Review Round-Up: May 2015

Hot Chip
Why Make Sense?

In Our Heads, Hot Chip’s last album, was a masterpiece, and a clear culmination of their career to date: an ecstatic, heart-surging testament to the intertwined power of music, positivity and love.  Why Make Sense? picks up essentially the same emotional and musical threads; its best tracks – at least half the record – continue Heads’ potent, playful synthesis of R&B, house and electronic pop, full of surprises and multiple moving (in every sense) parts.  That’s more than enough to make this probably the finest dance party record this summer will have to offer, even if it features two (lovely, if relatively undistinguished) ballads and lacks its predecessor’s decisive spiritual coherence.  The clearest throughline here is the band’s fondness for dance music’s long, illustrious history, which is on full display: there are samples of Philly soul and boogie classics, Planet Rockin’ electro and luscious disco strings, a sharp hip-house turn (courtesy of De La Soul’s Posdnuos), nods to acid, deep house and jacking swing, even some chiptune-y bleeps on the stark overloaded title track, which closes the album on its most urgent, restlessly strange and, yes, not-quite-sensical note.

Robert Pollard
Faulty Superheroes

Faulty Superheroes – for those keeping score – is Robert Pollard’s first album (under his own name, that is) since Guided By Voices’ September’s re-dissolution, and its title feels like a fitting send-off/summation/epithet for those storied, glorious strivers.  As for Bob himself, look no further than the name of this batch’s opening knock: “What A Man.”  Indeed.  The tune, a righteous, self-anthemizing salvo (“He’s back!”) that slips in on a bed of churning, steely riffs, notches approximatelyIsolation Drills levels of stadium crunch, setting the tone for the high-octane half-hour that follows.  Save the slightly teary ninety-second trudge of “The Real Wilderness,” it’s a rollicking pummel throughout, efficiently stocked with timeless/tossed-off highlights (stomp-pop sandblaster “Faster the Great”; the improbably epic and yearning “Take Me To Yolita”) until we’re set down with the haunting, dreamily profound acoustic curio “Perikeet Vista.”  Catnip for the faithful; nectar for strayed sheep; ample safe grazing for the uninitiated.  What a man.

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Mandolin Orange
[Folk/Roots]
concert preview

As sweet, familiar and refreshing as the juice of their groanably punning namesake, this North Carolina folk-pop duo’s close harmonies, mournful fiddling and, yes, frequent mandolin use evoke the still-chugging bluegrass revival – but only loosely, with more interest in resonant, heart-tugging expressiveness than musical virtuosity.  Their second Yep Roc release, Such Jubilee, is several shades more wistful than its title might suggest: dusty and downbeat, but warmly comforting all the same.

San Fermin
[Art-Rock/Chamber Pop]
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Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s post-collegiate composition project-turned-unlikely touring juggernaut return with a sophomore record, Jackrabbit (Downtown), which streamlines some of their artier impulses and hones in on melody and groove, yielding results that are more immediate but certainly no less dramatic (bombastic, even – it’s the second indie opus of 2015 to offer a delicately-wrought reminder that “we’re all gonna die”) and beautifully orchestrated.

Fred Thomas
[Indie Pop/Singer Songwriter]
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Michigander DIY die-hard Fred Thomas has made plenty of records in his time – scruffy-edged pop with Saturday Looks Good To Me, emo-punk with Lovesick, rootsy folk rock under his own name, electronic forays as City Center – but there’s a fresh immediacy to All Are Saved (Polyvinyl), whose vividly impressionistic spoken-sung confessionals are close cousins to both The Hold Steady’s Midwestern scenester narratives and the radically candid diarism of Yoni Wolf and Mark Kozelek.

Föllakzoid
[Psych/Space Rock]
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These guys may be Chilean, but they are unabashed Germanophiles, a fixation which, in the case of the four lengthy, lysergic meanders comprising their third album, III (Sacred Bones), extends beyond the umlaut and their well-honed handle on the rigidly rubbery rhythms of vintage ‘70s Krautrock to their enlisting of wily Frankfurt knob-twiddler Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom™ and, in his more Latin-leaning moments, Señor Coconut), who used one of Kraftwerk’s old Korgs to further woozy up the trio’s creepy-yet-comforting swamp-dub grooves.

Bitchin Bajas
[Kosmiche/New Age]
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This Chicago duo fashion zone-out music par excellence, but there’s a little too much going on – too much personality, perhaps – in their gently cosmic drone-voyages for them to compute as ambient in the simple, minimalist sense we’ve come to expect.  At any given point across the eighty-minute sprawl of last year’s self-titled, Asian-tinged magnum opus (Drag City), we might be dealing with flutes, harps, organs or birdsong, gauzily bowed strings or burbling synthesizers, gamelan bell-tones or glistening electric guitar leads.

East India Youth
[Art-Pop/Indie Electronic]
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Fledgling electronic art-pop auteur William Doyle wears his influences and his ambition on his sleeve, making plain his veneration for the greats – Eno, Wyatt, Bowie, Tennant & Lowe, etc. – and casting himself in their impeccably tasteful, exultantly English lineage.  His heart’s a cagier matter however.  Culture of Volume (XL) follows last year’s Mercury Prize-nominated debut with a more song-oriented approach, but still veers from industrial technoise workouts to shimmery dance-pop to lush, darkly Romantic OMD-ish synth balladry – all of it tantalizingly close to convincing.

Holly Herndon
[Electronic/Experimental]
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Glitch, as a genre, doesn’t get much play these days – if only because, as a technique, it has become so fully pervasive – but what this eerily doll-like electronic composer does on her new Platform (RVNG Intl) isn’t so far removed from turn-of-the-century conceptualists like Oval and Akufen.  It’s bewildering but engrossing; abstract but never purely clinical, comprised of sputtering malfunctions that seem cyborgian rather than simply digital.  If you squint hard enough these things could almost be pop songs.  Or possibly infomercials.

Hudson Mohawke
[Electronic]
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Ross Birchard, the antic Glaswegian producer who named himself after two New Yorke rivers, is best known as one-half of trap-rave catalysts TNGHT, though the gloopy plasticine electro-funk of his solo work casts a wider, wilder and (very occasionally) more nuanced net.  Lantern (Warp), a typically giddy set of maximalist miniatures that’s his first full-length in six years, enlists a bevy of distinctive vocalists (Miguel, Antony, Jhene Aiko) but it sings loudest when he lets his gallumphing, blinding-neon synths lead the way.

Purity Ring
[Pop/Electronic]
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Another Eternity (4AD) may lack the scintillating strangeness of the singles which first introduced us, back in 2011, to Purity Ring’s peculiar prism on electronic pop – Corin Roddick’s side-chained, syncopated synths and Megan James’ fluidly expressive body poetry now feel warmly familiar instead of alluringly alien – but that lens has since been buffed and polished to a high gleam, and their finest moments remain a potent nexus of gritty, fleshy and celestial.

Seinabo Sey
[Pop]
concert preview

With only a handful of singles to her name – collected on last year’s For Madeleine EP, which was dedicated to her mother – this twenty-five year old pop singer and songwriter was already enough of a force to appear on a postage stamp in her native Sweden this January.  The four-track For Maudo (named, respectively, for her Gambian musician father) continues to develop her blend of electronic club-pop, gritty R&B and moody, broad-sweeping anthemics, clinched by her bluesy powerhouse of a voice.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

Review Round-up: April 2015

Blur
The Magic Whip

This really could not have gone any better.  Reunion albums are a notoriously dodgy business, and this one, considering the haphazard, piecemeal circumstances of its creation, would seem to warrant particular trepidation.  But Blur have never let us down before, and The Magic Whip, which has all the hallmarks of their best work – it’s bursting with ideas; intriguingly messy and exploratory, but never at the expense of a smart pop hook and groove; full of songs that are emotive and elusive, sardonic and sentimental all at once – can stand proudly alongside anything else they’ve done.

Whip effectively splits the difference between the sharp polish and pomp of their Britpop heyday and the maturity, restlessness and grit of their later work, particularly the looped and layered experimentation of 2003’s underrated Think Tank.   But it’s hardly a backward-looking affair.  There are gestures toward familiar Blur song “types” – punky riff-driven fuzzbombs (“I Broadcast”); classically melancholy Albarnian weepers (“New World Towers,” “Mirrorball”) – but most of these tracks do much murkier things, smudging the usual emotional and musical lines between rockers, ballads, pop songs and dirges, hearkening to the band’s past work in strange, unpredictable ways.  The quirky, bleep-blooping, dubiously cheerful “Ice Cream Man” strikes a curious counterpose to Blur’s jagged “Country Sad Ballad Man.”  “There Are Too Many Of Us” – one of their most striking, unsettling creations – is a strident, string-laden death march on themes of population overcrowding that comes on like a minor-key inversion of “The Universal.”  (Here, and throughout, the backdrop of Hong Kong helps provide a fresh angle on familiar themes of globalization, consumer culture, world-weariness, alienation and distance.)

And then there’s the simple, alchemical miracle of hearing Graham Coxon’s indelibly scrawled guitar work once more sharing space with Damon Albarn’s yearning, bleary-eyed melodies – most poignantly on “My Terracotta Heart,” which directly confronts their past estrangement.  Magic, indeed.

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Sufjan Stevens
[Singer-Songwriter]
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Coming from a guy whose last release climaxed with the epic goofball absurdity of “Christmas Unicorn,” Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty) requires some readjustment.  A return to the hushed sonics (and biblical allusiveness) of 2004’s Seven Swans, these deeply personal songs are Stevens’ reaction to his mother’s passing; an unflinching examination of a complex and troubled relationship.  Despite the harrowing subject matter, the music is wondrously warm and comforting: Stevens’ fastidious fingerpicking and unwavering plainspoken singing may seem spare, but there are subtleties and shadings in these arrangements that are as meticulously crafted – and as gorgeously effective – as any of his earlier electro-orchestral extravaganzas.

Matthew E. White
[Folk-Soul]
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Even more than the hippie-soul spiritualism and unhurried grandeur of his 2012 debut, Matthew E. White’s Fresh Blood (Domino) charts a curious course between breeziness and depth; employing the lavish orchestral and choral arrangements and warm, meticulous production that are the hallmarks of this long-haired Virginian’s Spacebomb operation (q.v. Natalie Prass’ spellbinding 2015 debut) to establish a tone of effortlessly laid-back, almost-drowsy languor.  There’s a fine line, somewhere, between hushed reverence and dull, self-contented mumbling, but it’s hard to mind much when the tunes slide so smoothly by.

Sir Richard Bishop
[Folk/Instrumental]
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Amid the teeming ranks of finger-style guitar virtuosi, Richard Bishop stands out – and earns his noble sobriquet – for his long pedigree of iconoclasm and adventure, musical and otherwise, that includes co-founding both iconic experimental-eclecticists Sun City Girls and the DIY ethno-musicological rummage sale that is the Sublime Frequencies label.  His latest solo foray, the fully improvised Tangier Sessions (Drag City) – recorded in Morocco on a mysterious 19th century guitar he picked up in Geneva – is a typically atypical offering, meandering freely through tinges of flamenco, Indian raga, Malian blues, gypsy folk and beyond.

The Sonics
[Garage Rock]
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The basic template for garage rock hasn’t really changed since these guys first established it some fifty years ago with their raucous, sneering proto-punk originals and roughed-up R&B covers.  So This Is The Sonics (Revox) – outrageously, the band’s first proper album since 1967’s Introducing the Sonics – doesn’t feel like a throwback, a retread, a revamp, or even a reflection of former glory: it just feels like a party.  The current lineup boasts three original members – not bad after a half-century gap! – including O.G. screamer Gerry Roslie, sounding, if anything, more demented than ever.

Kitty Daisy and Lewis
[R&B/Swing/Pop]
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This retro-worshipping London sibling trio may have grown a bit since they first enchanted us at Kung Fu Necktie back in 2009 with their prodigious multi-instrumentalism and red-hot rockabilly fashion sense – two-thirds of the group were still teenagers at the time.  But The Third (Sunday Best), an assortment of lovingly re-enacted first-wave ska, juke-joint swing and hard-stomping rhythm and blues that was produced by the Clash’s Mick Jones (in their self-built analog studio, in a converted Camden curry joint) – suggests they haven’t lost an ounce of those ample vintage-loving charms.  And they still let mom and dad tag along as their rhythm section.

Speedy Ortiz
[Indie Rock]
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As grungy alt-whatever revivalists goes, Sadie Dupuis is the Liz Phair-est of them all.  But her band’s too good to stick in the “retro-’90s” ghetto.  Their new literarily oblique/manifestly feminist Foil Deer (Carpark) (I keep waiting for that title to be clever…it’ll hit me someday) is a sharp-edged (and sharper-tongued) dissertation on gnarly melody and totally radical riffage.

Ex Hex
[Rock/Pop]
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Not only was the inaugural all-killer hookfest from Mary Timony’s power-pop power-trio CP’s third favorite album of 2014, it’s also a fun fill-in-the-blank game.  Rips (Merge) up the rock’n’roll rulebook and starts over?  (Well, not exactly.)  Rips off The Cars/The Pretenders/Cheap Trick/whoever?  (Yeah, but, what’s your point?)  Rips you a new one?  Okay, how about just flat-out Rips?

Liturgy
[Noise Rock/Post-Metal]
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The Ark Work (Thrill Jockey) opens with a strident brass fanfare, traditional enough – seemingly – until it warps into a queasy, disorienting tussle between real and synthetic horns.  In truth, though, almost the entire album functions as an epic, unrelenting fanfare; a near-constant, cacophonous crescendo of celestial axe-throttling, spluttering digital scree, Greg Fox’s convulsive drumming, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s monkish, incisive chants: a sonic density so maddening you almost don’t notice the bagpipes.  The album as full-body drum-roll.  Forget the genre wars Liturgy has incited in the past: whatever this music is, it’s too blinding to be black, too molten to be metal.

Public Service Broadcasting
[Space Pop/Electronic]
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Somewhere between a post-rockier version of The Books and They Might Be Giants in full-on educational mode, the dubiously-monikered Wrigglesworth and J. Wilgoose Esq. combine archival spoken-word samples with epic, semi-electronic krautrock instrumentals, essentially creating impressionistic audio documentaries on subjects such as – in the case of sophomore outing The Race for Space (Test Card) – developments in space exploration, c. 1957-1972 – complete with suitably inspiring, funky, whimsical and dramatic soundtrack cues.  Their banter-free live show, incorporating footage on loan from the British Film Institute, should bring the experience full circle.

Clark/Nosaj Thing
[Electronic]
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These one-time IDM wunderkinder have grown into two of the more distinctive producers out there, albeit mining quite disparate veins.  Nosaj is an LA beat-scene head-nodder given to dusty downbeats and classicist overtones; his moody-grooving new single suggests the forthcoming Fated (Innovative Leisure) will only deepen his music’s placid, insular melancholy.  Comparatively, Clark’s acid-damaged eponymous 2014 LP (Warp) and new Flame Rave EP feel compositionally and emotionally volatile, even paradoxically so (“Strength Through Fragility” is one telling track title), but they’re never less than engaging; repeatedly, defiantly clutching musicality (and funk) from the jaws of technoid abstraction.

Action Bronson
[Hip-Hop]
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This Queens-repping rapper/chef cultivates a gleefully oversized persona – driven by gluttonous, wittily chronicled appetites for weed, women and exquisitely prepared cuisine – that’s at once lovably nonchalant and completely reprehensible.  His characteristically absurdist major label bow, Mr. Wonderful (Atlantic), echoes that duality with an irreverence to “hip-hop album” protocol that’s sometimes delightful (see: phone conversations with his mom), more often frustrating (indulgent “conceptual” stunts, wayward schlock-rock rips, a lot of highly questionable singing) – but still comes through with its quota of quotables.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper