Review Round-Up: June 2015

Kacey Musgraves
Pageant Material

It all came up roses around this then-Nashville newbie’s first album, with its plainspoken universality and fresh spins on a dozen old cliches – but despite surface similarities of her decidedly samey second, it’s hard not to feel like the bloom is off.  Take “Biscuits,” a close cousin to big-tent anthem “Follow Your Arrow” that adds little but a cute refrain and a semi-creepy libertarian inversion of the central message.  Elsewhere, her once-penetrating observations on Middle American life are replaced by aw-shucks Hallmark-isms (“This Town,” “Family is Family”); the relationship songs are distressingly generic; she backpedals on her “edgy” (for country) envelope-pushing (although appealingly languid opener “High Time” might be a veiled extension of her noted pro-pot streak), and she sings about what she’s not – decountryfied by fame (“Dimestore Cowgirl”), part of an “Ol’ Boys Club,” charm-schooled and polished (the ironically eager-to-please title cut) – too often to illuminate what she is.  Her music, likewise, has lost a lot of its spunk, with nothing approaching the rockiness of, say, “Blowing Smoke” to disrupt the general mid-tempo pleasantness.  Well, it’s like she says: “You can’t be everybody’s cup of tea.”

Lee Bannon
Pattern of Excel

Lee Bannon’s not quite a renaissance man – not yet, anyway – but he isn’t just a genre-hopping dilettante either.  Think of him as a itinerant enthusiast; an infectiously excitable tinkerer.  The Sacramento producer came up DJing throwback boom-bap for Joey Bada$$, he boasts a backlog of blunted Madlibbian beat-tapes; his first Ninja Tune full-length was a full-throttle drum’n’bass opus, and, in retrospect, it’s almost tediously typical that his second would be an ambient excursion.  But Pattern of Excel’s a bit trickier than you might surmise.  Functioning, in a sense, as a smaller-scale reflection of Bannon’s career-defining restlessness, it’s a loosely coherent mood piece that, despite (mostly) maintaining a murky, somnambulant vibe, nevertheless leapfrogs around an impressive scrap-heap of refurbished ideas, from the opener’s dizzying surrealist bricolage through jittery vocal-sample pointillism (“Suffer Gene”), airily mournful deconstructed trip-hop (“Paofex”), dread-laced synth smears (“Aga”), a resurgent breakbeat microburst (“inflatable”), staticky Caretaker-esque pianism, and even an unexpectedly lush, melodic bit of ersatz Bill Frisell (“Disneµ Girls.”)  File this alongside Jeff Bridges’ Sleeping Tapes as one of the year’s confounding, engrossing naptime incitements.

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Shamir
[Dance/Pop]
concert preview

“Hi hi, howdy howdy, hi hi.”  Those six words (okay, two), and a few marbles dropped on a cowbell, introduced us to Shamir Bailey via the unstoppably smile-inducing “On The Regular.”  But that circa-1991 hip-house aesthetic merely scratched the surface of what this chameleonic twenty-year-old Las Vegan can do – break your heart with an acoustic country ballad, for instance, or (per his XL debut LP, Ratchet) deliver the most spine-shivering disco vocal since Antony’s iconic turn on Hercules & Love Affair’s “Blind.”  We hear he’s a mean knitter too.

Heems/The Very Best
[Hip-Hop/Pop/Electronic]
concert preview

Himanshu Suri is best known as one of the erudite post-everything yuksters in Das Racist, and his whip-smart boom-bap wisecracks remain pretty much peerless – which makes Eat Pray Thug’s (Greedhead/Megaforce) soberingly personal ruminations on being brown in post-9/11 NYC all the more arrestingly potent.  As for fellow class-of-2008 globalist indie/internet breakouts The Very Best – now a duo of Swedish producer Johan Hugo and Malawian vocalist Esau Mwamwaya – their richly satisfying Makes A King (Moshi Moshi) introduces newfound space and rootedness to their glittery electronic/Afro-pop melange, without tamping down the world-lifting euphoria.

The Dø
[Indie Pop]
concert preview

This French-Finnish duo’s inscrutability – beyond the mystique of Olivia Merilahti’s beguiling, illustrious voice – was always more about their resistance to easy categorization than any aversion to melodies, catchy grooves, or emotionalism.  So Shake Shook Shaken (Cinq 7) is the most conventional and “accessible” of their three albums mostly due to its narrowed compositional focus – sticking with a relatively standard indie-electro-pop toolkit (albeit a slightly sparse, jerry-rigged one) – it just so happens to contain several of their naggingest earworms to date, including the positively luminous “Trustful Hands.”

Best Coast
[Pop/Rock]
concert preview

Best Coast have grown up from lovably scruffy stoners singing about cats and sunshine into a bona-fide modern rock outfit, with all the respectable, immaculately polished production that suggests.  But they’re growing comfortable – familiar, not boring.  Bobb Bruno’s guitar hooks are as dependably catchy as ever, Bethany Cosentino’s voice is if anything even more lustrous (and her lyrics every bit as lackluster.)  And naturally, their home-state love will never die – look no further than the title of last month’s California Nights (Harvest), which kicks off, aptly enough, with a pair of winsome songs about feeling, respectively, “okay” and “fine.”

Viet Cong/Lower Dens/Girl Band
[Punk/Rock]
concert preview

It can be a head-scratcher when Philly’s defining hipster dance party books rock acts, but the powerhouse triple-bill for this 15th-anniversary installment should inspire - if not outright demand - plenty of potent bodily motion.  Knotty, clangorous Calgary post-punkers Viet Cong shapeshift considerably across the seven tracks of their eponymous LP (Jagjaguwar), but twitchily insistent rhythms are a constant.  Meanwhile, Baltimore’s moody Lower Dens modulate into surprisingly slinky ‘80s pop mode on their new wavey new Escape from Evil (Ribbon), while Ireland’s (all-male) Girl Band’s excoriating Early Years EP features, among other incitements, a monstrously demented beat-punk reworking of UK Bass icon Blawan.

Richard Thompson
[Rock/Folk]
concert preview

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has been quietly catalyzing a growing array of musical heroes toward some very fine work lately, and he does the same producing the deathless UK folk-rock pioneer on Still (Fantasy), a tight set evoking the muscular directness of 1999’s magnificent Mock Tudor, and proffering such primed-for-onstage-elaboration delights as “All Buttoned Up” – a sprightlier but no less crankily undersexed counterpart to Grinderman’s “No Pussy Blues” – and the tour-de-force history lesson/show-off extravaganza “Guitar Heroes.”

Jessica Pratt/Ryley Walker
[Folk]
concert preview

Less dutiful revivalists than old souls in young flesh, Californian acoustic mesmerist Jessica Pratt, with her patient fingerpicking and weathered wisp of a voice, keeps spiritual company with faerie-folk foremothers like Vashti Bunyan and Linda Perhacs throughout On Your Own Love Again (Drag City), while the more self-consciously styled (and eminently spoonerisable) Chicago jazz-folk troubadour Ryler Walker augments the virtuosic fingerwork of Primrose Green (Dead Oceans) with mystical blue-green flourishes on loan – as his sleeve-note readily admits – from the likes of Tim Buckley and Bert Jansch.

Torres
[Rock/Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

More than as a songwriter, lyricist, or vocalist per se – though she’s solid and inventive in the former department, and frequently arresting in the latter two – 2013’s Torres introduced Mackenzie Scott, most strikingly, simply as a force to be reckoned with; a gritty, fearless, soul-baring expressionist.  Sprinter (Partisan) – for which she tellingly enlisted a couple of seasoned PJ Harvey collaborators (plus Portishead’s Adrien Utley) – only ratchets up the potent, unflinching intimacy, stretching out across a dramatic dynamic range from hushed confessionals to electric rage, and delving into impressionistic excavations of her Southern Baptist upbringing.

Active Child
[Electronic/R&B]
concert preview

Pat Grossi, who now lives in LA, got his earliest performance experience as a member of the Philadelphia Boy’s Choir, and the music he creates as Active Child has a decidedly choral sense of grace and spacious evocation, largely thanks to his spellbinding, often multi-tracked falsetto, which manages to be ethereal and earthy in the same breath.  Mercy (Vagrant), his first full-length in four years, occasionally revisits the clubbier direction teased on 2013’s Rapor EP, but its primary focus is on moody, gently dramatic electronic R&B.

Colleen
[Experimental/Pop]
concert preview

Parisian dreamweaver Cécile Schott has explored myriad musical pathways over the years, always leading to a similarly shimmering, gently surreal reverie, from gauzy, ambling sample-scapes to twinkling music boxes to starkly minimalist works for baroque-era instrumentation – most notably the gut-string viola da gamba.  Captain of None, her sixth album and first for Thrill Jockey, forays further afield into dub textures (complete with melodica and abundant percussive sounds, largely coaxed from her gamba) and whispery ambient pop songs whose vocal layering should appeal to Julianna Barwick fans.

Ximena Sariñana
[Pop/Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

This is how they make pop starlets in Mexico: smart, savvy, sophisticated, multi-talented.  Sariñana, a telenovela and film actress since age 11, who left us utterly charmed on her last visit to Philly, followed up her sprightly, semi-glossy English-language sophomore set with last year’s No todo lo puedes dar (Warner Brothers), a mix of cool, understatedly funky electropop and richly emotive ballads which hearken to one of her avowed primary influences: Fiona Apple.

Ibeyi
[International/Pop]
concert preview

French-Cuban twin sisters Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz cover a lot of musical and cultural ground on their debut as Ibeyi (XL) – drawing on their Yoruban and Cuban heritage via chanted invocations and abundant hand percussion, but also incorporating plenty of soulful piano-based soft pop, oddly-textured electronics and gentle trip-hop grooves, recalling Zap Mama and Sylvan Esso in equal measure – yet the end result remains satisfyingly sparse and spacious.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

2012 Review Round-Up: May

it's december! here's the plan: as i work my way toward year-end musical festivities (listing! mixing! feasting!), i'm rounding up all (or nearly all) of my writerly output from 2012 with a series of posts, one per day, one for each month, over the next eleven (or twelve?) days. or bust! 

and on to may, another bucketloaded month, and a bunch more old heads (specifically a whole bunch of nineties artists...i was starting to feel kinda self-conscious about it around this time, like is this an indication of incipient fogeydom, i just wanna listen to mediocre new records by bands that shoulda quit fifteen years ago?  meanwhile rye rye is interpolating the vengaboys and her target market was practically in diapers when they were around...)  anyhow i guess traxman (fave proper "electronic" album of the year?) technically counts as an old-head too, though it sure doesn't feel like it... 

Traxman
The Mind of Traxman

The Mind of Traxman is the fourth full-length artist album of Chicago footwork music to be released by Planet Mu – following estimable efforts from DJ Nate, DJ Roc, DJ Diamond – and in many respects it follows a similar template, offering up a potentially numbing, hour-long barrage of hypnotic, stutter-filled tracks which slice and dice a kaleidoscopic array of sample sources. But Traxman, aka Cornelius Ferguson – a scene veteran whose bona-fides stretch back at least to a 1996 12" released on legendary ghetto house label Dance Mania – definitely sets himself apart from the pack here. The album's title could be seen as a subtle clue to the difference: juke and footwork have always been much more about the body than the mind, but Traxman tends to hone in on the music's more thoughtful, meditative qualities, inviting characterizations like "smooth," "mellow" and "mature" which might seem antithetical to footwork's characteristically frantic assault. That's not to say he's averse to the kind of gonzo dance-floor energy that's practically the genre's raison d'être: look no further than the relentless vocal needling of the thumpy, demented "Callin All Freaks", the pummeling, self-explanatory 303 acid of "1988," or the hyped-up, archetypically "mindless" rawk cheese of the AC/DC-flipping "Let There Be Rockkkkk." But even when he's wreaking haywire havoc on the stutter cuts, even when he's dealing out machine-gun hi-hats and rat-a-tat snares with hedonic abandon, Traxman achieves a level of fluidity in his kineticism that's rare among footworkers. (Refreshingly, he eschews the woozily disorienting pitching up and down of samples that's a hallmark of many footwork producers.) And whether he's futzing with Prince (goofball finale "Lifeeeee Is Forever"); wiry throwback funk ("Setbacks"); symphonically lush 1970s soul (the vibrant, stirring "I Need Some Money"); smoothed-out jazz ("Lady Dro," "Chilllll" – gotta love that enthusiastic approach to spelling); muezzin-style Arabic vocals ("Going Wild") or the feathery kalimbas and darting synths of the gorgeous, perfectly-titled opener "Footworkin On Air," Traxman's omnivorous selection of source material never feels like mere eclecticism for the sake of novelty, but rather a means of presenting the music in the context of its rightful lineage, with a consciousness of and active involvement with the broader, wide-ranging African-American cultural vernacular. Without jettisoning the basic stylistic minimalism and scarcity of artistic means which makes footwork such a thrillingly raw, blunt and immediate form, Traxman manages to subtly expand and redefine the possibilities of the genre – or at least, of what we've come to expect from these Planet Mu footwork full-lengths (whose consistent quality is growing dangerously easy to take for granted) – offering a bounty for the soul and mind as well as the ears and feet.

Chromatics
Kill For Love

It took nearly five years for Chromatics to follow up 2007's acclaimed Night Drive (an expanded, analog-remastered edition of which appeared in 2010.) Despite that interval – and unlike any previous full-length under the volatile Chromatics banner – Kill For Love is very much an extension of the sound and approach of its predecessor. It also runs nearly ninety-two minutes in its full, digital version (only seventy-eight in physical formats, with space limitations necessitating the omission of epic ambient closer "No Escape.") That's quite a lot of album, even if you've been waiting half a decade for it, but it feels entirely warranted, if not flat-out necessary, in this case, because this is torpid, achingly gradual music that requires time and patience to achieve its fullest impact; and because is the kind of album you don't so much listen to as live inside, while it's playing. Anyone familiar with Night Drive or the other Italians Do It Better-associated projects of Chromatics' prime aesthetic mover Johnny Jewel (Glass Candy, Desire, Symmetry) can probably intuit what's in store here: atmospheric, deeply stylish aural landscapes in pop-song silhouette; darkly glistening electronic "pop" infused with post-punk's steely, nihilistic ennui. Kill For Love feels in many ways like an ultimate, quintessential expression of this aesthetic, in part because it creates a properly expansive context, and also because not a minute is wasted – it maintains an impressively high level of quality and and emotional resonance throughout – but particularly in how it blurs almost to the point of irrelevance the distinction between "proper" songs and the sort of moody, cinematic instrumental (or nearly instrumental) pieces which form the bulk of the album's latter half. One corollary to this is that the more overtly pop moments, clustered in the first third, here don't quite "pop" like they could – with slightly different production choices, songs like "Lady" and the title track might be instant synth-pop earworms; here, draped in haze and analog crackle, they're shyer to reveal their charms, though Ruth Radelet's hushed, mournful melodies do seep in and grow addictive with repeated listens. Contrasting Radelet's glassy-eyed clarity, a heavily processed male voice takes over on the brooding "Streets Will Never Look The Same" and "Running from the Sun," recalling the bleary, washed-out vibe of Sweden's Radio Dept. Once again, Chromatics use a cover song in a pivotal role here, opening the record with a stripped-down, deadpan take on Neil Young's "Hey Hey My My," dubbed "Into the Black" (although it's closer in tone to Young's more somber "Out of the Blue" acoustic version) – it's a strange, almost anti-hip choice, and somewhat inscrutable as an opener, but as with just about everything else here, it is inarguably effective, and starkly beautiful, in its simplicity.
originally published at AllMusic.com

Mynabirds
Generals

Broadening outward from the sepia-toned roots-soul pop of The Mynabirds' debut, Generals spins that sound in a number of directions: tough, bluesy swamp-rock stomp on the title track; sparsely moody trip-hop funk on "Disaster"; buoyant, electro-tinged pop on "Disarm." The musical through-lines are mostly rhythmic – the album's rife with fiercely percussive, retro-tinged, hand-clapping grooves – and textural – Richard Swift mans production duties again here with plentiful grace and grit – and, of course, Laura Burhenn's vivid, smoldering alto. These songs are every bit as spiritually urgent as those on What We Lose In The Fire We Gain In The Flood, but the motivation is as political as it is personal, with a thematic shift from religion to warfare (real and metaphorical), evidently inspired by Burhenn's musings on the DAR (for which she is apparently eligible) and the real tradition of American women revolutionaries.
originally published in Magnet Magazine

Best Coast
The Only Place
[Rock/Pop]

Best Coast just got a lot better. Sure, bedheaded, teenybopping California dreamer Bethany Cosentino's still singing about loneliness, misfit apathy, crazy-making boys and, on the irresistible title anthem of The Only Place (Mexican Summer), reiterating her band's eponymous West-is-the-best credo. (Less about her cat though.) Only now she's doing it with a revelatory newfound sonic richness and vastly improved production values that allow the luxuriant, Neko Case-ish fullness of her voice to shine through, and with a newly mature – but still blissfully unsophisticated – batch of tunes.

The School
Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything
[Rock/Pop]

There's plenty of sugary twee-pop out there, and then there's Welsh eightsome The School, whose utter trifle of a sophomore album, Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything (Elefant) (huh?) is so achingly sweet that you'll probably want to brush your teeth in between listens. These cheery, impeccably-coiffed charmers, not a one longer than three minutes, have every handclap and horn chart, harmony and heartbreak perfectly in place, and Liz Hunt's limpid, cupcake-frosting vocals could out-lollipop even Lesley Gore. But they never feel studied – just a tad bookish – even if they're cribbing their lessons direct from the girl group greats.

Here We Go Magic
A Different Ship
[Rock/Pop]
Moving past the folksy, home-recorded ethno-pop of their debut and the cluttered, ambivalent eclecticism of 2010's Pigeons, Here We Go Magic settle into a streamlined, mellifluous new groove on A Different Ship (Secretly Canadian.) It's easily their least interesting record to date. But it's also their best-sounding (thank uber-producer Nigel Godrich, who supplies some of his patented Radiohead/Beck/Air-abetting wizardry), as well as their best: all those plush, soppingly soft edges, politely percolating, quasi-kraut-y grooves and Luke Temple's passably pretty vocals add up to something unremittingly ordinary and yet oddly, undeniably enchanting.

Sugarman 3
What The World Needs Now
[Soul/Funk]

Stepping away from his duties backing retro powerhouse Sharon Jones, in-demand Daptone saxman Neal Sugarman reconvened his long-mothballed Sugarman 3 for their first date in a decade, not so much updating as simply reinhabiting their quintessentially reverent take on a rather less-regarded strand of vintage soul: scorching, instrumental Hammond organ-led funk. What The World Needs Now (Daptone), complete with period-appropriate covers (JJ Jackson, The Standells, Jackie DeShannon) and equally hard-swinging originals, with moonlighting from several Dap-King cohorts, does its job and does it well, and that's surely enough to justify the title.

Rye Rye
Go! Pop! Bang!
[Dance/Hip-Hop]

Arriving after an absurd three-year-plus delay, Rye Rye's debut could've been a confused mess, watering down her Baltimore club roots with faceless club-pop bloat. Go! Pop! Bang! (Interscope/N.E.E.T.) has some of that – generic electro-house RedOne hook here, asinine Akon collab there (while DJ Blaqstarr's presence is sadly confined to the early singles appended to the deluxe edition) – but the pint-sized Charm City charmer hasn't exactly pulled a Nicki. Even the most brazen pandering just feels like more ammo for her unstoppable, gutter-ready dance arsenal, and Ryeisha brings enough on-the-mic spunk to more than hold her own, whether alongside M.I.A., Robyn, or the frickin' Vengaboys.

Saint Etienne
Words And Music By Saint Etienne
[Pop]

Always a quintessential record-geek band, St. Etienne have created the quintessential record-geek record in Words and Music by Saint Etienne (Universal), which is basically the LP equivalent of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity: a loving, detailed celebration of pop fandom, from 7"s to headphones to internet message boards; from breathless anticipation of a long-awaited concert (in "Tonight," one of several glistening, prototypically perfect dance-pop singles) to poplife's deep, burning questions: "when I'm married and have kids, will Marc Bolan still be so important?" In this context, the answer can only be a resounding yes.

Garbage
Not Your Kind Of People
[Rock/Pop]

Garbage will never be trendy again. Though their considerable influence on post-millennial pop (from Evanescence and the Veronicas to electro-clash and Crystal Castles) remains largely unacknowledged, Shirley Manson and co. are hardly concerned with pushing things forward. And that works out just fine on Not Your Kind of People (Stunvolume), a tart, toothsome comeback that revisits their signature cocktail of rock crunch and spiky electro-pop fizz, finding Manson's stingray voice and the band's trusty/timeworn box of production tools as sharp as ever, and nails a sweet spot that remains surprisingly potent.

Squarepusher
Ufabulum
[Electronic]

Drill'n'squelch lifer Tom Jenkinson has a knack for uncompromisingly cerebral, idea-stuffed productions that can also be uniquely, deliriously enjoyable – at least, when he so chooses. Ufabulum (Warp), his twelfth-ish Squarepusher full-length, comes on like a return to form after recent ditherings, frontloaded with some characteristically glorious masterclasses in manic, melody-maxed jitter-funk. But –lest we get too comfortable – the album's back half grows increasingly hard-edged and forbidding, plunging into bone-chilling sci-fi soundscapes and jackhammering acid rampages. Happy nightmares, ravebot.

Ursprung
s/t
[Electronic]

Having essentially perfected his brand of voluptuous, ambient-inclined techno back on 2007's aptly-named This Bliss, with only minor modifications to his sound since, Henrik Weber, aka Pantha du Prince, has found a fresh way forward in illuminative, symbiotic collaboration with the producer and experimentalist Stephan Abry. The duo's self-titled LP as Ursprung (Dial) is a textural odyssey: patient, even placid, but far from static – and an intimate, intricate examination of the possibilities of guitar-derived sound, billowing expansively within and beyond Weber's ringing, broad-vista'd beatscapes. Among other things, it makes for ideal cloud-watching music.

Rufus Wainwright
Out Of The Game
[Pop]

Rufus Wainwright, swoon-worthy as he is, is no stranger to indulgent excess, which may be why resolutely populist slickster Mark Ronson turns out to be such an excellent foil. In Out of The Game (Decca), the pair have delivered easily Wainwright's brightest, most focused outing in ages; playful, tender, and full of knowing nods to '70s AOR balladry, glam, and smooth country-soul. To anybody scared off during Rufus' decade-long peregrination away from the classicist popsmithery of his first two albums: come back for this one.

Patrick Watson
Adventures In Your Own Backyard
[Pop/Folk]

Much like current tourmate Andrew Bird (they hit a sold-out Union Transfer tonight), Montreal's Patrick Watson traffics in dreamy chamber-folk where the songs generally seem to be in service of the swoony, shimmering prettiness, rather than vice versa. Adventures In Your Own Backyard (Secret City), liltingly calm despite its bevy of sonic trinketry – mariachi trumpets, plenty of pizzicato strings and, naturally, whistling – casts a rich, emotionally pungent fairy-tale spell that's readily bewitching even as it feels naggingly evanescent and insubstantial.

Justin Townes Earle
[Folk/Country]
concert preview

Justin Townes Earle wears his pedigree, and bears his cross, in his very name. His dad's Steve Earle, and he's just got to open his mouth for you to know he's entirely his father's son. The Townes, naturally, is for Van Zandt, Texas' outsider-songwriter patron-saint. At thirty, Justin's got plenty enough hard living under his belt to earn the grit in his voice and the wrenching ache in his blues, and four albums into his career he's come a considerable way toward living up to those legendary namesakes. Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot) – it reads as cocky, but it comes across as terminally unselfassured – is a mostly subdued, heartworn affair, sometimes dolled up with Memphis-soul horns, sometimes fingerpicked and laid bare, but long on knowing tale-telling and unstinting intimacy.

bonus JTE blurb (written for Magnet Mag's year-end list)

It's been a fine year for brass sections, which helped bolster excellent new albums by The Mountain Goats and David Byrne & St. Vincent, among others, but some of the loveliest, most understated rock'n'roll horn playing came on this quiet gem, Justin Townes Earle's fifth record in six years and maybe his finest yet.  The album's mouthful of a title can't quite decide whether it wants to be cocky or resigned and fatalistic, but these songs definitely tend toward the latter course – indeed, he could've just stuck with the title's first three words, which become something of an implicit mantra: it's in the rueful refrain of "Won't Be The Last Time," it's the counsel he gives to a hard-up friend, vainly hoping for her life to improve, in "Unfortunately, Anna"; it's the subtext to Earle's repeatedly declared intentions to be "a better man."  Nothing's gonna change – except love, of course, which can and probably will go sour.  The horns, however, help keep things from getting all too forlorn; softening the hard edges of his broken-hearted blues, cushioning the blows and lending a warmth and looseness to the occasional uptempo diversions – reckless rave-up "Baby's Got A Bad Idea" and the sprightly, soul-soaked "Memphis in the Rain" – as much as the bleary-eyed ballads that make up the bulk of the album.

The Shins
concert preview
[Indie Pop]

The Shins were one of the foundational acts of 21st century indie rock; undeniably beloved and equally, in their mild-mannered, unshowy way, influential. But somehow that status grew tenuous, as nine years passed with only a single album release, and it started seeming distressingly plausible to have missed the fact of their existence altogether – particularly since their appeal was always so inherently personal, even insular. Port of Morrow (Columbia/Aural Apothecary) changes all that: not just a triumphant return, it's easily the band's biggest, most confident-sounding record yet, broadening their sonic and stylistic reach, gussied up with a pop-gloss that might have been anathema in their early days, but which in no way diminishes its fundamental Shins-y-ness: James Mercer's winsome vocals and winnowing melodies are, if anything, even more inviting and ingratiating than ever.

Rusko
[Dubstep/Dance]
concert preview
At this rate, it seems like dubstep's going to go pop well before pop goes dubstep. Either way, look for Leeds-born producer Rusko to be on the frontlines of the revolution: he's already worked with Britney Spears (and remixed Adele and M.I.A., among others), and he's also generally credited (and/or blamed) as an originator of the visceral, virulent, mid-range heavy strain (so-called "brostep") that's been massively popularized by statesiders such as Skrillex. What's mildly mystifying is why the genre's caught on with the US masses only in such an extreme, aggressive form, rather than – for instance – any of the myriad crossover-friendly iterations Rusko sets forth on the deliriously entertaining Songs (Mad Decent), which plays like UK version of Major Lazer's hyper-stuffed hedonistic excess, flitting through candy-coated takes on 2-step, jungle, bassline, rave, reggae (dub, roots and dancehall), electro-R'n'B and thumping, diva-fied club pop, each one amply laced with juddering half-time drops and big, buzzy warbly wobbles.
 
Simian Mobile Disco
[Dance/Electronic]
concert preview

After launching their dance music career as indie-friendly purveyors of brashly anthemic, vocal-heavy electro-house, erstwhile Brit-poppers James Ford and James Shaw performed a startling volte-face in 2010 with the austere, anxiety-ridden Delicacies, a stark defection into hard-edged long-form electronica. The duo's latest iteration effects something of a compromise, synthesizing the divergent impulses of their career to date. Unpatterns (Wichita) – whose title is, incidentally, either ironic or a bald-faced lie – retains its predecessor's percolating, pointillist minimalism and track-based focus, but trades the seedily sinister tone for something more generous and enveloping (if not exactly sunny), while echoing their early work's poppier leanings with a handful of mesmeric, soulful vocal samples (a la Primitive Radio Gods/Teengirl Fantasy) that are massaged, warped and woven into the album's sinuous, oscillating moiré.

Kindness
[Disco/Not Disco]
concert preview

A title like World, You Need A Change of Mind (Casablanca/Terrible) suggests some kind of bold, galvanizing declaration of intent – or at least some entertainingly grandiose bravado – but Adam Bainbridge doesn't even seem to have his own mind made up. Our formal introduction to the politely ballyhooed Kindness, nom du disco of said London/Berlin-based aspiring auteur du jour, is a thoroughly puzzling listen. He's plainly shooting for a certain timeless, oil-slick stylishness, but the juxtaposition of post-chillwave mood pieces, narcotized R&B and half-baked hipster bait (a drably effete, electro-shuffling Replacements cover) with full-on retro-disco (and freestyle!) revamps fails to cohere or leave much sense of personality, vocal or otherwise. But who knows; maybe, somehow – with a seven-piece band in tow – it'll all make more sense on the dancefloor. Anyhow, he's sure got Dave P. excited.

Spiritualized
[Rock/"Gospel"]
concert preview

Nobody makes music like Jason Pierce. In the twenty-some years since the dissolution of his pioneering Spacemen 3, the by-now-iconic British rocker – sometimes styled as J. Spaceman, although his legal surname seems just as apropos of his music's emotional effect – has developed, honed, perfected, and then repeatedly revisited (with considerable fidelity, though varying degrees of potency), essentially a single, singular psych-gospel-soul-folk-blues-space-drone-minimalist-maximalist rock template, a seemingly unsustainable approach whose elemental urgency, bombastic transcendence and unapologetic excess are nearly captured by the aptly overblown name, Spiritualized, he invented for the long-running band of which he is effectively the sole true member. Sweet Heart, Sweet Light (Fat Possum/Double Six), album number seven, is no exception. It's as familiar and predictable as an old drug: clearly Pierce has no new musical surprises for us at this point – but it's also the most enjoyable, and certainly the most archetypal Spiritualized record in ages. And it's a high no-one else can supply.

The Dandy Warhols
[Rock]
concert preview

From the Woody Guthrie-referencing title and artwork, and the inclusion of a straight-faced (if playfully skronky) cover of Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons," you might suppose that This Machine (The End) would be the Dandy Warhols' stab at a folk-influenced record. But while it's probably their most earnest and reflective full-length to date, this is much less a conceptual foray than a consolidation of established stylistic terrain for the increasingly guttural Courtney Taylor-Taylor and his Portlandian posse. Happily so, 'cause the Dandys are always better when checking their pretensions at the door and honing in on their strengths; in this case, churning out tight, chunky, middlebrow guitar-pop and the occasional scuzzy, Velvets-indebted rocker. Even the album's requisite psych-drone excursion is kept relatively concise at under six minutes, though you can bet that'll merely be a jumping-off point for live renditions.

Ty Segall/White Fence
[Rock]
concert preview

Philadelphia makes a solid showing, but the buzz is that – befitting its lysergic legacy – San Francisco's got the liveliest neo-psychedelic rock scene going these days, one which values punkish, ramshackle energy and loose, meandering tunefulness over anything approximating textural subtlety. It's also a hotbed of hyper-prolificacy: of tomorrow night's ambassadors, each the one-man project of an inveterate collaborationist, Ty Segall has unleashed something like six solo records, plus innumerable team-ups and EPs, of scuzzy, in-the-red noise assaults (and the occasional gentler, prettier psych-folk ditty) since 2008 – and he's got another one due next month. Meanwhile, White Fence, aka Timothy Presley (L.A.-living, but indelibly Bay-area-bred) is something of a drippier, hippie-er Bob Pollard, churning out an endless stream of lo-fi warbles and baubles, like those on the brand-new, two-volume Family Perfume (Woodsist). Oh yeah, they've also got a killer new joint effort: Hair (Drag City), an eight-song, a twenty-six-minute sunburst that nails a sloppy, Nuggets-y stoner-psych sweet spot, somehow in seemingly constant spitting distance from both George Harrison and the Stooges.

Lower Dens/Violens
concert preview
[Indie Rock]

A nicely complementary (and rhyming!) team-up for fans of serious-minded (but not too serious) guitar music; two bands who draw heavily from slightly different strains of what they used to call college rock. Baltimore foursome Lower Dens, fronted by the accomplished if rather diffident guitarist/songwriter Jana Hunter, expand and buff up their dark, moody, and atmospheric post-punk/new wave approach on their second disc, Nootropics (Ribbon), which feels sprightlier than their 2010 debut if just as deadpan. Brooklyn's Violens, meanwhile, have trimmed down the slightly bewildering array of stylistic detours which peppered their own 2010 debut, to yield True (Slumberland), a warmly engaging and likable (if occasionally over-aggressive) collection of classically-appointed, crisply reverberant jangle-pop.

Spacehog
[Rock]
concert preview

Another anomaly in the gloriously anomaly-filled landscape of late-nineties alternative radio, Spacehog's 1996 one-hit "In The Meantime" was a satisfying splash of falsetto-fied glam-rock revivalism from a band that never completely got their due (their faux-pretentious follow-up flop, The Chinese Album, is fairly ripe for reappraisal.) Surely, not a band anybody expected to have a third act, this long after the fact. And yet: they're back...from outer space (ostensibly anyway – actually they've been busy divorcing Liv Tyler and spatting with Joaquin Phoenix.) And they've come in peace. The forthcoming As It Is On Earth – the first outing in over a decade from the British-born, New York-based outfit (which now includes multi-instrumentalist, former Cibo Matto member and general NYC musician-about-town Timo Ellis) – reveals that Royston Langdon's Bowie-lite baritone remains delightfully intact, as does the band's crucial cognizance that the glam-critical importance of being earnest doesn't mean you can't also get a little goofy.
originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

SXSW 2012: Saturday

Justin Townes Earle, 1pm, Austin Convention Center Day Stage
In the interest of taking some advantage of the industry "trade show" part of the conference – in the convention center, where only really special people with badges (like me) are allowed – I rushed to try to catch an interview session with Norwegian hitmakers StarGate (the guys behind "Irreplaceable," "Firework" and about half of Rihanna's hits.) But it was cancelled. So instead I sat in on a couple of random panel sessions with assorted industry types talking about industry stuff (mobile apps, clickthrough conversions, the cloud, listening to N*SYNC in their car in high school...)

And then I wandered into a set by this Nashville songwriter guy – I'd heard the name, but don't they all have names like that? – which was phenomenal. Just, very obviously, the real deal: deft fingerpicking acoustic blues, richly gritty voice, witty poignant wryly observational songwriting, all that good stuff. Also, he has impossibly long legs. Put me in mind of Townes van Zandt (whom he reverentially quoted at one point) or a young Springsteen, but most of all Steve Earle. Come to find out, just now: Steve's his dad. Duh.

Beat Connection, 2pm, Hype Hotel
I came to Hype Hotel – magical blog-sponsored land of free vodka, free (well, for tips) chair massages and free weird, nasty Taco Bell tacos made out of Doritos (and also normal soft tacos, which I'm sheepish to report accounted for about 80% of my food intake today) – to see the super neat Canadian future-electro-pop duo New Look (one of six "New ____" artists listed in the booklet, though that's nothing next to the twelve "Young ___"s, plus three "Yung"s.) But apparently they were never even in Austin. So I got this extremely young-looking Seattle band instead. About what you'd expect from a band named after an LCD Soundsystem song, if on the sunnier end of that spectrum. Ironically, their beats were kind of disconnected – there were some issues with drummer/drum machine sync. Also their lyrics were lame. Pass.

THEESatisfaction, 2pm, Scoot Inn
Way more like it. Two-woman hip-hop tag-team (how often does that happen? does that ever happen?) and Shabazz Palaces besties, from "the top left," as they said. Similar arty/smarty vibe to Shabazz, but much less psych-addled and esoteric; way more accessible, melody-conscious, and just plain fun – hitting a tricky sweet spot between way-cooler-than-you'll-ever-be, don't-give-a-fuck detachment and casual, off-the-cuff relatability. Sweet moves (and afro) too.

Roach Gigz, 2:30pm, Scoot Inn
Before I had a chance to slip out, this hoodied San Francisco rapper dude bum-rushed the stage and commanded my absolute attention for a solid fifteen minutes (no small feat considering habitually ADD-prone SXSW mentality.) I don't think I've ever seen a rapper so dynamic in a literal, physically, kinetic sense – he didn't stop moving for an instant. And his constant, pro forma appeals for attention/energy/love from the crowd felt unusually deserved, and reciprocated.

SBTRKT, 2:15pm, Fader Fort
Just caught the tail, but then again it's just a couple guys with machines. Anyway, solid. "Wildfire" is a total jam. The "tribal" masks kind of looked like they were made from paper plates.

Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire, 3pm, Fader Fort
I don't know what the hell just happened, but suddenly he (and full entourage of maybe eight dudes) was in the middle of the crowd, about two feet away from me, inciting general ruckus and spilling whiskey all over the place. Got some sweet photos. I think this was like a twelve-minute set.

Deerhoof, 3pm, 1100 Warehouse
Sure, why not! Who doesn't love a good Deerhoof? They bashed and popped and did their crazy, inimitable thing. They did that "panda panda panda" song, and then Busdriver jumped on stage and rapped really really fast on top of it. Delicious!

2:54, 3:30pm, 1100 Warehouse
"Dark" rock. "Atmospheric." Whatever. Maybe if it wasn't the middle of the afternoon.

Main Attraktionz, 3:45pm, Scoot Inn
More Bay Area hip-hop (Oakland, in this case), of a somewhat woozier, snoozier variety. There were a lot of people on stage but I think the actual Attraktionz were the two guys standing on top of something up front: one bearded, shirtless, skinny white guy and one black guy with a shirt on, who spent the whole time with their arms around each others' shoulders. Which was very sweet. They seemed to lack some self-confidence though...they kept asking the crowd who was coming on next (it was Kreayshawn), and then they asked "So, are we aiiight?' ...or are we good." Um. I gave the polite response, but the jury's still out.

Tanlines, 4:00pm, 1100 Warehouse
Tanlines are dears, and their new record is solid (or, at least, the single is.) But Tanlines are all about treble (abnormally, for a dance act, but they pull it off well) and the acoustics of the Mess With Texas 1100 Warehouse is all about bassy bassy bass. So that's a fail. Plus, all their songs sound the same (or, at least, the one and a half that I stayed for did.)

Poliça, 4:00pm, Clive Bar
I guess these guys are even buzzier than I realized. ("Justin Vernon's favorite band!!") Well, they are good. Possibly much better than good, I couldn't quite tell. I wish I'd gotten here sooner, as it took a while to get inside (partly for shaved-ice-related reasons); what had sounded from outside like very pretty, mellow chill-out/trip-hop music emerged or developed into something much rockier and more energetic once I'd wormed up to the side of the stage for the end of the set. They have two drummers, for one thing. Basically it seemed cool, but I'm going to have to spend some time with the record to fully decide.

Polarsets, 5:00pm, Cive Bar
Only maybe the fifth entire set I've seen at SX, and the first time I got bored doing so. (Though not unpleasantly so.) This is a very nice-seeming young trio from Newcastle, England, who play sunny, tropical-ish indie-dance-pop – a la Friendly Fires or Tanlines or St. Lucia – but with more of a lyrical/song-based (though not necessarily melody/hook-based) focus. Not that I really caught any lyrics, though the song titles included "Tropics" and "Sunshine Eyes," so that probably gives you an idea. The lead singer has an improbably high, interestingly-textured voice that reminded me very much of somebody – Chris Martin, maybe?

Of Montreal, 6:00pm, Clive Bar
Felt some SX guilt for deciding to see this, and sticking around so long for it (other options included catching the awesome, food-obsessed rapper Action Bronson, or a maybe over-ambitious third attempt at Grimes) – since I have seen of Montreal plenty of times, though not in ages. But whatever. It was great to be in a crowd full of fans, just there to see one of their favorite bands play a concert. This was a seriously of Montreal-loving crowd – they sang along to every word, fist-pumped every beat, and half of them were dressed as crazy and colorfully as the band themselves. (Another half were of course wearing green for, as Best Coast called it later on, St. Party's Day.)

And it was a seriously crowd-pleasing set: nothing but hits, or more specifically nothing from outside of their 2005-2007 apex of popularity. They kicked off with the two big ones from The Sunlandic Twins ("The Party's Crashing Us" and "Wraith Pinned To The Mist"), and the rest of the set was entirely drawn from '07's Hissing Fauna..., including set-closing epic "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal," which ended with, first, guitarist BP Helium crowdsurfing, and then his guitar crowdsurfing by itself, being "played" by the whole audience. Personally, I'd have loved to hear at least some of their more recent stuff, but I was probably a minority there. (Nobody does encores at SXSW, but it's hard to imagine a crowd more doggedly insistent in their clamoring for one. I pitched in with the mini-cowbell I had picked up earlier in the day – inventive swag this year!)

Rittz/Gangsta Boo/Stalley, 7:00pm, Fader Fort
Dinner might have been wise, but the mystery of the 8:00 Fader Fort "special guest" (the characteristically wild rumors swirling included Drake, which, basically, I would have died) not to mention my handy-dandy badge-carrying ability to bypass a monster line outside the bulging venue, were just a bit too tempting. When the outrageously red-haired speed-rapper Rittz (who sounded like an angrier Yelawolf) and former Three 6 Mafiosa/Yelawolf co-sign Gangsta Boo showed up for brief sets in the 7:00 "TBA" slot, I was figuring it was gonna be Eminem (who'd turned up the previous night at 50 Cent's Austin Musical Hall show.) But then Stalley, the self-described "newest" member of Maybach Music took the stage, and stayed on the stage, and stayed on the stage – his beard may be, on a technical level, more impressive than Rick Ross's, but it's nowhere near as lovably iconic or charismatic – and it became clear that, once he finally left, we would be graced with the presence of...



Rick Ross, 8:15pm, Fader Fort
Yep. This happened. Totally ridiculous, totally awesome. Couldn't see half the time because of all the cameras/phones in the air, but I had worked my way maybe three-quarters of the way to the stage by this point, and the energy in the crowd was just delirious. Early in the set, after a couple cuts from his recent mixtape, he whipped through four massive hits ("Hustlin," "All I Do Is Win," "B.M.F.", "I'm On One") in the space of fifteen minutes. I guess, just because he could?

Devon Sproule, 8:55pm, Austin Java
I can't actually tell you about this set, because I wasn't there. What I can tell you is that Devon Sproule is a wonderful wonderful songwriter and one of the most endearing and talented performers I've ever had the pleasure to see, and that I biked fifteen hilly minutes to a semi-remote part of town (well, far outside the SXSW hubbub anyway) to see her, only to learn that it was the wrong Austin Java location, and then, another twenty-plus minutes and some bad directions later, to the correct Austin Java location, where Devon had just finished her set and was loading the car. And I chatted a while with her also-charming, also-a-songwriter husband, Paul Currerri, who told me that they'd just moved to Austin (from Berlin) this week. So hopefully they'll be playing some more, better appointed and better publicized shows at future SXSWs, and hopefully then the (impressively comprehensive, but nevertheless fallible) Austin Showlist website will list the address correctly. (And/or I will remember double-check their info.)

Django Django, 10:00pm, Latitude 30
Buzzy Brits, playing to a sardine-packed room of badgers. Energetic, danceable, slightly synthy rock, with plenty of texture and personality...made me think of Hot Chip, XTC, and other bands I really like. Also, for some reason, their vocal harmonies reminded me a lot of the Dandy Warhols. Not all of the songs made an instant connection, but a few of them did, and I bet their album (if it exists yet) will be very worth hearing. They also had a really big tambourine.

Fanfarlo, 10:00pm, Hype Hotel
I've reviewed two Fanfarlo albums now, and I'm not sure I could recall any of their songs if you asked me to. But they're always perfectly enjoyable when I'm actually listening to them, and they really sounded fantastic live. Epic, anthemic – but somehow not affected or overblown – indie rock stuff, with trumpet and saxophone and violin and big blue lights. Plus, they were adorably Scottish and polite. Nice one.

Best Coast, 11:00pm, Hype Hotel
Bethany Cosentino as a person is as refreshingly straight-shooting and pretense-free as her music, which as she performs it live doesn't even come off as cutesy, just matter-of-fact: she wishes her cat could talk, okay? She made no bones about being pissed off by lame, unenthusiastic SXSW audiences, and asked us if we could just be cool and party with her, for a change. The crowd responded by demanding that she chug the cup of white whiskey she'd been making skeptical remarks about throughout the set. (Meanwhile her guitarist, silent Bobb Bruno, was tossing back a handle of Jim Beam.) She was almost apologetic about playing new songs ("four in a row, is that okay?") but they were some of the highlights of the set, even sandwiched between all the first album faves. (The forthcoming Best Coast album shows, to me, a marked step up in her songwriting and sound – I'm expecting some good things for her this year.)

Wavves, 12:00am, Hype Hotel
Then I got a chair massage from the very cool Kate, which was great except for when Wavves started playing partway through it.



Jacques Greene, 12:40am, Barcelona
SXSW really does not do electronic music well. I guess that's the USA for you. Montrealer Jacques Greene is probably doing as much as anybody these days to underscore the shared fabric of bass music (dubstep/funky/house/whatever) and R&B, and this DJ set was a beautiful illustration of that connection, encompassing everything from Jackmaster to Burial to Moloko's "Sing it Back" and Storm Queen's masterful 2011 soulful house epic "It Goes On," right alongside Waka Flocka Flame, a funky Destiny's Child remix, and Drake/The-Dream's "Shut It Down" (with Greene grinning and singing along to every word) – all in a tight, seamless forty-minute set, pretty much the most exciting, energetic set of dance music you could ask for. (Though as far as I could tell he didn't drop any of his own excellent productions.) But the venue was a cramped, anonymous basement bar, and the crowd, despite several pockets of serious, enthusiastic dancing, seemed inappropriately diffuse and indifferent, mostly hook-up-seeking locals and St. Party's Day revelers who just happened to be there.

Toddla T, 1:00am, Latitude 30
Around the corner, Toddla T seemed be on a similar tip in his DJ set, albeit more populist in his selections (while I was in there SBTRKT's "Wildfire" and Big Sean's "A$$.") Not quite the party I was looking for though.



XV, 1:00am, Hype Hotel
Was on my way to check Flosstradamus but got distracted and pleasantly side-tracked by a prominent Pixies sample blaring out of ye olde Hype Hotel (and, okay, I was running pretty low on tacos.)   Such was my introduction to the very silly, young Wichita, KS (?!) rapper XV. Chipper, vaguely nerdy pop-rap, Chiddy Bang kind of thing. Mindless fun, and sure, why not, as his set-closing single has it, "Awesome." Or something.

Mujuice, 2:00am, Hype Hotel
Never heard of this guy either – I didn't even know who it was when he was playing, as it wasn't listed or anything. But I was pretty impressed by his music, which I was having a hard time slotting into any of the usual electronic-music subdivisions. Subtle, stylish, danceable. Apparently he's "one of the cornerstones of today’s Russian electronica." Okay, cool.

And that was SXSW 2012. Cruised around for awhile (both through the streets and on twitter) trying to track down an afterparty, but it seemed like things had pretty much wrapped up. Diplo was in New Orleans, Rick Ross was allegedly already back in Miami. And it ends, not with a bang, but a well-deserved sleep.