Archive for June, 2006

Ease All Trouble Off My Mind

The Fiery Furnaces @ Webster Hall 6/29/2006
Rub Alcohol Blues / Chris Michaels / Crystal Clear / Straight Street / Police Sweater Blood Vow / My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found / Asthma Attack / Benton Harbor Blues / Quay Cur / The Garfield El / A Candy Maker's Knife In My Handbag / Evergreen / Teach Me Sweetheart / I'm In No Mood / Black Hearted Boy / Leaky Tunnel - Tropical Iceland / Single Again / Blueberry Boat // Don't Dance Her Down / Up In The North / Bitter Tea / Chief Inspector Blancheflower / Bow Wow / Rub Alcohol Blues



The Fiery Furnaces "Rub Alcohol Blues" - Check out that setlist! You would think that they were touring for Gallowsbird's Bark! As much as I do love most everything that has followed, it's sort of impossible for me to imagine the Friedbergers ever topping that first record in terms of sheer density of perfectly written songs or my own sentimental attachment. Unlike the last show that I saw them play at the Bowery Ballroom in April, the Furnaces wisely stuck to playing songs that worked well being played in a full-on classic rock band style, or reworked some selections into more effective arrangements. They had totally butchered "Teach Me Sweetheart" and "Bitter Tea" in April, but this time they took their time with the latter, and gave the former a spacey, art rock makeover that sounded like a melange of early 90s indie guitar textures. The band was tighter and more focused than I had ever seen them in this incarnation, and the Friedbergers both seemed to be in pretty high spirits over the course of the longest show that I've ever seen them play. "Don't Dance Her Down" was a particular highlight for me, with Eleanor playing the song on guitar with Bob D'Amico and Jason Loewenstein more or less in exactly the same arrangement from the album until Matt returned to the stage and played the song out with a guitar solo. "Rub Alcohol Blues" began and ended the show in a radical new arrangement that broke at the end of each verse for Eleanor to shout "Tequila!"

I am happy to report that the band is taking baby steps toward production values -- they came out to a pretty rad audio collage announcing that "the ceremony is about to begin" and that "The Fiery Furnaces are in the house!", and as you may have noticed in my crappy camera phone photograph above, they had a specially made backdrop on the stage. As you can see in that image, there's the bright "FF", but what you probably can't make out is that it is entirely made up of scrawled Furnaces lyrics in cyan, magenta, and yellow. (Click here to buy the best album of this decade to date from Insound.)

HEY! LOOK! WEEKEND EDIT!

NPR answered my prayers and provided the world with a high quality recording of this version of the Furnaces show. Here are three highlights from the 6/30 Washington DC show, which had a very similar setlist as this NYC set.

The Fiery Furnaces "Police Sweater Blood Vow (Live @ The 9:30 Club 6/30/06)"
The Fiery Furnaces "Bitter Tea (Live @ The 9:30 Club 6/30/06)"
The Fiery Furnaces "Teach Me Sweetheart (Live @ The 9:30 Club 6/30/06)"

(Click here to hear the rest of the show streaming on NPR's site.)

Elsewhere: My review of the Strangers With Candy feature film is up on The Movie Binge.

Silent Invisible Conversation

My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This is probably my favorite one thus far, and it includes songs from Envelopes, Planning To Rock, and CSS. I can barely contain my enthusiasm for that CSS album, by the way. Sooooooo good.

Unrest "June" - Maybe it's the suggestion from the lyric "the water that breathes on wet skin," but I've never been able to hear this bassline without thinking of extreme, gross humidity. Also, I've never quite figured out how to map out the emotional twists and turns of this song, as it shifts from one subtly articulated mix of emotions to the next without telegraphing the changes or making a big fuss about them either. One thing that is certain: the "daddy" section of this song is almost too much to bear, every single time. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Can "Little Star of Bethlehem" - One of the things I really like about Malcolm Mooney's lyrics and singing is the way that he adds more images and ideas over the course of a song, but he keeps reiterating his points for emphasis before cycling back to something else or adding a new line. It's like watching photos develop in the dark room -- you start with the basic blacks, and then the details gradually fill over the forms. We're not left with the most coherent image at the end of "Little Star of Bethlehem," but it is still quite vivid and involving in its slightly mad hippie-ish way. And of course, there's the music, which is a fine example of the way Can could create these perfect grooves and make them seem totally tossed-off, casual, and even sort of simple. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

A Taste Of A Poison Paradise

Daniel Merriweather featuring Saigon "City Rules" / Mark Ronson "Toxic" (excerpt from Mark Ronson and Nick Catchdubs' Radio Radio) - Mark Ronson and Nick Catchdubs new mix disc is intended to represent the aesthetic of Ronson's East Village Radio show, and it most certainly is a success in capturing a specific breezy blend of hipster pop, hip hop, and modern soul that gels into something so slick, streamlined, and clean that it seems untouched by the earth. Ronson's cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic" picks up where his version of Radiohead's "Just" leaves off, transforming the song into high-end drag cabaret, with its horns, beats, and Ol Dirty Bastard samples sounding like the audio equivalent of bright red lipstick on a dude decked out in Britney's wardrobe. (Click here to buy it from Catchdubs.)

Elsewhere: My review of Larry Clark's Wassup Rockers is up on The Movie Binge.

Every Time That I See You, Your Uniform Becomes See-Through

The Divine Comedy "To Die A Virgin" - The song starts off with a bit of dialogue from some old British film (anyone recognize it?) -- a prim young woman tells her boyfriend that she will sleep with him before he gets killed in a hypothetical war -- and Neil Hannon runs with the premise, playing the virginal lad's sexual anxiety for laughs (larfs?), but keeping up an obvious sense of empathy for his dilemma. The music has a cheery early Elton John quality (think "Philadelphia Freedom"), but also the winky, playful tone of a screwball comedy. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Madder Rose "Car Song" - Slipping gracefully back and forth between slow, dreamy moments of reflection and small bursts of physical energy, "Car Song" evokes the feeling of having to force yourself to stay awake while nursing a hopeless crush. As the singer's mind wanders, she confesses "I think of you all day long," but it seems more like a personal admission rather than a declaration to that person. I found this early 90s gem via Maria Tessa Sciarrino's Her Jazz show on WPRB, which you really ought to check out if you're into this sort of thing. (Click here to buy it used for 20 cents on Amazon.)

Also, hey people in the Washington DC area!:

Even His Superficial Raps Are Super-Official

Kanye West "Gone (Live @ Abbey Road Studios)" - Aside from adjusting a couple arrangements and a few AWOL guests, the performances on Kanye West's Late Orchestration live LP are remarkably true to the studio recordings on Late Registration and The College Dropout. However, it's not exactly an inessential record. In a way, the near-flawless execution of the tracks by West's orchestra and DJ is a small triumph over the low expectations of live hip hop. It's a clear statement that West thinks too highly of the complexity of his own work to butcher it in a live setting. (Though he kinda sorta did when I saw him open for U2 in November, but that was mainly due to atrocious sound that wrecked his accompaniment - his performance was fine.) The same sort of ambition that fuels his occasionally embarassing public bravado is what pushes him to craft songs as elegantly composed as "Gone" and "Crack Music," both of which outshine far bigger hits in a context which emphasizes their grace and grandiosity. When West claims that he's ahead of his time after the instrumental section of "Gone," I believe that he's exactly right. He's obviously not alone in his ability to compose sophisticated hip hop tracks, but at his best he simultaneously pushes at his formal boundaries while emphasizing emotional resonance. He's not trying to freak us out with bizarre sounds or impress us with minimalism; he's attemting to find more effective ways of expressing classic themes and hip hop tropes. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

You're Just Exceptionally Good At Small Talk, Baby

Erase Errata "Rider" - Erase Errata make the transition from "pretty good and kinda interesting" to "very good and rather compelling" on Nightlife, which is due out late next month. They haven't even changed that much in terms of sound, but the compositions are far more mature, consistent, and visceral than on previous releases. Many of the songs have an incredible momentum, with "Rider" and "Another Genius Idea From Our Government" in particular sounding like ideas careening towards inevitable conclusions, or colliding with dissent. Excellent work, and easily one of the best punk albums from 2006. (Click here to pre-order it from Smart Punk.)

Shimura Curves "Just Like Friends" - This song begins with the beat from "Just Like Honey" (or, really, "Be My Baby"), and it's actually sort of misleading because the Shimura Curves take that familiar melancholy sound and use it is an emotional starting point for a song that eventually builds up into a bold and brutally honest post-mortem of a soured relationship. As the song reaches its crest, the Curves come off as empowered, resolute, and self-possessed as they quote Orange Juice's "Rip It Up" and rock out with a fierce guitar vamp that sounds as though it's being run through ten pedals at once. (Click here for the Shimura Curves' MySpace page.)

Oh, It's Just Your Precious American Underground

My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site, featuring songs by Alan Singley, Cadence Weapon, and Los Super Elegantes. Also, my review of the girls basketball documentary The Heart of the Game is up on The Movie Binge.

Casper & The Cookies "Krötenwanderung" - If you are curious, the title translates to "toad migration," which makes some sense out of the opening line "I dream of tadpole life," and goes to show that there is a German word for pretty much every concept imaginable. The music sets into an odd, loping groove that suits the pensive tone of the lyrics and vocals, and makes the bursts of compressed guitar and keyboard digressions sound like an illustration of a busy, creative mind at work. (Click here to buy it from Happy Happy Birthday To Me.)

Destroyer "Rubies (Live @ The Middle East, Cambridge 2006)" - The cd packaged along with The Believer's latest music issue is almost hilariously predictable in its song selection, but I suppose there's no shame in being your own target audience. Much of the tracklisting's Pitchforkisms are quite understandable given that the disc was co-curated by P-fork contributor Brandon Stosuy, but also in that, let's face it, a lot of these artists -- Juana Molina, Calexico, Marissa Nadler, Six Organs of Admittance -- are ideally suited to being put on in the background while you're reading something like The Believer. Perhaps in anticipation of the fact that many of the magazine's subscribers would already be familiar with most of the artists, Stosuy and his partner Matthew Derby kindly included alternate versions of tracks as much as possible, and so the disc is filled with remixes, demos (Remember that solo Feist demo of "Mushaboom" that I posted here a couple years ago? It's on this cd!), and live cuts. I'm particularly fond of this concert recording of Destroyer's "Rubies" from earlier this year, which truncates the composition, and adds a bit of manic spark to a song that I felt was a little too fussy and overdone on the LP. (Click here to buy it from the McSweeney's store.)

Cash Rules Everything Around Queens



Wu Latino "C.R.E.A.M. (Latino Remix)" - These little xeroxed flyers are all over this small stretch of Broadway in Astoria, and as far as I can tell given my walk around the neighborhood and on through Steinway Street, nowhere else. Either the Wu Latinos got carried away and ran out of flyers before making it past their second block, or they targeted this particular area because, um, maybe some high profile radio programmers from Clearchannel live on that block, or at least frequent the Dunkin' Donuts or the florist between Crescent and 30th Street. (Actually, the most plausible reason I can think of is that there is some kind of rehearsal/studio space on that street, and maybe the Wu Latinos were working there and went on a mini-postering spree after an especially good session.)

Anyway, whether it was their goal or not, they got my attention. I'm a pretty big Wu-Tang Clan fan, so I'm kinda pre-sold on seeing things with the W logo. But Wu Latino? Huh? There's been Wu-Tang affiliates of various quality (mostly awful, if we're being honest) for years now, but this is the first time I've heard of the Clan licensing out their brand to an entirely different enthnicity. (Maybe this shouldn't be a shock after that Chappelle's Show "racial draft" skit with the RZA and the GZA getting traded to the Chinese.) It's unclear if these guys have any meaningful connection to the actual Wu-Tang Clan, or if they are just canny dudes franchising the name and hoping to piggyback on the Wu's credibility. Aside from a track featuring Raekwon and this remix of "C.R.E.A.M.," the Wu Latinos sound almost nothing like the Clan, favoring super-clean reggaeton tracks to anything remotely grimy and bleak. Their version of "C.R.E.A.M." works, but really how could it not? The track is a stone classic; that piano motif even sounds fantastic as a midi on my cell phone's ringtone. The music remains exactly the same, and Method Man's chorus has not been omitted. The Wu Latinos' rapping sounds fine, though I don't understand a word they are saying, and it doesn't hold a candle to the original verses from Raekwon and Inspectah Deck. The idea of Latin hip hop with a Wu aesthetic is appealing, but even when they are jacking their biggest hit's beat wholesale, the Wu Latinos are still shy of their mark. (Click here for the Wu Latino site.)

Elsewhere: The Fiery Furnaces interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air! Matthew completely nails exactly what it is that is great about his sister's voice when he is asked about it by Terry Gross.

I'm Not Even Gonna Tell You Twice

Bugz In The Attic "Move Aside" - Maybe I'm misinterpreting the influence, but this certainly sounds as though they were going for a Rich Harrison sort of thing with the drum samples. It's not nearly as bombastic and overflowing with lust as "Crazy In Love" or "1 Thing" (or DJ Premier's Harrison-clone "Ain't No Other Man" with Christina Aguilera), but that's mainly due to the group's European influences pulling the track in a tighter, more controlled direction. But close enough is good enough for me, and there's a charm to this sort of simmering dynamic tension coming up against that kind of drum break. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon UK.)

Edu K "Bundalele Baile Jean" - Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: Edu K does his chanty-rappy thing (which is nearly identical on every track of his that I've heard, but I love it every time) over a Baile funk version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." I am consistently amazed by the mallaebility and shelf life of "Billie Jean," a song that ought to be boring to everyone but the very young at this point, but it never stops proving itself to be compelling in all its permutations. (Click here to buy it from Man Recordings.)

Put Yourself Down, You Don't Need Me

Dani Siciliano "Why Can't I Make You High?" - Mixing sultry vocals, a minimal arrangement, and a strange country/folk-by-way-of-Prince-circa-"Kiss" aesthetic, "Why Can't I Make You High?" is not far off from KT Tunstall's excellent hit single "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" (aka that kinda awesome song Katherine McPhee did a few times on American Idol), but there's a certain slight bitterness to the flavor of this track that I prefer. The chorus is closer to the ground than Tunstall's composition, and sounds almost like an attempt to find the spot exactly between the hooks of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues." (Click here for Dani Siciliano's MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: For the love of God, hurry up and get Casey Dienel's live-in-session cover of Pavement's "Cut Your Hair" while you still can - Daytrotter is placing a 1000 download limit on that track. The rest of the session is great too, but there's no limit on those songs.

This is what I had to say about her version when I saw her play it live a few months ago:

As you can see above, Dienel actually did play a Pavement cover, and it kinda kills me that I can't share a recording of it with you right now because it's definitely the best non-instrumental cover of a Pavement song that I've ever heard. In some ways, it's rather similar to that Mark Ronson cover of "Just" - it makes no attempt to ape Malkmus' miles and miles of style, and simply aims to emphasize the timeless qualities of the song by putting it in the context of a genre that the original was referencing, however indirectly or sideways.