Weekly Media Update :: 04.03.2008
April 3, 2008
+++++ Shows +++++
NYC / Brooklyn Events are now found HERE in full.
Here’s what’s happening over the next week:
| Friday, April 4th | Alina Simone, Eugene Mirman @ Joe’s Pub |
| Friday, April 4th | Kimya Dawson, Matty Pop Chart @ Maxwells |
| Friday, April 4th | Wolf Eyes, Carlos Giffoni @ Music Hall of Williamsburg |
| Friday, April 4th | Talk Normal, Hand Jobs, WZT Hearts @ Union Pool |
| Saturday, April 5th | Wolf Eyes, Prurient @ Cake Shop |
| Saturday, April 5th | An Albatross @ Music Hall of Williamsburg |
| Saturday, April 5th | Tall Firs, Telepathe @ Rehab |
| Saturday, April 5th | Jens Lekman, Honeydrips @ Webster Hall |
| Sunday, April 6th | Handsome Furs, Violens @ Bowery Ballroom |
| Sunday, April 6th | Soft Circle, (Lone) Wolf & Cub @ Union Pool |
| Monday, April 7th | Nina Nastasia, Jim White, Phosphorescent @ Bowery Ballroom |
| Tuesday, April 8th | Tigercity @ Highline |
| Tuesday, April 8th | No Neck Blues Band, Jackie-O Motherfucker @ Knitting Factory |
| Wednesday, April 9th | White Hinterland @ Mercury Lounge |
| Wednesday, April 9th | Dirty Projectors, No Kids, Deer Tick @ Music Hall of Williamsburg |
| Wednesday, April 9th | Spoon @ Terminal 5 |
| Thursday, April 10th | Man Man, These Are Powers @ Bowery Ballroom |
| Thursday, April 10th | Tom Greenwood, Joanne Roberston @ Death By Audio |
+++++ MUSIC +++++
| Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago [Jagjaguwar, 2008] | |
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Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair; French for “good winter” and spelled wrong on purpose) is a greeting, a celebration and a sentiment. It is a new statement of an artist moving on and establishing the groundwork for a lasting career. For Emma, Forever Ago is the debut of this lineage of songs. As a whole, the record is entirely cohesive throughout and remains centered around a particular aesthetic, prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded. Justin Vernon, the primary force behind Bon Iver, seems to have tested his boundaries to the maximum, and in doing so has managed to break free from any pre-cursing or finished forms.
It wasn’t planned. The goal was to hibernate. Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This solitary time slowly began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus. The days slowly evolved into nights filled with twelve-hour recording blocks, breaking only for trips on the tractor into the pines to saw and haul firewood, or for frozen sunrises high up a deer stand. All of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, was suddenly purged into the form of song. |
| Changeling - Beyond the Edge of Dreams [Night People, 2008] | |
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Roy Tatum, the man behind Changeling, takes his cue from another Roy–Roy Montgomery. Much of Beyond the Edge of Dreams mirrors the warm production and soothing guitar strums of Montgomery, but it’s Tatum’s ability to turn a wall of guitar from worthless background din to beautiful drone that neither bores or confounds. |
| Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts [Earthology, 2008] | |
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Building off the acclaim of last year’s The Meaning Of 8, the band is back with another existential gem entitled Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes). Much of Minowa’s songwriting centers around the tragic death of his 2-year-old son Kaidan in 2002, but Minowa doesn’t dwell in the realm of melancholy. While Minowa often visits the theme of mortality, he does so in a way that is uplifting and life-affirming. Cloud Cult’s sound is unique, and the new album mixes electronica, cellos, violins, distorted guitars, synths, acoustic guitars, and a variety of other eclectic sounds. Putting a finger on the pulse of their music isn’t an easy task, but there are moments that are reminiscent of a wide variety of bands that range from Arcade Fire to The Flaming Lips to The Polyphonic Spree to Modest Mouse. In other words, they sound like Cloud Cult. Feel Good Ghosts is an experimental journey in sound and emotion, and it will deservedly find its way onto some “best of” lists in 2008. |
| Dwayne Sodahberk - Fjärilsfalu [Kning Disk, 2008] | |
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Minimal driving techno pieces that incorporate ambient elements and occasional bursts of noise. |
| Evan Miller - ST C16 [Night People, 2008] | |
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This one cuts real deep, Miller at his most epic. The A side starts things up with deep echo’s swimming around cut up tape manipulations, leading into chambers of drone with Miller’s characteristic tonal vocals transitioning into a kind of finger picked sentimental raga. The B side offers up a real burner, perhaps Millers best straight acoustic number, a real beautiful complex side that plays between minimalistic somber portions and upbeat workouts. |
| GHQ - Hea [Arbitrary Signs, 2005] | |
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Appalachian ragas for the drone set by Double Leopards/Hottogisu/Zaimph’s Marcia Basset and Steve Gunn. This CDR contains some of the most pleasing back porch howl and moan ever to come from the rural backwoods. Marcia Basset is obviously one of the most highly regarded and accomplished noise artists working in the underground today, and this collection of lonely backwoods psychedelics only further illustrate her ability and diversity in committing to tape what others only imagine or wish to attempt. These full on repetitive droning string raga’s transport the listener into a full on ecstasy over four long tracks. Sometimes venturing into a Six Organs of Admittance/Fahey eastern romp complete with crashing bells and voice modulations, creating the most trance inducing modal music that ever came from the Smokey Mountains of the East. This disc is definitely a high light in the already stellar body of work that has been forged by Marcia Basset, illustrating her obvious ability in creating mind melting psychedelic music. It’s apparent from listening to these recordings that this work deserves greater distribution and investigation even by those who are not obsessed with the fevered nightmares of Double Leopards or the metallic green metal of Hototogisu. For those lucky enough to get there hands on this beautiful backwoods neon psychedelic CDR, rejoice. |
| Gray Daturas - Return To Disruption [Neurot, 2008] | |
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Melbourne, Australia’s Grey Daturas are an improvisational, instrumental trio with no songs or melodies; they don’t rehearse, yet maintain a touring ethos that matches early hardcore pioneers. Drawing influence from a vast ocean of musical styles including free jazz, the avant garde, psych, punk, metal, industrial, and noise, the band’s blend of harsh and dark psychedelia unmistakably their own.
From their nihilistic, sheer-noise-based beginnings six-plus years ago improvising soundtracks to silent horror classics and ’60s physics animations, Grey Daturas have morphed into a surreal auditory nightmare, blending dark, pulsating drones, slow, low-end sludge riffs, crushing percussion, and walls of ear-torturing noise. Three and a half years after the release of their globally acclaimed second album, Dead in the Woods, and following numerous EPs, split and collaborative releases with the likes of Yellow Swans, Monarch, Bardo Pond, and Wolf Eyes, Grey Daturas unearth their finest and most challenging work. |
| Grouper & Inca Ore - Split c40 [Self Released, 2008] | |
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Two Portland ladies with a thing for loop pedals and music that flirts with the outer limits, Inca Ore and Grouper split this with two brief but mesmerizing individual sets. Inca Ore manipulates voice and violin to craft cold, alien lullabies, evoking the most stark and forbidden corners of the night. Grouper, meanwhile, carves a new Mariana Trench with low-end reverberations on her guitar, and then proceeded to drown her mournful songs in it. I can’t help but think how much more amazing these performances would have sounded at four in the morning. Or, like, on the moon. |
| Heather Leigh Murray - Devil If Can You Hear Me LP [Not Not Fun, 2007] | |
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Despite her years of prolific activity both live and on record, this is apparently Heather Leigh Murray’s debut vinyl full-length. The erstwhile Charalambides contributor throws down three exploratory solo pedal steel guitar pieces for this great Not Not Fun LP, aligning herself with the kind of outsider blues Jandek has been known to grind out. The market for solo pedal steel LPs isn’t exactly overcrowded, but those of you who caught the wonderful Susan Alcorn album on Olde English Spelling Bee will be aware of the instrument’s potential for beautiful avant-garde meanderings. On opening piece ‘Porch Fighter’, Murray cakes on the distortion and slides across the strings with a juddering tension, while vocals drift by, as if detached. The album really comes into its own when Murray tones down the ferocity for some gorgeous volume swells and harmonic slipperiness, her vocals maintaining a reverent synchronicity with those spectral sounding strings. It all gets a bit campanological at certain points with pitchshifting effects and delays stacking up chiming, retuned tones while vocals sail by gracefully. Not by any means an easy going LP, but it’s a wonderful, otherworldy experience once you submit to it. |
| Ida - Lover’s Prayers [Polyvinyl, 2008] | |
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Ida, a New York City band known for their quiet take on urban life, has moved to the woods. Now, it seems, the woods have moved into their music. Ida found an acoustically sublime haven in Levon Helm’s (of The Band) home studio located in the Catskill Mountains. Over the next two years Ida abandoned their traditional studio perfectionism in favor of a spontaneous approach that included live tracking with few overdubs. The band ironically wound up with the clearest, most dynamic album they have ever made. In tune with this process, Ida have managed to make their most powerful statement: A collection of songs that invoke the proximity of the invisible and the reality of love with an earned grace that comes from experience, persistence, and an undiminished enthusiasm for making sounds together. |
| Islaja - Blaze Mountain Recordings [Ecstatic Peace, 2008] | |
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Sidestepping the curious studio experiments that cradled Islaja’s songwrting on previous albums like Meritie, Palaa Aurinkoon and more recently Ulual Yyy, “Blaze Mountain Recordings” captures Merja Kokkonen in live mode, with some assistance from cohort Jukka Raisanen. The resultant document functions as an alternative to the fragmented, disjointed song-worlds mapped out by the Finn’s published output to date, making sense of the non-linear lo-fi lunacy that’s become her signature sound. While ‘Blaze Mountain Recordings’ is by no means a crystal clear, transparent body of work (it still sounds righteously filthy), you can hear Kokkonen’s music laid bare in an organically structured whole - something that only serves to highlight the fact that this is the work of one of the least conventional songwriters out there. Even when set into the realtime constraints of live performance Islaja’s music is restlessly obscure and devoid of the genealogy of influence you could assign to virtually all (other) songwriters. It’s nigh on impossible to determine where this music came from, and frankly it’s probably best not to know, but rather just enjoy it for the unearthly mess that it is. |
| J Tillman - Cancer and Delirium [Yer Bird, 2007] | |
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Stripped down to the core, these songs don’t swagger, or instantaneously vie for your attention, but slowly - magically, almost - float into your head; before you know it, it’s hard to imagine that any other song fit as perfectly. It’s a gift–a songwriter’s ability to create something (lyrically and musically) that speaks volumes without being over the top/in your face - universal and personal at the same time - and Tillman has it. |
| James Blackshaw - White Goddess [Tompkins Square, 2008] | |
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Coming off a round of year-end praise for James Blackshaw’s 2007 release, The Cloud of Unknowing, the Tompkins Square label will release four catalog titles by the acclaimed UK guitarist/composer on March 25th, 2008.
The reissues will comprise out-of-print works previously only available as tiny private runs of CDRs and LPs. They include Celeste, Sunshrine, Lost Prayers And Motionless Dances, and White Goddess. |
| Jim O’Rourke + Akira Sakata + YOSHIMIO - Hagyou [BJL, 2008] | |
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Jim O’Rourke - guitar, piano, keyboardsAkira Sakata - alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, voice
YOSHIMIO - percussion, piano, voice Recorded at Pitt Inn, Tokyo 2006 |
| Jonathan Richman - Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild [Vapor, 2008] | |
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Jonathan Richman is one of modern music’s most original artists, and quite possibly the friendliest, most sincere live performer on the face of the earth. This is his first new album in three years. Features eleven new tracks, plus a new version of “Old World” and a Leonard Cohen cover, “Here It Is”. |
| Library Tapes - Fragment EP [Kning Disk, 2008] | |
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Library Tapes is the alias of Swedish experimentalist David Wenngren. The last time we heard from Wenngren, was in 2006 when he released the album Feelings For Something Lost, featuring Colleen and Erik Skovdin of Deaf Center. ‘Fragment’ contains eight sections of classicial-tinged ambient, all titled Fragment I-VIII. |
| Light of the Shipwreck - From the Idle Cylinders [Crucial Bliss, 2008] | |
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Light Of Shipwreck is a one-man band operated by Ben Fleury-Steiner, a Deleware-based drone artist and owner of the excellent Gears of Sand Recordings imprint. And here we are: a three-track full length of rich, crushing power-ambient, titled From The Idle Cylinders, a reference to the American Objectivist poet George Oppen whose work is a consistent influence on Light Of Shipwreck’s imagery, with huge slabs of resonant sheet metal shimmering in an ocean of heavenly feedback and reverberating guitar drone, and surges of droning tribal Krautrock percussion floating along with distorted ambient doom powerchords and washed out vocal cord bliss, each track running upwards of 20 minutes in length. A totally breathtaking piece of music, like Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Can, and Earth swirled together into an austere, hypnotizing heavy-trance masterpiece. |
| Matmos - Supreme Balloon [Matador, 2008] | |
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The new album from Matmos finds the dynamic duo taking a holiday from conceptual responsibility, skipping the outré sampling antics in favor of a lighthearted “cosmic pop” record made entirely out of synthesizers. Leave it to Matmos to invent a hard and fast rule that they have to follow even when they’re just having fun: the creative restriction this time around is that “Supreme Balloon” is an ALL synthesizer album and no microphones were used at any point. That’s right, no household objects played in a percussive manner, no snails or blood or amplified semen, no acoustic instruments, no voices of famous people for five seconds, not even any half-way cheating with Vocoders, just synthesizers of all shapes, sizes, eras and nationalities being snipped, folded and reshuffled by an arsenal of samplers and computers into colorful sound-origami. |
| Michael Cashmore - The Snow Abides [Durtro, 2008] | |
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Icicles twinkling and shattering in cold moonlight; frost forming on window panes and in the hearts of the disappointed; snow falling gently, covering the world in crackling beauty and a frozen embrace – all this and more comes to mind in relation to the icy butterfly fragility of these five short pieces (three songs bookended by two instrumentals) from Current 93’s Michael Cashmore. Adding a further note of diamantine brilliance is the acute lyrical and verbal dexterity of David Tibet’s poetry, ably and wondrously interpreted by the immensely recognizable voice of Antony Hegarty (Antony & the Johnsons), whose birdlike voice soars, spirals and hovers like the most iridescent of hummingbirds, darting amongst the wispy tendrils and flowers of Cashmore’s carefully nurtured and deftly pruned piano lines. Yes, I am mixing my metaphors here but I make no apologies for it; this is breathtakingly beautiful music and quite simply no words of mine could ever fully do this any kind of adequate justice. |
| Nadja - Thaumoradiance [Archive,2008] | |
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Two track live release from the reigning champs of Canadian Doom Ambient Metal. |
| Natural Snow Buildings - Slayer of the King of Hell c90 [Digitalis, 2008] | |
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The fall of civilization never sounded so sweet to these ears, but French duo natural snow buildings have soundtracked the end days in a way that has me crossing my fingers and hoping for the worst. “Slayer of the king of hell” is epic in every way. These 90 minutes are filled to the fuckin gills, with steam sneaking out through the cracks of this pressure cooker. It’s dense, and at times beautiful. But it’s always cohesive and cathartic and pushed to the limit.
Natural snow buildings seem mythic in their approach and their output. They exist on an island in rural france, seemingly basking in the glow of a world of music and art. But “slayer of the king of hell” is down and dirty, as real as it gets. This is the best kind of sucker punch, straight to the gut. |
| Nick Castro, Marissa Nadler, & Josephine Foster - Live on WFMU 11-29-04 | |
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Sure, sure, we all know Marissa Nadler & Josephine Foster around here, but who is this Nick Castro? He’s just a normal guy who is looking for a peaceful country life, who happens to sing some folk music similar to artists from the 60s and 70s. Good. They all hang out together on this recording, & you’ll hear such Renaissance Faire instrumentation like flute, cello, flugelhorn, etc. |
| Pan Dolphinic Dawn - st 7” [Bennifer Editions, 2006] | |
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The second most rad part about The Skaters moving from SF to NYC is that they unearthed so many long lost jammz. The first most rad part is that they are playing almost weekly around here, and I get the chance to snag these finds.James Ferraro leaves behind his Skaters sparing partner while masquerading under the name Pan Dolphinic Dawn, on this 7″ slab of wax. The Skaters vibe though is still ever present as loops of varied lengths intertwine and weave a hazy sound-scape. Though some of the vocals loops Ferraro is known for are present these recordings also feature lovely synthesizer work. The final product is a record, which conjures visions that truly live up to the name they are branded with: Pan Dolphinic Dawn. Put it on and let your brain go for a swim. |
| Raccoo-oo-oon - Mythos Folkways Vol. IV, Future Vision C40 [Night People, 2008] | |
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New live Raccoo-oo-oon document, recorded one early Jan. winter afternoon at the Cave of Spirits in Iowa City by Ryan Garbes to stereo cassette deck. A side is groovy future fusion scramble, melodic vocal chants rolling over tight percussion flows that ride like kenetic energy blasting into the atmosphere. B side is blown out guitar burners giving way to dark night ride vibes. In general think about staring out of your sunglasses at the end of the world and thinking this is alright. |
| Rameses III - Basilica [Important, 2008] | |
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A double album of live recordings of new Rameses material accompanied by re-interpretations of those same recordings by contemporaries Robert Horton, Keith Berry, Gregg Kowalsky and Astral Social Club. Each artist approached to contribute to the Basilica disc was given free range to experiment with the live files, to re-invent and re-interpret the recordings as they saw fit. Minimalist sound-sculptor Keith Berry rolled out the slow-motion waterfalls of Basilica and gave the album an early focus and provided inspiration for the glacial artwork. Gregg Kowalsky played the ‘Rose Blood’ remix as part of his own performance at the OVERLAP 02 event in San Francisco using its tuned sinewave oscillators, cassette tapes and loops to induce, to quote the man himself, ‘a psychoacoustic listening experience.’ The subtle textures were pushed way into the red when noise veteran Neil Campbell sandblasted the original tracks into the howling mirror of Astral Social Club. His ‘Tigers In The Snake Pit’ was remixed live in the very same venue in which it was originally performed and finessed with some post-performance layering. And Robert Horton was open-minded and kind enough to allow Rameses III to remix his remix, leading to the gentle trumpet curlicues and electronic birdsong entwining the original drone of ‘After The Red Rose.’ Although Basilica was originally envisioned as a single disc album, once the remixes were complete, it slowly became evident that they should be paired with a disc of live recordings in order to put the Basilica disc into context. In contrast to the heavily-produced and painstakingly-constructed Rameses studio albums, all five of the previously-unreleased tracks on the ‘Origins’ disc were recorded directly to stereo at various venues around London. As such, they fully represent those moments in performance where the trio strive to make the most beautiful music they can. |
| Richard Youngs - Ceaucescu [Forced Exposure, 1992] | |
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The first Richard Youngs masterpiece. Imagine a “Metal Music Machine” played in a church or a mystic version of J&MC… Songs with elements of drones, folk, Suicide reverbs, My Bloody Valentine multilayers. A bloody rock-opera reaching the sky to touch the God’s Light.Also Available: Richard Youngs - Sapphie [Jagjaguwar, 2000] |
| Ryan Garbes - Freedom Now [Night People, 2008] | |
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What is Garbes getting into these days, with his blown out over saturated tape production style, broken guitar, jazz fusion drum styles? Freedom Now Suite? downloadable album? just keeps getting weirder. Right from the start this is a great release, things get started with an ultra melodic guitar driven burner, then things start to break down, strange broken down beats, rythms and rough guitar styles, blown apart but still riding on some kind of wave of upbeat melody. Hidden in there somewhere is even some church organ jams. Another killer what the fuck new age punk blast from Raccoo-oo-oon drummer, visual artist, generally siked dude, Ryan Garbes.Download here. |
| Spiritualized - Songs In A & E [Arista, 2008] | |
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Spiritualized has never been a stable group. The mythology surrounding the progressive psychedelic band reads like a tabloid article–tales of drug abuse, mental distress, and inner-band turmoil are common themes. Sparking further controversy, frontman Jason Pierce fired his entire backing band prior to recording LET IT COME DOWN. Fortunately, the arguably hasty maneuver had little effect on the overall result. While there’s more of an emphasis on straightforward pop songcraft than on space-rock excursions, the classic Spiritualized sound is still present. |
| Steven R. Smith - Antimony [Ultra Hard Gel, 2008] | |
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Six gorgeous instrumentals, all dark and dreamy, ranging from heavily reverbed Appalachia, to haunting and spare abstract ambience. Electric guitars waver and shimmer in a vast cavern of sympathetic overtones. So beautiful. You can almost picture a lone hooded figure, perched on a small outcropping of rock, playing strange mournful odes by the light of a lantern, serenading all the creatures in the dark, kept at bay by the light, and narcoticized by the tranquil and elegant sounds. So nice. |
| Sun City Girls - You’re Never Alone With A Cigarette (Singles Volume 1) [Abduction, 2008] | |
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This is the first of a multi-volume set of reissued singles, compilation, and unreleased tracks to be assembled and sequenced to play as full-length records. Recorded in July of 1988 during the sessions that produced Sun City Girls’ most popular recording, these nine tracks represent the other half of songs which were originally prepared as a 2LP demo version of Torch of the Mystics for Placebo Records in 1989. The sequencing of all 20 tracks at the time was entirely different with the predominately instrumental tracks in this collection mixed in and around the mostly vocal tracks of what became Torch. Placebo went out of business shortly after this proposed 2LP idea was presented to them but Majora Records quickly stepped in to begin releasing most of the material.Included here are five tracks from early Majora singles: “100 Pounds of Black Olives” and “The Fine-Tuned Machines of Lemuria” (the complete unreleased 12-minute version) from the single “You’re Never Alone with a Cigarette” and all three tracks from Record #1 of the double 7″ Three Fake Female Orgasms — “Plaster Cupids Falling from the Ceiling,” “The Beauty of Benghazi,” and “Souvenirs from Jangare.” The short piece “Harmful Little Armful” is from the triple 7″ box set Bruce Lee, Heroin, and the Punk Scene (from a Bay Area label Massacre at Central High) and rounding out the set are three unreleased studio tracks recorded the same day as much of the Torch LP: never before heard versions of “Amazon One,” “Sev Acher,” and “Wild World of Animals.” |
| Sun Kil Moon - April Bonus Disc [Caldo Verde, 2008] | |
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From 10-minute, three-guitar jams to heartbreaking acoustic ballads, April shines with the most evocative music of Kozelek’s career. |
| Taiga Remains - Descend From Ivory Cliffs [Waterscape, 2008] | |
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Taiga Remains is Alex Cobb who is also the man behind the Students of Decay Label out of Cincinnati. Descend from Ivory Cliffs is a almost 23 min drone-epic that mixes some of the most beautiful melodies that your ear has ever listened to. But Cobb does not just rely on this abilities to create warm and cozy soundscapes. Imagine yourself in front of this huge cliff, as you slowly crawl over the edge. You’re blinded by the bright sunlight that hurts your eyes in some kind of a positive way and immediately tears of joy run down your check. This is what makes “Descend fromIvory Cliffs” one of the most breathtaking moments in drone history. |
| The B-52s - Funplex [Astralwerks, 2008] | |
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Like a time capsule, the B-52s’ first album in 16 years reanimates that familiar fusion of danceable post-punk and bizarrely conceived songs of the oldest new wave. After sitting out 1992’s Good Stuff, Cindy Wilson returns to the love shack, joining fellow bee-hiver Kate Pierson on mouth-watering vocals and harmonies circa Wild Planet. Colossal hooks jostle relentless rhythms, oddball lyrics, and the outrageous voice of Fred Schneider, who struts like a peacock through this infectious 11-track mix of frolic and frivolity. The songs are inspired by Fellini movies (”Juliet of the Spirits”), Athens, Georgia lore (”Hot Corner”), and the shopping mall (”Funplex”), and thanks to the band’s melody creator, Keith Strickland, they shimmy, shake, and house-quake all night long. Out of the blue and virtually as fun as a party out of bounds, Funplex is a dee-lightful reunion record. |
| The Drift - Memory Drawings [Temporary Residence, 2008] | |
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The follow-up to their debut “Noumena”. Though the music on this release is familiar, there’s a depth to both the performance and production that feels new. The direct-to-analog tape mix is used as another instrument to help shape each song, channeling the mythos of late 60s jazz and late 70s dub classics. They’ve also expanded their influences with shades of afro-beat and disco-soul. |
| The Raconteurs - Consolers Of The Lonely [Warner, 2008] | |
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What’s different from their first? The energy level is higher, for one thing. While there is a mix of different paced songs on the album, overall they’ve taken the energy to a new level. The first album had a sound that extended throughout the entire album; this does not. It’s also not as polished an album as their first. While Brendan’s pop-meister sensibilities and skills are evident (their cover of Terry Reid’s “Rich Kid Blues” is a good example), they are not as pronounced as on “Broken Boy Soldiers”. There are some rough edges to the sound that add to the energy and a dark edginess that lurks in the background. Some of their influences, such as country, are more obvious (Dirk Powell’s fiddling is lovely). And Jack’s love of the blues is much more evident. The use of the Memphis Horns on some tracks raised my eyebrows until I heard them; the use is sparing and fits beautifully. And some of Jack’s slide work will positively make your skin crawl. |
| The Skaters - Pavilionous Miracles Of Circular Facet Dice [Chocolate Monk, 2005] | |
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Over the course of 50 minutes on “Pavilionous Miracles of Circular Facet Dice” the duo chants and hollers, pushing their voices through a myriad of effects boxes. It is dizzying and beautiful. These are the sounds of a decaying earth, of life as we know it ceasing to be. When Ferraro and Clark open their mouths, there’s always some incomprehensible message spewing forth. All you can do is wrap yourself in its mass and hope that it doesn’t destroy you completely.Also Available: The Skaters & Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice - Collaboration cs [2005] |
| Thomas Function - Celebration [Alive, 2008] | |
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The debut full-length album from Alabama’s prodigious pop stalwarts, Thomas Function, who have found the quick road to salvation through their irresistible and infectious rock ‘n roll creations. If you’d been intrigued by their odd name before, and if you somehow have managed to keep your hands off their salivating string of 7″ singles over the past few years, it’s time to sit up and pay attention as the fruit of their efforts is now available in the form of this full-length album to blow your mind wide open. With a uniquely clean sound that seems almost out of place next to their usual cavorts with scuzzy underground acts, it’s kind of surprising how well they can pull off a Television-like cleanness, even for the tone-damaged sect that I find myself immersed within. |
| Tigercity - Pretend Not To Love [Self Released, 2008] | |
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Here is proof that music runs in circles. What sound and trend do we find ourselves back to now? Well, surprising as it may be, we are back to 1980’s pop music! It’s true, and here is the thing, it’s good. Tigercity are a band that are not afraid to not only wear their pop influences on their sleeve, but also to tell you about it. A quick visit to the band’s myspace page lists influences like The Cars, Hall & Oates, Prince and Steely Dan.
And of course, the band’s “mission statement: “Tigercity is a POP BAND. We love POP MUSIC. This is why we are getting SMOOTHER AND SMOOTHER. Maybe, one day, our smoothness will allow us to live on AN ISLAND. Maybe we will call it TIGERCITY. It will be the smoothest of all islands..” Don’t worry, this is not some type of ironic take on 80’s pop, these dudes are straight up serious about their music, and it is damned catchy and good. Just listen. The production, the beat, the lyrics smooth like a marshmallow on a river of buttered honey. It’s all there. This is Hall ‘n Oates for the non-ironic set. |
| Tilly and the Wall - Beat Control EP [Team Love, 2008] | |
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Beat Control details the mixing of the personal and the organic world — songs frequently feature grass, flowers, blood, trees, snow, water, dust, sand, trash, electricity and gardens, all tied up with loss, love, need and exploration. In addition to building a tack piano for certain songs, the band toyed with percussion much more than their previous efforts, recording Jamie’s taps through a variety of different amplifiers and floors to give each song its own distinct rhythm. With its massive dose of high energy, hip-shaking attitude, it’s the sort of album that reminds you why you fell for Tilly and the Wall in the first place. |
| Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw [Beggars Banquet, 2008] | |
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Tindersticks are O.G.s in the maudlin string-laden embittered-indie game, and wrote the rulebook for young hoppers like Absentee and the National. They recently lost some members due to internal beef, but that’s not addressed on the Hungry Saw. Instead the three-piece asks you to walk a mile in the shoes of mumbling baritone-voiced singer Stuart A. Staples. Trust me – it ain’t pretty. Staples is on some grown man business from the get-go as he airs out past regrets, loves, and losses. On the title track he even goes one-on-one with the Devil!
Musically, this is Tindersticks’ most stripped-down and intimate release: it has little of the expansive dissonance of Golden Era ‘sticks (circa 94-00), the for-the-ladies seventies-soul stylings of later releases like Simple Pleasure and Can Our Love, or the barbed lyrics of their most intense work. At times the band comes across as slightly reserved, and they only cut loose and break the five-minute barrier on closing lament ‘The Turns We Took’. But this also works as a good introduction to their core sound: the deceptively-breezy ‘Flicker Of A Little Girl’, the barely-there reminiscences of ‘The Other Side Of The World’ and the building tension of ‘Boobar’ all take it right back to the essence, while simultaneously raising the game on their pale imitators. |
| Weird Weeds - I Miss This [Autobus, 2008] | |
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The music of The Weird Weeds, a trio from Austin, TX, exudes the personality of the American South. Fetishism of empty spaces, tranquility and idleness, debasement of boundaries, and transformation is abundant on the group’s impressive third album, I Miss This. Equally important motifs of love gone astray and the appeal of death proliferate each narrative twist and melodic progression. I Miss This would easily fit into any definition of the modern Southern art canon between the plays of Tracy Letts, the stories of Flannery O’Connor, and the films of David Gordon Green. In fact, it is Green’s films, particularly All The Real Girls, which the album most clearly resembles, from the intense associations between silence and love and vociferousness and pain to an agonizing search for harmony after moral misconduct. The Weird Weeds’ latest effort is a truly engaging soundtrack to a classic southern tale. |
| Wet Hair - Irifi C20 [Night People, 2008] | |
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Wet Hair is the new solo outing of Raccoo-oo-oon member Shawn Reed. Cult vibe organ drone, slowed down tape hiss percussion warble, and chanted vocal bathed in echo, provide the basics for Irifi, a lone march across a desert, these are droney reverberations tinted with pop influence cloaked in the dark, music for vampires. Recorded by Ryan Garbes for maximal blow out. |
| Witch - Paralyzed [Tee Pee, 2008] | |
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Witch at first appears to be some young kids resisting its world in the late 1970s. Actually it’s J Mascis (yes, THAT J Mascis, on DRUMS, no less), friend Dave Sweetapple (bass) and Kyle Thomas (vox/guitar and of avant-folk band Feathers). The simple guitar-bass-drums are put into super-overdrive on Paralyzed, Witch’s sophomore effort. Cuts such as “Disappear” and “1000 MPH” are a collision of traditional metal and dangerous punk from the fast lane. “Psychotic Rock” lives up to its name, threatening to go over the edge. The band claims they don’t practice or play live much–they are touring this spring–but this sounds rather tight, even if it’s a jumble of noise. |
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