What a wonderfully weird album. Lindstøm's unbeatable space disco pulse provides backbone to Rundgren's meandering, scattorshot ideas, and Nikolaisen's choppery. The starship wheels from ambient to throbbing groovability with ease, doubling back on its themes in ways that feel right even as they catch you off guard like a kink you didn't know you had.
Uneven in places? Sure. But that's outerspace man, you don't get to see the backside of the galaxy without working through some wormholes. Bracing stuff 4.5/5
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Monday, May 4, 2015
#1723 Mumford and Sons - Wilder Mind
I finally figured it out: Mumford and Sons are a secular Christian rock band.
Made for big, broadly relatable, euphoric climaxes - you can just picture the earnest 22 year old girls with their heads lolled back singing along to every word that was written just for them. The banjos are gone, but the format's the same: everything's a climax, or a build to a climax, or a setup for a build to a climax. There's the odd exception, but even the shimmering, simmering Monster feels like an extended setup for Snake Eyes' inevitable, slowburning eruption.
Is it so wrong to have high-low structures? And isn't the album actually rather pretty in places? It is, it is! But its that neverending catharsis, that eternal grasping - none of it reads true, it's all just too damn built to break you down.
Put it this way: if I'm gonna like an album I usually have to be able to say yes to this question:
"is this a band I'd want to be in?"
I'll pass on these guys. I don't think they're really a band. I don't think they're up there making their music or otherwise doing their thing, they're enthralled to making all the people out there feel this way and then that, and it's exhausting, and it shows 2.5/5
Made for big, broadly relatable, euphoric climaxes - you can just picture the earnest 22 year old girls with their heads lolled back singing along to every word that was written just for them. The banjos are gone, but the format's the same: everything's a climax, or a build to a climax, or a setup for a build to a climax. There's the odd exception, but even the shimmering, simmering Monster feels like an extended setup for Snake Eyes' inevitable, slowburning eruption.
Is it so wrong to have high-low structures? And isn't the album actually rather pretty in places? It is, it is! But its that neverending catharsis, that eternal grasping - none of it reads true, it's all just too damn built to break you down.
Put it this way: if I'm gonna like an album I usually have to be able to say yes to this question:
"is this a band I'd want to be in?"
I'll pass on these guys. I don't think they're really a band. I don't think they're up there making their music or otherwise doing their thing, they're enthralled to making all the people out there feel this way and then that, and it's exhausting, and it shows 2.5/5
#1722 My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall
Like all MMJ albums, this kind of slips through my fingers, a hazy memory.
But I generally like it. It's lush, pretty, kicking all the grasping as newness that marked Z and Evil Urges, mostly tamping down JJ's needling falsetto, leaving a confident late-era rock record dripping with craft, packed with a mushy songiness that you can sink all the way down into. There's enough here that I can feel it slowly seeping into my bones the way this band is, I'm told, supposed to 3.5/5
But I generally like it. It's lush, pretty, kicking all the grasping as newness that marked Z and Evil Urges, mostly tamping down JJ's needling falsetto, leaving a confident late-era rock record dripping with craft, packed with a mushy songiness that you can sink all the way down into. There's enough here that I can feel it slowly seeping into my bones the way this band is, I'm told, supposed to 3.5/5
#1721 Les Baxter - Ritual of the Savage
Album's kinda goddamned cool.
Can I say that? Seems wrong.
Word is, this spawned "exotica" circa 1951, and it's full of Asian (?), Polynesian (?), South American (?) sounds, all washed in strings and orchestral sensibilities.
Can you call and album called, fucking: Ritual of the Savage, with fucking tikis on the cover, cool?
Dammit, it is, it's exciting and adventurous, in structure and melody and instrumentation, all soundtracking to trip to hither and tither. Maybe it's kitsch, maybe its exploitative. I gotta say, when I listen though, I am transported, and I feel like I am on a fantastic journey fraught with mystery, through time, and then space, and fuckit if I do enjoy that very much.
Essential listening, one way or another
4.5/5
Can I say that? Seems wrong.
Word is, this spawned "exotica" circa 1951, and it's full of Asian (?), Polynesian (?), South American (?) sounds, all washed in strings and orchestral sensibilities.
Can you call and album called, fucking: Ritual of the Savage, with fucking tikis on the cover, cool?
Dammit, it is, it's exciting and adventurous, in structure and melody and instrumentation, all soundtracking to trip to hither and tither. Maybe it's kitsch, maybe its exploitative. I gotta say, when I listen though, I am transported, and I feel like I am on a fantastic journey fraught with mystery, through time, and then space, and fuckit if I do enjoy that very much.
Essential listening, one way or another
4.5/5
#1720 VA - PC Music, Vol. 1
Pop music whipped Warholian into post-pop.
Cooing vocals clipped and pasted into ransom notes.
Sharp decays peppering melodies with little notes that say "note".
It's a cute idea, subtly creepy // joyous, but damn annoying by the end 2.5/5
Cooing vocals clipped and pasted into ransom notes.
Sharp decays peppering melodies with little notes that say "note".
It's a cute idea, subtly creepy // joyous, but damn annoying by the end 2.5/5
Sunday, May 3, 2015
#1719 Les Paul - The New Sound
Ripping fast guitar dexterity, just pure notes, not unlike Art Tatum's piano runs, actually. Paul works in loads of styles, tipped off by the song titles: Brazil, Hipbilly Boogie, Lady of Spain, etc.
As a showpiece of every damn thing anyone'd heard to do with a guitar up till then, it's a thing to behold. But, and maybe this is sacrilege given the rep of the man's guitar's, the actual tone is damned annoying, a squealing, trebbly little scribble that I just wanted to end by the end. Hard to really love something, virtuosity aside, that is so unpleasant to the actual ear 2.5/5
As a showpiece of every damn thing anyone'd heard to do with a guitar up till then, it's a thing to behold. But, and maybe this is sacrilege given the rep of the man's guitar's, the actual tone is damned annoying, a squealing, trebbly little scribble that I just wanted to end by the end. Hard to really love something, virtuosity aside, that is so unpleasant to the actual ear 2.5/5
Friday, May 1, 2015
Month in Review: April '15
Yow. Nother good one. It's amazing how much you pack into a month. Went
through a mini hiphop kick, continued to root out Roo-players, kept a
closer-than-usual eye on new releases, even checked out a little jazz
here and there. But first, back to the same old story:
Album of the Month
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - I'm in Your Mind Fuzz - Their masterpiece, the perfect blend of wooping riffy freakouts and dreamy floatalong psychadelia. When these guys cut lose they cannot be beat by any band under the sun.
Also Recommended!
Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon - I repeat: possibly the finest piece of hardline ambient ever.
DJ Format - Statement of Intent - Perfect combination of hard-edged // labyrinthine lyricism, backed by effortlessly exciting hip hop production.
Art Blakey Quintet - A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 - Rocksolid jazz that pops off the wax.
The Sonics - This is the Sonics - Shockingly solid album from the garage rock firstwavers.
Camel - Rain Dances - A quietly toothsome take on prog rock.
Album of the Month
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - I'm in Your Mind Fuzz - Their masterpiece, the perfect blend of wooping riffy freakouts and dreamy floatalong psychadelia. When these guys cut lose they cannot be beat by any band under the sun.
Also Recommended!
Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon - I repeat: possibly the finest piece of hardline ambient ever.
DJ Format - Statement of Intent - Perfect combination of hard-edged // labyrinthine lyricism, backed by effortlessly exciting hip hop production.
Art Blakey Quintet - A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 - Rocksolid jazz that pops off the wax.
The Sonics - This is the Sonics - Shockingly solid album from the garage rock firstwavers.
Camel - Rain Dances - A quietly toothsome take on prog rock.
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