I guess it’s worth noting that this album is a side project of Tom Fec, the man behind Black Moth Super Rainbow. This might mean a lot or nil to you. For someone who has been recommended BMSR but never pursued it - it holds a little weight. More than anything it makes me want to go and explore Fec’s central project.
Fucked Up Friend feels like a side project in the sense that it’s a collection of short form experiments. It’s on the far spectrum away from an epic concept record; however, that doesn’t take away from how enjoyable it is. Each song is built on a foundation of spacey electro soundscapes - a two dollar phrase for glitchy beats. Outside of a few guest vocal spots (most notably by Aesop Rock), the album is void of vocals, and most structure for that matter. This could be elevator music for alien spaceship cities, but only if they were some hip aliens.
Deerhunter have entered their pop phase. The blanket of feedback covering Cryptograms has been left behind, and Bradford Cox has evolved into a frontman. The recording process for this album, which you can witness first hand over at Pitchfork.tv, shows a move away from a wall of sound style and towards arrangements with more breathing room for the instruments and up front vocals.
Microcastles is a perfect forward step in the Deerhunter catalog. The album is rooted in the best moments found on Cryptograms. Those core elements are then further realized into uncharted territory. The culmination of this can be seen on “Little Kids” and “Never Stops,” where Deerhunter embody the Sonic Youth cool they most certainly admire.
In the Pitchfork special Bradford talks about wanting to write pop songs, and somewhere inside each track he has succeeded. Of course the songs as a whole could hardly be considered pop, but that is what makes Deerhunter the band they are. The candy coated gleam that covers most modern pop songs has it’s place in the world, but so do the more messy and frayed. Deerhunter embody that latter approach, and do it with the kind of style and talent that any of the New York legends would applaud.
For being a solo artist Phil Elverum (born Phil Elvrum) sure likes his pseudonyms. I first discovered Elverum at the tail end of his run as The Microphones. I kept noticing The Glow Part 2 on everyone’s top ten lists of 2001, and decided to give it a spin. The album is almost uncomfortably candid. It sounds like Elverum recorded the LP in his room, and stood way to close to the mic. However, this blend of adolescent awkwardness with complex instrumentation is what makes it a Phil Elverum recording.
Another defining trait of The Microphones, now Mount Eerie, is the warm analog tones in each recording. His reel to reel recording process is essential to the success of Lost Wisdom’s delivery (and a valid argument against digital recording). For this most recent release, Elverum recruited Julie Doiron to join him on vocals and the result is a stripped down duet with each vocal snugly intertwining with the other. Like the eerily burning barn on the album art, the vocals deliver a flat, dark storytelling experience.
When the Young Liars EP emerged in 2003, the persona of TV on the Radio were shrouded in mystery. Left with only album art and the music, I reverted back to a pre-internet world of imagination and minimalism. The arrangement and delivery of the music felt like nothing else at the time - twenty minutes of barbershop vocals and fuzz.
Throughout the next two albums, TVOTR made efforts at expanding their musical palette. While this is the goal of any band, only the great ones turn these efforts into progress instead of diversion. They never stepped outside of their foundational sound, and still moved forward musically with each new song.
Dear Science rests right in line with the progression of Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes and Return to Cookie Mountain. The band is at their most mature and contemplative, and have cut away the bed of static from Cookie Mountain. “Dancing Choose” and “Golden Age” are the singles for obvious reasons, but I think “Halfway Home” and “Stork & Owl” might be my favorite tracks on the record.
TV on the Radio is committed to music, and Dear Science puts their labors and progress on record. Their catalog should be mandatory listening for any new hype band.
Campfire Songs is for the active and possibly obsessed Animal Collective fan. If you haven’t had the good fortune of listening to their music then I beg you to enter door number 1 and begin your journey. For those of you that are left, I give you what I believe to be the earliest artifact of what we now know as Animal Collective. Although there are two LPs before this release, Campfire Songs marks the first time all four members of AC played together.
True to its name, the recording of the album was done in the open air (a screen porch in Maryland to be exact), and the songs played back to back in one take. Untrue to its name, these songs are definitely not your average “camp songs” - and thank God for that. The album is somewhere between ambient sound and the foundations of Sung Tongs. There is something undefinable about Avey Tare’s acoustic guitar playing. He takes an instrument that is so weighed down in traditional song writing, and transforms it into an enigmatic tool. Any admirer of Sung Tongs (and if you don’t know what that is you really should have taken door number 1 above) will find a satisfying point of origin in Campfire Songs.
The first thirty seconds of Lunglight places me square in the middle of a Fugazi record. It’s got everything from the choppy, muted guitar chords, to the warbled vocal delivery. These are great qualities for a couple reasons - 1. I haven’t heard Fugazi for a long time now and it makes me want to get out End Hits and/or Red Medicine immediately 2. It’s clear once you’re in the song that The Shaky Hands have their own North West spin on these post-punk traits. The most obvious being that while DC is made up of concrete and shady politicians, Portland is surrounded by lots of trees and good pot.
It doesn’t take long for the band to shake of any semblance of Fugazi, and embark on their own musical journey. Along that road they meet a couple of bands like The Velvet Underground, Wilco and R.E.M., hang with them for a couple of songs and move on. However, no matter the band, The Shaky Hands are held together by a Pacific North West sound that roots Lunglight perfectly and uniquely.
Will Sheff has one of the most distinctive voices in indie music. It blends tones of desperation and storytelling that fit somewhere around a camp fire. While on their first breakout release, Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River set out to tell elaborate fictional tale of a downtrodden boy, The Stand Ins, the band’s fifth LP, is a bit vaguer thematically but is held up by the tightness of the songwriting and performance.
The endless resource that is Wikipedia just informed me that if you line up the cover art for The Stage Names (4th LP) with The Stand In’s you’ll have a complete picture. Also placing this release as a companion piece to last year’s stand out album. Both of these albums flirt with celebrity and pop culture, but judging from the title and tone it’s an non-romanticized approach.
Brian Wilson is easily one of my favorite artists of all time. There was a period of about six months in college where all I listened to was the Beach Boys and all I read were books on the making of Pet Sounds and the techniques of 60s pop producers. It became a bit obsessive. It made sense to my friends that were spread out across the States. I was the California kid, the surfer. I even rocked that flock of seagulls/abomination haircut in high school with the sun bleached tips (actual sun used) and often had a wetsuit rash wrapping around my neck (which always got pawned off as some casual hickie). My obsession just seemed an obvious a way for me to strengthen the knot that binds me to my California heritage.
Knowing that Brian Wilson’s London-commissioned opus, That Lucky Old Sun, was a nostalgia tripping, 60s pop hat-tipping, celebration of the Southern California lifestyle made me wonder if this new record could go head to head with the religious inducing worship that I had experienced under the influence of Smile. In short, even on its tiptoes, That Lucky Old Sun is a heaven’s leap from measuring up eye to eye with Smile. But that doesn’t exclude That Lucky Old Sun from being an eager attempt, which often succeeds, at trying to respark that musical wonder and merriment that was omnipresent throughout Wilson’s greater work. Some of the songs (”Forever My Surfer Girl”, “Live Let Live”) have the ability to almost sample some of Wilson’s early masterpieces, the most noticeable being the focal point of “Surfer Girl” and the prechorus swell of “Let Him Run Wild”. Fortunately, this isn’t an annoyance as Wilson has always seemed able to rehash old chord arrangments and melodies into something fresh enough to listen to anew. Just make a medley of “Surfer Girl”, “In My Room”, and “Warmth of the Sun” and try to imagine them being remnants of the same song. Fairly easy, huh?
Its also easy for any Beach Boys fan to find something to fall in love with on this new record. Where Smile seemed to alienate the inpatient listener or those not well versed in early Beach Boys’ mythology, That Lucky Old Sun is a more easily accessible entrance into the brilliance of Wilson’s twilight years.
Its a bit of a spectacle with this whole ‘Broken Social Scene presenting’ platform. How am I supposed to objectively listen to an album when it says right in the title that it is backed by one of the most acclaimed of super groups and collectives of the present. Its like a proclamation to all would-be listeners: “this is going to be good, trust us.” And after giving Brendan Canning’s Something For All Of Us… a few listens through, it really is good. Trust us.
Its hard to know who is put on display though. Its partly obvious that Brendan Canning is under the spotlight, but on a stage and theater run by Broken Social Scene, in a city populated with BSS soldiers and civilians, and with a backing band made up of a lot of your friends from BSS. Its like BSS has gone corporate and has created this reciprocal solution of success for the members of the band collectively as well as individually. I don’t have a problem with this semi-sponsorship/name dropping approach to getting new music out to the right customer. I guess its just nice to find new music from people you can trust.
This album came up in Brendan Canning’s guest list over at Pitchfork. It would seem that any record that influences the sound of a band like Broken Social Scene or the great new record from Canning would be worth a listen or two. After giving it the once over, Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6 is a great supplement to any summer playlist and would fit in nicely with anything that induces cloudy visions of setting, shining suns. Personally, it sounds like a late summer record ready to use during those burnt out, late August afternoons when one has lost the energy to actually make it out to the beach but still wants the transportational effect of getting out of the apartment. Listen to some samples below.
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