stop-gap song-gab

just taking a little break from writing about music for that other place (most recently a bio and two reviews on sway - not yet pubbed but watch that link) to write about music here for a change. sidebar updated to include links to the old podcast posts. (i'd almost forgotten i'd started to do that. never fear, i've already got an idea for a new one: expect it later this week! ha, i mean decade!) also, some new links that i won't have time to fully follow, and a ish-ton of new titles in the acquisitions dept. flick, did i really buy/earn/acquire forty-seven new records in october? what the christ?! no wonder it's eternal! so you can see why i haven't been able to think of anything to write about here lately.

and that's not counting my prodigal/prodigious itunes/download influx lately - i'm still in the midst of processing new/ish albums by [in stupid lacitebahpla order] tunng, tmbg [bonus disc], the veronicas, the mitchell brothers, the clientele, the avett brothers, susumu yokota, sugababes, studio, sloan, skye sweetnam, royksopp, roisin murphy, radiohead, pole, paramore, pantha du prince, panda bear, minor majority, lucky soul, lil wayne, lethal bizzle, les savy fav, kompakt, kathy diamond, jens lekman, jay-z, iron + wine, helios, colleen, cassius, britney spears, black milk, beirut, amerie, aly & aj, aesop rock, and 65daysofstatic. er, among others. (and that's just the '07 stuff: new years' coming soon y'all - have you got your listing brain in gear?) (and a couple of those emboldments are based on a single serious listen, or even less - many of the others i've barely begun to graze.) back to the racket, basically. but it's been good to me, thistime, thusfar. guess i'll be reporting back on these... all in due time.

i have in fact managed to process more of that october overload than you might be imagining, though there's certainly a ways to go - i thought i could point to a few recordings that have stood out in recent weeks enough to achieve some prominence in my headspace - many of them, as it happens, on the older side of things. i'd post mp3s but i've been at a total loss for a decent server lately (free or otherwise, just so long as it works - let me know if you have suggestions.) couple youtube links tho:

"been it" - the cardigans
i know, it's pretty ridiculous that i didn't own first band on the moon until now (after all, it's officially a 1st-tier album by a 1st-tier band within the swedish pop/rock category - shhh i don't own any ace of base either, but that's also nothing a 99¢ bin somewhere isn't just waiting to fix.) guess everybody else had their fill of it about a decade ago (!), whereas i, c. 1996, was about a month late in jumping on the odelay bandwagon, which meant i lost out on the chance to catch the cards' opening slot on that beck tour which easily makes my missed-concert-regrets top 5. (this is in 8th grade mind you.) had things been different, my swede-tooth phase might have arrived significantly earlier - or not. actually, i was hepped to life a few years later, via "carnival" and "gordon's gardenparty" on my first girlfriend's first mixtape (aw), but never fully completely embraced it past a few songs.

so anyway, i had a pretty good idea of what i was in for when i finally snagged fbotm (for only 50¢!) at circle thrift the other week, but i don't think i fully anticipated just how much unmitigated poptastic brilliance it contains. of course i knew and loved "lovefool" for the perfecto-popslice it is (covered it in a college band, even, and no-way ironically), but it's almost diminished in its album context: among its less polished peers, it's so seamlessly shiny that it sounds sarcastic, revealed to be the snide euro-pop caricature it obviously always was - albeit note-perfect enough to outclass the genuine article even as it mocks it. but it's the weird, complicated, elegant, almost grotesque, blissfully jaded constructions - "losers," the "iron man" reinvention, "your new cuckoo" - that elevate this disc to the height of pop/rock in the most literal sense of that usually glossed-over term - or, better - art-pop, wherein not one iota of the pop is sacrificed, and yet it just bleeds archly artless artifice.

most of all, it's "been it" - perfectly perfect pop, with about four times its share of hooks, but more than that, so inventive in every direction - i could dissect practically every second and come out gleaming and beaming - it's like the breeders "cannonball" like that - but, i hazard, better? just a couple - that indelible opening, synch'd bass and bass-drum pick-up fill before it bursts into full-on cooing pop. the varied hesitations in the deceptively arhythmic verse riff [0:35]. fake-out slope-rhyme of "sister" with "mistre-ess." the alarm clock at [2:13]. the seemingly antithetical verse (crunchy rock sparseness) and chorus (fleshy pop swoon) unexpectedly merging [3:20] for a tantalizing moment (rok gtr + pop vox) before the entropic, unspiralling breakdown. whew. and all of it, of course, lofted heavenward by nina persson's gossamer croon, the band's truly unshakable asset, in finest feather here.

this has been my dishwashing album of choice lately (along with in rainbows), and that's the one that keeps sending me back for the replay button. the feel-good dishwashing hit of the fall! yeah i know it's old news - shut up. at this rate i'm going to have to actually investigate those later-day cardigans records that i'd always passed over dubiously...until then, though.

"one sound" - knife in the water
awright. already wrote about this one. maybe you didn't notice though, plus i thought it belonged in this round-up. could've come up with another of their tunes to write about - the album keeps going and growing on me; "seat of pity" has been in my head plenty, and i went and got earned myself their later cut the cord album too, which promises to be just as enthralling. but this'll save me some work. here's what i wrote:

"dusty semi-country minimalism. nine minutes plus. same progression just repeated and repeated, sometimes with verses. organ harmonizations just so-slightly off, never quite resolving they way they should, but growing familiar enough that you almost don't notice - the unsettling rendered inconspicuous through desensitization. 'i want to fall right back to sleep/to dive back in the sheets.' hypnotic."

and it's still just as powerfully intense. between these guys, okkervil (new album very nice), and spoon (obv.), i'm cultivating some major affection for austinites lately, and looking to expand - def. intrigued by what i hear about future clouds and radar (and cotton mather, of which that's an offshoot.) go tx!

"can i change my mind" - tyrone davis
got this a few months back but it just keeps getting better. totally my serendipitous soul find of the year - and not from one of those collector-cheatin' rare-groove compilations i'm so ardently ambivalent about neither - just a budget-quality reissue i stumbled across in a random $2.99 bin in boulder. the whole album's sweet - "knock on wood" gets reinvented as a ballad, the arrangements throughout are consistently stellar, even when the songs sometimes dip below that mark - but it's plain to see why the title cut was the single, and apparently a respectable hit, though mostly lost to history, at least for folks like me.

it locks right off into a loping, almost mellow funk groove, with a nimble, rubbery bassline and chunks of guitar hittin' on the 2 so fat you could slice 'em - plus another guitar licking out effortlessly spidery spangles. and the horns - a single unison swell, repeated once up an octave, and then retreat, to make room for mr. davis' achingly langorous entrance on the vocal. the way he yawnily slides into that opening line - "...aaw, she didn't bat an eye" - is just priceless. ditto his smooth semi-crack on the word "time" at [1:14]. aw shucks. so gooey.

an intriguing premise too - it's nothing new under the soul sun for him to be lamenting his lapses that lost him his love, realizing it only too late - but the way he asks the title question, so innocently, as though he'd be doing her the favor, when clearly it's her mind that would need the changing. sly, kinda, but seductive. ooh, and check the reggae version by mr. mittoo, too.

marshall crenshaw - marshall crenshaw
part of my ongoing campaign to get more comfortable or at least better acquainted with the [non-synthpop, non-talking heads] 1980s, partially sparked by my reading of this fascinating, smartly-written book, whose most substantial contribution to my understanding of the t-heads was a historical contextualization by means of occasionally interjected news-headline highlight reels, pop'n'politics anecdotage, and downtown-scene local color. also part of my ongoing campaign to get more familiar with more singer-songwriter types, if nothing else so that i can have more coherent things to say (and examples to give) in situations like that knotty wrangling with folk songwriting i was doing a few posts ago.

the same (the former, esp.) is true of the feelies [crazy rhythms, 1980] and aztec camera [high land, hard rain, 1983] albums i also picked up recently, and scritti politti before that - of that bunch, crenshaw is clearly the least post-punk (ergo least punk) and most songwriterly - not sure if he quite fits into the "new pop" rubric with which i'm haphazardly lumping the others, but whatever. i've known for a long time that i would like this - it's just been a question of whether i'd go with the readily available original release or hold out for the spennier rhino bonus-tracks reissue: i didn't. actually i don't think i really knew who he was until tara mentioned him, with vague disinterest, as somebody her dad liked - even though i feel like my dad might have one of his albums, maybe even this one.

right, so it's very obviously dad-rock - there was probably no disputing that even at the time - but let's not forget that it's still rock (it came out in 1982, the year of my birth - according to amg "a brief, exhilarating moment in between the fall of disco and the rise of MTV, when the eternal verities of real rock & roll broke through once again.") it reminds me, more than anything, of the likes of joe jackson and graham parker (and oh yeah robert gordon duh - elvis c. was never this prosaic), though not as punkily disaffected as either of them ("cynical girl"'s lyrics notwithstanding) - especially the way he talks about 'girls' (might as well spell it 'gurls') girls girls, walkin' down the street [q.v. "pretty girls," "local girls"], feels like a direct lineage from the beach boys and big star. is it just me or do people like this no longer get away with making reference to 'gurls' anymore in such a flip, factual manner?

anyhoo, peep it it pops. (obviously, btw, what this really is is power-pop, 'nuff said.) i couldn't choose a favorite track to single out for this - "rocking around in nyc" has one of the nicer unanticipated harmonic moves (the "...she's facing disaster" bit); the groovy "there she goes again" has been known to course through my head in the mornings, compelling me to put the album back on; "someday, someway" is a perfectly sensible single choice with swell harmonies - though in general i like the rootsy-cutesy rockabilly cuts less than the more straight-forward rockers (although honestly the best thing on here might be the cover of arthur alexander's "soldier of love," because that song is just so awesome and it's a pretty good cover.) which, ultimately, is kind of the problem - marshall crenshaw is a triumph of formalism, and everything on it shines with wholly admirable, consistent craftsmanship, but not with the spark of truly inspired, individuated songs-qua-songs. still craftsmanship is something - you certainly don't get it this good too often. remember, i like formalism.

[eta: if only marshall crenshaw were a brit (bloody sounds like one innit?) he would get some coolness points for being pub-rock, which is clearly what this is, except that it's american. nevermind that pub-rock is like the most dad-rock thing conceivable, it's still cool because it begat brinsley schwarz who nick lowe who begat elvis costello, or something like that. right? i need to investigate it more, but first somebody needs to make the early nick lowe albums available/affordable. obviously it should/would be yep roc, who are his current label and who just reissued robyn hitchcock's catalog and billy bragg's before that. ok?]

transient random-noise bursts with announcements - stereolab
i don't have anything to say about the music on this yet, except that it's slightly underwhelming so far (tim sendra don't fail me now), but now that i've finally got it, which means i've now completed my collection of classic-era (i.e. pre-cobra) 'lab proper full lengths (groop's an ep rite?), which for a long time didn't really seem possible (though as it turns out there are only five)...i thought i'd be justified in asking a question that has always bothered me about this album:

is it "[transient random]-[noise bursts with announcements]"

or is it "transient [random-noise] bursts with announcements"?

i like the latter better, i think, as a theoretical description of music (that there would "random-noise bursts", which happened to be transient, as the primary feature, followed by the announcements.) but the former kind of seems more likely? can't tell.

as far as more current stuff goes, well i will admit that skye sweetnam's "music is my boyfriend" (awesome video too), roisin murphy's "overpowered" (ditto), lethal bizzle's "police on my back," britney spears' "heaven on earth" (yeah, "piece of me" too but that's old hat) and the veronicas' "untouched" all remain pretty righteous. but y'all knew that right?

as rumored, the bonus disc to they might be giants' the else, entitled cast your pod to the wind, is pretty phenomenal ("why did you grow a beard," "brain problem situation," "i'm your boyfriend now," "employee of the month" = future classics), though despite being fluffier and fresher, it'd be hard to say it's actually better than the album proper. which is also quite good by the way.

oh yeah, and did i mention that i rather like this devon sproule character?

before and after eternity

lot been goin on. you can see by my (just, finally, updated, but already out-of-date) sidebar that i've been doing some diligent collecting these past months - i'll have plenty to say about many of those recent acquisitions (many of them excellent); hopefully i'll get around to saying it, for now the emboldening will have to suffice. i recently contributed what will likely be my last bits of semi-amateur music-scribing for a while, in the form of some blurbs for the styjuke's track-by-track dissection of the radio one. established 1967. album/covers series. not an overly worthwhile thing to write about - forty top uk chart acts covering songs from 1967-2006; even on such a grand scale, with a nearly limitless wealth of implied possibilities, these kinds of things seem almost guaranteed not to produce any music of lasting value - but an enjoyable project nonetheless.

stylus magazine and most of its satellites, including the singles jukebox, are shutting down after this wednesday. i've actually known this for a couple months from certain inside sources, but it seems to have been a successfully kept secret until very recently - quite an accomplishment in itself on the 'nets, which i take (maybe fancifully) as just a small indication
of how beloved and respected stylus was, by loyalists inside and out. to join the cortège of eulogists who will doubtless continue to fill the commentboxes (also here) for the next two days and beyond...i too am certainly going to miss stylus sorely - it has meant a great deal to me in the past three years or so, even if my tenure as a writer - first as staff reviewer, more recently an occasional jukebox blurbist - there was fairly undistinguished. [eh...well short anyway; re-reading my handful of contributions now i'm reminded that i can in fact write a pretty damn decent record review, in fine stylus style, when i can actually be bothered to take the time. this is probs the best thing i did for 'em, although i made it into their farewell roundup - to my surprise - via my rare, impassioned, lone comment on this piece. heh. i'm sort of touched.]

but as it happens i'm moving on to, i guess, semi-pro music-scribing, for the only outlet that rivals stylus for my attentions and affections...well actually, in case you haven't already guessed/don't know (and, er, if "you" care), i'll hold off on telling you where for another minute, 'til i'm actually published. though it did occur to me today (not entirely for the first time), that if i couldn't make a decent go of it as a music writer in an environment as welcoming and open-minded as stylus (albeit uncompensated), it's probably just not something i'm sufficiently compelled to do... eh, but here i am. so here i go.

folk
more i wanted to say about folk and songwriting. it keeps coming up - maybe one of those october things. was gonna eta that devon sproule piece below (which ended both before i'd gotten everything out and long after it should have) but better to just keep it flowin'. anyway the night after i wrote that i discussed those ideas, and extensions of them, with a friend who almost uncannily predicted several comparisons just before i drew them - the magnetic fields as exponents of what i'm calling classicist or formalist songwriting, and more interestingly joni mitchell as an analog/precedent for what devon does: as a songwriter/lyricist, but simultaneously as a vocalist/guitarist, because point being that their musical creations don't fit neatly within those lines; the elements all combine in idiosyncratic, virtuosic constructions that, though they could certainly be performed by others, would lose something integral in the translation.

we (my friend and i) mostly meant the joni of blue, i think, specifically - even as soon after that as court and spark, the music had moved well beyond what could straightly be called "folk," i think (and her writing was if anything less classicist, despite perhaps some literary formalism.) her earlier days of course had their share of classicism, or, at least, classics, in the trad-folk, campfire-sing sense. (not that even these entirely fit the straightforward, economical model of formalism i've been hawking.) (ok, i'm actually pretty ignorant of mitchell's music beyond those two albums and mingus, so i'll stop talking about her, and try to rectify that.)

it's not like devon's work is entirely lacking in formal structure, either - "let's go out," particularly, stands out as an excellent 32-bar aaba (one reviewer rightly pegs it as 'her own jazz standard.') and that's not to mention her earlier work either, the two albums she released, under her first name only, back we (she and i) were in our teens (i like how the amg reviewers point out that she's more like ani difranco than britney spears), in the immediately post-lilith era, when she was hanging with the likes of dave matthews band and, yknow, being a teenager - albums she seems to have (rather adorably; also understandably) attempted to bury. [a little bird told me that although she claims they're "out of print" to any prospective buyers, there are in fact has stacks of them in her mom's basement.]

i haven't heard them, so i don't know. but do i gather that one thing which sets her later "mature" [=early 20s] work apart is also the thing which most markedly separates it from blue-era joni: a pronounced rootsiness. which can be a stripe of authenticity, general speaking, but more specifically and germanely sets it up as folk music in a way that is more ambiguous with, e.g., blue (which could be called folk, but doesn't signify it nearly so overtly, and really oughtta be labeled "singer/songwriter" if anything should, since it practically originated s/s as we know it.) funny thing about that, actually - a modicum of country/blues/hillbilly/even jazz (in dev's case) signifiers (instrumentation, vocal stylings, general ramshackleness, what-have-you) helps to establish something as folk(s)y (those being musics of the people)...but too much of those things and you're already off in a different direction: genre. (i wanna say something like folk isn't so much a style as a mode, but i don't even really know what that means.)

and that's the thing about dev - she's got, if anything, more of that backwoods, ol'-timey flair than you could ask for (and with nary a hint of affect; lilith-pop closet-skeletons notwithstanding), and her songs fit beautifully into that aesthetic, in lyrical and musical content, but structurally they seem to be something fundamentally other - more in the realm of a artsy-poppy literary mitchell or newsom or will sheff (okkervil river) or maybe even springsteen (?) than a traditionalist/lyrical-minimalist like lucinda williams or patty griffin or ryan adams or perhaps loudon wainwright or ron sexsmith. which seems like something a little unique. at least i'm struggling to come up with parallels. erin mckeown comes to mind (as sharing a lot in common with devon), though distillation leans more formalist, grand is rockier, and i haven't heard her last couple.

what else? i'd come up with some other examples for the kind of songwriting i was and have been describing, in addition to stephin merrit, andrew gregory, carsie blanton, and perhaps john hiatt (whom i don't know well at all):
• edith frost (particularly her most recent album - but: she does a poor job of conveying that crucial 'folk' intimacy/rapport in concert - she just seems like such tentative a presence)
• much of beck's sea change album (in such marked contrast to most of his lyric-writing before or since as to arouse suspicion - which is partially why i've given him so much flak for it over the years...even though there are admittedly a couple gems. actually, his failure to connect convincingly live is probably more of the reason.)
• well john darnielle, indeed - albeit in style more often than substance (which is often more abstruse, but get lonely, especially, peels back those layers to become, by contrast, shocking in its starkness. and he certainly delivers the personal-magnetism goods live. he supposedly denies being "folk," but he can suck it.)
• some of will oldham's stuff. loudon, probably, but in a clunky/sappy way (eh, i just don't like him much.) maybe some early billy bragg (but i doubt it.)

but it's hard. none of these are stellar examples, and frankly what i'm getting at is something that probably happens pretty rarely, and probably never consistently across a whole body of work. i want to set out this dichotomy [succinct/effusive, structured/fluid, perspicacious/evocative, pithy/poetic, direct/discursive, universalist/idiosyncratic] that speaks in theory to my sense of what traditionalist folk writing, rigorously defined, wants to be (viz., the first of each binary in that list), but of course in practice most songwriting falls in between most if not all of these pairs of poles - a majority of good songwriting draws from both strains, intertwining as necessary. so it's hard to single out examples, particularly without actually discussing specific lyrics. and i'm thinking it's particularly hard to stick entirely within either column in a way that's both engaging (not boring) and effective (not pointless.) which may be why it's so impressive to hear either done well.

deejaying
i've been djing a bit. did one party last weekend (the night before mine), where there wasn't a whole lot of dancing, but what there was was enjoyable: first a cute couple grooving to motown; later the predictable whooping it up for madonna and prince - but they disappeared back into the kitchen when i slid that into some peppy italo; finally a bit of h.c.g.d.a. to harder-edged club pop and jungle/d&b schtuff - a guy who clearly knew told me i was "too good for my own good." awshux. it was one of my more fun, fluid, flawless recent sets if i do say so.

on saturday, the second of three costume parties this weekend (i barely noticed the music at the first, except for the romantics' funky "walking in my sleep" downstairs and old 97s upstairs), i djed what i knew would be the most rollicking dance-party since...the last time i played at the walton house - the dancers didn't disappoint. one of them asked me what the soul songs were that i played, so i e-mailed her this list:

laura lee - i need it just as bad as you
tyrone davis - can i change my mind?
tommy roe - sweet pea
stevie wonder - signed sealed delivered
temptations - i can't get next to you
sharon jones and the dap-kings - tell me
candi staton - i'd rather be an old man's sweetheart (than to be a young man's fool)
dusty springfield - lost
katherine mcphee - love story

which was one entire set (i think that's all of it) - i tended to stick with one genre at a time that night more than i often like to do (from there - roughly - to chart-pop to massive dance jams to some electronica then roundabout to some '80s favorites and then more recent uk/scandinavian stuff, and even a little set of rock at the end.) some very good requests, and i think i played all them, usually right away (sort of a challenge/point of pride): "sweet pea" was a request (that was pretty leftfield - glad i happened to have it with!), later the roots, justice (i played a different cut than i'd intended so i played two more later), "challah-back girl," "cock-rock," and michael jackson. several people asked that, and i was a bit hesitant, but i'd kind of known all along that i was going to play "thriller" - so i did, and it was undoubtedly the pinnacle moment of the party. so, excellent.

[strange as it may sound, i don't really know michael jackson, outside of the obvious singles (of which there are many) - i don't have any of his albums, even though they're always around and are very manifestly both good and important. i suppose i've sort of been holding them in reserve them for those very reasons - no reason to hurry, really. at the third party of the weekend i chatted with a longtime mj fan who helped convince me that the time may be soon...]

"thriller" went right into rjd2's "the horror," which went over quite well. i was also very happy to play "frankenstein" (edgar winter - not the whole thing), adult.'s "nausea" (just got 12"!), "like a pen," cerrone's "supernature," black box's "everybody everybody" (thrift store pickup), and two tracks each from blackout (which went over v. well) and in rainbows (which didn't exactly - thought "bodysnatchers" might work as a dance jam but no dice; "reckoner" was my last song, and they did some nice improvy things to it.) i specifically bought a dennis yost and classics iv greatest hits lp that afternoon so that i could play "spooky," but of course i forgot to play it...oh well.

status
stalled out on the mixtape front - which is cool, for now. i do want to upload an existing dj-mix or two but have been having trouble finding a frustration-free way to share 'em. am more or less waiting on making more until i get some kind of laptop set-up worked out - have been playing around with traktor but it's going slowly. most of my cd collection is in boxes now - save 400 in two binders for djing, and 96 i guess in another for home listening. and of course the fifty or so that i've bought or otherwise acquired in the last two months (and if the sidebar is to be believed only sixteen of those were in september, all in one fell swoop on a brilliant a.k.a. day.)

actually, i don't think i've bought anything at a.k.a. since - in well over a month that is - though i have stopped in there. branching out, then - finding some excellent stuff at long in the tooth (on 20th and sansom) which has a tremendous amount of character despite an odd layout - definite focus on true-blue (for want of a better word) rockist tastemaker territory - punk, vintage indie, pedigreed country, jazz, '60s garage/psych and folk-rock... got some girl-group comps there too, which seems to fit in as well. prices not too bad either. have also made some cautious stops at th!nk music, the new a.k.a. only in that it's next-door to my new work-place, which has an equally bad layout without the redeeming features (they even sort used records alphabetically with new, ew), but managed to get some nice indie gapfillers. finally, i redeemed all my volunteer credit at the marvelous for a grab-bag of whatsit. otherwise, did some carefully plotted 'net shopping in the weeks leading up to my birthday (that's allowed, right?), among other things, expanding and consolidating various recent explorations in genre, and prepping my self for my new writing gig.

hm, how 'bout i stop talking about buying records? maybe i'll get around to talking about the music on them. or maybe i'll at least talk about the new britney and radiohead albums - those are pretty much the big news of the month, aren't they? since i'm all about being relevant. both are about 43 minutes long - bit too much for them to fit on a cd-r together, which is too bad b/c blackout rainbows has some good artistic possibilities. also both are quite good, but i'll give you a hint: one's better than the other. and it's not the one dave bedbug thinks. oh yeh, speaking of, teenpop is finally starting to perk up for '07 - save hilarity, rihanna, and ashley t., there'd been precious little action up until a month or so ago. and i may just be ready to listen to some more of it. digital-wise, i've been processing a handful of enjoyable things recently, one of the better of which, in case i don't get to mention it again, is tmbg's cast your pod to the wind. what the christ. what the devil.

one more recent obsession: "one sound" by knife in the water. dusty semi-country minimalism. nine minutes plus. same progression just repeated and repeated, sometimes with verses. organ harmonizations just so-slightly off, never quite resolving they way they should, but growing familiar enough that you almost don't notice - the unsettling rendered inconspicuous through desensitization. "i want to fall right back to sleep/to dive back in the sheets." hypnotic. hmm now.