Archive for September, 2004

Close Your Eyes And Think Of This

Petra Haden "Armenia City In The Sky" - This is a selection from Haden's unreleased a cappella cover of the entirety of The Who's The Who Sell Out. Haden recorded all of the vocals by herself, reinterpreting the sound of the original's guitars, percussion, and electronic buzzes and drones as vocal parts, resulting in a track which sounds like a psychedelic glee club. If you would like to hear more from this project, three other songs from the record are preserved in real audio as part of this episode of Irwin Chusid's Gender Bias.

Sandra Lou "Le Banana Split"- This is a fairly straight cover of the Lio classic, but recorded in such a way as to make the intensely peppy original seem sluggish and anemic in comparison. I've had a lot of trouble finding information about Sandra Lou in English, so if you happen to know anything about her or this record, feel free to pass it along in the comments box. (Click here to buy it from Amazon Germany.)

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Luomo & Raz O'Hara "Running Away" - On this new single, Luomo and Raz O'Hara jack the bassline from "Smooth Criminal" (and "Billie Jean" on the b-side) and use it as the foundation for an entirely new song. It's interesting how after a minute or so, I barely notice the familiar melody underneath, as the song takes on a life and mood of its own, separate from the context of Michael Jackson. As one might expect from Luomo, there's a cool, clean, icy sound to this track; far more smooth than criminal. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Saicobab "Death Valley 69" - This was recorded by Yoshimi of the Boredoms for the recent Confuse Yr Idols Sonic Youth tribute album on the Narnack label. It's quite an interesting version of the song, as it transposes all of the guitar parts to the sitar, which suits the song's hippies-gone-evil subtext. Yoshimi sings all of Thurston's lines through a severe vocoder, rendering those parts nearly incomprehensible and totally inhuman. This cover version evokes a lot of the same feelings of dread and imminent doom that the original conveyed, but it's almost as though instead of the Manson family playing the role of the villain, it's some disturbingly mellow android. (Click here to buy it from Narnack Records.)

A Geometric Grid Of Little Squares

Kahimi Karie "What Are You Wearing?" - I wish that I could come up with a clever, catchy word that would be the cutesy Japanese hipster girl equivalent of Blaxploitation, because that would be the name of the subgenre for a song like this. Not surprisingly, this is the work of Momus, who might be indie rock's leading Asian fetishist aside from Rivers Cuomo. The strange thing about this song is that in spite of itself, it doesn't sound very Japanese, mostly due to Karie's bizarre singing voice, which sounds like Elmo approximating a chanteuse. This is not exactly a turn-on for me, but if you're at all creepy, it should seem pretty hott. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Concretes "Chico (Avalanches' "Wernham Hogg" remix)" - I'm not sure what this remix might have to do with The Office, but it is rather outstanding as it manages to mix together at least seven different genres of loveliness into four minutes while keeping the source material very recognizable. I don't care what comes first - more Avalanches remixes or a new Avalanches LP - but more, please. (Click here to buy it from Rough Trade.)

Elsewhere: John Tofu Hut and Oliver Soul Sides combine like Voltron, and the Soul Hut is born!

For FF fans: Eppy has posted his analysis of "My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found", this time including mp3s of the SBN demo version and the Eleanor solo acoustic recording from East Village Radio along with his notes and observations.

Also: If you happen to be 1) in NYC on October 15th 2) registered for CMJ and 3) available at noon (that should narrow the list down to maybe three people reading this, tops), please come visit the Press Play: Rediscovering Music Journalism Online panel, which will feature Mark Willet, Scott Plagenhoef, and myself along with Sub Pop's director of publicity Steve Manning and SPIN's Will Hermes as the moderator.

Put My Head Down, Crumple My Paper

Wu-Tang Clan "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit/Shame On A Nigga (live in San Bernardino, July 17, 2004) - This is a selection from the new Wu-Tang Clan live album which was recorded at a rare one-off show featuring all nine members of the Clan (plus Cappadonna) in California over the summer. It's exactly what I always suspected a Wu show would be like - shambolic but energetic, intense but fun. The setlist is absolutely brilliant - the majority of Enter The 36 Chambers is included, mostly played at the start of the show, with well-selected highlights from the three other Wu albums, plus classic material from the various solo records. They waste little time on stage, jumping from song to song and skipping verses in order to pack in as many songs as humanly possible within 70 minutes. The structure of the show seems to inadvertantly reveal the hierarchy of the Clan - the more successful members of the Clan (Method Man, Ghostface, Raekwon, Ol' Dirty Bastard) dominate the Wu-Tang group cuts and get the spotlight on their own hits, whereas poor U-God only pops up now and again and isn't allowed to perform any of his solo material. Even Wu part-timer Cappadonna gets his own solo tune! (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Mogs "Kelly Blame (Ph 606 version)" - The disco beat, breathy French vocals, and acid keyboards are all fine and good, but the mantra-like repetition of the words "I'm in love" is what sells this song. As the words repeat, they become almost entirely abstract, and the vocals approximate the sound of a siren, in both senses of the word. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

The Fiery Furnaces @ Bowery Ballroom NYC 9/25/2004

Wolf Notes (first half of song, rock version)/Leaky Crystal (alternating lines from Leaky Tunnel and Crystal Clear)/Worry Worry (a verse and chorus)/Blueberry Boat (two verses)/Worry Worry (verse and chorus)/Hurry Worry (2nd half of Smelling Cigarettes)/ Smelling Cigarettes (first half)/My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found/Wolf Notes (reprise of first half)/Two Fat Feet (verse and chorus)/Straight Street (a few verses and chorus)/Two Fat Feet (verse and chorus)/Oregon (part of Mason City, "take the Oregon Short Line to Salt Lake")/Name Game/Chief Inspector Blancheflower (all three sections without outro, 'Typewriter' section played as punk song with Eleanor on vocals, Matt sings 'Jenny' section with keyboards)/Quay Cur (played dramatically after "you know damn well she ain’t your Jenny no more", only first two verses and chorus)/Tropical Iceland (full song, keyboard heavy arrangement)/Up In The North (verse leading up to chorus, when she sings "and it went like this," it shifts to next song)/Nabs (part of Mason City, "geeched that gazoon's gow" etc)/South Is Only A Home (keyboard-centric 'disco' version)/Blueberry Boat (keyboards, verses and "you ain't never getting the cargo of my blueberry boat")/Bow Wow (verse and chorus, slow, keyboards)/Birdie Brain/Inca Rag/Asthma Attack (power trio version)/Don't Dance Her Down (verse, chorus)/Oregon reprise/Chris Michaels (first line only)/Evergreen (starts on guitar, Matt shifts to keyboard for second verse)/Chris Michaels ("Chinese Bird" section - "Tony," "I'm the little bird...")/Mason City (first few verses)/Spaniolated (power trio version)/Chris Michaels ("remember that girl...so so stup" ---> "Chillum" section, the credit card section cut out/(Matt's guitar gets screwed up, they pause for a bit til he gets a new one)/Chris Michaels (starts back up with "Chillum" section, when that ends it goes back to the first section, "later at lunch...")/Wolf Notes (on keyboard, second half of song, showtuney)/Quay Cur (Inuit section, keyboards, played like a stadium anthem)/Quay Cur (final section main theme, chorus)/Wolf Notes (first half over Quay Cur music, ending on "play me a tune!") // encore: I Broke My Mind/Single Again/I'm Gonna Run

Though it is not always necessary to include a setlist with a live review, this is certainly a case in which seeing a detailed run-down of what the band played is fairly essential in getting an idea of what this show was like. The structure of the set was even stranger than on previous FF tours. Rather than simply playing alternate arrangements and medleys of the songs as they had before, the new set chops up the songs and recombines them. In some cases, this modular approach yields bizarre results, such as the Frankenstein's monster mash-up of "Leaky Tunnel" and "Crystal Clear," but for the most part the tinkering appears to be in the interest of steamlining the set and eliminating inertia from the show altogether. It's almost as though the set was designed for an audience with ADD, skipping from "good part" to "good part," leaving out every "boring" step in between. I half-expect Eleanor Friedberger to sadistically pout "bored now" as every song section ends, evil Willow Rosenberg-style.

This was my fourth time seeing the Fiery Furnaces live since the end of 2003, and it was by far the best show that I've seen them play. They are much tighter now as a band, so when they play their nonstop medley set, the transitions are nearly seamless and the performance is cleaner and more fluid. Though it was thrilling when it seemed as though they were making up their set as they went along, the more premeditated approach serves them well, allowing themselves to appear more confident and deliberate.

The Trumpet Summons Us Again!

George Atkins and Hank Levine "The Trumpet" - Though the concept of making a novelty pop album out of John F. Kennedy's speeches seems strange and unfathomable, the actual record is even more peculiar than you might imagine. Not content to simply set the President's words to standard instrumentals, the producers of the record recast Kennedy as a lead vocalist for a groovy pop band, with a chorus of back up singers cheerfully repeating his solemn words as though to mock him. The results are ridiculous and highly inappropriate, especially when the chorus repeats the words "tyranny and poverty, tyranny and poverty" over and over with demented glee like a jingle from hell.

Dan Friel "7Sisters" - In spite of almost exclusively using cheap, semi-obsolete electronic gear, Dan Friel manages to create an impressively massive wall of sound on this track. This basically sounds like a more aggressive Flying Saucer Attack, with all of the lead parts played on overdriven keyboards over droning guitar chords and a chintzy drum machine. For best results, you're going to want to play this as loud as you possibly can, to maximize the physical sensation of the waves of treble passing over you. (Click here to buy it from Velocirecords.)

Elsewhere: Fans of the Fiery Furnaces should please note that Eppy has posted his analysis of "Paw Paw Tree," bringing him near to the halfway point on the album.

"This Doesn't Happen To My Band"

The Dandy Warhols "We Used To Be Friends" - After having seen Dig!, it's hard not to think of this song outside of the context of the bizarre relationship of The Dandy Warhols' Courtney Taylor and The Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe. It basically comes down to this - Taylor is the reasonably well adjusted leader of a band who has achieved some modest success, but is in thrall of Newcombe, a charismatic but clearly insane musician who lacks the basic coping skills necessary to function within the music industry. Taylor and Newcombe become friends shortly after the Dandys play their first show in San Francisco, and the film documents the following seven years as Taylor and his band gradually become more successful, and Newcombe and his rotating cast of sidemen continue on a downward spiral into chaos, madness, addiction, and commercial failure. The film is essentially a Goofus And Gallant story - though the Dandys are in many ways just as debauched as the BJM, they are mature and capable careerists, whereas Newcombe seems unable (or unwilling) to make any rational decisions whatsoever. As Taylor moves up in a world which demands compromise, his admiration for Newcombe's integrity and relentless productivity grows in direct proportion to Newcombe's resentment and obvious envy of the Dandys' good fortune.

One of the most peculiar things about Dig! is that Anton Newcombe's talents are never at any point called into question. Every single person in the film truly believes that he is a visionary genius, largely based on his prolific output and ability to play several instruments. Taylor and an A&R woman from Elektra rhapsodize about Newcombe's knack for rewriting and recontextualizing the rock music of the 60s, speaking of this fact as though his project was so much unlike the hundreds of other bands from the same period stripmining the same canon. This willful revisionism only serves to enable Newcombe's toxic, egomaniacal self-narrative in which he is a misunderstood Christ-like figure who is entitled to abuse everyone in his life because he is a Great Artist. Any armchair analyst will recognize the symptoms of Newcombe's various psychoses - OCD, sociopathic tendencies, megalomania, paranoid schizophrenia. Every relationship in Newcombe's life ends in disaster, and his situation only gets worse over time, exacerbated by his addiction to heroin.

At the end of the film, Courtney Taylor tells us of the lesson that he's learned from Newcombe's antics - "If it's good, it's fun, and if it's bad, it's funny." But at some point in the third act, Newcombe's behavior stops seeming funny and over the top, like a Best Show character made flesh, and just becomes sad and pathetic. His obsession with Taylor results in stalking the Dandy Warhols at CMJ, and then in sending them a package containing shotgun shells with their names on them as a perverse joke, later on insisting that if he wanted to kill them, he would have already done it. Newcombe's longterm collaborators finally abandon him; his record deal with TVT ends in profound failure; and he is charged with brutally assaulting an audience member in New York City. As the film concludes, Newcombe seems to be as oblivious as ever to the dire reality of his situation, choosing to cling to his destructive self-mythology to the bitter end, absolutely refusing to learn any lessons from his mistakes.

(Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Don't Forget About The Starfish Navigation System

Solex "You've Got Me" - Moody space jams, deep spooky male vocals and Royal Trux-ish guitar noodling are not at all what would normally come to mind when one thinks of Solex, but that's exactly what's on offer here. Elisabeth Esselink's distinctive chirpy voice does pop up here and there throughout the song, but the real star of this piece is the anonymous Australian dude on lead vocals. Apparently he and Elisabeth have never met, and he just sent her some recordings of him singing The White Album a cappella because he liked the previous Solex albums. I'm very fond of the lead guitar on this track, particularly towards the end when it shifts from woozy stoner haze to classic rawk boogie strut. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Black Moth Super Rainbow "Viet Caterpillar" - Much like Air, Black Moth Super Rainbow specialize in mellow psychedelia with classic analog keyboard textures and vocals vocodered beyond the point of comprehensibility, seemingly ready-made to appear in tv ads for blue jeans and computers. Don't hold that against them, though, since the music is still pretty good and not quite as nondescript as you might think. "Viet Caterpillar" is a bit like Moon Safari reimagined by American kids raised on video games, or the soundtrack of an educational documentary for children cut up and remixed by backpacker DJs. (Click here to buy it directly from the band.)

Elsewhere: I highly recommend checking out Anthony Miccio's turn at hosting Stylus' Stypod, in which he posts the most unintentionally hilarious Limp Bizkit song that I've ever heard. As Anthony says, "Fred Durst is the pinnacle of wtf-itude, a bottomless well of incomprehensible absurdity and should be respected as such."

None Of My Groupies Want To Dance

Marit Bergman "Adios Amigos" - I can't help but to think of Marit Bergman as being like an Earth 3 Avril Lavigne who isn't so much a punker in appearance, but has the sound and the spirit. "Adios Amigos" starts off sounding a bit like The Strokes (which is interesting, because it sounds specifically like them rather than their own reference points), but then kicks into high gear with a chorus of "ohs" and "yeahs;" a dynamic shift which feels like a genuine jolt of energy as opposed to rote post-Nirvana rock formula. Merit's lyrics are charming and self-deprecating - she tells us that she's a "lousy guitarist" and that she sings "out of tune," and that she's been "too fat for leather pants" - but it doesn't come off as moping. She sounds confident and self-assured, as though she just doesn't care about any of that, and neither should you. (Click here to buy it from Ginza.)

UA "Sonna Sora Ni Wa Oduru Uma"- After releasing a string of hit pop and children's records in her native Japan, UA has made a sudden and dramatic career shift with her new album, Sun - she's gone free jazz. If you can imagine Bjork collaborating with Albert Ayler, that should give you an idea of what this record sounds like, though there is a sprawling, elemental feeling to it which almost defies description. At its best, the record sounds both primal and soothing, as it manages to find the calm in the center of chaos. (Click here to buy it from Amazon Japan.)

The World Is At A Standstill

Theya Hermann "Champagne and the Starline" - I know next to nothing about this song other than that it is hopelessly out of print and apparently dates back to the 70s. It was included on the very rare compilation Satin Dustbin, but I cannot find any store which carries that title online. Anyway, it's a ridiculously cheerful glam pop tune about dealing with the day to day ramifications of the oil crisis. There's something very reassuring about this song - I totally believe Theya when she sings "don't despair, cutey baby loves you and she's always gonna be there." Well, thank God for that, right?

Look At Me, I'm Looking At You

Mu "Paris Hilton" - It's somewhat unclear to me whether this song is 'about' Paris Hilton, the Paris Hilton, or some kind of dance called The Paris Hilton. I'm guessing that it's the third option, or possibly, that "Paris Hilton!" (or rather, "Parisilto!," as it sounds with Matsumi's heavily accented English) is just a fun thing to shout out while you're dancing to post-apocalyptic house music. Oh wait, it could be that Matsumi is commanding Paris Hilton to "shake her body" for her under duress, sorta like when people shoot at your feet to make you dance. That makes some sense, given that the song itself demands that you move to it with its manic shouts and frantic beats. (Click here to visit the Output Recordings site for more about Mu.)

Portobella "Covered In Punk" - I admire the British so much for their ruthless efficiency in how they write their pop songs. Much like the music by Girls Aloud, Mousse T, and David Wrench that I've posted here recently, this song relentlessly jumps from hook to hook with great speed and force like a pop blitzkrieg, pounding the listener into total submission. I can understand why this would aggravate some people, but if you like to just surrender to the music, it's kinda glorious. This song has three basic sections - a rowdy, shouty dance-punk verse whichs shifts into a guitar-heavy bridge leading up to a sweet, anthemic pop chorus. Build up the tension, release it, repeat. Sure, it's the same old musical tricks, but the thrill is in the execution and the understanding that this is something that they are doing to you. The audience is always the bottom when it comes to music. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)