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Album Review: Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost [True Panther]

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On 09/13/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


We’ve learned so much about the band Girls in the past two years since their debut “Album” was released. The headlines almost always started by noting that frontman Christopher Owens grew up in a cult. The next attention grabber was the extremely NSFW music video for the song “Lust for Life”, featuring persons of various genders and sexual orientations lip syncing to the song while naked. And yes, one guy did use another guy’s penis as a “microphone”. In spite of these apparent distractions, the music itself was the ultimate selling point, a retro-fitted pastiche of 60s and 70s pop that was extremely earnest and often heartbreaking, equal parts familiar and catchy. It’d be easy to level criticism at the band for staying so firmly rooted in the past, but Girls have done great work trying to make the sound their own while also mixing it up just a bit to avoid getting too trapped in a certain style. One moment they’re channeling 3 minutes of Beach Boys pop, and the next they’re on a 7 minute psychedelic journey that’s a closer cousin to Pink Floyd. Somehow they’ve managed to make it all work, with Owens’ nasally voice playing the anchor and even proving that they can progress to bigger and better things with last year’s “Broken Dreams Club” EP. The hope with their new record “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” was to continue that forward march. By all accounts, they very much appear to have succeeded.

The record opens with the galloping “Honey Bunny”, taking a few cues from surf rock in the way the drums roll along and the guitar riffs tumble over one another like waves washing up on the shore. There are moments where it sounds like a team-up between Dick Dale and the Beach Boys, and the best part is it’s nearly as great. Pop culture aficionados should hopefully also associate the song title with the classic film “Pulp Fiction” and may note the sonic similarities to the first track of that movie’s soundtrack, the Dick Dale-riffed “Pumpkin and Honey Bunny/Misirlou”. In the case of Girls though, this is just a delightful pop song with cool origins. As a matter of contrast, “Alex” feels born straight out of the 90s, taking a much more shoegaze-like approach with some fuzz-inflected chords and some noodling electric guitar solos. The band does it without blinking an eye, and for whatever reason it works beautifully. The fuzzy guitars get a hefty burst of energy and a touch of prog rock ethos on “Die”, a track that rages for 3 minutes that are reminiscent of classic Badfinger or Deep Purple. Things get a bit more spaced out and trippy towards the end though, as a gently strummed acoustic guitar and a flute show up for the final two minutes of subdued instrumental that brings an unexpected grace to something that was so sharp at the start.

If you’re looking for the truly psychedelic though, look no further than the middle of “Father, Son, Holy Ghost”. Starting with “My Ma” and progressing through the two epic 6+ minute cuts “Vomit” and “Just A Song”, let’s just say that it would appear the band has been taking crib notes from some of Pink Floyd’s finest moments. The canyon-splitting guitar work and organ ring out very nicely on “My Ma”, though that’s relatively standard compared to what follows it. Everything hits harder and feels even bigger on “Vomit”, with the organ slamming in the chorus and the gospel choir backing up Owens’ intensely mellow vocals. There’s every chance that things could have gone completely overblown in the 6.5 minutes the song goes on for, but it’s Owens that keeps it grounded and within reason by being more Elliott Smith than Roger Waters. A nice solo acoustic guitar instrumental break for the first 90 seconds of “Just A Song” provides a welcome, intimate respite and introduction to the ballad. By the halfway point, Owens is chanting, “Love, love, love/it’s just a song” as violins, flutes and harps are woven between the acoustic guitar and drums. The song itself is gorgeous and drifting, very much akin to what you’d hear on a Spiritualized record.

Waking you up from the proverbial nap the middle of the record provides is “Magic”, a jangly guitar, AM pop number that operates with a certain Elvis Costello-ish aire about it. It feels very specifically placed in that position on the album so as to serve as a buffer between the nearly 7 minutes of “Just A Song” and the 8 minutes that make up “Forgiveness”. You don’t want two ballads of such length (let alone 3 if you count “Vomit”) piled on top of one another. Unlike some of the other massive songs on “Father, Son, Holy Ghost”, “Forgiveness” doesn’t pull any punches or play around with a whole lot of sonic textures. It is first and foremost a relatively sparse acoustic ballad, pushing us to pay close attention to exactly what Owens is singing about, something most succinctly summed up in the song’s title. For the final 2.5 minutes though, Owens takes a vocal break and thrashes out an electric guitar solo that sounds like pure catharsis. Here he is, begging to be forgiven, and that guitar ringing out into the somber melody is like the burden of all his problems being lifted from his shoulders. It is the album’s true highlight, to the point where it makes the final two songs left feel nearly unnecessary additions. Still, the organ and choir on “Love Like A River” makes it very much classically inspired by gospel/soul music, bringing yet another fascinating twist to what’s already a highly engaging record. Things close out with the somber “Jamie Marie”, in which Owens spends almost the entire track on his own, just a gently picked electric guitar and his voice. In the final minute of the song, an organ and the drums break through, but Owens has said his piece already, and they’ve simply shown up to play him off the stage. It’s an underwhelming way to close, but in light of all that came before it, it feels almost fitting.

There’s so much about “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” that you deserve to find out about yourself. Spending time with the lyrics, which are more often than not musings about relationships be they romantic or familial, only enhance the depth and character of the record. There are small, transitional moments too that you’ll uncover and hopefully find delightful the more times you listen to this album. It rewards your time and commitment to it, a quality that only the best of the best seem to have about them. For a band that apes a lot of classic sounds, Girls sure do an awfully great job with them – to the point where you almost think these guys would be huge were they around in the 60s and 70s. Imitating your idols is one thing, but to cut out your own piece of land among them, that’s impressive. Impressive to the point where “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” appears ready to be annointed as one of the finest records of 2011.

Girls – Vomit

Buy “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” from Amazon

Album Review: Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer [Merge]

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On 07/11/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


For years now, we’ve stood by and simply watched (or listened) as Matthew Friedberger unleashed solo record after solo record during brief breaks from his main band The Fiery Furnaces, of which he is a main part of along with his sister Eleanor. Well, technically speaking, Matthew has only released a couple solo albums, the double discer that was “Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School” back in 2006. This year though he’s freaking out and unleashing 8 albums of original material as part of a project called “Solos”, where he spends an entire record with just a single instrument and his own voice. If you separate out all of those various LPs in addition to the ones still forthcoming in 2011, he’ll have put out more solo full lengths than he has with The Fiery Furnaces. All the while, Eleanor Friedberger has done nothing on her own, leaving many curious as to what she might come up with were she to pursue such a path. Well, wonder no more, because last summer she recorded her first solo album. Now here we are, one year later, and that record is finally out, and very naturally titled “Last Summer”.

Anyone that’s ever heard a Fiery Furnaces album before knows what Eleanor is like behind the microphone. Her vocals are done in an almost sing-speak fashion, and that’s primarily due to the extensive amount of lyrics she’s got to spit out within the confines of a typical song. She writes the stuff too, and tells stories both real and fictional concerning her own life or the lives of others. On “Last Summer”, those hallmarks remain, though the stories she tells across this album are 100% true things that have happened to her. Not that it makes much of a difference in the end, except in making close analysis of the lyrics that much more poignant. She talks about a failed attempt to rekindle an old relationship on opening track and first single “My Mistakes”, even though the song itself is such a delightful slice of synth pop pie that you’d imagine it’d have to be about something more upbeat and fun. On the funky “Roosevelt Island” she details a trip she made to the New York neighborhood, leading off with an anecdote about encountering a doppelganger. “We saw a picture of a girl with the same hair and I posed next to her/Made a great photo but I never thought I’d see her again/Didn’t really ever want to see her again,” she sings with the most rapid-fire delivery possible. Dealing with the specific time frame of when the album was recorded, “Glitter Gold Year” mentions 2010 many a time, to the point where Eleanor begins to play around with just HOW she sings it. But she’s also apparently not happy with said “glitter gold year”, beacuse she also often repeats, “you said it wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s worse”. Seeing as how “Last Summer” is a recording of tales from 2010, there most definitely is no way that’s getting erased anymore, not that we’d want it to anyways. Even the most experienced New Yorker can sometimes get lost in such a large city, and “Owl’s Head Park” is an amusing tale about how going to pick up a custom-made bicycle left her at the titular park and unsure of how to get home. “The boys on the F train said that frame was fresh/it was the color blue/but I didn’t know my way/so I couldn’t get home to you,” are a few lines that emphasize just how Friedberger is able to keep a plot moving along while also providing miniscule details that enhance what’s already there. It’s a big part of what makes The Fiery Furnaces so unique and exciting, and it plays the same role on her solo effort, though with slightly different sonic results.

The two separate Friedberger halves of The Fiery Furnaces work so well together because of how their individual dynamics come into play. Matthew is the guy who puts together all the weird sonic experiments, while Eleanor writes and sings behind those avant-pop sounds. Rare is the Fiery Furnaces track that is straightforward and simply structured. The closest moments you’ll get to pure pop from the band comes through in tracks like “Single Again,” “Here Comes the Summer”, “Benton Harbor Blues” and “Tropical Iceland”. If you loved those moments, or if they’re some of the only songs you actually like from the band because the rest is too strange, then “Last Summer” is the record you’ve been waiting for. The songs almost always hold a typical verse-chorus-verse structure, and the oddest instrument used is either the saxophone or harmonica. Actually, the saxophone solo that closes out “Owl’s Head Park” is one of the most fascinating moments on an album that’s by no means lacking in them. The vibe is very much 70s pop throughout, and various aspects of it show up on certain tracks. “Roosevelt Island” mines the territory of past greats like Stevie Wonder or The Commodores. There’s a nice bit of psychedelia on “Inn of the Seventh Ray”, particularly when Eleanor’s vocals are hit with the echo effect and the synths are bleeping about like they’re floating within that same ether. “I Won’t Fall Apart On You Tonight” has some more fun with the vocals, creating some splendid backing harmonies that essentially make it a girl group song. And a pair of beautiful acoustic guitar-based folk ballads turn up as well courtesy of “Scenes from Bensonhurst” and “One-Month Marathon”. Though there are obviously some personal instrumental touches in there, at their core they recall some of the amazing folk records from artists like Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez. There may be a mixture of diverse styles across these 10 tracks, but Eleanor’s own quirks along with a serious knack for crafting memorable hooks makes everything work, even if she never pushes too far in one direction or the other.

Weighing “Last Summer” against all the other music with a Friedberger name stamped on it is a tough thing to do. Matthew’s influence has undoubtedly been a good on for the sake of originality and experimentation, but there’s something to be said for exceptionally strong writing and powerfully addictive pop songs. “My Mistakes” factors in pretty well to be one of the best, catchiest things you’ll hear this calendar year, and there’s a secret sort of delight to be had from condensing the weirdness of The Fiery Furnaces into something wholly pure and easily digestible. The mood of the album too, given its summer release date, makes for a perfect soundtrack to one of those lazy days hanging out at home with the sunshine streaming in through the windows. Yeah it works best in summer, but even in the winter it can probably be used to warm you up a little bit and bring out that innate longing to travel to the Inn of the Seventh Ray or ride the Cyclone on Coney Island. These may be Eleanor’s memories of things that have happened to her, but the way that she spins those tales tend to put us there with her. Honestly, there are far worse ways to spend your money and 40 minutes of your life. While the album likely lacks the staying power of a “Blueberry Boat”, the immediacy and lack of a learning curve make it special in its own way. Matthew may be releasing 8 albums this year, but it’s doubtful that any one of them will be as lovely and wonderful as “Last Summer” is.

Eleanor Friedberger – My Mistakes

Eleanor Friedberger – Scenes from Bensonhurst

Buy “Last Summer” from Amazon

Album Review: Shabazz Palaces – Black Up [Sub Pop]

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On 06/30/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


One close examination of the Sub Pop Records roster shows that they are by no means known for hip hop. Probably the closest they’ve ever come to hip hop are via a few songs from Flight of the Conchords. In case you’re not fully comprehending it, that last sentence was a joke. Kind of. It makes their signing of Shabazz Palaces just a little bit perplexing, like buying a canary when you’ve already got a house full of cats. But diversity, like an old wooden ship, is what any good record label aspires to. Shabazz Palaces might have been more at home on something like Anti, but Sub Pop’s stellar reputation seems to indicate that this particular project is something special. Their debut album “Black Up” definitely places them in unique company, a wholly uncommercial effort that plays minimal arrangements for all they’re worth. That they’re signed to an indie label makes sense too. Things appear to work out for all parties involved, because odd though it may be, this different approach to hip hop stands out and helps to give creedence to a type of music that has tended to border on stale in recent years.

That’s not to say “Black Up” is the be-all, end-all of modern day hip hop records. Kanye West can turn in a record judged by some to be absolutely perfect, even if it plays to common conventions while also pushing stadium-sized grandstanding. Shabazz Palaces don’t 100% knock it out of the park on their first try, but they’re trending in the right direction. It may or may not take some serious digging to find out that this project is the creation of Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, former member of the equally inventive hip hop collective Digable Planets. He’s trying really hard to keep his identity a secret, with his name not mentioned in any promotional materials, along zero photos to go along with it. So how was the veil eventually lifted? A distinctive voice is a distinctive voice, and Butler has got one. His perspective, too, is all his own, naturally avoiding cliches such as women, money and guns. Even race primarily takes a back seat to topics like defining your own identity and then living it. Pure, unfiltered honesty combined with a sheer lack of pretension or attempts to shock (looking at you Tyler, the Creator). Piecing together exactly what the themes of the album or even certain songs are all about can be a challenge, and that’s because most everything requires close scrutiny along with some deeper philosophical thoughts to best understand. When he repeats the phrase “Who/do you think/you are?” towards the end of “An Echo From the Hosts That Profess Infinitum”, it’s not done in a menacing fashion but rather a pondering one.

One of the more fascinating elements on “Black Up” is the pure beat construction on each individual track. It’s easy to throw rhymes over whatever is going on, but many of the melodies could very well work in other capacities with other musicians. A number of these tracks could register as part of the chillwave or glo-fi movement, and that’s just one aspect of many this music pulls from. Soul, R&B, jazz, electronica and even a little gospel are all represented in one form or another, and this blurring of genre tropes is a big part of what makes this record such a strong listen. You may not have much in the way of hooks to grab onto, but the direction each song goes in is never predictable or plain. Curveballs are thrown at multiple junctures, to the point where something like “Free Press and Curl” sounds completely different at the end compared to where it began. Sometimes you get a female voice courtesy of THEESatisfaction stepping in to soar just a bit in between the rhymes. A few tracks lack much in the way of rhyming anyways, because it’s all about creative wordplay and not writing something simply to fill an open-ended void. This is less hip hop and more a collection of tone poems with some well-placed beats. It is the work of a highly experienced, wise artist that has learned plenty about life, love and art, now looking to release something that’s “next level”. Butler tries to avoid being associated with Shabazz Palaces not because he’s ashamed of the project or likes the idea of turning this into a guessing game, but rather because he wants these tracks and this record to be the only focus. It needn’t matter who is behind it, so long as you absorb something from it. That’s not to say everything makes sense, or there are truly lessons to be learned. The meaning and purpose is not for you or me to decide. How “Black Up” functions in your life is almost entirely based upon your own individual experiences and preferences, and that’s what every great record has the ability to do. Your sole responsibility is to let it into your ears. It will do the rest.

Shabazz Palaces – An Echo From the Hosts That Profess Infinitum
Shabazz Palaces – Swerve…The Reeping of All That Is Worthwhile (Noir Not Withstanding)

Buy “Black Up” from Amazon

Album Review: Iceage – New Brigade [What’s Your Rupture?]

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On 06/23/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


Punk rock isn’t exactly known for its depth and originality. Quick, dirty and fun seem to be the main tenets, though that doesn’t discount it from being intelligent. A bunch of bands have been responsible for brilliant punk records, from Fugazi to the Misfits and well beyond, though it’s legitimately tough to name more than a couple of current bands that make what would classify as great hardcore punk these days. Credit that to a huge underground scene in which fans pledge their loyalties to whatever band they’re watching that night in somebody’s dark basement. On a national scale it’s tougher to pick out the highlights. In certain circles, Fucked Up’s new record “David Comes to Life” represents one of the strongest punk records in awhile, but there are just as many people that would reject the mere thought that it’s a “real” punk album. It’s too clean, too structured, way too long, and lacks a certain in-your-face attitude. Well, for the most serious of serious punk rockers, shove the Danish band Iceage in your ears and watch them bleed. Their debut album is titled “New Brigade”, and as its title might suggest, these boys are looking to usher in a fresh era of no frills, all kills punk. Hope you enjoy getting sonically kicked in the teeth.

One of the keys to unlocking Iceage is a careful look backwards into the days of both hardcore punk and post-punk. Before they were known as Joy Division, Ian Curtis & Co. called themselves Warsaw and their earliest recordings evoked the sounds of The Stooges and Wire, among others. The guitars were turned up to 11, the songs never went over 3 minutes in length, and the vocals were delivered from the back of the throat with enough spit that fans in the front rows didn’t need to shower the next day. At 12 tracks and 24 total minutes, nobody is going to say that “New Brigade” is too long, or doesn’t owe some debt of gratitude to the progenitors of punk. It ravages you from start to finish and doesn’t stop for a break, unless you count those couple momentary sets of drumstick clicks across standout track “Count Me In” as breaks. What these boys have is youth on their side, and being snotty teenagers means they’re pumped full of sugar, cigarette smoke and (most likely) alcohol. They beat on their instruments like they don’t know how to fully play them, which often results in very dischordant and unpleasant noise. But it’s through that sheer lack of giving a shit that only makes Iceage that much more compelling to listen to. Hooks or any sort of verse-chorus-verse song structure are virtually the antithesis of what they want to do, yet a song like “White Rune” turns out to be remarkably memorable anyways. And with their youth not necessarily signifying that they have any real idea of some of the great music their forebears were responsible for, a bass-heavy track like “Total Drench” sounds like a long-lost Joy Division demo. But even with the best of comparisons out there, there’s still something fresh and exciting about this band that defies any easy explanation. It’s one of the big reasons why they’ve risen far above their local underground scene and are quickly becoming recognized on a global scale. That indefinable “it” quality some of the best bands have? Iceage is one of those bands.

Unless you’re fully inoculated to hardcore punk rock with a bit of a heavy metal influence, chances are you’ll find “New Brigade” a tough listen. It is the auditory equivalent of walking out your front door to find that there’s a massive riot going on. If you’re not battle tested and prepared to accept the madness coming your way, it’ll eat you alive. Iceage are taking no prisoners and leaving everything they’ve got out on the floor. You may make it all the way through the 24 minutes, but after it’s over you’ll be grateful it wasn’t longer. That’s not to say it’s a bad 24 minutes, but rather your ears take such a beating that only silence will be able to soothe them. This is one for the punks that can name you two dozen bands at the drop of a hat that 99% of people have never heard of. There are whole scenes and communities we never know or hear about, that is unless one of the bands breaks free from that small basement and into something much larger. Iceage has become one of those bands, and should they keep the same piss and vinegar style of making music, they could inspire a whole new generation of punk rock. This is likely the most legitimate rock and roll album you’ll hear in all of 2011, demented art punk run amok like only the best can do. Brace yourself, strap on some steel-toed boots, and go have some fun with “New Brigade” as your soundtrack.

Iceage – Broken Bone
Iceage – White Rune
Iceage – New Brigade

Buy “New Brigade” from Amazon

Album Review: Bon Iver – Bon Iver [Jagjaguwar]

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On 06/20/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


By every indication, Justin Vernon is not the same man he was 3 years ago. It has been that long since his debut album “For Emma, Forever Ago” was recorded all alone under the moniker of Bon Iver out in a wintry Wisconsin cabin. The story about the creation of the album was about as perfect as the album itself, bringing with it the thought that maybe if we all just retreated from civilization perhaps we too might emerge with a similar bit of brilliance. Many have surely tried since then, but I haven’t heard any incredible “cabin in the woods” stories recently, and I’m guessing you haven’t either. But Vernon has done nothing but grow since breaking free of that self-imposed cocoon, moving forwards with a number of extra projects that includes the slow R&B collective Gayngs and the uber-experimental Volcano Choir. That’s not even making mention of his guest work on the latest Kanye West album along with the slight sonic leap forwards that was Bon Iver’s “Blood Bank” EP. While supporting that first Bon Iver record on tour, Vernon recruited an actual band to play with, and they’ve been by his side ever since, working to carefully enhance the sparse and singular acoustic guitar arrangements. He very well could have raced back to that Wisconsin cabin to record the second Bon Iver full length, but given all that’s happened to him, one gets the impression that he’s moved so far beyond that classic tale both mentally and sonically that there would be no point looking back. So instead Vernon built a recording studio out of an old veterinary clinic in Wisconsin, where he and the rest of the band crafted the new album in bits and pieces during their free time over these last 3 years. This record is self-titled, and that’s most likely because it marks a second rebirth for Vernon, signalling that Bon Iver is no longer just a singular man with a guitar but instead a full-fledged band with a vast array of tools at their disposal.

A big part of what made “For Emma, Forever Ago” so charming was the simplicity of it. The thought that a voice and an acoustic guitar were just about all the tools you needed to craft amazing songs meant that production values, studio magic and a full band were unnecessary extravagances when push came to shove. In certain cases though, such as with tUnE-yArDs, stepping up from crappy bedroom laptop recording to legitimate studio and backing band has proven not only necessary, but essential towards unleashing the full potential of an artist. Those concerned that Vernon’s upward movement towards bigger and better has spoiled his ability to write and compose smart music needn’t have worried after all, for “Bon Iver” seems to fully recognize all of the best things about that last album and worked simply to expound upon them in new and interesting ways. The anchor, as it has always been, is Vernon’s voice. That stark falsetto is truly unique in today’s musical landscape, and he once again makes the most out of it. Doubled and tripled over harmonies, Auto-Tune and a host of other effects make the singing a weapon of its own, often rising above the main course of melody to create added depth and beauty. He never quite goes to the length of the a capella acrobatics that was “Woods” off the “Blood Bank” EP, but he doesn’t need to here, particularly because there’s so much else for your ears to pick up on. The subtle uses of horns, orchestral sections and saxophones mix with digital and electro effects to make a mix that’s purposely muddy and understated. There are no sweepingly epic or overtly dramatic moments on the album, even if there are songs that build to noisy and satisfying crescendos. Intimacy is maintained primarily though Vernon’s words and his delivery of them, but for the most part there’s a natural calm that flows through the entire record from an instrumental perspective, to the point where it’s not too difficult to catch a nap during a few songs should the conditions be right. That’s not to say this album is boring, just that like any good lullaby, when you mix quiet and beautiful sometimes you’ll just close your eyes for a minute and wake up hours later.

Starting with a few seconds of pure silence, “Bon Iver”‘s opening track “Perth” works the term “slow burn” in the best way possible. The carefully picked and slightly fuzzy electric guitar initially maps out the melody, and shortly thereafter a very martial drum line kicks in to help propel that even more. After running through a couple of verses with not much of a legitimate chorus, nearly the entire final half of the song is pure instrumental build to an explosion. Chords are hit, the drums get louder, a horn section comes into play, and the best “hook” we can ask for is based purely on the guitar notes and nothing else. This is an introduction to the evolution of Bon Iver, and it’s heartening to see the band loosed from the chains of a more conventional song structure. Soft rock and a more nature-infused alt-country intersect on “Minnesota, WI”. The first half of the song moves from spacey guitar and deep drums into an almost slowed down reggae groove where flutes and saxophones all gently work with one another next to Vernon breaking out his lowest register R&B vocal that comes across as more Tunde Adebimpe than it does Bon Iver. But there’s a smooth development that enters with a subtle but fast moving acoustic guitar that’s about the auditory equivalent of a babbling forest brook. Suddenly all the other instruments begin to fade away, and in their place comes a banjo and a slide guitar. There’s also a heavy synth that pulsates through the main melody as it grinds towards a conclusion in which all the sounds collide in a melting pot that only works because of its modesty and restraint. Not everything is pure innovation or extensive with what it contains. “Holocene” is much more a vocal showcase than anything else, though the acoustic guitar and xylophone are nearly as warm and welcoming. Still, the light touch of a bicycle bell on “Michicant” or the bird chirping on “Hinnom, TX” make those songs just a touch more charming past what they’re already doing.

If there’s a point of contention on this self-titled album though, it’s going to be with closing track “Beth/Rest”. Whereas everything leading up to that point had only hinted towards something more 80s soft rock/adult contemporary, Bon Iver goes for the jugular in the end with something that would register as pure homage were it also not infused with a couple of small modern-day flourishes. Still, trying not to think about Bruce Hornsby and his kinfolk whilst listening to the song is tough, unless you’re young enough to have never been exposed to such cheese. This fucking with the idea of what’s “cool” by creating a song that is patently uncool seems to have carried over with a number of artists this year. Destroyer’s “Kaputt” worked on a lot of the same principles and managed to succeed in spite of itself. A worse example would be Heidecker & Wood’s debut album, which left you wondering if there was a joke or extreme sincerity behind it. For Bon Iver, the thinking appears to be one of acceptance. What’s cool is relative, and while we all make mistakes from time to time, we shouldn’t have to defend things or music that we truly love no matter how bad it might be to others. Even then, were we to search hard enough, perhaps we can find something great about an otherwise terrible thing or song. For me, “Beth/Rest” is worthwhile and a solid album closer less because it’s a decent song and more because of what it represents and tries to do. Certainly it will have its critics, but where some will see fault others will see perfection. 80s adult conteporary may be a crap genre, but at least Bon Iver has taken the risk and wound up making that crap sound almost listenable.

To say that expectations were high for the second Bon Iver album would be an understatement. “For Emma, Forever Ago” touched so many people who identified with its sparse and somber message. It is a record about heartbreak and attempting to move past it. As a contrast, “Bon Iver” isn’t about a woman but instead more about a place or places. You look at the song titles, from “Minnesota, WI” to “Wash.” to “Calgary” and “Lisbon, OH”, and whether they’re real or not, they all dictate a location. There’s controversy about whether or not this new album is titled “Bon Iver” or if it’s “Bon Iver, Bon Iver”, as if dictating that the band were a city and state unto themselves. Whatever the reality might be, this is an album that is searching for a home. We all get a little lost sometimes and become unsure of where to go or who to turn to. Consider this your travelling companion as you seek that refuge from whatever it is that is causing you distress. It is your port in a storm, your warm blanket when you are cold, or your moment of clarity amidst a sea of confusion. These are incredible songs composed with the utmost care and skill so as to hold consistent and thematically strong. If JUstin Vernon had just turned in another record filled with acoustic guitar ballads it would likely be very nice, but ultimately a little disappointing. Consistent development of your own sound is important, and Bon Iver have grown in big ways here. The influence of Vernon’s other projects is stamped on this album, but never to the point of open distraction or in such a way where we’d consider it anything else than something Bon Iver would do. The quietly graceful tone and how most of the songs blend into one another also helps to see this as a singular piece rather than a collection of individual songs. Standout first single “Calgary” may give you a good idea of how this record sounds, but to fully understand it requires at least one time through without any breaks or pauses or skipping. Allow yourself to be enveloped in the natural serenity it offers. Try to forget what you know, or think you know about this band and the sort of music they make, just to see if it resonates with you. If it does, maybe you can build a little home for it inside your heart.

Bon Iver – Calgary

Buy “Bon Iver” from Amazon

Album Review: Fucked Up – David Comes to Life [Matador]

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On 06/14/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


If you’re going to call your band Fucked Up, you’d best earn the name. If you’ve ever seen Fucked Up’s live show, in which the not-tiny frontman Damien Abraham aka Pink Eyes typically strips down, jumps into the crowd and destroys things on stage, then that might be reason enough to justify the name. What’s perhaps the scariest and most threatening thing about the band though is how legitimately brilliant they are. Behind the captivating live show, Fucked Up don’t write energetic punk rock songs that thrive solely on instrumental mastery and wild vocals. They’re one of those rare bands that actually tries to make music with an intricately designed purpose. Their first album “Hidden World” was technically concept-free, but there were commonalities and themes present across it if you paid close enough attention. 2008’s “The Chemistry of Common Life” was thematically strident in its presentation of songs about the mysteries of birth and death as well as the origins of life and re-birth. As if that wasn’t already somewhat impressive, the band has also been steadily releasing 12″ singles as part of their “Zodiac” series, which started in 2006 and has continued at a rate of about 1 per year. Naturally, everything in the Zodiac series deals with whatever animal is up on the Zodiac chart for that particular year the song will be released. Where things really start to get heavy though is this past year, in which Fucked Up have been intensely working on their very own punk rock opera. A story was written, surrounding the character known as David, a man that has been the subject of a couple Fucked Up songs in the past. Leading up to the actual album though, this year’s Record Store Day saw the release of “David’s Town”, a “compilation” record that features a collection of fictional bands from David’s fictional hometown of Byrdesdale Spa, UK. The style of music was decidedly Britpop, though the boys in Fucked Up put it all together and had a series of guests come in to handle vocals which included Danko Jones, Ben Cook, Cloud Nothings and A.C. Newman. The lengths this band has gone to in an effort to make immensely smart and effective punk rock while also providing completely extraneous elements that appear to be more about fun than function, now THAT is fucked up. Give a close listen to the finally finished, 78-minute full concept that is “David Comes to Life”, and you’ll agree with that sentiment completely.

The story behind “David Comes to Life” isn’t 100% clear, but that seems to be the way that Fucked Up intended it. Spread out across four parts and 18 total tracks, we meet David Eliade, a worker at a light bulb factory in the UK who appears to be unhappy with his life. One day he meets Veronica, an outspoken rebel and Communist, and falls in love with her. Via her committment to her cause though, she winds up getting killed in a terrorist bombing, which crushes David emotionally. While he wallows in misery, he learns details surrounding Veronica’s death might not be as clear-cut as they first appeared. It all leads to the thrilling conclusion in which David finally learns the truth and becomes emotionally unburdened. That’s the broad view of the story, neglecting the many fine details that are layered across the entire record but are not always easily understood. There’s a whole thing about the narrator of the story telling one version of what happened vs. David’s version of what happened vs. David’s ex-girlfriend Vivian’s version of what happened, so if it makes total sense to you consider yourself lucky. Pink Eyes’ rough and tumble vocal style doesn’t help with translation much either, and you’re best off following along with a lyrics sheet rather than trying to hear every word that’s being sung. What also is a story without dialogue from other characters, which is why Cults’ Madeline Follin and singer/songwriter Jennifer Castle both lend their vocal talents to characters like Veronica and Vivian. That variation in perspective and singers is actually of great benefit on a record like this, helping to provide something a little smoother and more emotionally strident next to Pink Eyes’ attack dog method. Despite his “one note” style, Pink Eyes sounds better and more vital on this record than he ever has before, which at the very least says something about personal growth and an ability to adjust should the need arise.

The real challenges a record like “David Comes to Life” provide are more those of patience and virtue than anything else. Though divided into parts, the record as a whole is intended to be digested in a singular sitting. Translation: to properly listen to this album is to carve over an hour out of your day to focus on it. With all of its energy and intense moments, it’s a really thrilling 78 minutes and one that deserves to be heard straight through as often as you can. But should you need to break the record down to the bare essentials, those moments that will get you off the quickest because there’s only so much time, there are a few notable highlights to keep an ear out for. “Queen of Hearts” surges to life like a sharper, racing punk rock take on a Bruce Springsteen song. Titus Andronicus had something similar going with last year’s “The Monitor”, but that record doesn’t have quite the wall of guitars and visceral vocals this does. The hook is dynamic and effortlessly catchy, and Follin shines in her singular verse matched against your typical Pink Eyes throaty yell. A mere couple tracks later, “Turn the Season” is dark and powerful in the best sort of way, an emotional sea change that provides a strong pathway into the next chapter of the storyline. “Ship of Fools” is a fist-pumping anthem that featured a sharp mid-track guitar solo that helps motivate it to another level. The head-bobbing rhythm of “The Recursive Girl” makes it one of the more genuinely fun moments on the record, and the guitars are also scaled back just a tiny bit to give the melody just a little more room to breathe. By the time the final cut “Lights Go Up” crawls out with a backing vocal assist from Kurt Vile, there’s a brightness and celebratory air happening. Pink Eyes’ scream has turned from one of desperation, frustration and pain into something vital and life affirming. It’s not only a triumph for the main character of David, but also the band, having just conquered a mountain of a record. Hell, if you listen to the whole thing from start to finish you’ll feel that same sense of relief as the guitars slowly fade away into a single tone that beeps almost like a hospital heart monitor, slowly and steadily until it finally stops cold when the album does.

When you make a heavy concept record like “David Comes to Life”, you run a huge risk of having everything turn out disastrous. The Decemberists seemed to learn their lesson after putting out “The Hazards of Love” to mixed reviews, though many of the complaints were more about their constantly increasing rate of pretension rather than the legitimate quality of the music. One could argue that punk rock is a much more ideal format for the rock opera, given its expedient and noisy nature, we’re less inclined to care about hearing something truly innovative making it that much more of a surprise when we do. Green Day worked that angle to massive success with their album “American Idiot”, even if they faltered significantly with its equally conceived follow-up “21st Century Breakdown”. For Fucked Up, “David Comes to Life” represents the culmination of years of hard work and development, and thankfully it appears to be entirely worth it. The sheer steps from conception through execution have been nothing short of smart, and the songs are both effortlessly catchy and raw while simultaneously having to deal with the heavy story content required. “Tommy”. “Zen Arcade”. “Double Nickels on the Dime”. These are some of the big and legendary records “David Comes ot Life” has to match up with, and in effect, it has. Punk rock album of the year contenders, meet your frontrunner.

Fucked Up – Queen of Hearts
Fucked Up – Ship of Fools
Fucked Up – A Little Death
Fucked Up – The Other Shoe

Buy “David Comes to Life” from Amazon

Album Review: Cults – Cults [Columbia/In the Name Of]

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On 05/27/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


As oh so many bands know in this day and age, hype can be a very dangerous thing. The cycles move so quickly that you can wind up abandoned just as fast as you were picked up. One of the biggest success stories as of late has been Cults. The duo of Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion first met in San Diego, transplanted themselves to New York, and quietly composed some music they were self-conscious about sharing with anyone. When they finally did hand over a couple tracks to friends, those songs eventually made their way to the inbox of Chris at Gorilla Vs. Bear, who made quick moves to sign them to his brand new label Forest Family. The “Go Outside” 7″ single turned Cults from unknowns to one of the most hyped acts online in a matter of weeks. The buzz was and remained high for such an extended period that many larger labels sought to sign the band, with Columbia ultimately winning out (and Lily Allen’s label In the Name Of getting UK distribution rights). The hype has died down somewhat, given the amount of time that passed between their initial impact and what will finally be their self-titled debut out the first week in June, but one gets the sense that Cults wanted it that way. The initial impact may be lessened as a result, but this band appears to be in it for the longer haul anyways.

Those that have been paying close attention to the comings and goings of Cults in the last year will likely have already heard the first three tracks on their debut full length. If perchance you missed them, Soundcloud seems to be your friend. Starting with “Abducted”, things take on a very lo-fi aesthetic for the first 40 seconds of the song. It sounds like a microphone was placed in the middle of a room and Oblivion stood on one side playing his acoustic guitar and Follin stood on the other singing and playing a glockenspiel. There’s an all natural impact straight into full stereo sound though, complete with everything cozying up to your traditional studio quality. That’s also the first time the immensely catchy chorus hits, sucking you in not only to the track but the album itself, done in the most lively and fun way possible. That’s the first big sign that Cults appear to be more than just a flash in the pan act with one great single. Speaking of that one great single, “Go Outside” is next, and it’s as hard-hitting and wonderful as ever. If you thought you listened to it too many times last year, taking a short break and returning to it finds the song in just as great of a form as when you left it. With a whole new set of fans ready to discover this band, expect to hear a lot more “Go Outside”. For “You Know What I Mean”, the band makes a much more defined statement as to what the rest of the record will sound like. While anything you’ve heard prior only hinted at it, this is the track that feels truly retro, reaching back to the girl groups of the 60s for inspiration. It’s a very sweet and again catchy song where the waltzy pace, combined with Follin’s syrupy vocals and some well-placed finger snaps only enhance the impact. Those intimately familiar with the “Go Outside” 7″ single from last year will also recognize the b-side “Most Wanted” showing up towards the middle of the record. The retro style continues with a positively lovely piano and glockenspiel groove that mixes together rather effortlessly with everything from keyboards to a light touch of cello.

Nothing else on “Cults” is as strong as those first few tracks hitting you one after the other like a boxer with tremendous speed and agility. Just because there’s not another massive, drool-inducing single on the second half of the record doesn’t mean that it’s slouching in any way whatsoever. It’s like walking into a room full of supermodels and then exiting to find a group of very beautiful women on the other side. They may not be supermodels, but they’re still very satisfying to hear. There are no flat out ugly songs on this album, and being entirely listenable not to mention enjoyable from front to back is a rarity to accomplish anyways. At 35 minutes too, it’s a breeze to get through and you’re almost naturally inclined to hit the play button again and restart the thing. Earworms such as “Never Heal Myself” and the sprinkled electronics of “Oh My God” continue to make strong use of the glockenspiel and help push the band’s material from an indie pop range into something people will likely call twee. There is that certain preciousness present in most of the songs, particularly the Belle and Sebastian-leaning man/woman call-and-response of “Bumper”, but the bits of darkness found within the lyrics help to lessen the cute factor. There’s a distinctive fear echoed in a few of the songs that deals with a range of topics. Relationships is a big one, but also growing up and more general ways we live our lives all have bits of apprehension or paranoia associated with them. Follin wonders, “What’s wrong with my brain/cause I seem to have lost it” on “You Know What I Mean”, and doubts her ability to be genuine on “Never Heal Myself” with the lines, “I could never be myself, so fuck you”. The small bit of irony is how the line is sung, with Follin keeping sassy in a song that feels decidedly upbeat and cheerful.

Most of “Cults” maintains that same lighthearted nature, melodies bouncing along practically oblivious to some of the more ominous lyrics paired alongside it. That’s just one part of the appeal of this band and why their debut is so great. The songs they’re making aren’t necessarily doing much if anything new that we haven’t heard before, it’s the WAY they’re doing it that makes them more compelling than average. A little twist on the verse-chorus-verse here, a little extra instrument popping up there, and it goes a much longer way than you might think. There’s also a strong unifying principle across these 11 tracks in the similar qualities that they share. Nothing sounds like it doesn’t belong there, and it’s oddly reminiscent of another much-hyped band’s debut record last year, Sleigh Bells’ “Treats”. Oddly enough, Shane Stoneback produced both “Treats” and “Cults”, though his work on the latter record was much more of a tweaking role than a sonic shift. But while Sleigh Bells and Cults essentially sound nothing alike, the emotions that both their records evoke are close to one another. It’s the energetic, party vibe that makes you want to throw on a pair of sunglasses and spend some serious time outdoors. Seasonally speaking, both are very much summer albums as well, making now the perfect time for Cults to be putting this out there. Prepare for the hype cycle to once again start fresh for these two, because as their self-titled debut proves, Cults are the real thing. Be a good boy or girl and drink the Kool-Aid like the rest of us.

Cults – Go Outside (7″ version)
Cults – Most Wanted (7″ version)

Cults – Abducted

Cults – You Know What I Mean

For a limited time, stream the entire album at NPR

Preorder “Cults” from Amazon

Album Review: Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues [Sub Pop]

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On 05/02/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


There’s something both incredible and daunting about crafting a near perfect debut record, to the point where it gets named by everyone and their mother to be the best thing released that year. Fleet Foxes pulled off such an achievement, as their self-titled first album won over millions of hearts, minds and ears just a few years ago in 2008. The sun-streamed pastoral folk with rich vocal harmonies made for some glorious throwback to the heydays of Fairport Convention, The Beach Boys and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The phrase “with great power comes great responsibility” absolutely applies in this case, with the band having to deal with the pressures of immediate success and how to craft a follow-up album that might be equal to or greater than what came before it. Making the entire process that much more painstaking was a serious battle with writer’s block that frontman Robin Pecknold encountered, not to mention a large number of songs that wound up in the trash after the band considered them unsatisfactory. So it’s been a tough road, but Fleet Foxes have moved past it, incorporating their frustration and depression into a darker sophmore effort with a title that says it all, “Helplessness Blues”.

Right from the opening verse of first track “Montezuma”, there’s a noticeable difference in what Fleet Foxes are doing compared to their last record. “Sun It Rises” was the introduction to the self-titled album, and it featured warm acoustic strings and a pace that was just shy of galloping. It very much exuded the ethos of the title and lyrics, that of a warm ball of light sliding up from below the horizon. By contrast, “Montezuma” has a faster plucked guitar but deliberately slow lyrics that play to a lower register rather than a higher one. Robin Pecknold immediately stands out front as his vocals are not enveloped in harmonies as he begins by questioning his place in life. “So now i am older/than my mother and father/when they had their daughter/Now what does that say about me?” he ponders moments before some backing harmonies step in to provide support and a bit more beauty amid the percussion-free fragility. Elsewhere in the song Pecknold ponders his own mortality, questioning if upon his placement in a coffin, “I wonder if I’ll see/any faces above me/or just cracks in the ceiling”. About mid-way through, a dam busts open and a shimmering keyboard emerges along with some more forceful harmonies to bring some added warmth to a relatively cold and troubled track. Yet despite having these nagging questions and feelings, the way Pecknold sings it projects a certain confident weariness, as if to say he hasn’t been living his life right but knows just how to get on the right path.

The way that “Bedouin Dress” develops makes for one of the more fascinating parts on the first half of the record. In what becomes a theme for much of “Helplessness Blues”, Pecknold continues to remain out in front of everything else with a solo vocal, with only touches of background harmonies here and there. There’s a little bit of a violin spread out across the track, helping to give it just a touch of alt-country vibe, but the overall structure truly takes the cake. The song has no official chorus, just a few different phrases that are repeated at various points with little to no discrimination. As such, it makes the track hard to pin down and equally unmemorable. Just because there’s no solid hook or make for easy recall doesn’t mean it’s any less great though, and the more defiant, experimental nature of the song gives it most of the credit it would have to earn elsewhere. In other words, it’s given a lot more wiggle room because it’s pushing boundaries and succeeding. Similarly, “Sim Sala Bim” somewhat follows the path of a story, with Pecknold on a diatribe as he questions why he’s in a relationship. “What makes me love you despite the reservations?/What do I see in your eyes/besides my reflection hanging high?” he selfishly wonders, also thinking maybe she put a spell on him. After two minutes of such precious thoughts though, the doors blow open and the final minute of the song is a full-on hard acoustic guitar strum, suddenly whipping the song into a frenzy it hadn’t even hinted at beforehand. It’s gorgeous and a rush and one of the things Fleet Foxes do best as learned from their debut album. The first third of the record continues to play with differing sounds and textures courtesy of “Battery Kinzie”, as the band places their guitars in the background in favor of pounding piano and drums. Unlike a number of tracks on the album that explore the boundaries of space and occasionally turn into extended jam sessions, “Battery Kinzie” wraps up in under 3 minutes and quite succintly after the second time through the chorus. Considering the pace and melody are lovely, it’s one of the few moments on the album you’re left wondering if they could have done more.

The two longest tracks on “Helplessness Blues” are actually ones that function more as separate pieces molded into singular entities. Clocking in at nearly 6 minutes, “The Plains/Bitter Dancer” begins with a bit of a psychedelic trip. Voices moan, breaking into “oohs” and “aahs” that pile on top of one another, both harmonizing and overlapping at the same time. An acoustic guitar and drums attempt to hold down some sort of order but to no avail, until all of that simply drifts away 2 minutes in to make room for the harmony rich acoustics of the second part of the track, complete with piano and flute accompaniment. The final 90 seconds of the song really shift into an entirely different gear as the drums become more insistent and crack the building tension wide open to a more majestic viewpoint. Towards the end of the record, “The Shrine/An Argument” is an 8 minute breakup saga that is the record’s Piece de Resistance. The most immediately noticeable thing about the track is that it features Pecknold stretching his voice to levels strained with heartbreak that feel completely geniune. Using the long-standing tradition of making wishes by throwing pennies into a fountain, Pecknold waxes poetic on a love that’s since vanished. “I’m not one to ever pray for mercy/or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine/but that day/you know I left my money and I thought of you/only all that copper glowing fine/and I wonder what became of you”, he sings just before transitioning into the second part of the track, which may be a flashback to where their relationship disintigrated. “In the doorway holding every letter that i wrote/in the driveway pulling away putting on your coat/in the ocean washing off my name from your throat”, he mourns, and as the waves begin to draw closer and closer to him, he lays down in the sand in the hopes that he’ll be taken away “like pollen on the breeze”. The final two minutes of the track are resigned to a rather turbulent instrumental, the most troubling and experimental moment on the entire record. Trumpets and saxophones and woodwinds and a host of other instruments tumble over one another in a very squeaky and off-key fashion, like a drunkard with little to no experience trying to play his favorite song. As to the actual feelings it invokes, all the dischordant noise can be attributed to the sonic equivalent of crashing waves slamming down over and over on top of that grief stricken body laying on the beach quietly wishing for all that pain to just wash away. It’s a mighty powerful moment worthy of close attention and careful analysis. And despite the very dark nature of the song, it might just be the smartest written and composed Fleet Foxes track to date.

While “The Shrine/An Argument” may be the true standout track on “Helplessness Blues”, the title track best sums up the many different aspects of the band’s sound at work across the entire record. It’s fitting that the title track is also the first single given its energy and harmony-rich vocals. The storyline is a relatively classic one too, retreating back to much of the nature-inspired imagery of the band’s debut in the second half of the song, as Pecknold sings, “If I had an orchard I’d work til I’m sore”. But really the point is wishing to return to a life of simplicity, where the pressure to be something greater than yourself and achieve fame and fortune can be crippling. Though sadness pervades the lyrics of “Lorelai”, the rather straightforward and appealingly sunny melody suggests otherwise. Unlike most of the other songs on this record that are rather tough nuts to crack, it’s one of the few that seems to have potential as a future single. The other is closing track “Grown Ocean”, which emerges like a phoenix out of the semingly broken ashes much of the rest of the record seems to espouse. Not only does it have energy, but it’s positive outlook is a breath of fresh air after the more somber preceeding cuts. In some ways, the track almost feels tacked on to the end, particularly given the flow of the record and the stoic Gram Parsons-esque Pecknold solo acoustic number “Blue Spotted Tail” that meekly exists just before it. Yet that final release is required, lest you drown amidst the choppy waves of the blues.

In spite of how well it’s put together, “Helplessness Blues” is not an easy record to like. Time, patience and a hefty dose of empathy are required to fully grasp exactly what’s going on here, and if you’re not willing to give this album all that then you might find yourself turned off by it. Hooks and memorable choruses are hard to come by, as is energy at certain points, and most of the lyrics will take you to a dark place. The overall melodies remain strong however, as do those vocal harmonies despite being in shorter supply as Pecknold takes the reins just a little bit more than last time. The progression though is highly impressive. Instrumentally the band has expanded their core by leaps and bounds, playing a number of things barely heard on records today such as a Marxophone, Tibetan singing bowls and a touch of timpani. Despite this expansive set of instruments, the up-front elements in any track are always the acoustic guitar or piano with everything else buried in the deep crevasses of the background. Pecknold has also grown significantly as a songwriter, bringing sharper imagery to his words while also peppering them with strong emotional ties. Rather than write a record about the expanse of nature, with its “Blue Ridge Mountains”, “Meadowlarks” and “Ragged Wood”, he’s taking a look inward at his own insecurities and troubles. From worries about living the kind of life he desires or was told to desire through the shattered relationships that have left him beaten and bruised, it’s a different, more insular approach and one that works quite well. Between that and his dominant singing voice though, you’ve got to wonder exactly how much influence the other guys in the band had with the final product. It’s enough to make you think that a Robin Pecknold solo record could be coming down the pipe sooner rather than later. For the time being though, “Helplessness Blues” is once again another notch in the Fleet Foxes cap, pushing the band to different but equally (if not more) compelling places than their debut. With a record as good as this, the band proves they’re neither helpless, nor do they have a strong reason to be singing the blues.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Buy “Helplessness Blues” from Amazon

Album Review: tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l [4AD]

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On 04/21/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


The last time we heard from Merrill Garbus, she was operating at such a DIY level that her music suffered because of it. To call her debut record BiRd-BrAiNs a gem buried underneath a pile of crap is probably pretty accurate. That’s not her fault, she was just using the tools available to her at the time. A computer, a microphone and a ukulele were pretty much all that she needed, and the results tended to sound worse than your average garage band’s demo. Still, there was something about that record that shone through in spite of its severe deficiencies. 4AD even liked it enough to release the record as-is, perhaps partly as a good faith in Garbus’ future, or with the sense that forward-thinking music fans would latch onto it no matter how clean or dirty the audio fidelity might be. Either way, it was a daring thing to record along with a daring thing to legitimately release in spite of all the clipped audio and other surface scratches. That gamble paid off, due less to the record itself and more to how its true nature rose to the surface when performed live. With a legitimate microphone and quality speakers to throw it out there, nothing stood in the way of the songs themselves anymore, and those that saw a tUnE-yArDs show ranted and raved not only about the songs but also about Garbus’ larger-than-life stage presence. Now that she has the backing and resources to assist her, the hope would be that a sophmore album might accurately reflect what everyone saw and heard when it wasn’t filtered through the shoddiest of DIY equipment. Guess what? The new record is titled “w h o k i l l”, and just like that everyone is handing their undivided attention over to Merrill Garbus.

Any legitimate attempts to describe the sound and texture of “w h o k i l l” is pretty much an exercise in futility. With so much more at her disposal, Garbus goes all out and packs the record with many things both expected and unexpected. She’s still a fan of the ukulele, but it’s not exactly her primary instrument anymore. More than anything else, her real instrument is that jaw-dropping voice of hers. You could absolutely tell there was a power behind it on BiRd-BrAiNs, but the full range and scope were trapped under a sea of poor fidelity. Hearing it in fully polished stereo on this new album is a revelation unto itself, the unique qualities oozing out on each track as Garbus almost seems to embody multiple characters depending on the song. The reason why are her low vs. high pitch dynamics, along with the scatological manner in which she rattles off lyrics. By all accounts, Garbus is a woman unhinged, unbeholden to any of your typical singing or songwriting tropes, and flippant to the point of flaunting it. In listening to her sing, you realize that everyone else is showing restraint by comparison. If she wants to growl and chirp, Merrill will growl and chirp. If, in the middle of singing a verse, she wants to go on a brief spoken word aside to get snarky about something, she’ll readily do so. Sure it can come across as crazy and certainly odd, but she does it with such reckless abandon and pure joy you can’t help but be charmed by it. Quirky is the best descriptor of it, and there’s very little being released under that category these days, let alone this loose and engaging.

Equally fun are the ways that Garbus blends widely varied styles and genres to her own benefit. The first, most notable instrument outside of the vocals is the percussion. There’s such a wide variety of beats on “w h o k i l l”, but the primary influence is definitely African in nature. As such, thoughts of a completely off-the-wall Paul Simon or even a strange otherworldly take on Vampire Weekend might pop up in your head. But that doesn’t even begin to take into account the flashes of R&B, reggae, jazz, soul, folk, hip hop, psych-pop, and just general world music that all show up at one point or another on the record. Those are what make this album so difficult to classify. With such a huge scope of sounds and instruments, it’s tempting to think that there’s no way any sort of consistency could develop. What this record maintains is an unerring sense of pop structures, hammering on phrases and choruses enough to stick in your head, even as the melodies that surround them can seem confounding. Additionally, what’s standard for this album is that there is no standard, the madness spread quite liberally and evenly. The unexpected thus becomes the expected, to the point where a normal-sounding song would feel out of place and almost a cop-out. The thrill is in the discovery, how you’re on this completely out of control ride with no idea where it will turn next. Mood-wise, “w h o k i l l” is a success because it never gets too dark or slow. There’s plenty of emotion, ranging everywhere from love and hate to happy and sad, but the upbeat stuff outweighs everything else, and the tempo never lets the depression take hold. The drum and bass arrangement of “Doorstep” is made more jovial with the light click-clack of some light wood on wood taps and overdubbed vocal harmonies that render the oft-repeated lyrics of “policeman shot my baby” ineffective in the outrage or horror we might otherwise feel. That’s the point though. Even the lone ballad on the record, the 6 minute “Woolywollygong”, has a bit of light amidst the generally dark lyrics and pace.

Speaking of lyrics, they’re another always key part of the tUnE-yArDs aesthetic. The highly explicit and blunt lyricisms that Garbus spits out are both impersonal yet immediately relatable. She sings in generalizations but with such specificity that it can sometimes feel like she’s putting your own thoughts out there. Most likely to have the hardest time with this are men, because whether you like it or not this is a feminist record through and through. So when there’s a song about body issues and self-mutilation, there’s not a whole lot of guys that have to deal with the psychological pressure of being a size 0. Underneath a very jazzy and funky melody on “Es-so”, you get self-hate moments like, “Sometimes I’ve got the jungle under my skin/drop at the rhythm, stick a fucking fork in/Bathe it all in a wave of disgust/(sarcastically Valley Girl) ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing'”. Charming, brilliant, and intensely dark all at the same time, while also remaining firmly grounded. In an equally fascinating methodology, “Powa” frankly champions sex and the pleasure that it brings. The intensely memorable chorus of “Your powa/inside/it rocks me like a lullaby” is wonderful unto itself, but where the song really gains meaning is the moment when it turns from being solely about sexual pleasure and again reaches into body image territory. “Mirror, mirror on the wall/can you see my face at all?/My man likes me from behind/Tell the truth, ah never mind/cause you bomb me with life’s humiliations every day” seems to be all self-hate, but in context the words are meant to convey that sex and intense love pull us out of those moments where we loathe our own bodies and instead embrace pure passion and pleasure. Sex is a refuge from not only the world, but from ourselves as well. “w h o k i l l” isn’t all about bodies and the perception of our bodies though. Opening track “My Country” weighs the positive and negatives of America. “Gangsta” deals with talking a tough game but not being able to back it up. And “Riotriot” finds Garbus infatuated with a police officer that shows up to arrest her brother. No matter the topic though, most every song and lyric on this album is thought-provoking and worthy of exploration, something worth doing when you have the time.

Some people are able to see the treasure sitting on the ocean floor while others just cruise on by it without a second thought because they don’t know it’s there. With a debut album like BiRd-BrAiNs, it was easy to move past tUnE-yArDs without a second thought, or even stopping to wonder what anyone could ever see in those abhorredly poor quality recordings. Turns out there was gold buried underneath, and the few keen ears that heard it the first time around can feel so much more justified with “w h o k i l l”. It is the record that will undoubtedly make Merrill Garbus a star. Every single word of praise you’ve heard about this record is justified, and even those that don’t understand it will likely find something nice to say. Innovative, sunny, funky and spine-tingling are all accurate descriptors for your listening experience, which is unlike any other you’ll have in 2011 almost guaranteed. Keep an eye out for a lot of imitators in the next year or two, though arguably none will fully succeed as well as Garbus herself will. The voice and the words are the two hugest sellers here, and both those things you can’t copy. Garbus is one-of-a-kind, and let’s hold out hope she stays that way for a long time to come.

tUnE-yArDs – Bizness

Buy “w h o k i l l” from Amazon

Album Review: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong [Slumberland]

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On 03/31/2011

In album review, BNM, music


Some of the greatest things about becoming successful are the opportunities that come your way as a result. Two years ago, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart earned themselves a huge wave of buzz thanks to their self-titled debut album. As you need to do when being the recipient of such praise, they followed their record with extensive touring and a couple of stopgap releases to keep everyone from forgetting about them. So an EP and a 7″ single later, POBPAH have readied their sophmore full length “Belong”, and this time things are different. They’re still signed to one of the more decidedly indie record labels around in Slumberland, but that doesn’t mean the record sounds that way. The ultra lo-fi haze that hung over their debut has been cleaned up significantly this time around courtesy of a 1-2 heavyweight combo of uber-producer Flood and uber-mixologist Alan Moulder. Those two are basically a dream team for the band, given their long history helping make some of their favorite records by some of their favorite bands – from My Bloody Valentine and Ride to The Smashing Pumpkins and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Together they’ve been responsible for more than a dozen classic records, and the hope is probably that “Belong” will wind up among them.

The change in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is immediately noticeable from the very first notes of “Belong”, leading straight out of the gate with a broad, energetic and fun title track. Granted, POBPAH have always been those three things, just a little hazier and with a more “head down” mentality prior to now. Here not only are the guitars more polished, but so are Kip Berman’s vocals and the hook. This newer, fuller and more confident version of the band comes across like an announcement of purpose – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are going mainstream. Listen to the next two tracks on the album, “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now” and the irrepressably catchy first single “Heart in Your Heartbreak” and those implied notions of going huge become that much more vivid. It also creates something of a debate amongst the independent music community about crossover acts and the consistent shunning of them. Embrace Kings of Leon when they put out “Youth and Young Manhood”, but patently reject them when “Sex On Fire” catapults them to fame and fortune. Just the use of the word “mainstream” has a taint to it, like bands that wear it are polluted with some sort of fungus. The thing about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart though, is that they’ve not yet reached the point of success on a massive scale. “Belong” sounds like it’s trying really hard to though, but before you have an adverse reaction to the thought, take under consideration that success on your own terms and from a tiny label such as Slumberland is an accomplishment thousands of bands can only dream of.

More importantly, the wealth of hooks and sheen on this record, translating to a super-easy-to-digest sound, only helps The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Instead of hindering their intentions, “Belong” finally feels like the first time they’re actually able to fully realize their sound. Underneath the haze and shy demeanor of their debut was this juggernaut, and now its legitimately exposed. Not only that, but the songwriting has improved this time around too. Instead of implying a number of things and leaving the listener to reach their own conclusions, we get direct references and things spelled out, though never to the point of treating us with kid gloves. These are songs that feel personal and upfront rather than colder and mysterious, and that’s a great thing. With that also comes the risk of running afoul by being too vanilla or alternatively too conceptually strident, and this record has only a couple of those moments. Everything else is above board and smartly written, in line with all the other elements at work here. The slower ballads like “Even in Dreams” and “Too Tough” particularly stand out lyric-wise, mostly due to their under-reliance on hooks to get their point across and the necessary drama to warrant toning down the upbeat charm that’s pretty much everywhere else.

Given that Flood and Alan Moulder (many times in tandem) were responsible for some of the best records of the 90s and since The Pains of Being Pure at Heart take many of their influences straight from that decade, the coming together of all these parties was divinely inspired. “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now” comes across like a direct decendent of Ride, while closing cut “Strange” bears a strong resemblance to the more pop-friendly side of My Bloody Valentine. Slices of shoegaze mixed with slacker rock and heartbreak pop congeal to make for a very special record that’s wildly interesting and majorly successful. The real shame would be if this album didn’t score POBPAH the exact things they seem to be aiming for, which is tons of radio airplay, placement in commercials, and a devoted fanbase of millions. Prior to this they were just indie darlings, but here they’ve proven they can play in the same league with the big dogs and do it better than most of them to boot. So long as they don’t fall prey to the pitfalls that normally handicap great indie bands that blow up huge (sign to a major label, give in to “pressure” to change, show no love to their earliest fans, etc.), things will be a-ok. Otherwise, we might wind up living out the heartbreaking tale that is “Anne with an E”.

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – Belong

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Album Review: Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pine [Carpark]

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On 02/25/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


When we last left Toro Y Moi, aka Chaz Bundick, he was riding high on his 2010 debut record “Causers of This”. It was one of a multitude of entries last year underneath the much-hearalded banner of glo-fi/chillwave. In case you’ve been living underneath a rock for the last year or two, what has earned glo-fi/chillwave a strong reputation has been the smart way in which artists have taken electronica-based sounds and repurposed them with a more lo-fi edge. Crappy, home-recorded tracks aren’t exactly the genre’s defining qualities, but they’re certainly one of the ways you can recognize chillwave when you hear it. You need to have a better head on your shoulders than a lot of more mainstream, studio-recorded electronica artists as well. Toro Y Moi certainly falls into that category, as do notables such as Twin Shadow, Neon Indian, Washed Out, Small Black and Memory Tapes among others. While many of them have put out debut records in the last year or two, Toro Y Moi is first out of the gate with a sophmore album, and at a time when chillwave is naturally burning out of its hype cycle. Chaz Bundick seems to know this, which is probably why his new album “Underneath the Pine” makes some necessary sonic leaps forward to keep a fickle collection of music fans interested and in his corner.

Like the “demise” (i.e. decrease in popularity) of lo-fi a couple years back, the smartest and easiest route off the glo-fi/chillwave path is to clean it up and add more hooks. “Underneath the Pine” does pretty much exactly that, with Bundick putting something of an actual studio budget to use and throwing a bit of polish on what are now more energetic, pop-driven arrangements. That was pretty well evident from the first two tracks released in advance of the album, “New Beat” and “Still Sound”. Both are excellent dance floor singles on their own, exploring a number of old school influences that includes soul and funk to create a more fractured and innovative take on what might otherwise be considered traditional. Both these songs are also notably more concise and fun than much of what was on the “Causers of This” debut. The whole “chill” part of chillwave was to place a bit of emphasis on more laid back and relaxed song structures. Electronica for the calmer set, something that wasn’t concerned with hitting those big beats that send the clubs into overdrive. “Underneath the Pine” still isn’t that modern, club-banging huge electronica album, but is rather an intricate, smartly composed set of songs that just so happen to at the very least get your toe tapping.

As the singular entity behind Toro Y Moi, Bundick really shows off how creative and instrumentally dense he can be with the strong variety of instruments across each track. Given how he implements things like keyboards and looped vocal harmonies, there are sections that do seem sharply inspired by a Stereolab or Broadcast or even Teenage Fanclub given the right circumstances. It’s slightly off from widesceen appeal, but unique and engaging enough to satisfy those with more open minds and penchants for a number of classic tropes. Xylophones and harpsichords (both likely “artificially created”) permeate the main melody of “Go With You” to throw it just a touch off-kilter and keep you guessing as to where it will go next. The way the acoustic guitar blends almost effortlessly with the woozy synths in “Before I’m Done” is simply wonderful, before the trippy psychedelic breakdown comes in the last minute. The collision of traditional piano and synth on “How I Know” gives the upbeat cut more depth than what might otherwise be recognized a 60s-tinged dance number. Bongos are just a small part of what makes “Light Black” one of the record’s most exciting and odd adventures,circumventing a standard song structure for something more playful and “out there”. And the heavy-handed, messed up piano combining with the psych-pop tropes on “Good Hold” makes for an effective Brian Eno-esque underwater adventure that sails seamlessly into closer “”Elise”.

While there was at least one bonified indie hit on the first Toro Y Moi album “Causers of This” courtesy of the track “Blessa”, what that entire record primarily lacked was a real reason to stick with Chaz Bundick’s project. He had the zeitgeist of being a chillwave artist but less actual buzz than his peers. To be fair, there was an overflow of the genre and not everyone can get the coverage they want or deserve. So Bundick was smart to not only keep working over the last year by consistently contributing remixes of other artists’ work, but also handling a very club-riddled “history of electronica” sort of side project known as Les Sins. Then to come running out of the gate this year with “Underneath the Pine” provides more justification as to why he not only needs more of our attention, courtesy of some stronger-than-ever songs that move beyond the overhyped subgenre that plucked him from obscurity and into something that’s more instrumentally conscious and pop-ready. In other words, Toro Y Moi has moved up the ladder and you need to be paying close attention. Here’s a really fun and moderately experimental electronica record that has more in common with most bands today than the actual dance music scene. It’s about time somebody did this the right way, and the cliffhanger we’re all left with is how Bundick is going to change it up on us again next time.

Toro Y Moi – Still Sound

Toro Y Moi – New Beat

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Album Review: Yuck – Yuck [Fat Possum]

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On 02/22/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


Considering the reverence with which everyone speaks about the 90s, it should come as little surprise that they’re experiencing a bit of a revival right now. Of course these various decade genre revivals are coming quicker than ever these days as more acts are paying close homage to their influences rather than adventuring out of the box a bit more and attempting something new. The 80s sprung back to life courtesy of The Killers and the host of other bands that rode the same wave to success. There hasn’t really been a singular trigger for this “return to the 90s” movement, but a whole bunch of reunions probably has something to do with it, as much if not more than 90s-leaning bands like Japandroids, Surfer Blood, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and No Age have these last couple years. At the very least, those of us that lived through the 90s and loved the music from it are now given a chance to in some senses re-live a lot of those things once again from an older and wiser viewpoint. Also, those significantly younger kids born in the 90s now have a good introduction to an era that they probably never knew in infancy. So long as we’re giving the 90s a second time over though, let’s try to be just a little more critical and careful about what bands thrive and which ones can go ignored. By now most of us should know better, right? It is with that mindset you’re invited to have a glance at the world of Yuck. Here’s a group of young guys from the UK that have clearly obsessed over guitar squalor and art-pop of the 90s and their self-titled debut album not only proves this but on that same token smartly elevates them to nearly the level of the greats they’ve learned so much from.

From the very first notes of energetic album opener “Get Away”, Yuck have instantly transported you back to a time when the fuzzed-out electric guitar was king. There’s a heavy crunch of a melody that envelops you as singer/guitarist Daniel Blumberg’s vocals come filtered through a layer of grittiness and crackle that has an almost Malkmus-esque Pavement feel. Additionally, there’s a squiggly, high-pitched guitar solo that emerges above the fray a number of times on the track that’s eerily reminiscent of J. Mascis and Dinosaur Jr. Not a lot of bands can pull that off convincingly, but Yuck do it not only on “Get Away”, but also on “Holing Out” and “Operation” as well without even blinking. Distortion pedals take over in full on “The Wall”, a pretty jangly number that’s quite catchy with a Guided By Voices/Pavement vibe to it. The vocals are so buried and undercut that at times the guitars just completely overtake everything standing in their way, much like the proverbial “wall” in the song’s title and lyrics. Acoustic guitars, crisp vocals and harmonies on “Shook Down” do a lot to change the vibe of the record and display some sonic diversity from Yuck in the early goings. It’s one of those sad-sack teenage ballads with just a hint of pep in its step despite the yearning aspects. It’s also a nice change of pace between the loud (but fun) guitar sandwich of “The Wall” and “Holing Out”. Teenage Fanclub meets Elliott Smith courtesy of the acoustic “Suicide Policeman”, just as an almost sunny melody complete with harmonies, xylophones and horns meets some not entirely upbeat lyrics. Still, the track is one of a handful of exceptional standouts that also includes the song that follows it, the classic Yo La Tengo-baiting “Georgia”. The male-female harmonies are used exceptionally well next to the energetic, distorted electric guitars and a stronger-than-usual rhythm section that really carries the track. For a song like “Stutter”, you get the impression you’ve heard a number of ballads just like it before from a number of different bands in a number of different places, but can’t ever quite put your finger on just when or where. That’s actually a big part of Yuck’s charm, in that they’re able to bring a whole lot of fond memories to mind but never so explicitly that you feel like they’re ripping somebody off. It’s just original and dynamic enough to work in their favor. There’s something R.E.M.-ish about “SUnday”, and most likely it’s the way the guitars function in the song because it’s definitely not the vocals. Either way, the song is just another one of the many late album delights hiding out where you least expect them. Just before closing things out, Yuck throws an instrumental our way courtesy of “Rose Gives A Lilly”. It does what any lovely post-rock inspired instrumental should do, which is hold our attention for the duration. Things move organically then into the 7+ minute post-rock/shoegaze finale of “Rubber”. The song trudges along in slow-burn fashion, like watching a house engulfed in flames via slow motion. There’s a dark and sinister quality to the sheer squalls of noise that wash over you time and time again, but it’s immensely beautiful too. If you’ve not yet seen the music video for “Rubber”, which is “dog-gone” interesting, it brings a new-found appreciation to oddities that you can’t erase from your head but kind of don’t want to.

A big part of what makes Yuck so interesting and impressive is the variety of sounds that they explore on their debut. Sure, every song is 90s-centric in one way or another, but other than that it’s a small challenge to box them in a sonic corner. One minute they’re doing a high energy fuzzed out rock song, the next an acoustic-driven ballad and the next a gob smacking post-rock jam. None of it is particularly upbeat or happy, but when you really think about it, the 90s weren’t either. The grunge movement, among other things, was born out of frustration with growing up. Hell yes it’s tough to be a teenager today, because until they can create a pill that gets all those crazy mood swings and relationship difficulties under control, it’s going to remain tough. Yuck may not have the grunge sound, but a lot of their songs do focus on breakups and other adulthood struggles. Just barely out of their teens themselves, a lot of what’s on this self-titled album may be drawn from autobiographical experiences. The only real problem with the lyrics are that there’s the occasional clunker in there that just doesn’t quite work despite their best efforts. Those moments are few and far between though, and instrumentally things are so strong and sharp that the words matter just a little bit less. Of the many artists reaching back to the 90s for inspiration, Yuck turn out to be among the strongest thanks to those seriously great musical chops. At the end of last year, a number of publications named Yuck among the crop of fresh new artists to watch for in 2011. The good news is that they were right, and the band’s debut record is one of the stronger things released in these first couple months of the new year. Whether it can sustain such momentum and stick with people all the way through the best of’s in December, we’ll just have to play a game of wait and see on that.

Yuck – Georgia
Yuck – Rubber

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Click past the jump to see the music video for “Rubber” (NSFW)

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Album Review: PJ Harvey – Let England Shake [Island/Def Jam/Vagrant]

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On 02/15/2011

In album review, BNM, music


Hear ye, hear ye, hold thy tongues whilst I speak (er, write). Thee Polly Jean Harvey has just released her latest opus, the sublimely titled “Let England Shake”. Her record of duets with John Parish nonwithstanding, this marks her ninth full length and first official “solo” album since 2007’s “White Chalk”. Of course none of her records are truly solo efforts given the number of people involved behind the scenes that make up backing musicians, which includes yet again Parish, along with Mick Harvey and producer Flood. Last time around PJ Harvey pulled her biggest 180 after what seemed like a career of 180s when she set down her guitar and much of the bluesy style of older recordings and chose to deal almost exclusively with the piano and the autoharp. “White Chalk” was a record of loneliness and desperation, of a woman so far separated from almost everyone else that she’s not even sure who she is anymore. Even the vocals weren’t her normal lower register growl, opting instead for some lilting, high-pitched “experiment” that left many fans more upset than the actual absence of guitars or any mood above what most might consider to be hideously depressed. In that respect, such a record could also be called very “English” in nature – in particular if you know just how completely unhappy many of the people living there can be (please note, I said MANY and not ALL before you send me an email, happy British people). Blame it on the weather, or blame it on a rich and long history of difficulties and war. Speaking of which, was is the topic PJ Harvey is stuck on for “Let England Shake”, and if you guessed that it’s not a record of stirring battle anthems you’d be spot on.

Let’s set the scene: it’s World War I and there’s been lots of battles fought and lots of people killed. The first World War was labeled The Great War not because it was great in the positive sense, but rather great as in big and horrible. From trench warfare to brutal battlefield conditions and very close range combat, it wasn’t a pleasant time for anyone. No stranger to disturbing imagery in her lyrics, PJ Harvey uses such elements as fodder on “Let England Shake”, a very fitting reminder of the terrible things our ancestors went through that’s not recognized or discussed much these days. As dark as war can get, and that’s pretty much ideal for Harvey, what pushes this record out from its deep and somber hole is actually the composition of the songs. No, Polly Jean hasn’t picked up her guitar again full time to tear things up the way she used to, but instead these are livelier compositions crafted from a very wide variety of instruments that come across as interesting and engaging if you pay just a little less attention to the words associated with them. The opening title track is a bouncy potential single that makes great use of xylophone, autoharp, piano and percussion. The familiar strums of electric guitar emerge from hibernation on “The Last Living Rose”, though the heavy bass drum and slices of saxophone throw a delightful little wrench in what would otherwise be a pretty close to normal PJ Harvey song. Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” plays a direct influence on the lyrics of “The Words That Maketh Murder”, a rather jaunty cut about the illusions that post-war diplomacy might make everything that came before it seem justified. It’s actually the schoolyard handclaps and the way that Harvey sings with almost bemused sarcasm that sells the track as one of the album’s strongest. Similarly, late album cut “Written on the Forehead” pulls bits of Niney the Observer’s “Blood and Fire” for a more atmospheric and emotional appeal that’s actually about the current turmoil in Iraq rather than WWI like most everything else.

The liberal use of autoharp and horns for “All and Everyone” feels surprisingly fitting as a memorial to fallen soldiers, to the point where it’d work exceptionally well on the soundtrack or closing credits to an epic, award-winning war film. “On Battleship Hill” is a stunningly gorgeous acoustic track with touches of piano that has Harvey stretching her voice to almost Joanna Newsom-like high pitches as she goes into vivid detail about the trenches at the title’s location, which was part of the Gallipoli campaign. In terms of a more “classic” PJ Harvey, “Bitter Branches” begins as a more folk-driven acoustic number before the electric guitar begins to flare up as the lyrics become more venomous and angry. The touches of xylophone are nice as well towards the end of the song. It’s interesting to hear John Parish’s vocal contributions to “Let England Shake”, serving as almost a casual reminder of 2009’s collaborative record with Harvey, “A Woman a Man Walked By”. He does a fair amount of backing vocals, from “The Glorious Land” to “England” to the doubled over harmonies of “Bitter Branches” and “Hanging In the Wire”. On “The Words That Maketh Murder” he very much makes his presence known, and album closer “The Colour of the Earth” gives him his own half verse before Harvey steps in and sings along with him. The difference between “Let England Shake” and “A Woman a Man Walked By” is in the details and composition of course. Parish composed all of the 2009 record, while Harvey just had to write lyrics and sing along with him. Here, Harvey is firmly at the controls both lyrically and compositionally, with Parish playing the support guy. Compared to Harvey’s past solo-in-name records though, Parish has significantly upped his presence on the new album, and the small degree of variation proves to be one of the record’s more winning and varied elements.

Far be it from me to judge, but it seems just a little bit odd that PJ Harvey decided to make a record about World War I, a conflict that happened around 50 years before she was born. Of course nobody is questioning Titus Andronicus’ motives for making the Civil War-themed “The Monitor” last year. Anybody can be a history buff, and after you’ve written upteen records and have been around for 20 years or more, whatever it takes to spark creativity, by all means use it. It turns out that for “Let England Shake”, The Great War has left Polly Jean Harvey more revitalized and better than she has been in at least 10, if not 15 years. The way she’s been able to broaden her musical palette and try new things while still maintaining a modicum of success is nothing short of impressive, and that she continues to use those accumulated tools and styles even moreso. Additionally it’s nice to hear her compose songs that have some real life and hooks to them again, in the possibility that maybe they’ll get played someplace other than through somebody’s headphones when they’re sad and lonely. World War I may not be the most pleasant topic, but Harvey has often thrived on the darker, scarier side of things anyways. This is a different sort of angle for her, and she shines because of it. A few years ago close to the release of “White Chalk” there was buzz suggesting that PJ Harvey was just going to call it quits and stop making music. Be thankful she didn’t – “Let England Shake” makes for one of the best records in her long career.

PJ Harvey – Written On The Forehead

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Album Review: Cut Copy – Zonoscope [Modular]

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On 02/10/2011

In album review, BNM, mp3, music


First and foremost, Australian band Cut Copy are all about the dance floor. The numerous labels affixed to their sound, be it dance rock, dance pop, synth pop, electronica, etc., don’t matter so much as knowing that if you put on a Cut Copy record, there’s little chance you’ll be able to avoid moving at least one part of your body to the beat. But in addition to those intense grooves, they’re also extremely adept at crafting hooks that stick with you long after the music has stopped. Their last album, 2008’s “In Ghost Colours”, was plentiful in all those ways, and tracks like “Lights and Music” and “Hearts On Fire” were more than just great cuts to play in the club – they were anthems worth playing in some huge spaces. That record also had a very “night out” feel to it, perfect to play when the neon lights were aglow and you’re cruising the city in a flashy suit or sparkly dress. The band is back at it again this week with their third full length “Zonoscope”, and it’s a lighter, brighter affair that scales back the massive choruses just a little in an effort to produce something a little more intelligent and cohesive than what they’ve done before.

“Zonoscope” opens with the uplifting “Need You Now”, a 6+ minute track that starts with a relatively basic beat and builds to an explosion of light and energy that’s just plain thrilling. There’s a distinct 80s pop vibe to “Take Me Over”, and it’s no wonder considering that much of the melody is just a dressed up dance version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” with new lyrics. Cut Copy make it their own, though it does have what feels like a Blondie vibe too (think “Heart of Glass”). And in what becomes a running theme through the course of the record, “Take Me Over” transitions flawlessly into first single “Where I’m Going” without looking back. Thanks largely to the backing vocals and a little bit of a psychedelic edge, “Where I’m Going” comes across like a beat-heavy Beach Boys classic. The track has such a sunny disposition to it, with the energetic shouts of “Yeah!” during the insanely catchy chorus, that you’ll fall in love with it almost immediately. Altogether it makes for one of the best songs of a young 2011, and at this point in time it’s difficult to think of how much else could surpass its brilliance.

The way the keyboards and splashes of cowbell are used on “Pharaohs and Pyramids”, along with the eventual wind-up and breakdown in the final 1:45 of the song, there’s something about the track that transports you to a classic club setting. It feels like something a band like Delorean would put out, though three things actually push this song to an entirely higher level. First is the beginning of the track, which holds a Talking Heads-ish stature before the chorus strikes the first time. Second is the end of the track, which courtesy of some carefully placed bass guitar brings to mind New Order in the best possible ways. And thirdly, Dan Whitford’s vocals convey just the right emotions compared to the tempo and overall arrangement. If a record like this could actually get away with going a bit sentimental, this is the closest Cut Copy get and it works beautifully. Not just because of the title, “Blink and You’ll Miss A Revolution” owes some contemporary debts to LCD Soundsystem and !!!, as both bands have similar markers that are on display in the track. The bits of xylophone and violin are nice Cut Copy touches though, bringing just a little extra wink and a smile to the party.

Guitars begin to factor in much more heavily on the second half of the album. “This Is All We’ve Got” brings in some almost shoegaze-inspired hazy electrics amidst the twinkling electronics for what ultimately becomes a very lovely ballad. That leads to a silky smooth transition into “Alisa”, which is by far the most guitar-centric song on the entire record. At its core the song is reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen mixed with David Bowie and My Bloody Valentine. It’s still very pop-driven and danceable, but darker and again with the shoegaze edge. Acoustic guitars show up for a bit on the ballad “Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat”, blending pretty effortlessly with the spacier electro bits and synths. For some reason the band Yes comes to mind whenever I hear that song, and the comparison may very well be justified in this case. “Zonoscope” ends on a pretty wild note, with the 15+ minute “Sun God”. The track is essentially a showcase for everything they’ve done on the album up until that point, moving from a slightly uptempo pop song into a blissed out instrumental. The good news is that there’s very few dead spots across that 15 minute runtime. The bad news is that there’s very little justification for why the song exists in the first place as it primarily feels like an extended club remix of a normal Cut Copy song. Given what you’ve been listening to for the previous 45 minutes, such a thing can’t be considered bad, just a little underwhelming considering what came before it.

This is not the best time of year to be releasing a dance album, but that’s probably only relevant if you live in a place where the weather gets cold and snowy in February. Of course it’s always hot inside dance clubs no matter where you are, with crowds of sweaty bodies rubbing up against one another. “Zonoscope” is less of a club record than Cut Copy’s last one, but that doesn’t make it any less good. The more tempered approach taken by the band this time puts better overall composition on display, which in turn also does well in elevating moods. If you’re suffering from seasonal affective disorder and a daily dose of sunshine just isn’t doing the job, this album is like the audio version of that. Even once the weather improves and you’re outside in some blistering heat, you’ll still feel motivated to dance if you turn this record on. What Cut Copy lacks in the emotional connection that LCD Soundsystem does so well, they more than make up for with dynamic pop hooks and flawless transitions that work so well portions of the album feel like one long slice of beat-infused bliss. If you can appreciate such things, “Zonoscope” will likely be one of your favorite albums of 2011. So far, it’s most definitely one of mine.

Cut Copy – Need You Now

REMIXES
Cut Copy – Take Me Over (Thee Loving Hand Remix by Tim Goldsworthy)
Cut Copy – Take Me Over (Midnight Magic Remix)

Buy “Zonoscope” from Amazon

Album Review: James Blake – James Blake [Atlas/A&M/Universal Republic]

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On 02/08/2011

In album review, BNM, music


If you pay close attention to the hype cycles around the music world, there’s a great chance you’ve heard of James Blake. The 23-year-old British artist/producer began to make a name for himself last year when he released three EPs of music that’s often been described as “dubstep”. The word is in quotes there because the definition of dubstep varies from person to person and in the end is probably not the best word to use when talking about James Blake’s sound anyways. What he did on those EPs was to craft a subtle electro-based dance landscape from synths and vocoders and a host of other very modern computer-related bits, and then typically added vocal samples from a number of old school R&B artists ranging from Aaliyah to R. Kelly. Oftentimes those vocals were so mangled or chopped up that you couldn’t tell who the original artist was anyways. It was fascinating stuff, and original enough to get him not only noticed but the subject of a number of “2011 Artists to Watch” lists. The assertion was only supported further by Blake’s cover of Feist’s “Limit to Your Love” that came out late last year as an advance single from his self-titled debut record. Oddly enough, his version of the song, which paired very sparse piano and his own voice, was pretty different from his prior EP work. It also turned out that Blake’s voice, which had been used very sparingly on the EPs, had a certain fragility and emotion locked within it, drawing easy comparisons to Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Antony Hegarty.

For his debut full-length, James Blake foregoes any vocal samples from other artists, along with some of the more danceable moments of his earlier EPs. Instead he’s made what amounts to a quiet exercise in minimal, somber electronica paired with some serious soul/R&B influence. He sings on most every track, though you can’t always call what he does singing considering how distorted or chopped up it gets. That’s part of what makes this album unique – it’s the way he’s able to blend some of the most classic elements in music with some of the most advanced technology available today. A great reference point for the sound would be to say that it’s like if Burial, How to Dress Well and Bon Iver had a baby. Opening track “Unluck” plods along with some synths and the slow click of a metronome while there’s some skittering electronic percussion that sounds a lot like a spray paint can being shook up and periodically applied to a brick wall. Blake’s soulful vocals are heavily run over with Autotune, to the point where it’s just a little tough to understand what he’s saying. But as things move along the synths build and then fade and Blake’s voice begins to build upon itself until there are multiple Autotuned versions singing either in unison or working a harmony angle that’s halting, weird, haunting and beautiful. Similar to how Kanye West repurposed Bon Iver’s “Woods” for the track “Lost in the World”, “Unluck” takes that same concept in the opposite direction, instead of making a club banging rap track it remains a somber meditation with dragging electro-beats and synths instead. “I don’t know about my dreams/I don’t know about my dreamin’ anymore/All that I know is I’m fallin’, fallin’, fallin’, fallin'” are the lines repeated over and over again for the duration of “The Wilhelm Scream” (along with “love” replacing all the “dreams”). It’s an aching and clear vocal from Blake, spread atop some quiet synths and laid back beats. The more times Blake runs through those lines though, the louder the noise behind him becomes, until eventually the synths and the beats overtake his vocal, leaving him just an echo in the distance, before dropping out quickly back to their original quiet state. Despite the lack of variation in the lyrics, Blake’s repetition goes a long way towards forcing the song to be memorable, and there’s enough going on in the background to prevent it from becoming an annoyance. In that sense there’s a little bit of genius in the song.

On “I Never Learnt to Share”, there’s even fewer lyrics to go on, as the lines, “My brother and my sister don’t speak to me/but I don’t blame them” are again repeated ad nauseum. Blake’s vocal is the only thing you hear the first three times he runs through the lyrics, but each time adds another overdubbed harmony to increase the complexity and beauty of it. Once that’s clear, the synths and a beat come in low at first before finally building to a somewhat loud and vibrant lyricless final minute that’s just as interesting as the 4 minutes of development that preceeded it. The Autotune is once again very liberally applied to “Lindisfarne I”, a track that is 99% vocals, save for about 4 or 5 single keyboard notes that brush across the sonic palette in the last 45 seconds of the 2.5+ minute duration. The point of the song is less about the lyrics, which are again indecipherable, or even the strength of the singing really. These things are more of a means to an end, the ultimate goal being to explore the pregnant pauses between the words. At some moments Blake finishes a line and then purposely waits just long enough in silence to make it uncomfortable before dishing out the next one. If it sounds like some pretentious bullshit chances are it is, but the restraint and calculation of it is pretty damn impressive. The sequel “Lindisfarne II” is still Autotuned, but in a way where you can understand more lyrics, and with some backing beats and a quietly strummed (but distorted in the background) acoustic guitar. Blake’s cover of Feist’s “Limit to Your Love” is the centerpiece of the record and the most straightforward thing you’ll hear on it as well. His clear vocals are strikingly great and dramatic, his cadence exactly the same as Feist’s on her original. The lush, symphonic elements of the original are stripped back to just piano and voice, though with a couple small electro-noise interludes between the lines. It’s tough to outdo Feist on her own song, but Blake’s very sensitive and quiet approach to the track brings a special quality to it you won’t find anywhere else.

The second half of the record features a number of odd choices that challenge as much as they confound. The very brief “Give Me My Month” is yet another piano and voice track that matches up very well next to “Limit to My Love”, and it’s one of the few moments of respite before things go off the deep end. “To Care (Like You)” is a glitchy electro-synth track that sees Blake manipulating his voice to sound somewhere between a woman and a child for about half of it, essentially creating one odd duet between his regular voice and the severely tweaked one. They switch off what might be considered verses in a very strange but lyrically strong love song. Remember when everyone carried around Discman portable CD players instead of iPods? The biggest flaw with the portable CD player was always when you were doing something active with it or accidentally dropped it in the middle of a song and it’d skip. That was sometimes even the case if your CD was scratched up enough. The track you were listening to would skip around, searching for the next clean spot to keep playing at. The experience would often give a song a disjointed feel, and courtesy of the songs “Why Don’t You Call Me” and “I Mind”, James Blake exploits this issue to no end. “Why Don’t You Call Me” begins as a simple piano and vocal song before getting chopped about. With a simple auditory click you’ll find yourself in the middle of a lyric or chord already struck and being held, and it’d be cause to worry if it wasn’t the same on every format you can listen to the album on. While “I Mind” is very similar, it uses the various chops in audio to create an interesting sort of lyricless groove that works a tiny bit better than you might imagine. It’s one of the few genuine moments on the album that feels like Blake’s 2010 EP stuff, though he’s sampling/cutting his own voice rather than anyone else’s. To close things out, “Measurements” has a very gospel-like feel to it, with some soft and sparse synths assisting a gigantic choir of all James Blakes. He must have overdubbed his voice about 10-15 times to achieve the effect, with everything from baritones to sopranos mixed in and even a touch of Autotune. And as the track drifts off into the night, the synths make their quiet exit, leaving you with just Blake and the many versions of himself. It’s a pretty gorgeous way to end the album and provides a very accurate auditory representation of the hazy photo of Blake that is the album cover. Even when the whole thing is finished you’re still left wondering just what version of James Blake is the real one.

There’s so much that can be said about James Blake, and much of it will either confuse you or just plain give you the wrong impression. What’s written here is probably no different, as this self-titled album is a challenge and a half to describe accurately. It’s a big part of what makes Blake such a compelling artist though, because he defies easy labels or cliches. There’s not much of any song structure or set format across the entire record, even if he does use a lot of the same tools over and over again. Between Autotune and lower register, subdued synths and various slow beats, you’d think a modicum of stability would be established at some point. Just the differences between his EPs and this full length are striking, let alone from track to track. Yet it’s those same elements, purposed and repurposed on the album that provide it with a solid base from which to work. The use of technology to update classic sounds as well, plays a huge part in what makes Blake so original. This Autotuned, electro version of old school soul and R&B can be a bit off-putting and bothersome, especially to long-time devotees of those genres, but the subversion is remarkably refreshing if that’s something you’re looking for. Similarly, this may be the very first album that’s able to use the highly robotic and emotionally stunted Autotune and give it real warmth and feeling. Partial credit goes to Blake’s dramatic singing voice, but the other half is with how he arranges it, either with overdubs and harmonies or with backing melodies that provide ample assistance in that task. Putting all of these varying factors together makes James Blake’s debut album one of the best and most interesting things released so far this year. Given how odd it is, a wide range of reactions is to be expected, but if you’ve got a great degree of appreciation for slow, quiet and innovative music, Blake might be one of your new favorites. Now then – where does he go from here?

Buy “James Blake” from Amazon MP3

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