Rose Elinor Dougall “Start Stop Synchro” – When it was announced that Rose and Becki were leaving the Pipettes, many people were right to be skeptical about the future of that band. Sure, the group had been designed with a revolving door of lead vocalists in mind, but the two were crucial to the appeal of the band. Their personalities and style slightly tweaked the girl group dynamic, and kept the project in check by grounding it in contemporary indie music despite the over-the-top retro affectations. Rose was particularly magnetic and interesting. Of the three women, she had the most “indie” voice, and came across as the most fully formed character both in song and on stage — sassy and cool, but also a bit defensive and insecure despite being quite fabulous.

That apparent neurosis is foregrounded on Rose’s first solo track to be released to the public. With its slow beat, hazy tone and vaseline-lensed melancholy, “Start Stop Synchro” is a clear departure from her work with the Pipettes — if anything, it seems like a catchier, less ethereal version of Beach House. The arrangement is evocative, but decidedly brittle and understated, leaving Rose to carry much of the song in her vocal performance. She’s something of a revelation here — she’s essentially fighting back some substantial pain while attempting to keep a stoic, graceful demeanor. (Click here for Rose’s MySpace page.)

Allá “Una Dia Otra Noche” – This is an artist’s rendering of heaven on earth. It’s bliss and togetherness and absolutely perfect weather, now and forever. The string arrangement approximate the feeling of a perfect breeze on a warm day; the vocals are a harmony of contented sighs. It’s utopia, but for three minutes and six seconds. (Click here to buy it from Crammed.)

Erykah Badu “Twinkle” – Much of Erykah Badu’s latest album lingers in a shell-shocked haze; claustrophobic and uncomfortable, yet zoned-out and inert. Nearly every song is about struggle, but despite the righteous indignation at the core of the record, the music primarily expresses bitter resignation and cynicism. “Twinkle” is especially blunted and weary — there is virtually no hope to be found in its lyrics, just this vision of the future as an endless corridor of locked doors. The track is a disconnected buzz of cell phone beeps, swear word bleeps, warped drones, and a nervous, uneasy electronic beat that seems to nudge the song in a slow, hobbled diagonal motion. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

School of Seven Bells “Chain” – A little bit of a vocoder goes a long way, and over the past few years, we’ve certainly had enough robotic vocals to take all of western civilization into the 2030s. That said, School of Seven Bells do the same old trick without the heavy hand of, say, T-Pain, and end up with something that mostly polishes a lovely melody into a freakish sheen, and warps its most dynamic turns into something that sounds less like a bunch of clowns in a studio goofing around with ironic effects, and more like a clever aesthetic decision that emphasizes the generally aloof and slightly unreal tone of the piece. (Click here to get the entire Ghostly Swim compilation from Ghostly International.)

Zeigeist “Tar Heart” – The really obvious thing about Zeigeist that really cannot be left unsaid is that they sound a LOT like The Knife. “Tar Heart” sounds so much like The Knife that if it was sold to me as a new single from that group, I would not think twice about it. Of course, aside from a few songs, they aren’t quite as good — Princess can replicate the timbre of Karin’s voice, but does not match her ability to convey complicated emotions with subtle vocal inflections, or her her willingness to distort her voice for artistic effect. Zeigeist can compose very sharp and interesting pop songs, but despite being theoretically more “accessible,” they are not yet capable of approaching the level of catchiness and sophistication on display in your average Knife song, much less classics like “Heartbeats” and “We Share Our Mothers’ Health.”

That said, Zeigeist are pretty terrific, and have their own charms. For one thing, they are far more Europop, and have a knack for composing dense, compelling hooks out of some fairly corny keyboard settings. It’s entirely straight-faced — they aren’t going for kitsch, but they do intend to keep their concepts grounded in a particular milieu and subcultural aesthetic. In particular, “Tar Heart,” a song that seems to be a tribute to a submissive man named Eric who is engaged in some rather intense S&M play, benefits greatly from a keyboard sound that comes across like a wall of ice illuminated by blue neon lights. (Click here to buy it from Zeigeist.)

Metronomy “My Heart Rate Rapid” – It’s hard to know what to expect from Metronomy. They’re more miss than hit — trust me when I tell you that you probably don’t want to see them in concert — but every once in a while they turn around and surprise me with a track like this. “My Heart Rate Rapid” is a spazzy, frenetic dance tune with a springy, slightly goofy element that reminds me a bit of The Residents, or Can circa Ege Bamyasi. Nevertheless, there’s a real sense of urgency in the song, at least enough so that I could not bear to listen it when it came on a few days ago because I was already feeling way too freaked out. (Click here to buy it from Turntable Lab.)

Alphabeat “What Is Happening?” – There was a perfect moment for this song in this week’s season finale of Gossip Girl. Spoiler alert — if you’re the kind of person who can’t see super-obvious plot points coming from miles away, this is definitely a big spoiler — but after a full season of dealing with her incessant lying, Dan Humphrey dumped Serena van der Woodsen, and in a better world, “What Is Happening?” would’ve been the soundtrack to the scene when it all falls apart, and the actors have to go about looking sad yet stoic. This song was built for such a moment, whether it’s in fiction, in life, or somewhere in between.

Alphabeat draw on the same potent well of digested post-modern narrative as Josh Schwartz, yielding a glossy, super-stylized, hyper-pop version of emotional reality. The lyrical details of “What Is Happening?” are fairly mundane — a couple has a huge fight, but at least one of them is still in love with the other, and they make a gesture to hold it all together — but the effect of the song is something far more magical. From the very first moment, it pulls the listener into a state of heightened drama and romance, and boils a complicated set of thoughts and feelings into one intense super-concentrated shot of emotion. It gives you the feeling that everything has become more complex and meaningful, though in reality, it’s all about streamlining and idealizing a difficult situation into something so easy to understand and manage that it becomes a desirable fantasy.

Oh, also: In my mind, I have this half-formed notion that Alphabeat’s debut album is like the inverse version of the Arcade Fire’s Funeral. The two bands have a very similar approach to executing their songs, but radically different tones. In this analogy, “What Is Happening?” is their equivalent to “Wake Up,” right on down to the way both songs start out anthemic, but eventually shift into a boppy vamp for its finale. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Music Go Music “Light Of Love” – Whether we’re jaded by bad experiences, bitter from chronic lovelessness, or have simply heard too many bad pop songs, it’s very easy to be put off by tunes that express a sentiment that roughly translates to “love has come into my life, and now EVERYTHING IS BETTER.” That said, Music Go Music’s elegantly composed, ABBA-esque “Light Of Love” manages to convey a subtle tinge of lingering sorrow and doubt, even at the pinnacle of its jubilation. Crucially, the song really hits home the sense that the singer was truly depressed and hopeless before her love came along. This isn’t about landing a new boyfriend; this is about salvation, and finding a reason to stay alive. (Click here to buy it from Secretly Canadian.)

Rostam Batmanglij “Campus” – I’m not an expert, but it would seem that this string-centric version of “Campus” credited to Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij predates the arrangement that appears on that group’s celebrated debut album. This is troubling, at least in that I believe that the band severely diminished the charm of the song by downplaying its lovely, graceful melodies by performing it in their typical Afropop-goes-mall-punk style. (Let’s be really really really really real about this: Vampire Weekend are basically the Ivy League’s answer to Sublime.) Anyway, this recording is delightful, and stands as a perfect argument against band democracy. Yes, the lyrics about avoiding a girl on a school campus makes me feel very old, but the breezy sweep of the strings undercuts the minor angst of the words with the understanding that the singer’s concerns are not much of a problem. (Click here for Rostam’s MySpace page, and here to buy the Vampire Weekend version from Beggars Group.)

Diet Cola “Wicked Witch of the Northeast” – Diet Cola’s debut 7″ is a blur of overdriven keyboards, heavily reverbed vocals, high velocity beats, and urgent hooks. It’s the best sort of art-punk: effortlessly catchy and accessible despite deliberate attempts to make the music as abrasive, confusing, and abstracted as possible. “Wicked Witch of the Northeast” can barely contain itself — imagine it as a car that careens at top speed into a wall, and somehow is able to keep moving even faster until it flies off of cliff and explodes in mid-air. (Click here to buy it from Diet Cola.)

The Long Blondes @ the Bowery Ballroom 5/16/2008
Here Comes The Serious Bit / Weekend Without Make-Up / Autonomy Boy / Round The Hairpin / Erin O’Connor / Separated By Motorways / I Liked The Boys / Century / Too Clever By Half / You Could Have Both / The Couples / Once and Never Again / Guilt / I’m Going To Hell / Giddy Stratospheres // Lust in the Movies

This was a fine show, but the dynamic in the room was very strange. As can be expected, there were a lot of pretty, stylish young women, but the front of the room was dominated by weird guys with cameras, which resulted in small pockets of dancing people scattered around the floor of the venue. The creepiest of the camera men by far was a pair of chubby, balding middle aged men in raincoats standing in the middle of the second row who obsessively filmed Kate Jackson from start to finish, and never seemed to even glance at the other members of the band. This is odd because there are two other attractive women in the Long Blondes — but then, they weren’t wearing tiny denim short shorts, and Ms. Jackson was.

A thing that I’d never seen at a rock show before: Halfway through the set, Dorian Cox ate a banana, and then threw the peel out into the audience.

The Long Blondes “The Couples” – The character in “The Couples” has had it. She’s been coming to this same old bar, playing the game, but she always loses. The only men who seem interested have already paired off, and she can’t rationalize being the other woman — or at least, not anymore. It’s not clear whether or not she actually wants to be half of a couple, but she’s certainly fed up with not having the option, and even more annoyed when more fortunate people condescend to know she feels. It’s all set-up for one of the best choruses of the year: “These people have the nerve to tell me that they’re lonely…you’re not lonely; I am, baby.” Jackson sounds a little bit exasperated, but mostly resigned, particularly when the chorus gives way to a disheartened sigh, or a breakdown in which she imagines her isolation on a cosmic scale. (Click here to buy it from Rough Trade/Beggars Group.)

Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster “The Story Weaver” – I’m a sucker for the Best Show skits that go off on odd tangents, and grow creepier with each new casual revelation. In this bit from last week, Tom talks to a co-worker from Consolidated Cardboard who turns out to be a pathological liar without any ability to craft believable lies. Every time Tom challenges one of his ridiculous claims, Wurster’s character pushes his story in a weirder direction rather than admit that he was not being honest. (Click here for the Best Show on WFMU website.)

Carole King “It’s Too Late” (Live in the mid-70s) – If you’re like me and you grew up listening to adult contemporary and lite FM radio, you know this song backwards and forwards, maybe without even realizing it. It’s an absolutely stunning composition, the sort of stealth pop song that is pretty much perfect on every conceivable level without calling attention to its brilliance. This solo performance by Carole King boils her song down to its essential components, but somehow doesn’t come across too differently from the polished, beautifully nuanced studio arrangement on Tapestry. It’s all in the craft, really — it’s subtly stylish and sophisticated, and designed for a precise effect. King had it all down to a science, without losing the heart necessary to pull off a heartbreaking ballad.

Like most great pop radio staples, “It’s Too Late” pulls off a neat trick — it is highly effective at conjuring a specific, affecting emotion that is instantly and universally understood, but can also easily slip into the background of your life while you work, drive, shop, or go to the doctor’s office. This is actually the ideal context for “It’s Too Late.” Basically, it’s a song about going through something extremely painful — the slow dissolution of long-term relationship — with the awareness that the situation is actually quite mundane. King embraces that prosaic sadness, and articulates it in such a way that its mix of regret, resignation, and well-adjusted gratitude is deliberately understated, and it feels like a sort of musical cinéma-vérité. It’s not the big dramatic moment, but rather the time after ever tear has been cried out, and there’s no choice but to go about your life while processing the trauma. You know — working, driving, shopping, going to the doctor’s office. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Devil’s Gun “Million Miles” – This song is an expression of empathy and concern for a friend on a clear downward spiral, and really, they could’ve stopped there and ended up with an affecting piece of music. Instead, Devil’s Gun complicate matters by refusing to judge, or condescend to offer any sort of answer for this person’s problems. The result is a blur of mixed emotions, but the vocals, lyrics, and well-crafted track convey a constantly shifting balance of love, resignation, hope, nostalgia, and despair. (Click here for the Devil’s Gun website.)

Adem “Invisible Man” – Adem’s covers album includes some rather smart and non-obvious selections — dude does a very pretty version of “Starla”! — but for the most part, he sticks to a “let’s pare it down to just acoustic guitar and a bit of percussion” street busker formula that’s easy on the ears, but doesn’t do much more than prove that Adem is a competent singer and guitarist who has good taste in music. His recording of the Breeders classic “Invisible Man” is one of the exceptions. His arrangement is not wildly original — I feel like I’ve heard several variations on this sort of twinkly, pretty indie jangle many times in the recent past — but it’s an inspired take on an unlikely song, and it shifts the emotional tone of the piece enough so that it feels like a brand new song with a familiar melody. (Click here to buy it from Domino Records.)

Free Kitten “Erected Girl” – As a Sonic Youth fanboy, one of the appealing things about hearing the individual players perform outside of that band is getting a sense of their tics, and identifying the common rhythmic and melodic themes specific to them. It’s kinda like reverse-engineering a meal, I guess — it’s never quite as good without the harmony and balance of flavors, but you do get to focus and meditate on just one aspect of the whole. Obviously, the new Free Kitten album isn’t a solo record — Kim Gordon is collaborating with Julie Cafritz and Yoshimi — but from the first moments of “Erected Girl,” we hear a distinctive tone and strum that ought to be immediately familiar to fans of post-Washing Machine Sonic Youth. Maybe it’s because she’s in a band with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, perhaps it’s because she’s mainly identified as a bassist, but Gordon has one of the most interesting, original, and underrated guitar styles that I’ve ever encountered. Whereas Lee and Thurston have become increasingly refined, Kim’s rhythm parts tend to sound a bit ragged and lackadaisical, and seem to patiently and curiously explore some indefinite horizon. “Erected Girl” sounds like a slow lateral progression, forever moving somewhere off to your side, occasionally shifting into a more determined stride, but generally more concerned with the moment rather than the mission. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Meanwhile, on Fair Game: Silje Nes in session, and Sacha Jenkins of Ego Trip discusses Miss Rap Supreme.

Atlas Sound “The Time I Spent With Nico (Quiet)” – I get the sense that there are are very few days in Bradford Cox’s life when he is not conceiving, writing, recording, or performing music. Add it up: Last year he made an album and an EP with his band Deerhunter. That band toured incessantly and are playing out right now, in advance of a recently-finished record that will come out sometime later this year. On top of that, Cox released an album under the name Atlas Sound, and toured with that band as well. Most interestingly, he has put out enough free EPs and singles as Atlas Sound that Deerhunter seems more like the side project. This restless productivity makes me think of three things:

1) He is rather like Bob Pollard. Not simply because both men are freakishly prolific and have a similar hit-to-miss ratio, but in that the two share an obsessive fascination with the concept of elaborate discographies. Cox may have pragmatically forgone the aura of the object, but he clings to the aesthetic of tossed-off EPs and one-off singles, and like Pollard, takes care to design artwork for even his most minor works. He’s a fan, and he caters to that unending desire for more, more, more. But the thing is, it’s as if he’s his own biggest fan. (Sorry, Marc Hogan!) He’s an obsessive collector of his own art, and as an artist, he’s just trying to keep pace with the demand.

2) He’s burning through material in order to improve at a faster clip. Frankly, more artists should work in this way. One of the most common and useful bits of advice given to writers is that you have to write through all your bad ideas and get them out of your head before you have the experience and self-knowledge necessary to create something truly impressive. The quality of Cox’s work to date, particularly with Deerhunter, has been mostly above average and occasionally sublime, but his free releases have been very hit or miss. That’s not really a problem though. The songs that have been featured on the blog in recent month have included yawn-inducing drones, cover versions, experiments with dub, tributes to favorite artists, deliberate rip-offs, lo-fi piss takes, uninspired shoegazer reveries, and occasionally, absolutely brilliant songs that rank among his finest works to date.

The gentle, sad-eyed quiet version of “The Time I Spent With Nico” certainly falls into that last category. As you can probably glean from the title, it speaks to his fascination with and reverence for the art rock canon. Much like the Scissor Sisters’ brilliant “Paul McCartney,” it seems to be a song about communing with a muse in a dream, and attempting to make sense of the ideas and actions that our unconscious mind attaches to people we consider to be heroes and geniuses. There is also a “loud” version of the song, but it’s not quite as successful, mainly because it strays into one of Cox’s problem areas — a tendency to bury the nuances of his voice beneath louder sounds that do not convey nearly as much emotional detail.

3) He’s writing as much as he can because he’s afraid that he may die very young. This is a very morbid thought, but given Cox’s history and fragile state, he’s probably not wrong to figure that he’s only got so much time to build up his body of work. I definitely get the sense that he’s interested in having a legacy that can be picked apart long after he’s gone, and that he’s probably a bit self-conscious in crafting his work with that in mind. That’s no bad thing. That ambition and willingness to pursue and execute his every creative whim is part of what makes him an artist worth some attention.

(Click here to get the full single, and several other recent free Atlas Sound recordings, at the Deerhunter/Atlas Sound blog.)

Veronica Maggio “Gammal Sång” – Someone really needs to get Veronica Maggio to record her songs in English. This is not to say that I disrespect the fact that her music is sung entirely in Swedish — as a person who can only speak one language, I’m always a little surprised that more European pop music is not written and performed in the singer’s native tongue — but rather that it seems that Ms. Maggio would have a good shot at modest success in the UK and US. She specializes in light, peppy neo-Motown pop that sensibly trades out “urban” affectations for a sleek, colorful, cheerfully inauthentic suburban aesthetic. Many have tried for this sort of sound, but it’s rarely successful — sometimes it ends up sounding too conservative and syrupy, or it gets bogged down in superfluous modern signifiers, or the tunes simply aren’t strong enough. Even as a lyrical abstraction to American ears, “Gammal Sång” is wonderfully catchy and delightfully low-key, and its arrangement hits just the right balance of lush orchestration and economy of space and sound. (It also doesn’t hurt that the piano part sounds like the affable grandchild of “This Old Heart Of Mine.”) (Click here for the official Veronica Maggio site.)

Matmos “Rainbow Flag” – “Rainbow Flag” doesn’t belong on earth. It belong in another universe, off-register with the colors and out of sync with the rhythms that we know in our lives here in this dull, drab place. This is what is must sound like on Danny The Street — camp, magical, and both a part of, and removed from, the sepia-toned sadness of the world. (Click here to buy it from Matador Records. Click here to hear a fun interview with Matmos on Fair Game.)

Pink Skull featuring Ghostface Killah, Spank Rock, Amanda Blank, and Plastic Little “Crambodia (Remix)” – Pink Skull’s Zeppelin 3 is not a hip hop record, but maybe it should have been given the strength of this remix. It’s not just that they get to work with some spectacular guest MCs — surely we’re at the point that anything including Ghostface is going to be at least solid and entertaining — but that they craft a track that maintains a steady level of “holy shit!” excitement from verse to verse. Who knows, maybe it’s because they don’t do this all the time, and they can appreciate the opportunity to play with terrific raw material, and can transfer their fanboy enthusiasm to the very sound of the music. It’s in the shifting “Apache” shuffle of the beat, it’s in the synth buzz, and it’s in the way a recurring sample of Ghostface’s voice heralds his arrival in the song’s climax. They’re pretty psyched. (Click here to buy it from Turntable Lab.)

Au “RR Vs. D” – Video treatment: You know those big quasi-anthropomorphic balloons, the ones that are usually out along the road in front of car dealerships? The ones that sorta do a weird hippie/raver dance in the wind? They’re called “Air Dancers,” and specific models have names like “Fly Guys,” “Sky Ticklers,” and “Tube Dudes.”* Anyway, there should be a field full of these things, and they should be gently swaying around to the first half of this song. When it snaps into the jamboree section, the dancing of the balloon figures should appear very choreographed — this may be really tricky, but it’d be terrific if it could be done, especially without any digital effects. The motion should taper off with the song until the voices fade, and the balloons fall to the ground. (Click here to pre-order it from Aagoo.)

* Inevitably, one of you has a band, and you either don’t have a name yet, or your existing name is awful. Your band has a new name now — you are TUBE DUDES. Don’t let me down by sucking, okay?

Meanwhile, on Fair Game: Goldfrapp came by for a session last week. Unfortunately, you can’t download the songs as per usual, but you can hear their lovely stripped-down version of “A&E” at the end of the full segment, which you can find here.

Andrew Earles & Jeff Jensen “My Friends Call Me Ditchweed. Don’t Ask. Okay, Go Ahead and Ask.” – Andrew Earles and Jeff Jensen’s prank phone calls are very seldom mean spirited. Instead of making a fool of the person on the other end of the line, they build depressing little character studies out of the detritus of pop culture, and attempt to nudge them into someone else’s reality. Andrew Earles — a former Best Show On WFMU regular — specializes in portraying clueless sad sacks, and his best bits find his characters hitting absurd depths of misery and desperation while clinging to some unlikely hope for salvation. He and Jensen are both obsessed with grounding their characters in extremely specific cultural details, to the point that many of the calls are entirely incoherent without a frightening depth of knowledge pertaining to American junk culture circa the mid-to-late 80s. That said, they are most successful when they don’t lean so hard on trivia, and focus on vivid imagery — for example, Earles once had a character stave off boredom and loneliness by chewing on a scented candle while sitting on a wharf. I can barely recall the context, but that image is stuck in my mind forever.

Like a lot of the calls on their new deluxe Just Farr A Laugh compilation, I first heard a variation of the Ditchweed/Extreme Dad character on the Best Show. I think that in general, I’m partial to the Best Show versions, mainly because Earles was allowed to develop the character and stagger the punchlines with Tom Scharpling as a straight man in a way that is impossible when he or Jensen is dealing with a stranger who could hang up at any moment. There’s certainly excitement in that, and the satisfaction of hearing reality collide with fiction, but I miss the slow, steady build up of details, and the more gradual slide into despair.

Nevertheless, “Ditchweed” plays very well in this style — they were able to quickly sketch out his ridiculous character, and the duo had the good fortune of dealing with a hilariously gullible and curiously inept mark at a Chrysler dealership. There’s a great moment near the end of this call in which he seems to test the belief of his unwitting straight man by flat-out stating the emotional subtext of the joke, and he barely gets a response even though he’s basically spilling hit guts over the telephone line. (Click here to buy it from Matador Records. You really ought to buy the actual cd — the packaging and liner notes are terrific.)

Mudhoney “I’m Now” – Here’s a perfect mantra for the 2008s: “The past made no sense! The future looks tense!” Mark Arm starts shouting “I’m now!” immediately after that, but it sounds less like some bit of “be here now” wisdom, and more like a guy getting backed into a corner. Mudhoney have a tendency to come across as a bit too thudding and turgid, but they sound wiry and spry on this song, which is kinda necessary to pull off the right mix of anxiety and bitter humor. (Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)

Sloan “Witch’s Wand” – The funny thing about Sloan’s previous album Never Hear The End Of It was the way its 30 track sprawl was sequenced so well that it ended up sounding like the tightest, most unified record the band had ever released. Their follow-up, Parallel Play, moves in the opposite direction — it’s brief and lean, but the group’s four singer-songwriters are on different pages, playing to their respective strengths and following their own muses. Chris Murphy and Andrew Scott favor scruffy power-pop eclecticism, Patrick Pentland continues to supply meaty yet weirdly aloof riff rockers that would do Stone Gossard proud, and Jay Ferguson refines his penchant for sleek, finely nuanced mid-tempo tunes that borrow liberally from old school R&B and lite FM groovers.

Ferguson is the most successful and consistent this time around. His friendly, low-key tenor has grown sweeter with age, and his arrangements have become increasingly spacious and graceful. All three of his numbers have a relaxed, warm vibe that sharply contrasts with the selections on Parallel Play penned by Pentland, who leans so hard on compression and studio effects to compensate for his comparatively thin singing voice that his tunes come out sounding rather crisp and chilly. The band use the drastic difference in tone to their advantage in sequencing the album — Pentland and Ferguson cuts are run back to back twice over, with the former’s tightly-wound rockers giving way to the latter’s mellow harmonies and gently floating chords. Whereas the two could easily clash, they instead work as each other’s foil, and give their album a greater sense of dynamics, if not stylistic unity. (Click here to buy it from Yep Roc.)

No Age “Teen Creeps” – I feel a little bit conflicted about No Age. I’ll try to explain.

Some people are very excited about No Age’s new album Nouns, and for the most part, they are All The Right People. This complicates things, mainly because I don’t think No Age is a fully-formed band at this moment in time, and I worry that they might get screwed over/screwed up by Certain People overrating their juvenilia, whether it’s out of genuine enthusiasm, or because it is beneficial to Those People’s brand. This rarely works out — either the artist hedges their bets, and feels no need to progress, or they develop their skill and create better material, and the audience moves on to smothering some other inexperienced band.

Anyway, it’s not hard to grasp No Age’s appeal. I’ll break it down:

1) After years of 80s throwbacks in the indie world, No Age represent the first step in a shift toward 90s sounds. However, since these trends are weirdly shackled to actual chronology, No Age deal with sounds particular to the late 80s and very early 90s. (As in, pre-1992.) There’s a lot of Dinosaur Jr., a smattering of pre-Loveless shoegazer rock, and a dab of punky proto-grunge, a la Mudhoney. (“Teen Creeps,” the band’s best song by a considerable distance, basically sounds like an especially woozy Mudhoney tune.) Sub Pop’s press release name checks Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, but frankly, that just strikes me as extraordinary critical laziness and/or outright foolishness: Though it makes sense for Sonic Youth fans to dig No Age, No Age do not sound much of anything like Sonic Youth, no matter how noisy they get. The songs on Nouns are catchy, but they are very simple and lack the harmonic, rhythmic, melodic, or textural sophistication of anything on Daydream Nation, much less Evol.

2) No Age understand the power of a good logo, cool t-shirts, and attractive packaging. Seriously, it’s good enough that it makes me want to like them more than I do, and honestly, it’s not really even to my taste. It’s just nice and thoughtful and well-executed.

3) Apparently they are pretty good live. I am not impressed by the footage I’ve seen, but hey.

4) They fit perfectly into the current indie zeitgeist. On the up side of that, they are rocking things up a bit, and getting away from the abundance of 80s influences. Hooray for all that. But on the downside, why settle for moving into the 90s when we could move into the 20teens? Also, when it comes down to it, No Age are yet another band of faceless white guys without any charisma or musical identity particular to themselves, and their vocals are timid and consistently buried in the mix. It’s an aesthetic decision, and it’s part of a tradition, but you know what? It’s cowardice as far as I’m concerned. All of No Age’s songs would be superior if they didn’t sound so self-effacing and indecisive. There’s no personality anchoring these songs, just a sort of passive-aggressive, ethereal blankness where a distinct persona and a point of view ought to be.

5) They do have some pretty good songs, and they tend to feel very comfy after a few listens. They get into some ambient drones, but don’t go quite as overboard as Deerhunter did on Cryptograms. It’s either noise music for people who actually want to listen to music music, or pop-punk for noise dudes. That’s not bad at all, really. It’s just a question of modifying expectations, and when my peers all go crazy for something, maybe I expect too much.

(Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)

The Kills @ Webster Hall 5/1/2008
U R A Fever / Pull A U / Sour Cherry / Tape Song / No Wow / (break) / Alphabet Pony / Wait / Last Day Of Magic / Kissy Kissy / The Good Ones / What New York Used To Be / Cheap and Cheerful / Fried My Little Brains / Goodnight Bad Morning // Love Is A Deserter -> The Search For Cherry Red / Drop Out Boogie

Between “No Wow” and “Alphabet Pony,” the Kills were forced to stop the show for about 10-15 minutes while fire fighters investigated some kind of problem high above the stage. This was a very odd experience, and obviously, it damaged the momentum and aura of their show. It snapped us out of their spell, and though they could conjure it all up again with a flick of the switch, something was lost. But hey, it’s not their fault. When they were on stage, the beats were so loud they shook the floor, and Jamie Hince’s guitar bled precise, highly stylized noise. It was brilliant, and there were many times in the set where I just felt — well, just angry and dismissive towards all the people who just don’t seem to get them, or prefer vastly inferior, and far less thoughtful bands.

The Kills “Last Day Of Magic” – The Kills specialize in conveying romance and desperation, and perhaps no other song in their catalog does that trick as well as “Last Day Of Magic.” It’s the sound of real-life drama playing out simultaneously in one’s head as a story; at least on some level it’s about an inability to shake off the expectations built into us by fiction. It’s not a critique of narrative, though — the Kills embrace artifice, and shun the mundane. In their world, there’s nothing worse than a lack of drama, and a life without romance is no life at all. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Telepathe @ Webster Hall 5/1/2008
Gee Thanks Animal Collective / Buying Equipment / Glowing Apple Logo / “You Should Get That Haircut” / Tribal Drooooooone / Why Do We Write Lyrics? / Tone Deafness / Oooooooooooh Laser Sounds / Back Issues Of Vice / Bushwick Open Mic / Baby Panda Dance / No One Needs Talent / Not Adorable / Let’s Buy More Equipment / Awkward Legs / Seriously, Let’s Just Destroy Brooklyn

Ugh. Just read this, okay?

The Child Ballads @ Webster Hall 5/1/2008
Where Teardrops Fall / “Doubles” (recital of a poem, not sure of the author) / Stewart Hassle / Cheekbone Hollows / Laughter From The Rafters

The Child Ballads “Where Teardrops Fall (The Rain In Betsy’s Car)” (Live on Fair Game) – Normally when people come in to record sessions for Fair Game, they get to use the big studio, but Stewart Lupton got stuck with this tiny little room that simply was not built to accommodate any sort of musical performance. He was wedged into a corner, and given about a half hour to knock out four songs. He couldn’t really get anything to go his way — he kept trying to explain a particular effect that he wanted on his microphone, and we had to settle for a typical sort of slap reverb. He explained that he didn’t want to sound like a singer-songwriter, a “truth-teller.” I can understand why he’d feel this way — there’s a long line of absolutely terrible male poet-singer-guitarists out there, and who would want to be mistaken for one of them? Lupton appropriates the hell out of Dylan these days, but he’s too smart, self-aware, dysfunctional and genuinely rattled by the circumstances of his life to be anything but this odd, fascinating misfit.

This was his solution for the “truth-teller” problem last night: He sang into two microphones, one with a harsh reverb, and the other with an extreme delay that warped his voice so much that at some points it sounded backmasked. He indulged in jokes and monologues that largely presupposed that the audience was aware of his existence and history. The songs were extended, and he seemed to make up much of the lyrics on the spot, particularly in the 13 minute version of “Laughter From The Rafters,” which included exclamations such as “Fuck Robert Christgau, I don’t need him to tell me I’m intelligent” and “I wanna be a pirate!” The entire set was sloppy, rambling, and probably incoherent to non-fans, but as far as I’m concerned, Lupton was thoughtful and compelling, particularly in the way his entire act is a tightrope walk on a line separating self-conscious academic irony and heart-on-sleeve gut-spilling. (Click here for the full Fair Game session, and here to buy the Cheekbone Hollows EP.)

Stereolab “Three Women” – Though formal experimentation has been the name of the Stereolab game since day one, much of the band’s work since the death of Mary Hansen has come across as overly sterile and emotionally neutral, even when they were integrating elements of sunshine pop and funky percussion on the Fab Four Suture singles. At some point, Tim Gane and company lost a certain spark of humanity, and even in spite of musical elements that qualified as hooks, the songs were not catchy or pop, but instead icy reiterations of concepts they’d been mining since the late 90s. “Three Women,” from the forthcoming album Chemical Chords, does not break new ground for the groop, but it has a light, unfussy touch and an abundance of emotion that allows its hooks to sink in rather than slip off. In a word, the song sounds inspired, and a result, it’s inspiring. It’s dynamic and groovy and full of lovely melodic bits, and most importantly, it rises up for a gentle, joyous catharsis. In the context of what they’ve been doing for the past several years, the song feels like the first truly happy day after a long stretch of inertia, indecision, and mourning. It’s the moment when the trauma finally seems to be in the past, and you get to feeling like yourself again. (Click here for the Stereolab MySpace page.)

Goldfrapp @ Beacon Theater 4/29/2008
Paper Bag / A&E / Utopia / Cologne Cerrone Houdini / Satin Chic / U Never Know / Road To Nowhere / Eat Yourself / Little Bird / Monster Love / Number 1 / Strict Machine // Ooh La La (quasi-bluegrass version) / Caravan Girl / Happiness

1. Alison Goldfrapp wasn’t feeling very well last night. She mentioned this very early on in the show, after “A&E,” and then voiced her frustration a few times over throughout the set. I can totally understand how she felt, and why she’d want to qualify her (pretty good, if not totally perfect) performance, but really, I don’t think it’s a very good idea. She sang well enough that if she never called attention to her cold, or showed any sign of aggravation, a vast majority of the audience would have never noticed.

2. This was a very odd setlist, no so much in terms of song selection, but in dynamics and pacing. Most glaringly, the encore would’ve made much more sense in reverse order — whereas the stellar bluegrass stomper version of “Ooh La La” hit the audience hard, and resulted in a sing along at the end, “Happiness” was limp and anticlimactic as the conclusion of a concert. (It would be much better suited as either the start of an encore, or put something in the body of the main set.) Similarly, “Little Bird” would have been a far more compelling opener than the quiet, ho-hum “Paper Bag,” and “A&E” came far too early to land with the appropriate impact. Also, though I quite enjoy the mellow Seventh Tree numbers, there was certainly a feeling in the pacing of this set that those sort of songs were the vegetables we must eat if we wanted to get to dessert at the end.

3. Dessert was fantastic! The audience and the band alike totally lit up with joy at the start of “Number 1,” and the enthusiasm carried on strong through “Strict Machine” and “Ooh La La.” Not to diminish the Seventh Tree songs, but it’s hard to deny that these sort of glamorous, highly stylized disco rockers are something that Goldfrapp can do better than any other band on the planet. Even when others have attempted to clone the sound of “Strict Machine” in particular, it’s never as effective. The band’s aesthetic certainly carries over into the subdued songs as well, but in those big hits, the expression is sublime.

Goldfrapp “Cologne Cerrone Houdini” – It should be noted that when Goldfrapp perform, the band is so sharp and precise that a majority of the songs sound nearly identical to their studio counterparts. This was certainly the case for the groovy, atmospheric “Cologne Cerrone Houdini,” but really, who in their right mind would mess with the delicate balance of its arrangement? Though much of the song’s charm comes from the contrast of its slinky bass line and the chilly treble of the electric violin, in concert, the acoustic guitar and gentle synthesizer washes are more apparent, and go further to establish its sweeping, romantic tone. It’s a brilliant piece of music, and among the songs on Seventh Tree, it and “A&E” are certainly the most successful in terms of conveying understated heartbreak, and in transferring the fantasy, drama, and style of their glam rockers to a more subdued mode. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Atmosphere “Like The Rest Of Us” – With this song, Atmosphere begin their new album with a gentle shrug of resignation. It’s not bitter, angry, or depressed — if anything, “Like The Rest Of Us” is about the peace that comes with realizing that you can’t save a world that doesn’t want to change and that “you’ve got to let people be hypocrites.” It’s also about the comfort of stasis, the up side of inertia, and figuring out how to adjust youthful idealism into adult pragmatism. It’s not a song without hope; it’s just a song with managed expectations for happiness. (Click here to buy it from Fifth Element.)

Kathleen Edwards “The Cheapest Key (Live on Fair Game)” – Two thirds of the way through “The Cheapest Key,” Kathleen Edwards arrives at her punchline. After two verses and choruses laying into an overly familiar lover, the song slows down and her voice goes high, just outside her comfort zone, and she sings “don’t get me wrong, here comes my softer side…and there it goes.” It’s a tiny little bridge back into chorus, but it’s crucial to the tone of the piece — it doesn’t compromise her position in terms of bitching this guy out, but it does hint that this dissatisfaction is not a permanent condition. (Click here to buy it from Amazon, and here to get the full session from Fair Game.)

The Fiery Furnaces @ Southpaw 4/26/2008
Single Again (with a bit of Smelling Cigarettes) / My Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found / Whistle Rhapsody / Evergreen* / Duplexes of the Dead* / Automatic Husband* / Ex-Guru* / Navy Nurse / Pricked in the Heart* / Up In The North* / Straight Street* / Japanese Slippers / Benton Harbor Blues* / The Philadelphia Grand Jury / Clear Signal To Cairo / Police Sweater Blood Vow (brief, aborted after first chorus – Matthew on vocals and keys, Eleanor on drums) / South Is Only A Home (Eleanor vocal, Matthew keys, Bob on drums halfway through) / Oh Sweet Woods (Eleanor vocal, Matthew keys) / Slavin’ Away (Eleanor vocal, Matthew keys, Bob on drums) / Chief Inspector Blancheflower (full song, Eleanor vocals, Matthew keys and vocals, Bob on drums) / Rub Alcohol Blues* / In My Little Thatched Hut -> I’m In No Mood -> Teach Me Sweetheart -> In My Little Thatched Hut // Right By Conquest (All songs are the full quartet unless otherwise noted. Eleanor played guitar on songs marked with an asterisk.)

Aside from a couple bits at the beginning and the end of the show, this was not some breakneck medley, but instead a nice, long concert in which the band took their time and, for the most part, played rather straight versions of their songs. This incarnation of the Fiery Furnaces trades out Jason Loewenstein on guitar for the String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth on keyboards. From what I could tell, Matthew Friedberger played most, if not all, of the major themes and hooks, while Hollingsworth — a man who bears a striking resemblance to the legendary comic book hack Rob Liefeld, and has a very amusing habit of making funny faces as he mouths the sounds he makes on his synthesizer — played all the leads and goofy parts.

This was a remarkable show, maybe the second best Furnaces concert that I’ve seen, topped only by the performance of the Blueberry Boat medley at Webster Hall. Both shows included only a minimal amount of guitar, which suits the band very well — the variety of texture that comes from two keyboard players, each with an array of synths and organs, results in a much more rewarding and nuanced sound.

The Fiery Furnaces “Police Sweater Blood Vow” / “South Is Only A Home” (Live at Southpaw 4/26/2008) – Though I appreciate the tightness of the rehearsed full-band section of the shows, I’m always a sucker for the semi-improvised parts of Fiery Furnaces shows, particular those that boil the band down to Friedberger duo. This is a particularly inspired portion of the set — Eleanor switches to drums, and Matthew sings a bit of “Police Sweater Blood Vow,” one of the few post-Blueberry Boat songs with Eleanor-penned lyrics. Immediately after, the two play a loose, playful version of one of their all-time greatest tunes, “South Is Only A Home.” Bob D’Amico jumps in on the drums for the final verse and chorus to keep it from sounding too flat, but the performance still has the feeling of an informal living room recital.

The Fiery Furnaces “Rub Alcohol Blues” (Live at Southpaw 4/26/2008) – As far as I know, this tour is the first to include a full-band arrangement of “Rub Alcohol Blues,” or at least a version that approximates the arrangement on Gallowsbird’s Bark. Previously, the song was performed as a vocal/guitar piece, but with the keyboards, the song is allowed a more precise and complicated melancholy — it’s still among the most devastating tunes in their catalog, but its blow is cushioned somewhat by its layers of doubt and longing.

(Click here for the entire concert, which was recorded by the lovely NYC Taper. Click here to buy the Fiery Furnaces albums and merchandise from their online store.)