dense, reverby, deliberately-paced art-rock and/or delicate, wily female vocals.
#380 Typhoon - Hunger and Thirst
Recommended strongly by someone I met online. Always taking rec's!
Here you have some pretty stark, slightly devastating near-emo indie rock, evoking Okkervil River's operatic sweep in particular, with hints of The Mountain Goats, Bright Eyes and the usual similar suspects. Musically, there's a frail vocal backbone through it, but the band surges prog-huge over and over again, coming in with brokedown angular waltz rhythms, NMH hotel horn peans, and choral swoons. It really comes together best on the more upbeat, complex tracks like CPR Claws pt 2., the more stripped-down songs are just to bare to me.
Rumor is the singer was in the midst of some potentially-terminal disease during the album's creation, so I suppose I can't fault someone for singing about what they know, but I'm just not in a place in my life to enjoy song after song ruminating on sickness and death 2.5/5
You might like this if: You like big, complex folky indie, and are up for some pretty stark discussions of emptiness and mortality.
Here you have some pretty stark, slightly devastating near-emo indie rock, evoking Okkervil River's operatic sweep in particular, with hints of The Mountain Goats, Bright Eyes and the usual similar suspects. Musically, there's a frail vocal backbone through it, but the band surges prog-huge over and over again, coming in with brokedown angular waltz rhythms, NMH hotel horn peans, and choral swoons. It really comes together best on the more upbeat, complex tracks like CPR Claws pt 2., the more stripped-down songs are just to bare to me.
Rumor is the singer was in the midst of some potentially-terminal disease during the album's creation, so I suppose I can't fault someone for singing about what they know, but I'm just not in a place in my life to enjoy song after song ruminating on sickness and death 2.5/5
You might like this if: You like big, complex folky indie, and are up for some pretty stark discussions of emptiness and mortality.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
#379 Steve Hackett - Genesis Revisited
Ever since I moved to Boston I have been listening to nothing new. Partially its that working with arm's reach of your boss isn't that conducive to work listening. I did hear about this recently though - I'm a big believe in Hackett's centrality to Genesis's heyday-era output, so this seemed like it had potential.
Left me limp though. One problem here is the choice of tracks: we get takes on Your Own Special Way and For Absent Friends, which were never especially interesting tracks, and a series of unreleased tracks, which really sound like more-modern prog-lite: too crisply produced, too stringy, too forced in their Bombast, too Journey. The only really promising attempts are Watcher of the Skies (which is too faithful, sounding a bit uncanny) and Dance on a Volcano (which is at least a bit more adventurous, and the standout of the album).
The album title is a bit too accurate. This is Genesis revisited, but just gussied up without a lot of real craft or spirit of adventure. I wanted Genesis reinvented, or at least respected 2/5
You might like this if: you liked Genesis's shorter, sweeter songs, or wished that their more epic songs had more strings and production polish. You like lightweight prog and want to ease into the messier stuff.
Left me limp though. One problem here is the choice of tracks: we get takes on Your Own Special Way and For Absent Friends, which were never especially interesting tracks, and a series of unreleased tracks, which really sound like more-modern prog-lite: too crisply produced, too stringy, too forced in their Bombast, too Journey. The only really promising attempts are Watcher of the Skies (which is too faithful, sounding a bit uncanny) and Dance on a Volcano (which is at least a bit more adventurous, and the standout of the album).
The album title is a bit too accurate. This is Genesis revisited, but just gussied up without a lot of real craft or spirit of adventure. I wanted Genesis reinvented, or at least respected 2/5
You might like this if: you liked Genesis's shorter, sweeter songs, or wished that their more epic songs had more strings and production polish. You like lightweight prog and want to ease into the messier stuff.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
#378 Vanilla Fudge - Vanilla Fuge
The 60's keep on rollin. A covers album most unusual, by the read of it.
This would be a fun one to put on without seeing the tracklist, as you see how far you can wander into (spoiler alert) Ticket to Ride or Elanor Rigby before you recognize them. They're both actually pretty cool covers, legitimately weaving through some of the songs' main touchstones, while drenching them in organs, length, and generous indulgence. It's a little obnoxious, but kind of brilliant in its way, expertly done, beating Girl Talk out by a solid 40 years.
The other tracks, I'm less familiar with the originals, so I'm forced to take them at face value, and they hold up pretty good. People Get Ready is goddamned euphoric, benefiting massively from being sloppy and unhinged to the core, She's Not There features basslines gallop like besstung horses and the organs lick like hellfire, while Bang Bang turns it over completely and is stark, desperate and taut. The overall result is a band aflame, as if frenetically striving to outplay the devil, with souls on the line. Original songs or not, well-structured or not, I am into that stuff 4/5
You might like this if: You like organs, psychedelia, and the general sound of the 60's in its most densely, desperately writhing throes.
This would be a fun one to put on without seeing the tracklist, as you see how far you can wander into (spoiler alert) Ticket to Ride or Elanor Rigby before you recognize them. They're both actually pretty cool covers, legitimately weaving through some of the songs' main touchstones, while drenching them in organs, length, and generous indulgence. It's a little obnoxious, but kind of brilliant in its way, expertly done, beating Girl Talk out by a solid 40 years.
The other tracks, I'm less familiar with the originals, so I'm forced to take them at face value, and they hold up pretty good. People Get Ready is goddamned euphoric, benefiting massively from being sloppy and unhinged to the core, She's Not There features basslines gallop like besstung horses and the organs lick like hellfire, while Bang Bang turns it over completely and is stark, desperate and taut. The overall result is a band aflame, as if frenetically striving to outplay the devil, with souls on the line. Original songs or not, well-structured or not, I am into that stuff 4/5
You might like this if: You like organs, psychedelia, and the general sound of the 60's in its most densely, desperately writhing throes.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
#377 Humble Pie - As Safe as Yesterday Is
I'm kind of on a 60's kick here, and my continued interest in The Small Faces lead me here, to Steve Mariott's jammier post-faces gig.
So jammy that some review I read (allmusic?) quipped that it was a shame they hadn' written any songs. I don't know when that was written, but that strikes me as unduly glib - there were certainly less well-formed bands out there, and here, sure, the songs are pretty organic, but there are backbones, basslines, and hooks to spare. And, I have to admit, some pretty sweet Frampton solos.
I also hear a lot of Zeppelin on here. The timelines are a bit too close for me to say with any certainty who inspired who, or if there was just some common ancestor, but there's plenty of riffs, proto-metal yowling, and flecks of mysticism. And I think I actually like it better than the early Zeppelin, its a bit freer, a bit more sincere, if less focused, with some experimental twists here and there. Has been good Somerville walkin around music, if nothing else 4/5
You might like this if: Easy answer? If you like Led Zeppelin and don't mind if things are a bit looser, this is probably a good bet. More broadly: 70's style riffs, straight outta 1969. Come'n get em.
So jammy that some review I read (allmusic?) quipped that it was a shame they hadn' written any songs. I don't know when that was written, but that strikes me as unduly glib - there were certainly less well-formed bands out there, and here, sure, the songs are pretty organic, but there are backbones, basslines, and hooks to spare. And, I have to admit, some pretty sweet Frampton solos.
I also hear a lot of Zeppelin on here. The timelines are a bit too close for me to say with any certainty who inspired who, or if there was just some common ancestor, but there's plenty of riffs, proto-metal yowling, and flecks of mysticism. And I think I actually like it better than the early Zeppelin, its a bit freer, a bit more sincere, if less focused, with some experimental twists here and there. Has been good Somerville walkin around music, if nothing else 4/5
You might like this if: Easy answer? If you like Led Zeppelin and don't mind if things are a bit looser, this is probably a good bet. More broadly: 70's style riffs, straight outta 1969. Come'n get em.
#376 The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies
My continuing quest to shore up the holes in my Kinks' experience.
This is such a cheat, when I first started to review this I wrote:
This might be the end of it. This was the last of their remotely-well-regarded albums I hadn't heard, and it didn't wholly blow me away.
But then I set it aside for a week, and in the midst of a second listen, I'm much more impressed. It's almost like first-impression review's aren't the most valid form around.
I still definitely don't like this as much as any of the previous big-4-or-so, and it's not even up there with Lola/Powerman, but it has it's charms. Speaking of Lola, if that album was Exile on Mainstre-y, this one is doubly so, mimicking Exile's more stripped-down half, down to the delta blues slide, down to the buzzrattle acoustic spine, down to the roadworn vocals. It is a distinctly American album, which is odd given how obsessively British these guys were just a few albums ago, and how much they clearly inspired britpop like Blur: even here you can hear future echoes of Parklife in tracks like Complicated Life.
The album, I think, throws you off the trail with a dismal 2-3 punch of Holiday and Skin & Bone, but the next few songs are rich, nuanced, and soulful to spare.
It's an odd bird, reminding me somehow of The King of Limbs (an album it sounds nothing like) in the way that it so fully embraces a style flirted with by its predecessors, resulting in something largely unrecognizable to a longtime follower. I don't see this working for me in the long term: if I want the grit I'll go Exile, if I want the pop genius, I'll go earlier Kinks. But it's an interesting one 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like americana-tinged britpop, and need something slightly adventurous, but downhome simple and light. Contradictions abound.
This is such a cheat, when I first started to review this I wrote:
This might be the end of it. This was the last of their remotely-well-regarded albums I hadn't heard, and it didn't wholly blow me away.
But then I set it aside for a week, and in the midst of a second listen, I'm much more impressed. It's almost like first-impression review's aren't the most valid form around.
I still definitely don't like this as much as any of the previous big-4-or-so, and it's not even up there with Lola/Powerman, but it has it's charms. Speaking of Lola, if that album was Exile on Mainstre-y, this one is doubly so, mimicking Exile's more stripped-down half, down to the delta blues slide, down to the buzzrattle acoustic spine, down to the roadworn vocals. It is a distinctly American album, which is odd given how obsessively British these guys were just a few albums ago, and how much they clearly inspired britpop like Blur: even here you can hear future echoes of Parklife in tracks like Complicated Life.
The album, I think, throws you off the trail with a dismal 2-3 punch of Holiday and Skin & Bone, but the next few songs are rich, nuanced, and soulful to spare.
It's an odd bird, reminding me somehow of The King of Limbs (an album it sounds nothing like) in the way that it so fully embraces a style flirted with by its predecessors, resulting in something largely unrecognizable to a longtime follower. I don't see this working for me in the long term: if I want the grit I'll go Exile, if I want the pop genius, I'll go earlier Kinks. But it's an interesting one 3.5/5
You might like this if: you like americana-tinged britpop, and need something slightly adventurous, but downhome simple and light. Contradictions abound.
Monday, July 4, 2011
#375 The Kinks - Lola Vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround Pt. 1
I came across someone's list of favorite albums, seemed like a good bunch: good Bowie, good Zombies, and then this one. Huh. Never heard it. I love the Face to Face/Something Else/Village Green/Aurthur arc but, for some reason, I've spent years assuming their decent output ended there. On further investigation, looks like this one, and Muswell Hillbilliesdeserve a look. First up!
It's an interesting turn, backing off of the pastoral nostalgia of Village Green and the epic scope of Aurthur, without abandoning either, and rekindling a certain early-kinks ramshackle punk attitude. It smells, by all accounts, like a farewell - a homage to the band and a fuck-you to the record industry. It sounds like a band that has stopped giving so thorough a shit - the songs aren't as carefully groomed as on the precursors, with rough edges, boisterous guitars, and more of the uncaged Davies vocals we heard on Victoria, Aurthur's raging opener.
It all reminds me a bit of Exile on Main Street, actually: there's pieces of honkytonk flair, the guitars are bluesy, the vocals a bit wrecked, the ballads mournful and rejected: the sound of a band on the outside. There's also hints of Jesus of Cool's wry sneer.
Highlights include the well-known Lola, which really does succeed in many small ways, and the jaunty, joyful, mournful, irrepressible This Time Tomorrow. I'm not moved by the (intentionally?) messy and obnoxious Moneygoround, and I'm not quite sold on Rats, which seems a bit out of place on the record. That's a great little bassline though. Otherwise, though, there's a great flow, a hint of narrative, and a great piece of structure with the bookending Got to Be Free refrains: a winning addition to my growing list of loved Kinks albums 4.5/5
It's an interesting turn, backing off of the pastoral nostalgia of Village Green and the epic scope of Aurthur, without abandoning either, and rekindling a certain early-kinks ramshackle punk attitude. It smells, by all accounts, like a farewell - a homage to the band and a fuck-you to the record industry. It sounds like a band that has stopped giving so thorough a shit - the songs aren't as carefully groomed as on the precursors, with rough edges, boisterous guitars, and more of the uncaged Davies vocals we heard on Victoria, Aurthur's raging opener.
It all reminds me a bit of Exile on Main Street, actually: there's pieces of honkytonk flair, the guitars are bluesy, the vocals a bit wrecked, the ballads mournful and rejected: the sound of a band on the outside. There's also hints of Jesus of Cool's wry sneer.
Highlights include the well-known Lola, which really does succeed in many small ways, and the jaunty, joyful, mournful, irrepressible This Time Tomorrow. I'm not moved by the (intentionally?) messy and obnoxious Moneygoround, and I'm not quite sold on Rats, which seems a bit out of place on the record. That's a great little bassline though. Otherwise, though, there's a great flow, a hint of narrative, and a great piece of structure with the bookending Got to Be Free refrains: a winning addition to my growing list of loved Kinks albums 4.5/5
Saturday, July 2, 2011
#374 Samiyam - Sam Baker's Album
Dust'd.
The review there pointed out how this album was adventurous because it used instruments in different ways than they are normally used in instrumental hip hop. I guess I agree. Fact is, those conventions were in place for a reason, thwarting them for no reason isn't, in and of itself, valuable to me.
Here, the samples blur and slur, like they're drunk, you're high, and a thick oilslick fog is embundling the room. Its a bit like the Russian Futurists / Tough Alliance "smothered in blankets" model, except instead of smothering something that is sharp and bright enough to show through (catchy power pop), you're smothering something round and dark (atmospheric instrumental hip hop). That's too indistinct. The result is sludgy, cassette-warped, pitch-bent not very pleasant, and not actually that interesting.
I hate to keep flogging the dubstep comparisons, and I'm sure I'm casting that term too widely, but the speed-changes, wallowing, and general fuckery-for-its-own-sake that characterize the worst of the dubstep world is on full display here 2/5
You might like this if: you're looking for a new flavor of experimental music or instrumental hip hop, and don't mind if the result isn't especially pleasant or listenable.
The review there pointed out how this album was adventurous because it used instruments in different ways than they are normally used in instrumental hip hop. I guess I agree. Fact is, those conventions were in place for a reason, thwarting them for no reason isn't, in and of itself, valuable to me.
Here, the samples blur and slur, like they're drunk, you're high, and a thick oilslick fog is embundling the room. Its a bit like the Russian Futurists / Tough Alliance "smothered in blankets" model, except instead of smothering something that is sharp and bright enough to show through (catchy power pop), you're smothering something round and dark (atmospheric instrumental hip hop). That's too indistinct. The result is sludgy, cassette-warped, pitch-bent not very pleasant, and not actually that interesting.
I hate to keep flogging the dubstep comparisons, and I'm sure I'm casting that term too widely, but the speed-changes, wallowing, and general fuckery-for-its-own-sake that characterize the worst of the dubstep world is on full display here 2/5
You might like this if: you're looking for a new flavor of experimental music or instrumental hip hop, and don't mind if the result isn't especially pleasant or listenable.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
#373 Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
From dusted, though 'fork was pitching it too.
I'm not going to beat around the bush: the reason to get on board with this album is the production. Spank Rock is a good point of comparison: the beats are Baltimore-big, with a pulse, surge and buzz at every turn, alternately spare and huge, and sometimes both at once.
But generally, if there's any one influence to point to here, it's dubstep. Wait, wait! Come back! Maybe dubstep's already over, but this album's enough to give you some hope. In fact, think of this as a really experiemental dubstep-influenced electronic album and everything starts to make sense. It just happens to use some pretty decent rapping as a prominent line of focus, melody and rhythm, and it uses hip-hop influence to keep things interesting, letting at least one really nice melodic line tease and surge through each song.
Look at Are you...Can you...Were you, which does its darndest to cling to an icy series of chopped-too-soon samples, but then there's this looming synth, just out of range. And then at 3:17 the undeniable melodic line peeks its head in the door and slithers out, then comes back and leaves again, and again, now with a fat bassline, teasing, teasing, before heading out into the rain. These moments help the songs engage the bobbing part of the head in a way most dubstep won't deign to, and there's a Girltalky intuition manipulating emotion and groove on display here that most dubstep doesn't aspire to.
As an actual rap album? Its a weird one. The rapping is decent, again evoking Spank Rock with its whipsnap drawl. But the production is so aggressive, so different from what you're used to hearing even on experimental rap albums that the actual vocals really feel secondary. This just might be one that requires a bit more time to get used to.
I like it. It's interesting. On the surface, its pretty annoying, but it somehow works on subliminal level, pulling the right deep strings. It's an obvious pairing: sludgy, bassy, chopped electronic music as rap production. But it's done better here than it had to be, with imagination, heart, and craft 4/5
You might like this if: You want to hear some really experimental rap production. You saw promise in dubstep, got bored with it, but retain hope. This is a pretty cool variation.
I'm not going to beat around the bush: the reason to get on board with this album is the production. Spank Rock is a good point of comparison: the beats are Baltimore-big, with a pulse, surge and buzz at every turn, alternately spare and huge, and sometimes both at once.
But generally, if there's any one influence to point to here, it's dubstep. Wait, wait! Come back! Maybe dubstep's already over, but this album's enough to give you some hope. In fact, think of this as a really experiemental dubstep-influenced electronic album and everything starts to make sense. It just happens to use some pretty decent rapping as a prominent line of focus, melody and rhythm, and it uses hip-hop influence to keep things interesting, letting at least one really nice melodic line tease and surge through each song.
Look at Are you...Can you...Were you, which does its darndest to cling to an icy series of chopped-too-soon samples, but then there's this looming synth, just out of range. And then at 3:17 the undeniable melodic line peeks its head in the door and slithers out, then comes back and leaves again, and again, now with a fat bassline, teasing, teasing, before heading out into the rain. These moments help the songs engage the bobbing part of the head in a way most dubstep won't deign to, and there's a Girltalky intuition manipulating emotion and groove on display here that most dubstep doesn't aspire to.
As an actual rap album? Its a weird one. The rapping is decent, again evoking Spank Rock with its whipsnap drawl. But the production is so aggressive, so different from what you're used to hearing even on experimental rap albums that the actual vocals really feel secondary. This just might be one that requires a bit more time to get used to.
I like it. It's interesting. On the surface, its pretty annoying, but it somehow works on subliminal level, pulling the right deep strings. It's an obvious pairing: sludgy, bassy, chopped electronic music as rap production. But it's done better here than it had to be, with imagination, heart, and craft 4/5
You might like this if: You want to hear some really experimental rap production. You saw promise in dubstep, got bored with it, but retain hope. This is a pretty cool variation.
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