Club 8 “Dancing With The Mentally Ill”

Club 8 have embraced Western African and Latin rhythms on their latest album, mostly resulting in wispy Scandinavian pop with a festive, busy beat. “Dancing With The Mentally Ill” is the best track on the record, but also something of an exception to the general tone, going dark and lean where the rest shoot for sweet and perky. There’s a great sense of space in this track, and the shift into the chorus is far more dramatic than one could normally expect from this band, who typically err on the side of softness and subtlety. As it turns out, sexy and spooky suits them. Maybe it’s time for them to go a bit goth.

Buy it from Amazon.

Tracey Thorn “Oh, The Divorces!”

“Oh, The Divorces!” is written from the perspective of an outsider looking in on other people’s lives, sorting through all the second hand news of heartbreak and divorces, and trying to figure out what it all means, if anything at all. The subtext is what makes this song so poignant: If this is what happens to everyone, isn’t this just going to happen to me? When is it our turn? Tracey Thorn invests her song with a great deal of empathy for her subjects, but there’s no shaking that unspoken dread at the core of it, that nagging fear that most every partnership is subject to entropy. She sounds resigned to all the predictable dramas, but she wouldn’t be singing this if she didn’t hold out some hope that these things can work out, and that love can endure.

Buy it from Amazon.

Sleigh Bells @ Ridgewood Masonic Temple 5/11/2010

(Metal Intro) / Tell ‘Em / Infinity Guitars / A/B Machines / Kids / Riot Rhythm / Treats / Straight A’s / Holly / Crown On The Ground // Rill Rill

Sleigh Bells “Infinity Guitars”

1. Sleigh Bells are not fucking around. They show up ready to fully commit and entertain, and stalk the stage with the intensity of boxers in the ring. Like the music itself, the show is elemental and assertive, simple enough to be obvious, though novel enough to make you wonder why no one has ever really done it quite like this before.

2. The Ridgewood Masonic Temple, though roughly the size of the Bowery Ballroom, is not a proper music venue, and so the PA left something to be desired in terms of loudness. Ideally, you want this music to be overwhelmingly loud. You want that crunk low-end to really demolish you, you know? On the up side, Alexis Krauss’ vocals were clear and loud in the mix, more so than on the studio recordings.

3. Krauss is an incredibly charismatic performer, and she is as potent in a live context as Derek Miller’s tracks are on the album. A lot of the thrill in watching her is just seeing someone have such a blast on stage. She is totally aware of how awesome it is to sing over these beats and riffs, and in a way, she’s as much a lead singer as a hype person for the music in general.

4. Yeah, people were going bonkers. There were a lot of cameras and a lot of guest list action going on, but people came to rock. “A/B Machines”, “Kids,” “Crown On The Ground”? Total bangers.

5. At the start of “Tell ‘Em”, someone up in the balcony tossed out a bunch of beach balls and a large inflatable shark. At some point in “Infinity Guitars”, Alexis caught the shark and threw it back at the the crowd while shouting. I think that might be a metaphor for the band’s style.

6. Let’s stop for a moment to reflect on the finale of “Infinity Guitars.” You know, the part where it comes back even louder than before, and the BASS OF ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION kicks in? That is so so so so so awesome.

7. I expected this show to be fun, but I was still surprised by how much they seem to be ready for big venues and large crowds. They really go for it, and they’re really appreciating their moment. If you’re inclined to see them live, you should do so as soon as you can.

8. Especially if you are a teenager. I kept thinking on the way home about how this band would be such an amazing first rock show for a teenager.

Buy it from iTunes.

Flying Lotus “Do The Astral Plane”

Flying Lotus’ new album Cosmogramma moves with a sort of musical dream logic — half-remembered sounds from a variety of genres are skewed and warped into surreal shapes, and float along on illogical yet intuitive tangents from one sequence to the next. “Do The Astral Plane” comes in on the final third of the record, and bounces around on an assertive groove before reaching a glorious melodic crest of synthetic string textures and clattering electronic percussion. It’s a very careful composition, but it’s more fluid than fussy. It flows out with effortless grace, as if it’s just spilling out from the artist’s unconscious mind directly on to the track.

Buy it from Amazon.

CocoRosie “The Moon Asked The Crow”

CocoRosie’s music has always been slippery and strange, typically resulting in uncomfortable collisions of jarring, deeply uncool affectations. Their latest album Grey Oceans is their best work to date, mostly because they have a better handle on how to make their juxtapositions resonate on a level deeper than willfully grotesque critic-baiting. There’s an intense sadness at the core of Grey Oceans, but it’s often rendered inexplicable and incomprehensible by the duo’s oddness and absurdity. The melancholy mainly comes through in the piano, but you can sense it in their voices — most obviously in the sister with the jazzy voices, less blatantly but more poignantly in the one who sounds like some sort of gremlin. “The Moon Asked The Crow” is a showcase for the latter sister, who raps her way through it like a distaff Tricky. Her words are nothing but mystical nonsense and the music is like mid-’90s R&B shot through the prism of fantasy fiction, but somehow I find this very moving. I like that this record makes me question what I’m feeling and wonder why these particular aesthetics and inflections trigger particular feelings. I’m not sure exactly where these women are coming from, but I suspect on some level they want us to think about emotion and sentimentality as being at least somewhat arbitrary.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Fall “Y.F.O.C./Slippy Floor”

It can seem like Mark E. Smith has the best gig in all of rock music. He hires musicians, pushes them to come up with suitably sinister grooves, he shows up to rant and growl. When he gets bored of the musicians, he fires them and brings on a new set of players. Over and over and over again, for decades on end. Unlike most rock singers, his shtick is not diminished by age. In fact, he’s only just becoming the angry, inscrutable old man he’s always been. He’s got a great thing going, but it is entirely because he created the perfect vehicle for his distinct voice and highly specific talent. No one else could just turn up on a track like this and utter nonsense and be anywhere near as compelling. Who else could make complaining about a SLIPPY FLOOR-ah! sound so brilliant over some violent punk thrashing? He’s a treasure. If only we could all find a way to ideally package our most extreme eccentricities.

Buy it from Amazon.

Zola Jesus “I Can’t Stand”

I always wish there were more songs conveying true empathy. There’s a lot, but it’s never as much as we need. I guess that’s the case for most anything having to do with empathy, right? “I Can’t Stand” is addressed to a lonely and despondent friend. The tone is grim yet slightly uplifting, and Zola Jesus’ words and phrasing acknowledge the great difficulties of finding love and staving off depression and self-loathing , but offers hope and unconditional support. The darky, gothy feeling of the piece anchors the sentiment to a harsh reality, and the refusal to bullshit with her friend makes it all the more poignant. Her faith seems more genuine.

Buy it from Amazon.

Wild Moccasins “Late Night Television”

“Late Night Television” has a dynamic, epic sound. If it was a movie rather than a rock song, it’d be an action-adventure. So it’s a bit ironic that, despite all that, it’s basically a song about laziness, and the guilt and disappointment of spending so much time doing nothing at all. Zahira Gutierrez and Cody Swann sing together and to one another, equally troubled by their malaise but coming to slightly different conclusions re: whether or not their sloth is sending them on a fast track to hell. But it kinda depends on what you’d call hell, right?

Visit the Wild Moccasins MySpace page.

Kaki King “Communist Friends”

Kaki King had previously focused on instrumental compositions that showcased her chops as a guitarist, but more recently, she’s become more of an indie rock singer-songwriter. It’s a trade-off: She’s a lot more accessible now, but less distinct. She’s still a remarkable guitarist and the songs all come out of her skill with that instrument, but the songs rely on her voice, which is fine but not as flashy or commanding. Junior, her latest and most vocal-centric release to date, is confident yet slightly tentative — you get the sense that she’s exploring and experimenting, but she knows what she’s doing. “Communist Friends” is a very well-written piece, basically a slicked-up version of a strain of indie rock that is familiar but has no genre name as far as I know — Pacific Northwest guitar-centric indie, I guess. It’s a fragile, paranoid song, understated in style compared to much of her previous work, but bold in a way she’s never been. She sings out, she sounds betrayed and confused. The climax is strong, but it pretty much ends on a sigh.

Buy it from Amazon.

The New Pornographers “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”

I think of “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk” as being a showcase for Kathryn Calder, though her voice is shadowed by Carl Newman almost the entire way. She’s the one who sings out, the one who matches the infatuated tone of the music as Newman gives weight to its more cynical and ambivalent sentiments. It’s hard to tell what to make of the feelings here. There’s a fondness and sweetness to the song, but also a lot of emotional distance stemming from the awareness that every coupling is arbitrary and all nostalgia is at least somewhat removed from reality. The mixed emotions carry over to the arrangement, which is mostly quite perky, but is full of counterpoint parts that are like a blissful grin transforming into confused grimace. The song is both cheery and resigned, balancing out somewhere in the middle of the emotional spectrum as a shrug of “Okay, let’s just go with it.” It may all just be a “mistake on the part of nature,” but who are they to argue against what at least seems to be some grand design?

Buy it from Amazon.

The Game featuring Justin Timberlake and Pharrell “Ain’t No Doubt About It”

The Game is the headliner on this track, but that’s mostly a formality. There’s nothing wrong with his performance here, but if we’re being real, this song is all about Justin Timberlake’s hook and DJ Skee’s funky malfunctioning-Nintendo game keyboard loop. Pretty much any halfway-competent rapper could be on this track and sound good as long as they kept from distracting from the music’s casual grooviness. To cut right through all pretense of critical writing for a moment, I looooooove the keyboard part in this song. Love it, love it, love it. It’s automatic joy for me. It’s the sort of sound that zaps my brain and translates as blue skies, sunshine, and victory. Timberlake and Pharrell are old pros at working with this sort of track, they just amp up the endorphin levels. The Game is charming, he has his moments too. I just don’t focus in on them much because I find myself so lost in the music.

Buy music by the Game from Amazon.

Robyn “Cry When You Get Older”

Let’s focus in on one small part of this song. This is what Robyn sings at the start of the second verse:

back in suburbia, kids get high and make out on the train

but in this, incomprehensible boredom takes a hold again

There’s a wonderful tension in these two lines. The words are vivid and specific, yet vague and universal. She could be talking about anyone anywhere, or calling back to your own memories, and it’s the same point either way. The language is clunky and not particularly musical, but the syllables fall into the rhythm in a way that catches the ear better than something with a more typical meter. This works almost entirely because Robyn is a compelling pop singer with a strong instinct for evocative phrasing. The chorus and bridge of “Cry When You Get Older” are smooth and sugary, and those parts function so intuitively that our attention is placed mainly on the verses, where the rhythm is trickier and her words are more complicated. She calls back to Prince in the first verse, which is appropriate because she’s definitely taking cues from his mid-80s work here. The best Prince songs all have great choruses and hooks, but the most memorable lyrics and bits of phrasing are usually in the verses. He makes you hang on his every word, and though a lot of that has to do with natural charisma, it’s also to do with keeping those parts dynamic and just slightly off from expectations. Robyn has a lot of charisma too, but this success mainly comes down to her high level of craft. A lot of pop songs wash over us without any particular focal points, but this is constructed in such a way that we can’t help but get snagged by one hook or another.

Pre-order it from Amazon.

Sunglasses “Stand Fast”

It’s so perfect that a band that would write a song like this would be called Sunglasses. I can’t hear this guy sing without picturing some laid-back, vaguely macho alt-bro in shades. (Not to scare you off or insult him, but imagine the chillwave version of that guy from Smashmouth.) The arrangement is like a venn diagram of groovy coolness — touches of lounge and exotica, some vague hint of hip hop beatmaking, the twinkling hazy keyboard washes of Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. There’s a bit of melancholy and wistfulness to this, but not enough to be particularly moving. You wouldn’t want it to be moving, you know? There’s a suggestion of depth, but it’s mostly just relaxing and fun.

Visit the Sunglasses page at Lefse Records.

Anni Rossi “Crushing Limbs”

Anni Rossi seems to work in extremes — she’s either slashing away at a viola and punctuating her vocal parts with wordless, orgasmic bleats, or limiting her expressive range within rigid arrangements that remind me of Piet Mondrian’s painted grids. “Crushing Limbs” falls into the latter category, more so than any other song she has released to date. It is ostensibly a perky pop song with a bouncy beat and analog synthesizers, but its words are grim and her vocal tone has a deliberate shell-shocked affect. The song is effective in conveying blank confusion and muted terror, but it makes me worry that Rossi could be pushing too far in this direction for her next record, and abandoning the wild streak that I found so compelling in her first EP. I would be very interested if she found some kind of aesthetic half-way point — a controlled performance dotted with moments of unhinged emoting.

Visit the Anni Rossi portion of the 4AD website.

Sabbath Assembly “Glory Hallelujah”

The first several times I listened to Sabbath Assembly, I had absolutely no context for what they were doing, and so I found myself wondering what their angle could be. The record is a mish-mash of gospel and psychedelic rock, and every track is concerned with the Apocalypse and the judgment of God. Some of it is a bit ponderous and grim, but for the most part, they seem to eagerly anticipate this devastation. “Glory Hallelujah,” the most groovy number on the record, welcomes the End of Days with an alarming cheeriness, as two women sing about Armageddon with a wholesome, sweet tone typically reserved for songs about crushes on dreamy boys. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Were they for real? Did they write this music? Is this an ironic pastiche?

As it turns out, the songs are for real, but the band is not. The album is a collection of previously unrecorded hymns written by and for the Process Church of the Final Judgment, a quasi-Satanist religious cult that thrived in the 1960s and ’70s. It’s kind of a museum piece, really — a matter of preserving the music for historical record. There is some degree of irony here, at least in that I am reasonably certain these performers are not members of the Process Church, but the execution is straightforward, and the vocals at least simulate the appropriate sentiment and level of engagement.

The context is fascinating, but the project is mainly successful on purely musical terms. The essence of Process Church theology is a faith in the reconciliation of Christ and Satan, and their music played that out in genre terms, blending Christian church music with the darker, sexier end of rock and roll at the time. Obviously many other artists have gone for the same thing, but the Apocalyptic obsession of the Process songs has a feeling very different from, say, Jesus Christ Superstar. The rhetoric is more extreme, the mood is more intense. I suppose it would have to be, given that it’s all about actively wishing for the end of the world as we know it.

Buy it from Amazon.

Dom “Jesus”

Knowing what you want is usually a lot more exciting than having no idea at all. “Jesus” is basically a song about being aware of your desires, and trying to wish them into reality. The list of demands are not incredibly specific…

1) Take me to a different place.

2) I want to feel it in my heart again.

3) Give me something to believe in.

4) I want a party in a basement.

…but it’s all in the realm of the possible. Maybe it’s about trying to experience something all over again, maybe it’s an idealized version of the life you already know. Either way, this song captures that feeling of imagining some perfect moment, and thinking that you’re right on the edge of it actually coming true.

Buy it from Burning Mill Records.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings “Money”

There’s a lot of ways to write about being broke, but I’m really into this take on it: Money as this lowlife asshole who bails on you whenever you need him to be around, and doesn’t do you all that much good when he does show up. Even still, you’re left feeling insecure and wanting — is it me, did I do something wrong? How can I get you to take me back? All the while, you’re just bitter about getting caught up in this mess. Capitalism as a terrible boyfriend, basically.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Mynabirds “What We Gained In The Fire”

The Mynabirds’ debut album opens with “What We Gained In The Fire,” a song that feels more like a climax than a beginning. Nevertheless, the sequencing makes perfect sense. Musically, it puts the most dramatic and immediately impressive track at the start of the record, and thematically, it’s about finding a new path following the emotional upheaval of a traumatic break-up. You can sense the shock and confusion from the start of the song, but as it progresses and builds toward its cathartic release, the feeling is calm and hopeful. The fear subsides, the anguish fades, and what remains in the end is the faith that it all happened for a reason: “What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.” The song provides a feeling of closure and resolution, but its ending is only just the beginning of a new story.

Buy it from Saddle Creek. So many options!

LCD Soundsystem “I Can Change”

James Murphy has excellent taste and builds his songs from top-notch reference points, but his genius is in the way he understands how those sounds function and resonate. When he appropriates elements from older records, it’s not some surface-level affectation or empty gesture of nostalgia. Instead, it’s all in the service of articulating an emotion and/or provoking a particular physical reaction. Although sometimes you can trace a sound on an LCD Soundsystem song to a specific record, more often the reference is more vague and intuitive — it’s the sound and feeling of a type of song, something in your cultural memory that may be a bit hazy but nonetheless stirs up precise sense memories and an odd cocktail of emotions.

“I Can Change” is a certain type of song, for sure. It’s the yearning, romantic ’80s new wave ballad, boppy but sentimental, lovesick in the glow of tacky neon colors. There are echoes of Bowie, Human League, Gary Numan, OMD, and a few dozen synthpop bands people barely remember, but more than anything, it’s James Murphy singing his own song about his own experience in his own voice. His songs may call back to other works, but Murphy is always present in his music, and his distinct character is a lot of what makes the music work — we need that recognizable person to identify with, it makes everything more powerful, pointed, and poignant. The style of “I Can Change” is flawless, but the substance of it is sublime. Like the best of LCD Soundsystem, it taps into the ineffable quality that makes songs great rather than just nodding in the general direction of better songs.

Pre-order it from Amazon.

Liars @ Bowery Ballroom 4/15/2010

A Visit From Drum / No Barrier Fun / Clear Island / I Still Can See An Outside World / We Fenced Other Houses With Bones Of Our Own / Scissor / The Overachievers / The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack / Scarecrows On A Killer Slant / Sailing To Byzantium / Here Comes All The People / Plaster Casts Of Everything / The Garden Was Crowded And Outside / Proud Evolution // Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack! / Broken Witch

“Goodnight Everything” was cut from the printed setlist I saw and replaced with a song from their first album.

Liars “Proud Evolution”

Liars perform as a quintet these days, with two players from Fol Chen filling out the arrangements and leaving Angus Andrew to focus his energies on being a singer. He is an immensely charismatic frontman with a fascinating physicality — lanky and imposing, not especially graceful but very deliberate in his mannerisms. He has the energy of a bratty child, but the emotional depth of a grown man. He’s a great anchor for the band’s music, which is always rooted in that punky aggression, but typically stretches out beyond that into something more complex and beautiful in a sad, dark sort of way. The more violent, rocking songs like “Clear Island,” “The Overachievers,” “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant,” and “Plaster Casts Of Everything” were staggered through the set, giving space to the slow songs and more groove-oriented compositions. In either mode, drummer Julian Gross was the MVP, guiding the mood swings with his precise, urgent rhythms and setting the atmosphere with his beats. This is a remarkably gift and talented band hitting their stride — of all the bands I’ve ever seen, the two they most recalled were Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead in their intensity and the way they balanced out polished performance with a necessary degree of rawness and spontaneity.

Buy it from Amazon.