PF gives it the highest non-10 giving Animal Collective :: Merriweather Post Pavilion was awarded with a slightly-too-high 9.6 a few years ago.
The sorta self titled (sort of not) album received a tremendous 9.5 yesterday.
Whether or not you think a numerical score means anything, from pitchfork or from any outlet period, a huge site giving a huge score is a statement. A statement that could mean a lot of things, but always that attention should be given is due. And so, now, for all people that follow this sort of thing, it's time to listen to something you might not have bothered with otherwise.
Something isn't given a 10 (or five stars, if you prefer) because it's just better than 99% of all other records. It's not a perfect record--as if there has ever been one--but one that comes at a perfect time, as Kanye West's opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy did at the end of last year. Or something so certainly ahead of its time it's importance is immediately obvious and doesn't need to be reevaluated years down the line. Both OK COMPUTER and Kid A.
For the rest, the world eventually gets its shit together and comes around and realizes they've let something terribly special slip by without the undivided attention it deserves. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea fits here nicely.
And for the most part, we can all happily listen without wild dissent when any of these albums get played. Throw in the not-quite-perfect modern classics, too. Arcade Fire :: Funeral. Sufjan Stevens :: Illinois. Joanna Newsom :: Ys. Modest Mouse :: The Moon & Antarctica.
It's pretty good company.
And so we come back to Bon Iver, Bon Iver. Bon "9.5 from pitchfork!" Iver. A record that, now that I've listened to it a few times, and has managed to be unlike anyhting I've discussed above.
An album far from perfect, far from a social requirement or document of our time, synonymous with pretty, exactly the status quo, exactly expected. And barely anything else.
Creative/constant member Justin Vernon moves away from the rickety fragile warmth of debut For Emma, Forever Ago, but doesn't tread a step further than he ever has. 2009's Blood Bank EP's love/hate standout "Woods"--the track later adopted, adapted, and fully realized by Kanye West for the closer of MBDTF-- where where electronics either were introduced to/intruded upon the bleedy heart aesthetic For Emma, Forever Ago built.
Later that year, a band called Volcano Choir (consisting of Vernon and others) released a short album, Upnam, that expanded this sound into a realm of post-rock and ambient music. It enjoyed mild attention and critical acclaim.
2011, Bon Iver, Bon Iver backpedals on the Blood Bank EP and on Unmap. It sounds like the album anyone who listened to For Emma, Forever Ago expected.
Any real newness in Bon Iver's sound...isn't. Anything that seems new is just plucked wholesale from the orchestral touches Sufjan Stevens used years ago. Beyond that, the album's major credit, it is only becomes painfully terrible during the final track, "Beth/Rest", where ridiculous 80s-style synthesized saxophones and flaged guitar really shit up the place. Then it's over.
I'm sure surprised something that feels just routine and nothing more is what a major review outlet has chosen to rest its credibility on. A credibility that has been steadily, fairly rebuilt since the site's early days, where giving a 10.0 meant something else entirely.
12RODS :: Gay?
Amon Tobin :: Bricolage
Walt Mink :: El Producto
and now
Bon Iver :: Bon Iver, Bon Iver
And we all wish there was a better way to do this.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
TMT :: Album Review Samples
Felt Drawings - Body
(stream/free download)
It's best to get this out of the way first: Body is an incredibly good album. Body is also an unrelentingly sad album. It details a great loss without hope anywhere on the horizon. Without a laptop in sight, sole-Felt Drawings member Dom Tiberio creates dark, industrial drones highlighted, but never brightened, with dancible synth-pop melodies. Instrumentally, the album is stuff you could dance to but never would. Over which Tiberio's frank lyricism informs the music, answering the question of why this music sounds this way. And why it has to.
It's not an unfamiliar dichotomy (see: the Smiths, the Cure, etc.), but is here taken further and is all the more intriguing for it. Body is pop music daring not to be, and uncaring where it lands. Music that is not literally hard to listen to, but music that can sober any mood. The refrain of "How is it Supposed to Be?" desperately demands "just tell me how to love / show me how it's done", before qualifying the question with the only two options left: "is it kiss and hug or is it punch and blood?" Felt Drawings has always been high stakes music. Everything or nothing. Now more than ever.
There is a lot to love here on Body, but it is going to hurt. And if you are going in, understand you will have to play by some uncomfortable rules. If you put nothing in, nothing is going to come out.
As with life, as with love.
The Mountain Goats - All Eternal's Deck
This is not a twist in the vein of Mount Eerie's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening. It is not exactly the unexpected black metal record that the All Eternal's Deck art, title, and super legitimate, super hyped production credits might suggest. Those hopes and assumptions were dissipated after a listen to the album's first single, album opener, and slow burner "Damn These Vampires". It sounded like a good Mountain Goats song but not much like something anyone would call metal.
If the inscrutable hype/power of death and thrash metal is anywhere to be found here, it's not too obvious. All Eternal's Deck will not destroy your speakers (but as always, your mileage may vary regarding damage done to your heart. Oh, ho ho.). It's not an affront to the music of dad rock dads. Really, the album doesn't even make much of a mess. The most brutal moments don't borrow from Morbid Angel-producer Erik Rutan, but certainly hold their own against anything else John Darnielle has done post-boombox. The fury of "Estate Sale Sign" can run with Heretic Pride explosion "Sax Rohmner #1", while the slightly quieter "Prowl Great Cain" scalds a lot like "No Children".
The occasional twists in approach that pepper Mountain Goats albums are easier to spot but harder to conceive of. "High Hawk Season" brings in some barbershop harmonies, "For Charles Bronson" is a song Darnielle could have written and recorded at any point in his career, while "Never Quite Free" could have never come before now. The imbalance is strange, but ultimately it works both because Darnielle is Darnielle: someone with inexhaustible talents as a songwriter, and an ear for things that work for him and never against.
Dirty Beaches - Badlands
As Dirty Beaches, sole member Alex Zhang Hungtai, channels the spirit of the 1950s pop utterly. He works inside the ghostly, vague memory of a decade that has gone more or less unacknowledged in the current collective pop music conscious. We nod to Elvis, sure, but contemporary pop music history starts with the Beatles. Many of these sounds are taken directly as Hungtai borrows from a variety of samples and standard melodies. The whole thing sounds like it was bootlegged onto tape by a motorcycle passenger, tuning their radio into some nonexistent copy album. And going seventy miles per hour.
Badlands is frustrating and difficult to understand contextually, but not particularly difficult to listen to and to like. It sounds nothing like anything else happening in music today, but borrows so heavily from its inspirations it creates a bit of a conundrum. Is listening to Hungtai lay down ghostly vocals over a 2 bar sample of Françoise Hardy's "Voilá" worth listening to? And if it is, is it worth attention, praise?
Probably. Because what sounds unimpressive on paper ultimately kind of works. Badlands sounds unlike anything else happening in music today, a phenomenon given weight by the fact that the 1950s have been so widely passed over for so long. With a carefully managed, but effortless—and when you play these songs side by side with the source material, the sensation of low effort is uncomfortably apparent—aesthetic, Badlands is an album worth of attention. If only to have an opinion on it, which is to have an opinion on what music created like this means.
As for praise, lack thereof, or condemnation, you'll have to call this one for yourself.
Buck 65 - 20 Odd Years
Buck 65 has been hard to deal with for a while.
And 20 Odd Years more or less solidifies the unfortunate trend that Buck 65 is just...a whole lot better when someone else is handling production duties. 2009's Bike for Three! collaboration with Belgian producer Greetings from Tuskan found the whiskey-rasping MC sounding more competent than he ever did on 2007's "Situation".
Something about rapping over his own work brings out the worst in Buck. He constantly defeats his concepts with completely cringe-inducing lines. Had opener "Superstars Don't Love" been handled by someone else, maybe we wouldn't have to uncomfortably shift in our chairs as "rural China" gets rhymed with "girl's vagina". Sigh.
The rule--for better or for worse--holds here with 20 Odd Years, an album that collects four limited edition EPs released months apart last year celebrating Buck 65's twenty (!) years recording. For better, because Buck sees 20 years time as a cause for celebration and has invited a lot of friends along. This is where things get good. Really good, actually. Nick Thorburn's work on "Gee Wiz" goes beyond his floaty vocal on the song's hook. On "Stop", Hannah Georgas delivers a pop chorus that completely dominates the rest of the song on its own merits.
Yeah, there are missteps so bad they are unforgivable. It's so hard to deal with solo-Buck on "Zombie Delight" when it's surrounded by great collaborative efforts. It's unfortunate to have to pick apart these outings when whisperings of a second Bike for Three! album are heard on the horizon.
(stream/free download)
It's best to get this out of the way first: Body is an incredibly good album. Body is also an unrelentingly sad album. It details a great loss without hope anywhere on the horizon. Without a laptop in sight, sole-Felt Drawings member Dom Tiberio creates dark, industrial drones highlighted, but never brightened, with dancible synth-pop melodies. Instrumentally, the album is stuff you could dance to but never would. Over which Tiberio's frank lyricism informs the music, answering the question of why this music sounds this way. And why it has to.
It's not an unfamiliar dichotomy (see: the Smiths, the Cure, etc.), but is here taken further and is all the more intriguing for it. Body is pop music daring not to be, and uncaring where it lands. Music that is not literally hard to listen to, but music that can sober any mood. The refrain of "How is it Supposed to Be?" desperately demands "just tell me how to love / show me how it's done", before qualifying the question with the only two options left: "is it kiss and hug or is it punch and blood?" Felt Drawings has always been high stakes music. Everything or nothing. Now more than ever.
There is a lot to love here on Body, but it is going to hurt. And if you are going in, understand you will have to play by some uncomfortable rules. If you put nothing in, nothing is going to come out.
As with life, as with love.
The Mountain Goats - All Eternal's Deck
This is not a twist in the vein of Mount Eerie's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening. It is not exactly the unexpected black metal record that the All Eternal's Deck art, title, and super legitimate, super hyped production credits might suggest. Those hopes and assumptions were dissipated after a listen to the album's first single, album opener, and slow burner "Damn These Vampires". It sounded like a good Mountain Goats song but not much like something anyone would call metal.
If the inscrutable hype/power of death and thrash metal is anywhere to be found here, it's not too obvious. All Eternal's Deck will not destroy your speakers (but as always, your mileage may vary regarding damage done to your heart. Oh, ho ho.). It's not an affront to the music of dad rock dads. Really, the album doesn't even make much of a mess. The most brutal moments don't borrow from Morbid Angel-producer Erik Rutan, but certainly hold their own against anything else John Darnielle has done post-boombox. The fury of "Estate Sale Sign" can run with Heretic Pride explosion "Sax Rohmner #1", while the slightly quieter "Prowl Great Cain" scalds a lot like "No Children".
The occasional twists in approach that pepper Mountain Goats albums are easier to spot but harder to conceive of. "High Hawk Season" brings in some barbershop harmonies, "For Charles Bronson" is a song Darnielle could have written and recorded at any point in his career, while "Never Quite Free" could have never come before now. The imbalance is strange, but ultimately it works both because Darnielle is Darnielle: someone with inexhaustible talents as a songwriter, and an ear for things that work for him and never against.
Dirty Beaches - Badlands
As Dirty Beaches, sole member Alex Zhang Hungtai, channels the spirit of the 1950s pop utterly. He works inside the ghostly, vague memory of a decade that has gone more or less unacknowledged in the current collective pop music conscious. We nod to Elvis, sure, but contemporary pop music history starts with the Beatles. Many of these sounds are taken directly as Hungtai borrows from a variety of samples and standard melodies. The whole thing sounds like it was bootlegged onto tape by a motorcycle passenger, tuning their radio into some nonexistent copy album. And going seventy miles per hour.
Badlands is frustrating and difficult to understand contextually, but not particularly difficult to listen to and to like. It sounds nothing like anything else happening in music today, but borrows so heavily from its inspirations it creates a bit of a conundrum. Is listening to Hungtai lay down ghostly vocals over a 2 bar sample of Françoise Hardy's "Voilá" worth listening to? And if it is, is it worth attention, praise?
Probably. Because what sounds unimpressive on paper ultimately kind of works. Badlands sounds unlike anything else happening in music today, a phenomenon given weight by the fact that the 1950s have been so widely passed over for so long. With a carefully managed, but effortless—and when you play these songs side by side with the source material, the sensation of low effort is uncomfortably apparent—aesthetic, Badlands is an album worth of attention. If only to have an opinion on it, which is to have an opinion on what music created like this means.
As for praise, lack thereof, or condemnation, you'll have to call this one for yourself.
Buck 65 - 20 Odd Years
Buck 65 has been hard to deal with for a while.
And 20 Odd Years more or less solidifies the unfortunate trend that Buck 65 is just...a whole lot better when someone else is handling production duties. 2009's Bike for Three! collaboration with Belgian producer Greetings from Tuskan found the whiskey-rasping MC sounding more competent than he ever did on 2007's "Situation".
Something about rapping over his own work brings out the worst in Buck. He constantly defeats his concepts with completely cringe-inducing lines. Had opener "Superstars Don't Love" been handled by someone else, maybe we wouldn't have to uncomfortably shift in our chairs as "rural China" gets rhymed with "girl's vagina". Sigh.
The rule--for better or for worse--holds here with 20 Odd Years, an album that collects four limited edition EPs released months apart last year celebrating Buck 65's twenty (!) years recording. For better, because Buck sees 20 years time as a cause for celebration and has invited a lot of friends along. This is where things get good. Really good, actually. Nick Thorburn's work on "Gee Wiz" goes beyond his floaty vocal on the song's hook. On "Stop", Hannah Georgas delivers a pop chorus that completely dominates the rest of the song on its own merits.
Yeah, there are missteps so bad they are unforgivable. It's so hard to deal with solo-Buck on "Zombie Delight" when it's surrounded by great collaborative efforts. It's unfortunate to have to pick apart these outings when whisperings of a second Bike for Three! album are heard on the horizon.
TMT :: Live Review Sample
This was the last of three Yoni Wolf solo shows three shows taking place in Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church this weekend, all three with opening support from Frances Quinlan of Hop Along. The space is small, not more than ten rows of pews, each seating three comfortably. The bands set up maybe four feet away from the first row. The extraordinarily intimate setting matched the purpose of the event perfectly And favorably eliminated both a crowd and the need for anyone to stand.
More with aesthetics: It was odd, seeing Yoni at his most put together. His hair showing no signs of the unruly curls that have pervaded WHY? promotional images since the cLOUDDEAD days; instead it is slicked respectably with product. His fairly characteristic mustache sits natural on has face, looking absolutely unnovel. It's the look of a man who might have things together: the same one who posted a picture to facebook of himself signing on first house a week ago..
But his words betrayed him, in the way they've made WHY?'s career doing. Dense, intricate internal rhymes characteristic of earlier WHY? material were matched by some powerful (and powerfully sad, chill-inducing) refrains. On the only item being sold at the merch table--a limited edition screen print--was written the phrase "I know with no uncertainty that I'm uncertain and I don't know." The line was the foundation for a chorus of a song in the middle of the set. Brutally effective, I felt myself wanting to sing along without knowing the words to sing. This question of "ok, but where next?" ran throughout the set, informing nearly all eight of the new songs.
With only two players, arrangements were unexpectedly sparse. Yoni mostly perched at a church piano that had fallen slightly out of tune, Josiah alternating between guitar and bass while operating a bass drum simultaneously. The songs were played with lots of thumping low end, drums keeping time layered with funk-inspired bass lines. Maybe rap-like, maybe not.
As mentioned above, the set (below, with some annotations, including fragments of lyrics so proper titles can be attached once these things have proper titles) was almost entirely comprised of new WHY? material composed between 2007 and now, to be recorded for the next WHY? record in May and June 2011. Stressed online, and again a song or two into the set, a strict rule against any recording was in place. And understandably so, but it's a bit of a bummer that no one will be able to hear these songs again for a few months. Or maybe more than a few, depending.
The hype is hard to handle, especially with the final product farther away than any of us would like. Doing this sort of trial tour so early is the makings for a tough, frustrating wait. In context, it's the highest compliment I can give the band as they and Snake return to the studio with completely new material for the first time in years.
Good luck, godspeed, etc etc. We're waiting to be blown away.
More with aesthetics: It was odd, seeing Yoni at his most put together. His hair showing no signs of the unruly curls that have pervaded WHY? promotional images since the cLOUDDEAD days; instead it is slicked respectably with product. His fairly characteristic mustache sits natural on has face, looking absolutely unnovel. It's the look of a man who might have things together: the same one who posted a picture to facebook of himself signing on first house a week ago..
But his words betrayed him, in the way they've made WHY?'s career doing. Dense, intricate internal rhymes characteristic of earlier WHY? material were matched by some powerful (and powerfully sad, chill-inducing) refrains. On the only item being sold at the merch table--a limited edition screen print--was written the phrase "I know with no uncertainty that I'm uncertain and I don't know." The line was the foundation for a chorus of a song in the middle of the set. Brutally effective, I felt myself wanting to sing along without knowing the words to sing. This question of "ok, but where next?" ran throughout the set, informing nearly all eight of the new songs.
With only two players, arrangements were unexpectedly sparse. Yoni mostly perched at a church piano that had fallen slightly out of tune, Josiah alternating between guitar and bass while operating a bass drum simultaneously. The songs were played with lots of thumping low end, drums keeping time layered with funk-inspired bass lines. Maybe rap-like, maybe not.
As mentioned above, the set (below, with some annotations, including fragments of lyrics so proper titles can be attached once these things have proper titles) was almost entirely comprised of new WHY? material composed between 2007 and now, to be recorded for the next WHY? record in May and June 2011. Stressed online, and again a song or two into the set, a strict rule against any recording was in place. And understandably so, but it's a bit of a bummer that no one will be able to hear these songs again for a few months. Or maybe more than a few, depending.
The hype is hard to handle, especially with the final product farther away than any of us would like. Doing this sort of trial tour so early is the makings for a tough, frustrating wait. In context, it's the highest compliment I can give the band as they and Snake return to the studio with completely new material for the first time in years.
Good luck, godspeed, etc etc. We're waiting to be blown away.
Monday, May 2, 2011
A live show, some words
Last Tuesday I played what is, I guess, the first Natural Light show. Or live action. It's the name I have been using for a whole bunch of stuff. Mainly this blog, art stuff, and some music I've made / played during the last 9 month or so. After last Tuesday, I have derived the following statistic:
Number of good first shows: zero.
I played two cover songs. The first was WHY?'s "The Fall of Mr. Fifths" done as a capella rap sort of thing. Second was a cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's "Killers".
Mr. Fifths went fine. Killers did not.
The biggest difference is probably my own outlook on what I wanted to achieve vs. what I did. Both songs were things I wanted to do, and with the first I did what I wanted to do. I don't really care whether or not anyone watching/listening liked what they were hearing. It's not about that. It is about feeling like I was accomplishing what I set out to do: performing my arrangements of music that means a tremendous amount to me.
I really do get that there might be a disconnect playing such a heavy song when the show started with a Rebecca Black parody. But it's what I wanted to do. Whoever laughed, as if "I know your mom was your age when she had your brother" was a punchline, you are not my intended audience. For this performance, or for anything I will ever create or do in my life. You are not what bothers me. That I played so poorly does.
A lot of it comes down to rehearsing in conditions that were a lot different from the performance itself. Not even now being in front of lights and crowd that probably doesn't care about your music specifically. Things like standing at a keyboard instead of sitting at a piano, basically turning into a totally different instrument under my fingers. Having a drum machine on my right instead of on the left. Things I should have foreseen, thought about, and planned for and didn't.
There were problems with my ability to play a keyboard, sequence, and sing at the same time. And there were technical problems, like something with the drums sounding pretty shitty running through the amp I had to use last minute. And problems with the event itself, where coordinator was insanely rude and asked me, act 18 of 21, to only play one song for the sake of time roughly 50 seconds before I went on.
I was kind of mortified and devastated immediately after, and thanks extensively to my girlfriend, and thanks a small, surprising bit to some guy who came up to me in the parking lot afterward, felt a little better the next day.
Still, I think the experience is something important to come to terms with and talk about while it's still vaguely permeating my thoughts. I won't really get a chance to talk about a first show ever again, anyway.
I don't know when I'll ever do this again (or have the chance to), but I'm not writing it off as completely as I was when I walked off the stage. I have been writing a lot of new stuff (terribly, terribly fragmented new stuff). A semi relevant one:
to never fall into that trap
of a disappointing live act
songs becoming old and played lived less
wearing out not unlike i did sometime after the 12th grade
the run-on of ritualistic mass transit
the reason for this, the reason to consider language in...finite
and it felt infinite
as for what i did to deserve this
went to college, got nervous
I still think about this all a lot.
Number of good first shows: zero.
I played two cover songs. The first was WHY?'s "The Fall of Mr. Fifths" done as a capella rap sort of thing. Second was a cover of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's "Killers".
Mr. Fifths went fine. Killers did not.
The biggest difference is probably my own outlook on what I wanted to achieve vs. what I did. Both songs were things I wanted to do, and with the first I did what I wanted to do. I don't really care whether or not anyone watching/listening liked what they were hearing. It's not about that. It is about feeling like I was accomplishing what I set out to do: performing my arrangements of music that means a tremendous amount to me.
I really do get that there might be a disconnect playing such a heavy song when the show started with a Rebecca Black parody. But it's what I wanted to do. Whoever laughed, as if "I know your mom was your age when she had your brother" was a punchline, you are not my intended audience. For this performance, or for anything I will ever create or do in my life. You are not what bothers me. That I played so poorly does.
A lot of it comes down to rehearsing in conditions that were a lot different from the performance itself. Not even now being in front of lights and crowd that probably doesn't care about your music specifically. Things like standing at a keyboard instead of sitting at a piano, basically turning into a totally different instrument under my fingers. Having a drum machine on my right instead of on the left. Things I should have foreseen, thought about, and planned for and didn't.
There were problems with my ability to play a keyboard, sequence, and sing at the same time. And there were technical problems, like something with the drums sounding pretty shitty running through the amp I had to use last minute. And problems with the event itself, where coordinator was insanely rude and asked me, act 18 of 21, to only play one song for the sake of time roughly 50 seconds before I went on.
I was kind of mortified and devastated immediately after, and thanks extensively to my girlfriend, and thanks a small, surprising bit to some guy who came up to me in the parking lot afterward, felt a little better the next day.
Still, I think the experience is something important to come to terms with and talk about while it's still vaguely permeating my thoughts. I won't really get a chance to talk about a first show ever again, anyway.
I don't know when I'll ever do this again (or have the chance to), but I'm not writing it off as completely as I was when I walked off the stage. I have been writing a lot of new stuff (terribly, terribly fragmented new stuff). A semi relevant one:
to never fall into that trap
of a disappointing live act
songs becoming old and played lived less
wearing out not unlike i did sometime after the 12th grade
the run-on of ritualistic mass transit
the reason for this, the reason to consider language in...finite
and it felt infinite
as for what i did to deserve this
went to college, got nervous
I still think about this all a lot.
Everything I am Listening To 4
Felt Drawings - Body
(stream/free download)
It's best to get this out of the way first: Body is an incredibly good album. Body is also an unrelentingly sad album. It details a great loss without hope anywhere on the horizon. Without a laptop in sight, sole-Felt Drawings member Dom Tiberio creates dark, industrial drones highlighted, but never brightened, with dancible synth-pop melodies. Instrumentally, the album is stuff you could dance to but never would. Over which Tiberio's frank lyricism informs the music, answering the question of why this music sounds this way. And why it has to.
It's not an unfamiliar dichotomy (see: the Smiths, the Cure, etc.), but is here taken further and is all the more intriguing for it. Body is pop music daring not to be, and uncaring where it lands. Music that is not literally hard to listen to, but music that can sober any mood. The refrain of "How is it Supposed to Be?" desperately demands "just tell me how to love / show me how it's done", before qualifying the question with the only two options left: "is it kiss and hug or is it punch and blood?" Felt Drawings is high stakes music. Everything or nothing.
There is a lot to love here on Body, but it is going to hurt. And if you are going in, understand you will have to play by some uncomfortable rules. If you put nothing in, nothing is going to come out.
As with life, as with love.
Yuck - s/t
Yuck's self-titled debut is the answer to the question of what it would have sounded like if the band that practiced twice a week in your neighbor's garage back in 1995 had been any good. It's pretty cleat these sounds of the 1990s are something artists find themselves longing for. A decade with tastes and innovations more scattered than united in any one way.
In 2009 Japandroids' Post-Nothing delightfully helped to fill a void that had existed since Pavement disbanded. Last year, Surfer Blood's outstanding debut Astrocoast captured a lot of the things Weezer did on the Blue Album. But it's this Yuck album, in 2011, that manages to decode whatever it was that made rock music in the 90s so loved. It's music that isn't only informed by, but speaks to a period of time ten years passed. This time, the music is not as a reaction to whatever it was happening in the late 1980s, but whatever is happening in the late 2000s (and what that is, I'm not sure anyone knows yet).
Beyond all that, Yuck has made an album of good songs. The album opens with back to back hard rockers and from there covers just about all the ground you'd expect. Things slow down on ""Shook Down", become beautiful on "Suicide Policeman", and eventually distort beyond recognition on Rubber, the album's slowburning conclusion.
Dirty Beaches - Badlands
As Dirty Beaches, sole member Alex Zhang Hungtai, channels the spirit of the 1950s pop utterly. He works inside the ghostly, vague memory of a decade that has gone more or less unacknowledged in the current collective pop music conscious. We nod to Elvis, sure, but contemporary pop music history starts with the Beatles. Many of these sounds are taken directly as Hungtai borrows from a variety of samples and standard melodies. The whole thing sounds like it was bootlegged onto tape by a motorcycle passenger, tuning their radio into some nonexistent copy album. And going seventy miles per hour.
Badlands is frustrating and difficult to understand contextually, but not particularly difficult to listen to and to like. It sounds nothing like anything else happening in music today, but borrows so heavily from its inspirations it creates a bit of a conundrum. Is listening to Hungtai lay down ghostly vocals over a 2 bar sample of Françoise Hardy's "Voilá" worth listening to? And if it is, is it worth attention, praise?
Probably. Because what sounds unimpressive on paper ultimately kind of works. Badlands sounds unlike anything else happening in music today, a phenomenon given weight by the fact that the 1950s have been so widely passed over for so long. With a carefully managed, but effortless—and when you play these songs side by side with the source material, the sensation of low effort is uncomfortably apparent—aesthetic, Badlands is an album worth of attention. If only to have an opinion on it, which is to have an opinion on what music created like this means.
As for praise, lack thereof, or condemnation, you'll have to call this one for yourself.
(stream/free download)
It's best to get this out of the way first: Body is an incredibly good album. Body is also an unrelentingly sad album. It details a great loss without hope anywhere on the horizon. Without a laptop in sight, sole-Felt Drawings member Dom Tiberio creates dark, industrial drones highlighted, but never brightened, with dancible synth-pop melodies. Instrumentally, the album is stuff you could dance to but never would. Over which Tiberio's frank lyricism informs the music, answering the question of why this music sounds this way. And why it has to.
It's not an unfamiliar dichotomy (see: the Smiths, the Cure, etc.), but is here taken further and is all the more intriguing for it. Body is pop music daring not to be, and uncaring where it lands. Music that is not literally hard to listen to, but music that can sober any mood. The refrain of "How is it Supposed to Be?" desperately demands "just tell me how to love / show me how it's done", before qualifying the question with the only two options left: "is it kiss and hug or is it punch and blood?" Felt Drawings is high stakes music. Everything or nothing.
There is a lot to love here on Body, but it is going to hurt. And if you are going in, understand you will have to play by some uncomfortable rules. If you put nothing in, nothing is going to come out.
As with life, as with love.
Yuck - s/t
Yuck's self-titled debut is the answer to the question of what it would have sounded like if the band that practiced twice a week in your neighbor's garage back in 1995 had been any good. It's pretty cleat these sounds of the 1990s are something artists find themselves longing for. A decade with tastes and innovations more scattered than united in any one way.
In 2009 Japandroids' Post-Nothing delightfully helped to fill a void that had existed since Pavement disbanded. Last year, Surfer Blood's outstanding debut Astrocoast captured a lot of the things Weezer did on the Blue Album. But it's this Yuck album, in 2011, that manages to decode whatever it was that made rock music in the 90s so loved. It's music that isn't only informed by, but speaks to a period of time ten years passed. This time, the music is not as a reaction to whatever it was happening in the late 1980s, but whatever is happening in the late 2000s (and what that is, I'm not sure anyone knows yet).
Beyond all that, Yuck has made an album of good songs. The album opens with back to back hard rockers and from there covers just about all the ground you'd expect. Things slow down on ""Shook Down", become beautiful on "Suicide Policeman", and eventually distort beyond recognition on Rubber, the album's slowburning conclusion.
Dirty Beaches - Badlands
As Dirty Beaches, sole member Alex Zhang Hungtai, channels the spirit of the 1950s pop utterly. He works inside the ghostly, vague memory of a decade that has gone more or less unacknowledged in the current collective pop music conscious. We nod to Elvis, sure, but contemporary pop music history starts with the Beatles. Many of these sounds are taken directly as Hungtai borrows from a variety of samples and standard melodies. The whole thing sounds like it was bootlegged onto tape by a motorcycle passenger, tuning their radio into some nonexistent copy album. And going seventy miles per hour.
Badlands is frustrating and difficult to understand contextually, but not particularly difficult to listen to and to like. It sounds nothing like anything else happening in music today, but borrows so heavily from its inspirations it creates a bit of a conundrum. Is listening to Hungtai lay down ghostly vocals over a 2 bar sample of Françoise Hardy's "Voilá" worth listening to? And if it is, is it worth attention, praise?
Probably. Because what sounds unimpressive on paper ultimately kind of works. Badlands sounds unlike anything else happening in music today, a phenomenon given weight by the fact that the 1950s have been so widely passed over for so long. With a carefully managed, but effortless—and when you play these songs side by side with the source material, the sensation of low effort is uncomfortably apparent—aesthetic, Badlands is an album worth of attention. If only to have an opinion on it, which is to have an opinion on what music created like this means.
As for praise, lack thereof, or condemnation, you'll have to call this one for yourself.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Yoni & Josiah Wolf (as WHY?) 04.17.11 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
This was the last of three Yoni Wolf solo shows three shows taking place in Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church this weekend, all three with opening support from Frances Quinlan of Hop Along. The space is small, not more than ten rows of pews, each seating three comfortably. The bands set up maybe four feet away from the first row. The extraordinarily intimate setting matched the purpose of the event perfectly And favorably eliminated both a crowd and the need for anyone to stand.
More with aesthetics: It was odd, seeing Yoni at his most put together. His hair showing no signs of the unruly curls that have pervaded WHY? promotional images since the cLOUDDEAD days; instead it is slicked respectably with product. His fairly characteristic mustache sits natural on has face, looking absolutely unnovel. It's the look of a man who might have things together: the same one who posted a picture to facebook of himself signing on first house a week ago..
But his words betrayed him, in the way they've made WHY?'s career doing. Dense, intricate internal rhymes characteristic of earlier WHY? material were matched by some powerful (and powerfully sad, chill-inducing) refrains. On the only item being sold at the merch table--a limited edition screen print--was written the phrase "I know with no uncertainty that I'm uncertain and I don't know." The line was the foundation for a chorus of a song in the middle of the set. Brutally effective, I felt myself wanting to sing along without knowing the words to sing. This question of "ok, but where next?" ran throughout the set, informing nearly all eight of the new songs.
With only two players, arrangements were unexpectedly sparse. Yoni mostly perched at a church piano that had fallen slightly out of tune, Josiah alternating between guitar and bass while operating a bass drum simultaneously. The songs were played with lots of thumping low end, drums keeping time layered with funk-inspired bass lines. Maybe rap-like, maybe not.
As mentioned above, the set (below, with some annotations, including fragments of lyrics so proper titles can be attached once these things have proper titles) was almost entirely comprised of new WHY? material composed between 2007 and now, to be recorded for the next WHY? record in May and June 2011. Stressed online, and again a song or two into the set, a strict rule against any recording was in place. And understandably so, but it's a bit of a bummer that no one will be able to hear these songs again for a few months. Or maybe more than a few, depending.
The hype is hard to handle, especially with the final product farther away than any of us would like. Doing this sort of trial tour so early is the makings for a tough, frustrating wait. In context, it's the highest compliment I can give the band as they and Snake return to the studio with completely new material for the first time in years.
Good luck, godspeed, etc etc. We're waiting to be blown away.
Further considerations: Someone managed to get hold of a setlist for one of these shows, so I am editing in what the setlist calls these songs. The set seems to be exactly the same, with phrases I remember matching up with the current "official" titles.
FRANCES QUINLAN
01. Freshman Year
02. Sally
03. Tibetan Popstars
YONI & JOSIAH WOLF
01. New - Paper
02. New - Always
03. The Vowels Pt. 2
04. Half a Person
05. New (My Most Intimate Geometry) - 27
06. Brook & Waxing
07. New - Distance
08. New - Kevin
09. New - Bitter
10. New - Straw
11. New - Mumps
12-13. Pick Fights / Deceived
Encore:
14. Close to Me
15. These Few Presidents
16. One Rose
More with aesthetics: It was odd, seeing Yoni at his most put together. His hair showing no signs of the unruly curls that have pervaded WHY? promotional images since the cLOUDDEAD days; instead it is slicked respectably with product. His fairly characteristic mustache sits natural on has face, looking absolutely unnovel. It's the look of a man who might have things together: the same one who posted a picture to facebook of himself signing on first house a week ago..
But his words betrayed him, in the way they've made WHY?'s career doing. Dense, intricate internal rhymes characteristic of earlier WHY? material were matched by some powerful (and powerfully sad, chill-inducing) refrains. On the only item being sold at the merch table--a limited edition screen print--was written the phrase "I know with no uncertainty that I'm uncertain and I don't know." The line was the foundation for a chorus of a song in the middle of the set. Brutally effective, I felt myself wanting to sing along without knowing the words to sing. This question of "ok, but where next?" ran throughout the set, informing nearly all eight of the new songs.
With only two players, arrangements were unexpectedly sparse. Yoni mostly perched at a church piano that had fallen slightly out of tune, Josiah alternating between guitar and bass while operating a bass drum simultaneously. The songs were played with lots of thumping low end, drums keeping time layered with funk-inspired bass lines. Maybe rap-like, maybe not.
As mentioned above, the set (below, with some annotations, including fragments of lyrics so proper titles can be attached once these things have proper titles) was almost entirely comprised of new WHY? material composed between 2007 and now, to be recorded for the next WHY? record in May and June 2011. Stressed online, and again a song or two into the set, a strict rule against any recording was in place. And understandably so, but it's a bit of a bummer that no one will be able to hear these songs again for a few months. Or maybe more than a few, depending.
The hype is hard to handle, especially with the final product farther away than any of us would like. Doing this sort of trial tour so early is the makings for a tough, frustrating wait. In context, it's the highest compliment I can give the band as they and Snake return to the studio with completely new material for the first time in years.
Good luck, godspeed, etc etc. We're waiting to be blown away.
Further considerations: Someone managed to get hold of a setlist for one of these shows, so I am editing in what the setlist calls these songs. The set seems to be exactly the same, with phrases I remember matching up with the current "official" titles.
FRANCES QUINLAN
01. Freshman Year
02. Sally
03. Tibetan Popstars
YONI & JOSIAH WOLF
01. New - Paper
Features lyrics shown on a video Yoni posted on his facebook a few weeks ago when he was recording the album 5 demos.
02. New - Always
"like that"
03. The Vowels Pt. 2
From Alopecia (2008)
04. Half a Person
Smiths cover. Same arrangement as on this RadioK session.
05. New (My Most Intimate Geometry) - 27
I actually have this one on a bootleg from early 2009, performed a capella. It sounded really great with piano at the show. The title above is what I named it on the bootleg when I cut up the soundboard two years ago.
06. Brook & Waxing
From Alopecia (2008)
07. New - Distance
"keep distance"
08. New - Kevin
"I know with no uncertainty that I'm uncertain and I don't know."
09. New - Bitter
"liar pretends to confess"
10. New - Straw
"no, I am not ok, boys"
11. New - Mumps
"as ill as I am"
12-13. Pick Fights / Deceived
From the Rubber Traits CD-single / Dumb Hummer 7''. A really cool surprise. I've never seen either of these Rubber Traits/Dumb Hummer b-sides turn up on any bootleg or "almost live" album.
Encore:
14. Close to Me
Cure cover. Posted to the WHY? Myspace in 2008, but to be released on the forthcomng OIBrecords Split Series Vol. 5 this year.
15. These Few Presidents
From Alopecia (2008)
16. One Rose
From Eskimo Snow (2009)
Monday, March 14, 2011
Everything I am Listening To 3
Astronautalis - Midday Moon (single)
(stream/purchase)
We know some stuff about 'The Four Fists', a forthcoming collaborative EP from Astronautalis and P.O.S. A title, for one. What it's about (F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories converted into song. And, sure, why not), for a big second. Astronautalis' upcoming, untitled solo album is different. He's playing this one close to his chest, and the release of Midday Moon is one of our only clues (the other being that the good company of anticon.'s Alias will be handling a few tracks) as to what the thing is going sound like.
And it sounds pretty remarkable. When asked, Andy told me that James Blake (who I'll get to eventually, promise) wasn't a direct influence on the track's production, but it's impossible not to hear for those familiar. Which is a Good Thing. Tons of synths sounding at once cut in and out like saws, over which Astronautalis does his hip-hop thing. He's distanced a bit from his whiskey-worn persona that informed a much of 2008's Pomegranate. It never worn out its welcome, but movement toward the quiet and the not-there is refreshing. Whenever this thing gets a name, it'll be one to remember to look out for.
note: I'm going to include a link to artist's bandcamp pages when available/possible. Mostly because it's a great service that let's you give a few dollars directly to artists who deserve it.
Destroyer - Kaputt
Kaputt is mostly songs that will kinda sorta remind you of Destroyer's Rubies, but is actually reminding you of something else. Which is to say, most of Kaputt lands closer to 2008's Trouble in Dreams, when the jazzy, carefree Bejar-sound started to wear a bit thin. Things are certainly better on Kaputt, but for all of the programmed drums and loops that replace the jaunty live energy of Destroyer's Rubies. Somehow, for all this, the final product is just not all that exceptional for someone who has been keeping an ear out in Bejar's direction.
The album closes with the standout "Bay of Pigs (Detail)", a track that might be humanity's first and only foray into the, uh, ambient-disco genre. That Kaputt's highlight is plucked mostly wholesale from an EP released on the tail-end of 2009 probably means something, but it was interesting then and is maybe even more interesting now. The unexpected synth stabs still suggest new direction, but do so when change for Destroyer is needed more than ever.
The Mountain Goats - All Eternal's Deck
This is not a twist in the vein of Mount Eerie's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening. It is not exactly the unexpected black metal record that the All Eternal's Deck art, title, and super legitimate, super hyped production credits might suggest. Those hopes and assumptions were dissipated after a listen to the album's first single, album opener, and slow burner "Damn These Vampires". It sounded like a good Mountain Goats song but not much like something anyone would call metal.
If the inscrutable hype/power of death and thrash metal is anywhere to be found here, it's not too obvious. All Eternal's Deck will not destroy your speakers (but as always, your mileage may vary regarding damage done to your heart. Oh, ho ho.). It's not an affront to the music of dad rock dads. Really, the album doesn't even make much of a mess. The most brutal moments don't borrow from Morbid Angel-producer Erik Rutan, but certainly hold their own against anything else John Darnielle has done post-boombox. The fury of "Estate Sale Sign" can run with Heretic Pride explosion "Sax Rohmner #1", while the slightly quieter "Prowl Great Cain" scalds a lot like "No Children".
The occasional twists in approach that pepper Mountain Goats albums are easier to spot but harder to conceive of. "High Hawk Season" brings in some barbershop harmonies, "For Charles Bronson" is a song Darnielle could have written and recorded at any point in his career, while "Never Quite Free" could have never come before now. The imbalance is strange, but ultimately it works both because Darnielle is Darnielle: someone with inexhaustible talents as a songwriter, and an ear for things that work for him and never against.
still soon:
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
Bright Eyes - The People's Key
Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
James Blake - s/t
Akron/Family - S/T II: The Cosmic and Journey of Shinju TNT
Lil B - Illusions of Grandeur
†‡† - Ghetto Ass Witch (EP)
Sam Mickens - Sinistra Secco (EP)
(stream/purchase)
We know some stuff about 'The Four Fists', a forthcoming collaborative EP from Astronautalis and P.O.S. A title, for one. What it's about (F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories converted into song. And, sure, why not), for a big second. Astronautalis' upcoming, untitled solo album is different. He's playing this one close to his chest, and the release of Midday Moon is one of our only clues (the other being that the good company of anticon.'s Alias will be handling a few tracks) as to what the thing is going sound like.
And it sounds pretty remarkable. When asked, Andy told me that James Blake (who I'll get to eventually, promise) wasn't a direct influence on the track's production, but it's impossible not to hear for those familiar. Which is a Good Thing. Tons of synths sounding at once cut in and out like saws, over which Astronautalis does his hip-hop thing. He's distanced a bit from his whiskey-worn persona that informed a much of 2008's Pomegranate. It never worn out its welcome, but movement toward the quiet and the not-there is refreshing. Whenever this thing gets a name, it'll be one to remember to look out for.
note: I'm going to include a link to artist's bandcamp pages when available/possible. Mostly because it's a great service that let's you give a few dollars directly to artists who deserve it.
Destroyer - Kaputt
Kaputt is mostly songs that will kinda sorta remind you of Destroyer's Rubies, but is actually reminding you of something else. Which is to say, most of Kaputt lands closer to 2008's Trouble in Dreams, when the jazzy, carefree Bejar-sound started to wear a bit thin. Things are certainly better on Kaputt, but for all of the programmed drums and loops that replace the jaunty live energy of Destroyer's Rubies. Somehow, for all this, the final product is just not all that exceptional for someone who has been keeping an ear out in Bejar's direction.
The album closes with the standout "Bay of Pigs (Detail)", a track that might be humanity's first and only foray into the, uh, ambient-disco genre. That Kaputt's highlight is plucked mostly wholesale from an EP released on the tail-end of 2009 probably means something, but it was interesting then and is maybe even more interesting now. The unexpected synth stabs still suggest new direction, but do so when change for Destroyer is needed more than ever.
The Mountain Goats - All Eternal's Deck
This is not a twist in the vein of Mount Eerie's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening. It is not exactly the unexpected black metal record that the All Eternal's Deck art, title, and super legitimate, super hyped production credits might suggest. Those hopes and assumptions were dissipated after a listen to the album's first single, album opener, and slow burner "Damn These Vampires". It sounded like a good Mountain Goats song but not much like something anyone would call metal.
If the inscrutable hype/power of death and thrash metal is anywhere to be found here, it's not too obvious. All Eternal's Deck will not destroy your speakers (but as always, your mileage may vary regarding damage done to your heart. Oh, ho ho.). It's not an affront to the music of dad rock dads. Really, the album doesn't even make much of a mess. The most brutal moments don't borrow from Morbid Angel-producer Erik Rutan, but certainly hold their own against anything else John Darnielle has done post-boombox. The fury of "Estate Sale Sign" can run with Heretic Pride explosion "Sax Rohmner #1", while the slightly quieter "Prowl Great Cain" scalds a lot like "No Children".
The occasional twists in approach that pepper Mountain Goats albums are easier to spot but harder to conceive of. "High Hawk Season" brings in some barbershop harmonies, "For Charles Bronson" is a song Darnielle could have written and recorded at any point in his career, while "Never Quite Free" could have never come before now. The imbalance is strange, but ultimately it works both because Darnielle is Darnielle: someone with inexhaustible talents as a songwriter, and an ear for things that work for him and never against.
still soon:
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
Bright Eyes - The People's Key
Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
James Blake - s/t
Akron/Family - S/T II: The Cosmic and Journey of Shinju TNT
Lil B - Illusions of Grandeur
†‡† - Ghetto Ass Witch (EP)
Sam Mickens - Sinistra Secco (EP)
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