Archive for January, 2007

Born Ruffians "Hedonistic Me" - The Born Ruffians' debut EP definitely sounds better to me now than when I first heard it, but it's easy to understand why it didn't grab my attention in the same way that their live set did on Monday night. For one thing, the most exciting songs from their show are not on the record, and tracks they have released only hint at the quality of the melodic yet rhythmically complex material that they performed at the Mercury Lounge. "Hedonistic Me" was played in the set, and comes the closest to the appeal of the newer tunes, though it doesn't quite show off the brilliance of their drummer, who is so talented and charismatic that the guitarist and bassist seem to be supporting him, and not the other way around. The band indulge in a few vocal tics common in indie rock these days -- Modest Mouse rhythmic barks, Animal Collective party shouts, a general nebbishy timbre -- but at their best, the tunes are creamy, the guitar tone is gorgeous, the beats are clever yet intuitive, and the level of musicianship is far beyond what is commonly expected from young indie rock dudes these days. (Click here to buy it from Bleep.)

Peter Bjorn and John @ Mercury Lounge 1/29/2007
Let's Call It Off / (I Just Wanna) See Through / The Chills / Paris 2004 / Far Away, By My Side / Start To Melt / Big Black Coffin / Young Folks (with Victoria Bergsman) / Amsterdam / Objects Of My Affection / Up Against The Wall // Teen Love / I Don't Know What I Want Us To Do / Collect, Select, Reflect

Peter Bjorn and John "Paris 2004" - Yesterday wasn't a very good day for me. My laptop is currently away being serviced, and with little to no warning, the hard drive of my desktop died, taking a considerable but not entirely tragic number of non-backed up files from the past four months with it, effectively making my life as a professional writer/daily blogger very difficult until at least tomorrow. (After then, my life just becomes very tedious for a while, but that's a lot better than doing all my work from an internet cafe.) So seriously, THANK GOD (or at least some dude named Ewan) that I got to see this Peter Bjorn and John show -- it was so good, so entertaining, so revelatory that I think in the future, I might only remember that part of the day.

There's nothing particularly flashy about Peter Bjorn and John's live show, but they perform with such effortless charm and grace that their good songs become great, and the great songs become magical, especially the sweetly romantic "Paris 2004" and the hit "Young Folks," which they performed with an additional percussion player and the Concretes' Victoria Bergsman. (A sidenote, though somewhat related to the quality of her performance/stage presence: As I left the venue, I made eye contact with Bergsman for about a second and it was like staring into the sun.) The audience was extremely enthusiastic, and there seemed to be a sense that their success in the United States was inevitable given the quality of the show, the single, the album, the realization that Peter Moren is a total heartthrob, and the fact that they have some serious industry muscle behind them, which is sort of hidden, but very fortunate. Before seeing their show, I would have been skeptical about their chances, but now I'm just waiting to be proven wrong. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: Brooklyn Vegan has some photos from the show.

Also: The Born Ruffians opened up for PB&J, and they were quite good and much better than I remember from their EP, but I'm going to have to come back to that again later when my computer situation is sorted out. Just thought I'd mention that, if just to make sure that I don't forget to do it sometime next week.

The Fall "Coach and Horses" - This year's Fall album Reformation Post TLC is an odd, misshapen thing, full of thick, bass-heavy compositions that mostly set into musical holding patterns in order to accommodate Mark E Smith's vocals, but never accentuate his words, much less gel into memorable songs. There's an intentional rawness to the album -- most of the second half seems to have been recorded in concert -- but that tossed-off aesthetic carries over into the majority of the songs, which come across as severely under-written and barely arranged, as though Smith just stumbled into some mediocre band's rehearsal and called it a recording session. The record maintains the basic level of quality to be expected from an album by the Fall, but is very wide of the mark hit by late period classics such as "Midnight Aspen," "Theme From Sparta FC," "Susan Vs. Youth Club," and "Dr. Buck's Letter." The brief melodic interlude "Coach and Horses" is the keeper this time around, and basically sounds unlike everything else on the record with its light, ethereal arpeggios and utter lack of regrettable guitar and keyboard tones. (Click here to pre-order it from CD Wow.)

Dragonette "Get Lucky" - Dragonette's first album is a grab bag of pop songs in various styles, all of which are amiable and catchy, but lacking a recognizable identity to hold them all together. Individually, the tracks are more successful, most especially this perky nu-cabaret number, which comes off like a sunnier, less cranky version of Nellie McKay and fearlessly commits to its own corniness. The band seem at home in this self-consciously mild and sentimental mode, much more so when they attempt a somewhat unconvincing "bad girl" pose on other cuts, even if one of those happens to be the other best song on the album. (Click here for the official Dragonette site.)

The Child Ballads "Green Jewelry" - After about twenty false starts, the Child Ballads' debut EP has finally come out in England, nearly ten years following the release of Stewart Lupton's last officially released studio recordings with Jonathan Fire Eater. In the time since, he has reinvented himself as a folk singer heavily indebted to Bob Dylan and Romantic poetry, and penned some truly outstanding songs that have circulated online via live recordings of their sporadic shows, one of which is available for purchase on eMusic. "Green Jewelry," which would open side b of the record if it were to be released on vinyl, is a ramshackle ballad that finds comfort in the rituals of Catholicism when it is abstracted by a dead language, and evidence of divine beauty in nature's interaction with the ornaments of religion. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Elsewhere: Eric Harvey on the face of James Mercer, Edward Oculicz on Marit Larsen's "Don't Save Me," and Rachelle Goguen on that one time when John Byrne forced Superman to star in a porno film with Mister Miracle's wife.

Also: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from New Young Pony Club, Deerhunter, and Malajube.

And: The server that hosts this site was down yesterday, and there wasn't much that I could do but wait for them to get it all back online. I hope that you were not too troubled by a Day Without A Fluxblog.

Of Montreal "A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger" - As I walked around listening to this song last night, I noticed a slight sprinkle of flurries fall from the sky. I might not have even noticed them if they weren't illuminated by street lights, but there they were, sparsely separated and drifting downward, looking more like a half-assed school play special effect than the sort of significant snowfall that has been totally elusive in this region of the country during this sad excuse for a winter.

This weather is mainly troubling because it's very likely a symptom of potentially disastrous global warming, but I'd be lying if I said that most of my bitterness isn't tied up in aesthetics. I like snow -- a lot. It's beautiful, and I find it to be both calming and inspiring. I enjoy the way the city slows down a bit during a major snow storm, and the way everything looks a few days later, with the remaining patches of white slowly melting away to small banks speckled with dirt, like scoops of Oreo ice cream. I especially love passing the white capped mountains, icicle waterfalls, and (if I'm lucky) frozen river on the ride up the Hudson Line just after a storm. I'm sure part of my affection stems from not having to commute or drive, but fuck that. I have to spend the summer listening to jackasses talk about how much they love the goddamn heat, so I see no reason to apologize for my preferences.

I've been waiting since the middle of the fall to listen to this particular Of Montreal song on a snowy day, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have to wait until next year. In a way, the song may be sort of redundant in that context, since it sounds so much like a winter wonderland that it may be better as a stimulus substitute than an aesthetic accessory. Most of the first half of Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? has a distinct, cartoonish wintery feel to it, but "A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger" is the one that seems to whole-heartedly embrace that frigid scenery rather than let it serve as an implied backdrop for the foregrounded emotional content of the songs.

Not coincidentally, "...Kongsvinger" is the first song in the album's sequence to step out of the existential terror that marks the opening five tracks. It's a song about recovery and renewal, and taking the first steps toward reclaiming control over your life following a spell of depression and poor luck. It finds the joy and humor in a bad situation, and essentially concludes the first emotional arc of the album, leaving the remainder of the record to deal with the messy work of re-entering society after restructuring one's own character. (Click here to buy it from Polyvinyl.)

Wings "Arrow Through Me" - Surely no one needs to be told that Paul McCartney is a genius, though it may sometimes be necessary to remind people that his run of brilliant material hardly stops at the end of his time with the Beatles, or even halfway through his post-Beatles career. His 1979 single "Arrow Through Me" feels as effortlessly perfect as most any of his 60s classics, with a smooth, creamy groove and memorable melody that filters 70s R&B through his personal style, resulting in a peculiar sort of Anglicized Quiet Storm. The production is especially great in the way that it lets Paul's voice drift off into an echo at the end of the chorus, and sets its mellow keyboard tone against the crisp pop of the rhythm section and a bold horn figure that sounds slightly distanced and inhumanly precise. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Cortney Tidwell "Society" - Cortney Tidwell's Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up maintains a drowsy, mellow tone throughout its sequence, but skips around between various permutations of ethereal drones, zoned-out folk balladry, and ambient electronic tracks that recall the work of Lali Puna and Bjork. She never sounds quite sure whether she would rather be Cat Power or Thom Yorke, but her taste in texture and melody is solid and I vastly prefer this sort of creative restlessness to the monochromatic efforts of other similar artists. "Society" breaks from her patterns somewhat, settling into a narrow, jazzy groove that bears down on the listener without feeling even slightly heavy, sort of like being smothered with exceptionally soft pillows. Tidwell's voice is shadowed by the rich baritone of Lambchop's Kurt Wagner, but his presence is decidedly ambiguous, leaving the audience to wonder whether he's there to represent a malign outside force, a guardian angel, or judging by the lyrics, a stifling combination of both extremes. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster "The Hero's Call" - This skit from last week's episode of the Best Show on WFMU is another successful formal experiment from Scharpling and Wurster. The call has a proggy sort of trajectory, kicking off as a friendly discussion of current events that heads off into creepy psycho-drama territory before shifting quite radically in tone for a rambling, hilarious discussion that touches on Shakespeare, an unbelievable dvd box set, and the secret lives of newscasters. (Click here for the Friends of Tom site.)

Sloan @ Bowery Ballroom 1/18/2007
Flying High Again / Who Taught You To Live Like That? / Will I Belong? / Ill Placed Trust / The Other Man / The Lines You Amend / Fading Into Obscurity / Golden Eyes / Love Is All Around / Living With The Masses / HFXNSHC / Blackout / All Used Up / C'mon C'mon / Everybody Wants You / I Understand / You Know What It's About / Someone I Can Be True With / Money City Maniacs / I Can't Sleep / I Know You / Something's Wrong / I've Gotta Try / Everything You've Done Wrong / Can You Figure It Out? / Penpals / The Good In Everyone / Another Way I Could Do It // Anyone Who's Anyone / Chester The Molester / If It Feels Good, Do It

Sloan "Flying High Again / Who Taught You To Live Like That?" - If you recall, back around October I went to see Sloan play during the Pop Montreal festival, and part of the motivation for that was that I wanted to see them perform in front of a bunch of intense superfans in a nation where they are mainstream rock stars because I didn't think I would get a similar experience in the United States. Though the audience in Montreal was pretty into that show, they could not compete with the enthusiasm of the (larger) crowd at the Bowery Ballroom last night. I don't know, maybe the room was full of Canadian expats, but it was exciting, and the band earned their adulation with a generous 31 song set focusing mainly on their latest and greatest album, Never Hear The End Of It.

For a record containing 30 tracks penned by four different songwriters, Never Hear The End Of It is remarkable for both its density of high quality material, and its thematic and musical consistency. The songs go off in a number of lyrical tangents, but each member spends a bit of time coming to terms with the state of their career with varying levels of ambivalence, suggesting that they had some sort of quiet collective midlife crisis that resulted in a re-energized commitment to their craft rather than an unfortunate implosion. It's telling that "Flying High Again" is the song that kicks off both the album and the setlist -- it's a show of solidarity in that it's the only song in their discography featuring lead vocals from all four members, and even though the lyrics are riddled with uncertain language, its sentiment is both optimistic and defiant; basically "hey, we're better than ever, and we're not going away because we have nowhere to go." (Click here to buy it from Yep Roc.)

I was also lucky enough to help out with their live session at WFMU earlier in the day. I'll come back and discuss that a bit more at a later date, but those recordings will debut on a forthcoming episode of Terre T's Cherry Blossom Clinic. The band made use of the new WFMU studio piano, and performed moody rainy day versions of "Another Way I Could Do It," "HFXNSHC," "Everybody Wants You," "Who Taught You To Live Like That?," and "Blackout." The latter came the closest to the feel of the album arrangement, though they were performing it in rehearsal with heavy reverb and a somewhat motorik-ish beat that they were calling the "Stereolab version" of the song. They were also rehearsing a piano-based version of "Ana Lucia," but unfortunately that didn't make it to the final session etiher.

Yoko Ono and Le Tigre "Sisters O Sisters" - Though Yoko Ono is covering familiar ground in this collaboration, she ultimately sounds like she's a special guest on a song that could have easily fit on either of the last two Le Tigre albums. It's an inspired combination -- few living people represent the aesthetic of 60s progressive activism as completely as Ono, and Le Tigre made a career out of trying to revive it in a new context. Like a lot of their respective music, it contains a lot of protest language that may seem anachronistic, corny, and cheap, but they know that, and at least part of the point is to make the listener question why they feel that way about this sort of thing even if they essentially agree with the politics. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Boris with Michio Kurihara "Starship Narrator" - Boris and Kurihara lock into a heavy groove at the start, but it's just a formality, something to carry us toward a brilliant, visceral guitar solo at the center of the cut that pretty much defines the phrase "rock ultimate." Brandon Stosuy liked this track to the sound of Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins over on Pitchfork yesterday, and I think he's right on about that. Unlike Billy Corgan, Boris and Kurihara aren't beholden to pop song forms, but there's a similar spirit and power to this music, especially if you compare it to live recordings of the Pumpkins back when Billy was more interested in expressing spirituality through sublime psychedelic noise than chasing commercial success. (Which is not to say that pursuit didn't yield some fine work, but you know...) (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Ornette Coleman, Noonday Underground, and Klanguage. It's one of the best sets of songs in the history of the column, so definitely check that out.

Welcome "This Minute" - Welcome spend three minutes documenting the passing of just one, splitting their time between commenting on its content with arch self-awareness ("this minute is a good minute"), lyrically backtracking over its events as they are processed by an inebriated consciousness, and feeling its dramatic tension play out wordlessly via sickly electronic shrieks and strangled guitar strings. (Click here to pre-order it from Fat Cat.)

Sophie Ellis-Bextor "Catch You" - Since I am not British, this song lacks the crushing weight of context that comes with Ellis-Bextor's fame and career arc. This is both good and bad -- on one hand, I can just sort of turn my mind off and enjoy it as it passes by in a whoosh of head rush hooks and brisk, computerized beats, but on the other, I've got little to say about it other than "wee, this is a fun ride!" That's no bad thing if you're a listener, but writing anything about the track is a bit of a chore. (Click here to pre-order it from HMV UK.)

A Sunny Day In Glasgow "Lists, Plans" - There are few moments of lucidity on A Sunny Day In Glasgow's debut LP Scribble Mural Comic Journal, and even those seem delirious and disconnected from reality. The structure of its centerpiece "Lists, Plans" implies a narrative, but like the rest of the songs on the album, it's all abstracted sensation without any concrete details aside from some vague allusion to lists in the otherwise incoherent and ghostly vocals of the Daniels sisters. The composition cuts between sections like scenes in a film, conveying movement through time and space, as well as some recognizable but barely understood drama as the track progresses. Ben Daniels' command of texture and gift for intuitive musical storytelling is remarkable -- he really ought to be up to his neck in offers for soundtrack work by the end of the year. (Click here to pre-order it from Notenuf.)

Elsewhere: Just before closing up shop and moving to a new address, Mike Barthel gives us Clap Clap's Greatest Hits; The Reeler offers up The Top Ten Worst Top Ten Movies Lists of 2006; and Paul O'Brien riffs on the absurdity of Dark Speedball.