Archive for 2007

Nina Hynes and the Husbands “Wow and Flutter” – No, sorry, this is not a Stereolab cover. Even still, the song feels extraordinarily familiar and comfortable without seeming at all stale. I only heard it for the first time last week, but it seems like I’ve known it for half my life and just misplaced it sometime around 2000 or so. (Click here to buy it from Kitty Yo.)

Cannonball Jane “Take It To Fantastic (DJ Downfall Remix)” – John Downfall doesn’t change all that much about Cannonball Jane’s song, but he does streamline it considerably and place a greater emphasis on the snappy, cymbal-heavy, Rich Harrison-in-miniature backbeat, which in turn makes the composition seem bigger, bolder, and brighter. (Click here to buy it from Cannonball Jane.)

Elsewhere: Historical note: ‘record shops’ are an old fashioned version of DVD emporia like HMV and Virgin. In times gone by, people who enjoyed a song or collection of songs (‘an album’) by a singer or band would walk to one of these ‘record shops’ and pay money in exchange for the music. Of course, these days music is free, meaning that it is possible for teenagers to spend money on more important things like drugs and shoes with wheels in them.

Also: The Office’s Mindy Kaling went to see Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem in Los Angeles.

And: R.I.P. Megan Matthews.

Junior League “Charm” – I swear to you that I’m not making this up, but maybe the third time that I heard this song, I was walking up the street and I saw a monarch butterfly slowly gliding through the air, its orange wings contrasted with a perfect, cloudless blue sky. Pretty, yeah? Prettier still because that’s exactly what this song is like — it’s just floating along with a natural beauty and grace that almost seems shocking and unreal. It fit just as well in the car yesterday, rolling through the mountains of Vermont, its seemingly infinite forests just beginning to turn red, orange, and yellow.

I listened to “Charm” several times over the weekend, each time trying to figure out what it was about this bluegrass pop tune that felt a bit off but also slightly familiar, and I think I found my answer while searching through their website: As it turns out, the singer Lissy Rosemont is a HUGE fan of Pearl Jam. Rosemont’s voice sounds nothing at all like Eddie Vedder, but her approach to singing the song reminds me quite a bit of early Pearl Jam (think “Breath” and “Yellow Ledbetter”), particularly in the way she fills the open space in the track with a free flowing melody that conveys the potent emotion of the piece more so than the lyrics, which mostly exist to guide her through the piece, and provide the listener with hints and cues. (Click here to buy it from Junior League.)

Pistol Pete “Make ‘Em Pop” – Pistol Pete’s tracks are increasingly frenetic, to the point that just hearing a few seconds of “Make ‘Em Pop” or his brilliant Clipse remix immediately triples my pulse and triggers movement. This cut is almost too much — it plays like a frantic, stylized chase scene, building up to a catchy but totally incoherent chorus of chopped-up hums and shouts. (Click here to buy it from Turntable Lab.)

Letters Letters “Want To” – The beats bubble up like carbonation in soda water, the electronic textures float in and out of the mix like free-associative thoughts, and the woman’s voice whines, moans, and whispers as though no one is listening. At certain moments in the piece, it sounds like the ghost of Arthur Russell producing a Gwen Stefani song without her even knowing about it. (Click here to buy it from Type Records.)

Scout Niblett “Let Thine Heart Be Warned” – It’s kinda hard to deny that Scout Niblett sounds a bit like Chan Marshall — there’s a similarity in vocal timbre and style, and they share a taste for spartan arrangements that keep the listener hanging on their every syllable — but you’re never going to find Niblett making a brunch album like The Greatest. She’s too busy spiking her songs with stark, primitive percussion, bizarre lyrics, and hard rock outbursts that provide a weirdly incongruous feeling of emotional release in songs that almost always revert back to the sound of open-ended frustration. “Let Thine Heart Be Warned” is a perfect example of her Sysiphean brand of indie rock — when that chorus hits, she sounds righteous and victorious, but just a few seconds later, she’s totally crushed. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Future of the Left, Parts and Labor, and A Place To Bury Strangers.

Also: I had no idea that there was so much CGI used in David Fincher’s Zodiac. Really, isn’t that the way it always should be when it comes to these things?

Hot Chip “Shake A Fist” –

It Begins…

Matthew Perpetua: Oh, this Hot Chip song you sent over sounds good!
Matthew Harris: Did you get to the middle?
Perpetua: Not yet, just put it on.
Harris: The “sounds of the studio” part?
Perpetua: This is great — his voice is still dispassionate, but the music isn’t as emotionally flat. Oh, wow, just got to a really good part.

Soon…

Perpetua: OH MY GOD!!! Now I know what you’re talking about, the middle part! WOW! What got into them? They improved a LOT rather suddenly!
Harris: I think they are totally trying to take this into more of their live show. Their live show is definitely more uptempo. The last time I saw them, Alexis sang lines from “Temptation” and “Is It All Over My Face” over the loudest, most manic beats. It was like he was trying to seduce me.
Perpetua: These guys have seriously stepped up.
Harris: I just love that middle part. I keep listening to it like some Pavlovian dog wanting treats. It’s like, “La de dah, regular old Hot Chip, nothing that exciting … HOLY SHIT!!!”

Later…

Perpetua: Wow, that Hot Chip song just keeps getting better somehow.
Harris: Haha.
Perpetua: It’s always exciting when it makes that shift in the middle
Harris: You can hear the structure better after the first few listens.
Perpetua: I also love the first time the beat switches up and gets stronger. I thought that’s what you were talking about at first. But then it just gets so much more exciting! I’m so proud of them.

(Click here for the Hot Chip official site.)

Kanye West “The Glory” – Just like “School Spirit” and “Gone” before it, “The Glory” is Graduation‘s version of The Song On The Kanye West Album That Is Obviously Superior To The Rest And Basically Sums Up The Major Themes Of The Record, But For Some Reason Will Never Be Released As A Single. Graduation is one long victory lap of an album, but its rampant self-regard and perky, opulent sound is slightly off-putting — at times it’s like being unable to fall asleep in an overly comfy bed, or sitting through a slide show of someone’s fabulous vacation and trying to feign enthusiasm for their good fortune.

Weirdly, the best track on the record happens to be the one where this sort of ostentatious bragging hits its saturation point, and I start to wonder “Hey Kanye, it’s really awesome that you’ve got all this success and money, but uh, is there anything more to you these days than working hard and buying stuff?” I guess his answer to that could be “Well Matthew, I do claim to spend a lot of time with lesbians, primarily of the blonde variety,” which just makes me wonder why the hell he’s so sexually obsessed with women whose sexuality excludes him from play. (I realize that he’s probably talking about bi girls, but c’mon, he consistently uses the word “dyke,” and that has its connotations.) Nevertheless, “The Glory” hits all the right marks, and every second of the track balances out its ecstatic boasts with a profound sense of relief that suggests what a horrible mess the guy would be if none of his plans ever worked out. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Hillary Brown is totally OTM about Hot Fuzz.

And: Dragons fucking cars. Self-explanatory, totally ridiculous, not safe for work unless your boss is cool with you checking out drawings of enormous scaled beasts double-teaming automobiles while on the clock. It’s really funny though, mainly because it puts you in the position where you have to think that the inclusion of the dragons is kinda sensible, like “okay, yeah, dragons are sexual creatures…” But the cars! It’s dragons fucking CARS.

Iron & Wine “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” – Previous Iron & Wine records were lost on me, but The Shephard’s Dog is a pleasant surprise. The songs are more relaxed than melancholy, and benefit greatly active arrangements that imply a sense of movement without distracting the listener from taking in the details of the sound and the virtual scenery. Whereas older Iron & Wine records simulated intimacy, the new songs, “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” in particular, stretch out the scale without losing the sense of space, like an overwhelming panoramic view of a tiny stretch of land. (Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)

Thurston Moore and Christina Carter “Honest James” – Left to his own devices, it’s easy to see just how many of Sonic Youth’s signature moves are actually the habits, ticks, and natural rhythms of Thurston Moore. It also becomes clear what the other members bring to the sound — Moore’s new solo record is long on melody, but it is light on rhythmic tension and textural richness, and so the material often sounds like a nearly weightless version of what the band has been doing since Murray Street in 2002. “Honest James” is the most gorgeous and surprising cut on Trees Outside The Academy, and one of the few that sounds like something other than an unfinished Sonic Youth song. Its pretty, unembellished acoustic rhythms would never make much sense on a Sonic Youth record, and the duet with Christina Carter is lovely and earnest in a way that would have been impossible if it had been performed with either Kim Gordon or Lee Ranaldo. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: I think Lou Reed has a little crush on Amanda Petrusich. I wonder if Lou Reed would like my name. I almost want to send him a letter: “Dear Lou Reed, do you like my name? Please let me know, I’ve included a SASE…”

Also: Xenomania are auditioning female singers in NYC! And they are going to work with Franz Ferdinand!

And: A new Daniel Clowes comic strip debuted in yesterday’s issue of the New York Times Magazine. It’s kinda minor and formulaic for him, but hey, it’s been three years since the last issue of Eightball and I’ll take what I can get.

Yelle “Tristesse/Joie” – I listened to this song about ten times on the way home from Brooklyn tonight, and all I could think about was how I met this really awesome girl and talked to her for an hour or two, but I got pulled into other conversations and she disappeared before I could get her number/email. Since I only kinda sorta understand what Yelle is singing, the meaning of the song has become tied in with this event, and the music kinda nails the mix of excitement and regret that I feel as I type this. Anyway, I feel extremely lame for writing this in public, but it totally bums me out to think that I might not get to talk to this super rad girl ever again. So hey, Katie (Katy? Caity? Katee? K.T.? Ceighteeee?), if you happened to remember the name of my site when I mentioned it and looked it up and found this post and do not think I’m a total weirdo, please do email me, the address is the bottom of the links column. (Don’t use the Fluxblog one.) We should totally hang out sometime. The rest of you can mock me in the comments or listen to this song or whatever. (Click here for the official Yelle site.)

Electric Six “Fabulous People” – Just as the Electric Six promised, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master is an excessive album about the excesses of contemporary American culture. Actually, that description accurately describes all of their records, but crucially, Exterminate makes a point of foregrounding the lyrical themes that come up in all of the work but is usually ignored or misunderstood by audiences and critics whose minds implode when faced with irony and satire in the context of a dance rock band. The lyrics are still riddled with odd non-sequitors and dark humor, but there’s much less in the words to distract the listener from what Dick Valentine is trying to convey, and the relative clarity creates the illusion of a more focused album even if in reality, it’s pretty much business as usual for the band.

If anything, the strength and consistency of the record has more to do with the songwriting — the stylistic range is greater, and the hooks are plentiful, resulting in a sprawling work with no obvious peak, a la “Gay Bar,” “Jimmy Carter,” or “Mr. Woman.” It wasn’t easy to pick only one cut, but “Fabulous People” gets the nod for its suave Robert Palmer-ish grooves and lyrics that express mock incredulity at the possibility of being sexually attracted to people who are not celebrities, and the way Valentine inexplicably suggests that the late Red Skelton, Don Rickles, and race car drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr and Dick Trickle are in on a plot with Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and David Beckham to destroy the lives of the “dirty little people.” (Click here to pre-order it from Metropolis Records.)

Maxi Geil! & Playcolt @ Luna Lounge, 9/12/2007
Can’t Get You Hot Enough / You Can’t Kill Us, Man! (We’re Already Dead) / That’s How The Story Goes / Teenage Extreme / Making Love in the Sunshine / Your Best Won’t Be Good Enough / I’m In Love With You / Artist’s Lament

Maxi Geil! & Playcolt “That’s How The Story Goes” – The last time I saw Maxi Geil, the group played to a densely packed, dance-happy audience at Tonic. This was sort of the opposite — the turnout wasn’t so great due to the gig being late on a Wednesday night and announced on rather short notice, and the thinness of the crowd was exacerbated by the rather large size of the club. Nevertheless, the band played as though they were headlining a much bigger space, and they got people dancing either way. “That’s How The Story Goes” was especially great — it’s a bit too big for every room I’ve ever seen them play it in, but its graceful progression from a stately Bowie-esque ballad to its sleek disco section and stadium pop conclusion never fails to impress me. (Click here to buy it via the Maxi Geil site.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Ze Frank, Jonathan Coulton, and Flight of the Conchords.

And: Jane Espenson takes the media to task for butchering Sarah Silverman’s Britney Spears joke by quoting it with flagrant mispunctuation.

The Smashing Pumpkins “7 Shades of Black” – My initial impression of Zeitgeist was rather unfavorable, but I’ve come around to liking about half of the record, but only because I’ve been listening to it with much lower expectations. That’s not the same as having no expectations — instead of comparing it to the Pumpkins’ back catalog, I’m thinking of the music in the context of rock music in 2007. At this point in time, Corgan can barely compete with his younger self, but he and Jimmy Chamberlain are still capable of blowing away the majority of a younger generation whose version of hard rock is either laughably tepid or suffocatingly stiff. “7 Shades of Black” may be a poor man’s version of “Bodies” from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but it’s still a strong piece of work with a sharp hook and an urgent momentum, which is a lot more than what most bands can pull off these days. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Smashing Pumpkins “Frail and Bedazzled” – The most basic appeal of the Smashing Pumpkins comes from the way Billy Corgan strips out the dull machismo from hard rock and replaces it with sensitive androgyny and ecstatic spirituality. Like a majority of the rock stars of the early ’90s, Corgan rebelled against the dude-ness of his own genre, but thanks to the unavoidable femininity of his voice and his soft baby face, he was able to depart from tradition more dramatically than the more obviously masculine likes of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. Unsurprisingly, one of the most dramatic, joyous, and definitive moments in the entire sprawling Pumpkins catalog comes on “Frail and Bedazzled” when he declares “all I wanted was to be a man / but since I gave up / I FEEL FREE! / I FEEL FREE! / I FEEL FREE! / I FEEL FREE!,” which each iteration of those last three words seeming increasingly emphatic and liberating. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Smashing Pumpkins “Geek USA” – So why is that the Smashing Pumpkins have so little in the way of a legacy, at least in terms of influencing a younger generation of rock acts? I can hear some traces of the more histrionic, teen-centric Mellon Collie incarnation of the band in some mall emo acts, but given its former ubiquity, it’s very rare to hear any bands now that noticeably borrow from the distinct aesthetic of the Pumpkins circa Siamese Dream. Sure, there are bands that rock out in the interest of “spirituality,” but those are usually either Christian acts who mimic the trappings of genre rather than fully inhabit and subvert them, or po-faced clowns running with the uplifting, non-denomination grandeur of U2. The Pumpkins’ most successful rockers tapped into something sublime, but also a bit ridiculous and fun in its whole-hearted embrace of adolescent emotional turmoil and unapologetic bombast. The songs may have been meticulously crafted in the studio, but they feel remarkably spontaneous and alive, capturing the sheer pleasure of rocking out in a small room despite a billion overdubs. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Two teenage girls were engaged in a fierce battle to the death, high atop the Empire State Building. Their names were Lyric and Grace, and both were famous on the internet.

Kate Nash “Merry Happy” – Kate Nash’s songs primarily deal with minor relationship drama, but more specifically, the way teenagers and young adults must learn to interpret these events in their lives when they haven’t got much first-hand experience, but are overly familiar with how these sort of things play out in books, television, and pop songs. Nash deliberately calls attention to the banality of her situations, but doesn’t ever discount her emotions, resulting in jaunty yet melancholy pop tunes like “Merry Happy” that are simultaneously self-effacing and self-absorbed, i.e., the typical mindset of a lovesick student. When Nash reaches an epiphany — “I can be alone” — it’s a little bit funny because it isn’t at all profound, but it’s also a bit sad and sympathetic, as most people can relate to having the same moment of self-revelation and feeling that sudden, somewhat illusory sensation of emotional strength. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Future of the Left “Manchasm” – A.K.A. McLusky with a new bass player and a different name. Andy Falkous continues to be Andy Falkous — witty, bitter, venomous and cryptic, kinda sorta like an aggressive Welsh punk rock version of Dan Bejar. The only major difference between the bands is the presence of a synthesizer, but even when that element is prominent, the songs play to Falkous and his partners strengths. “Manchasm” begins with a manic organ vamp, but it moves on to a series of abrasive, repetitive hooks, an eyebrow-raising reference to disgraced Republican paedo Mark Foley, and a creepy round at the end that recalls the brilliant finale of “She Will Only Bring You Happiness.” (Funny, if you watch that video, you can hear that they changed the “our old singer is a sex criminal” line to “our old singer is an ex-criminal” for the single version!) (Click here for the Future of the Left website.)

Elsewhere: Ben fucking Foster, ladies and gentlemen.

And: Mike Barthel has a (better) idea on how to commemorate 9/11 with car headlights.

I’ve been doing this MTV VMA “play by play” thing for five years, and though I don’t know why I keep doing it, I’m going to keep it going because it’s the closest thing this site has to any kind of tradition. I guess that’s the same reason MTV does it too — their identity has shifted so much over the years that it’s hard to say what the brand means to its hopelessly splintered target audience, or what it has to say about a pop cultural landscape that is increasingly driven by the internet yet requires television’s big-tent audience to actually sell records in quantities large enough to qualify for any reasonable claim of mainstream success. When I was a teenager, MTV more or less dictated what was popular and cool, and the ceremony actually seemed to be a meaningful thing, in as much as the Best Video category tended to stand for some sort of artistic achievement and cultural relevance. Nowadays, they seem passive, and this show is just an awkward game of catch-up for both the network, and an audience that cherry picks whatever interests them from the mainstream, and totally ignores the rest, so you get a lot of “Really? That’s popular?” and “Wait, what, those guys are still around?”

9:00 Britney Spears is trying pretty hard to remember her own choreography. Everything is slow and obviously half-hearted. She’s barely trying, every movement is like a shrug. Her body appears to be airbrushed, but in fairness, this is the best she’s looked in a long time. Rihanna just gave a reaction shot to the effect of “Ha ha, I can blow this shit off the stage!”

9:04 Wow, this is the best Sarah Silverman has been in five forevers! Great stuff.

9:09 Alicia Keys is looking slick. Like, coated in salad oil.

9:11 Best Single About A Monster goes to………”Umbrella,” with 9% of the vote. Fun fact: Rihanna has the same haircut as Storm from the X-Men circa the late 90s, but y’know, not all white and stuff.

9:17 “You just saw Britney phone in her new single on the VMAs, and now you can phone in and get it as a ring tone…”

9:23 Quadruple Threat = Sing, Dance, Fuck, and Snort Cocaine?

9:24 Hey, Justin Timberlake does all of those things! Good for him!

9:26 So I think the idea is that big stars like Kanye West, Foo Fighters, Timbaland, Fall Out Boy, and uh, Mark Ronson are doing all these little cutaway performances in lieu of one big appearance in order to have a more pervasive presence throughout the broadcast, and thus boosting the number of “impressions” on the audience. It’s the same idea as having a Pepsi ad every commercial break.

9:33 If 50 Cent and Kanye West kissed just now, America would have been a new nation overnight.

9:42 Chris Brown is aiming for Charlie Chaplin, but I’m afraid most people are just looking at this and thinking “spazzy black Hitler.”

9:47 And yes, Rihanna blew Britney (and honestly, everyone else) off the stage within 10 seconds of emerging from her Op Art vortex.

9:55 By staging the event at The Palms Casino in Las Vegas, the VMAs have showed not only a tremendous lack of creativity, but are fully giving into the consumerist American ideal that they once at least pretended to reject by proudly holding a carrot at length from their impressionable and primarily middle class audience. When I was a young teenager it seemed as though their message was “fuck the carrot,” but now they are decisively imploring, “you better get on that carrot.”

9:57 I would stop hating Timbaland for five minutes if he and Justin Timberlake announced that they just got back from getting married in Massachusetts.

9:58 Justin Timberlake is getting old, you guys. He’s part of the Older Generation On MTV.

10:06 Shia Le Beauf. Do we all like this guy? Or do we just like saying “La Buff”? Okay, no we don’t like him cos he’s shilling for George effing Lucas. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — Indiana Jones has to infiltrate a ring of LARPers?

10:09 Unlike Britney Spears, Kanye West can rock a stairwell.

10:13 Kanye West would win if he had arrived at this wearing a t-shirt reading “George Bush doesn’t care about the VMAs.”

10:16 Can we talk about fucking offensive these Chevy ads are? “If you want to save the environment, you can smoke pot and eat granola and practice free love you FUCKING FAGGOT HIPPIE? WHY DON’T YOU GO COMPOST YOUR TOILET, HUH?” Ending with the assertion “Chevy: We’re thinking about making a hybrid, someday, once we find that legal pad with all our notes on it. We’ve got something called ‘wireless crapability.’ You’ll love it.”

10:18 “Who is Eugene Montross?” Sorry bro, but I’m not Googling that!

10:19 Here’s our “maestro,” Timbaland. I cringe so hard whenever I see people refer to Timbaland as being ahead of his time or whatever because that’s so not true! No one is more OF HIS TIME than him, and frankly, that time was in the late 90s/early 00s and he’s been coasting ever since. The reason he can get anything remotely weird on the airwaves is simply because his formula became mainstream and now it’s just something expected, the way the shitty post-grunge stuff like Nickelback and Daughtry is expected on rock radio.

10:23 You know, Linkin Park, this is the VMAs. You definitely want to bring your A-game. This isn’t the VMB or C’s.

10:24 Here are the guys from Entourage. You know, I’ve seen every single episode of Entourage, and I don’t even know why. I have HBO, and I watch it. It’s not even a guilty pleasure, it’s just a guilty…thing I do.

10:31 Rihanna is doing “Shut Up and Drive” with Fall Out Boy in a hotel suite. It’s cool despite the obvs lip-synching gaff. I like Rihanna a lot more than usual tonight!

10:37 I was totally zzzzzing through this Alicia Keys performance, and then she started singing “Freedom 90,” and though it’s not that great or anything, it’s a step up for sure.

10:45 Jamie Foxx just spit in Jennifer Garner’s eye, ladies and gentlemen!

10:46 Wow, I thought they were just about to play the severely coked-up Foxx off the stage just now with that beat! Unfortunately, no.

10:47 Listen Jamie, when you’re being called out on your unprofessionalism by Jennifer Garner, it’s time to really take stock!

10:49 Note to New York Times ombudsman: Now that 50 Cent has made the vast majority of his fortune from Vitamin Water, please delete all references to “hip hop star 50 Cent” and replace them with “beverage magnate 50 Cent.” Thank you.

10:57 Dr. Dre is either really effing strong, or wearing a heavy kevlar Batman suit under his shirt.

11:00 Rihanna wins Video of the Year, and Kanye West is already pouting about it. One of the Daft Punk robots is knocking at Kanye’s bathroom door with a message scrolling along its LED visor: KANYE…NOT COOL…PARTY WAITING.

Okay, so a few hours later, it’s pretty obvious that the definitive moment of this year’s show came within the first two minutes.

In this still, a limp Britney Spears is being helped up a small flight of stairs by one of her back-up dancers. From this moment, there was no saving her performance, or her career. In this moment of tragically forseeable laziness, Britney set the tone for a night that was two parts apathy and one part toxic entitlement.

Beverage magnate 50 Cent is stunned!!!

Rihanna’s friend: “Can you believe this shit?”

Rihanna: I WIN

This post was co-written with Chris Conroy, Erik Bryan, and Heather Rasley.

A Place To Bury Strangers “I Know I’ll See You” – If you think the A Place To Bury Strangers album is loud, then I’ve got to warn you — its most abrasive moments are just a shadow of what they sound like in person. However, as impressive as they are with insane volume and inescapable physical sensation, the endearing mixture of shoegazer guitar tone, industrial beats, goth gloom, and new wave melodies evident on their studio recordings gets lost in the din. At their best, the group sounds like the contents of a mopey college kid from 1989’s record collection pureed, poured into a cup, and served with a bowl of broken jewel boxes. If there was any justice in the world, there would be a maxi-single for “I Know I’ll See You” backed up with a bunch of cheesy late 80s/early 90s style dance mixes, just like the Cure or Nine Inch Nails. (Click here to buy it from Brainwashed.)

Elsewhere: I’m looking for some rooftop brooding advice.

Celebration “Tame The Savage” – The first few times I heard Celebration, I did not realize that the singer was a woman. This is not to say that Katrina Ford has a particularly butch and masculine voice, but rather that she sings more like a hard rock guy with feminine affectations, and aside from a few Karen O-ish moments, she barely resembles any of her female contemporaries. She reminds me a lot of Robert Plant in particular, especially on this track from their new album, which basically filters the aesthetic of Led Zeppelin through their sultry, organ-based indie psychedelia. “Tame The Savage” is a lusty slow-motion stomper with a grand, sprawling chorus and a slowly ascending guitar riff sounds as though it’s climbing up the first few flights of the “Stairway To Heaven.” It’s sort of amazing, really. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from St. Vincent, Aesop Rock, and International Pony.

Also: My review of the Nanny Diaries is up on the Movie Binge.

Girls Aloud “Sexy! No No No…” – If this is the first Girls Aloud song you’ve ever heard, you need to know right away that it’s not even the best, or even the most intense. While most mainstream and indie rock bands are busy mewling and meowing in this decade, Xenomania has been crafting loads of pumped-up pop songs for Girls Aloud and other UK pop acts that drastically exaggerate the dynamics of both rock and dance-pop to such extremes that it makes most everything else seem relatively flat and lifeless. Xenomania isn’t just trying to do a catchy tune — they want to hijack your body and throw you around, and keep pushing you to new levels of manic elation over the course of a three minute song. Girls Aloud may seem a bit blank on the surface, but the singers are ideally suited to Xenomania’s material, especially in the way they convey catty contemptuousness and a creepy sort of chick-lit nihilism. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Excepter “OP #2” “Stairwells” – John Fell Ryan mumbles through Excepter songs as though he’s unaware that anyone can hear his tone-deaf quasi-melodies. It’s expressive, but not at all communicative, and so tracks that would already come across a bit like some stranger’s brain turned inside-out seem even more alien and aloof. This piece seems slightly chaotic, but its textures are brilliant, and its lateral progression and recurring rhythmic and melodic motifs reveal a knack for detailed composition that is often obscured by their penchant for shapeless longform improvisations. (Click here for the Excepter website.)

Edit:

Matthew,
Your review of “OP#2” is of an intra-band demo ripped from a stolen iPod
an not intended for release. The “official” version of the track is
“Stairwells” on disc 2 of STREAMS 01. The “real” version of “OP” is a
double 7″ coming soon on iDeal Recordings and is fairly different than the
bootleg circulating. You don’t need to take the mp3 down, but maybe you
could properly identify it as an “unreleased demo/outtake bootleg” of
“Stairwells.” Thanks.
Yours,
John Fell Ryan
Excepter

Elsewhere: Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox wrote a really good blog entry about Stereolab’s song “Blue Milk.”

Charlotte Hatherley “I Want You To Know (Acoustic Version)” – Even in this simplified, percussion-free arrangement, Charlotte Hatherley’s “I Want You To Know” overflows with sugary spite and vicious verve. If anything, the streamlined version emphasizes the song’s sharp edges by foregrounding the quick, elegant dynamic shifts of her rhythm guitar part. Whereas the proper album recording aims for a thicker, more overwhelming sound, this version is slim, nimble, and arguably much better in getting across its playful yet bitter lyrics. (Click here to buy it from Charlotte Hatherley’s official site.)

Meneguar “Bury A Flower” – “You get what you want when you don’t want it anymore.” Is that true? It sounds true, at least in the moments when your desire for someone or something is so great that it becomes impossible to imagine ever getting what you want, or knowing how to attain it, or even admitting to anyone else that you have any desire at all. “Bury A Flower” is super-charged with nervous energy, but the band seem hell-bent on keeping it contained, even when it seems like the natural, healthy thing to do would be to let it all out. The singer sounds like a guy doing everything he can to hold back his own id, but with every passing moment, he’s forgetting the reason why. (Click here to buy it from CD Universe.)

Elsewhere: I have two new (but late!) reviews up on The Movie Binge — Hannah Takes The Stairs and 2 Days In Paris. Of the two films, one is mediocre, and the other is quite good. Can you guess which is which?

Also: El Baile Moderno has an interview with me en Español! (It was translated, I don’t speak any Spanish at all.)

And: As I suspected, St. Vincent actually did name her album Marry Me after the running joke from Arrested Development.

Pleasure “Out Of Love” – You know that point in some songs (most especially new wave tunes) when the sentiment of the lyric overcomes the singer and they reflexively close their eyes for a moment and swoon as they hit a higher note? It’s a glorious thing, and most good songs about new infatuation tend to do this at least once, if not a few times over. This new single by Pleasure sounds as though it was engineered to maximize the impact of these swooning moments, and so when they come, the rush is exhilarating and sorta exhausting. “Out Of Love” is a sublime mix of gleeful synthpop bounce and sad-eyed melancholy, and though there are some echoes of Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass,” it tosses out that song’s cynicism and wounded pride in favor of an entirely earnest sweetness. (Click here for the Pleasure MySpace page.) (Originally posted 3/5/2007)

Hilary Duff “Danger” – If Hilary Duff is correct, and the dude she’s singing about was indeed born in ’74, that would make him about 33 right now. Given that she’s 20 years old, she’s probably not wrong to sense a bit of danger in this pairing — it’s not an outlandish or uncommon age gap, but it is a bit inappropriate. The song is most likely being sung about a handsome teacher, boss, or celebrity, but for some reason the harsh, sleazy Eurodisco sound of the track makes me imagine some filthy creep with the most hideous mustache in the world. Like, a coked-up hipster mutant dripping with 22 strains of VD. The type of guy who would make Terry Richardson (NSFW link!) seem like a classy hunk. I’d like to think that every line of this song is a staggering understatement, and that the former Lizzy McGuire is in for a reallllllllllllllly dark year. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.) (Originally posted 4/17/2007)

Muscles “Chocolate, Raspberry, Lemon & Lime” – This one’s a bit of an electro-pop Rorschach test — hyper-twee declaration of new love, or possessive, regressive creep-out? It mostly depends on how you would feel if someone told you that they wished that they could shrink you down to pocket-size so they could “play with you all the time.” Either way, the synths are about as fruity as the title suggests, and it’s a good time even if you’re freaked out by the lyrics. (Click here for Muscles’ MySpace page.) (Originally posted 12/5/2006)

James Rabbit “The Whole World Sleeps In Your Bed” – Whereas pretty much every other indie band of their generation is out working a tiresome hustle, James Rabbit display a refreshing lack of careerism. There’s no James Rabbit MySpace page, they barely tour, and they have no record label, much less a PR company. They just churn out a few albums every year, gradually building up an extensive discography for no one in particular, sort of like Bob Pollard in his pre-Bee Thousand days. Each James Rabbit record is better than the last, with incremental improvements in every aspect of its conception, performance, and production. “The Whole World Sleeps In Your Bed” may be their finest song to date, rocking merrily along with a memorable Beatlesque guitar hook and a typically exuberant lead vocal that careens from one killer lyric to the next. The song eventually drifts off from its hyperactive main body into a gentle reverie, but unlike other James Rabbit tunes that follow a similar trajectory, the song crashes in its final moments, tripling its angst as if to make up for the brief period of calmness. (Click here to get a free copy of James Rabbit’s new album Colossuses.) (Originally posted 2/2/2007)

Citizen Helene “‘Til Tomorrow” – It’s only one guitar and one voice overdubbed into a gorgeous harmony, but it’s enough to build this perfect image in my mind. It’s a small apartment, a walk up in some old building with a gray stone facade. There are books in piles, too many to fit on the shelves. There’s empty tea cups on a coffee table, and a newspaper from three days ago folded out of shape. The decor is a bit scattered, but there’s a lot of browns and oranges — curtains, rug, pillows. The window is open, and rain drizzles in fits and starts. It’s a bit too humid, but there’s no fan, no air conditioner. There’s a couch and chairs, but you’re sitting on the floor by the window, and when a bit of breeze drifts in on the 1:13 mark, it might just be the best thing you feel all day. (Click here for the Citizen Helene MySpace page.) (Originally posted 6/12/2007)

Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster “The Millionaire” – In this semi-recent bit from The Best Show On WFMU, Tom takes a call from a strange man who suddenly became a millionaire, but refuses to spend any of his money lest his bank balance drop below one million dollars. Needless to say, this has put the guy in some very awkward situations. Aside from its strong premise, this skit is particularly great for its clever usage of the show’s increasingly elaborate Newbridge mythology, and its bizarre yet casually tossed-off references to a dog zoo, Colonel Jessup’s Salad Plantation, Footlocker Grey, and something called “Lake Muck.” (Click here for the official Best Show website.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Thrushes, Celebration, and Monarch.

Linfinity “Chu Chu Train To Venice” – I’m imagining this guy as a frazzled old prospector, and that he’s playing the crude, manic piano part by jogging in place on the keyboard. Ideally, a video for this song would feature grainy, sepia-toned footage of a punk band comprised entirely of hobos kicking out this jam on a freight train. (Click here to buy it via Linfinity’s MySpace page.)

International Pony “Gothic Girl” – Ha, okay, so the lyrics to this song? It’s basically some goofy dude “negging” a cute goth girl. He teases her in the lamest ways imaginable (“watch out, you might get a sun tan”), but it seems rather good-natured and silly all the same, thanks in large part to the bouncy, easy-going mood of the track. (Click here for the International Pony website.)

Lil’ Wayne “I Feel Like Dying” – Okay, so, whether he intended it or not, this is basically Lil’ Wayne approximating the style of Tricky circa the mid-90s, but without all that complicated sexual tension that I wrote about a couple weeks ago. Really, aside from the fairly straightforward beat, the total absence of sexuality is the one major difference between this and a classic Tricky cut — Wayne’s gravelly yet puckish voice sounds remarkably similar at some points, and the hypnotic female vocal hook sounds as though it could be an outtake from Pre-Millennium Tension. The subject matter is rather familiar as well: The song is essentially a meditation on self-medication that vacillates between dark humor and total despair, and the sampled voice is playing the part of a siren calling Wayne towards oblivion. (Click here for the Lil Wayne MySpace page.)

Grouper “Everyone In Turn” – If you put this on repeat, you may not notice the track beginning and ending. There’s a pause, of course, and a crackle of surface noise, but all the sound just hangs in the air like a dense, slow-moving cloud. The arrangement is not at all static, but its mournful mood and spectral aura is sustained until you shut it off. (Click here to buy it from Type Records.)

The Fiery Furnaces @ Socrates Sculpture Park, 8/26/2007
Restorative Beer (soundcheck) …. Nevers (instrumental intro) / In My Little Thatched Hut / I’m In No Mood / Black-Hearted Boy / Bitter Tea / Waiting To Know You / The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry / Oh Sweet Woods / Borneo / Benton Harbor Blues / Nevers (instrumental interlude) / Whistle Rhapsody / Teach Me Sweetheart / Bitter Tea (outro) / Single Again / Wicker Whatnots / Quay Cur / I’m Gonna Run / Here Comes The Summer / Blueberry Boat / Tropical Iceland / Spaniolated / Name Game / Birdie Brain / 1917

Aside from the wonderful novelty of seeing a show in my neighborhood, this was a very bad gig, and certainly the worst set I’ve ever seen the Fiery Furnaces play. Seriously, it seemed as though the band was trying very hard to get me to dislike some of my favorite songs, or at least lose respect for them as performers.

It was that bad.

The current live incarnation of the Fiery Furnaces has Eleanor Friedberger on vocals, Matthew Friedberger on keyboards, Jason Loewenstein on guitar, Bob D’Amico on drums, and Michael Goodman on percussion. They play the music in a style that can best be described as prog calypso, but with the clumsy, impatient dynamics of a shitty hardcore band. The arrangements kept or reworked some instrumental motifs, and completely threw out others, often resulting in performances that arbitrarily honored or exaggerated certain emphatic moments of the songs while completely steamrolling over other parts. Eleanor warped, mutilated, or otherwise eliminated the melodies from the songs, and mainly recited a steady flow of words as though she was doing an impression of an auctioneer.

I appreciate their desire to experiment, and I don’t doubt that they were having a good time, but the approach to this show displays an alarming lack of self-awareness regarding their strengths as musicians and songwriters, a disrespect for their own material, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how people connect with music. In previous versions of their live show, they rearranged their material to great effect, resulting in sets that delivered familiar songs in ways that were different from the recordings but very faithful to the essence of the material, but this band gutted the work in such a way that, at very best, the alternative arrangement was an uncomfortable novelty. At worst, and really, that’s about 90% of the set, anything that could cause a listener to feel any sort of sentimentality toward a piece of music was excised, to the point that I could hear songs that I love very deeply and kinda hate them.

Do they actually dislike their own material, or do they just despise the ritual of people going to concerts to hear songs that they love played in a way that is familiar to them? I support their desire to avoid the fast-food predictability of most shows, but their apparent disdain for the audience-artist bond seems increasingly misanthropic and self-defeating. It’s becoming very difficult for me to reconcile the careful, deliberate artistry of their albums with the lazy, thoughtless agitation of their current show. I’m not asking for them to slavishly replicate the recordings on stage, but I think they really ought to consider why their songs work, and apply that to the stage show. Basically, they need to slow things down to a reasonable pace, differentiate the tempos so that’s its not all one big indecipherable blur, and respect the melodies of the songs so that people can, you know, connect emotionally and maybe even sing along.

I’m not asking for anything they haven’t done before. If you’ve only seen the current version of the band, these songs are for you. I hate to be constantly apologizing for this band, but you should know that they are capable of being a wonderful live act.

The Fiery Furnaces “I Broke My Mind/Spaniolated/Single Again” (Live @ London Calling, 2003) – When I first saw the band live, they were just beginning to experiment with medleys, and so the set was mostly divided into seamless chunks of three or four songs. Between 2003 and early 2005, they really had it figured out perfectly — the songs were obviously different, but instantly recognizable, and the energy was upbeat but unrushed. Despite the fact that five Furnaces records have been completed since this period, “I Broke My Mind” remains unreleased, which is a bit odd given that it’s such a strong and instantly ingratiating tune.

Eleanor Friedberger “Quay Cur” (Live on East Village Radio, 6/26/2004) – I’m very fond of this rare Eleanor solo performance — her skills as a guitarist are limited enough so that she boils the songs down to their essence rather than erring on the side of over-complicating the arrangements like her brother, and she’s so comfortable with the host that she allows herself to be very playful and cute.

The Fiery Furnaces “South Is Only A Home / Blueberry Boat / Bow Wow / Birdie Brain / Inca Rag” (Live @ the Mod Club in Toronto, 9/12/2004) – The medley tour from late 2004 and early 2005 may be the greatest achievement of the band to date. The medley blended most of the songs from Gallowsbird’s Bark and Blueberry Boat into a 45 minute suite that retained the appeal of its components while having its own dynamics and internal logic. It’s a remarkable piece of work that in many ways improves on the source material (I often anticipate the medley changes when I hear the studio versions), and disrupts the typical concert format without eliminating the audience’s pleasure.

The Fiery Furnaces “Teach Me Sweetheart” (Live on KEXP, 4/6/2005) – Can it be all so simple? I must admit that I appreciate that they avoid the earnest, straightforward acoustic approach, but when they do it, it’s always so perfect and sweet.

The Fiery Furnaces “Waiting To Know You” (Live @ the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC 6/30/06) – I was especially dismayed by yesterday’s performance of “Waiting To Know You.” It’s a rather beautiful and sentimental song, but they went out of their way to make it blunt and ugly, and it just seemed like an insult to anyone who ever liked it. This version of the song from the previous rock-centric incarnation of the live band avoids the softness of the album version, but keeps the sweetness in a power-pop arrangement that reminds me of late-period Guided By Voices.

Elsewhere: Of Montreal recorded a cover of my favorite Royal Trux song and put it up their MySpace page. It’s a really pleasant surprise!

Also: The Gramophone guys went out for a nice dinner.