It's important to give albums their due respect and to try to take the on the terms they present, but holy shit is this boring. Just downright annoying. High art I guess, maybe, but just unlistenable. The exceptions are the organ tracks, which get a nice warm sound with subtleties in the crannies that somewhat justify the repetition. Ik-ook, in particular, is propulsive and satisfying and presents interesting ways of hearing via its segmentations of its repetitions.
As I just mentioned, Glass does repetition. That's kind of his thing around this time. Some call it minimalism (referring to composition not to sound), and that's fine. The problem isn't even necessarily in the minimal compositions, its the actual sounds from which the songs are composed: in so many cases their actual tone isn't pleasant, ringing slightly dissonant. This is maybe revolutionary work as far as synthesizers, but they just sound bad. Listening to something bad again and again isn't good.
Important, maybe. but only listen if you feel like you need to eat your cultural vegetables 1.5/5
Friday, October 26, 2012
#634 Various Artists - Rework: Philip Glass Remixed
Do you like repetition? I said, do you like repetition? I can't hear you!
You better, because its Glass's stock in trade and here his work is used as an outline for a variety of modern, mostly electronic, artists to play with. Fact is, that's about all I know about Glass and his role in this project, and I've never heard any of the originals of any of these songs, so I'm gonna have to take this at face value.
At face value, its all pretty darn good actually. Hypnotic, but interesting, the familiar artists sounding familiar but new through this lens. All things considered, most of this isn't all that indulgent, with reasonable song lengths and approaches to making music. There is surprisingly little that is unlistenable or boring given Glass's reputation for demanding patience.
This is perhaps because of the curation by Beck, perhaps the most straightforwardly pop-minded of the contributors found here. He also houses the main exception to the aforementioned restraint, resulting in a 20 minute, comparatively narrative track that is possibly the album's best.
Starting off with the click and rhythm and buzz of a city coming to life, the songs opens like sun rising through low clouds on a cold morning. The small details fall away and we're awed by monoliths of concrete and steel and before we know it we're on a train out of town, and then a train through the history of the city itself, maybe time itself, before coming to rest in a quiet reflective moment, maybe on a park bench. Maybe everything maybe nothing. This all nearly wordlessly, with Beck's voice echoing through space, a glorious, insane extension of his artiest moments, like the 3-part closer to The Information. I'm tempted to explain how this whole odyssey could be mapped onto Kubrick's 2001, but let's not get ridiculous. It's stitched together from 20 or so Glass tracks, so its hard to know who exactly to give credit to, but the result is something of a masterpiece.
The rest of the album is compelling enough, but there is nothing this narrative or groundbreaking, mostly serving to ride a single idea or groove in a more traditional style. The rest of the tracks are probably worth a three and a half or so, but the Beck track alone is easily enough for a bump to 4/5
You better, because its Glass's stock in trade and here his work is used as an outline for a variety of modern, mostly electronic, artists to play with. Fact is, that's about all I know about Glass and his role in this project, and I've never heard any of the originals of any of these songs, so I'm gonna have to take this at face value.
At face value, its all pretty darn good actually. Hypnotic, but interesting, the familiar artists sounding familiar but new through this lens. All things considered, most of this isn't all that indulgent, with reasonable song lengths and approaches to making music. There is surprisingly little that is unlistenable or boring given Glass's reputation for demanding patience.
This is perhaps because of the curation by Beck, perhaps the most straightforwardly pop-minded of the contributors found here. He also houses the main exception to the aforementioned restraint, resulting in a 20 minute, comparatively narrative track that is possibly the album's best.
Starting off with the click and rhythm and buzz of a city coming to life, the songs opens like sun rising through low clouds on a cold morning. The small details fall away and we're awed by monoliths of concrete and steel and before we know it we're on a train out of town, and then a train through the history of the city itself, maybe time itself, before coming to rest in a quiet reflective moment, maybe on a park bench. Maybe everything maybe nothing. This all nearly wordlessly, with Beck's voice echoing through space, a glorious, insane extension of his artiest moments, like the 3-part closer to The Information. I'm tempted to explain how this whole odyssey could be mapped onto Kubrick's 2001, but let's not get ridiculous. It's stitched together from 20 or so Glass tracks, so its hard to know who exactly to give credit to, but the result is something of a masterpiece.
The rest of the album is compelling enough, but there is nothing this narrative or groundbreaking, mostly serving to ride a single idea or groove in a more traditional style. The rest of the tracks are probably worth a three and a half or so, but the Beck track alone is easily enough for a bump to 4/5
#633 Ty Segall - Twins
I've said it before, but Ty Segall is the face of rock right now, dragging garage rock revival into hellish new places it never wanted to go, giving it sardonic post-punk swagger and a scuzzy modern edge, his output has been impossibly diverse and downright solid given its volume.
Speaking of volume, things are still loud, with that signature colossal buzz bass and frantic fill-filled drums riding under flayed guitars playing the best scum-punk hooks this side of Raw Power.
Listen to They Told Me Too and you'll hear all you need to know, that unstoppable, galloping beat, that shitkicking bass riff, that soaring guitar, sounding written and recorded in about seven minutes and blasted onto the world as a homemade grenade. Or Who Are You, riffing on Are You Gonna Go My Way, and by extension You Really Got Me, and Are You Going to Be My Girl, and by extension Lust for Life, and by extension Motown, and by extension probably half dozen other songs, running them into each other into something offkilter and uncanny, whipping inspirations beyond their limits.
We've got ourselves a modern-day Robert Pollard here folks, but one who's interested in a decidedly modern approach to appropriate-and-wrench songwriting, one who's interested fucking up the production in altogether different ways, one who's got his song-spitting chaingun pointed in a far darker direction. Strap in, goin' down 4.5/5
Speaking of volume, things are still loud, with that signature colossal buzz bass and frantic fill-filled drums riding under flayed guitars playing the best scum-punk hooks this side of Raw Power.
Listen to They Told Me Too and you'll hear all you need to know, that unstoppable, galloping beat, that shitkicking bass riff, that soaring guitar, sounding written and recorded in about seven minutes and blasted onto the world as a homemade grenade. Or Who Are You, riffing on Are You Gonna Go My Way, and by extension You Really Got Me, and Are You Going to Be My Girl, and by extension Lust for Life, and by extension Motown, and by extension probably half dozen other songs, running them into each other into something offkilter and uncanny, whipping inspirations beyond their limits.
We've got ourselves a modern-day Robert Pollard here folks, but one who's interested in a decidedly modern approach to appropriate-and-wrench songwriting, one who's interested fucking up the production in altogether different ways, one who's got his song-spitting chaingun pointed in a far darker direction. Strap in, goin' down 4.5/5
Thursday, October 25, 2012
#632 Handsome Furs - Face Control
Dan Boeckner doing his thing, the result sounding not unlike his work with Wolf Parade, but with some icy distance and electronic edge courtesy of a trip through Eastern Europe. This isn't exactly Berlin Trilogy or Liars' self titled territory (Station to Station at most on the infection-by-frigid-European-distance scale), but its a shift. The wooly, star-burning woods are traded for headlight flickers and apartment windows and isolation. Where Wolf Parade felt connected to the our deeper desires, this album connects to our deeper inhibitions, simmering instead of running wild.
Still, the texture and tunefulness are in place, the energy and hope and promise still lurk around every corner, and the vocal hooks are still some of the best in the ravaged-throat howler wing of house indie rock. Whether he's in a blackout or the black of night, Boeckner's got a knack for lighting a match 4/5
Still, the texture and tunefulness are in place, the energy and hope and promise still lurk around every corner, and the vocal hooks are still some of the best in the ravaged-throat howler wing of house indie rock. Whether he's in a blackout or the black of night, Boeckner's got a knack for lighting a match 4/5
#631 Wolf Parade - Expo '86
Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary was one of the finest indie rock albums of the 00's, perfectly paced, nearly filler-free, with about as strong a closing set of 4 or so songs you're gonna find put to plastic. This doesn't hang together quite as flawlessly on the album scale, but its grandfather's* peer in its ability to deliver unstoppable songs full of propulsive beats, scathing guitars, buzzed-out bass, and hysteria-laced grasps at the infinite, all laser straight or knuckleballing headward, as the situation demands.
Its that combination of relentlessly, energetically straightforward, peppered with little unpredictable bursts, that is at the heart of Wolf Parade, where relentless, anthemic calls to arms like Palm Road provide relief from the herky-jerky histrionics of Cloud Shadow on the Mountain, followed by What Did My Lover Say? which takes turns at both, sometimes at the same time. Expo 86 swings a bit too close to the anthemic side and doesn't take as many chances as I'd like to see a band on its third album taking, but it does the sound justice. Doing what you do well, when what you do is this broadly defined and interesting, aint such a bad thing 4/5
* apparently greatness skips a generation, as sophomore effort At Mt. Zoomer was a murky mess by comparison
Its that combination of relentlessly, energetically straightforward, peppered with little unpredictable bursts, that is at the heart of Wolf Parade, where relentless, anthemic calls to arms like Palm Road provide relief from the herky-jerky histrionics of Cloud Shadow on the Mountain, followed by What Did My Lover Say? which takes turns at both, sometimes at the same time. Expo 86 swings a bit too close to the anthemic side and doesn't take as many chances as I'd like to see a band on its third album taking, but it does the sound justice. Doing what you do well, when what you do is this broadly defined and interesting, aint such a bad thing 4/5
* apparently greatness skips a generation, as sophomore effort At Mt. Zoomer was a murky mess by comparison
#630 Skinny Bones - Little Meat
Listen free here! (update: not anymore :(
An album full of warmth and hope and regret, pulling off a balance of electronic sheen and human touch that can't help but evoke Twin Shadow. And while this doesn't quite reach Lewis's timeless highs, this might actually be a more roundly enjoyable album, bristling with Wolf Parade's creaky, detuned energy and desperate pop ravings. And just when we're a song and a third deep in straight up Modest Mouse wailing, A Sudden Blame cracks open into doubletime shuffle and stomp, putting its own stamp on the sound.
As far as I understand it, this is a solo project from an affable guy named Jacob from local band The New Complainers, and I gotta say, the production is rock solid. Clear, warm, rich, beyond what you'd expect from local-band-solo-act-album. An impressive start, here's hoping he sticks with it 3.5/5
An album full of warmth and hope and regret, pulling off a balance of electronic sheen and human touch that can't help but evoke Twin Shadow. And while this doesn't quite reach Lewis's timeless highs, this might actually be a more roundly enjoyable album, bristling with Wolf Parade's creaky, detuned energy and desperate pop ravings. And just when we're a song and a third deep in straight up Modest Mouse wailing, A Sudden Blame cracks open into doubletime shuffle and stomp, putting its own stamp on the sound.
As far as I understand it, this is a solo project from an affable guy named Jacob from local band The New Complainers, and I gotta say, the production is rock solid. Clear, warm, rich, beyond what you'd expect from local-band-solo-act-album. An impressive start, here's hoping he sticks with it 3.5/5
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
#629 Big Joe Turner - The Boss of the Blues
Big, but in the jazzy tradition where the horns do the backing and the horns do the solos, and the guitar isn't even really a meaningful part of the equation. Turner is a big, bold blues shouter in the most traditional sense, and his voice is round and powerful, but a bit bland - this is performance of good music, not of wrestling with personal demons and desperation put to tape. That's probably because this, even in 1956, was a retrospective, recreating early boogie and R&B songs in the studio.
Without that immediacy, without that guitar, without that desperation, this is missing too many of the things that make for a good blues and early rock recording, reading more as blues-flavored big band, which isn't exactly what I, for one, am in the market for just now 3/5
Without that immediacy, without that guitar, without that desperation, this is missing too many of the things that make for a good blues and early rock recording, reading more as blues-flavored big band, which isn't exactly what I, for one, am in the market for just now 3/5
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