Review Round-Up: November/December 2013

i'm probably not writing anything else that'll be published in 2013 (save for year-end list blurbs and such), so i'll cap off what was probably my most active year of reviewing yet with a two month (well, six week?) double-shot.  it's been a year!  [sorry bout the nsfw, silly sky!]

Sky Ferreira
Night Time, My Time

Sky Ferreira has accumulated such a scattered portfolio that even her followers (real or virtual) might have trouble telling who, exactly, she is.  If prime bubblegum robo-pop single "One" (cut when she was 17) offered one answer, last year's stylistically everywhere Ghost EP suggested about five others (country chanteuse? pathos-stricken balladeer? neo-Shirley Manson?), while endearing her to the ears of indiedom with the understated, sneakily durable appeal of "Everything is Embarrassing."  (All this, incidentally, without changing record labels.)

Now she's 21, that long-frustrated full-length is finally here, and she's trying on more new looks – but things are finally drawing into focus.  Assured and assertive, Night Time, My Time plays like the darker, dirtier counterpart to fellow category-confounders Haim – a tough, twitchy slab of hooks and heartache that blithely shrugs off distinctions of rock vs. pop, indie vs. mainstream, retro vs. timely.  It's practically overflowing with possibilities – there's equal space for the gleaming melodies and breezy riffs of "You're Not The One" (her biggest earworm yet) and a squalling, krauty rocker titled with a decidedly impolite Japanese anatomical term – but, for the first time in her young career, it feels more like a real, lasting accomplishment than just another indication of potential.

semi-self-paraphrase for City Paper concert preview:

Sky Ferreira epitomizes, perhaps better than anybody else, the category confusion of the present pop/indie/mainstream landscape.  After five years of collaborating with everyone from A-list chart doctors like Bloodshy & Avant and Ryan Tedder (yielding a couple of bright, shiny, go-nowhere electro-pop baubles) to arty indie impresario Dev Hynes (resulting in last year's invitingly understated fluke quasi-hit "Everything is Embarrassing"), she's racked up plenty of one-off singles, a pair of genre-hopping EPs and a respectable slate of modeling and acting gigs, yet it remains a glaring open question what she's actually all about.  But she's finally ready for her close-up – or so the title of her long-developmentally-delayed debut album would suggest.  Night Time, My Time (Capitol), which was produced by and co-written with 2013 golden boy Ariel Reichstad (his streak this year has also included helming LPs from Haim, Charli XCX, and Vampire Weekend), and it finally, fully crystallizes Ferreira's aesthetic – at least for moment – in a single, magnificent electronic glam-punk smartbomb: the would-be it-girl whose love of dirty rock fuzz, snarling crunch and bad decisions turns out to mesh perfectly with gorgeous, gleaming radio-pop hooks.

Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs
Under the Covers Vol. 3

Pure-pop true-believers Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs aren't out to win any points for edginess, or even obscurity.  The first installments in their ongoing covers album series – canvassing the 1960s and '70s, respectively – were strictly for fun: happily inessential niche affairs that found the honey-voiced sometime Bangle and the indubitably named Sweet applying their candied harmonies, twelve-string jangle and squeaky-clean sheen to a slew of generally recognizable pop-rock nuggets, equally apt to inspire smiles or shrugs.  Volume Three treads a similar path through the 1980s, with the duo's customarily polished, treble-heavy production – for better or worse – adding an extra dose of era-appropriate fidelity.  Understandably, the song selection here is rather more idiosyncratic: this was the decade when both Sweet and Hoffs came of musical age (and launched their careers), but it was also a decade when the kind of guitar-based pop they so fervently worship was more apt to be flourishing underground (and on college radio, especially) than ruling the airwaves.  So while we get a few headsmack-obvious blockbusters ("Free Fallin'," "Our Lips Are Sealed," "More Than This" – all fine if questionably necessary airings), the collection is dominated by left-of-the-dial pioneers, including numerous Byrds-indebted janglers – R.E.M., the dBs, the Bongos – and their UK counterparts: XTC ("Towers of London" – an odd, somewhat unfortunate choice), the Pretenders and Dave Edmunds ("Kid" and "Girls Talk," respectively, both given curiously Elvis-ish readings by Hoffs.)  Sweet also tries his hand at the moodier romanticism of Echo and the Bunnymen ("Killing Moon," naturally) and the Smiths ("How Soon Is Now"), injecting just a whiff of darkness among all the relentlessly shiny happy sonics.  It's a mild stretch that pays off just fine: like everything these two touch, the results are hardly astonishing, but they're just as pleasant as you please.

originally published in Magnet Magazine

William Onyeabor
Who Is William Onyeabor?
[Funk/African]

Who is William Onyeabor? asks the newest chapter in Luaka Bop Records' occasional "World Psychedelic Classics" series.  Good question.  These days, reportedly, he's a born-again Christian flour mill operator and civic leader in his native Nigeria who wants nothing to do with his musical past.  But these nine generous cuts, culled from his 1977-85 string of self-released LPs, document an era when he was an analog-synth-inclined counterpart to Fela Kuti, offering his own brand of righteous politicking and (incidentally, hardly un-Christian) moralizing atop extended, curiously rigid but still deeply funky afrobeat, disco and electro-funk grooves, often coming across as Africa's one-man answer to Kraftwerk and Bambaata.

Alsarah/Débruit
Aljawal الجوال
[World/African/Electronic]

A meeting of the minds between freaky French electro-funk/hip-hop producer Débruit and classical Sudanese singer Alsarah, Aljawal الجوال (Soundway) offers an astonishingly fluid, readily addictive fusion that, even in a musical climate overrun with trans-cultural and inter-genre cross-pollinations, feels legitimately surprising and truly exotic.  Neatly balancing between traditionally-rooted and several-ways futuristic sounds, Débruit's gooey, bleepy, analog productions find a curious resonance with Alsarah's arresting, dusky alto melismatics and the homely 'oud and hand percussion of Nubian folk.  Who knew how natural and satisfying it could be to connect the dots between whirling dervish music and the similarly kinetic, ecstatic stutterings of Chicago footwork? (Hint: think handclaps!)

Livity Sound
Livity Sound
[Bass/Techno]

The players behind Livity Sound – a sprawling, monumental two-disc compilation of tracks recorded and released over the past few years via the eponymous boutique imprint – are three Bristol, UK bass/post-dubstep producers, Asusu, Kowton and (label head/ringleader) Peverelist.  But the sounds it contains – spooky, skeletal, hypnotic, addictively syncopated; hybridizing minimal techno and dub reggae in unremittingly sparse but continually surprising ways – seem elemental and otherworldly in a way that makes the Maori glyphs on the cover (for which Peverelist's been fielding accusations of cultural appropriation) feel entirely appropriate.

Special Request
Soul Music
[Electronic/Breakbeat/Jungle]

If the quarter-century-plus lineage of UK urban dance music has a soul, it exists in the kind of discrete, iconic sound-signatures – pirate-radio rewinds, 303 acid throbs, grimey gun-cocks, and breakbeats breakbeats breakbeats – that form the nucleus of Paul Woolford's productions as Special Request.  Where some producers might slip in an Amen break as a gimmicky, nostalgic aural shorthand, the monolithic bounty of Soul Music (Houndstooth) exhibits Woolford's pious, unswerving dedication to these mystically encoded sonic incantations, layering breaks upon breaks not to recreate the form of classic jungle but to probe its many evocative possibilities, from cold steely violence to fluid, nuanced funk.

Cut Copy
Free Your Mind
[Electronic/Dance]

There's some serious aesthetic boundary-testing happening on Free Your Mind (Modular.)  In less perfectly calibrated hands, the album's unmitigated day-glo positivity could've easily trainwrecked into treacly insipidity, full of psychonautic pseudo-spiritualism and empty affirmations.  But Cut Copy are exactly the kind of expert electro-pop technicians to pull off an all-in, over-the-top reincarnation of circa-1988 acid house, with every bongo, every breakbeat, each chunky piano riff, 303 squelch, diva wail and analog birdcall perfectly in place.  Turns out that big, throbbing, blithely bombastic smears of sunshine, rainbows and perpetual fluorescent dancefloor euphoria are all about the little subtle details.

Milosh
Jetlag
[R&B/Pop/Electronic]

Michael Milosh's tenderly passionate, introverted croon first bewitched many listeners earlier this year via his work with Rhye, and Jetlag [eOne/Deadly] – the fourth solo full-length the Canadian has produced under his surname – should hopefully, deservingly benefit from the increased exposure.  This album favors a more modern flavor of electro-soul over Rhye's classicist throwback touches, and the songs, on the whole, aren't quite as distinctive, but it's every bit as elegant, emotive, lush and, simply said, beautiful; swirling soft, shimmering bleeps and blips (a la the Notwist or mid-period Radiohead) with the organic warmth of harp, organ, and that undeniable, ineffable voice.

Nils Frahm
Spaces
[Modern Classical/Ambient]

As the music industry settles in for its winter's nap, it's hard to imagine a richer hibernation soundtrack than Spaces (Erased Tapes), an engrossing compilation of performances by Berliner Nils Frahm.  Performed on acoustic and electric pianos (sometimes several at once), these improvisations and reworked compositions range from placid but evocative zone-outs to ecstatic space-drones to visceral, Keith Jarrett-like flights of pianistic flash (like the aptly named "Hammers.")  Since they're live recordings, Frahm's extended reveries are interspersed with (rather vigorous) bursts of applause, creating the odd, jarring sensation that you're being cheered on for relaxing.  But hey, go ahead – you've earned it.

Arcade Fire
Reflektor
[Rock/Dance]

The Arcade Fire jump on 2013's disco bandwagon in typically grandiose fashion on Sprawl III: Electric Boogaloo...er, a.k.a. Reflektor (Merge).  Even if most of these epic, James Murphy-abetted jams are, like that harbinging Suburbs highlight (and "Get Lucky" itself), almost too slow to dance to, it's still a surprisingly apt, afterlife-fixated Halloween afterparty  – complete with Win and Régine in costume as Orpheus & Eurydice (though, wouldn't Echo & Narcissus better emblematize "love in a reflective age"?) – from the title track's haunted hall of internet mirrors to "Here Comes the Nighttime"'s voodoo carnival to the Stepfordian horror of "Normal Person," until the daybreaking, Timberlake-mirroring "Supersymmetry" fades in a glorious swirl of arpeggios and particle-physics metaphors.

Courtney Barnett
The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas
[Folk/Rock]

Courtney Barnett is a saucy Aussie slacker-type who'll charm you with a single, slyly casual turn of phrase – say, the precise yet offhanded way she mutters "asthma puffer" on instant winner "Avant Gardener" – about as readily as she'll get out of bed.  Even if you can't be bothered to follow the narrative nuances of all the drolly drawled shaggy-dog story-songs collected on her carefully titled debut non-album, The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas (Marathon Artists), the music underpinning them is equally shaggy and beguiling, all Velvets-y, countrified, couple-chord drones and gamely goofy backup gang vocals.

Kurt Vile
Jamaica Plain/it's a big world out there and i'm scared
[Rock/Psych]

Kurt Vile's pretty daze just keeps on rolling.  The beatific Fishtown rocker, who returns to Union Transfer this Saturday for his fourth hometown gig of the year – including a record-setting city hall courtyard appearance which took place on his own personal, mayorally-decreed holiday – is capping his unstoppable 2013 with a fourth quarter re-boot of his widely-dug third Matador LP, dubbed Deluxe Daze (Post Haze).  In a typically righteous, kindly gesture, the appended bonus material will also be available separately (digitally and vinylly) as "it's a big world out there (and i am scared)".  Alongside a couple fine if relatively negligible, self-explanatory revamps (e.g. "Snowflakes Extended") and three increasingly electronified mutations of "Never Run Away," the EP boasts two previously unaired six-minute outtakes – one dark, fingerpicked and folky, the other fuller and rangier – that fit right in with the album's languorous shimmer.

First up though is the Jamaica Plain EP (Care in the Community), a collaboration with palindromic New England psych-popper (and one-time Violator) Sore Eros, named for the neighborhood that's kinda the Boston equivalent of West Philly.  These three recordings – two lazy, meandering instrumental shape-shifters and one briefer but equally spacey vocal cut – date back about a decade, and offer solid, satisfying evidence that Vile has long been well acquainted with the delights of dazedness.

Swearin'
Surfing Strange
[Indie Rock/Punk]

Do identical twins usually sound really similar to each other?  Google suggests no, but it is definitely the case with the Crutchfield sisters, Alison and Katie, who rose to DIY punk notoriety with their band P.S. Eliot and, since relocating from Brooklyn last year, have become two of the brightest recent additions to the West Philly scene.  Anyone who's fallen for the casual Alabama twang and deep-set fidelity to '90s indie archetypes evinced by Katie's solo endeavor, Waxahatchee, should find similar things to love about Swearin', the decidedly noisier (if equally raw) outfit fronted by her sister.  Surfing Strange (Salinas), recorded at the Hazel Ave house the Crutchfields share with their bandmates and boyfriends, is less peppy and melodically direct than its eponymous predecessor, but it finds the band – in which Alison shares vocal duties with guitarist Kyle Gilbride – stretching out a bit, expanding both their grungy, heavier side and their gifts for softer, vaguely folky (and, well, Waxahatchee-esque) moments – frequently both in the same song – while also trying out some keyboards (and making good on their album title) with the psych-damaged "Glare of the Sun."

Bongos
Phantom Train
[Rock/Pop]

They may take a close second to The Feelies when it comes to Hoboken indie rock luminaries (pre-Yo La Tengo division), but the recently reunited Bongos offered their own sharp, gutsy brand of '80s jangle-pop that's too good to be forgotten.  Let Phantom Train (Jem) – a "lost" LP recorded in 1985 but unreleased until now – serve as exhibit A: an unmistakably vintage but still plenty fresh set of catchy, treble-heavy tunes and muscular grooves capped with Richard Barone's potent vocals, plus a kickin' Donovan cover.

Lucius
[Indie Pop/Folk/Soul]
concert preview

Brooklyn up-and-comers Lucius put a lot of effort into their appearance, with the band's blond, could-be-sisters frontwomen, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, dressing up as symmetrical twinsies on stage in brightly colored mod-soul outfits and thick eyeliner, and the three gentlemen in the band typically appearing equally well-coordinated and stylish.  That look, sharp and singular as it is, functions as an apt analog for the band's equally potent, equally distinctive sound: similarly retro and crisp, similarly meticulous and infectious; similarly built around Wolfe and Laessig's soulful close harmonies and twinned unison crooning.  It's a sound that, nearly a decade after the vocalists first hooked up at Berklee College of Music, finally exists in the form of full-length album: the excellent Wildewoman (Mom+Pop) – that's four syllables, by the way; "Wilde" pronounced as in "-beest", not Oscar – which adds some country and a bit of synth-pop to their versatile fusion of throwback girl-group R&B and big, strummy indie folk-pop, and which seems to feature a massive, searing, potentially world-conquering chorus on just about every song.

Howe Gelb
[Americana/Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

Howe Gelb has been the primary force behind something like forty albums since the mid-'80s, including upwards of twenty with the long-running Giant Sand, ten or more under his own name and others under monikers like Arizona Amp & Alternator and the Band of Blacky Ranchette.  It's a lot for even a devoted fan to keep track of, and certainly daunting for neophytes – especially since, apart from some fortuitous overlap with the alt-country/Americana heyday of the late '90s, he's rarely made much sense as part of a broader scene or movement.  Still, its the kind of catalog that rewards and encourages the occasional, informal dip in, full of quiet, oddball gems to discover (like 2006's gospel choir foray 'Sno Angel Like You.) Indeed, since his records never feel particularly urgent or imperative – they are almost uniformly loose, collaborative, and unfussy, sporting his ever-relaxed, half-spoken vocals over some murky, cock-eyed stew of folk, country, rock, weirdo jazz and Southwestern ambience – it's kind of hard to approach them any way other than casually.  Anyhow, The Coincidentalist (New West) – whose title seems to reflect that particular aspect of his appeal – marks (yet another) fine occasion to stop in for a look-see; another sweet, quizzical, low-key set of songs with another fine cast of supporting players and guests (M. Ward, A. Bird, W. Oldham, KT Tunstall.)  

Alice Smith
[Singer-Songwriter/R&B]
concert preview

Alice Smith popped up in 2006 as a fully-formed, fully formidable talent: For Lovers, Dreamers & Me, her assured and slyly addictive debut, introduced her as both a knockout vocalist (with a tremendous four-octave range) and, more singularly, a promising new addition to the woefully disregarded pantheon of female African-American songwriters, hopscotching between elements of soul, rock, blues, pop and funk without seeming the least bit formulaic or overreaching.  And then... nothing.  For almost seven years, despite a Grammy nomination and a deal with Epic records, her career suffered the hiccuping indignity of major label limbo, as she shelved a series of recordings, became a mother, and relocated to LA without issuing another note of new material.  Finally, this spring, Smith reemerged with She (Rainwater), a collection of smooth, soulful, sometimes theatrical not-quite-R&B that's a bit more polished than her debut but at least as accomplished, with her typically tender and thoughtful compositions balanced by a brassy, show-stopping cover of Cee-Lo Green's "Fool For You."

Cults
[Pop/Rock]
concert preview

Some things have changed for Cults since they first won us over with the glockenspieled insouciance of their calling-card single, "Go Outside," and the sweetly winsome debut album that followed.  The band's golden couple, Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion, called things off romantically last year, though they've thankfully decided to stick together – musically speaking – for the kids.  Oblivion also took some impressive strides toward living up to his moniker; embarking on a drug-addled sojourn to Japan and developing a fascination with broken television sets that informed the title and prevailing imagery of the duo's second LP.  But much has also stayed the same: given that backstory, Static (Columbia), almost defiantly mirrors its predecessor in its presentation (similar cover, similarly concise construction), and it boasts exactly the same sort of smart, yearning, indelible melodies (rendered in Follin's entrancing, alternately dusky and girlish coo); the same blend of fastidious, '60s girl-group-style craft and artily atmospheric coloration that made their first album so refreshing.  It's a bigger, bolder, richer restaking of their unique stylistic terrain; harder-rocking and more poignantly swooning: basically, it's everything you'd want from the follow-up to a great debut.

MGMT
[Pop/Rock/Psych]
concert preview

MGMT spelled out their epic rock-star fantasies in "Time to Pretend," the title track of a self-released EP they were hawking in the Unitarian church basement way back in 2005 (as openers for of Montreal) – well before the blockbuster success of their 2008 debut started bringing those mythic ambitions absurdly (or at least improbably) close to fruition; well before they began furiously backpedalling against that album's genial synth-pop with 2010's self-consciously strange Congratulations.  The song was mostly a waggish joke from the start, but it's accrued increasingly complex layers of irony over the years, as they've occasionally, winkingly played into its outlandish conceits – a recent David Letterman appearance saw them sporting star-shaped glasses and konking a comically oversized cowbell – even while sliding into a more sustainable if less glamour-courting artistic niche for themselves.  Their self-titled third album (Columbia) – which finds their early penchant for playful silliness thankfully intact – is nothing more or less than an eminently enjoyable little psych-pop record, neither pandering nor melody-averse, whose production budget just happens to accommodate Dave Fridmann's iconically trippy production tweaks and lavishly surreal music videos starring Omar from The Wire.

Guardian Alien
[Psychedelic/Experimental/Improvisation]
concert preview

If Guardian Alien were nothing more than a vehicle for the torrential force-of-nature drumming of Greg Fox – formerly of black metal iconoclasts Liturgy; also a member of hardcore NY avant-gardeists Zs – that'd be more than reason enough to tune in.  But it's becoming something quite a bit woolier and harder to define, as the single, restlessly unfurling 38-minute blurt of instrumental psych/metal/drone/jam circle mayhem that constituted the project's debut for Thrill Jockey earlier this year (See the World Given to a One Love Entity) turns out to be merely a taster for the kind of virtuoso conceptual acrobatics they have in store.  Spiritual Emergency – out next month – tries on an even wider array of approaches across its five cuts, culminating in a mind-bending, incantatory free-jazz maelstrom inspired by (and audibly incorporating) the theories of psycho-spiritual psychiatrist Stanislav Grof.  And even that's probably just a taster for what the group – for now, a trio comprising Fox, guitarist Bernard Gann and Alexandra Drewchin on electronics and vocals – can rustle up live.

My Bloody Valentine
[Rock/Shoegaze]
concert preview

2013 has been well established as a banner year for triumphant musical returns, from Justin Timberlake, Boards of Canada, The Knife and The Blow [[see above/below]] dropping their first albums since 2006 to Daft Punk, David Bowie, Mazzy Star, Luscious Jackson and the Dismemberment Plan breaking even longer silent streaks.  But nothing could really top shoegaze-crystallizing demi-gods My Bloody Valentine, who kicked off the trend back in early February by returning, almost suddenly, after an absurd twenty-two years, with the follow-up to their widely beloved 1991 album, Loveless.  Even more miraculously, they actually managed to satisfy the long-marinating, mythically-proportioned expectations of their faithful; carefully balancing fondly familiar sonic territory (Kevin Shields' dense, druggy excursions through the outer limits of processed guitar texture; Bilinda Butcher's edgeless, ethereal coos) with deft, dignified expansions of their stylistic reach.  Self-released with little overt fanfare or advance notice, mbv is by turns smoother (the organ-draped, Stereolab-ish midsection) and much much rougher (the blown-out, apocalyptically percussive final third) than its vaunted predecessor.  Ultimately, thankfully, and perhaps most improbably of all, nothing about the album's context or its makers' fanatical perfectionism can interfere with the simple, primal pleasure of just diving in, and turning it up.

Crocodiles
[Rock/Pop]
concert preview

San Diego's Crocodiles are dependable sorts.  They've turned out four solidly enjoyable if ultimately unspectacular albums in just over four years, and while they haven't exactly made any great leaps beyond the buzzy, noirish jangle-rock that made their name and earned them thousands of shrugging Jesus and Mary Chain comparisons, they've steadily brightened and broadened their approach with each release.  Album #4 is no exception – its bright pink cover doesn't lie: Crimes of Passion (Zoo Music/Frenchkiss) is the duo's poppiest, most immediate work yet, occasionally taking a few beat-looping, gospel-infused cues from the Madchester-reviving likes of Jagwar Ma (or, more likely, they've just been adding some Primal Scream and Stone Roses records to their usual steady diet of Echo and Spacemen 3), the better to illuminate the tuneful blend of sweetness and nihilism that, any year now, is gonna be distinctive enough to call their very own.

The Blow/Love Inks
[Indie-Pop/Electronic]
concert preview

Khaela Maricich is in love.  That's probably the most conspicuous message of The Blow's new, self-titled album (Kanine).  Sure, she penned one of the past decade's most enduring, endearing statements of indie-pop affection ("Parentheses," from the last Blow album, way back in 2006), and once made a record subtitled "Love Songs" – but, she suggests, she was only faking it then.  This time is for real.  "A kiss was just something to do with my tongue/until you kissed me," she offers in her sweet, stilted alto.  Clothes, she now realizes, were "invented for the single purpose of you taking them off me."  Pretty sexy stuff, in its nerdy, insecure, self-consciously arty way – especially imagining those lyrics directed toward Melissa Dyne, Maricich's partner in art and life, who constructed the album's brightly minimal, intriguingly handmade-sounding electro-pop.  But don't expect an evening of moonstruck crooning: Maricich's a tricky one, and Blow shows are closer to performance art than traditional concerts.  If the duo's conceptual abstractions get to be too much, the gently krauty synthscapes and placid coos of Austin trio Love Inks – showcased on their lovely Generation Club (Monofonus Press) – should offer a smooth, warmly glowy antidote.

Benoit & Sergio
[Dance/Electronic]
concert preview

This Washington DC/Berlin production duo has, since roughly 2010, issued a string of strange, subtle, almost perfectly-formed singles that occupy an aesthetic world entirely their own: lush but sparing, nostalgic and crisp, inviting and cryptic, somewhere between deep, disco-indebted house and bookishly understated synth-pop.  The ingredients seem simple enough – skipping, lightly syncopated trebly grooves; hypnotically looping samples; playful sproingy basslines – but they're fit together with an uncommon, uncanny deftness.  What seals the deal are the duo's blankly wistful, slightly processed vocals, which make unlikely dancefloor mantras of wryly heartbreaking phrases like "My baby does K all day," or "I love girls who never say they're sorry."  Also: "You need poetry to turn these girls on."  Benoit and Sergio have got that, in spades (they've also been known to crib lyrics from Barrett Browning and T.S. Eliot), and they're nothing if not comfortable with contradictions.  Take "Adjustments," their most recent 12" (which may or may foreshadow the debut album they've promised us next year): the wan, woozy title cut harbors some major hesitance about current dance culture ("Sometimes I think that DJs don't understand...") even as the frisky flipside "Shake Shake" sees them scratching their most buoyant disco itch to date.

Nightmares on Wax
[Electronic]
concert preview

Nightmares on Wax debuted in 1989 with some of the earliest singles (and the second ever album) for the still mighty Warp Records, playing a large part in defining the label's brittle, bleepy UK take on Detroit techno and acid house while also exploring playful undercurrents of hip-hop and jazzy funk.  By 1995, the Leeds-born DJ/producer George Evelyn – long the project's sole member – was pushing those elements to the forefront for the eclectic, lushly organic trip-hop of  Smoker's Delight, which helped set the template for the countless (and often far more faceless) "chill-out" records swamping the turn of the century market.  Since then Evelyn has kept right on grooving: the latest, seventh NoW album (and first in five years) finds him still on Warp, still swirling together a blunted assortment of smooth downtempo beats – dub, disco, reggae, funk, gospel, easy-listening R&B – while infusing his productions with guest vocalists and more live instrumentation than ever before, and just generally, as the title says: Feelin' Good.

WinterWaltz Festival
[!!!, Vacationer, YACHT, Washed Out...]
concert preview

This two-day mini-festival, curated by local promoter Deathwaltz Media, nestles cozily in the intersection of dance-friendly indie rock and rockist-friendly electronica.  Basically, it's just an all-around friendly line-up.  It's also a handy summation of the past decade's middle-ground sounds, from early-'00s dance-punk progenitors !!! (whose recent, awesomely titled Thr!!!er (Warp) funks along in fine, typically jammy style) to late-'00s chillwave progenitors Washed Out (the festival's de-facto headliner, who hit the Electric Factory Friday.)  None of it is music you'd necessarily associate with Winter per se (not for nothing does the bill include acts named YACHT and Vacationer) – though maybe that's the point – and I almost guarantee nobody will play anything you can actually waltz to.  But there is a bevy of local talent on hand, including live electronics band Damn Right!, cosmic disco production trio Les Professionnels and – playing live tonight and DJing tomorrow – the excellent, underappreciated electro-dream-pop outfit Vacationer, whose lovely, lushly melodic 2012 debut, Gone (Downtown), had the misfortune of arriving too fashionably late in a long line of languorous, indie-tronic tropical travelogues.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

sxsw roundup pt. 1: the cough alliance (is an anagram of the el guincho canal)

just got back from awesome austin, tx, where i rocked my second annual (so far) south by southwest, this time taking in upwards of forty artists (catching about 36 full or nearly-full sets) over four very full days. most of it spent with three superlative companions: my ever-endearing once-and-future roomie, consummate host and itunes playlist compositor par excellence matthew "dominic" stangoni; my irrepressible, hilary-hatin' cousin bobby "billy bob" gravity, on a long-deserved (and semi-stealthy) furlough after a year of barackin' around the clock; and my tolerant super-trooper of a nap-happy music-appreciation gal navacado rockswild sxswergold. i'd say it was a blur - four days of biking helter-skelter around downtown, eating tacos, imbibing giveaway drinkproduct, spraying on sunscreen, waiting in lines (tho not nearly so much as last year, since thanks to the almighty, er mostly-mighty wristbands), receiving hand-stamps from bouncers, to no evident purpose, coughing up an impressive reserve of phlegm left over from the sickness i'd mercifully all-but-overcome by the start of the festival, and eventually, after many sole-sacrificing hours of standing and dancing and watching and standing and dancing, driving back home, two-to-a-seatbelt, and crashing out on matthew's futon to recuperate from between, roughly, 4am or so until around noon. yeah...it'll be a blur soon enough.

but for the moment it's still plenty vivid; i've still got the logic-puzzle information overload of venue names, cross-streets, set times, rsvp statuses, and reshuffling priorities buzzing around my mental circuitry, i've still got the sense-memory of colors, tastes and sounds, the as-yet-unanecdotified remembrance of recountable occurences, the post-party debrief detail-recall of setlists and banter. so i better jot something down here before it all goes fuzzy. i'll do what i can to mediate between narrative chronicling and merciful brevity:

tuesday
got into town. fine texas welcome in the form of bobby's leftover brisket and ribs from smitty's. wi-fi-netted our lists of show picks at the green muse for as long as my itchy eyes could take, then took semi-respite in the form of a yoga class (led by nicolette of sxsw 07 fame yay!) at their multi-purpose non-church friendlychristian meeting space, mosaic - which was good except i had to give up towards the end. matt and i picked up our wristbands and some goodflow 'n kombucha, but that's about all i was good for that day, so we retreated to his apartment for green chile tamales and an early bedtime. just as oh well since we hadn't been able to secure tix to the free yo la/my morning show that night. (matt did sneak out to see a certain bald four-letter celebrity dj.)

wednesday

got to red-eyed fly a bit late for the explorer's club, definitely too late for the free bloody marys (which were probably gone by 11:03 am), but enjoyed the sunshine, promo neon-pink MGMT shoelaces, and a couple numbers from a tweedy/petty-alike, tom freund, who sang first w/ just stand-up bass and an older drummer who kept dropping his sticks, then with gtr+bass and a different drummer who seemed to possibly not have had any sticks in the first place. took a bit of a reconnaisance jaunt around town, picking up "vip" "laminates" at the pure volume ranch (right next door to where aberfeldy were not gonna be playing that night after all boo hoo boo hoo) and wristbands for the fort, listening from without as the whip whipped it good within. then to emo's where we heard the final song from the raveonettes (purty sweet) and then finally got our first proper set of sxsw08: the mae shi.

actually i almost forgot about them and said it was why? which isn't to say the shi were forgettable - they were fun and young and punky and shambly and had cute stage antics (canvas parachute - no apes and androids tho) and were a decent substitute for not managing to catch no age again later on in the week. but why? were just top-notch. it was great to hear some almost-favorites from elephant eyelash (tracks 1-3, if i'm not mistaken), but maybe even greater getting to take a first-stab at parsing yoni's new beat-leet floetry live, before i get around to grokking their new record i didn't even know existed (which would turn out to be a recurring theme of the week.) vibes as part of the drumset = clutch.

the blow seemed a bit flustered and bewildered; she whined about her short set time and kvetched about the posturing of sxsw attendees in a way that was meant as a performance schtick - complete with play-along "bingo card" - but came off as uncomfortably honest in a not-quite-intentional way. so khaela wasn't quite on top of her game (she dropped quite a few lines too) but she's still plenty charming and too refreshingly down-to-earth to want to acknowledge as 'quirky.' and her songs are great.

we hung around at emo's for the free popsicles (they were out of pistachio and coconut so i settled for watermelon) and caught el guincho, a mildly manic, muppety-looking spaniard who hammered away at a single drum that awesomely matched his bright red pants. (not to mention the scarlet macaw on his album cover.) there were more sounds emanating from the couple of boxes and gadgets on his slapdash table, and he would occasionally sing along with his looped vocal samples, but the combined effect was pretty unidentifiable - discernably spanish with vaguely cha-cha-style grooves and looped flamenco-like exhortations, but far from traditional in any sense, not even as electronic dance music (which, ultimately, is how you'd have to classify it, if you'd have to.) really fun, reminiscent of animal collective in ways that didn't actually annoy me (which is impressive) and basically great semi-abstract background music for a summery technicolor rave.

that was the end of wednesday: day, and instead of taking the conventional breather before wednesday: night, bobby and i strode across town to try our luck at getting into the van morrison gig. we got in probably two or three songs into the set, though to tell you the truth it was pretty tough to distinguish one song from another. i could only understand at most a quarter of what van was singing, though just about every song seemed to have something to do with trains. anyway, there's no denying it was him - that voice was unmistakable from the moment we walked through the room, even if standing (still) there on the stage he could have passed for any number of the portly be-hatted older denizens of the crowd that were preventing us from really getting a good look at him. eh, it was nice enough to listen to. i've never been a big van fan, but it's still kind of cool to have seen him, even if we did wait in vain for "and it stoned me" or indeed anything recognizable from the three or so albums of his i've ended up with regardless.

seeing freezepop was a bit of a time-filler but i'm glad we did, as they were very enjoyably goofy and amateurish, and there was even a sizable crowd that was fairly amped up about them (and prague is a pretty nice club.) they looked pretty ridiculous/cool, with their two (2) keytars and liz enthusiasm's hot pink dress, but they didn't seem to be especially technically proficient. (one of the guys joked that they couldn't play "less talk more rock" - their guitar hero 'hit' - live because it was too fast, and judging from their performance of it i don't think he was actually joking.) was nice to hear some older stuff too - "boys on film" cover and "stakeout" (from the album of theirs i first heard via a random unlabelled cd-r found somewhere.) oh yeah, they closed with a cover of "the final countdown," which i didn't even know.

just after that set, nava arrived in town, earlier than anticipated, and we bummed around a little in search of the next activity. peeked into the k records showcase, but set times were changed around so mahjonng weren't on then and saturday looks good to me weren't either because i guess they cancelled, so it was this guy city center who said it was his second ever show (the first was at cmj) and it was kind of cool but too noisy for the navi so we walked up the street to see jeffrey lewis instead. and the jitters, as he apparently calls his drummer and bassist and the funny woman who played pennywhistle and a tiny little casio keyboard. happily we caught most of "will oldham williamsburg horror" or whatever that song is called, which was great, and the rest of his set was real fun too (we must have missed the first half of it though), including one of his crass covers and a "film" (with picture book accompaniment) called "creeping brain" that nava said was her favorite part of the festival and was definitely a highlight for me too. gotta remember to see jeff more often - he's definitely awesome live even if his records don't quite do it.

stuck around too for kaki king, whose set veered all over the place from bluesy/folky acoustic picking to straight-up indie rock to mathy/jazzy/proggy muscular post-rock/classical. undeniably impressive musicianship (especially the super sick acoustic guitar v. drums battle in the last song) and often lovely-sounding but a little too willfully eclectic (and the songs not quite interesting enough) to quite gel as a whole.

we were pretty tired by now - it was only day one after all, we hadn't got our stamina up yet - so we only stood for the first fifteen minutes or so of lindstrøm's set at the thirsty nickel (and only danced for a subset of that - hans-peter took his time with transitions, leaving us hanging in space for quite a while between beatdrops), then retreated to sit down in the back of the club, where i somewhat disengagedly watched the beginning of one of the jackass movies, muted, on the bar tv, while lindstrøm's hazy, swirly grooves washed over me - quite a surreal, disconnected experience.

soon enough it was time for a final slog across town and up a little hill to karma, the off-the-beaten-path venue for the first sxsw appearance about which i was truly excited: the tough alliance. they fulfilled expectations perhaps too fully, and turned out to be just as obstreperous, impertinent, and iconoclastic as you could anticipate, deliberately subverting concert conventions by showing up late (maybe not deliberate, but unconventional by sxsw standards) and "playing" a six-songs-short set that pretty much consisted of them mugging, 'dancing,' and generally goofing around on stage, only occasionally even bothering to lip-sync, in front of projected videos of dolphins, waves and carnival dancers, while their records played. it was actually pretty intense. the one dude mostly just kind of stands there with his mouth open and his arms in the air, shaking spasmodically. one of them took apart a mic stand and started banging the pieces together. at one point (when there were strings in the music) one of them mimed playing a violin with a mic stand and microphone as a bow. they didn't talk at all, though they did acknowledge the small but enthusiastic audience in their dancing, coming down into the crowd and pulling somebody on stage at one point. actually, one of the nicest things about it was the (pre-recorded) transitions between the songs, which flowed very smoothly. the whole set was taken from the new school, in album order (songs 1-4 plus "neo-violence") except for "silly crimes" added in the number three slot. was it a disappointment? perhaps, frankly, but only in the ways that i more or less expected. if it was another group, i wouldn't mind so much that they're more interested in inscrutable performance art that deconstructs the very underlying concepts of "performance" than they are in just putting on a good show, but their music is just so damn good that it kind of hurts to see it, in a sense, mocked and dismissed by its very creators. at least it was great to dance to... (and yeah, i'd go to another tta show in a second, just to hear the music.)

indie hearts still beat the same

1. "Heretics" - Andrew Bird
2. "Don't Die In Me" (Mt. Eerie Remix) - Mirah
3. "Breaker" - Low
4. "She's Fantastic" - Sondre Lerche
5. "A New Name" - !!!
6. "Long List of Girls" - The Blow
7. "Someone Great" - LCD Soundsystem

vinyl-only bonus track:
8. "My British Tour Diary [Restiform Bodies (anticon.) Remix] - of Montreal

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(the play button is backwards, but i bet you figured that out.)

i originally posted this podcast a few days ago (sneaking it in at the end of march so it can qualify for the monthly quota), but it disappeared when i started drafting the text of this post, to accompany it. basically what happened is that i got back from sxsw, and the next week there were a whole bunch of records released that i wanted to hear, most of them, as it turned out, within the indie umbrella, so i bought a bunch of them, and that made me think a bunch about indie and my relationship with it.

but mostly i just wanted to say a little bit about some things about those records, in ways that may or may not illuminate or complicate the things i blathered about above.

so, sans plus ado: about the songs in the mix (in the form of album or concert reviews/first-impressions, or just more blathering):

[armchair apocrypha] might be [andrew bird]'s least interesting record to date. his idiosyncrasies were still markedly present on his last (and first seriously indie-hyped) album, mysterious production of eggs - and they're not entirely gone here (his weirdo smarty-pantsy lyrical proclivities and jokey song titles - "yawny at the apocalypse" anybody?; that unmistakable whistling.) but basically it's another step away from his most truly unique (and rocking, and best) album, '01's rootsy, genre-flected swimming hour. this is his least bluesy album, and it's his first on a blues label, fat possum.

put another way: this is the first time he's sounded so much like straight-up indie [rock]. though it's also possible that indie is just coming to sound more like him. certainly we've had a spate of literate but sensitive but quirky but mellow composer/songwriter types lately (sufjan stevens, owen pallet, colin meloy), and bird seems to be setting himself up to join their ranks in the public consciousness. but his own distinctive personality is in danger of being lost in the process. he seems to be getting more indie and less rock; as the guitars pile on, everything just ends up feeling langorous and subdued. not that this is entirely new territory for bird - it certainly feels familiar - even overly so, as when "heretics," probably the most immediately catchy track here, unabashedly bites the main riff from eggs' bangin' "a nervous tic motion" (fortunately it also adds two or three more hooks of its own.) dude loves him some "eastern-tinged" pentatonics. (fwiw, he was billed as "pop" in the sxsw schedule, whatever that means.)

anyhow, i don't mean to suggest that this is a bad album - far from it. it's not just merely pleasant either - it borders on hypnotic at times, and lyrically there's plenty to dissect (i'm only just starting to) - but, the uncharacteristically muted (i.e. boring) album art isn't entirely misleading either.
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oh man, i love mirah. hadn't thought about her all that much recently (well, that's what happens when you don't put out an album for three years.) but it all came back when i saw her a couple weeks ago, at the church. if i try to say anything about her performance, it'll just sound like i'm gushing and crushing, so i won't. but it was interesting that she has long, straighter brown hair and no glasses now (and i would definitely not have recognized her.) possibly the most resonant part of the concert experience was just being in that crowd - looking around and feeling like i knew exactly who all those people were, even though i didn't know any of them. (y'know, all those cute little indie punk lesbian folkies, and variations permutations therefrom.) (also, being able to turn my head and eavesdrop on dozens of people chatting about indie music - as vaguely delimited above - including no less than three separate and simultaneous conversations about the arcade fire. now that's what i'm talking about indie community.)

anyway, mirah's a total sweetheart with gorgeous gorgeous voice who writes terrific songs - every time she did a number from c'mon miracle (which was most of them) i was like...oh yeah, i love this song! damn what a good album... well the lady at the merch table (who also did the spanish speaking on "the dogs of b.a.") talked me into buying this recent 2cd of remixes, and i was skeptical (indie-folk remixes?) but i'm glad i did. it may be the best indie remix album i've ever heard (not that that's saying too much - biggest contender would be a people's history of the dismemberment plan) - it basically boils down to the fact that 1) mirah's voice is absolutely lovely, plus 2) the songs are still great, and most of the time these two things remain reasonably intact; also even though 3) most of the mixes hew pretty closely to classy but still interesting down-tempo/ambient territory, 4) they all hold down a pretty distinct indie aesthetic (guy sigsworth of frou frou fame contributes the token "polished" potentially-commercial reworking, but that one's so pretty i bet even her hardcore fans don't mind) and therefore 5) it all hangs together very well sonically while avoiding sounding too samey. it might have been interesting to hear something really radical (for instance, something that could have half a chance of working on a dancefloor?), but it's probably just as well that nothing's that divergent. as it is, the mt. eerie rmx of "don't die in me" is one of the most idiosyncratic contributions - and also one of the coolest, with vocal cutting/splicing that manages to be "experimental" and just a little off-putting without being annoying. of course, being phil elvirum's work, it doesn't sound hugely different from mirah's original records in the first place - it just exaggerates the general microphoneyness. nice stuff. (also worth checking out: jonah bechtolt - of YACHT/the blow's "screwed and chopped" version of "jerusalem."
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i have a lot to say about low right now, but i'll save it for another post later on, either just before or just after i see them on monday (!) (which knowing me means it will be up in about a month.) for now: drums and guns is really really good; i've been listening to it more than anything else in a while. and "breaker" is fairly representative of what makes it so good. (this video is pretty silly though. but i guess it's fittingly minimalist and heavy-handed/inscrutable. doesn't quite get the breathtaking beauty part.)
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"sondre lerche sucks" - said matt merewitz, the jazz publicist of northern liberties, offhandedly, upon noticing three titles by the sometime-wunderkind, sometime-crooner in the "individual artists; rock/pop-ish; male" section of my cd shelf. eh, he's probably right. mr. lerche did after all put out a smooth jazz-pop vocal album last year, which i suspect is largely responsible for mr. merewitz's opinion of him. besides, does astralwerks put out anything that doesn't suck these days? (isn't astralwerks, like, the most confounding label?)

i thought about going to see him at the tla last night, but not only were tickets $20 ($5 less than i decided not to spend to see him in austin), it was a seated show. like, with reserved seats and everything. do you realize how lame that is!? i guess they figured the crowd would be mostly upwardly-aged easy-listeners suckered in by the dulcet tones of aforementioned jazz crooner record (which, by the way, i haven't heard and don't particularly intend to, though i'm sure it's interesting enough.) little did they know that young sondre has changed his tchune and is now a bonafied rock and roller. ha-ha! sucker punch, more like! (meanwhile, his backing outfit have transmogrified from the "faces down quartet" to the leaner-, meaner-sounding "faces down." named, of course, for the chorus hook of "dead passengers," the lead track on his similarly titled debut album - still possibly his best song.)

but hey - lerche was scandinavian pop before scandinavian pop was cool. (er, hence him not being cool?) he was not-really-that-indie before marginally-indie was indie. actually, the scando-pop/indie crossover merits some discussion in its own right - but we'll save that for the swee/tweedish installment in the genrephilia post series (remember that? yes, i still haven't finished writing about the february podcast...but just wait!)

anyway, phantom punch finds him putting the /rock that little bit further ahead of the pop/ - kinda like (i'm obliged to mention) squeeze or graham parker or xtc or recent tourmate/cover victim elvis costello - without sacrificing the sophisto-. i'd call it his most readily digestible record, and just maybe his best. really, it's no more and no less than i expected it to be, and that's fine by me. "she's fantastic" might be my favorite, so take that as you will - but it's pretty solid front to back. yup. nicely done.
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the new !!! album, myth takes, has been getting pretty good reviews. i'm not that excited about it.

i hoped it would be dancier. it sounds vaguely "dancy" without really feeling all that danceable; it's "fun" but not actually fun. maybe it's too busy and stuffed with stuff - there are moments where the layers of instrumentation are stripped back, and the remaining grooves are revealed to be decently funky.

so it's pretty much indie guitar-based music. and it's okay. i should probably write about it when i'm actually listening to it, because i do enjoy it when it's playing. but is that enough? what good is that? don't we really want shelves full of albums that we can enjoy without having to listen to them?

on that note - i do really like the cover art, and especially how the insert folds out into a 4x larger version of the same image.
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the blow opened for mirah at that show, which for mirah's sake should have been in the sanctuary as initially announced, but for the blow the basement was perfect. it was just khaela singing/rapping, with all the beats/music in a backing track (cuz the other guy was on tour), but she was a-maaaa-zing. really, i think she must have won over everyone in the crowd, instantly.

the set took the form of a lecture/demo, almost, with the songs strung together in a narrative about struggling with her own inability to write songs about anything other than not being able to get with the people she wants (and her corresponding inability to have a satisfactory relationship), involving various attempts to write about other things, failed at first, and eventually more or less triumphant (closing with the perfect popslice love-song "parentheses," and then the more bittersweet but still optimistic "true affection.")

she did "long list of girls" and talked about how she should sell it to j-lo or beyoncé for a million bucks: "it's awesome, right?" well...yeah, it's pretty awesome - i've had it in my head tons lately - though it would be good if there was a little more song to it (also, b has already done the marching drumline thing, a couple years back.) anyway, this was one of the "failures" because even though it's about how she's over the guy, her friend pointed out that if she was really over him she wouldn't be writing a song about him.

her persona was perfectly-pitched self-deprecating sarcastic confessional, performative enough to seem slightly put-on, but that slightly exaggerated edge almost gave it more honesty - even, maybe especially, when the story arc veered out of the realm of the plausible. a lesser performer might have come off as indulgent and wallowing, but the frankness and biting humor of her approach helped convey something vividly resonant about human loneliness and self-doubt. that resonance is still there, if less visceral and somehow more hopeful, on paper television, the album from which most of her set was drawn. (by the way, that's the european cover up there, which i think i like better.)
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one more. AOTYTD (does that mean it'll be forgotten in 9 months?) sound of silver is indeed a good good good good good record. whether all those goods add up to a fanfreakingtastic is another question, but it's an album to smile to, darn tooting. "effortless" is a good word - it's flirtatiously close to "tossed-off," which might be the trouble. not that this album is, but i get a sense that, if he really put his mind to it, jimmy murphy could make a total bleeding masterpiece for the ages, one groove under which we could all get - cuz he's got love on his side - but as it is he's just bubbly crusin', givin' a chuckle and out pops yr rhythmical underwebbing for the next six weeks. could be longer.

am i being not nice? i haven't even listened to 45:33 (technophobic!) and this album sounded familiar like an old crush on first listen, which mind you was the day it was released and not a whiff sooner. i wonder sometimes but the bands that everybody complains about being the oh-obvious product of influences (the strokes too, holdsteady like i mentioned) often actually have an extremely distinctive steez - and what a case in point! it's so so supa-soundsystematic.

actual quibble: i'm not quite sure i'm buying "north american scum" as the pop stand-alone - it's no "daft punk" or "beat connection" and certainly no (hands-down, hush-hush LCD greatest single moment) "tribulations." i'm not sure this album has one. "someone great," which you can in fact dance to, and easily (you just have to beatmatch into it first), is a total total winner, and probably the (correct) consensus favorite. "all my friends" is close and (i think) is the one with the straight-up junior boys vibe. (also half-cops the melody from "count souveniers" is it?) "get innocuous" may be the biggest dancefloor stormer - i burst into the steamy floor of making time last friday just as it was blooming out from... some soulwax track i think. heck.

i am going to love this album for a long time.