2010 was a massive year for me in many ways, and, maybe more than in a while, music was a specific and intrinsic part of that: not just in the usual way of years being book-ended and de-facto-defined by listy/mixy nerdage, but in the in-the-moment experience of music helping to enhance and create the year's distinct character as it went along...
a general, gushing sense of all things firing on all cylinders, goodness and life and love springing up at every turn, high highs and low lows, the rush and comfort of the familiar-made-fresh, new things from old, rediscovery and revisitation, vibrancy and potency and possibility and life stretching out in strange and settling ways, and feeling ready, but not anxious, for it to arrive.
the very lived experience of it felt especially vivid, season by season: remember the blizztacular snowpocalypse?! {the night i fell in love with "angel echoes"} and the springiest springtime of my life, for sure (sweet, not fleeting)! {when that fateful, be-witchy joanna newsom re-directed my life once again} then there was a double-edged summer of loose ends, brownian instability and a couple of major meltdowns at home [meterological/horticultural, technological, personal/cohabitational...] {and also lazerproof living room dance parties} b/w endless rural road trips with my blueberrybaby and her blueberrymobile, full (too full) of ice cream and swimming and seafood and sweet little back-country towns ... and then the coziest, homeiest autumn – both resting up at the roost and flitting off to be with my home-away-from-home – leading up to the most fully festive december i can remember. {and a little record player asking "will you please spend new year's with me"...} wow...i hadn't even thought it all through like that before now, but truly, what a year it was...!
as often for me, the year [and, incidentally, the decade] started musically with a diversion into older music, in this case the manifold, mash-tastic sounds of the 2000s, via my january-engulfing mixburst project [which still hasn't quite gotten its due, i feel, though i've got a sense its last gasp hasn't yet passed] – other such forays came with bit of n'awlins noodling in march, a late-springtime round-up of sixties-era dancefloor stylings for our house sockhop, a midsummer investigation of woody guthrie in conjunction with the grapes of wrath and his birthday singalong, and un p'tit trawl of pop français for the like-titled event i dj'd for the philly jewish film fest in november [the results of which i really ought to post here sometime...]
but, really, i had precious little time in 2010 for anything from previous decades. right from the start, i was thrilled by a near-constant stream of new ishness. my AMG coverage skewed more to brand-new-new releases than ever before, and it was also the first year i was covering shows for CP on a regular near-weekly basis; both of these things meant that i was listening to and processing possibly more new music than i ever have, and definitely doing more to stay on top of what was coming out any given week, who was touring when, etc. etc. and it was exciting times! i saw tons of great shows, had a lot of fun writing, got many many great cds in the mail, generally felt like i was riding and cresting with the cycle. not to say that i'm necessarily keen on jumping back in for this year's go-round, but we shall see to that soon enough...
here are some lists: 20;10.
20 albums
1. Hot Chip, One Life Stand
1. Joanna Newsom, Have One On Me
3. Allo Darlin, Allo Darlin
4. LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening
5. Robyn, Body Talk, Pt. 1-3 [Pt.1 if I have to choose]
6. Vampire Weekend, Contra
7. Javelin, No Màs
8. Sam Amidon, I See The Sign
9. ceo, White Magic
10. The Books, The Way Out
11. Scissor Sisters, Night Work
12. Yelawolf, Trunk Muzik [mixtape]
13. Free Energy, Stuck on Nothing
14. Malachai, Ugly Side of Love
15. Tracey Thorn, Love and Its Opposite
16. Big Boi, Sir Lucious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty
17. Belle and Sebastian, Write About Love
18. Alphabeat, The Spell/The Beat Is...
19. Stornoway, Beachcomber's Windowsill
20. The National, High Violet
[1-8, and especially 1-6, feel totally solid – those are all absolute 5-star albums in my book – beyond that, it's carefully calibrated and yet still so arbitrary-seeming...nevertheless, continued to nearly 100 on the sidebar...enjoy?!]
10 songs:
Vampire Weekend - "Giving Up The Gun"
LCD Soundsystem - "Home"
Dominique Young Unique - "Show My Ass"
Joanna Newsom - "Good Intentions Paving Company"
Teenage Fanclub -"When I Still Have Thee"
Javelin -"Intervales Theme"
Devon Sproule - "Ain't That The Way"
Glasser - "Home"
Robyn vs. Salt'n'Pepa, "Push it Fembot (A Rokk Pie N Mash-up)"
Big Boi feat. George Clinton, Too Short & Sam Chris - "For Yo Sorrows"
[much harder to narrow down; nearly impossible to meaningfully numerate. hence. see also, soon: H'010nanny]
i'll have a bunch to say more specifically about the year's music in the next couple of posts, which will cover my pair of 2010 year-end mixes, but for now i'll just sketch a rough narrative of my year in music, inserting my best-of list rankings just in case they mean anything (mostly because it looked nice last year), framed around the curiously seasonal stylistic clustering that i kept noticing throughout the year – hard to say how much these month-or-two micro-trends were observable on a larger scale (they do make some amount of marketing sense, i suppose), but they definitely stood out to me as the seasons moved along.
the early months saw a lot of new records from well-established old favorites – as highlighted here; the Magnetic Fields, Spoon and Vampire Weekend {#6} [whom i came to love far more this year...i guess i can now accept matt's claim, which i'd forgotten, that it's "the first album of the new decade"] – Alphabeat {#18} (poor, misbegotten danes), Eluvium {#24} (essential wintertime) and, above all, Joanna Newsom {#1} & Hot Chip {#1•}, who made the two utter masterpieces – both, incidentally, with the word "One" in their titles – that jockied for the #1 spot on my year list [and ultimately sort of end up sharing it, though at my most honest i have to give the hot nod to the chippies].
new faves by old friends continued to be perhaps the most notable recurring theme of this year's music, with notables including the Books {#10}, Liz Phair {#22}, Nellie McKay, the Roots {#74}, Big Boi [i.e. ex-Outkast] {#16}, ceo [i.e. ex-TTA] {#9}, the Extra Lens [/sub-Mountain Goats] {#61}, Tracey Thorn {#15}, albeit via a slightly underwhelming detour away from electronics, the New Pornographers {#27}, who cut very possibly their best record since Electric Version – high praise coming from me, even if i still tend to underrate it almost as much as most people did, the Arcade Fire {#31} (it was shocking, but ultimately reassuring, to discover that i am still capable of fairly loving this band), Cee-Lo, Taylor Swift {#58}, Belle & Sebastian {#17}, and, most especially, LCD Soundsystem {#4} and Robyn {#5}, both of whom owned this year, in their own way, probably even more than JN and HC.
(and sure, there were also plenty of disappointments and misfires along the way from several once-dependables, most notably M.I.A. [whose album i may someday bring myself to revisit, but it's gonna take some doing], Damon Albarn [whose Gorillaz have never been my favorite of his projects, but in past i'd always been pleasantly surprised to discover their records after the fact; this time i jumped in from go and found a bewildering emptiness that i swear i've listened to, but can tell you almost nothing about...], the aforementioned Spoon [sigh], and even ye gods Elvis Costello, Jonathan Richman [fine but feckless, which is to say their albums have yet to make me give much of a feck], David Byrne and The Knife [both of the latter in curio-collaboratory mode, making conceptual opera/theater/narrative pieces that i have dutifully enjoyed listening to but not managed to fully plumb, which isn't a great sign.])
but i'm getting ahead of myself... the early part of the year also offered a clutch of accessibly sprightly, tuneful electronic albums from the old-guard likes of Four Tet {#29}, Caribou {#75} [forever in tandem; great to see that they're still growing that way], Bonobo {#67}, plus Pantha du Prince {#83}. and it did yield a few fast new friends; some splashy-delic and sample-happy [Javelin {#7}, Malachai {#14}], others fervent and folky [Mynabirds {#21}, Sam Amidon {#8}, Phosphorescent {#25}] also, fine and fancy rambling with Free Energy whose video shoot i missed [to garden, dang it!] but whose moniker sums up the spirit of the season maybe better than anything.
and then it was the summer of, as i've mentioned, Immaculate dance-pop. with the season signaled by LCD, the charge led by Robyn [holy hosannah Batman, Robyn Returns! was maybe the most beautiful musical mega-event of the year... she even revamped up the remix game for the occasion - I'd kill to get my hands on a fully-stocked "Dancing on My Own" 12", but i'm not convinced it actually exists...] and solid soldiering on the part of the mighty Kylie {#84}, Kelis {#76}, Sia {#89}, ceo {#9}, Scissor Sisters {#11} and Delorean {#72}, massive mixtapes from A-Trak {#86} and Major La Roux-zer {#63}, and fine chart fodder from B.o.B, Ke$ha {#80} 'n' Katy Pee. [h.m. Goldfrapp {#95}, Marina {#82}, and Sky Ferreira, from whom I looking forward to hearing more than just "One." good work keeping with the title theme though, Sky, (and, also, Yeasayer and Swedish House Mafia.]
and then it was September and there was a sudden outpouring of "serious" dark/arty prestige indie rock from mostly established acts [Deerhunter, No Age, Walkmen, Women, Abe Vigoda, Blonde Redhead, Crocodiles] little of which i really got into, save for the Arcade Fire, which came out in August but otherwise mostly falls in line there...seriously it felt like no-fun back-to-skool indie music Oscar season all of a sudden. meanwhile there was also a similar/simultaneous upsurge of variably artsy/abstract/fuzzy/hazy/gauzy/dreamy/blissy/questionably chillwave-associated? new indie stuff going on: How To Dress Well {#55}, Glasser {#51}, Teengirl Fantasy {#77}, Tamaryn, Candy Claws, Salem, among others, which may not all have had all that much to do with each other really, but seemed like some kind of convergence, and seemed like some new sort of thing happening, and certainly seemed like something that it was important for me to figure out. [of these, the first three crystallized as things i am at least fairly interested in, and it turns out they're all pretty different from each other, but i couldn't necessarily tell that in advance.]
(i never really got a handle on witch house (did anyone?), and meanwhile i mostly managed to avoid figuring out all that much more about dubstep this year either, despite Diplo's curatorial efforts, except that i guess most of it is kinda post-dubstep by now, or something? like, also despite spending an awful lot of time with Darkstar {#69} 's North almost-but-not-quite connecting with it...still feeling undecided [though "Aidy's Girl" is still awesome] but it's pretty obviously not dubstep at all...anyhow what do we call the mellower pretty stuff in this diaspora? i've only recently been digesting James Blake, which seems like something decidedly else as well...not entirely sure I get it yet, but it's nice enough to listen to. Likewise Mt. Kimbie and Ramadanman both of whom I've found exceedingly pleasant on at least one occasion or another. but this stuff mostly just seems like the new IDM, and i feel like i'm having the same slippery, unpredictable relationship with it that i had with the old IDM...well, hoping for some solid, solidifying full-lengths in future. it takes full-lengths i think. for me. or comps'll do... f'rinstance, on the more up tick; apparently i'm going to need to spend more time the Night Slugs comp too, that one snuck up on me...i might be just starting to understand "Wut," but again not entirely convinced... however, Permanent Vacation I can get with: funky disco and house, just like i like it. so, needing to get my hands on that too...) [/end electronica digression]
the rest of the year was more of a mixed bag, including many of the aforementioned old favorites, and also Diamond Rings {#26} (whom i did/do overrate somewhat, i suppose, but it's awfully easy to feel fond of him) and Sufjan {#52}, which I'm warming to, but mostly it was – especially in November/December– the most incredibly egregious glut i've ever seen of 'strategically-deployed' X-mas shopping seasonable R&B product, sorry, torrents, sorry, releases?: Rihanna {#29}, Nicki Minaj {#51}, R. Kelly, Jazmine Sullivan, Cee-Lo, Shakira, Ciara, Michael Jackson, Soulja Boy, Diddy-Dirty Money, Black Eyed Peas, Girlicious, Keyshia, Keri, Jamie Foxx, Ghostface, Young Jeezy, Kid Cudi and I'm sure I'm missing several, and, oh yeah, a little something from Kanye West... save, ok, for 'Ye (hang on, let me finish...) that's in roughly descending order of how much I can be bothered to care, although if these had been spaced out through the year a bit more I might have made more time for them (pace The-Dream...sigh, I'm sure I'll get around to liking him eventually. I did make a bit of progress this year...) Dunno what to say about this lot except that the Rihanna singles are pretty undeniable, and I look up to picking up plenty of these albums in used bins over the next few years... [in fact, I've already started - snagged the new Trey Songz for $2 last week.]
Kanye, Kanye, Kanye. OK. I have to say I have enjoyed MBDTF {#30} (meh, disappointing acronym...shall we just call it Twisted?) a lot, which is at least a fair amount more than I expected. It's probably replaced 808s as my favorite KW album – significantly, because it's at least as interesting. I guess it makes some amount of sense as an across-the-board consensus pick [though, really, why couldn't it have been This Is Happening!? – it's no less willfully obdurate, and has a much snappier title], though I can't really fathom it as something that you would give a perfect 10/10... [if anything, it seems like a perfectly imperfect 9.9/10 – no way is this album 1% better than Homogenic] well, sigh. anyhow – some catchy tunes and fun beats, and even some pretty good rapping, though there's also so much bone-headed clunkiness on there, musically, lyrically and production-wise... ok whatever.
So, speaking of: two notable areas that have more or less run throughout the year for me, in contrast to much of what i've been discussing above, are hip-hop and, to a lesser extent, indie pop. as I predicted/planned at the year's outset, i listened to substantially more rap this year than the past few, even if I never did get around to writing a post called 2K h1p-h0p or some such... got a lot of enjoyment out of Big Boi {#16} and the Roots {#74}, for sure, but my favorites were actually two new discoveries, Yelawolf {#12} and Dominique Young Unique {#23; top three song}, both formidable presences with fairly (though not entirely) divergent energies on the mic. also really enjoying the Curren$y mixtapes {#32} lately, as promised, and working my way into Rick Ross, Wacka Flocka Flame, and Das Racist {#49} (great, but somehow not as much of an instant click as they seem like they should be). definitely enjoying Nicki Minaj too (the pop stuff on her album doesn't bother me too much, though I guess I didn't have quite the same expectations other people, and after a bit of waffling [i listened compulsively for about a week this summer, then set it aside for months], i have to admit that Drake {#34} album is extremely compelling and well done, even in its cornier aspects.
As for indie-pop, the big whooping news was of course Allo Darlin {#3}, by some measure my favorite NEW band of 2010, and also the one i most successfully spread love for amongst my loves and friends (even if i did miss their real show, stupid stupid stupid...) Big ups to Stornoway {#19} too on that front (and they did get the chance to blow me away in concert.) Otherwise, Lucky Soul {#85} delivered a worthy follow-up that's just missing some crucial ballads to really connect, Teenage Fanclub {#40}, whom I've barely paid attention before, impressed me mightily, with a few songs in particular, and best twees alive (pretty much?) Belle and Sebastian {#17} made a somewhat mixed-bag record that has at least one of their all-time greatest songs, and at least a handful of pretty good ones. I guess Best Coast {#92} count too. and I guess they're ok.
On a related note: with a few obvious exceptions on the dance-pop front [R-byn, c-o, A-phabeat], and a couple of low-pro Smalltown electrofolks [Diskjokke {#73}, Bjørn Torske {#78}], there was extremely little Scandinavian music that got me at all excited this year – a major change from the last three-four-five years. I liked jj's follow-up {#54} maybe more than I wanted to admit (though it's still a sizable disappointment), I really dug the Love is All {#90} for a brief moment there, I'm enjoying the new Britta Persson {#59} , and, for maybe the first time, a couple of Finnish groups – Husky Rescue {#98} and Regina – caught my attention. And there were a few Hybris releases – Monty, Elias – that probably deserve more of it. Also, Silje Nes, Olafur Arnalds and Ölof Arnalds [no relation? this is confusing] made some amount of prettiness, and perhaps Jonsí did as well, though I'm dubious [except in the visual realm. there; yes.] But I have – so far – found little to love in the new ones from The Ark and Billie the Vision and the Dancers, who are two of my very favorite artists of the last five-ten years, and the Labrador records output mostly failed to shake me up either [Radio Dept, Club 8...Sambassadeur {#94} was oh-kay.] Oh yeah, and I hated the Jenny Wilson album, and Junip and First Aid Kit were boring. I already addressed The Knife, though I am curious about this Oni Ayhun business. (also, i've been draggin my feet on reviewing a number of the aforementioned albums.)
So. Have I dropped enough names yet? There's still a number of things I haven't even mentioned, like (mostly) rock music. Which I listened to a bunch of as well, maybe the most in a while. Like Tame Impala {#91}, The Futureheads, The Black Keys, Wavves {#99}, Dr. Dog {#79}, Foxy Shazam, and the aforementioned Free Energy {#13}. And do The National {#20} even really count as rock anyway? [Somehow their album went from boring off my pants to top 20...i think it had something to do with watching the snow fall to it.]
Well anyhow. There is no end to this story, really. It goes on and on and on. And it goes on and on and on... on to the next!
11 January 2011
two zero one zero
15 December 2010
re:stocking
the annually rejiggered pitchfork readers poll (now closed) – which somewhat arbitrarily requested five songs and albums of the year, yet a full top ten of favorite songs out of from their best of the 1990s list [a fun and interesting task..i ended up with the magnetic fields' "the book of love" on top, but it might have been different another year] – also asked us to pick the year's top three live acts.
that's always a hard one, and maybe even more so since i saw more live music this year than possibly ever, thanks to a steady stream of CP assignments. robyn came pretty quickly to mind – her august show with kelis at the trocadero was the apotheosis of an emphatically summer-pop-summer, and a great reminder that she's as much of an effortless bad-ass as a performer as she is as a record-maker. (one particularly brilliant bit of stagecraft: eating a banana during the lengthy build-up of "don't fucking tell me what to do" – finishing in time to deliver just the title hook vocal live – in, if this is possible, a relatively non-sexualized, or other-than-sexualized fashion.) it also showed a fairly dramatic progression from the intimacy and simplicity of the first time i saw her into a dazzling, larger-than-life-feeling pop-star spectacle, though the difference was as much about a clear shift in her way of relating to the stage and the audience as added production fireworks (not to mention the perhaps-unfortunately ballad-free setlist.) will be interesting to see how that evolves when she comes back to play an even larger venue, the electric factory, in february. anywhow, a world-class performer, no question.
i'd thought about lcd soundsytem (whom, like fellow top-tenners joanna newsom and vampire weekend, i saw for both the first and second time this year) until i remembered about mayer hawthorne [& the county], from this vantage point easily my favorite new artist of 2009 [and that's not even accounting for the weirdly lackluster live performances of jj and the very best], whom i saw for the first-through-fourth times this year, at four substantially different venues [the most recent time, regrettably and frustratingly preventably, occasioned my missing a chance to see easily my favorite new artist of 2010, allo darlin', for the second time – but first real-full time – all in one day...], and he consistently killed it every time. the mayer hawthorne show is a well-oiled, spit-polished thing of beauty, and those four performances were far more similar than they were distinct [though the latest included some very exciting sneak previews of his new material], but i hardly minded the chance to re-experience it.
for the third slot, i picked a band i'd just seen, and really only recently listened to: stornoway, about whom i wrote this preview for city paper. the first two (and best) songs on their debut album, beachcomber's windowsill – which probably oversell the extent to which they can be categorized as "indie-pop" – bookended a set that demonstrated both rock-solid chops (instrumental and vocal) and considerable musical range, from moody, arty chamber-ish pieces (some of it verging on slightly tedious) to straight-up (and very british) folk (including a really lovely new one, "november song," performed solo and acoustic by frontman brian briggs) to a surprising amount of rocking out, particularly on the big swelling codas to a few songs. there was also briggs' endearingly nervous/nerdy banter, including recitations of inventions made in philadelphia (the slinky, lemon meringue pie...) but the best part was almost certainly the two-song encore, performed entirely unplugged and un-mic'd, which elicited some of the most genuinely enthusiastic crowd-love i've witnessed in a while. [videos of the encore songs are here and here, thanks to my cp compadres.] it was truly a heartwarming feeling to be in that crowd.
let alone recapping the year in live music, this past week alone has been stellar. last friday i watched two fake-local groups – my buddy tom's band via audio and their piano-popping pals jukebox the ghost [aka cutebox the most] – sock-rock a fun-happy beatles-loving crowd that seemed to consist primarily of teens and their parents, some of them in white astro-jumpsuits, with (respectively) songs about slacking, godzilla, pitch-corrected divas, and babymaking, as well as some lovably dopey banter and a frenzied rendition of "what's this" from the nightmare before christmas (also glad i stuck around for the night-closing panda-monium-inducing team-up cure cover.)
on sunday i saw the utterly ineffable nellie mckay kick some life into the bewilderingly all-over-the-place tunes from her new album – from the latin-kitsch/broadway melodrama "¡bodega!" to the meat-is-murder "unknown reggae" – as well as a bunch of the doris day numbers (and some other assorted jazz standards), a few old faves ("dog song"! "sari"!), a possibly new (?), typically beautiful/insane seasonal political number – an anti-christmas tree eco-rant inexplicably wrapped around a broken-hearted love song – and a wtf tom waits cover (awesomely, if unsurprisingly, she can do a pitch-perfect waitsian growl.) i think this was the first time i'd seen her play with a band, a trio of game if non-smiling jazzbos who set a highly amusing contrast to her preposterous, precociously giddy/girlish and befuddlingly anachronistic stage presence. her albums may be (increasingly) hit-or-miss, but her performances never fail to remind me of her truly limitless talent, eccentricity and charm. it's hard to put it words.
finally, last tuesday i trekked up to hoboken with rae to catch night seven of yo la tengo's annual 8 nights of hanukkah at maxwells [ira's account is there], something i hadn't done since 2002, when the band were very memorably joined by ray davies (whom, incidentally, i would have seen in boston over thanksgiving if hadn't, very sadly had to cancel for health reasons...) this show was similarly a pretty transcendent experience, if only because it reminded me how much i dearly love this band (you wouldn't think i'd forget something like that, having written something like this, and i didn't, really, but i maybe hadn't thought about it in a while...)
this is what they played:
HOME = "feels like going home," from ...beat your ass, a really sweet gentle one which i really should have included on home, why did i not do that? [wasn't] BORN 2 FOLLOW is a carole king cover that i didn't know, but almost of the others were familiar YLT favorites, really a solid setlist of classics, if maybe a tad obvious, but just perfect for not having seen them in a while... definitely heavy on the soft pretty ones (season of the shark, last days of disco, shadows, little eyes, black flowers) but that's kinda how i like it, and helped set off the totally awesome noise/drone freakouts that bookended the set (the last and first tunes, respectively from the last two albums.)
they were joined for their entire set (except for "tom courtenay," since he broke a string wailing out during the late-set punk-out patch) by the amazing mr. nels cline (of wilco, nels cline singers, and assorted out-jazz excursions), in a rad eyeball t-shirt, which made the whole thing all that much more awesome, even if he sometimes made it hard to see georgia. then they came back and played two ramones covers – "pet sematary" (james on vox!) and "sheena is a punk rocker") – and were joined by openers bonnie prince billy + the cairo gang (who were also awesome! even though i barely recognized any of the songs they played...need to brush up on billy's last half-decade) to close the night with lou reed's "heavenly arms" (which tbh i only know from el perro del mar's closer.) heavenly indeed...
14 December 2010
home
homehome
home
home
home
home
take me home...
2 home • glasser
3 home • david byrne + brian eno
4 you remind me of home • ben gibbard
5 home in your heart • solomon burke
6 my home is nowhere without you • herman düne
7 you're my only home • the magnetic fields
8 nestbuilding • the french
9 home time (lemon & lime) • joe goddard
10 come on home to me • tracey thorn with jens lekman
11 climbing high mountains • sam amidon
12 let me go home • sam cooke with the soul stirrers
13 feels like home • randy newman
14 home again • kate taylor
15 i'm comin' home • arthur alexander
16 i'm going back home • nina simone
17 home sweet home • flatt + scruggs
18 this is where i belong • the kinks
19 home (RAC mix) • edward sharpe + the magnetic zeros
20 (far from) home • tiga
21 home • kelis
22 home • lcd soundsystem
23 this must be the place (naïve melody) • talking heads
[ross of love, november 2011]
and it just so happens that two of my favorite songs of the year – by one of my well-established very favorite artists, and by a unusually intriguing newcomer – are titled "home": glasser's bewitching, almost eerie, yet magnificently warm and comforting, harmony-rich marvel (the first song of hers i heard, and far and away the standout of her striking debut album) and lcd soundsystem's generous, gently epic album-closer (which i overlooked for several months until i found myself dancing to it one fine night...), which might just stand as my favorite song of 2010, if only because it shares some clear, undoubtedly not coincidental similarities to my favorite song of ever... [and also because – at least the way i hear it – it's a bold and thorny exploration of one of my favorite themes; gleaning positivity and resilience from togetherness and connection in the face of confusion and frustration: if you’re afraid of what you need / look around you – you’re surrounded / it won’t get any better.]
obviously, a mix-tape was in order. this was not too difficult to make – an obvious example of the "itunes search" mix-making method, which often feels a bit distressingly easy, though perhaps it just presents different sorts of challenges. in this case, a title search for "home" yielded over 500 songs in my library, so there was a good bit of narrowing-down to do... and of course, naturally, the idea was to make a mix about the concept of home, not just of songs with "home" in the title. i think it turned out quite nicely, with a simple, logical conceptual shape, and a lot of standouts both shiny-new and golden-olden.
apart from the aforementioned pair (which i made almost-bookends, the second and penultimate tracks), i was happy to find a few other suitable selections from 2010 – especially the sam amidon (from an album i'd love to share as widely as i can) and tracey thorn (not the most strictly topical inclusion, but hard to resist a collaboration from two of my favorite singers, even on a cover of a songwriter [lee hazelwood] with whom i've never really connected.) and it wouldn't have felt right to leave off kelis, who also had a great song titled "home" (on a conceptually beautiful album that i didn't quite manage to connect with as much as some people) just because including it required a slightly sharper-than-planned veer into dance-tronica from the largely soul/folk/songwritery oriented main body of the mix.
similarly, i was ambivalent about using the edward sharpe/magnetic zeros song which somehow, without my real awareness, has apparently become something of a modern standard, since i have a probably unfairly suspicious opinion of them/him (it's not even a him, right?) (like, why do they have to have such an obnoxiously long, stupid name?), but it seemed callous to leave it off, since it is so obviously apropos. a bit dubious of this so-called "remix artist collective" too, but always nice to switch things up with a remix.
meanwhile, just like my dear mr. byrne, my b'lov'd darren hayman also happens to have a song called "home," by his old/best-known band hefner, the last track on my favorite of their albums and evidently a personal favorite of his. but i couldn't quite bring myself to include it, even though it is, i guess, topical – i just don't really like it for some reason, maybe because for whatever reason darren himself isn't the main singer – so instead (though i could have done both) i used "nestbuilding," by his other old/obscure band the french, which is a totally beautiful song i really love, even if it sort of ends up being more about a relationship than the ostensible topic of fixing up an old house. still works i think.
otherwise, thanks to itunes for helping me discover the lovely low-flying low tune (more like a hymn, or a mantra) which wound up as an almost preternaturally perfect opener, beautifully setting up the more unsettled/ambivalent/homesick/searching/yearning first half of the mix (home to several more of my favorite songs, especially for singing; the ben gibbard and magnetic fields) before the midpoint tone-shift into homecoming hootenanny/celebration/dance party.
also: i couldn't really think of a good title (for the mix, or for this post) but i guess i'm already there.
as usual, let me know if you want a copy. limited edition potato-stamp printed artwork now available...
09 December 2010
l8 > never
so: i never posted my 2008>2009 new years mix, due to a couple of fairly minor production flaws that i have been meaning to correct ever since but never actually got around to until, well, today. in fact, it was almost entirely fixed as of sometime this past spring, but i only just got around to tidying up the final loose ends tonight, as a sort of warm-up/deck-clearing exercise prior to launching into 2010 mix (about which more soon! i'm excited!) in earnest.
it turned out to be almost entirely painless, and now i am proud to present to you, in its entirety, in two convenient halves, at 192kbps, rarely heard since its initial unveiling at the stroke of midnight on 1/1/2009, the official ross of love 2008 new years eve dance party mix: 2K8<3!!
first half
second half
download and enjoy! my tendency is to think of this mix as the weakest of my four year-end mashymixes to date (with '09 as second weakest), though that may be somewhat unfairly due to the too-long-standing glitch sitch (which has meant that i've probably not listened to it nearly as much as the others.)
listening now, i do think it has a lot of nice parts, scattered throughout and especially in the second half, but i'm not particularly fond of the opening section (always surprisingly tricky to do for these mixes, for some reason) and there are some (neglible) sound quality issues in various places (definitely a downside of the generally nifty traktor native mix feature, which i used for the last two years, but will not be able to use for this year's mix, because it's not in the new version of traktor that works on my computer.) though there is plenty of great music here, 2008 feels like a slightly weird, off year from this juncture (for instance: santogold shows up three times here; where has she been since? also, M.I.A.'s here four times, in various forms. sorry, that won't be happening in 2010.) anyway...still a very good, worthy mix - i'm happy with it, and particularly happy to have it as a finished piece.
here's a tracklist for ya:
first half
Ross of Love vs. Solange/Beastie Boys/Portishead/M83/Hot Chip/Lil Wayne vs. Ross of Love
Four Tet / Ribbons
Flo Rida / Low
Usher / In This Club
T.I. / Whatever You Like
Santogold / Creator
El Guincho / Antillas
Buraka Som Sistema ft. M.I.A. / The Sound of Kuduro
Benga / Night
Britney Spears / Womanizer
Sway / Say It Twice
Soulja Boy ft. A-rab / Yahh!
Jazmine Sullivan / My Foolish Heart
Keri Hilson ft. Lil Wayne / Turnin' Me On
Janelle Monae / Violet Stars Happy Hunting!
The Roots / I Will Not Apologize
Throw Me The Statue / Lolita
Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown / No Air
Ne-Yo / Miss Independent
The Knux / Cappucino
Jay-Z ft. Santogold / Brooklyn Go Hard
The Clash / Straight To Hell
T.I. ft. Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne / Swagga Like Us
The Very Best / Tengazko
Erykah Badu / Soldier
Black Milk / Losing Out
Rhymefest with Mark Ronson / Foolin' Around
Beyoncé / Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
Pop Levi / Never Never Love
Erupt / Click My Finger
Alphabeat / Fascination
Missy Elliott / Shake It Like A Pom Pom
Kid Rock / All Summer Long
Hercules & Love Affair / Hercules Theme
Sugababes / Girls
Kardinal Offishal ft. Keri Hilson / Numba 1
The Bug ft. Warrior Queen / Insane
Vampire Weekend / Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Max Tundra / Which Song
Yelle / Ce Jeu
Dragonette / Marvelous
Spiss / My Slang
Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake / 4 Minutes
Busta Rhymes / Don't Touch Me (Throw Da Water On Em)
second half
Juvelen / Don't Mess
Ashlee Simpson / Boys
David Byrne & Brian Eno / Strange Overtones
Invisible Conga People / Cable Dazed
Kanye West / Paranoid
Kleerup / Thank You
Aeroplane ft. Kathy Diamond / Whispers
Hercules & Love Affair / You Belong
Diskjokke / Staying In
Was (Not Was) / Your Luck Won't Last
Neon Neon / Raquel
Midfield General / Disco Sirens
The Chap / Ethnic Instrument (Joakim Remix)
Pink Skull / Gonzo's Cointreau
Santogold / L.E.S. Artistes (XXXchange Remix)
Nomo / All The Stars
A. R. Rahman & M.I.A. / O... Saya
Rye Rye / Shake It To The Ground
Lindstrøm / Grand Ideas
Tittsworth / Haiku
Busy Signal ft. M.I.A. & Rye Rye / Tic Toc
Estelle ft. Kanye West / American Boy
Snoop Dogg ft. Robyn / Sexual Eruption (Fyre Department Remix)
Cloetta Paris / Beat Street
Cut Copy / Out There On The Ice
Rihanna / Disturbia
Fuck Buttons / Sweet Love For Planet Earth (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Kelley Polar / Entropy Reigns in the Celestial City
Wiley / Wearing My Rolex
Rex The Dog / Bubblicious
Johan Agebjörn ft. Sally Shapiro / Spacer Woman From Mars
Alphabeat / Fantastic 6 (Radioclit Mix)
Hot Chip / Ready For The Floor
Air France / Collapsing At Your Doorstep
Barack Obama / "You Have Earned The New Puppy"
Young Jeezy / My President Is Black
22 November 2010
AMG review round-up, volume XXII: 2010 third quarter, -ish
gotta wrap it up. here's a bunch of records, mostly from july-september 2010 (with a few secret stragglers, including some a year or two late), roughly in order of what they're like and how much i like them.
Allo Darlin': Allo Darlin' review
Allo Darlin' are a quintessential, dyed-in-the-wool twee pop band (and a pedigreed one at that – frontwoman Elizabeth Morris plays in Tender Trap with twee icon Amelia Fletcher, while bassist Bill Botting is a member of Darren Hayman's Secondary Modern) but their potential appeal extends far beyond the typically homespun, insider-y indie pop scene, since their music conveys all the genre's sweetness and enthusiasm without (or at least without too much of) the sappy infantilism and amateurish shambling that turn off most listeners of the genre. On the basis of their self-titled 2010 debut, it's not hard to imagine this London outfit finding the kind of widespread devotion enjoyed by leading lights like Camera Obscura, the Lucksmiths, or even Belle & Sebastian. Certainly, Allo Darlin' is most reminiscent of these artists' earlier, scrappier efforts, but the sophistication is there, most crucially, in Morris' songs, which strike just the right balance of clever and heartfelt, wittily specific, and broadly relatable. And, without exception, magnificently tuneful. Vocally, she's got all the charm of, say, Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell, but with a much more upbeat, outgoing personality (and her Aussie-via-London accent – even just her pronunciation of the word "telephone" – is worth melting for). The band never stray far from the Platonic template of crisp, vibrantly produced '60s-style guitar pop, with tinges of soul, country, and Afro-pop, generous use of ukulele and lap steel, and a healthy sprinkling of ba-bas and sha-la-las. The playing is consistently strong and, with a few tender-hearted exceptions, briskly bouncy and grooving – particularly apt for the first three songs, which are about going out dancing (though they're also about heavenly embraces, Polaroid photographs, and youthful cash deficiency, respectively.) Other pivotal topics covered include falling in love (in an amusement park; whilst making chili) and listening (and making references) to pop music. In the time-honored tradition of the Pooh Sticks, Morris fills her songs with canny cultural nods: lifting lines from Weezer, quoting Johnny Cash and Doris Day, citing fellow twees the Just Joans. (Meanwhile "Woody Allen" – which switches to film references for a change – is melodically reminiscent of the Magnetic Fields' "Strange Powers," while the blissfully lovely "Let's Go Swimming" lyrically echoes their "All the Umbrellas in London.") Maybe best of all, "My Heart Is a Drummer" reps for Paul Simon's Graceland: "we know it's everybody's favorite/deep down in the place where music makes you happiest." Clearly, that's a place that Morris and Allo Darlin' know extremely well.
The Books: The Way Out review"Welcome to a new beginning" declares a voice at the start of The Way Out, and this album does indeed mark a fresh new chapter for the Books: a return to record-making five years after the fantastic Lost and Safe, on a new label, with a newly open-ended, wide-ranging approach to their work. It may not initially sound that way: opener "Group Autogenics I," one of several pieces that draw on guided meditation-style self-help recordings, feels almost like Books-by-numbers, with a gently humorous, disorienting oddness, juxtaposed with genuinely deeply relaxing sonics, that will be immediately familiar to fans of their past albums. After that, though, the duo stretches beyond its comfort zone in multiple directions at once, pushing at the boundaries of an already utterly singular style. The acoustic strings (primarily guitar and cello) that dominated their earlier output are still present, but they share space with a dizzying array of instrumental and quasi-instrumental sounds, from twinkling music boxes to a full-scale sample-generated orchestra of archaic brass and woodwinds. And while scavenged spoken word samples remain the most defining element of the Books' music, anchoring each of these cuts save for the four sung, lyric-based "proper songs" (including the gloriously geeky, math-worshiping chorale "Beautiful People," which announces, slightly disingenuously: "We genuflect before pure abstraction"), they're less concerned with constructing linguistic puzzles out of their samples here – cleverly editing them to evince a sublimely witty illogic and absurdity – than with exploring their emotional nuances and often surreal humanity. Most tracks focus on a small number of voices, creating a sense of context and resonance without necessarily allowing for full comprehension. Hence, we get a tentative, intimate series of answering machine messages; a nonsensical bedtime tale about a Peter Rabbit-like character named Hip Hop; an inexplicably prickly grammarian vehemently insisting that "I Am Who I Am." "A Cold Freezin' Night" is a hilarious, slightly chilling tour de force built around a battle of (increasingly violent) words between a young brother and sister, set to a thumping disco beat. "I Didn't Know That" is even more striking musically – the closest thing yet to a Books pop hit, and definitely the funkiest they've ever been, recalling Squarepusher's nimble bass playing and Akufen's micro-sampled funk barrages. The stated intention for The Way Out was for each track to be "its own rabbit hole," and the album does indeed manage to survey an impressively disparate set of worlds and modes. Still, each one remains readily recognizable as belonging to the Books' own unique, unequivocal universe, which, happily, seems to be expanding at least twice as rapidly as our own.
ceo: White Magic review
ceo is Eric Berglund, one half of the Tough Alliance and co-CEO of Gothenburg's Sincerely Yours label; his first solo venture is another clear winner from that inscrutable but highly dependable camp. While its brightly colorful melting pot of indie pop, ersatz tropicalia, chintzy new age, and electronic dance-pop doesn't stray far from the distinctive, neon-hued sound of TTA, White Magic feels tighter, lusher, and more polished (especially vocally) than most of the duo's output, with an earnest, romantic emotional outlook far from TTA's typically enigmatic, performative sneering. Berglund wastes no time announcing his ambitions here, starting with the swaying orchestral expanse of "All Around," over which he declares: "I'm coming home to face the demons on my own." It's a grand opening statement, but it's only one part of the ceo equation: alongside weightier material like the ruminative "Oh God Oh Dear" and a solemn, churchy rendition of "Den Blomstertid Nu Kommer" (a hymnlike ode to summertime that's traditionally sung at the close of the Swedish school year) that ends the album with the same string figures that opened it, the balance of White Magic's eight tracks consists of cheerfully melodic dance-pop. "Illuminata" and "Love and Do What You Will," in particular, are about as buoyant as they come, and "Come with Me" is widescreen Balearic pop at its glistening, tuneful best. The title track shades slightly darker, with its vaguely sinister, pulsing tribal techno punctuated by jungle noises, steely guitar flourishes, and percolating pan flutes, while TTA's recurrent hip-hop-inflected fascination with violence rears its head on the otherwise blithe-sounding "No Mercy" with an excellently deployed knife-sharpening sample (the song also features offhand lyrical references to bondage, incarceration, and smoking crack). Without shortchanging Berglund's melodic abilities and his knack for sharp, effective mood juxtapositions, ceo's greatest attribute is his fearlessly inventive, highly detailed approach to arrangement, bringing together an unpredictable assortment of sounds on nearly every track, and somehow making these largely synthetic productions feel dynamic and vibrantly alive. Phil Spector and Brian Wilson come to mind – the baroque strings and clip-clop percussion of "Oh God Oh Dear," specifically, suggest discreet nods to each – and, indeed, pace Wilson, the whole affair might be aptly summed up as a "quarter-life symphony to God." At under 30 minutes, White Magic could feel painfully brief, but it's so dense with creativity, melody, and life that it seems churlish to want more.
Clubfeet: Gold on Gold reviewAt first blush, Clubfeet seem like yet another of the countless faceless bands plying the intersection of rock, pop, dance, and electronic music in the early 2010s, but this Capetown-via-Melbourne trio is slightly more of a puzzle than its "sounds like" list suggests. For one thing, despite the band's floor-friendly moniker and appearance on the dance-oriented Plant label – and despite its sleek, synthy sheen and plethora of electronic beats – Gold on Gold feels too restrained and contemplative to really come off as a dance album. You could probably dance to most of these tracks if you had to, but on the whole it's more of a mood-setter than a floor-filler, recalling fellow Melburnians Cut Copy at their less vigorous (but still lushly anthemic), suggesting a sprightlier, fleshier take on the xx's darkly stylish veneer and updating the epic romanticism of early U2 (specifically their guitar textures) and early Stars. For a band so centrally concerned with tone and texture, Clubfeet's most impressive feat here – and what sets them apart from many of their contemporaries – is the amount of personality they're able to convey while maintaining a consistent dominant mood. It operates in subtle ways – never overbearing, nearly genteel – but their distinctive charm is nevertheless apparent throughout, often in the touches of humor and lightness they bring to what's largely a sober-minded affair: an oddly chipper tropical beatbox undercutting the lavish melancholy of "Fall from Up Here," a sweet, simple piano figure running through the achingly languorous "Six Days," or the spoken word group chants in both "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)" (which, Heathers-referencing aside, seems essentially straight-faced about its titular subject, making for a noble message of perhaps dubious utility in a dance-pop song) and "D.I.E. Yuppie Scum" (which, contrarily, is pretty plainly a gag). The latter two songs are the album's most immediate, attention-getting standouts and most likely dance jams, mostly by virtue of those chanted hooks, but ultimately neither one measures up to "Count Your Lovers," which gets by on pure melody and prettiness. Another highlight is a candy-sweet synth pop rendition of James' "Say Something" which, in addition to being a well-chosen and beautifully executed cover, is one of few moments where Clubfeet set aside their guitars entirely, meaning that perhaps the most electronic thing on the album is a version of a rock song. Who needs pigeonholes anyway?
Dragonette: Fixin' To Thrill reviewIt's telling that Dragonette titled their second album Fixin to Thrill, and not just straight-up Thrillin', even if it absolutely makes good on that stated intention. Notwithstanding the band's uber-stylish panache and the dangerously glitzy, fabulously sordid rock & roll lifestyle their music projects, there's no denying that the frequently fantastic fun and giddy thrills to be found here are the upshot of some serious craftsmanship. Dragonette are, above all, pop perfectionists, carefully culling all the shiniest bits from '80s new wave (from Duran Duran to the Go-Go's), '90s alt pop (they bear a passing resemblance to No Doubt, a more striking one to the sweet 'n' dirty electro-rock crunch of Garbage), and full-throttle '00s teen pop to concoct an obviously familiar but still effortlessly modern sound to match their punky-spunky energy. But that wouldn't count for much if not for the earworm-y melodies this album boasts in spades, with almost every cut packed full of naggingly catchy synth riffs, vocal hooks, and guitar lines. Fixin may lack a clear, massive standout to match Galore's "I Get Around" (the title track's a decent attempt, but it falls a bit short) but otherwise it marks a slight but noticeable improvement on the band's already-pretty-great debut, a more consistent batch of songs paced so that the highlights keep on coming. For the most part, the odd-numbered songs tend to be the strongest, including the sinuous, sinister "Liar," the goofy, superhero-themed "We Rule the World," and the irresistibly bouncy "Okay Dolore," quasi-cheerleader pop with enough (synthetic) handclaps to do Toni Basil proud. While the band's tendency for oddball stylistic detours is toned down here next to Galore's unscheduled excursions to Bollywood and Tin Pan Alley, the peppy banjos on "Gone Too Far," the kids choir breakdown on "Stupid Grin," and gentle cabaret stylings of "You're a Disaster" keep that sense of playfulness alive in a somewhat more integrated fashion. But the most striking and promising new development here may be an emotional one. "Easy," by some margin the album's best song, is an unusually tender expression of doomed, devoted love with a slinky, sparsely funky electro groove that drops out partway through for a rare moment of vulnerability from the normally all-sass Martina Sobrara: a sweetly harmonized, awkwardly phrased plea imploring her lover not to play games with her fragile heart. It's a total sucker move coming from these guys, an arresting, affecting moment regardless of whether you hear it as unfettered emotionalism or simply a top-notch example of how true pop greatness is to be found in the small details, a lesson that these crafty popsters have definitely taken to heart.
Copy: bio and Hard Dream review
Though he restricts himself to a palette of retro-sounding synths and straitlaced, reasonably dancefloor-friendly drum programming, never straying too far from the distinctive (if hardly earth-shattering) instrumental techno-pop vibe he's made his signature, Copy (alias Portland beatmaker Marius Libman) still covers considerable ground, emotionally, and stylistically. Hard Dream, Copy's third full-length, is titled after and loosely conceived as a score for an unrealized horror movie concept – for a flick about mysteriously televised nightmares – and, fittingly, it has its share of dark, moody, and menacing passages. But it's got plenty of pep and sweetness too, thanks to Libman's unrepentant tunefulness and full-color approach to composition; his synthesizers, which often manage to sound gleaming and gritty at the same time, are just as likely to sparkle and soar as to burble and brood. At the album's frequent best, he's often got multiple synthetic strands of melody going at once, layered into a dense, satisfying analog stew, as on the eight-minute opener "One Less Time"– a slow-building, slow-motion disco epic which might not quite live up to its Daft Punk-baiting title, but still finds some frothy, intoxicating territory to explore – or the sunnier, rather ornate "Breakfast." Copy also does well in sparser settings – "Real Scared," juxtaposing music box arpeggios and archly Baroque synth leads against a spare, swaggering, hip-hop beat – is a clear standout (and one of a few tracks to blatantly recall sometime-confederates Ratatat), while "Stay Away from It"'s herky-jerky, 8-bit bleep-thrash closes the album on a particularly fun, frenetically chirpy note. Only a few tracks are functionally devoid of melody, and they're the weakest links here: the murky, fairly generic dubstep foray "I Didn't Know" and the jittery, Kraftwerk-ian autopilot chase scene music of "It Could Have Been More" make for fine-enough mood shifters in the context of the album, but mostly they seem like rote genre exercises whose failings can be summed up by the latter's title. Generally, though, Libman's compositional gifts don't steer him wrong, and Hard Dream is much more nuanced and engagingly listenable than its stylistic trappings initially suggest. Deliberately or not, Copy's music tends to come off as primarily party fodder, well-crafted but essentially superficial, trading heavily on novelty and kitschy '80s nostalgia, but it's equally possible to see it in the tradition of thoughtful, palatable electronic "listening music," of the sort once peddled by µ-ziq and Plaid, and lately revived by Copy's West coast peers like Eliot Lipp and Nosaj Thing.
Restless People: bio and Restless People review
Tanlines: Settings and Volume On reviewsA short list of artists for whom Tanlines have provided remix work – El Guincho, the Tough Alliance, Memory Tapes – gives an almost too-perfect snapshot of the stylistic terrain this Brooklyn duo traverses. Along with their True Panther labelmates Delorean, these acts are at the forefront of a particular late-2000s approach to electronic music that's decidedly poppy and danceable but without the formal rigidity of dance-pop proper, featuring plush, treble-heavy synths, thickly burbling percussion, and warmly layered, tropical-flavored grooves. That's a fairly straight-ahead description of what you can expect to find on Settings, a highly enjoyable release that nevertheless tends to blend into its surroundings (both aurally and stylistically) rather than asserting its individuality. The clearest standouts, or at least the most memorable moments, come with "Real Life" and "Policy of Trust," both enhanced (though not exactly dominated) by Eric Emm's appealingly low-key vocals, which ruminate on life's unknowable roads ("For a minute I was lost/I looked away/My destination was unknown") and make sideways nods to Depeche Mode. The third vocal cut, "Bees," is less melodically engaging, flirting with slightly more aggressive, calypsonian rhythm, while the closing "Z" is a lovely, more electro-leaning showcase for the glassy, wordless vocals of labelmate Glasser. At six songs and 24 minutes, Settings comes off as a reasonably generous EP, not least because it seems like about the limit for what these guys are able to accomplish without in some way broadening the parameters of what they do – any longer and its commendable cohesiveness might start to seem more tiresome. A true full-length effort from these two could be a very appealing prospect; they might just have to vary up their portfolio a bit to pull it off.
Arp: The Soft Wave review
Alexis Georgopoulos' debut as Arp, 2007's In Light, was an almost forbiddingly minimal collection of glacially paced analog synth excursions and sparse, meandering drones. The Soft Wave follows that outing with a set that's equally subdued and nearly as restrained in its compositional approach, yet feels strikingly rich in comparison to the utter starkness of its predecessor. There are a few obvious departures here, including an expanded sonic palette – featuring electric guitars and basses, pianos, beatboxes, and even (on one track) vocals in addition to the expected array of vintage synthesizers (which occasionally veer into patches of fuzz and abstract noise instead of remaining clinically pure) – and the fact that many of these pieces boast what could legitimately called melodies, or at least melodic motifs. But the biggest change is more than anything one of mood: while both albums are calm and contemplative, there's a warmth and restfulness to Wave that was distinctly absent from the sometimes naggingly unsettled, sometimes downright chilly In Light. It's right there in the track list: titles like "Catch Wave," "High Life," and "Summer Girl" evoke a pretty specific vibe, and they're not lying – the latter two in particular offer a hazy tunefulness that makes them, along with the groovily fluid guitar-looping "White Light," the first Arp tracks that could be considered infectious. You're probably unlikely to jam them on your way to the beach, but they're perfect for laying back and dreaming about summer, regardless of the actual outdoor temperature (well, as long as you don't mind the occasional squall). The same is equally true of the lengthier pieces that make up The Soft Wave's two poles: the stately, gently triumphant two-part opener "Pastoral Symphony," which is the closest this album comes to In Light's hermetic analog purity, and the blissfully languid slow-motion bossa "From a Balcony Overlooking the Sea" (the aforementioned vocal number, reminiscent of "rock album" Brian Eno and, curiously, the Sea and Cake), clearly the farthest thing here from Arp's established wheelhouse. Though these two pieces don't sound very much like one another, the feeling they create is surprisingly comparable. Much as Georgopoulos' compositions gradually evolve and mutate out of an initial sense of stasis, he's found a way to vary his approach – if only, in the scheme of things, fairly slightly – that moves it forward, slowly but surely, from simple clarity toward a rare luminescence.
Drivan: bio and Disko reviewNorwegian producer Kim Hiorthøy has a knack for cobbling together small scraps of sound and melody in a careful but seemingly arbitrary fashion that can make the simple and familiar seem oddly curious and make the coarse and unexpected feel innocently sweet. Disko, the first output from Drivan – a group consisting of Hiorthøy and three female performance artists who serve here primarily as vocalists and co-architects – is the least overtly electronic recording he has been involved in, although most of its tracks do feature his typically low-key, rough-hewn, hip-hop-styled beats for at least a portion of their running time. For the most part, the album uses the melodic but not particularly song-based linear structures familiar from his solo work. Tracks tend to build from a basic rudimentary riff, melody, or chord progression, typically picked out on acoustic guitar or a slightly out of tune piano, with the vocals – exclusively in Swedish, usually solo or in unison, and tending toward a plain, uninflected tone that sometimes takes on a childlike, singsong cast – layered on top. Beats filter in and out, tracks develop and disintegrate in fluid but unpredictable ways, and Hiorthøy tacks on little bits of incidental noise and sonic detritus: the ambient sounds of talking, laughing, scuffling of papers; spectral, unidentified samples of this and that; whistling and squeaking electronic toys and synthetic strings and cheap-sounding keyboard organ solos. There's one clear standout and centerpiece in the six-minute "Det Gör Ingenting," which is the fullest-sounding and most melodically compelling piece here, its sweetly hypnotic throb suggesting an epic, pulsating dance track as performed by children, or heard from several rooms away through slightly worn-out speakers. (It's the only time the album comes close to the danceability suggested by its devious title, though it's still probably a bit too mellow for that.) Otherwise, it's all gently shambolic, mildly folky, slightly inscrutable, and generally quite likable. One gets the sense that Hiorthøy and his cohorts could easily continue turning out these strange, sweet, and satisfying songs in similar fashion for quite some time, if they so chose, and it would be hard to complain if they did.
K-X-P: K-X-P review
A good deal heavier and murkier than the electronic prog-disco fare sometimes associated with Smalltown Supersound – though far from unrelated to that aesthetic – K-X-P is the first fruit of the eponymous project fronted by Op:l Bastards' Timo Kaukolampi. Effectively a synth-bass-drums power trio – with the slight twist that the lineup alternates between a pair of drummers – K-X-P specialize in dark, elemental, monolithic grooves with an obvious debt to your typical slate of gritty, texture-oriented post-punk minimalists (Suicide, Spacemen 3, This Heat) and motorik Krautrockers (Can, Neu!). Each of these eight cuts has its own distinct rhythmic flavor – "Mehu Moments" sports a simple, steady jazz-funk beat; "Elephant Man" rides a hypnotic, herky-jerky tribal pounding; standout "18 Hours (Of Love)" is a stomping T. Rex/Goldfrapp/Battles shuffle – but they maintain a fairly consistent tone and approach, with plenty of groaning, throbbing drones, noisy squalls of synth noodling, and other bits of psychedelic electro-sonic detritus. Vocals crop up occasionally on three or four of the songs, but they're typically too distorted to make much of an impression – the exception being "Pockets," wherein they're intelligible as English and recognizably melodic though fairly grating (after grappling, largely successfully, with conventional song form, the track's second half retreats into an unexpected morass of fluttering, electro-disco synth arpeggios). As the album progresses, it grows more heavily electronic and increasingly spacy, with the gauzy soundtrack synths of "New World" offering a more subdued moment of cosmic reverie and "Epilogue" closing things out with some beatless, meandering organ drones and wispy wordless vocals. Despite its general seedy overtones and occasional moments of harshness, K-X-P is far from an unpalatable or unpleasant record; indeed, its relentless intensity can even feel oddly calming.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring: Primary Current review
Eddy Current Suppression Ring's second album is essentially of a piece with their self-titled debut, meaning here are ten more blasts of direct, primitive, tuneful punk from the bowels of Melbourne. Rough and scrappy but too giddily enthusiastic to come off as snotty or sneering, ECSR tap in to the primal, fun-loving energy of frill-free rock & roll, a spirit that feels every bit as immediate and relevant as it is familiar and timeless. Their sound may be derivative (of any number of past clatter-masters – perhaps most notably the Stooges, but also Wire, the Fall, the Feelies, and on and on), but it's not formulaic, and certainly not monotonous: Primary Colours employs a fair amount of rhythmic and textural variety within its basic template of straightforward lock-grooves and minimalist guitar shredding. So for every all-out skronkfest like "Sunday's Coming" and "Which Way to Go," which maintain a fairly steady barrage of thick guitar noise, there's a sleeker, spindlier cut like "Memory Lane" or the bored anti-media rant "Colour Television" ("Another Wheel of Fortune/Another million tortured") to keep their squalls in check for just the right moment of release. Punk love song "Wrapped Up" is bouncy and infectious with a strong, slinky riff, the Feelies-esque instrumental "That's Inside of Me" finds a herky-jerky funk groove, and "We'll Be Turned On" loosens up even further with some sloppy organ pounding and a righteously bashed-out rhythm track. That song also features a particularly goofy turn from frontman Brendan Suppression who, with his affable Aussie twang and unpretentious reflections on ordinary stuff like relationships and modern life (or, in this case, sex and television), comes across like a far more relatable version of Mark E. Smith.
Kathryn Calder: Are You My Mother? review
The most striking moment on Kathryn Calder's solo debut comes early. Halfway through the prettily subdued opener, "Slip Away," the song bursts unexpectedly free of its gently dappled piano tones and measured calm, the drums kick into rollicking gear, and Calder lets loose a joyous, irresistible, wordless vocal line strikingly like the ones her uncle, Carl Newman, used to write for Neko Case to sing with the New Pornographers. But those glorious, fleeting seconds (the eruption happens again later in the song) are the closest Are You My Mother? comes to the unbridled power pop/rock favored both by that group (of which Calder has become an increasingly active member) and by Immaculate Machine, the band of high-school chums turned indie rock pros that was until recently her primary outfit. Somewhere between a "traditional" singer/songwriter album and an exercise in one-woman popcraft à la Newman's band-based solo records, Mother finds Calder alternating between rhythmically driven uptempo numbers (the peppy, noodly two-step "Castor and Pollux"; the frantic, somewhat slapdash-sounding "A Day Long Past Its Prime") and mellower, more introspective fare. She strikes a happy medium on the folksy, metrically quirky "If You Only Knew," a jaunty singalong complete with handclaps and shambling, desultory group percussion, and on the breezy "Follow Me into the Hills," which manages to suggest both loping acoustic country and tiki-lounge exotica with its mandolin breaks, swaying tropical beat, and big twangy guitar. But by and large, in spite of Calder's rocking pedigree, Mother is generally most effective at its most restrained. With repeated listens, cuts like the autumnal, string-laden "Down the River" and the wistful waltzes "Arrow" and "So Easily" (the former a piano-based lilt, the latter stripped down to the sparsest picked acoustic guitar notes and featuring an understated harmony from Case) stand out as the album's most resonant, if only because their sparer settings allow Calder's finest gifts – the strength of her melodies and the girlish sweetness of her winsome vocals – to shine through most clearly. Despite its poignant back-story – Calder recorded the album at her family home in Victoria while caring for her ailing mother, who died a year before its release – Mother's emotional impact tends to be more indirect and evocative than specific and tangible. Its varied but always thoughtful musical character, as much as its nuanced, sometimes ambiguous lyrics, make it feel like an understated, vital reminder to bring a gentle approach to life's struggles.
Jenny Wilson: Hardships! reviewThe second album by this acclaimed Swedish songstress largely jettisons the appealing if skewed pop sensibility of her debut, along with most of that album's electronic underpinnings, for a prickly, nebulously political collection of songwriterly art-pop, emphasis firmly on the "art." While Love and Youth wasn't exactly light listening, it could somewhat reasonably be mentioned in the same breath as Wilson's friends and collaborators (and compatriots) Robyn and The Knife; Hardships!, though, plods a portentous path far from the Scandinavian synth-pop superhighway, evoking instead the idiosyncratic likes of Kate Bush and Tori Amos. Wilson's curious, powerfully theatrical soprano has earthy hints of gospel and soul, while the piano-led chamber arrangements offer occasional flashes of levity, particularly in the percussion department – though the album's menagerie of handclaps and xylophones can just as easily sound sinister as cheerful. But most of the interest here (human or otherwise) derives from the lyrics, which deal explicitly with domesticity and motherhood, forming a loose song cycle/concept album that addresses those topics primarily through themes of struggle, escape and disillusionment. Wilson combines narrative details redolent of rural poverty (strong-willed horses, threadbare socks, burnt soup and potatoes) with military, maritime, natural world and nursery-rhyme imagery to create vivid, uneasy juxtapositions, not unlike the rifle she wields with such impassive poise on the album's cover. The dinner-time escalation in "Pass me the Salt" is typical: "Come on now eat your food/cartridges, fried and stewed/this table has become a combat zone." The title song likewise compares the trials of motherhood to the stuff of bloody battlefields, bemoaning the unheralded heroism involved in an implacable, oddly antagonistic tone that reduces a well-reasoned feminist viewpoint to bleak, heartless logic. Wilson adopts a similarly chilly, queasily pragmatic, almost resentful view of family relationships throughout, with partners and children alike: when she wails, by way of a lullaby, "I wanna leave you baby/but our veins are entwined," you get the sense she really does want to leave her infant. The final two songs represent something of a thaw, musically as well as lyrically (one features a loose-limbed sax solo) – tellingly, they're the only ones save for the surreal memoiristic opener "The Path" ("I wanted to be born, so I crawled out of my mother") to contain the word "love." Love does not come easily in a world filled with hardships. And Hardships! is not an easy affair on any level.
