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Showing posts with label music reviews - pm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music reviews - pm. Show all posts

7.10.2007

Caribou - "Andorra"














Caribou - Irene (Merge 2007)

Caribou - Andorra / Merge

With the Melody Day EP now appearing and Merge beginning their late-summer push for the fuller, conditions feel right for a Caribou review. Ah, Caribou. Dan Snaith, the incomparable one-man bliss-pop army out to avenge his defeat to Handsome Dick Manitoba three years ago. By equipping himself with some of the most infectious and joyfully oblivious poptronic products in the entire existence of said style, Snaith has become a reference point for plenty of people with laptops and a love for The Beach Boys. Not that there weren't already a few out there, but Snaith has somehow managed to elude mediocrity partly because he knows when to hit it and when to quit it; in keeping with that, Up in Flames might be acknowledged as the archetypal Caribou album, but the nine-song Andorra that he's been working on since early '06 makes a strong case for the best Caribou record yet.

In between 2005's The Milk of Human Kindness and the August release date for this album, Snaith has constructed a live show with the help of Delicious 9 and not a little musical handiwork from his backing band, all to good effect. It feels like that backing band had some effect the other way around on Andorra, because it feels more like a band is playing this album than in the past when Snaith could cleverly (and effectively) disguise his largely solitary efforts. "Melody Day" is the lead-off single and opening track; as a raison d'etre, it works effectively with dreamy vocals harmonizing perfectly in between the spaced-out psych-pop awash in summer cymbal sunshowers. "Melody day, where have you gone?" asks Snaith... But the answer is as straightforward as the flute fluttering about. It's as prominent here as it's been anywhere else. The melodies are simply irresistible as "Sandy" duly proves on the following track. Robert Palmer would be proud in a roundabout way.

Of course, Caribou may not have appealed to you in the past. Snaith's freeform palette-plastering psych-pop glittering with all things flower-child was at times mercurial and at its worst little more than white noise in disguise. My argument for that is, if you're willing to listen to something that seriously sounds straight out of 1967 but with just a lemon-twist of modernism, you're ready for Andorra. The additional touches of krautrock on a track like "After Hours" reveal just that little bit more about this guy. You keep wanting it to be boring, but Snaith never lets a good idea wear out its welcome. "Sundialing" is a good example, running its full rise n' fall at just over four-and-a-half minutes.

"She's the One" is a subtle nod to a less organic past as Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan lends his breathy vocal talents to a song that always feels like it's going to erupt into this ebullient acid trip but instead cleverly continues at a controlled pace, defying expectations and pleasing the ear all the same. The verve in the sparse vocals of "Irene" is another brilliant moment toward the end of the album, well-placed as a quiet breather and a set-up for the understated "Niobe," a whimper to end a banger of an album.

For a long time I wasn't really impressed with Caribou. I didn't think Snaith was anything special and that most of his tricks had been honed, what, 30 years ago? But Andorra has led me to rethink this position. Rather than viewing him as an ordinary electro-psych-pop player with a shrewd knack for melody, I've come to see Snaith as a guiding light for anything with a psych label on it. And that's kind of why he's here. While we don't review Merge records too often given their stature, Caribou stands as both a flattering example and a noticeable exception to their Institutionalized Indie paradigm: By bringing people to Andorra, it's possible we can take them beyond that if they haven't already gotten there. Jan Dukes de Gray, Kemialliset Ystävät, First Nation, there's no end to the possibilities, the world of opportunity and wealth of knowledge Dan Snaith can open up. Nestled deep in the Pyrenees, it's hard to imagine a nation less likely to sit in such a unique position.

7.06.2007

The Tuss - "Rushup Edge" EP














The Tuss - Synthacon 9 (Rephlex 2007)

The Tuss - Rushup Edge EP / Rephlex

Having listened to this literally minutes before I read The Guardian's take two weeks ago, consternation and thorough analysis were pretty much ruined in the straightforward sense for me almost immediately after I first heard Rushup Edge. Stylus quickly followed, and Pitchfork were on it today. Instead of arguing over who this really is straight away and detracting from the point of why you're here in the first place, let us start with the music. It's brilliant. Like spectacularly intricate mind-blowingly tight home-electro-guru-gone-wild detailed. There are so many ideas in these six tracks brimming to get out that 32 minutes is both not enough at all and just enough to whet the appetite for something more. It's been a long time since I've heard something quite like this.

It starts with "Synthacon 9" rushing up to the edge of your headphones or speakers with a buoyant melody that would not sound out of place with all this other garbled electro-blogging you've heard so much about lately. Its beats are intricate, flittering and twisted like "Windowlicker" in a wind tunnel. Throw in a little Kavinsky, sorry, Tepr, sorry, Moroder and you've got a good idea of where this is going. "Last Rushup 10" is the same thing with glittering laptop handiwork for the big-time. Each of these songs neighbors four minutes, but its composition and structure is worth listening to for more reasons than just the mathematics of it all; the playing is wizard-like.

Case in point: The quickly worked piano is the highlight of "Rushup I Bank 12," a mid-song breakdown the rose between glitchy IDM synth-styled thorns. And then Mario is handcuffed to a ceiling fan and sent for a ride on "Death Fuck." Once again, the piano comes in near the 4m30s mark and it's hard to imagine anything less angelic for a fuck of this supposedly deathly caliber.

With the Confederation Trough EP already out, Rephlex now have two EPs from a Cornish electronic mastermind. The big question everyone's asking right now is, has Richard D. James unveiled yet another alias before our eyes? Brian Tregaskin isn't talking, and neither is publisher Chrysalis. All the evidence is there, but this certainly wouldn't be my favorite trick of his. That time he fell asleep on a couch in New York... That might be my favorite Aphex Twin story. But I'll tell you something, if Brian Tregaskin is real and this is some mass of confusion, it is clear we have on our hands the heir-apparent to Aphex Twin's electronic mantle. Credit where credit is due... Wherever it's due. Good luck keeping a secret out here on the Internet, Brian. It's safe with us.

7.05.2007

Slow Six - "Nor'easter"














Slow Six - The Pulse of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves (New Albion 2007)

Slow Six - Nor'easter / New Albion

When the fireworks end, you've passed all the police checks out on the backroads, and you're safely home in one piece to recover from a long day of revels, Brooklyn's Slow Six will be waiting. In fact, they've been waiting for quite some time: The group has been around in one form or another since 1998 and they've been performing together live since 2000. Their debut LP, 2004's Private Times in Public Places, was a hailed masterwork of sounds meshing post-rock with the classical and producing something delicately detailed in between. You can ask "Time Out New York" or Stylus or WFMU, but they'll all tell you the same thing: This is some deeply touching music well worth your time and effort.

As the magnificent opener "The Pulse of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves" immediately demonstrates, the group has not lost its way or gunned for a dramatic reinvention. The spokesperson for the group has turned out to be Greenpoint-based Christopher Tignor, who has built his own studio there and tweaks a variety of instruments from electric guitars to violas. However, it's the digital aspect that has most captured the eye of live attendees and critics alike: By taking his knowledge of SWARM (SoftWare and Algorithms for Running on Multicore), which is a programming framework to speed up the efficiency of processors (I think), Tignor has designed music software personalized for his own needs in Slow Six. So when a violin or a piano is played, Tignor cleverly weaves the sampled bits back into the song as a sort of efficient reprocessing of his own. The effect is nothing less than totally organic.

It's a generally downbeat air on Nor'easter, but these songs don't come without their optimistic moments. The quietly drawn-out "Contemplation and Dissolution of An Idea for Two Pairs" is full of hope and a keen sense of contemplation as its title would suggest, but the piano lines during the course of the dissolution are almost angelic, like what you'd expect to hear as you ascend to the pearly gates. Or, alternately, it's what The Rapture would've sounded like if they'd taken a bigger hint from The Bible. Tension on "Distant Light, Part 1: Chromatic Clouds Surround" is relieved during the course of its nine minutes. "Distant Light, Part 2: Now New Colors Fall Like Rain" ends on a positive note.

These pieces are another fantastic outing for the Brooklyn six-piece and though it's likely I won't have the opportunity to see them live anytime soon, you should go experience Slow Six for yourself. Their music can be haunting, it can be thoughtful, it can be soaring, it can be resigned... But it is always good. If you thought you couldn't listen to classical beyond the obvious choice cuts from Wagner or Beethoven, Slow Six is a great excuse to delve back into orchestral music. Brilliant stuff.

7.04.2007

The Big Disappointments - "The Big Disappointments"














The Big Disappointments - An Absolute Farmer (Hot Cave 2007)

The Big Disappointments - The Big Disappointments / Hot Cave

This review comes to you from the not-too-distant past where the Stars n' Stripes are still adorned on every lawn of every neighborhood in the great United States and "everyone" is celebrating Independence Day with fireworks, hamburgers and not a little alcohol to make things more interesting.

Even more critical than that is the music. Beyond Francis Scott Key, what could be more American than Toby Keith, Phil Spector or, uh, jazz? Garage-rock. It almost seems silly to explain where the style originated given its name, but one of the earliest sub-genres in rock n' roll's history evolved in the early 60s with bands like The Wailers who were literally playing out of their suburban garages. DIY before DIY was DIY, these groups eventually made way for better production techniques in the late 60s and early 70s, but with everything old being new again all the time, garage-rock has had its resurgence.

Crossbreed a little of that with the spirit of psychobilly and punk and you've discovered the secret to the all-American formula Boston's The Big Disappointments employ on their self-titled sophomore album and first official live recording (Live at Studio Eight has preceded this). There's nothing more American than two guitarists, one a singer and lead and the other a rhythm player, a bassist, and a drummer. The perfect band formula, just don't tell ...Trail of Dead or I'm From Barcelona. These upstarts aren't actually upstarts at all; Eric Boomhower (possibly one of the most awesome names in rock) and Andy Abrahamson were members of The In Out and this whole Big Disappointments thing was supposed to be a joke back in 1999. Eight years on, they're serious: In a mere 39 minutes, the group rifles through 15 songs and leaves little doubt that they've joined this latest wave of new groups with a slightly destructive garage-rock style.

It's interesting to note that the aforementioned styles that are all over songs like the blazing opener "Only Here Only Now" and the stomping "An Absolute Farmer," post-punk also intrudes on tracks like the rhythm-driven "Dance Track Budokan" and "Chemicals." Lisa Mullen's drumming is sturdy on this release and one of the main reasons it succeeds so well so often, the backbone of virtually every song reeling in the metallic-sounding guitars and subtle bass that rarely dominates. Rather, it quietly leads the guitars down corridors and through back alleyways as on "The Hunted Whale" or "The Ugly Man."

You can hear a lot of Philly's Burning Brides in this release to cite a recent contemporary, but The Big Disappointments are more than just a comparison. They're more than just a thankfully ironic bandname. They are a reflection of America on its proudest day: Sloppy, reckless, guiltless and free with just a touch of gravitas saved for the fireworks. Pass those burgers this way. Yessir, I think I'll have another.

7.03.2007

Cyrus (Random Trio) - "From the Shadows"














Cyrus (Random Trio) - Rasta From (Tectonic 2007)

Cyrus (Random Trio) - From the Shadows / Tectonic

Or, Patrick Picks Up the Ball and Throws it, But He's Not Very Athletic Anymore, So it Doesn't Go Very Far

While Michael may be out and about prancing around with Tortoise pictures and a healthy amount of real-world work to sort out, here in cyberspace where there are no consequences but an email slap-of-the-wrist and I have an actual future in getting paid for music writing, the reviews go on as the planets swivel: Cyclical in-jokes, boring intros, obvious set-ups. Just like Pluto, natch.

Actually, Pluto has very little to do with Cyrus (Random Trio) come to think of it. Everything about this fuller From the Shadows is massive. I mean, big sounds, big bass, deep woofing, heavy brain-twists in the beats, a dubstepper's delight, on and on it goes. There's no end to the big ups that you can give the three guys behind this album, and proof is in the Dubstepforum, where praise goes on for page after page. It's clear that well before the June 4th release date there was some mammoth excitement brewing and not just for the plates that they were putting out. Now out long enough for plenty of people to appreciate but still not receiving the accolades or the attention it deserves on this side of the Atlantic (that I've seen), From the Shadows is a dash of dubstep for the ages.

Memories of the Future and Burial set the benchmark late last year, but by the time we'd gotten it here in the States it was old news. From the Shadows is another excellent step forward for dubstep, or maybe it's hyperdub these days, do they even know anymore... Given that the biggest achievement up to this point for the Croyden-bred Cyrus and his partner in crime Omni (both of whom are from Random Trio) was background soundtracking in "Children of Men," this is a well-deserved glimpse at what's going on in the London underground coming to the surface. A dangerously underrated talent? I'd put money on it given that he's grown up in the scene that's basically become a hotbed of dubstep talent. There's no better spot than ground zero.

The proof is in the pudding that these dozen tracks deliver straight to your spoon-fed mouth. When we talk about deep bass carnage with dubstep, we're talking about "Gutter" here. It doesn't get any subatomic than the gutters, and Cyrus is working some sick Mala kickdrum to prove the point. Bassline junkies, rejoice: It gets better with minimalist mind-bender "Paradise Dub." Arguably the best example of this reggae from the future is "Rasta From." Omen, the third member of Random Trio, DJs as the darkest side of dubstep emerges from the shadows. "Indian Stomp" a little later revisits the Indian influence with a futuristic Bollywood sound. Nah, it's not quite like that. But it is sparse, airy and excellent.

Three additional tracks on this CD will be of interest to those who only purchased Tectonic's "plates:" "Bounty," "Calm Before the Storm" and the aforementioned "Indian Stomp" didn't make it to vinyl, but their quality is right up there with the rest of this album. In fact, this release is so extraordinarily tight and consistent that it can only be something to look for come December. Maybe you'll forget about Cyrus, Omni and Omen when it comes time to make your lists and go on and on, but believe me, your speakers won't. From the Shadows is pure audio wreckage.

7.02.2007

Warmth - "Leave Your Wet Brain in the Hot Sun"














Warmth - Hot Sun (Digitalis 2007)

Warmth - Leave Your Wet Brain in the Hot Sun / Digitalis

Well, here we are. A new month, a new quarter, a new way forward. The dead of summer in South Carolina, temperatures regularly clocking in the mid-90s with plenty of humidity hanging about to ensure you feel that heat long after the sun has fallen away behind the trees. Closed pools incite riots. Girls never look more tan and trim. The warmth has officially arrived.

There are two kinds of summers: The ones with the carefree kids jumping and splashing with their friends devoid of car payments or school loans or intellectual gravitas, and the ones all those Zima "What if there was no beer?" commercials were inspired by in 1994. Steev Thompson has solidly soundtracked the latter, and I couldn't have found a better way of opening up this quarter than with some slow, hot, sticky, sweaty dronescapes. Escapes. Yes, there's no escaping the unrelenting heat of Helios this time. Hyperion and Theia would be proud of Leave Your Wet Brain in the Hot Sun.

And they'd be especially proud of Thompson for this particular version of a release that was initially put out on Belgium's Audiobot label nearly two years ago now as a CD-R. In those days, Thompson went under the moniker of Roxanne Jean Polise, which has a massive discography proving Thompson likes to keep busy. But that early version did not feature two bonus tracks that the patient or unknowing among us will not be gifted with under the Warmth alias. The immaculately titled "Thank You Cloud. Fuck You Deerfly." and "Watch the Animals Glisten as They Trust and Rejoice" join the tracks that comprise the title of this release for 58 minutes of scorching sun and blistering feet on the pavement of music.

Of course, like a lot of music, how you want to hear this is based on your frame of mind. Digitalis think it sounds like a dense electronic forest fog, and if I were on the other end of the calendar year reviewing this album (or partnering it with its forest-art friend House of Low Culture) I might be inclined to agree... But given where I'm at (which is nowhere near Thompson's current Holly, Michigan residence) and the fact that the name of the fucking band is Warmth, it seems only too appropriate to envision the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" face-melting in the sprawling repetition and white-out-wash of "Brain in the" and "Hot Sun," presented here. Every track on here has the same feeling to it: You start out in a sun-staring competition with sounds miles away it seems, before they gradually creep in to your conscious and by the end of the epic you're sitting there with your ears agog as the noise override grabs you by your auditory ossicles and then, just as soon as the torrent of sound and the flood of water and children and dizzy spells get to you... The sound is gone again, just a distant call in the middle of the desert. The horizon blurs and twirls and reforms itself as something else as you recover, and when you finally do, you know you've made it to the other side of Leave Your Wet Brain in the Hot Sun.

Given that fingers are starting to stick to the keys and my ability to type is being impeded, it's best that I wrap this up quickly with an awful pun: Thompson has crafted a hell of an album. But the joke isn't the best part; actually listening to this handful of noisy droners is. Get it while it's hot. Oh man, I'm on fire. But seriously folks...

6.28.2007

Odd Nosdam - Level Live Wires














Odd Nosdam - Fat Hooks (Anticon. 2007)

Odd Nosdam - Level Live Wires / Anticon.

If it seems like we're closely watching the Anticon. offices, we apologize: Mansbestfriend's latest just happened to be a really excellent record and, together with Thee More Shallows, our faith in Anticon. had not necessarily been restored but more revitalized. Now we're still a long way off from this one (August 28th is the official release date), so it's likely that someone will call us out for jumping the gun... But we can't help it. As the latest from another core member of the collective, Odd Nosdam's Level Live Wires hit me in just the right way at just the right time. But while Tim Holland explained in our interview with him that he was putting together the sounds that would make a politically charged statement in Poly.sci.187, David Madson has meanwhile been crafting one of the best shoegazer albums of the year. No, really. You're going to want Level Live Wires.

But why, right? If you were in love with hip-hop and came to worship Anticon. because their beatsmiths blew away your speakers, why would you want something that effectively references late My Bloody Valentine or M83 or even Channel One more than anything remotely resembling hip-hop? The answer is that, deep beneath the swirling synthstatic fuzz of "Fat Hooks" or the droning beauty of "Burner," there still lurks the beats that helped unite Anticon. in the first place.

Less a cLOUDDEAD record and more a world that inhabits the pleasant spaces of the subconscious, the optimistic moments in your REM sleep. Interestingly, the thread that ties this record together with 2005's Burner is a track of the same name. Perhaps this track holds the key to the whole album several minutes in: An eight-track recorder and an unsettling high-pitched Ford Explorer horn juxtapose the stuttering horn that evolves into the bass line. "Burner" was one of Madson's most challenging songs, but with some help from Hood-lum Chris Adams (violin and background vocals), the song comes together as one of his greatest successes. You can still hear the Explorer burning at the end as its car alarm goes off, but this kind of subtlety only reaches you after it's all over.

His experience working with Boards of Canada, Thee More Shallows and Serena Maneesh in particular are all at the fore of a track like the effervescent "Kill Tone." If "Burner" is both the dark underside of his past efforts mixing with the driven guitar/synth splendor of Level Live Wires, then "Kill Tone" is firmly in the present. Its harp harmony is so spectacular, in fact, that it returns later in the album accompanied by some spoken-word poetry courtesy Why?'s Yoni Wolf and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe. To mentally connect another dot, this one has the feeling of a lost Nine Inch Nails song from The Fragile. Maybe it's the piano. Same thing with "Up in Flames." The production didn't cost millions, but it sounds amazing in headphones and speakers alike. It's just got that feeling to it.

"Fat Hooks" is another one looking to the light of heaven for inspiration and finding the blinding rays of Kevin Shields' broken dreams for pop in the 90s instead, but this makes it no less appealing. Odd Nosdam may be the best sound collage artist in the business partly because this album doesn't sound like a sound collage at all. There's so much going on, so many layers of sound, so many of them barely noticeable, that not getting the early pressings of this release that include an EP of the sounds which helped form these songs would be daft. This is a contemporary record full of contemporary thoughts, sounds and ideas that can only be expressed properly through as few words as possible. It is a record that will move you to feel, because that's just what humans do. It's what separates us from dinosaurs and gorillas and Kraftwerk. Level Live Wires is the sound of the human experience, one hazy daydream at a time.

6.27.2007

Filmic - "Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch"














Filmic - Nostromo (Self-released 2007)

Filmic - Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch / Self-released

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of motion pictures. A dialogue of sound and image. The intention to create a unique form of sample-based music that extends past traditional stylistic associations. There seem to be a strangely prominent number of New Zealand duos out there right now (Flight of the Conchords and Over the Atlantic are just two examples that spring to this mind), but the definitions that are the foundations of this review can only be attributed to Filmic.

Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch. Sounds pretentious, doesn't it? Like a grad student thesis or a teenaged post-rock album. But Gareth Fletcher and Richard Sewell knew what they were doing when they put this 16-track, 52-minute experiment to tape. It's been a long time coming: Fletcher used to spin shiny black stuff under the alias of DJ Glyd, going so far as to place in a Heineken-sponsored DJ competition in 2003. As a graduate at Canterbury University in Christchurch, Fletcher made the film "Part and Parcel" which you can check out on both the webpage and the MySpace. Sewell is the classic doppelgänger, slightly less visible but no less important. As a DJ himself for eight years, Sewell has used his classical violin and piano training to get through school to architecture in Wellington, but the constructions and the definitions of composition are what unite the two.

That's where this album comes in. Someday they hope to have Filmic working as a proper collective, but in the meanwhile it's only their own vast knowledge they have to work with. Maybe they won't need the rest after all: If it's not the lush orchestration of "The Effect of Sunlight on Paint," it's 80s cop dramas scored on "Jimmy's Saloon." If it's not the evil kid's cartoon of "Gjinko," it's the jazzy minimalism of "Tumbledown." If it's not the chase scene from a late-70s kung fu movie in "Nostromo," it's the hermetically sealed sounds of "Beyond 2000" on "Gear Shift." The samples are chosen carefully. The 33s and 45s sampled, smeared and restructured for this album are omnipresent. I always wondered how to invade Russia in the winter successfully, and while it doesn't provide any answers, "How to Invade Russia in Winter" provides the backdrop to that brainstorming session. Tense and fraught with concern.

The point is that one song just isn't enough to hear to get an idea of what this album is like. It is everywhere at once, and like its ceaselessly inventive creators, it has the endless opportunity for growth. Somewhere in North America right now, Gareth Fletcher is trekking the continent and collecting the sights, smells and sounds that will ultimately feed the next Filmic album. If it's anything like this, we may be in for a surprise. Can two New Zealanders know America better than it knows itself? Peacock People: Lectures Laid By Borrowed Branch may not hold the answers, but the cards are being played awfully close to the chest.

Kemialliset Ystävät - "Kemialliset Ystävät (Untitled)"













Kemialliset Ystävät - Himmeli Kutsuu Minua (Fonal 2007)

Kemialliset Ystävät - Kemialliset Ystävät (Untitled) / Fonal

There are few things I've heard recently as disorienting and miasmic as Kemialliset Ystävät. There are a hundred other ways to start off a review of this group, and in fact several have already been taken: These "chemical friends" are not total unknowns and have already garnered praise in the past from the likes of Dusted (twice) and Fakejazz. Their latest release - either self-titled or untitled depending on whom you ask - is a continuation in the vein of a deep discography that extends back to 1995. The great thing is that there's no shortage of ideas on this record and the way it's patched together as an aural quilt will have you struggling to count off the different groups you think you're hearing.

First, the facts: The group has been working out of Tampere, Finland for many years now. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the band has no less than 40 collective releases (singles, compilations and splits included). Their relationship with Fonal extends back to 2002 with a compilation called Surrounded By Sun, but their first proper effort was the much lauded Kellari Juniversumi. With an ongoing release schedule, 2004's Alkuhärkä becomes the next point of reference. Matthew Wuethrich called it "rampantly eclectic," and there's little doubt that such a fitting description could be bested. How long could the psych-folk mastermind and [nominal] group director Jan Anderzén, a native of Tampere suburb Nekala, go on?

The answer arrives with their third Fonal full-length, and its blistering beauty is as dramatically ambitious, as ardently creative, as relentlessly shape-shifting as ever. The interesting thing is how Anderzén somehow manages to insert the occasional counterweight in a sound that has such a wildly freeform feel to it. Eclectic sounds thrown in just for the sake of being thrown in can work every now and again, but white noise reincarnated as constructive filler is a rare thing to experience. Anderzén and company achieve it as competently as you're likely ever to hear.

So take the opener "He Tulivat Taivaan Aarista," for example. You think its pulsing analog electronic bipping that introduce the album may turn into some minimalist Bpitch banger, but instead it twists and wraps and drives backward full speed behind into the Candyland-gone-awry world of Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan. Throw in a little Black Dice and a slice of doom-folk for the first track alone. It's busy alright, but it's busy in the best possible way.

"Lentavat Sudet" is more Panda Bearish, but already you can see that Animal Collective is an obvious reference point. Still, the horns lend a jazzy feel to this track, and is that a harp? Bells? A xylophone? Chinese flute? Just two minutes in, you won't care. It's already won you over.

As stated earlier though, it would be a lot harder to take this album in from a neophyte or casual listener's perspective if it weren't for some of the more accessible moments (all things relative, of course). "Superhimmeli" is the mid-album stand-out in this regard, its Red Square drumbeat instantly offset by strummed harp and the lo-fi melodies emerging from the frozen wilderness courtesy Kemialliset Ystävät's many friends and not a few synthesizers. The repeated melody will stick with you for the rest of the album, sort of in an Aa kind of way. Tribal with more monk chants and less shrill cries from the jungle.

Still, the masterstroke of it all is the concluding triumvirate of "Kokki, Leipuri, Kylvettaja Ja Taikuri," "Alyvaahtoa," and "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua." The album is a veritable goldmine of found sounds and mind-altering music up to this point, the way these final three songs come together is unequaled on the album. "Kokki..." explores the more folk-based side of things for the duration of its length, but the haunted-house sirens of "Alyvaahtoa" throw any prior expectations of a "cool-down" out the window. Not unlike an OOIOO track, its burbling underbelly adds an extra layer of sound that still allows room for chilling out. That's where "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua" comes in: As probably the most accessible and traditional song on here, its bass-and-tambourine rocking is augmented by Kemialliset Ystävät's idea of the kitchen sink. The echoing chorus mixes with flittering frozen butterflies and all things Eastern to give an esoteric flavor to what otherwise might just've sat as yet another engaging folk song from one of the world's best.

At the moment it's tough to pin down any one psych-folk group as being the best, because so many psych-folk bands are so good, so on top of their game right now, that classifying or ranking is both unfair and unwarranted. We can just love the music and the brilliance of these artists for who (or what?) they are, and Kemialliset Ystävät is a firm statement for pure appreciation. But if we had to pick only one at gunpoint, er... Just pick this album up and you'll see for yourself.

6.26.2007

37500 Yens - "Astero"














37500 Yens - Chapitres (Distile 2007)

37500 Yens - Astero / Distile

Duos from France is like a punchline you try to avoid. That's mostly because of Justice, but now Chevreuil and Cheval de Frise have their own compatriots to worry about on the instrumental scene: Welcome to the stunningly persistent world of 37500 Yens. Reims natives Jud and Frank are here to burn your eyeballs out with drumming n' strumming not unlike early Hella. If you think you're ready, 37500 Yens are ready for you.

Of course, Astero isn't some far-off foray into the forests of math-rock instrumentals that you've never heard before. It's not Church Gone Wild / Chirpin' Hard. It isn't Mirrored. It is, rather, a reinforcement of already worn ideas. It's not a re-examination at the style, but a fist-pumping reaffirmation that you can still be interesting for a full album without growing too slim on finger-tapping ideas.

"37501" is your ticket in and, though no obvious indications are given as to what the significance of 37,500 is (although it's worth noting that's the equivalent of roughly 33 cents), it won't matter after 27 seconds; from that point on, you are helpless to fight Frank's drumming prowess. It's subtle in this opener, and shades of Russian Circles' excellent Enter from last year linger in the air until a little over halfway through when a guitar onslaught signals that brooding isn't necessarily what this band does best. Rocking out is what they do. Given the eight songs they have here, none could've made acquaintance quite like it.

On songs like both "Chapitres" featured here and the title-track, the early Hella impersonations come full bloom. It's a stripped down approach - How much more reductive can you get than a guitar and a standard drumkit? - but like Hella you'll marvel at how they can produce such ridiculously loud sounds. If there's one twist to this album (aside from the sudden shouting on "The Sullivan's Quartet"), it's on "Canard Boiteux," the song that initially made me fetch this album. In addition to the guitar and drums, a third instrument is introduced: The saxophone. Lending an almost free-jazz style of play, this surprise addition late in the album is both a welcome and rewarding highlight.

Astero plays both smoothly and harshly on your ears as a math-rock refresher course for those of you who might've gotten away from it recently for one reason or another. 37500 Yens is a band that's worth checking out. Like Chevreuil three years ago, you may not be exactly sure what sucks you in so quickly... But you'll find yourself falling prey to the powerful trance of "The Sullivan's Quartet" every time. Why say more?

6.25.2007

Slow Learner - "In Their Time They Are Magnificent"














Slow Learner - White Walls (Self-released 2007)

Slow Learner - In Their Time They Are Magnificent / Self-released

If you've been sitting alone in your room rocking back and forth in breathless anticipation for TV on the Radio's deluxe greatest hits package Desperate Youth, Cooke Mountain (with bonus DVD featuring Kyp Malone getting a haircut and an interview with David Bowie's doorman!), now is a good time to emerge from your solitude for a little natural light and the opportunity to hear Tunde Adebimpe's Essential Soul vocals once more. Except, sike: It's not Adebimpe at all. It's the ambitious Michael Napolitano that does all the work on In Their Time They Are Magnificent. The result is a striking, melodic release that's over a year old and is still gaining steam. Let this be Audiversity's coal to keep the locomotive running.

The TV on the Radio comparison was what originally got my attention, because on tracks like the grand opener "Retreasion" and the chummy "Martyr" that follows, you'd swear it was Tunde guesting on vocals. And considering that Napolitano recorded guitars, drums, piano, bass, organ, pump organ, accordion, melodica, harmonica and percussion for these songs, you'd think he wouldn't have time for lyrics and melodies that are begging to be stuck in your head all day. Not so; from the outside, you could say Napolitano's a czar, determined to keep lesser musicians out of the studio. I think it's more that if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Mulvaney and Blue Man Group member Larry Hienemann stopped in during recording, but otherwise Napolitano took care of things by locking himself in a studio and learning instruments beyond his native drums. It doesn't show. This album is exquisitely presented and brilliantly sequenced.

The most attractive part of the album emerges quickly: Piano. Tinkled ivory is a good way to win over a crowd, but Slow Learner is a band with a sound built on piano. No matter how many other instruments may horn in on something like the gorgeous "White Walls," it's the piano that carries these songs. The art and the balance of this album is that you feel like a fast learner next to Napolitano as he plays the simple half-speed jaunts of "Martyr" or "Look at Your Shoes." These are melodies that sound so simple and basic, and okay, they're no Rachmaninov piece. But the guitars (or the accordion, or the harmonica, or...) bring you in to a song, engage you directly, make you feel like you're at a My Morning Jacket concert or catching an intimate Low Skies show.

This is the other intriguing bit about Slow Learner's approach, the lyrics of love and loss notwithstanding. If you want a really reductive way of describing this band to someone, imagine TV on the Radio gone alt-country in a good way. Another modern reference point is M. Ward, and in fact Napolitano himself has noted Neil Young on occasion. Merge Records. Lucero. Springsteen. Whatever, there are so many reference points that descriptions themselves become redundant. The only solution is actually listening to this album, because it's the only way you'll fully be able to appreciate Napolitano's dedication. Why is this band still unsigned?

Interestingly, while Napolitano has made an album for the post-9/11 world, politics play a secondary role to the greatness of the music. More than anything else, this is an album of catharsis. It doesn't matter what your personal tragedy might be, Slow Learner has made an album for the immediate aftermath. It's dark, but it's also a door brimming with light on the other side. Which side you choose to stay on when it's over is up to you.

6.22.2007

Begushkin - "Nightly Things"














Begushkin - Stroll With Mine (Locust 2007)

Begushkin - Nightly Things / Locust

Yesterday it was death-folk and a kitchen appliance. Today we're declaring the end of post-rock week and capping it off with a little acoustic affection in the form of Brooklyn six-string swooner Dan Smith aka Begushkin. I really don't know how long this review is going to be, but if it winds up particularly short, don't be discouraged. It's just because I cut out the mammoth "Here's the biography and what happened when we last saw Mr. Smith." As you might've discovered for yourself, there's pretty much nothing out there on what Smith has done for most of his life.

This could all be rubbish, but I read somewhere that he was on a sketch comedy show called "Program," which I never saw and can't seem to find anything about... All we know for sure is that the dude works mostly out of Brooklyn and has a ton of friends to help him out with recording and playing. I also get the feeling that he's got a really sardonic sense of humor. Don't hold me to that one, though.

What we know for sure: Nightly Things is a dramatically different take on the whole trad-goth thing that Wolfmangler aptly demonstrated yesterday. Whereas D. Smolken emphasizes the doom and the darkness, Smith's guitar talent and familiar vocal style allow him to bring the traditional folk song sounds forward, not necessarily muddying his voice in the mix or submerging the guitars behind a range of cello-sounding instruments. It's a little more approachable, but it's also a little more comical. "Stroll With Mine," for example, sounds jaunty with its accordion and gypsy-like jive. It's a beautiful song and one of the best on this too-short album, but it sounds so fun to play that Smith's fragile, almost Devendra Banhart-like voice that you hesitate to smile.

Probably the most memorable lyric on the album is "And you can be my monkey girl," which again sounds amusing out of context... But somehow Smith makes "At Night With Me" work as another American Gothic ballad Flannery O'Connor would be proud of. It's the mystical vibe of the fiddle (or maybe the violin?) that's played to balance out the guitars that form the base of every track. A lot of people have been using Will Oldham as a milemarker, but I would rather listen to this. Some of Oldham's albums are just exhausting to listen to... But Nightly Things never threatens to wear out its welcome: At a modest eight songs and 22 minutes, Begushkin's debut instead leaves you begging for just that little bit more.

Because it's so short, every song is vital. A good all-killer-no-filler folk album is hard to come by, but Dan Smith has aimed for the dark forests of the night and hit the ghoulish-looking trees on every shot. Actually, I'm not really sure that means anything... But Begushkin will make you feel like you do. That's power.

6.21.2007

Wolfmangler - "Cooking With Wolves"














Wolfmangler - Uneasy Autumn Moan (Digitalis Industries 2007)

Wolfmangler
- Cooking With Wolves / Digitalis Industries

Are we the last blog on earth to hold out on mentioning wolf bands? Wasn't that whole thing like two years ago? Isn't Panther the new Horse the new Wolf? Well, whatever, consider Audiversity well and truly arrived. We're posting on a Wolf band. There. We did it. It's done. We have it now.

Except this isn't Wolf Parade or Wolf Eyes or We Are Wolves or Wolfmother. In fact, in a circuitous way, we're not really posting about wolves at all here because Wolfmangler is about as anti-wolf as a rabid Frog Eyes fan. D. Smolken is the man behind Wolfmangler, a Polish political immigrant with a knack for avoiding the cello but playing virtually everything that sounds like it. Take a song like "Ol' Man River," for example. The brooding strings you could swear are cello aren't that at all. Instead, Smolken utilizes some pretty rare instruments for not just Cooking With Wolves but also his other releases. Among them: The double bass (with bow included), the cello banjo, the electric bass, and the violin. It seems almost masochistic in a way, creating all of these dark and doomy sounds without the aid of a cello... But who are we to judge. After all, the guy's been around for a few years now and has made some consistently good releases to boot.

What's so good about Wolfmangler as a whole and Cooking With Wolves in particular now is that Smolken's music reaches out to fans of the modern avant-garde orchestral, fans of doom and sludge, and fans of folk. Smolken has cleverly tied these influences together to make a coherent album that you could, I suppose, label doom-folk. Someone has also suggested death-folk, and that's not far off either. Bottom line, it's not music that's meant to lift the spirits. The two-tone colors of his website and most album work also suggest Smolken is working within the framework of a nation that's still striving to modernize its countryside in the face of both the EU to the west and the mutilated beast of Russia's influence to the east. This isn't an overtly political album, but its feel, its intangibles that reach to the listener's mindset, suggests that Smolken's Poland has not escaped the joyless moments of its past. Ironic, then, that the first eight songs were recorded in Texas, Smolken's former residence.

Imagine the Grimm brothers living up to a name without the second 'm' and you're not far off the mark of what Wolfmangler is all about. There's an element of that medieval fairy tale gone awry scattered like ash across the barren, desolate soundscape that Smolken works hard to craft; indeed, both "Czerwony Pas" and "Szwolezerowie" are traditionals. Mission accomplished: It doesn't get much more mangled than this, but the most painful part is how slow it is, how torturously brutal and beautiful songs like "Szwolezerowie" or "Beata Z Albatrosa" are. There's just no escape. Even when Smolken breaks out with clearer, less grumbling vocals on a song like "Uneasy Autumn Moan," it only feels like his pathos is so much the larger. Around him, the instruments struggle onward.

It's a war on the ears for one hour, and at the end of "French Vampire Carol" you never feel like you've won any great battles or been vindicated for surviving. Through his work with Dead Raven Choir and Garlic Yang, Smolken has learned the art of doom and darkness. Cooking With Wolves is yet another stellar example of folk gone ghoulish. The wolf parade ends here on a cold, gray, rainy street. It may not be pretty, but it is worth watching.

6.20.2007

Art Brut - "It's a Bit Complicated"













Art Brut - People in Love (Mute 2007)

Art Brut - It's a Bit Complicated - Mute

Though they proclaimed on Bang Bang Rock & Roll that they were only just started, what exactly they were just starting wasn't quite sure. Was Art Brut an elaborate scheme masterminded by Eddie Argos to finally put a band to all those Enrique Gatti songs he wrote without music? Was it merely a 60th anniversary homage to the movement that spawned the name? Was it even more ironic and sharper in critique than LCD Soundsystem? Or was it irony-free and just that base, just that free-spirited, just that fucking fun? The answers were never clear, but the fact remained: Art Brut was a vivacious group with a live reputation to back up their quixotic debut.

Well, they made a sophomore album. And, exactly as you would (or wouldn't) be expecting, it's not complicated at all. In fact, Art Brut is the total, absolute distillation of rock n' roll. There is no excess, the only double meanings are explained as such in the lyrics, the solos come after the choruses if they come at all, the backing vocals swoon on cue. In some ways, Art Brut is actually the antithesis of the movement Jean Dubuffet coined in the 40s. Whereas Dubuffet envisioned a movement by artists who had no predecessors and who inspiration but themselves and their immediate world, Art Brut steal riffs and snatch themes from the great compendium of rock and burn away the mist and the mysticisms to reveal the three-minute pop nuggets which lie beneath.

But as they prove over and over again, there's a reason we fall for them everytime. "Pump Up the Volume" is a perfect opener as Argos rails on in his usual South London slur, but it's the band that you really notice as the riff Ian Catskilkin bangs out sounds cleaner and more efficient than the best of the tracks dominating the attention for Bang Bang Rock & Roll. As "Direct Hit" proves shortly thereafter, it was no mistake. The band is leaner, meaner, hungrier and more streamlined than ever before. It's the sound of a band that knows exactly where it comes from and knows exactly how to pay homage. The payoff is both stupidly obvious and brilliantly rewarding.

Unlike so many other UK sophomore albums that just didn't live up to the admittedly unreasonable expectations of their debuts (The Futureheads, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, ad infinitum), Art Brut deserve to beat the rap precisely because their strategy is so simplistic, so utterly inane: By debuting with only the wit of Argos and the generic three-chord riffs you know you've heard a million times before, there's really nowhere to go but up from that, isn't there? It's hard to write songs less challenging than "Emily Kane." So Art Brut aren't really taking a step down from their lauded debut, and they're certainly not giving up on their cheeky sense of humor. They are stepping sideways, because they will always be stepping sideways. It's what they deserve to do.

"What else can we do when the kids don't like it?" asks Argos on "St. Pauli." The obvious answer is to start making songs that require some thought beyond the most banal of the listener's understandings... But that would be defeating the point. Art Brut are specifically designed as a band that takes as few chances as possible (some horns on "Late Sunday Evening" aside) and for that they will always succeed simply because it would be tough to fail. Repeating yourself is expected. Any derivation will look good. And while their epiphany-like live shows continue to sound better and better, the albums improve in sound quality, the riffs get more obvious, the vocal melodies continue to elude you... Yet there you are, stupidly nodding along. Laughing and giggling and dancing and pumping your fist. Why? Because Art Brut are rock n' roll. They and the ideal are one in the same. A hard pill to swallow for high-minded music fans maybe, but a joy and a delight to the rest of us that get it because we don't have to get it. Nobody is playing the crowd better than Art Brut. As the impresarios of average, it's possible they may be the last great rock band. Funny or frightening? As ever, the choice is up to your ears.

Cahier (Orchestra) - "Desacreditado"













Cahier (Orchestra) - Degradación de la Madera II (Dustin Must Die 2007)

Cahier (Orchestra) - Desacreditado - Dustin Must Die

For a few weeks here recently I've felt the gravity of big-name releases. It's not something that's happened consciously, but hitting up a Dizzee Rascal record or the latest Simian Mobile Disco does after an extended period of time make me feel a bit average. So maybe I've listened to the new Art Brut and plan on making a case for them... But forgetting the lesser known artists, the guys out there working alone in their bedrooms or their kitchens or with friends on a four-track, would be forgetting why I bothered to start writing here in the first place. Marko Neumann is one such guy, a flood of musical talent unleashed all over his various aliases including Body Odour, Kasvain, Candy Cane and Polka Dot Sunflower Bed Orchestra. In short: Like a lot of other homegrown noiseniks, Neumann doesn't sit idle for long.

Desacreditado, his latest release under the Cahier name, is a perfect example of the Tampere, Finland native's knack for switching up styles just when you think you've had enough of lo-fi freak-fucking out in the violent woods of the way up north. A track like "Luna Llena" gets stuck in a looping melodic rut before abruptly halting in time for the overamped, grunged-out "En Apuros" which clocks in at a mighty 51 seconds. Nothing runs longer than 3 minutes 34 seconds. It's a gloriously short, gloriously vibrant noise record that demands just the slightest bit of attention and duly rewards not long thereafter.

Part of the reason for its brevity is Neumann's background in hardcore and punk bands that he has been involved with since he was in his early teens. That all-or-nothing approach to playing, however badly, has bled on through to his other works and ultimately down to Desacreditado. Originally the product of some downtime while recording Candy Cane's first album, Cahier has come to solidify itself as an organically avant-silence branch of Neumann's personality. Interestingly, though his biggest inspiration is a lack of sound, there is rarely an untouched moment during the album's nine-track runtime. If it isn't the reversed percussion of "Un Traidor" or the guitar fury of "Colcha," it's the looped disorientation of "Degradación de la Madera II" that closes the album in the same way its forerunner opens it.

The tricks veer between Hair Police and Xela, but it's never boring or long-winded. Which, at the end of this album, is its best asset: As opposed to the sometimes excruciating and aimless experiments that marr assorted Wolf Eyes projects, Cahier has focus and a broader appeal. It may not always be easy to swallow, but that's part of the point too. Rarely this year has pure noise sounded better.

6.19.2007

Dizzee Rascal - "Maths + English"













Dizzee Rascal - Paranoid (XL 2007)

Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English / XL

From Billboard.com:

London-based rapper Dizzee Rascal will release his next album, "Maths & English," for XL/Beggars Group on June 5 in the U.S. In a first for XL/Beggars Group, Billboard.biz has learned that the album will only be serviced to digital outlets in North America, and the label is not planning on releasing on physical CD outside of the U.K. and Europe. "Maths & English" will, however, be released as a physical product overseas, where Dizzee Rascal has met much more success....

"Maths & English" is Dizzee Rascal's third album, the follow-up to 2004's "Showtime." The sophomore effort has sold 16,000 units to date in the U.S., according to Nielsen Soundscan. The number was a significant dip from the 58,000 copies sold by his 2003 debut, "Boy in da Corner," which arrived Stateside under massive amounts of buzz.

The two varying statistics persuaded XL/Beggars to go the most cost-effective digital route with "Maths & English" in the U.S. "Many of the sales of the first record were a lot of impulse buying," says Beggars Group VP of marketing Matt Harmon. "It was the feeling that people were missing something if they didn't own that record. That didn't mean that everyone was a fan. It just meant we were selling a lot more records. So coming to this album, we're going into it with a readjusted, more realistic view of it."

And so ends the short but furious history of grime in the US. Oh sure, Dylan Mills has been drifting away from the 140 bpm two-step breaks that provide the pillars for guys like Wiley and Skepta since Boy in Da Corner was released in 2003... But as both the most successful and most visible grime personality in the States, Dizzee Rascal has come to symbolize the Great Garage-Rap Onslaught of '03. The problem is that, like M.I.A., people seemed to be buying Boy in Da Corner more to be a part of what was fresh rather than for actually liking the album. Top 20 on both the Heatseekers and the Top Independent Charts, Dizzee was a harsh MC for American ears more used to lazy Southern-fried slurs over boring beats.

While Showtime showcased Rascal's talents yet again, just a year later he was nowhere for most Americans. What sense would it make to bother unleashing yet another brilliant album on a continually unsuspecting and unappreciative audience? Maybe because Maths + English is possibly his most wildly inconsistent, erratically intriguing release yet. The pink-black-white artwork might be painfully ugly, but the musical point is made: You can try and ruin a cut with Lily Allen or bitch on and on about how tough fame is, but at the end of the day the formerly day-glo neon synths that wove a sinewy path through vacant drum blasts are taking a back seat to both the storytelling and the subtler touches of a Big Sound.

Mike Skinner's failed concept album on fame rings true here as Dizzee starts the album off with songs like "Pussyole (Old Skool)" and "Suk My Dick." Pretty clear what's going on here, and that's basking in the fame and attention that being a grime king can merit; alternately, it's what results from hormone overdrive fueled into that two-step template so popular four years ago. Has it really been four years?

Between his internal dialogue dominating a track like "Paranoid" and the party-crashing genius of "Flex," Rascal's multifaceted personality shines through in a way that might've been exemplified just as well in his first two albums but never quite in the same way. This both is and isn't more of the same. It's both a confident swagger and a career retrospective. Maybe there aren't any indications as to what he will do next, but I'm not sure he needs it. Mills is far from being at the bottom of his game and this album is, for at least half the Atlantic, one more reason why. Maybe for that reason alone, it's a shame Americans will have to buy it via import. It would rob record stores of the pleasure of turning around the album to reveal Rascal flipping us off in defiance. The shame instead is that the joke's on him.

6.18.2007

Moonbabies - "Moonbabies at the Ballroom"













Moonbabies - The 9th (Parasol 2007)

Moonbabies - Moonbabies at the Ballroom / Parasol

One of the great things about not being in charge at a university radio station is not knowing everything. Maybe that sounds strange as being a blogger is all about knowing more than every other blogger; hell, music fandom is about knowing more than anyone else sometimes. It's what separates elitists from mere mortal enthusiasts and the especially cringeworthy casual fan. After a certain point of doing this, you start to think you know it all. It's like, not even worth keeping up anymore.

Sometimes I feel like I've hit that wall; shortly before I left for an historic vacation last week, I tried to review a lot; I stopped when I felt I was no longer doing the artists justice. After returning, I started back in with Moonbabies. It was good to be home again. If you've never heard of this band, drop everything you're doing and go find The Orange Billboard. As an undergrad just taking leftovers from the music office that Michael and Jordan ran, Moonbabies slipped into my hands in late 2004 and became a favorite album that year, a shimmering pastiche of Swede-pop smeared together with shoegaze and dream-pop. At that point, Ola Frick and Carina Johansson perfectly encapsulated who I was as a person. It was naive, but it was naive with a self-knowing wink and nudge. The music was shiny enough to be goofy but came off smart enough to know what it was. Self-awareness. Bloggers love that stuff.

The mini-LP War on Sound followed a dramatic excursion to London and when I came back I found that while I had changed quite a bit, Moonbabies hadn't dramatically altered their sound for their third big release (which included curious yet welcome covers of Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" and Midnight Oil's "Stars of Warburton"). Sure they still had the white noise wash of My Bloody Valentine and had wisely kept the vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys. But a Midnight Oil cover? Well played. Though it didn't blow anyone into the weeds (except the people in charge of soundtracking "Grey's Anatomy"), War on Sound was a holding pattern for their following release.

So you see that I'm starting to sound like I don't know anything with these trite phrases and nondescript terminology. That's the effect the Swedish duo have on me: I regress into my stupidly happy late '04 phase when things like "white noise wash" passed as acceptable descriptions for distortion, feedback and overmodulation. Moonbabies at the Ballroom is, unsurprisingly, not a whole lot different from its predecessors. So why bother?

It's true that topping The Orange Billboard might well be impossible. But whereas that album was near flawless because its songs were so strong, it was succinct in delivery. Moonbabies at the Ballroom is a different approach and the opening instrumental "21st Century" is the first indication: Whereas a song like "Jets" was a legitimate instrumental in its own right, "21st Century" suggests a more freeform approach, an opening to the album proper but not necessarily a song to be taken on its own. "War on Sound" makes another appearance after having been released as a single over a year ago. Its near militant drums juxtapose Johansson's airy vocal delivery before breaking into the cute indie-pop verse.

One of the things about their songs is that Ola Frick's accent sometimes gets the best of him (pronouncing his Rs quite hard in words like "better," for example). It makes for a vocal tic that you know as unmistakeably Moonbabies, but it comes delivered with a hummable harmony and an irresistible beat you will inadvertantly find yourself tapping your feet to. "Cocobelle" is sort of like this except that its faux orchestration majestically elevates it to become the standout. Crashing cymbals and Frick's swamped vocals only add to the effect and it winds up sounding not unlike The Russian Futurists. The difference is that Moonbabies have the better musical arsenal: Both Frick and Johansson trade vocal duties and both are multi-instrumentalists, so there's never a lack of things going on.

Another example of this and of that expanding sound we were talking about eariler is "Ratatouille," an acoustic interlude that sets up the quintessential Moonbabies track in just four minutes, "Walking on My Feet." Just a touch of tremolo to those guitars adds that My Bloody Valentine nod you thought they'd forgotten. I picked "The 9th" because I thought it was a quirky track, its guitars scratching alongside the burbling synths and then bursting free to reveal an Owen-like beauty in its verses. Though it's nothing like the epic grandeur of "Weekend a Go-Go" or the strummed simplicity of "Ratatouille" on the face of it, the combination of both the epic and the overlooked is part of what makes this song (and this band) so good.

As you can probably tell, Audiversity is not really an indie-pop hub... But we review what we like because we think it's good, and Moonbabies is a band I always wish the best for. It may not necessarily sound like your bag, and to a certain extent I don't want to sound like I know anything here... But they made a believer out of me, and I didn't give a fuck about SMiLE.

6.15.2007

Black Strobe - "Burn Your Own Church"













Black Strobe - Lady (Playlouder 2007)

Black Strobe - Burn Your Own Church / Playlouder

"What if" is the biggest question surrounding this French duo. Hearing that phrase, "French duo," probably sets off a bunch of alarms. In the case of Burn Your Own Church, some of them are justified: A decade ago, Arnaud Rebotini and David "Siskid" Shaw set the French club scene ablaze with "Paris Acid City," a 12" single on Source Records that attracted the gaze of Output Records. You know Output's legacy better from Four Tet's early releases, or Fridge's early works, or maybe as the main distributor for the DFA's earliest singles. In short, Output used to matter and Black Strobe were a part of it.

But something happened after a string of early 12s. That something was that they, um, kept releasing singles. EPs and 7s and 12s and EPs and CD singles and on and on it went; they could've made a full-length by the time they got around to trying for Burn Your Own Church, but the anthems just kept coming anyway.

The trick with Black Strobe in their 2007 form is that they're no longer merely another French duo. Joined by Bastien Burger and Benjamin Beaulieu, Black Strobe are now a full-on band, no what ifs, ands or buts about it. The press release for this album talks about how the old French club sensibilities being combined with modern beat-driven rock and Norwegian death-metal; from the off, you can hear that darker side coming out. "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke" has the pulse of a thousand gothic club movie scenes, but its Red October radar wanders in and out of the steadily increasing percussion and electric guitars. If you're going to start off with a bang, this is a pretty good way of doing it.

The vocals enter on second track "Shining Bright Star." They're comically overdone and the music is driven techno-rock from the late 90s. That's a theme for this album, actually. Burn Your Own Church is sort of in the same vein as all those gothic industrial tributes featuring bands like Electric Hellfire Club or Bella Morte with a heavy dosage of Daft Punk thrown in for good measure. The results are both ridiculous and, almost beyond comprehension, ridiculously enjoyable. "Last Club on Earth," for real. Hard not to smile at apocalyptic visions like that, right?

If you don't know whether to love or hate a Nine Inch Nails impression like "Not What I Needed," that's understandable. It's tough to take anything vaguely gothic or industrial seriously these days and I recognize that Black Strobe is going to be a tough sell for someone who outgrew The Downward Spiral ten years ago. If you're wondering what's out there now though that reminds you both of your angst-ridden youth and your current obsession in all that bloghouse rot, this is definitely your album. No what ifs about that, either.

6.11.2007

Eats Tapes - "Dos Mutantes"













Eats Tapes - Lemon Drop (Tigerbeat6 2007)

Eats Tapes - Dos Mutantes / Tigerbeat6

And the rhythms just. don't. stop. I don't know what it is but I just can't get away from stuff that makes me feel paranoid. Have you ever seen that part in "Over the Hedge" where the squirrel downs the energy drink and then proceeds to stroll through the whole scene with the bear attacking the people? Well anyway, that's how I feel listening to stuff like Gouseion and Eats Tapes. But Eats Tapes are way more twisted. There's some of that 8-bit goofiness embedded in this project, but when it comes to laptops and technology, you can forget it: The duo formerly known as Boom de la Boom are out to get you dancing without the aid of their Macs. Break out the rolodex and swing to the numbers on your rotary phone: Eats Tapes are out to analogize your headphones.

But why bother when this thing has been out since March 19th? Well, partly because right now the group is doing a brief jaunt through Europe and if you're anywhere near Berlin, Denmark or Glasgow in the next few days, you should check them out. Also, it's whack. In a good way. Marijke Jorritsma and Greg Zifcak (who even without the Eats Tapes title would have pretty awesome names) are all about analog-inflected instrumental techno that demands dancefloors be filled.

It's all so wonderfully ebullient and innocently fun that saying no makes you look like a jerk. "Face Shredder" is a fist-pumping techno anthem interrupted only by noise generators and of course some NES action. It's spazztastic and totally un-hyphy, which is something San Francisco isn't really known for. And when I say "ebullient," I'm specifically thinking of the underwater "Lemon Drop" as Mario holds his breath for an incredible amount of time (Nearly seven minutes in this case) to get through all those submarine levels, yeah, you know the ones. This is the revised soundtrack to all those levels combined. As you can probably tell, it's hard to get enough of it.

And for all the times we brought Matmos up in reviews but only as a reference point (Vladislav Delay being the most recent example), lo and behold, Eats Tapes gives you "I've Become a Cretin" featuring none other than Nate Boyce (Boyce also did the "Tenderizer" video, an added bonus to the already mind-meltingly bright album art). A little guitar squall never hurt anybody out in the clubs even if this particular ten-track club insists on using MIDI sequencers and programmed drum loops.

"Wolf Blitzer" appropriately ends this one on a relentlessly high note. So unlike when Hammy the Squirrel's sugar rush recedes and things resume their normal pace around him, Eats Tapes do not "ease out" of this one. Right to the end, their thumping 8-bit beats jar your eardrums and leave you with a ringing that's louder than any old school rotary phone. You'll be glad you picked it up if you haven't already.

6.08.2007

Vladislav Delay - "Whistleblower"













Vladislav Delay - Lumi (Huume 2007)

Vladislav Delay - Whistleblower / Huume

Why hasn't this album been given more attention? In a week where I seemingly cannot get away from beats, Vladislav Delay pulls me in and says hey, maybe you need to lay off on beats per se and try on something a little differently. Look at electronic music not from the beat down but from the ambient sounds surrounding it. Worry about rhythms later. Deconstruct the traditions of house and dub and rebuild reconstruct them in your own image. This is what Finnish-born, Berlin-based Sasu Ripatti has been chiseling away at for a decade now on his own Huume Recordings. Whistleblower is merely the latest in a long line of better and better releases.

A genre that was originally birthed inadvertantly by The Orb in the early 90s has since been exploited most successfully by Ripatti, but ambient dub isn't his only trick. As he has made long-since clear, Vladislav Delay is only one in a handful of different monikers that amount to variations on a theme via techno, house and downtempo. Conoco, Luomo (arguably his most successful), Sistol and Uusitalo are all takes on the sounds that have driven him from his time learning jazz as a kid... But we're a long way from Philly Joe Jones. Closer instead to Pan Sonic or even Matmos in found-sound manipulations whistleblown into the chilled mix of keyboards that float through songs like the 12-minute "Wanted to (Kill)" or the uneasy Space Station Mir theme song "Lumi," Ripatti has been digging endlessly to find what else lies in among the sounds of his chosen style.

2005's The Four Quarters was a pretty good album to be used as a natural segue for what was to follow. Whistleblower is it, but the tension apparent not just in the easy-going-at-first-glance synthesizers but also in the percussion (and lack thereof) is an excellent example of Ripatti's current mindset. Luomo, Sistol and the rest just wouldn't have worked for his grander vision on this occasion. It had to be downtempo, and the expectations had to be fucked with.

What's resulted is arguably his best piece of work in the decade that he's been at it under the Delay name. The glory in using dub as a technique is that you can hide sounds and rhythms for ages and then suddenly let them reappear again as if they had been that prominent the whole time. You could listen to this album a dozen times (as I now have) and never hear the same thing twice. That's part of what makes Vladislav Delay so engaging, and mostly what makes his music so enduring.