Very much a product of the time, seemingly taking the Beatles' exact same tack on harmony-heavy versions of early rock and roll from the likes of Buddy Holly (who they named themselves after) Chuck Berry (who they cover here). Everything is a bit too Love Me Do smooth, providing a limp version of a style that was already done pretty well, and that didn't have a lot of room for exploration.
There's a very slightly different flavor here, a certain twangy oddball quality to the original tracks that evokes The Mint Chicks and Of Montreal in a way that The Beatles don't. And Set Me Free has a rollicking, too-fast energy that I'd love to heard more of - instead things are pretty predictable, buffed to too much of a familiar shine to be all that interesting 3/5
Thursday, September 27, 2012
#607 The Flaming Lips - With Lightning Bolt
This, compared to the Prefuse collaboration, shakes with the impact of the two bands, sounding like something beyong what either would create on their own. In short, it sounds the way an EP like this should.
It's a natural pairing, especially as the Flaming Lips have become willing to get denser and heavier and more out there and more generally like worldcurshing meteor, and Lightning Bolt have sent the occasional quizzical tentacle out of their murky underworld.
The Flaming Lipsiest track is the heavy, strangely brilliant (and brilliantly-named) I'm Working At NASA on Acid, which booms and whoops and wobbles out of space and time, one of the first truly adventurous new prog songs I've heard in ages.
The I Wanna Get High / I Wanna Get Damaged pairing splits the same too-heavy-for-Lips/too-human-for-lightning-bolt balance pretty evenly, the latter adding an extra layer of dissonant guitar noodling that somehow sounds borne of both bands, the former panning out better thanks to its singular focus on the car crash lope of a bassline.
And on the far end of the spectrum we have NASA's Final Acid Bath which really just sounds like a Lightning Bolt track shined up a touch, altogether skipping the tunefulness that the Lips attach to even their strangest tracks.
And that's about the level of success of the collaboration, in decreasing order. Lightning Bolt only really works in small doses and draws most of its strength from its unflinching brutality, but The Lips benefit from the kick in the ass they get here. The result is still mostly unlistenable, but undeniably compelling in its deep dark deep space way 3.5/5
It's a natural pairing, especially as the Flaming Lips have become willing to get denser and heavier and more out there and more generally like worldcurshing meteor, and Lightning Bolt have sent the occasional quizzical tentacle out of their murky underworld.
The Flaming Lipsiest track is the heavy, strangely brilliant (and brilliantly-named) I'm Working At NASA on Acid, which booms and whoops and wobbles out of space and time, one of the first truly adventurous new prog songs I've heard in ages.
The I Wanna Get High / I Wanna Get Damaged pairing splits the same too-heavy-for-Lips/too-human-for-lightning-bolt balance pretty evenly, the latter adding an extra layer of dissonant guitar noodling that somehow sounds borne of both bands, the former panning out better thanks to its singular focus on the car crash lope of a bassline.
And on the far end of the spectrum we have NASA's Final Acid Bath which really just sounds like a Lightning Bolt track shined up a touch, altogether skipping the tunefulness that the Lips attach to even their strangest tracks.
And that's about the level of success of the collaboration, in decreasing order. Lightning Bolt only really works in small doses and draws most of its strength from its unflinching brutality, but The Lips benefit from the kick in the ass they get here. The result is still mostly unlistenable, but undeniably compelling in its deep dark deep space way 3.5/5
#606 The Flaming Lips - With Prefuse 73
Those approaching this EP expecting to hear Prefuse's signature manic chopped beats underneath Flaming Lips will be disappointed. Instead what we get is Only She Chapters-era prefuse, applying ambient layering and smearing to wishy washy guitar washes and Conye croons. The only exception is the Convinced of the Hex buzzy-bass of *ahem* Supermoon Makes Me Want to Pee, but even that does little to evoke the microcut master that theoretically guests here.
Frankly, these sound like they could just be Flaming Lips b-sides, packed in some kind of Aphex Twin remix bait-and-switch. Which isn't such a bad thing, and is a testament to how wild the Lips have gotten, but I can't help but be disappointed. Then again, Prefuse reads the Books was disappointing too, maybe he's just not a really assertive collaborator, but rather a behind-the-curtain producer? Anyway, judged for what it is, this is a fairly interesting, mostly tuneful set of songs, but nothing that will blow you away as much as either artist's best stuff 3/5
Frankly, these sound like they could just be Flaming Lips b-sides, packed in some kind of Aphex Twin remix bait-and-switch. Which isn't such a bad thing, and is a testament to how wild the Lips have gotten, but I can't help but be disappointed. Then again, Prefuse reads the Books was disappointing too, maybe he's just not a really assertive collaborator, but rather a behind-the-curtain producer? Anyway, judged for what it is, this is a fairly interesting, mostly tuneful set of songs, but nothing that will blow you away as much as either artist's best stuff 3/5
#605 Mr. Bungle - California
The word for this album is bent. Musically it's detuned, rhythimically it's desynched, thematically it's deranged, nothing is a straight line, nothing done without extra angles and approaches.
The sound is generally loungey, with Mike Patton crooning in a way that kind of puts your teeth on edge, over sounds that just sound like they're coming from a dimension near ours, trying to mimic ours, but landing in some phase-shifted uncanny dissonant realm.
There are moments of true beauty, as Pink Chreschendo swirls and swoops towards heaven. But then, of course, in comes an arrhythmic beeping over the coda, effectively ruining the moment. It's as if Patton just can't help himself. He's like a kid at a ballpark when the PA announces a moment of silence, and everyone bows their heads. And the kid realizes, I can ruin this. I have that power, it would be so easy! And the kid hesitates. But then mistakes the will to overcome that hesitation as a marker of courage, and yells "poop!"
That's an overstatement - Patton isn't childish, in fact he's really talented. But he seems to make strange shit just for its own sake, and I'm not sure that that constitutes bravery. This album is really and truly headache-inducing, for no good reason.
Golem II works best, since it's nothing but playful noise, arranged gleefully, rather than used to subvert music. And there's Ars Moriendi, which swerves wildly from speed metal to soundtrack swoon to mariachi via klezmer, to everything in between so quickly that the seams blur to nothingness. It's a cool trick.
But when the album holds a note its almost always held against another note that it doesn't belong next to, grinding them together, hoping to sand them into place, to erode the listener's will to desire actual proper harmony and tunefulness. It's exhausting, and I can't hang with it except in the smallest doses 2.5/5
The sound is generally loungey, with Mike Patton crooning in a way that kind of puts your teeth on edge, over sounds that just sound like they're coming from a dimension near ours, trying to mimic ours, but landing in some phase-shifted uncanny dissonant realm.
There are moments of true beauty, as Pink Chreschendo swirls and swoops towards heaven. But then, of course, in comes an arrhythmic beeping over the coda, effectively ruining the moment. It's as if Patton just can't help himself. He's like a kid at a ballpark when the PA announces a moment of silence, and everyone bows their heads. And the kid realizes, I can ruin this. I have that power, it would be so easy! And the kid hesitates. But then mistakes the will to overcome that hesitation as a marker of courage, and yells "poop!"
That's an overstatement - Patton isn't childish, in fact he's really talented. But he seems to make strange shit just for its own sake, and I'm not sure that that constitutes bravery. This album is really and truly headache-inducing, for no good reason.
Golem II works best, since it's nothing but playful noise, arranged gleefully, rather than used to subvert music. And there's Ars Moriendi, which swerves wildly from speed metal to soundtrack swoon to mariachi via klezmer, to everything in between so quickly that the seams blur to nothingness. It's a cool trick.
But when the album holds a note its almost always held against another note that it doesn't belong next to, grinding them together, hoping to sand them into place, to erode the listener's will to desire actual proper harmony and tunefulness. It's exhausting, and I can't hang with it except in the smallest doses 2.5/5
#604 The Meteors - In Heaven
Psychobilly progenitors present a sneering, horror-driven approach to rockabily, cranking up the menace and mania past even Gene Vincent's previous pinnacles. This is essentially punk with a driving backbeat, upright stumbledown bass and guitars that stab and romp and rollick right out of control, dipped in a strange, drive-in flicker of morbid panache.
It's a lot of fun, if a bit samey by the end, combining fuck-this, loose defiance with fuck-yeah, tuneful talent, always a tricky balance in punk rock 4/5
It's a lot of fun, if a bit samey by the end, combining fuck-this, loose defiance with fuck-yeah, tuneful talent, always a tricky balance in punk rock 4/5
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
#603 Buke and Gase - Function Fails EP
Now with a newly minted spelling of band name! Presumably to emphasize pronouncability over smush-accuracy.
Once again, the focus is on the rhythmic crunch and unique electronic-via-organic textures of the eponymous hybrid instruments, with Arone Dyer's pretty/awkward keening leading the way. This is a solid, hooky collection of new songs, perhaps benefitting from the short running time though, allowing the band to put together some hooky, droney jams and move on without demanding an LP-length stretch of the sound. Even more so than on previous albums, there is a simplicity-in-macro-complexity-in-micro paradox that makes the songs fun to explore, wielding repetition to give you time to find the surprises in the crannies, nestled between notes.
The Blue Monday cover doesn't do anything to overcome the original, and sounds more or less like you'd like, not doing much to rise beyond the gimmick. That's not a problem with the rest of the album, which justifies its unique sounds with a unique sound, but I still feel like I wanted something more.
EP's are often teasers and testing ground for new sounds, and I hope that's not the case here. This is a bit too similar to their previous work, and I can't help but hunger for Arone and Aron to attempt a leap as big as the one they made with their initial choice of instrumentation 3.5/5
Once again, the focus is on the rhythmic crunch and unique electronic-via-organic textures of the eponymous hybrid instruments, with Arone Dyer's pretty/awkward keening leading the way. This is a solid, hooky collection of new songs, perhaps benefitting from the short running time though, allowing the band to put together some hooky, droney jams and move on without demanding an LP-length stretch of the sound. Even more so than on previous albums, there is a simplicity-in-macro-complexity-in-micro paradox that makes the songs fun to explore, wielding repetition to give you time to find the surprises in the crannies, nestled between notes.
The Blue Monday cover doesn't do anything to overcome the original, and sounds more or less like you'd like, not doing much to rise beyond the gimmick. That's not a problem with the rest of the album, which justifies its unique sounds with a unique sound, but I still feel like I wanted something more.
EP's are often teasers and testing ground for new sounds, and I hope that's not the case here. This is a bit too similar to their previous work, and I can't help but hunger for Arone and Aron to attempt a leap as big as the one they made with their initial choice of instrumentation 3.5/5
#602 Busdriver - Arguments with Dreams
Busdriver has had a hell of a couple of years, putting out a batshit mashup mixtape, a noisy Dibiase-produced collaboration with Nocando, and one of his greatest, weirdest albums ever. The first Computer Cooties mixtape in particular seems to have snapped the driver out of his middling-album funk, and now he's off out there just going for it, doing whatever weirdass thing strikes his fancy. The immediacy has been refreshing and exciting.
This follows the same basic line, with plenty of nasty 8-give-or-take-a-bit production and endless, effortlessly clever lines. The collision with Das Racist is unsurprising, and this has a bit of their carefree smartest-dumb-guys-in-the-room swagger. It's a fine line between Das Racist's winking irreverence and lazy churlishness for its own sake though, and hooks like "You're my bottom bitch!" "It's so squishy!" and "I'm the big dog you're the fire hydrant" dip into the later, evoking the flattest moments off of 10 Haters.
When Busdriver smarts up though he's unbeatable, so casual in his reference weaving, particularly on closer Werner Herzog. This misses the highs of his last full length, but is still solid enough to justify his new bluesky spitball crusade, sounding like he can keep em coming forever. Here's hoping 4/5
This follows the same basic line, with plenty of nasty 8-give-or-take-a-bit production and endless, effortlessly clever lines. The collision with Das Racist is unsurprising, and this has a bit of their carefree smartest-dumb-guys-in-the-room swagger. It's a fine line between Das Racist's winking irreverence and lazy churlishness for its own sake though, and hooks like "You're my bottom bitch!" "It's so squishy!" and "I'm the big dog you're the fire hydrant" dip into the later, evoking the flattest moments off of 10 Haters.
When Busdriver smarts up though he's unbeatable, so casual in his reference weaving, particularly on closer Werner Herzog. This misses the highs of his last full length, but is still solid enough to justify his new bluesky spitball crusade, sounding like he can keep em coming forever. Here's hoping 4/5
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