must be starving

it isn't easy

2006-09-13T16:18:00.000-04:00

this is such a whiteboy thought, but i sometimes wonder how people living in third world countries manage to make beautiful music. afriancan benga --from kenya's capitol city-- is such a cheerful sounding music, but we all learned in high school that nairobi isn't nearly as rosey. last year, alex minoff and ian eagleson (who you might remember from semisupergroup golden) collaborated with some of benga's most talented artists -- guitarist otieno jagwasi, and drummer onyango wuod omari. tragically, only months after extra golden's ok-oyot system (which fittingly translates to "it isn't easy") was recorded, jagwasi succumbed to a case of liver disease complicated by h.i.v. which makes the band's upcoming american tour much more than bittersweet.

ian on jagwasi's passing--
"it's sad that otieno couldn't be around to see all this. the good thing is that we carried on the things that we had started. another good thing is that his brother is a singer. we'd love to get him over to america in the future. we couldn't do it this time, because we didn't have the funds bring a bunch of guys over, and we needed someone who could play guitar and sing. but this guy helped us so much in getting this all together. if this succeeds, we'll be able to do it again, and be able to bring him over. and that'll be great, because we'll have his brother here singing his songs."

ian on the kenyans coming to america for extra golden's upcoming tour--
"the guys just got here today. they've never been to america before, and they're loving it. they're really excited. one of the guys is saying he feels like he's dreaming. he's not going to know it's real until he wakes up. they're totally excited and so are we. we're going to have about a week to practice. we have a lot of work to do, because the guy who sang on the record passed away a year ago. so we got another guy to come over and play lead guitar and sing. we got that, and it was like a miricle that they got over here. it was a complete nightmare to get visas and passports. it came down to like the absolute last minute. we're just really grateful and excited to be able to do this."

ian on his run-in with kenyan police--
"it was kind of a set up. this guy came over to our house who had some weed, and then thirty minutes after that some detectives showed up saying they were going to take us to jail. for about three hours we had to negotiate with these guys to stay out of jail -- it was basically a payoff. we kind of got blackmailed. we didn't really do anything wrong. we weren't buying pot or anything like that, so, i don't know how it happened. i'll never really know the full story, but i think there was some kind of backhanded stuff going on."

ian on niarobi's underbelly--
"kenya is a great place, but it's a pretty cut throat place. especially niarobi. outside, it's very peaceful, but inside nairobi, there's just a lot of hustling going on. it's hard to avoid it. you get caught up in it. i definitely didn't shelter myself from it. i got more than I had bargained for. it's definitely not a cake-walk. and nobody knows more than these guys, the kenyans."

a godiva chocolate bar encrusted in gold

2006-09-08T12:23:00.000-04:00

must say i'm quite fond of this new grizzly bear album.

if history even remembers the shamefully journo-concocted Free Folk Explosion of the Early 2000’s, my money's on grizzly bear going down as its most artful act. those animal collective boys might be anthologized as the fearlessly artistic forerunners, swinging from vines in the jungle and playing broken guitar pedals, but ed droste’s songs have this unmistakable grace, a kind of class and refinement to temper their wandering experimentation. i'm pretty in love. and ed is proud:

ed on yellow house as compared to horn of plenty--
"god, horn of plenty is like a pack of chicklets, and yellow house is a GODIVA CHOCOLATE BAR ENCRUSTED IN GOLD. not to sound arrogant, but I feel 100 percent confident and psyched about the album. horn of plenty was sort of weird and personal and unfinished to me so i didn't really know how i felt about it, but now with yellow house, i know when and if we get a shitty review, i'll just say "well they are dumb because it's a great record" i know that much at least. at least i wont get too depressed about negative press, you know?"

ed on brooklyn and the "scene"--
"i think it's funny and mostly a sentiment echoed by journalists in europe who think everyone all gets beers together at the "freak folk cafe" on bedford. ultimately it's ridiculous. i don't really even know any of those artists personally speaking, although i'd like to meet a lot of them. also i don't have long hair. maybe i should grow it out? i'm not really sure. i mean personally speaking i like how many bands there are in NYC. i don't see it as "fuck it's impossible to make it here, so much competition!" but rather, "wow there's a lot of great music and people around, I better not put out shit." it's inspiring and a motivator as well. as for community, i think there are some circles of famous people in the music world that are friends. i think my invite is still lost in the mail though. once I get it I'll let you know."

ed on leaving a small operation and signing with warp--
"i don't miss small scale operations at all because it's really hard to get shit done. i am very thankful to kanine for the opportunity they provided us, but there is something to be said for being able to find your cd in a store and have proper promotion behind it. the story of warp goes like this -- we thought we were destined to go nowhere. had no label interest, but we decided to record yellow house anyway because we wanted to make a new album. then once we had what was about 80 percent of it done, we sent it out to a few people and suddenly we had all this great label interest. it was overwhelming really and totally was a "when it rains it pours." warp wasn't technically the "biggest" label that put an offer out, but they were always the ones from the get go that we loved the most. funnily enough, they came to us before we even sent anything to them, which was cool. it all just worked out so nicely. coudln't be happier with them as people and a label."

zen intense melody

2006-09-07T19:25:00.000-04:00

tim hecker's harmony in ultraviolet is enough to pull a motherfucker out of a coma. here's what he said to me last week:

hecker on the album --
"i wouldn’t say that it’s different. there’s always this desire to do different things. but there’s often little respect for craft or developing a voice. that can take a long time, that can be slow over different records. i kind of reject the need to be different. having said that, the new record is probably as heavy as any record i’ve done. i would say that it’s also as melodic as anything i’ve done, along the lines of my earlier work. but it’s also not noisy. the element of white noise is really surpressed on this record. it's zen intense melody, i suppose. it’s fairly dynamic, in the sense that there’s quite a trajectory over the fifty minutes, between different movements, between really mellow, traditional ambient pieces, and kind of neo-boredoms electronic metal insanity."

hecker on why melody is important --
"when i listen to something interesting in terms of its chord structure from a rock band, sometimes it totally underwhelms me for being pretty pansy or pretty weak in terms of its power. and then i listen to someone like merzbow and find it just as dissatisfying because there’s a total absence of tonal quality. melody gives a kind of redemption, a sort of power, and it’s so effective with noise."

hecker on bucking the norm --
"when i started out doing music, the intention was to be part of a music, electronic music in the late 90’s, that was challenging conventions, and doing something different. and that was a large part of it. for me, going back or resorting to the traditional, i don’t know? that’s not for me. i’m not being progressive for progressiveness’ sake. i just want to add something to the world that, hopefully, even if it fails, tries to do something authentic and new. obviously it’s never something that’s totally new or authentic."

hecker on playing live --
"all the onus is put on the musician. there’s no onus put on the listener for actually realizing that they’re a product of the 21st century -- a time in which attention span and focus are things that nobody has. i’ve worn costumes just to appease rock crowds. i dressed up as a druid dungeon lord. i’ve done it a few times, when i’m playing huge rock festivals and there’s like 2 or 3 thousand people. it’s kind of appeasing, but it’s also a sort of fuck you. because what’s the difference if i’m playing a mixing desk with fifteen different sound sources, that i‘m blending live, and running through 5 guitar pedals on a table top, or i’m dancing around playing three chords that i’ve played for the last fifteen years of my life. it goes back to that sort of pressure on the crowd to actually look at themselves, as opposed to me, doing something that’ll make them feel it’s worth it to go out. then you realize how ridiculous it is that people value three chords being jammed out and dancing around over something that maybe they don’t see as much. some people deal with that by putting cameras to show that they’re mixing. and that’s like giving in to the same demands. i just think some of that should just be put back on the audience. having said that there are some musicians who obviously aren’t doing anything. for me, that’s fine. even if someone plays an mp3, it puts a greater standard on the show. if their music is not good, and they have the ability to prepare it for a year, to make sure that performance is perfect and sounds amazing, there’s a greater pressure to reject things that aren’t good. i mean, how can you do laptop music that sucks? often, what i do is close the curtains on the stage, or i stand right beside the sound engineer, and completely eliminate the performative aspect. what they’re left with is two huge speakers, blasting enticing music."

mission statement album titles

2006-06-24T17:46:00.000-04:00

i have a question.

listening to this new facedowninshit album, nothing positive only negative, has got me wondering what other record titles serve as mission statements. npon is fucking harsh and angry and totally negative. where is "only positive nothing negative?" i know there's a "whimsical freakout" or a "coarse and cold" out there, but where is it, who is it by, and what is it really called?

tv time

2006-06-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

human television is a decent band with good songs. kind of mbv-ish without the shoegazing. all shimmer and jangle. so it was a shame to watch them play to an empty club last night. they looked pist. after 25 minutes they called it a night.

mp3: in front of the house

one quick line:

speaking of television, here's a bit of glass -half -empty criticism: what a bum dog about the last two thirds of the tv on the radio album, huh?!? booooo-ring.

xtina

2006-06-22T15:55:00.000-04:00

remember "1 thing" by amerie? i like that new christina aguilera song for a few of the same reasons. premo borrows a bit from the rich harrison school of getting right and horning it up. more later.

101 crimes of fashion

2006-06-20T14:33:00.000-04:00

in judging from the 20-second snippet mtv airs after shows like fresh meat, there is nothing that seperates the new dashboard confessional from lifehouse except carraaababbaa's corn ball nose-voice.

is it bad that i now formulate opinions based on those 20-second snippets? i was convinced the new nick lachey album would be good because of the bit they played. that and the divorce.

speaking of divorces:

it's hard to argue with the young widows. breather resist guys without the old singer. think louisville. think chicago. think jesus lizard. think june of 44. but really think level plane.

mp3: "the charmers"

what i'm planning on digesting (what for i can write about it) in the next few days:

excepter - alternation
fog - loss leader
balun - something comes out way
anathallo - floating world
cairo gang - cairo gang
dan deacon - acorn master
the knife - silent shout
pit er pat - pyramios

tell me what you think of one/some/all of those albums.

howlin rain + warmer milks

2006-06-19T21:03:00.000-04:00

saw howlin rain last night. verdict: way, way underwhelming.

looked like dazed and confused on stage, miller wearing a janis joplin tee, everyone with a big ol' beard. the problem was sort of simple, i think. the record on birdman is great. think allman bros, think dead, think ccr: swampy, semi-generic roadtrippin alcohol rock. but there's some decent dynamics and some good songs. live, miller (a man, not to be confused with sia michel, a woman) just blistered through everything. too many solos. too much comets on fire guitar fireworks, and not enough give.

even so, here's an mp3: roll on the rusted days

warmer milks, on the other hand, was fucking impressive! they've opened for bpb and low and a bunch of great bands, but with the exception of blastitude nobody really loves on it. the sound just bowled me over. so much reverb. all over. big roomy (stephen morris) drumming and michael turner's hall'd voice. sometimes it was a punishing mess. the last song was a n ugly(in a good way) 14 minute jam. by the end, turner was splayed out on the ground with the mic down his throat, shrieking, squelching. these were totally perfect jam noise guys. bandanas, sandals, solid state amps, shitty effects pedals, dreaklocks, and cacophony. wrote the show up in the indy and said that warmer milks sounded like "swans via sam ash."

i think that's pretty accurate.

mp3: penetration initials

beirut + lines

2006-06-04T15:25:00.001-04:00

So I started writing for the NYP, yall. Stereogum linked to my first story -- the one bout Zach Condon and Beirut. Here's hoping the world don't get pist that I mentioned the blog attention his band has been getting. I think this mainstream crits vs. bloggers thing is totally silly. Sia was bitter that her (can you fault me) magazine died, and she's (for being totally ignorant) prolly bummed about the upcoming cover, too. I will say this, tho, The Loon isn't a great record, and Tapes were pretty boring when I saw them that one time at the Fader Tent in Austin. But I digress.

Here are some fresh lines:

remember idm? remember its sense of humor (re: itself)? hipster dance music needs that sense of humor, i think.

really, tho, justice's "waters of nazareth" is better HDM than mstrkrft is capable of. the looks is samey, santino rice runway fodder. innovate my ass.

yesterday i talked to my favorite brazilian, lovefoxxx of css, a band that makes much more sense now. i loved on 'em in xlr8r. you'll see.

if i don't listen to forward russia soon, objectivity is out of the question.

fucking, how do you talk to ihsahn of empereor? hey man will not suffice. i need help.

my girlfriend hates promiscuous girl because of that cell phone commercial where everyone dances like total losers. i sort of like it.

the paris hilton single isn't garbage. no, really!

"bossy" is a frontrunner for best song of 2006. the bitch yall love to hate! read that interview in the nylon music issue. this girl means it.

"te quiero puta!" - 1; "du hast" - 0

e.s.g. is a sad piece. huston lapped that motherfucker, and he's dissing slim thug on the new record.

scissorfight simultaneously sounds like RAW-K, and something my uncle labored over down at the storage unit he splits with the other 40-year-old losers in his band. but that’s sort of the point, isn't it?

grimm's triple album is gonna be good. there's a 50-ref track!

see if dronevil gets as much attention as pink. money on no.

all of diggy's friends were white. weird.

yellow house is just as good as i'd hoped.

(oops)

lines

2006-05-24T18:33:00.000-04:00

new walkmen is bad.

beirut is good, but i gotta see it live.

a few of the tracks on the new ache bike project comp are damn great.

sub pop's brazil shit, css, are dropping a lot of fun in the next few months.

isan are still underrated.

mind's eye was my ringtone for a week or so. yes, i like wolfmother.

drum's not dead grows.

lily allen is pretty annoying, huh?

i don't get art brut.

black heart procession still makes me cough tears.

candi stanton's voice melts me.

thanks for reminding me how bad anti-pop consortium really was, beans.

no, mike powell, i can't make myself like belle & sebastian.

bonde do role should piss me off but they don't. alice in chains. come on.

booka shade is sex.

there are two demos from the upcoming brand new record that i think are pretty fantastic.

i'd rather listen to "the plan" for an hour than listen to the whole of you in reverse. oops.

what's the big fuss over cold war kids?

the bpb song on the new current 93 spooks the fuck out of me.

ships needs a bit more focus.

know what? fuck destroyer.

can't ban the snowman.

'member the durutti column? yeah, me too.

volcano is a COOOOOOL fucking band.

my backyard

2005-10-06T23:21:00.000-04:00

Because I pay oh-so-much attention to what's going on everywhere else, I sometimes forget that right-here ain't half bad. So let's take a look at the stuff happening in my backyard, the Triangle. Or for the uninformed: Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. And here we all get down myspace-style, so you get some links.

Annuals
http://www.purevolume.com/annuals
http://www.myspace.com/annuals

These guys are young. So young that two of 'em used to be in a high school pop punk I heard when I first moved to town five years ago. They were called Timothy's Weekend -- some real technical, emotionally wrought stuff. It was good enough, but Annuals is just such a treat, such a stunning departure. While the band can occasionally lapse into an annoyingly "progressive" bent -- like those whirly Patton vocal melodies soaring a bit too close to the sun on "Chase You Off" -- more often than not they stick to a familiar sort of quirky folk or world steez. "Complete or Complete," with its close harmonies and junk-box accoutrements, and “Mama,” with its enchanted banjo/sitar and hall-of-vocals approach, calls to mind a slightly less ambitious Animal Collective, still trying to write easy-pop. And when the slide guitar zips up all sluggish and slow in "Fair," and a billion horns sounds, all supported by that stately drum cadence, it's hard to admit these guys were playing predictable barre chord ditties just a few years ago.

Ben Davis
http://www.myspace.com/bendavisrock

Davis' own description is a "mix of melancholy rock and bright, textured pop," which pretty much nails if you're going for beautiful simplicity. With members of Engine Down, Milemarker, Denali, Zetamale, Des Ark, and Fin Fang Foom (Lovitt Records much?) helping him out on record, you couldn't expect much less. Sometimes Davis' songs call to mind his former bands Milemarker and Sleepytime Trio, but when he hits on all cylinders like on "Election Protection," Davis' work feels like that of a cranked Pinback with an even more sedated Elliot Smith on the mic. And now that I really look at his Myspace for the first time, I see that he lists both of those bands as an influence. Gee, wearin' 'em on his sleeve. Unfortunately, I can't locate a version of the song he sings with Des Ark singer Aimee Argote. But, really, that's the one to hear.

Goldteeth
http://www.myspace.com/goldteethmusic

In all fairness, I've yet to see these guys play cause I was just introduced to them yesterday. But, hot damn, I like it. This is some straight-up indie rock of the not-too-sloppy variety. Forgive the comparison, but at times it calls to mind Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, with those wild, marble-mouthed vocals and straw-thin guitar parts. "An Ornamental Heart" plays like a windows screen saver with a repeating guitar figure that changes character vury vury slowly. It's all sort of claustrophobic, like a hallway that's about to cave in, until the subtle outro-bridge holds your hand and reassures you that everything'll be okay with a bit of amplified jangle. "A Savage Land" plods out of the gate on top of some Marquee Moon drums and then slaps you in the face with a wall of two slippery guitars -- reverbed all to hell. The off-kilter vocals make their return, dropping off the last bit of each word and, generally, shaking like crazy. But "Savage Land"'s selling point is the beautifully crunchy major-chord chorus: the part where the amps are oozing cautious optimism, and everything might just be ok.

Valient Thorr
http://www.myspace.com/valientthorr
http://www.purevolume.com/valientthorr

These motherfuckers are from Venus and they shred. They spent some time on this year's Warped Tour, got picked up by the surprisingly whiskey-friendly Volcom Entertainment (yeah, the clothing company), and are now heading out on a fucking MAMMOTTHTHTHTHHHHHH tour. It's huge, just like those big slobberknocker riffs on "Man Behind the Curtain," which you can see a sorta disapointing performance-video for on their Myspace account. Thing is: there's plenty of boozy music like this around the Triangle, and unfortunately Thorr has caught some flack for their present situation. But really everyone else is just jealous cause they can't wail – drunk as hell – on top of bar tables right before they hang upside down from some stage-spanning scaffolding and spew "world domination" rhetoric, whilst sweating their fucking asses off. And finally getting PAID to do it.

then he killed someone

2005-10-03T00:15:00.001-04:00

The Paris Sisters - I Love How You Love Me
Beth Orton - I Love How You Love Me
Neutral Milk Hotel - I Love How You Love Me (Live)

Sweet songs don't come sweeter than this. Phil Spector whipped up "I Love...", all L&S-style, in '61 for the Paris Sisters (pictured above with a pre-beat Spek). With a No. FIVE showing on the charts, that timeless, wait-wait-don't-tell-me progression, and a straight-syrup vocal melody, its near frightening earnestness has been covered quite a bit. Actually, I wanna say I even heard a Roxy Music cover at some point, which'd make perfect sense -- Ferry's voice all wrappin' around the melody something special; talking a huge sheet of silk, enormous industrial strength fans, and a naked body like in those womens' razor commercials. Maybe I'm making those up too. Either way, I've been trying to download as many versions of the song as I can find. For now, I'll award you with my favorite three of the lot. Surprisingly, the PS original, which boasts that proto-wall-o' production Spector got famous as a damn for, is actually the weakest one. Priscilla's lead vocal is weightless (a lil' uneventful too), but Beth Orton's shot has a bit more character. The spoken-word-ish part, which is done at full voice in the Mangum version, is a bit too cheese-ball. But with synths like the ones in the Orton version, cheese is expected. Without a doubt, the best take is Mangum's. That rich tone of his! So big and roomy! Honestly, this is a guy that just can't sing without seemingly impossible conviction! And, really, there's just something about an acoustic guitar...

make way

2005-10-01T11:12:00.000-04:00

Lady Sovereign - A Little Bit of Shhh

When I saw Sov at Webster Hall in NYC last month it almost made me cry. She was a firecracker, all crotch-grabs and half-mooning and side pony-tails and cheeky snarl faces. A few songs I knew by heart, one twofer mash-up ("Wait" and "Hollaback Girl" underneath "The Broom") and what amounted to a set-closing, fire-setting punk song later, it made sense she was meeting with Jay Z and Usher earlier that month month. It made sense she was working with Missy and the Neptunes. Sure, the set was just a bit short, and about half the crowd seemed confused, but Sov made it abundantly clear: with those soft pop-culture-tempered edges and that undeniable charisma, she's the most viable mainstream star in grime, the biggest chance for some crossova action. The clumsy Ad Roc remix (BEASTIE BOY?? Whitey Hip Hoppers...) on the Vertically Challenged EP just doesn't do "A Little Bit of Shh" justice. So here it is au natural: sparse clap beat, buzzsaw bass and a delightfully rinky piano line.

yes, smaller. more managable?

2005-09-30T12:31:00.000-04:00

Japan - Ghosts

One of my favorite tunes on Jess Harvell's nowthatswhaticallnewpop list, "Ghosts" starts out with some late-70s horror flick cheese-synth, but Dave Sylvian's voice rescues it all -- like Scott Walker on "The Electrician"-- quivering over the emergence of a tune that's little more than a purposefully unsettling mess. It reminds me of the melancholic, can-hardly-get-started theatrics of songs like "Holocaust," but reinterpreted by an Atari with a voice like the Antony of yesteryear.

smaller?

2005-09-29T16:32:00.000-04:00

Silentist - Kimono Mask (fixed)
Silentist - Static Teeth

It might be possible to trace all the menacing stuff I like these days, anything that just so happens to be hard and heavy and loud and, you know, may be derived from metal or hardcore of some sort, back to my favorite Gravity Records band: Antioch Arrow. Until Blastitude threw me a bone, I had no idea Silentist -- this classically ferocious piano + drums duo -- featured Mark Evan Burden, who used to play organ in theGet Hustle, which has at one point or another, featured nearly all of the former members of Antioch Arrow. Impressed? I'll try again next time.

Silentist, though, is some seriously brutal, occasionally doomy, cabaret-style black metal. Like Seven Angels Seven Plagues meets Celtic Frost meets Mercyful Fate meets Olivia Block or John Adams or Philip Glass. The piano parts are huge and sprawling (and fake) like Black Heart Procession gone mad. And the drums are all Ruins-style, spasmodic and forgivably proggy. But I hate the term avant-garde. So, how about avant-grind?

Jacobs with a crushing blow to the head of Lidell

2005-07-19T14:56:00.000-04:00

Listened.

Reductive verdit:

Mastered By Guy At The Exhange > Multiply.

Sor.

I'll only Blog DRUNK now.

2005-07-18T03:36:00.000-04:00

Saw Rize and did enjoy it. Things I won't too sure of: LaSHA-P visually "hints" at -- not so tacitly, considering the 3803 minute tribal dance montage that almost comes across as insulting -- a South Central reapropriation of African roots, but I'd say that's a bit of a stretch (thanks, Lee). While krumping is definitely far more flamboyant and dire, youthful and energetic, and all those positive adjectives that signify some sort of connection to the being young and alive and all, it's still pretty grounded in modern hip hop dance. But damn if it isn't fast and far more entertaining.

Speaking of the flamboyant, still haven't heard Jamie Lidell -- the recommmmendations have come from strange sources and i don't know who to trust these days, but (to josh) i'll prolly trust you. Metacritic tells me I'm crazy to the tune of a big fat 88. Right behind Sufjan's 91 sits this "MJ plus Prince" thing and here I am listening to Thunderbirds are Now!, reveling in how good Justamustache actually is on 2 billionth listen. Les Savy Fav, yeah. PGMG, yeah. But frenetic guitars always sound fresh. This is crunk punk. This is fucking hype. But hype ain't got shit on:

Harvey Milk - The Boy With Bosoms
[From the album Courtesy and Good Will Toward Men]

If I had to factor in nothing but how fucking totally cool and how fucking totally intense a track is, this is maybe my pick for The Best Song of ALL Time. It's like a sludgey, bottom-heavy Codeine playing in a capitol-C-church, belting out the most intense and devilishly slow hymn God's children did ever penned. Course, this was my favorite HM era -- the slow, the OH SO FUCKING PAINFULLY SLOW, dirgey, ever-repeating, fucking physically enthralling, Good Will era. Here, they took the Melvins to task, took them for everything they had. They saw them and raised them THUNDER and LIGHTNING. They gave tUMULt their t and their U and their M and you get the picture. And "The Boy" (along with that "One of us..." Cohen cover) is their dirty, absolutely brilliant crown.

There's the whole bombastic star-spangled guitar leads that pepper the gritty sections, but then, when it quietensdownnow, the diads are quaint and gorgeous (a perfect, heavenly progression of double stops that BLEEEEEEEEEED into the GLUDGE-GLUUUUDGE of stoner murk the stately disto-breaks offer). And that buried voice??????? The fucking moment in which the vocal CHORDS actually present themselves, clawing their way out of some kind of space-mud bog: you-can't-understand-what/maybe-it-doesn't-even-matter-what Creseton is actually howling. If only everything could be this beautiful and unendingly fucked up.

MC Jack E Chocolate - Pavoraty
[From the album Rio Baile Funk: Favela Booty Beats]

This song is MADE by the second guy. Whoever it is, I don't know, help me out PLEASE, just destroys. It's like his words are coming through a thick, thick, thick layer of sumfin. Slurs abound. And that drag on the final Portuguese word slaps. Not to sound insensiTiVo, but he sounds a bit like a deaf man, and in the romanticized world of my appreciation of music, that makes it so much better. And if I start on the sample, I'll never stop. So I won't. And sue me for being a few years late on Baile Funk. Thank god for Blender articles.

Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright - Ode to a Friend
[From the album Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright]

No liars here: I was intro'd to Yann via the Amelie soundtrack, which I do enjoy thru and thru just like most of us paste-o-philes enjoy Audrey. But Shannon Wright -- of cap-I jang-hounds Crowsdell (and who incidently lived in Pittsboro, NC which is only a short drive from the Chapel Hill locale I call home) -- does much to compliment the particular brand of muted, something-wrenching melancholia Tiersen specializes in. This is piano, some tasteful percussion, some synths that go easy on the tasteBUDS, and a voice like Chan or Nina (NAstasia) or one of the onther femememe Sadcore stalwarts.

Mugison - I'd Ask
Mugison - Sad as a Truck
[From the album Mugimama is the Monkey Music]

"I'd Ask" is what a Yann Tiersen/Will Oldham colab would sound like. The squeeze box and wavery vox mix up quite nicely, getting down all pastichey in indirect correlation to the funky mashed potato garbage can swagger of "Sad as a Truck". This one is Beefheart for backpacks and IDM gluttons. "Damn, it's true."

Akron/Family - Suchness
[From the album Akron/Family]

Lyrics about lyrics, words about words -- that's what Akron/Family get at on the first few tracks of their self-titled Young God debut. Thank M Gira's cracked sensibility for what you have here on track 2. When the pipes break about half a minute in that's when things get really, really interesting. A fucked up harmony (who don't like measured dissonance?) and LSD-drama rip a folk song right off its skeleton and slap the skin onto a space-ship'd automaton bound for some planet where hippy sway makes a frail refrain like "one suchness" work wonders. Keyboards guide it all home, and home ain't where you thought it was. This is otherworldly in a strangely familiar sense -- like if Robert Johnson was a Caucasian alien. That's right. White green people. Sorry bout that one.

Engineers - Come in and out of the Rain
[From the album Engineers]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a hint of shoegaze here. That and a tad bit of fucking Roxy Muzak going on. Ferry era, when the tissue-box vocals and sopping wet shit was their steez. Yeah, here's a gaunt track from another record Metacritic swears I've been sleeping on. Listening to it for the first time (and isn't that why emmpeefreeeeeeblogs are great? cause you do it with me...), I'm into this in a real simple way. These Engineer shits aren't huge, but they're big songs. "Come In" is a prim Slowdive-y number that takes care to cover all the soggy bases -- the chimey hall-o-guitar thing and the slow melody with the push-drums and the lurching bass. I'm in. We're all in apparently.

Wait till you see my Crooooooon

2005-07-02T01:13:00.000-04:00

So, in talks with a few folks, it has come to my attention that a bit of the grit that existed on the Wolf Parade EP tracks has been removed on the record. That actually didn't even register when I listened. And, hey, maybe that rubs the wrong way on the wrong guy, but what Brock did with the songs -- 'duction-wise -- is, in this humble opinion, a good thing. There's not gloss, exactly, but a bit more swagger and confidence in the presentation of the compositions. I endorse. In the same way that I endorse, in its beautiful entireity, the new Ying Yang Twins:

Ying Yang Twins - "Live Again (feat. Adam Levine)"
[from theie United States of Atlanta LP]
In complete agreement with the Meec about this track off the new record. Jesus, it makes me wish that Nelly versus McGraw baloney was actually sort of good and not the aural embodiment of its title. Levine is perfect for this shit, too. Not overbearing, but could anything Maroon 5-related be overbearing? Answer: no, and that's both good and bad for a pop band of their STATURE (yep, they big).

But the fact that this exists on the same record as "Wait" -- beating the pussy up and all -- should do a little bit to silence the misog-happy crits that are hating on the Twins, in the same way the woman-conscious Pac tracks did (though that particular argument -- [shakur as a compassionate mouthpiece of the black woman's struggle] -- has always sat a lil' wrong with me, considering the bulk of his catalog. but he makes the great seperation argument: some women is bitches, and some women are not, ard are, ergo, deserving of respect. fmeh, i'll never get that). Besides, "Wait" is about consensual sex, ya'll. "Live Again," on the other hand, is about harship -- "the life of a strippa," a stripper going to school and looking for love and needin flow. And let's not even get into the next track on USA: "Ghetto Classics," an angry indictment of US involvement in Iraq. These guys = entirely impressive on about 301 levels.

Nine, goddamnit, Nine

2005-06-30T03:04:00.000-04:00

Cloud Cult - Living On The Outside of Your Skin
Cloud Cult - What Comes At The End
Cloud Cult - You Got Your Bones to Make a Beat
Cloud Cult - Transistor Radio
[From their Happy Hippopotomus LP]
Brook Veeg is right, you gotta hear this shit in its entirety, but, even so, songs alone are just agonizingly adorable and brilliantly forthright. First to last, HH nearly plays like no other record this year. And, unfortunate, that's the frustrating thing about compiling these lists I talked about yesterday -- factoring in reach-slash-(sub)cultural sway and the like. If this album got enough push it'd be huge, like OC-but-not-just-OC type. It's still going to stick near the top on m'priase-o-thons: perfect melodies and perfect fun in the confines of perfectly constructed pop songs make for one mother EFF of a record. It's like if Sugar Ray considered "Fly" an excuse to make excesspop that dint exactly cater to largertaste. (And, god, that analogy is reductive and ultimately hamfisted). But this shit is gold in a way that a lot of indie-pop can't be -- like the kind of colorful a-o-l away messages jerks like yo smile at when we know airybody could just put up the 'neric "this game takes up my whole screen" shiz. There's care here. There's spark, in a completely organic and artifice-less sense. Each track on the record is a meticulous piece that -- while able to stand alone -- works effortlessly to create an inspiring and entirely (+ adolencently) invigorating whole. It was impossible to pick just four songs to post. Really you could listen to anything on the album and be an immediate convert. Think a Modest (mouse) Beck's quirk tempered by mr. mangum's adoration for unhinged melody and a pinch of Pause's ability to take the organic and infuse it with electricity and binary code. Then there's the str8 rock tracks (like "What Comes At the End") that strike like &serenading-style Mineral, all fuzzed out and used to commune-living. What the Hap Hip amounts to, in a sentence, if you'll allow me to be so limiting, is a twenty plus track argument for the legitimacy of lite-as-a-feather, earth-moving pop that is both intimate and ornate. I'd be surprised if any surprises like this surprise me the rest of the year. PopMatters said it flirts with genius. They're wrong. It is genius. [PLEASE, buy it here].

Aint Answerin' t'Nobody

2005-06-29T15:10:00.000-04:00

So I'm back for now. I'll make no promises of an extended variety -- but here I is today.

Since we last spoke, Kells dropped the 5 parter on everyone's unsuspecting heads. It was like that collab with the Isley Brothers ("Contagious") only longer and better. But, part 5 -- the climax, the conclusion, the what-should-have-been-great -- was a bit of a let down. But can we ask for perfection from R. Kelly? He only had one "Happy People" in him I guess. Step to the left, step to the right. Speaking of stepping, Mad Hot Ballroom was the best movie ever, and Land of the Dead was a big waste of time. Elsewhere, Cloud Cult ruled the world, the new Radar Bros gave me sunshiney summertime melencholia, and the last issue of The Source told me that one of the Ying Yang Twins has cerebral palsy (not a bad case tho). Apparently it is list time -- you know, the .5 year shit. Maybe that'll come soon. First, you'll get this:

Missy Elliot - Joy (Feat. Mike Jones)
[from her forthcoming Cookbook LP]
Listening to the new Missy makes me a bit too happy. "Lose Control" was great -- marred a bit by Fat Man Scoop's sort of distracting Jazze Pha/DJ Clue impression -- but I dint expect the record to be *this* solid from front to back. Missy drops Mr. MJ's 2813308004 late on the record PLUS has Swisha House's finest (luckiest?) guest on "Joy," the lead track from The Cookbook. Too much skit/intro/shit at the beginning of the track, but when Timbaland's production oozes in and that breathy sample slices its way through the beat it makes up for the 2 minutes of food-filler. Jones' verse isn't surprising, and next to Missy's eccentricities, seems a bit flat, but set to those tipsy synths, it's hard to argue with the charm of deepass Houston shit.

Wolf Parade - This Heart's On Fire
[from their forthcoming Apologies to the Queen LP]
'Member the Arcade Fire? Yeah, well, fuck them. Here at MBS, we (I) like to make extravagant claims and heap exaggerated praise on shit, so it's time to proclaim Wolf Parade the NEWbestband in Canada. Heard it here first folks. Issac Brock agrees -- loved 'em so much he took the quartet out on tour with Ugly Cass and then recorded Apologies, their first full-length (re-recorded versions of some of the songs from the band's 38087374 EPs). It's some damn fine idiosynch-pop, if you can get past the obviously affected vocal delivery, which shouldn't be hard at all.

This is Hard to Do

2005-03-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

A while back, I made the argument that Grime was like some bastard form of 77's punk rock -- saving a vapid corporate-buggered American scene from eating itself up; flying in, scooping up hip hop and returning it to safety like some damsel in distress. 'Course, that's all bullshit-romantic, but if we're willing to entertain such a silly premise, and we're equating London emcees with the Johnny Rotton's of the world, I'm tempted to put a Ramones stamp on Crunk. Sure, it's as consumer driven as anything (Lil' John's giving Red Bull a run for its money), but there's something far more gritty and seemingly honest about crunk music. Maybe it's the residue of my rockism, but I still like to buy into the emotion-based punk rock meta-narrative. And clearly there's far more dirty fingers and sweaty palms in a Lil' Wyte song than there is in a Nelly track. I'll take the hurried and somewhat unsure sound of youth over glossy bullshit anyday.

Crime Mobb - Stilettos (Pumps)

I heard these girls were only seventeen years old. If that's the case, they've got some wonderfully dirty mouthes for youngsters. Though that's not the point, and neither is the part where Princess NEARLY runs out of breath in the middle of her verse. The point is: these ladies are rockin' sil'etas, ho. The B-side to "Knuck if you Buck," Crime Mobb's latest single, it comes packaged in some minimal horror-flick crunk production -- rising minor key organs, weapy strings, and a two note casio figure. It's a fucking anthem. [buy it here]

Mike Jones, Paul Wall & Slim Thug (Swisha House) - Still Tippin'

Mike Jones has the deepest voice in hip hop, and he really, really likes to say his name. Here you got a tick-tocky turning signal beat, a chalky violin, and Jones telling you exactly who he is over and over. Plus there's Paul Wall, the (token?) white guy, who contributes a decent verse. But I really just can't get over the beat. This song is top five singles material. Love it. [buy it here]

Not Crunk:

Weezer - Beverly Hills

Really, guys, this is NOT that bad. Sure, it IS horrible, but it's a pop single in a way that isn't making me cringe right now. I'll listen to the wah solo a bit more and check back with you, but I'm pretty excited for the new Weezer, due on May 10th. This mystifying lead single leaked via some radio station in Boston and considering the fact that the band's website assures fans that "Beverly Hills" was made to "please the record company," the record might not be entirely shit. The production sounds far more Pinkerton-esque: the drumming is huge, and the playing is ALMOST sloppy. I hear "El Scorcho" after studying the hell out of "I Love Rock N Roll" and maybe some Bloodhound Gang (yeah, 'member them?). It's just that pesky Rivers rapping that makes this one a clunker. Keep the fingers crossed.

Munk - Kick Out The Chairs

With guest vocals from DFA spearhead James Murphy, and his characteristically bass-heavy and shuck-n-jive-friendly production, you'll probably be hearing this at every hipster dance party for the next five months. It's got a sort of Violent Femmes losing their heads aesthetic, and that's a good thing. I'd go so far as to say it's better than most of the LCD Soundsystem record. [buy it here]

I Think I Completely Hate Undie Hip Hop Now

2005-03-12T13:28:00.000-05:00

Riff Central is probaby the most consistently funny blog I read, but this post in particular is pure genius. For those of you who still haven't heard, The Game shot him up some Hot 97 the other day while his former boy 50 was answering questions on-air. I guess since he was recently excommunicated from G-Unit (for "threatening" to collaborate with Nas, and failing to inherit curt's beef with ja rule) he got a little hot headed. So, bulleting the fuck out of a bodyguard's leg -- which doesn't exactly sound like Compton marksmanship to me -- must have seemed his only recourse at that point. Needless to say, the interview was stopped immediately. And, oh man, mad shit was gettin' talked.

But the funny/interesting/peculiar thing is this: THE WEEK AFTER 50'S MEDIOCRE-AFTER-YOU-REALLY-LISTEN-TO-IT RECORD DESTROYED THE WORLD, he held a public press conference in Harlem with the Game and they apologized and shook hands and cried* all over the place and oh man oh boy it was such a show and jeez these rappers have hearts too. WHAT THE FUCK?

* looked tough as shit

So, in celebration of the truce, you get some brilliant radio cuts, and a song making fun of brilliant radio cuts:

IN PRAISE OF RICH HARRISON:
Amerie - One Thing
Usher - Ride

Harrison's production on Amerie's "One Thing" is immaculate. Heard somewhere that it's a Meters sample (don't hate me for being ignorant of great funk), but the percussion -- stoooooopid busy bongos and a big bottom'd swingy kit-beat -- is the perfect foundation for her doctored back ups, which are incredibly important here. The "whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa" fighting with the "ding-ding-ding-ding" during the end of each second verse phrase is just perfect. And the what-sounds-like "gobble, gobble, gobble" breaks are adorable. (buy it from UK here because for the love of christ I can't find it for US sale yet)

Harrison also worked a bit on Usher's Confessions. His beat, "Ride," ended up on the cutting room floor with a cameo from The Bad Seed. Course, later the track found its way into the hands of J. Lo. You'll recognize that horn riff from her latest bout with what a shitty singer she is, "Get Right." Lotsa folks have expressed a serious hatred for the sample, but I think it works a lot better with Usher's voice. Especially when it starts to get a bit more crowded during the choruses. Problem is, Lopez aped Usher's bridge, and now she's gonna have to pay! (buy it here)

IN PRAISE OF BEATING THE PUSSY UP:
Ying Yang Twins - By Myself
Ying Yang Twins - Shake It Like A Salt Shaker
Ying Yang Twins - Naggin'

I didn't know how much I loved the Ying Yang Twins until I found out they were responsible for a shitload of songs I'd enjoyed -- in passing -- on the radio. Unfortunately, I pegged 'em as a one (maybe two, if you count "Get Low") trick pony/wonder. But "By Myself" and "Shake It Like a Salt Shaker" are just brilliant.

The first, from their 2002 album, Alley Return of the Ying Yang Twins, is purist-crunk -- halftime-marching-brass driven, way too harsh, and lyrical centered on getting fucked up. Oh, and this chorus is perfectly appalling in a way that makes me happy: "Smoke by myself/drink by myself/poke any ho by my goddamn self/fo' real." Plus, there's some serious bounce. (buy it here)

"Shake It..", from 2003's My Brother & Me, is like a nightmarishly grotesque "Coolie Dance." Simple two-note bass line and mad-man "huh??!?"'s running around in the background. "Naggin'" is the Twins latest single. Opens with this: "Women always talk about what Men do, but we never talk about what the women do...until now." And, sure, the beat leaves something to be desired -- a forgettable piano hook slapboxed by some hi-hats -- but the lyrics are just hilariously perfect. Honestly, though, I still can't decide if I like this in a savant/trainwreck/badbutgood sense or if the Ying Yang Twins are actually creating some of the most brilliant music ever made. (buy it here)

IN PRAISE OF THE UK'S FINEST 18-YEAR-OLD MIDGET:
Lady Sovereign - Sad Arse Strippa

The more I hear form Lady Sovereign the more I love her. Last month, I plugged that Streets remix and "Ch Ching" -- which is now a bit more omni-present, considering its spot on that hyped-to-death Run the Road comp -- but I think this track is even better. God, just listen. She really hates mainstream US pop, and her tack is pretty damn endearing. (can't find it to buy it, but check her website maybe?)

IN UNPRAISE OF M.I.A.:
Wrap head around this: mp3 blogs being hyped means what's being hyped on blogs gets hyped in rags. So, of course, M.I.A. is everywhere nowadays. Pick up any music magazine and there she is -- small feature and a review. And don't get me wrong, that Diplo mix was fucking brilliant, and it had a bit more appeal what with the selection of mash-ups. But Arular isn't a record for most listeners. Not in some pretentious "we get it and you can't" sense, but it's just that with Spin and Rolling Stone all on Mia's jock, a lot of sheepy kids could purchase and feel pretty cheated when they find an album with this kind of obliqueness. There really aren't choruses, in a HIPHOP sense, and arguing otherwise is sort of silly. Maybe I'll flip-flop after a few more listens. But, I'm thinking this could get ugly.

New Rules

2005-03-09T23:07:00.000-05:00

Updates every Wednesday and Saturday (see picture). S'all I can manage these days, what with my busy busy jetsetter schedule. Tears abound.

Back with the goods in the form of Pastiche Prog, Pit Er Pat, and some other great shit:

Pit Er Pat - Bird

Organ bounce, tom riffs and cutesy male-female vocals. Sorta like a 12-year-old covering Blonde Redhead but really not. Think a femme-led Seldom. (buy it here)

By The End of Tonight - Stop, Drop and Roll Doesn't Work In Hell
By The End of Tonight - Setting Sail in April

Two songs from their A Tribute to the Tigers EP. Vaguely progish in the adventurous guitar work and off-kilter time signatures. Echos of Hella on the skins. But the impressive part is how much they shove into each song -- "Setting Sail in April" combs the past twelve years of hipster bologna for all the best parts of emo, post-rock, metalcore, dancey capitol I indie music, and a bit of that two-man-noise-rock business. (buy it here)

Des Ark - Yes Sir, Yes Way

You'd be painfulllllly misguided to argue something along these lines:

Des Ark is, for all intents and purposes, singer-guitarist Aimee Argote's vehicle.

Former Milemarker percusionist Tim (one tour counts, right?) Herzog's drumming is so fucking brilliantly tasteful here that failing to note it is akin to forgetting to thank God in a Christian Punk Band's liner notes. His huge, near slo-core beats scrape against Argote's bayou-math guitars and that Gibbons-meets-Harvey yowl in such a tangled and unsettling manner. Yeah, it's really Herzog's plodding rhythm -- not to mention the carnival organ break -- that creates the eerie palate of "Yes Sir, Yes Way." Course, now it sounds like I'm downplaying Argote, which would be ridiculous too. This is death-crust all gussied up, sexified and frightening, with fortified railing guitars and a voice to-die-for. Like dragging a dead body through a swamp to a Birthday Party soundtrack. (buy it here)

Music A.M. - Air Miami

"Air Miami" is bliss -- noisey, glitchy, syrupy bliss. Volker Bertelmann from lap-popsters Tontraeger, Luke Sutherland, who's a backgrounder in Mogwai, and Stefan "Mapstation" Schnieder make up Music A.M., whose 2004 record A Heart & Two Stars flew directly under my radar. Whatamistake! Sure, this is sound is pretty omnipresent -- IDM barking orders to folk -- but there's a sense of subtlety (and shoegazing) here that isn't present in the rest of the lot. (buy it here)

And, hey, sometimes I like to do masturbatory things like make lists. Like make them two months into the year. Like make them way before you're sposed to. So, here is this year so far, like, in no specific order:

Rekids:

Antony and the Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now
Des Ark – Loose Lips Sink Ships
The Hold Steady – Seperation Sunday
Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
M83 – Before The Dawn Heals Us
The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
Gustav - Rettet Die Wale
The Doves – Some Cities
By The End of Tonight – A Tribute To The Tigers
Pit Er Pat - Shakey
Enslaved – Isa
Vitalic – OK Cowboy
Dissasociatives – S/T
The Evens – S/T

Singles:

Amerie – “1 Thing”
Kelly Clarkson – “Since U Been Gone”
Frankie J & Baby Bash – “Obsession (No Es Amor)”
Lady Sovereign “Sad Arse Strippa”
Bloc Party – “Like Eating Glass”
Caesars – “Jerk It Out”
M83 – “Don’t Save Us From The Flames”
Lady Sovereign – “Random”
John Legend – “Ordinary People”
Munk – “Kick Out The Chairs”
Doves – “Black and White Town”
The Killers – “Mr. Brightside”
Ciara – “1, 2 Step”
Destiny’s Child – “Soldier”
J. Lo – “Get Right”
Nivea – “OK”
LCD Soundsystem – “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”

Way Too Much To Make Up For The Way Too Little:

2005-02-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

Romanticizing the music you really love is inevitable.

We envision brilliant "artists" -- yeah, the chronically misunderstood, frustrated genius kind that make REealelalellay!!! "bold statements" -- locked in basements, bearded and depraved of food and water for months on end, penning the greatest albums of all time.

But, come on: you're stuck in traffic, singing along to OMC’s “How Bizarre,” Six Pence Nonethericher’s “Kiss Me,” or STYX’s “Come Sail Away” and you just ain't all that concerned with the arty or the intellectually bloated, now are ya? It’s when we’re pantomiming goofy Mariachi trumpet parts or hammering out drum solos on the steering wheel that we realize all that “high art vs. low art," romanticized auteur nonsense is a total crock.

Sure, the hipster intelligentsia (Adorno was such a fucking HEMAN-proto-hipster) would probably argue otherwise (wink-wink-nudge-nudgin’ it as they belt fuck out the chorus to “Since U Been Gone”), but calling Beyonce or Phil Collins or that Cash Money guy who looks at the camera in Baller Blockin a “guilty pleasure” is just a pathetically lifeless attempt to admit you’re head over heels in love with something you simply ain’t sposed to be. Scrambling for cred with an “I don’t really like it, guys” qualifier doesn’t make you a better music-lover; it just makes you a stupid liar.

So now for some shit I REALLY like:

Eisley - I Wasn't Prepared [link temporarily unavailable]

Things that are good about this song:

01 the chorus, ohhhh, the chorus with that flighty vocal melody and that waver at its close
02 the melting icicle guitars when the full band comes in
03 how unafraid this band is to play pop songs
04 it was written by a group of kids whose mean age is something like 18
05 the lack of a religious subtext
06 the chorus [buy it here]

Whitetown - Your Woman

Whitetown was not a band. It was a guy who didn't look like he was supposed to. Jyoti Mishra, the coke-rimmed dudeface above, is my favorite one-hit-wonder OF...ALL...TIME. A nerd with a Mac and a love for indie pop and dance music, Mishra accidentaly wrote "Your Woman," a WHATTHEHELL hit, in 1997. It's charm is that all the parts work: trumpet fanfare and strings set to a crawling bass line and THE CLAP BEAT! [buy it here]

Kenna - Hell Bent

It must fucking suck to be the other guy in the Neptunes. Really, nobody wants a piece unless you count Kenna, an Ethiopean synth-funk band, whose records come out on Fred Durst's Flawless imprint. But, if you can't get Snoop Dogg and 14-year old girls that yell "Hey, Pharrell can you SIGN MY TITS?!??!", I suppose Kenna has to do. Even so, "Hell Bent" has a crafty stumbling beat thanks to Hugo, and the vocals -- cloying at times (shut up and get over it) -- aren't bad. [buy it here]

3rd Wish ft. Baby Bash - Obsession (Si Es Amor)
Frankie J and Baby Bash - Obsession (No Es Amor)

Please enjoy the best song on the radio, and the original version, written by a latino boy band that isnt Menudo. [preorder Frankie J's here]

Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - Jolene (Dolly Parton cover)

Listen, you don't do this song unless you can DO this song. And I think Susanna Wallumrød and her Magical Orchestra (which is actually Jaga Jazzist keyboardist Morten Qvenild) DO the hell out of this song. Dolly Parton's version is pretty confrontational, but what the Norwegian duo offer up is ultimately defeate -- a final plea from a woman at rope's end. Really, there should be more re-interpretive covers like this. No charging rhythm section, no guitars. Just some wet keys and a whitewashed voice. [buy it here]

Every Fucking Song is Under 4 Minutes and Over 3 Minutes and Pretty Damn Good

2005-02-16T02:55:00.000-05:00

Hey, press, let's find something to talk about that isn't Free(ak)-Folk or New Weird Americana or Dance Punk or Electroclash (yeah, that isn't really important anymore, now is it?) or how U2 got their touch back or how fuckin totally sweet Kanye West is. I mean did you see those stupid wings? Have you heard that stupid RECORD?

Of course, that last bit is just so I can publicly hate on Kanye and his flllllllacid bullshit for the first time.

I'll set it right tomorrow, when I gush all over the Pop-On-Purpose of these beautiful siblings:

All You Take Is LOVE

2005-02-15T15:29:00.000-05:00

The Clouds - No, You Can't Take Them

As part of his residency at The Coleman Center, Stuart Hyatt -- the man behind the Clouds, the best damn one-shot "avant-gospel" project this side of, well, I don't know much about gospel music -- gathered a host of Atlanta-area middle school students and community choir members to help him flesh out a few songs he'd written. "Take Them" features a handfull of Kinterbish middle schoolers and the Union Chapel Male Chorus.

It's corny, innocently brilliant and makes me feel better than any song has ever made me feel. [buy it here, when they maybe re-press it]

Four Tet - Iron Man (Black Sabbath Cover)
(from the forthcoming Black Sabbath Tribue Everything Comes and Goes)

Pitchfork already waxed critical 'bout this one, slathering butter all over Hebdan's acoustic guitar figure and that Hendrix cover the Tet did a while back. So, I won't go into much detail. The album it comes from, though, is exciting.

Here's a tracklist:

01 Matmos - F/X
02 Ruins - Reversible Sabbath
03 Grails - Black Sabbath
04 Four Tet - Iron Man
05 Curtis Harvey Trio - Changes
06 Paul Newman - Fairies Wear Boots
07 The Anomoanon - Planet Caravan
08 Racebannon - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
09 Greenness With Phill G - Sweet Leaf

Racebannon is so BRUTAL it hurts, whilst The Anomoanon is so NOT brutal it DOES NOT hurt. Should be interesting, to say the least. [pre-order it at temporary residence soon?]

Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass
(from the forthcoming Silent Alarm)

Guitarssssssss!!!!!!!!11111 They ALMOST run the show here. But it's Matt Tong's frantic drumming that truly makes "Glass" such a propulsive delight. That, and the moment when the synth throws off its bathrobe and screams "HERE I AM, MOTHERFUCKERS!" The clap-alongable coda ain't bad either. [buy the import here]

Nick Drake Caked In Eyeliner

2005-02-11T16:49:00.000-05:00

My Dying Bride - Black Heart Romance
My Dying Bride - Roads (Portishead Cover)

Some metal is just unabashedly catroony and burlesque. Don't get me wrong, I'm ok with that; I actually like it. That's My Dying Bride's appeal. For fourteen years now, they've been trying their hand at heavy goth caked in eyeliner and doomy metal caked in the apocolypse. The first track above is taken from their most recent release -- the 2001 album, The Dreadful Hours -- and pretty much encapsulates where they are now musically. The second is an ambitious Portishead cover. Doesn't do the original justice, 'cause really Gibbons has one of the best voices ever, but the translation is rather neat. [buy it here]

Mick Audsley - Dark and Devil Waters

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any definitive proof (even on the big ol' internet), but it's rumoured that this song features some of Nick Drake's sparse 70's session-work. It's not an altogether far-fetched suggestion either. The guitar work stings of all that troubador/gentle brit-folk shit Drake champed back then.

But even if he isn't strumming along here, "Dark and Devil Waters" -- taken from the 1972 album of the same name -- is a phenomenal track, a sombre yet hopeful piano-guitar tune bolstered by Audsley's proto-Elton voice. Nowadays, it seems he's keeping busy doing editing work for Stephen Frears films. Go fig. [buy it here]

Italian PowerTWEE

2005-02-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

Architecture in Helsinki - Where You've Been Hiding

Twee + Pastiche = Pastweeche!

My friend Mike assures me that ain't no pun. It's a neologism, he says. Either way, I've talked about this Australian octect once before. The only reason I'm posting about 'em again is to retract the snarky, and wholly incorrect, reduction of their sound that punctuated the original post.

Cause, MAN, after listening to the entire album a few times through, I'm just hooked. It's a comfoundingly delightful blend of twee, airy electro-pop and Elephant Six-ish timelessness. "Where You've Been Hiding," the final track on Fingers Crossed, opens with a perfect passage of pop -- wood block drenched in echo belongs to Phil Collins, right? Peppering an understated synth line with a breathy game of repition, reverb'd guitars slip in here and there, until the stately brass section caps the song off with some subtle bombast. Pastweeche, I tell you. [buy it here]

Blind Guardian - Noldor (Dead Winter Reigns)

Italian powermetal is basically a mash-up of Meatloaf theatrics, guitar vitruosity, (completely forgivable) Halfordian vocal wanking, and Tolkien worship. Blind Guardian aren't from Italy (they're from Germany), but they sure sound like a big-bottom'd Rhapsody. "Noldor" sits almost directly in the center of their 1998 release, Nightfall in Middle-Earth, and serves as the album's brilliantly cathartic high-point. This is music for trolls and elves that mean fucking business! [buy it here]

Oh, Gravity Records, You Had The Rapture

2005-02-08T03:15:00.000-05:00

Only one song tonight, but it's a good one:

Antioch Arrow - Too Bad You're Going To Die

San Diego’s Antioch Arrow played like they were on stage in the shittiest dive bar, smack dab in the middle of the world's grimiest, most seamy red-light district. Whether they actually were or weren’t (they weren’t) wasn’t important. Taken from the band's 1994 Gravity release, Gems of Masochism -- once long out of print, but unearthed and reissued by Three One G last year -- "Too Bad" is a murderous fit of melodrama and rage, funhouse aesthetics pulling organ stabs by their upturned noses.

Honestly, these guys were doing the sass-core thing long before the Blood Brothers (whose stuff once came out on Three One G as well) shucked their hips onto that scene in 2002. But I digress; Antioch Arrow absolutely decimated the San Diego art hardcore scene (that's the emo one, folks), and you can hear exactly how on "Too Bad You're Going to Die." It’s all about menacing carnival organ paired with some serious vocal hysterics, and if they get the job done, you feel uncomfortable and sort of like you need to take a shower. [buy it here]

A Sentence About Fog

2005-02-05T17:33:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Rockcritics Daily for posting a lil' something about a bit of well-meaning nonsese I wrote for the Daily Tar Heel. Wish I'd had a bit more time to work on the article, considering its fairly narrow tack. Oh well.

Fog - Can You Believe It?
(from the upcoming 10th Avenue Freakout)

Andrew Broder's Kandane-esque delivery -- shy and garbled like a sleep-singer -- isn't even the best part of "Can You Believe It." The star of this show, of course, is the lasso Broder has tossed around the music. And while Ether Teeth was stunning, in all of its frenetic, fucked up and wirey glory, 10th Ave is a different sort of monster at times.

Here, Broder quells some of the ambience and electronic noodling, opting to pay a tad more attention to cohesion in song craft. It's still quirky, though there's next to no turntable whiz-kid moments. But Broder will never stop destroying folk songs in the absolute perfect way. It just seems this go round he doesn't always break the song's back. Let's hear it for restraint. [preorder it here soon]

Radiohead - Fog

And here's a song called Fog. An outtake from the Amnesiac/Kid A sessions that found its way onto the "Knives Out" single back in the summer of 2001. Originally titled "Alligators in New York Sewers," Thom played it as an acoustic number during a concert in Isreal around the release of Kid A. The recorded version, though, has most of the "Radiohead electronic music" calling cards: glitchy undercurrents, outter-space flashbulbs, sleigh-bells(?), and a charging drum-led climax. The melody is gorgeous, and really this would have fit in quite nicely on either of the band's early 2000 discs. Alas. [buy it here]

Antony Is Tough

2005-02-05T04:12:00.000-05:00

Antony and The Johnsons - Hope There's Someone

There’s something unendingly affecting and pained about the way Antony sings. It's soulful, if that word can be used without coming off as completely trite and worthless. Like a spare and weary Brian Ferry or, almostkindasorta, a careworn Tiny Tim, his voice pitches and trembles on "Hope There's Someone," the lead track from the just-released I Am A Bird. Backed by piano(s), occasional blankets of reverb, layered vocals and a bit of synth, the whole thing is pretty theatrical (cheesy at times), but it works brilliantly even at its most mawkish and corny. [buy it here]

With Honor - More Than Heros

When attempting to pair another piece with the Antony track you find above, I was sort of stumped. But I think With Honor does a similar thing. Both bands deal in pathos -- affection that isn't afraid to cry all over itself or scream its lungs out. Ok, so maybe this is a stretch entirely, but With Honor is the only toughguy hardcore band I give two shits about these days.

From the opening chugga-chug riff, to the half time'd gang-chorus breakdowns, "More Than Heros" is a perfect toughguy song. "They want a war, they'll get a war," the massive tattooed chorus belts. "Tonight, everything changes!" And the beautiful thing is they mean that so hard. [buy it here]

Fuck, I'm IN LOVE

2005-02-04T01:05:00.000-05:00

Lady Sovereign – Ch Ching (Cheque 1, 2)

"Cha Ching” was the first bit on that cry.on.my.console mix I posted a month or so ago, but Sovereign's stuff really deserves to stand on its own. Not sure who produced, but this beat is really testy and acerbic (everything that’s so appealing about grime). The best part, though, is how the whole thing still feels lite and playful underneath that youthful delivery and sharp lil' voice. [buy it here]

The Streets - Fit But You Know It (Remix)

Oh, oh, oh, this b-side remix of Skinner's hit features a verse from Sovereign, among other burgeoning UK MCs. Here she's a bit nasal and unpolished, but I swear that makes it all the much better. [buy it here]

Gotta Say It RIGHT NOW

2005-02-02T03:47:00.000-05:00

Lady Sovereign is incredible.

Like Wiley if he was an 18yrold Missy Elliot.

Expect multiple MP3s tomorrow.

Taint Gotta Read It Iffin You Don't Wont To

2005-02-02T02:35:00.000-05:00

While my embryonic taste in blogs is sorta embarassing, I think I can vouch for the must-read status of Promocopy. Only been reading for a month or so, but it made my January a lot better. Much to my surprise, they've graciously linked the half-assed piece of shit you find yourself reading right now and, I gotta say, it's quite the honor.

Prefuse 73 - Pagina Dos (featuring The Books)

Scott Heren is a fucking monster. I haven't heard a thing of his I don't absolutely adore. And at risk of sounding like a supreme fanboy (as if I already don't), from what I've heard, the forthcoming Surrounded By Silence is set to completely eclipse everything he's done. But how could it not, with guest apperances by Ghostface, El-P, Tyondai Braxton, Kasu of Blonde Redhead, GZA, Cafe Tacuba, Aesop Rock, and a laundry list of others? Here you got his collab with The Books. Delightfully blugeoned bluegrass and foundsound, given a slice-n-dice twice over.

(pre-order it here(?) soon)

Coffee and Vodka

2005-01-31T13:01:00.000-05:00

The Game - We Ain't (featuring Eminem)

So this is the new model? 20050 Cent? The glock-toating return of gangsta rap, straight off tha mothafuckin' streets of Compton? Fair enough.

"We Ain't" boasts a tidy little beat -- fizzy synth, big bottom break, and a cute-if-hackneyed string swell chorus. Plus it goes: "We ain't goin' no where, so fuck you!"

(Buy it here)

Enon - Marbles Explode

This one's a doozy. Lifted from Enon's upcoming Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence, "Marbles Explode" is easily one of the album's most playful moments.

Remember when The Flaming Lips backed Beck on that huge tour a few years ago? If they'd all gotten wasted and recorded some material, this would have been the result. Mealy-mouthed pert psych, with broken tape-recorder bridges, and bubblegum sensibilities. Reminds me of Goa's uptempo technicolor freak-outs.

(Buy it here)

I Do Videos TOO

2005-01-27T11:55:00.000-05:00

Kikkoman (video)

I will revive this: a bizzare video featuring the now-famous fish-headed soy sauce super hero. The theme song is pretty bitchin' too. Straight Street Fighter. Listen to that grinding synthesized guitar line. The chorus is secretly brilliant, I think.

"Show me, show you, KIKKOMAN!"

Basically, he kicks the shit out of some ketchup and mayo PLUS ends up in bed with a hot babe. Enjoy.

Loud Wizards From the late 80s

2005-01-26T22:56:00.000-05:00

Comus - Diana

How about the lead track from Comus' 1971 debut, First Utterance? Music for fucking Wizards, I swear. Like T. Rex's Marc Bolan teaming with Robert Fripp and Gandalf, Comus was a prog-folk behemoth bent on destroying anything Pentangle, Trees or the Incredible String Band did in the late 60s and early 70s. Maybe they succeeded. Doesn’t really matter, ‘cause the caterwauling and vaguely-tribal nonsense that is this song is just so damn satisfying.

Moss Icon - I'm Back Sleeping, Or Fucking, Or Something

This here is some classic emo. Unsung heroes of the late 80's post-hardcore boom, Moss Icon created some of the most physically enthralling and downright intense shit I've ever heard. Maybe it’s a bit blood-n-thundery, but "I'm Back..." is a perfect example of their clamor -- violent bobs and weaves, a fiery rhythmic pulse, and Jonathan Vance’s devastatingly harsh vocals. Even today, this song sounds so incredibly hard.

Martika - Toy Soldiers

Pop radio much? If so, this should sound familiar.

I Come Through, Briefly

2005-01-25T02:18:00.000-05:00

Neutral Milk Hotel - My Dreamgirl Don't Exist

I found it! And as promised, here it is: the best Jeff Mangum song EVER.

Paul & Linda McCartney - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

A theatrical wonder in three-part form, taken from Paul and Linda McCartney's 1971 release, Ram. Truthis, this is better than most Beatles songs. The way McCartney crafts melody is delightful, not to mention, incredibly distinctive in each section. All of the Beatles calling cards are present, but I'll be damned if I've ever heard any late era stuff that is such a distillate of revelry.

HELP!

2005-01-21T01:22:00.000-05:00

This is all thanks to Brandon:

A long, long time ago, before he was any good, Jeff Mangum put out a demo called Invent Your Own Shortcake. Just how bad most of the songs arebaffles me. Really, it doesn't add up how the genius behind one of the best albums of the last decade -- hell, one of the most perfect records POSSIBLE -- could ever be capable of producing such shit. Still though, there're a few gems that, back then, showed a bit of promise, glints of the Mangum charm.

The best song was called "My Dreamgirl Don't Exist." Lyrics were sort of dumb, and the guitar riff was based around the progression from Green Day's "When I Come Around," but the song had a certain buoyancy, something extra that every single one of the songs on Aeroplane simply gushed.

It was still pretty sub-par by comparison, though.

HOWfuckingEVER, there EXISTS, somewhere on this internet of ours, a live performance that, with reasonable lyrics, and the Mangum-on-stage-once-over, just rips my little heart into a million billion pieces.

I've heard it a single time. And Soulseek has been a thankless son of a gun when it comes to my finding this track. But as soon as I do, I promise, it will be right here.

Again?

2005-01-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

Finally a tracklist for the cry.on.my.console mix. Here:

rum loving uk bass pirate

01 lady sovereign - ch-ching
02 jon e cash - war * basement jaxx - do your thing (acapella)
03 slaughter mob vs search & destroy - saddem
04 si begg - buss f/ miss mc
05 si begg - buss boglin clocks
06 radioactive man - itisanditisnt (tipper mix)
07 plasticman - pump up the jam
08 si futures - freestyle disco (si futures mix)
09 dj assult - ass n titties
10 radioactive man - 'ave that *obie trice - got some teeth (cry.on.my.console glitchupella)
11 aquasky vs master blaster - disco biscuit
12 dizzee rascal - stand up tall (cry.on.my.console remix f/ mc hammer)
13 markone - stargate
14 wiley and j2k - they will not like you
15 cry.on.my.console - big muff guitars (toughbreakguitarlessversion)
16 si begg - can't take it * fatboyslim - right here right now (cry.on.my.console glitchupella)
17 eminem - my name is (cry.on.my.console enime remix)
18 debasser - dark smile *amon tobin - verbal (acapella)
19 busted - year 3000 (cry.on.my.console cuntz mix)

A Triumphant Return

2005-01-19T01:19:00.000-05:00

Hood - Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive

After a few listens to Hood's latest, Outside Closer, it's apparent that 2001's Cold House will most likely remain the band's ice cold space-pop paramount. But it doesn't seem like the Leeds collective is really trying to outdo their most brilliant work here -- instead, they're game for a bit more experimenting. The songs are longer. There's more acoustic work. There's less square-sounding sequenced drums, but of course Hood's wirey, ghost-in-the-hallway vocals make a solid return. Sounds like a Dirty Three record played through a fucked up victrola.

Ruff Sqwad - Raw to tha Core

If you've already written off grime as a simple flash in the pan, y'oughta reconsider. Here's a good starting point for the road back: "Raw to tha Core" by Ruff Sqwad. Feverish pace, menacing synth line, outrageously busy percusion sequencing, and will you just listen to that hook?

It's been argued that today's hip hop operates in a similar fashion to the rock music of the mid-70s. And I say, hey, that makes perfect sense. Let's be honest, hip hop has been *comodified*. A genre -- nay, a fucking culture -- that was once vibrant and revolutionary, once considered utterly dangerous (ringing any bells?), presently finds itself playing the role of froo-frah revenue-generator.

Take Nelly for instance: a pop star. He's not hip hop. And, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. The point is: I like Boston and Kansas, just like I enjoy Usher and Jadakiss. But there's no denying all four of those artists' pop sensibilities, and their position as comodities in and of themselves.

Now, you may see where I'm going with this, and maybe you're about to punch me in the face. But, if all of the aforementioned nonsense jives, then grime is today's mother fucking punk rock.

Children of Bodom - The Final Countdown (Europe Cover)

There isn't much you can say about this: the best Swedish pop-metal song ever written, re-interpreted by the most culturally relevant Finnish black metal band of today. A jock jam played in double time.

PEDRO the Long Article

2005-01-16T23:52:00.000-05:00

A piece for Fly.

Pedro The Lions.
Article by Robbie Mackey

It’s perhaps the most memorable moment on last year’s Achilles Heel – Dave Bazan’s milky tenor rises above the introverted guitar wash of “Bands with Managers” to proclaim: “I trust T. William Walsh / and I’m not afraid to die.” And while, ostensibly, the line’s about little more than TW’s competence behind the wheel of the Pedro the Lion tour van, the events leading up to the release of Achilles afford the couplet a slightly different meaning.

In early 2004, Bazan – then, the only legitimate member of Pedro The Lion – made an adventurous overture: he asked ever-present contributor, Walsh, to join the ranks full-time. But while drafting in a second member could have proven disastrous for an established solo-artist with such a patented aesthetic, Bazan found the addition entirely enriching for the creative proccess.

“Because we’re both songwriters, we really feel the process is sacred for the other person,” says Bazan. “But [Tim’s full-time presence in the band] gives me a lot more confidence, because I have a sounding board that I trust. I have somebody whose ideas I really like. So I know that if I’m hitting a wall he’ll have a really good idea or at least some perspective to help me.”

Of course, Pedro the Lion is and always will be Bazan’s brainchild; the man has penned six near-seamless collections of musical minimalism, harsh realism and incisive cultural satire. It’d be almost impossible for one to consider this anything but Dave’s gig; and Walsh has no problem with that. “It’s definitely still his band,” says Wlash. “Dave writes most of the songs. It’s all his vision and his vehicle for his creativity. I definitely have as much input as I want to have. We work together really collaboratively, but ultimately he has the veto power for whatever it might be.”

And since Bazan serves a similar role in Walsh’s “solo-work” (recorded under the moniker TW Walsh), the two have developed quite the interesting creative chemistry. “We both are songwriters, so in his band my role is to try to help him realize whatever vision he had when he was writing a song,” says Bazan. “In Pedro the Lion it works the same way, but vice-versa. That gives you an awful lot of control from both ends. [When I’m working with Tim], I’m just hoping that it jives with what he was thinking originally.”

And as if the musical lives of Pedro The Lion’s two principal members weren’t already intertwined enough, the duo is set to unveil yet another joint venture this May: The Headphones. Entirely synthesizers, drums, and vocals, Walsh and Bazan’s latest outfit seems quite the departure from their top-notch mope-rock. “But it’s very much like a rock band,” says Bazan. “It’s real drums, no sequencing. It’s not electronic music at all. It sounds like Pedro The Lion and Depeche Mode, kind of — if you saw Depeche Mode and they were all actually playing the parts and there was a real drummer.”

Bazan’s composedly unaffected vocal delivery will make the crossover to the new gig, but don’t expect Pedro The Lion’s characteristically weighty lyrics. “I didn’t work as hard to make the lyrics make sense all the time. I’d just choose words that I kind of enjoy. I think that because of the context that the vocals are in, it’s different enough that you don’t really focus on them quite the same way. For Pedro the Lion, my perception has been that the lyrics have been one of the main focal point in the band,” says Bazan.

And he couldn’t be more correct.

Since 2000’s Winners Never Quit, Bazan’s dark, satirical detachment has been the press’ near-total focus in regard to Pedro the Lion. Labeled depressing, and unnervingly stark, Bazan’s lyrical badlands have turned some Pedro The Lion fans away. But, Walsh sees his band’s lyrics as an example of brave realism:

“I think that people who write the band off as kind of depressing are either a little bit timid, in general, or a little bit unrealistic about the nature of the world. [The records] just portray everyday things. Every day, people are cheating on their spouses. Every day, people are exploiting other people within the economic system and the country. These are just real things that almost define the structure of our society. It just seems realistic to me as opposed to pessimistic.”

And with the now full-time aid of Walsh, Bazan may still yet have his most daring, and cohesive indictment of society, his most brilliantly painful piece of realism, left in him.

Gimme Glitch

2005-01-13T02:54:00.000-05:00

Dataclast - Catering To The IDM List

Finally, they FUCKED! Loud, fast, heavy and computer-driven, Dataclast is the Venetian Snares/Napalm Death tantric sex session I've been dreaming about for years. The Locust have been trying to fill this niche some time now (at least they should have been), but to no avail. Poor them. Presently, they must be watching on in disgust from the corner, cursing the 'clast for finally getting theSOUND right. If only they'd bought computers instead of those ugly bug outfits. But, I digress. Like the description would have you believe, this is incredibly difficult music.

Difficult and fucking totally sweet.

And here is some of that cry.on.my.console biznis I was raving about the other day. The only thing that can stop these guys from being huge in '05 is their relative obscurity. Let us unite and fix that problem!

Big in '05

2005-01-11T22:56:00.000-05:00

Predictions:

Des_Ark - About to break so hard I can smell the hype in the oven. Promise: this Durham, NC duo's debut full-lenth -- recorded by J. Mascis (of Dinosaur, Jr.) and Zeno Gil (of Pox World) -- is going to be brilliant. I haven't heard it yet, but I've seen 'em live enough to know that their stew of crusty math punk and whiskey-drenched bayou rock will deliver. And then some. Bifocal Media just posted a few samples here. One of the tracks is a surprising acoustic number, Aimee sounding equal parts Harvey, Gibbons and Hannah. If this doesn't break, sell my clothes, I'm off to heaven.

M.I.A. - So maybe I was late. Maybe my 2004 list was embarrassingly devoid of the M.I.A. and Diplo album. No matter, because after hearing it, I can officially throw myself behind the huge-shirt-wearing-beauty that is the new queen of the UK underground.

Cry.On.My.Console - Crunk, glitch, and grime meet head on. Could the snarky, electro-loving hip-popists ask for anything more? Like Dizee Rascal, Otto Van Schirach and Kanye West cold kicking it with Lil' John. They mash-up Coldplay. No, really.

Bright Eyes - The promos are in my CD player, and I must say that the wave Lifted made will be doubled this year. And not only because Connor is dropping two records. These albums will be universally adored -- and reviled, but only by those too cool to accept that Bright Eyes is actually good.

AFI - Gothy poppunk for the masses. The new record is purportedly both darker and popier. That means great singles with a sensible backbone.

Pas/Cal - The Shins have busted THIS THING open, folks. And if it isn't Pas/Cal, it'll be The Sun.

LCD Soundsystem - It's time the cynical-dance made a break. Course, we're only talking indie-popular here. Don't 'spect to see these guys on the cover of Rolling Stone, but DFA and co. -- spearheaded by the work of Goldsworthy and Murphy -- will have a big year.

Ciara - Like she won't capitalize on this wave?? There'll be a huge single about mid-way through the year that blows the roof off.

Daft Punk - Expect their thrid record to get mixed reviews after release, but slow-burn to top-20 status by the end of the year.

Why?

2005-01-11T04:52:00.000-05:00

McClusky broke up.

The Unicorns may have broken up.

Note to other bands I enjoy: Please, don't break up.

Bayum Bayum Bayum

2005-01-11T03:27:00.000-05:00

The Ying Yang Twins - Wait

Not only is this the best thing to happen to Crunk since "Yeah," but the radio edit of "Wait" must be one 3-minute block of silence. Fereal, this is

1. a filthy, mini-crunk anthem actually whispered into the ear, and...
2. my new favorite song.

The Twins were awared the Source's Group of the Year honors in 2004, and with the brilliant success of "Get Low," have become sort of go-to-guys for Lil' John. But if they feel the need to mix it up and dabble in some low-key Neptunes-inspired production, I won't argue. Listen, and I promise you won't either.

Oh, Canada

2005-01-08T21:12:00.000-05:00

Wolf Parade - Dinner Bells -

If the new milenium has proven anything, it's that a whole hell of a lot of interesting music is coming out of Canada. And while I detest the Broken Social Scene's calculated mash-up of expanse, tropicalia-infused exoticism, and bombast, I'd be hardpressed to deny You Forgot It In People it's rightful spot as watershed for the American indie press' appreciation of music north-of-the-border. But who broke the barrier don't really matter, now does it?

Like some of the biggest success stories of the past few years (The Unicorns, Arcade Fire, etc.), the latest Sub Pop signee, Wolf Parade call Canada home and create some damn fine music. "Dinner Bells" is the band's shining moment -- an uplifting plod that calls to mind the post-punk balladery of The Walkmen, the fucked-folk of Frog Eyes, and the smokey nostaligia of My Mornign Jacket.

To put it crudely, it's a folk song that swallowed an atomic bomb, a keyboard-driven anthem, bolstered by a worn sincerity and a delightful harmonica outro. A great tune.

Fuckin' Shit Up With Your Lightsaber

2005-01-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

The Left Rights - Darth Vader/Weird (video) -

A devastatingly brilliant video for two songs taken off of The Left Rights' 2002 self-titled debut. The tracks -- "Darth Vader," in particular -- come as quite the surprise, considering their progenitors: a side-project of the utterly awful Mindless Self Indulgence camp. That's the same NY neo-industrial-slop-hop crew whose talents have been enlisted on large-scale arena tours with the mother fucking Insane Clown Posse. What the fuck is right! But the tracks are great -- bubblegummy electro-psych, like The Unicorns or Wayne Coyne after a bit too much Prince. I might be going mad, but this stuff is just brilliant. The slow'd vocals on "Darth Vader" will never leave you. Never.

You Missed

2005-01-05T22:01:00.000-05:00

Laura Veirs - Rapture -

Quaint yet distrubed, Veirs dabbles in a sort of fractured-folk framework a'la Chan Marshall or an edgier Nina Nastasia. Though the Seatle songwriter released her 2004 effort, Carbon Glacier, on the fairly high-profile Nonesuch, and most important music jerks should have had access to it, PRACTICALY NO ONE LOVED THIS INCREDIBLE RECORD THE WAY I LOVED THIS INCREDIBLE RECORD. And for that I'm a bit miffed. Seriously, peep this chorus.

If Mary J. Blige Beat Up Britney Spears

2005-01-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

Plan B for the Type A's - Toxic (Britney Spears cover) -

Thank Chuck Eddy at the Voice for unearthing this confusing piece of novelty -- a snotty riot grrl send up of Brit's best single to date. I'd rather hear 'em lampoon a shite cut like her latest, "Mona Lisa," in which she's pitch altered to the point of sheer absurdity. Alas, after one listen to this take on a good Brit track, one can't help but ache for the orginal in all of its naked-body-covered-in-diamonds glory. Scary.

And as a nice lil' aside:

The title track from Mary J. Blige's 2001 record, No More Drama, is one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. Such emotional impact behind those bleeting laser synths and that afternoon-soap piano line. And when the baptist choir chimes in for the climax, Mary J. is cold serious.

Generally, Twee Is Bad, But It Was A Good Year

2005-01-04T05:36:00.000-05:00

Architecture in Helsinki - The Owls Go -

A quirky indie pop number lifted off of Fingers Crossed, the debut album from Australia's Achitecture in Helsinki. Such a charming collage of acoustic guitars, minimal found-sound samples and the human voice, I have never heard. A neat lil' gem from an otherwise unremarkable album that owes a bit too much to the likes of Jim Gutherie, The Aislers Set and Belle & Sebastian.

So this is the way the year of TWOTHOUSANDFOUR wound up for me:

01 Arcade Fire – S/T [Merge]
02 Laura Veirs – Carbon Glacier [Nonesuch]
03 Animal Collective – Sung Tongs [Fat Cat]
04 The Clouds – S/T [Team]
05 Interpol – Antics [Matador]
06 Cyann & Ben – Happy Like An Autumn Tree [Locust]
07 Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing In The Hands [Young God]
08 The Hold Steady – Almost Killed Me [Frenchkiss]
09 The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free [Vice/Atlantic]
10 Franz Ferdinand – S/T [Domino]
11 Converge – You Fail Me [Equal Vision]
12 The Comas – Conductor [Yep Rock]
13 Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles [5 Rue Christine]
14 Air – Talkie Walkie [Astralworks]
15 The Dead Texan – S/T [Kranky]
16 Jukeboxer – In The Food Chain [Absolutely Kosher]
17 Mastodon – Leviathan [Relapse]
18 Subtle – A New White [Lex]
19 The Gris Gris – S/T [Birdman]
20 Ratatat – S/T [XL]
21 Isis – Panopticon [Ipacec]
22 Robyn Hitchcock – Spooked [Yep Roc]
23 Growing – Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of the Light [Kranky]
24 Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans [Sounds Familyre]
25 The Minor Times – Making Enemies [Level Plane]
26 Mirah – C’mon Miracle [K]
27 August Engkilde Presents EPO – EPO [popscape]
28 Pig Destroyer – Terrifyer [Relapse]
29 Black Eyes – Cough [Dischord]
30 Pedro The Lion – Achilles Heel [Jade Tree]
31 Comets on Fire – Blue Cathedral [Sub-Pop]
32 The New Year – The End is Near [Touch & Go]
33 Haunted House – La Vida… [Adonis]
34 Joanna Newsome – The Milk Eyed Mother [Drag City]
35 Fear Before The March of Flames – Art Damage [Equal Vision]
36 Wrangler Brutes – Zulu [Kill Rock Stars]

The argument 'round here is that Pitchfork had a lot to do with the success of the Arcade Fire record. I say POPPYCOCK. Sure, perhaaaaps, due to the site's fairly large readership, they introduced a few -- a few -- folks to the band, but let us not forget how much press that album was getting around the same time. And let's not forget the giantic buzz the album rode before its release. And while we're busy not forgetting things, let's not forget how delightfully perfect Funeral was.

The thing warranted the hype, folks.

Besides, this happens every go-round: "Oh, well, if Pitchfork didn't hype this record to death it wouldn't have done well." Really, did you care about the Wrens? I didn't.

But, much like Turn on the Bright Lights from two years ago (although not to be compared to the see-thru irony-arena mope-pop bullcrap of 2003's You Forget It In People), the "Pitchfork Album" of 2004 was just a devastatingly brilliant release. Bright and vibrant in all the right spots. Dark and gloomy in the OTHER right spots.

It returned godhonesthope to my music collection. Funeral is a bunch of songs that reasure. A bunch of songs that pat the back. Truly cathartic music and clearly the best album of the year -- Pitchfork endorsement and all.