Review Round-Up: October 2013

Cass McCombs
Big Wheel and Others

Two years ago, Cass McCombs gave us two distinct, intriguing but oddly opaque albums; each a mere eight songs long.  At twenty-two tracks and eighty-five minutes, Big Wheel and Others (note the typically coy titular understatement) feels like a deliberate reaction against those records' mincing concision, although, as double-sets go, it's loose but hardly ragged.  Neither a conceptual epic nor a sprawling White Album-style smorgasbord, but a genial stretching-out a la Exile and Blonde on Blonde; an album to put on and just live in for a while.  Stylistically, it's somewhere in that ballpark as well; a rootsy ramble from the truckdrivin' title track's musclebound motorik to the dusty folk surrealism of "Unearthed," via pretty pedal-steel ballads, slinky beatnik blues, and jazzy yacht-country instrumentals – all gorgeously performed – plus three slightly bewildering interview clips (taken from the 1969 documentary Sean) with a four-year-old who probably could've penned off-color nursery-rock goof-off "Satan is My Toy."  Throughout, McCombs hits a brilliantly unpredictable songwriting stride, like a wry, wandering Silver Jew, peppering his romantic and socio-political ruminations with twisted neo-hippie logic ("I believe in littering: waste should not be hidden but seen") and tersely quirky quips ("what's it like to shit in space?") [8/10]

Kwes.
ilp

Now here's what I call a kaleidoscope dream.  Like a bookish limey Miguel with zero of the bravado and a flair for woozy, Floydian whirr, Kwes is a man of modest but nostalgia-rich pleasures.  The first vocal appearance on his long-simmering Warp debut (which comes ninety seconds in, once the sound-dust settles from the album's startlingly queasy initial eruption) finds the low-key Londoner listlessly "walkin' in the park, chuckin' bread to swans, hearin' em honk."  Soon he's picking berries while fending off butterflies; later he's reminiscing about a lover who once invited him rollerblading ("back in '93"), and someone else who suggested riding a cable car ("today," though the time difference feels somehow negligible.)  Words are feeble, fleeting things on ilp, but these at least offer some tangible, redolent images amid the album's hazy, paisley swirl.  Likewise, despite the occasional gummy refrain – like the burbling stutter-soul of previously aired highlight "b_shf_l" – Kwes' pop instincts typically prove incidental to his synaesthete's bent for structureless head-trip meanderings.  But it's hard to mind once they've gotten you in the door: rarely does one stumble into a world so richly realized and so warmly, curiously inviting. [7.5/10]

Schneider TM
Guitar Sounds

Dirk Dresselhaus is a man of surprises.  He slyly prefigured the micro-house boom with his 1998 Schneider TM debut LP, Moist, before shifting gears entirely to the (similarly prescient) Beach Boys-infused lap-pop of 2002's Zoomer.  Last year's Construction Sounds returned to the alias for an unprecedentedly abstract and experimental effort incorporating field recordings from building sites.  And while it bears substantial common ground with that work, Guitar Sounds essentially finds the Berliner broaching yet another new genre: per the title, it's a set of guitar-based electro-acoustic improvisation (or as he'd have it, "instant composition.")  It's a far cry from the playful humorousness of his early days (unless, arguably, you squint at just the right moments – say, the gently sputtering "explosions" toward the end of "Landslide.")  But his curiously organic approach to electronica and close attention to sonic detail remain, somewhere, among these meandering drones and tones, grindings and scrapings (and brief, occasional bouts – as on "First of May" – of actual guitar playing), which are warmly enveloping in many stretches and, even at their least palatable, still rather pleasantly unpleasant. [6/10]

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Dirtbombs
Ooey Gooey Chewey Ka-Blooey!
[Rock/Pop]

It's not every garage-punk band that follows up their Detroit techno covers record with an exuberant, party-starting homage to vintage bubblegum.  Okay, The Dirtbombs are probably the only one – but they're also the best.  Not just any ol' '60s pop re-hash, Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey (In The Red) stomps and shimmies, sugar-shocks and sha-la-las like the Archies gone pleasantly feral.  While these ten three-minute wonders are technically all Mick Collins originals, he's not above bolstering the project's authenticity by lifting a lick (or an entire vocal melody) from the classics: "Mony Mony," "Yummy Yummy Yummy," even "Good Vibrations."  Remember kids, only the greats steal.

Haim
Days Are Gone
[Pop/Rock]

Notwithstanding the Haim sisters' long-haired, shade-sporting LA rockstar image, their duly touted instrumental chops, legitimately ass-kicking live show and ample use of twitchy, palm-muted guitar licks, the songs on their long-awaited debut LP are no less technologically-abetted studio creations than those of that other red-hot hype-riding trio of the moment, Chvrches – though neither are they any less perfectly-formed pop.  And despite the Fleetwood Mac RIYLs that have been persistently trailing them, Days Are Gone (Columbia) lands a good deal closer to Thriller than Rumours.  Just remember which one of those had Van Halen on it.

Devon Sproule + Mike O'Neill
Colours
[Singer-Songwriter]

Devon Sproule and Mike O'Neill met singing Beach Boys duets on Youtube – like you do in the twenty-teens – and crafted the collaborative Colours (Tin Angel) long-distance, between Austin and Halifax.  But there's nothing new-fangled or logistically strained about the topics traversed here – family life, human goodness, ceiling fans, a minor boating accident, love – nor the album's unhurried, loosely jazzy folk-pop.  All of this reflects Sproule's usual open-hearted, modestly idiosyncratic milieu, which O'Neill slots neatly and effortlessly into.  His voice is high and pure like hers, and the results, colored by Sandro Perri's sympathetic, synth- and horn-flecked production, are rarely dazzling but consistently comforting.  The Wilsons should be proud.

Glasser
Interiors
[Electronic/Art-Pop]

Cameron Mesirow's gonna have a tough time shaking those chronic, facile-seeming Björk comparisons with her second LP as Glasser, and not just because of certain heavily reminiscent contours in the soaring, otherworldly acrobatics of her voice (which, to be fair, shares at least as much with the sweet, artful detachment of St. Vincent's Annie Clark.)  Even while Interiors (True Panther) remains undeniably Mesirovian, its architecturally inspired yet organically fluid techno-pop shapes evoke the exploratory, hypercolor digitalia of Homogenic more than anything Björk herself has touched in well over a decade.

VV Brown
Samson & Delilah
[Electronic/Pop]

VV Brown emerged in 2009 as a perky, playful retro-pop songbird, but we've barely heard from her since, as the intended follow-up to her delightful debut was first delayed, then permanently shelved for artistic reasons.  Her actual sophomore release may offer some explanations: Samson and Delilah (YOY) represents an almost complete aesthetic overhaul; a dramatic left turn into gothic, quasi-operatic electronica that's as magnificent as it is unexpected.  Brown's voice, all but unrecognizable, weaves across frosty industrial synthscapes, deep distorted machine grooves and imaginative, darkly glistening dance-pop, compensating for its somewhat diminished personality through sheer emotive potency.

Machinedrum
Vapor City
[Electronic]

Much as Machinedrum's 2011 breakthrough, Room(s), refitted and streamlined the frantic antics of Chicago footwork, Vapor City (Ninja Tune) appropriates the floor-friendly architecture of drum'n'bass and skittering digital dancehall for much more shadowy, diffuse, wistfully atmospheric purposes, loading on the sonic detail – sleepy/spectral vocal fragments, brooding synth pads, infinitely divisible rhythmic tracery – to render a meticulously misty, greyscale urban moodscape.  (The title scans as flatly, almost blandly descriptive.)  Barring passable detours into chillwave, dappled Boards of Canada-isms and abstract ambient fuzz, the results tend toward theoretically danceable tracks which in practice are more ideally suited for deep, sullen vibing.

Trentemøller
Lost
[Electronic/Eclectic]

Unerringly proficient, if increasingly inscrutable, Anders Trentemøller continues to distance himself from the coffee-table tech-house and elegantly tailored club fare on which he made his name.  The Danish producer's third full-length, Lost (In My Room), is split evenly between instrumental curios – everything from noir-ish mood pieces to sludgy psych-rock to the occasional, dazzling display of programmed-synth kineticism – and mild, suggestible vocal features for assorted indie rock notables (members of The Drums, Blonde Redhead, Lower Dens, etc.)  It's an amiable mess strewn with captivating moments – plus, kicking things off with seven heavenly minutes of Low's unimpeachable Mimi Parker is gonna win you plenty of points around these parts.

Diplo
Revolution EP
[Dance/Electronic]

Once upon a time, Diplo made an album.  It was 2004, and it was a pleasantly low-key, trip-hoppy affair entitled Florida.  Since then he's hardly even sat still long enough for anything so laidback or long-format – these days he keeps a feverish, turbo-boosted pace of 140-character blasts, 130 BPM, and (per Forbes' 2013 highest paid DJs list) a cool $13 million per annum.  We'll still claim him as a de facto local, but his jet-set lifestyle and restless, rootless musical m.o. are about pan-global as it gets.

Last year's Express Yourself EP was a rare dispatch from the hedonistic heart of that one-man whirlwind – his first (ostensibly) solo production jaunt in eons – offering a typically delirious but uncommonly focused burst of twitchy, ass-twirling equatorial ghetto-tech.  Hard at its heels comes Revolution (Mad Decent), re-upping with another six cuts (four originals, two workmanlike remixes) of gregarious gutter-funk abandon.  These 23 minutes are more hyper-stuffed than ever, flaunting two to four collaborators per track and cramming in buckets of stutter-step machine claps, bass-rattling horn blurts, twinkly rave synths, tacky pop'n'B diva warbling, EDM screw'n'grind and a slew of quick and dirty rap verses from the game's finest young turks.  And if you can keep pace with all that, there's another drop coming any second now.

Drake
[Hip-Hop/R&B]
concert preview

For what was effectively a coronation pageant, 2011's Take Care hardly felt like a joyous occasion; compared to Nothing Was The Same (Cash Money/Universal Republic), though, it's practically a party record.  "I'm on my worst behaviour," Drake snarls – Canadian spelling, of course – over ominous, disjointed rattles and synth throbs, and he's not kidding: he's rarely sounded as crass, petty and angrily, needlessly defensive as he is at certain points on his third full-length.  As for his persistent emotional ineptitude (and crippling nostalgia for past romantic failures), well, that's been covered before, and it remains as perversely compelling if increasingly tough to sympathize with.  Mostly though, he's just awfully, inexcusably morose.  Noah "40" Shebib keeps on building him these sumptuous luxury suites – weird, staggering, adventurously modern moodscapes – and all he wants to do is mope around in them.  But he's still got that nagging, hard-to-define charisma; a knack for absorbingly intimate confessionals, even if it clearly stems from some serious boundary issues.  Also, it must be said that to see Drake in concert is to witness Aubrey Graham in his element: he really is a born performer, and if we ever finally get sick of listening to his elegantly-appointed sulking, he can totally fall back on that acting career.

Deltron 3030
[Hip-Hop]
concert preview

It's been 13 years since the release of Deltron 3030, the sci-fi comic-book hip-hop concept opus which paved the way for the improbable sci-fi comic-book hip-hop crossover success of Gorillaz (involving many of the same key players) – although apparently only ten have passed in the album's peskily dystopian, technocratic futureworld: according to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's ponderous spoken intro to Event II (Deltron Partners), it is now "Stardate 3040."  But – despite the efforts of our trusty hero, renegade rap-battle freedom-fighter/disenchanted "mech soldier" Deltron Zero (alias Del the Funkee Homosapien) – not much has changed.  Narrative specificity and conceptual coherence still take a definite backseat to the generally bad-ass, swashbuckling atmosphere created by Del's twisty, jargon-flourishing raps, turntablist Kid Koala's skittering scratches and producer Dan the Automator's lavish, widescreen sample-sourcing and adrenalized breakbeats.  While it's almost certainly better than we had a right to hope, this guest-star-studded sequel is probably best taken as an overdue victory lap; a gleeful exercise in warp-drive retro-futurist nostalgia.  But even if it's no more than an excuse for the triumphant triumvirate to head out on tour, with a sixteen piece orchestra in tow no less – and if Kid Koala's deliriously fun Vinyl Vaudeville shows from last year are anything to judge by – justice will be served right here in the present.

Bill Callahan/Lonnie Holley
[Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

Through his dozen or so albums as Smog and, especially, the handful he's made more recently under his own name, Bill Callahan has etched out a reliable, dependably unhurried furrow for his quietly affecting musings.  But it's rarely felt as cozy as his latest, Dream River (Drag City), which settles into a loose, surprising seventies soul-jazz vibe: Callahan's laconic, iconic baritone drifting overtop congas, claves and electric piano like Leonard Cohen moonlighting with Gil Scott-Heron's band; his roving ruminations sharing space with fragrant flute and fiddle leads and guitarist Matt Kinsey's subtle atmospheric heroics.  The title befits Callahan's typically cryptic, trancelike stream of cast-off observations, cock-eyed profundities, corny jokes and come-ons, which circle here around familiar themes but with a cautiously more sanguine outlook, finding mundane beauty and savage splendor in the natural world and solace in the smallness of human relationships.  Lonnie Holley – an Alabama-born African-American artist who has, arguably, actually lived the kind of outsider's perspective Callahan often adopts in his songs – arrives at a similarly thoughtful optimism amidst markedly stranger circumstances in the surreal pronouncements on Keeping A Record Of It (Dust-to-Digital), with a decidedly more dynamic, colorfully expressive voice and to considerably chintzier musical accompaniment.

John Vanderslice
[Indie/Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

John Vanderslice is one of indie's surest bets; a steadfast, sure-footed songwriter who's never made a bad record, even if he's never turned out a clear masterpiece.  (I'd probably point to 2005's Pixel Revolt as his finest hour, but each entry in his discography has its partisans.)  All of his albums seem to create and inhabit their own private, often insular worlds, but Dagger Beach, his ninth full length, feels especially personal; less for its songs than its archetypical array of warm, gritty textures – overdriven acoustic guitars, woody synths, brightly chunky drums, free-floating analog dribbles of uncertain origin.  A crowd-funded, self-released project following a stint on Dead Oceans, it was recorded – computer-free – at his own Tiny Telephone studios, and particularly knowing that it came in the wake of a significant break-up, it's easy to imagine JV sitting alone at his Neve console, finding solace and focus in meticulously building up layers of atmospheric sonics.  As much of a studio rat as he is, though, the quintessential way to encounter Vanderslice is in person at his shows, where he flashes a legendary chatty affability at odds with his understated, often elusive songwriting.

Franz Ferdinand/Frankie Rose
[Rock/Pop]
concert preview

Franz Ferdinand have always been as much a dance band as a rock band, coaxing the sharp, jagged lurch of post-punk into the plumped basslines and signature crisp, feline strut that fueled both the deathless "Take Me Out" and an impressive string of worthy successors.  While the seedy nightclub trawl of 2009's Tonight was their most overt, mildly experimental dalliance with "proper" dance music, morality-teasing fourth album/reset button Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action (Domino) drafts in some of the finest minds in electro/pop – Hot Chip's Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor; Scandinavian sooperproducers Todd Terje and Björn Yttling – yet results in the band sounding utterly like their own waggish, swooningly metrosexual selves.  It's their tightest, leanest effort since their debut, and it's great to have them back.  In the support slot is Brooklyn linchpin Frankie Rose, whose latest opus, Herein Wild (Fat Possum), weds the glorious layered-vocal luminosity and Cure-cribbing beat-beds of last year's great, quantum-leaping Interstellar to the spunkier garage-pop grit of her debut, and throws in the occasional string section.

The Dismemberment Plan
[Rock/Pop]
concert preview

The Dismemberment Plan were one of the most fiercely beloved bands around before their 2003 break-up, so it's understandable that there are a lot of feelings surrounding their recent return to the active column – a brief, triumphant tour in 2011, and now the curiously misspelled Uncanney Valley (Partisan), their first album since 2001's masterful Change.  A lot of excitement and eager anticipation, but also a lot of wariness and skepticism, especially surrounding the record – protectiveness, perhaps, toward the band's cherished memory and established catalog.  Well: the new disc doesn't sound much like, say, 1999's timeless Emergency & I.  But then again, neither did any of their other records.  They've always been a band in motion, and they return now evolved once more – as righteous emo diehards will be miffed to discover – into a looser, goofier, less existentially pensive and altogether more jovial (and synthesizer-happy) iteration of themselves.  But there's no mistaking Joe Easley and Eric Axelson's sparky, jittery math-funk grooves, nor Travis Morrison's densely geeky, reference-strewn lyrics; smirky and earnest in equal measure.  From the gorgeously whirring workaday introspection of "Invisible" to the sweetly unabashed affection of "Lookin'" to propulsive party starters like "White Collar White Trash," the band has never sounded so contented or so celebratory.  Truly, what's not to celebrate?

Saint Rich/Wild Belle
[Rock/Pop/Reggae]
concert preview

If post-rockers could talk, what would they say?  Here's your chance to find out: Monday's double-bill pairs two new song-oriented projects from musicians better known for their instrumental-only affairs.  Steve Marion makes curious, captivating wordless guitar-pop with/as Delicate Steve, but he's switched over to drum duties behind bandmate (and North Jersey high school buddy) Christian Peslak in the recently-minted duo Saint Rich.  Their debut Beyond the Drone (Merge) is a rollicking, rootsy, riff-tastic rip through '60s rock and '70s boogie that feels a bit like Foxygen without all the anxious posturing (and with notably witty lyrics.)  Meanwhile, jazz-steeped saxophonist/experimental tinkerer Elliot Bergman made his name fronting (too-long dormant) avant-afrobeat heroes NOMO, with whom his sister Natalie has occasionally featured as a touring member; now the siblings are slinging globally-conscious indie-pop as Wild Belle.  Their predictably groove-rich, sonically adventurous Isles (Columbia) sets them up as something like a worldbeat She & Him, pulling from African pop and Motown but with a particularly emphasis on Caribbean rhythms which make it well-suited to help pass the time before the reemergence of summertime, and/or Santigold.

Fuzz
[Rock]
concert preview

Ty Segall has made a lot of records – let's just say that's a significant understatement – but he's never made anything quite so epically colossal, and at the same time so lean and laser-focused, as Fuzz (In The Red)  The obliteratingly self-evident self-titled debut from the West Coast scene-leader's latest collaborative venture spotlights the amped-up blooze riffs and brain-scrambling solos of guitarist Charlie "Moonheart" Moothart and the appropriately hefty underpinnings of bassist Roland Cosio.  Segall's still singing lead, but he's jumped from strings to skins here to show off some breezily ferocious, Mitch Mitchell-style dexterity behind the kit.  While this is a new project, these dudes have also been playing and starting bands together since high school, and there's a purity of purpose here that seems to stem from the spirit of those days, channeling fellow San Francisco outfits like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Blue Cheer.  Accordingly, Fuzz strips away the garage-bound shagginess and punkish snarl that typically characterize these guys' output to focus on heavy, heavily-Sabbath-indebted psychedelic proto-metal that makes this a power trio in the most classical, primal sense.  In other words: just what you'd expect from the awesome, fiery blue elemental space-demon on the cover.

Cayucas
[Indie-Pop/Rock]
concert preview

While obviously not as uncommon as the eponymous shaggy forest-dweller, it's still a rare and precious thing to encounter an indie-pop debut as sharp, succinct and perfectly formed as Bigfoot (Secretly Canadian), which breezes through eight great, unimpeachably summery tunes in just about a half hour.  The Santa Monica outfit, whose name is slightly modified from the beach burb of Cayucos, a little ways up the coast, have caught considerable flak for their nagging similarity to a certain East Coast band likewise beloved of 1950s archetypes, plaid button-downs and lilting, tropical-tinged guitar lines.  But while the Vampire Weekend-in-California call-outs are certainly apt – down to the literary details of their collegiate travelogues and sun-bleached romances, enthusiastic use of onomatopoetic yelps, and Futura-enabled album design – it's hard to see why that's much cause for complaint, especially now that Koenig and crew have moved on to decidedly less simple pleasures, and most especially when head Cayuca Scott Yudin can churn out something as instantly and persistently indelible as the snazzily syncopated "High School Lover," which I'd contend equals or betters anything on the first VW album.

Fuck Buttons
[Electronic]
concert preview

In theory, Pitchfork-annointed electro-noise auteurs Fuck Buttons make a reasonable fit for the Making Time demographic.  But its troubling to contemplate what might actually happen when the assembled party-ready masses at Voyeur encounter the Bristol duo's portentous, magisterial sound barrages.  Probably the best bet is to hope they bust out some of the old stuff: 2009's relatively populist Tarot Sport at least boasted appropriately movement-friendly four-on-the-floor underpinnings on most of its tracks, plus a twinkling, major-key bent to its awe-inducing anthemics that rendered them rapturously uplifting.  (Enough so that they served to score part of last year's Olympic opening ceremony.)  As for the stark, soul-crushing monoliths that make up most of this year's negative-inverse offering Slow Focus (ATP), they seem markedly less well-suited to soundtrack a scene of happy revelry than to accompany the queasy aftermath of rubble and devastation following, say, the invasion of a popular hipster dance night by an army of demonic, emotionless alien cyborgs.  Maybe if you escape to the basement "bear den" the haze of sweat and stoner rock jams will drown out the screams.

Raime
[Electronic]
concert preview

Raime – the British abstract electronic duo of Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead – record for a label called Blackest Ever Black, and it's hard to get around the aptness there: their music is just really damn dark.  The sounds they favored on last year's intoxicatingly potent full-length debut, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line, as well as several preceding EPs, include rumbling cavernous drones, gnawing, unblinking metallic tattoos,  and the occasional, muffled irruption of amorphous sonic violence.  But while it's easy enough to sum up their approach as purely and simply evocative of bleakness and dread, wholly subsumed by gloomy negatives, there's something oddly neutral about it too: a subjective, malleable emptiness.  There are shades within shades here: those creeping industrial heartbeats have a subtle, dubby, Burial-esque lilt that might be sensuous or sinister, depending on your angle.  Those churning streaks of cello could be savage or serene.  One person's gaping, ominous void may be another's womblike sanctuary.  After all, the blackest black is really no different from eternal, blinding sunshine once your eyes have time to adjust.

Holy Ghost!
[Electronic/Dance]
concert preview

Holy Ghost! don't do very much to justify that exclamation mark.  The NYC production duo are more apt to induce sly, slow-building smiles than sudden ecstatic surges; the pleasures to be found in their sleek, shiny updates of 1980s electro-disco are, perhaps unusually for a dancefloor-oriented act, those of comfort, familiarity and expertly executed craftsmanship.  The title of their second album, Dynamics (DFA), suggests a broadened range, and it is indeed a more varied, well-rounded affair than their rather same-sounding debut, but it delivers that breadth via a further smoothing and softening – an occasional uptick in melancholy emotionalism; a generally plusher sound palette (including a string arrangement from the great Kelly Polar) – rather than any great deviation from their standard-issue mid-tempo template.  The exception proving the rule is "Dumb Disco Ideas" – easily their best single to date – an extended, multi-part cowbell'n'clavinet dance-funk jam that solidly cements their DFA bona-fides and probably warrants at least a little punctuation.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

AMG + Cowbell review mega-round-up, volume XXIV: 2011 first half, vol. I [guitars]

splitting my review output from the last six months – not just for allmusic but also my newest outlet, the funky-fresh new cowbell magazine – into two portions. this batch covers mostly rock, folk, pop, songwritery stuff, etc. – "music with guitars," for want of a better catch-all shorthand (even though it's not even always true.) music with (more) synthesizers up next. these are more or less in (descending) order of how much i like them:

Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes review

Returning to the album game three years after the charmingly curious Youth Novels, Lykke Li Zachrisson has grown up and moved away a little bit from the rather timid, waifish, precocious young woman of her debut. She hasn't entirely let go of her girlish sweetness, and she certainly hasn't lost her way with a melodic hook, but she's largely outgrown the more cloyingly precious, occasionally clumsy tendencies that sometimes plagued her debut, and her singing voice, while still appealingly personable and distinctive, has gotten considerably more forceful. Indeed, despite its vulnerable title, Wounded Rhymes practically oozes confidence, barreling out of the gate with the swaggering, rabble-rousing "Youth Knows No Pain," all in-the-red handclaps, hip-shaking drums and tambourines, and downright nasty, psych-damaged organ, as Li sneeringly exhorts us to "C'mon honey, blow yourself to pieces." Even with a roughly even ratio of ballads to rockers, and a fair complement of woebegone lyrics, there's a similar sense of toughness throughout. But it's a fleshy, lived-in toughness, equally unabashed about declarations of love (the deeply romantic "I Follow Rivers," the powerfully passionate "Love out of Lust," and the borderline obsessive "Jerome"), and provocations like the fierce, sexually aggressive "Get Some." Musically, Li and returning producer/co-writer Bjorn Yttling (of Peter Bjorn and John) use the bare-bones, rhythmically oriented textures of Youth Novels (and of his band's 2009 album Living Thing) as a springboard, keeping starkly intimate vocals, clattering drums, and all manner of oddball percussion sounds at the forefront (check "Rivers"' fetchingly wonky, detuned xylophone riff), but they flesh things out somewhat with guitars and organs, frequently multiplying Li's voice to create an ad hoc backup choir, resulting in a considerably fuller-sounding effort that still feels grittily immediate and raw. Rhymes also reveals, and revels in, Li's fondness for '50s and '60s rock and pop, hearkening equally to classic girl group sounds and harder-edged garage rock. In fact, she and Yttling pull out just about every time-worn trick in the throwback pop playbook: doo wop arpeggios and "shoo-wop shoo-wop" backups on the gentle "Unrequited Love," a thunderous Bo Diddley beat and tremulous spy/surf guitar on "Get Some," seedy "96 Tears"-derived organ on "Rich Kid Blues," and "Be My Baby" drums, and Spector-ian orchestra bells on the big ballad centerpiece "Sadness Is a Blessing." But despite that plethora of knowing musical allusions, this is by no means a stale, cut-and-dried retro affair. On the contrary: it's an inspired, rugged, smart, emotive, coolly modern piece of indie pop, and an improvement on Lykke Li's debut in just about every respect.

East River Pipe: We Live In Rented Rooms review

Fred Cornog's seventh album of slow, sad home-recorded pop songs does not, when you get down to it, sound all that different from the first six. There are subtle changes: whether because of upgrades to his home studio gear over the years -- he recently traded in his trusty old Tascam 388 for a Korg D1600 mini-studio -- or his increased mastery of it, his music has evolved to the point that it can hardly be described as lo-fi any longer. We Live in Rented Rooms feels positively lush; despite the familiar, humble drum machines and no-frills strumming, it's brimming with warm, comforting keyboards and quietly meticulous arrangements, projecting a calm, unassuming stateliness. If anything, these songs are even slower than ever -- nothing exceeds a modest, amiable lope, and several numbers are so leisurely they barely seem to move at all. They also just might be the slightest bit less sad, or at least less self-loathing, although nothing remotely approaches cheerful (unless a line like "When you were doing cocaine/You never slept alone" qualifies). Certainly, in the five years since the last East River Pipe opus, the hard-luck stories and workaday misery that have always typified Cornog's songs have grown sadly all the more commonplace, which by design or circumstance makes Rented Rooms that much more poignant and topical. It's not hard, for example, to see the political resonance of a song like "Backroom Deals," which sketches, in a few simple lines, a sharp portrait of lifelong drudgery, hard-earned cynicism, and bitter complacency. The hymnlike, heartbreakingly beautiful "Three Ships," meanwhile, essentially allegorizes all of American history through the eyes of a Native who watches three European ships appear, only to depart leaving nothing but "highways and silicon deserts." Elsewhere, Cornog shows us individuals for whom creativity is hopelessly fraught (in "Tommy Made a Movie," whose titular figure is too psychologically self-crippling -- and too distracted by online porn -- to actualize his cinematic daydreams) and romance is inevitably compromised if not doomed to failure (the wistful "Summer Boy"; the wry standout "Payback Time"). With a few exceptions, it's usually ambiguous how directly personal these songs are for Cornog -- when he's drawing specifically from his own notoriously troubled life experiences and when he's looking further outside himself -- but it's ultimately insignificant. What matters is that this is some of the most economical and effective songwriting of his career, bolstered as always by his appealingly understated delivery and gorgeously crafted musical settings. In short: another astounding, resounding East River Pipe triumph.

Baby Dee: Regifted Light review

Baby Dee is one of the most enchanting and idiosyncratic figures in modern music, and even if her (quite inimitable) literal voice appears relatively little on this largely instrumental set, her distinctive personality – a blend of sentimentality, humor, quirky theatricality and a profound, big-hearted sense of wonder – shines marvelously throughout. Staking out largely new territory from the frequently dark, confessional cabaret of her past work, Regifted Light presents a series of brief, thematically-linked chamber pieces, oddly reminiscent of Aaron Copland at his most populist, variously incorporating strings, horn, glockenspiel, bassoon, temple blocks and more, but always featuring Dee's deliciously crisp piano playing (on Andrew WK's old Steinway, no less.) The four interspersed vocal numbers – particularly the magnificently silly "Pie Song" – are among the highlights, but the album plays as a cohesive suite, and despite (or maybe because of) its brevity and resounding lightheartedness, it's as powerful and affecting, in its way, as anything she's done, and probably all the more readily enjoyable.

Joan As Police Woman: The Deep Field review

"Deep" is a good adjective for the third album by the inimitable, unfathomable Joan Wasser. So are: thick, loose, rich, raw, murky, dangerous and, without a doubt, sexy. Also, patient. It's not nearly as immediate as her immaculate, crystalline debut, Real Life – tellingly, with just as many songs, it's twenty minutes longer. Gone are the achingly spare piano ballads; in their place is another sort of ache, the kind that sprawls out over gritty, slow-boiling funk and organ-drenched soul or, in the case of "Flash," eight minutes of pensive, amniotic floating. Nothing's under four minutes; the shortest cut, first single "Magic," is taut and buoyant enough to scan as pop, but much of Field veers far from conventional singer/songwriter fare. This is a songwriter's record – indeed, it's a powerfully frank treatise on love, lust and positivity – but it's also an astonishing vocal showcase, a rapturous mood piece and a killer blowing session. Wasser's versatility and fearlessness call to mind another Joan – the likewise underheralded Armatrading – but what she's concocted here is something entirely her own.

Kurt Wagner + Cortney Tidwell present KORT: Invariable Heartache review

The aptly named Kort is a collaboration between Kurt Wagner and Cortney Tidwell, two Nashville musicians whose credentials lie well outside the Music City mainstream: Wagner fronts the long-running Lambchop; Tidwell has released a couple of electronic art-pop records. Invariable Heartache is their heartfelt, albeit idiosyncratic, tribute to their hometown's venerable tradition of commercially oriented country music. More specifically, it finds the duo, along with a crack ensemble of local players (most of them members of Lambchop and/or Tidwell's band) laying down a set of obscure cover tunes primarily drawn from the '60s and '70s catalog of Chart records, the label run by Tidwell's grandfather, A&R'd by her dad, and for which her late mother recorded. The material spans slick, tuneful country-pop, plenty of soulful ballads, a bit of '50s-ish R&B ("Yours Forever"), playful semi-novelty songs (the good-naturedly bawdy "Wild Mountain Berries"), and one truly bizarre oddity ("Penetration," which sounds like the group having some sort of post-modern laugh but was apparently the most scrupulously reverent arrangement here; one wonders if that includes Tony Crow's haunted, abstract, minute-long piano intro.) Though there's a definite tendency toward endearingly formulaic schmaltz, many of the selections offer some sort of ear-catching quirk or lyrical distinction, be it hokey wordplay -- as with "I Can't Sleep With You" [...On My Mind]" -- or an especially heart-rending sentiment, like the self-explanatory "Incredibly Lonely," which provides the album's more-accurate-than-not title. Crucially, the band brings just the right touch to these performances, their obvious fondness and reverence for the material never getting in the way of a loose, expressive feel, with some very fine bits of soloing and lots of enjoyably breezy ensemble playing. That's doubly true of the vocals, which in some ways could have been this project's most hit-or-miss element. As it turns out, Wagner's characteristically laconic, crotchety-sounding, hyper-articulated delivery pairs beautifully with Tidwell's versatile but generally sweet-as-pie pipes. Certainly, they generate enough of a rapport to make one wish that more than half of the tunes were proper duets; while Tidwell can manage an effortless, spine-tingling Patsy Cline evocation, her five vocal features (Wagner only gets one, sounding pitifully dour on the legitimately poetic "April's Fool") tend to be the record's weaker links. The exception there is the closer, and sole non-chart inclusion (her mother sang it for ABC/Dunhill), "Who's Gonna Love Me Now," which is about as immaculately devastating as you could wish.

About Group: Start and Complete review

Start and Complete was recorded in a single day and mixed in three, with compositions that the players – a Brit alt/out panoply whose credits include This Heat, Spiritualized and Derek Bailey – had minimal time to learn. So listeners may be surprised to find that, far from a free improv excursion – a lá the group's first, eponymous outing for the Treader label – this is an album of heartfelt, blue-eyed bedsit soul. The extemporaneous working method absolutely translates into a wonderfully congenial looseness and immediacy, but notwithstanding the undeniably masterful ensemble-based musicianship on display, what it's really about this time is the inimitable singing and songwriting of Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor. Continuing in the tender, comforting vein of his band's triumphant One Life Stand, Taylor sets his croon on swoon and unleashes a dozen new heart-melters and bad-love ballads (plus one roiling, eleven-minute funk-workout cover) doused in warm Wurlitzers and swirling organs, til resistance is just about hopeless.

Zoey Van Goey: Propellor Vs. Wings review

Zoey Van Goey are a Glasgow indie pop group with connections to local legends like Belle & Sebastian and the Delgados. And while that's worth mentioning to provide a rough frame of reference for their sound, it should be stressed that they've gleaned at least as much from those two bands' adventurousness and idiosyncratic vision as they have any particular elements of musical style. They may belong to a proud tradition of scruffy Glaswegian pop bands, but they can hardly be pegged and dismissed as reverent genre traditionalists. Indeed, part of what makes their eminently likable second album, Propeller Versus Wings, initially tricky to pin down is that it refuses to stay in one place for long, skipping blithely from the dulcet, autumnal tones of "Mountain on Fire" and "Little Islands" to brisk, spiky pop bursts like the quirky, catchy "The Cake and Eating It," and flirting along the way with warbling cabaret-jazz ("My Aviator"), herky-jerky kiddie punk ("Robot Tyrannosaur"), and a smidge of country ("Extremities"). But the band has a strong enough voice that these peregrinations never feel like faceless genre exercises, or eclecticism for the sake of eclecticism. At least after a few listens to let it all sink in, the album's myriad modes hang together to present a coherent sensibility, the varied but complementary sides of the same sparkling personality: goofy at times, definitely a little geeky, but also sweet, sensitive, thoughtful, and often boldly romantic. Lyrically, Propeller touches on aspects of love, dreams, flying, and such painfully twee situations as buying 8-tracks in second-hand shops -- as well as helicopter crashes, fire-breathing monsters, and robotic dinosaurs -- but also more sobering topics like heartache, depression, and suicide. Apart from their commendable versatility, ZVG's chief calling card is their highly personable singing, especially Kim Moore's girlishly sweet soprano (recalling Kathryn Calder of the New Pornographers and Immaculate Machine -- incidentally, two other salient musical reference points) and Matt Brennan's warm, rich baritone. They're even better when they join vocal forces, especially on the album's spunkier, rockier moments. Chief among these is "You Told the Drunks I Knew Karate," an adorably dorky romp through Glasgow and a triumphant testament to young love and recklessness (with the excellent refrain: "I do the dumbest things for you") reminiscent of Los Campesinos!, with a touch of the Mountain Goats at their scrappiest. While it would be easy enough to continue lobbing apt but imprecise comparisons at them (the Magnetic Fields and Regina Spektor also come up frequently), Propeller Versus Wings shows Zoey Van Goey are capable of flying quite well on the strength of their own personality.

The Decemberists: The King Is Dead review

The King is Dead is, unquestionably, The Decemberists' most ordinary record. Markedly less ambitious – outwardly, anyway – than the byzantine story-songs and old-fangled, concept-driven folderol that reached an apogee on the thorny, toilsome Hazards of Love, these ten relatively straightforward songs, surveying a range of resolutely rootsy American rock and folk styles, present some artistic hazards of their own. There's an easily bungled subtlety, after all, to what troubadour-in-chief Colin Meloy calls "the complexity of simple songs." But while Meloy's distinctive dictionary-thumbing diction sticks out occasionally (and you kinda want to hug him for it), he and his band, with a few well-chosen confederates, pull off the gambit admirably. "Don't Carry It All" trades Picaresque's scene-setting shofar for a gloriously shrill harmonica, kicking off a rousing, full-throttle Americana anthem (complete with Gillian Welch, the indie generation's Emmylou Harris), while the superb, driving "Calamity Song" manages to both luxuriate in and transcend its blatant (and roundly, rightly reckoned) R.E.M.-iniscent qualities – Peter Buck's presence aside, it also emphasizes Meloy's Stipe-ian timbre and capacity for lyrical obfuscation (in this case, dreaming up the end of the world as we know it.) The album's other pleasures are often subtler: the gentle, moving "Rise to Me" (partially addressed to Meloy's young son); the pair of sweetly breezy seasonal "Hymns," recalling the calm clarity of the band's earliest days. There's no denying the familiarity of certain sounds here, but it's always resoundingly, recognizably the Decemberists, which, given their tendency toward stilted theatricality, feels surprisingly natural and comfortable. And if it occasionally gets a little bit dull – well, such are the perils of normalcy.

The Mountain Goats: All Eternals Deck review

Meticulously detailed yet poetically cryptic songs crammed full of emphatic imperatives, lists of objects, place names, photographic and cinematic imagery, ambiguously metaphorical melodrama, and elliptically sketched characters doomed to lives of regret, despair, terror or worse... yep, it's another Mountain Goats album. The fourteenth, depending how you count, though the first on Merge Records, an indie stalwart which has lately been building up an impressive roster of indie artists. John Darnielle is such a distinctive and prolific songwriter that it's easy to feel like he's repeating himself, and, sure, listeners who are comfortable with the amount of Mountain Goats already on their shelves probably needn't bother making space for what is essentially more of the same. But the man's also tremendously consistent; he's never offered up a less-than-intriguing set of tunes, and the 13 cuts on All Eternals Deck can stand alongside his finest: another baker's dozen of richly realized vignettes, some more narratively lucid than others, but none without at least a handful of wry, expressive, elegant, or otherwise worthy lines. There's no readily discernible theme or concept this time out, apart from a general (and hardly new) tendency toward darkness and dread, with occasional reference to the occult: songs mentioning vampires and ghosts; a title alluding to an apocryphal, and possibly invented, tarot deck. The album this most resembles is 2008's Heretic Pride, which was a similar grab bag lyrically, as well as, to some extent, musically. Sticking with the increasingly poised and polished full-band sound of the last several Mountain Goats releases -- plenty of piano, several lovely string arrangements, and fine work throughout from Darnielle's bandmates Peter Hughes (bass) and Jon Wurster (drums) -- much of All Eternals Deck sounds warm and relaxed, even lush. Outliers (and standouts) include the guardedly optimistic "Never Quite Free," with its breezy pedal steel, the spectral "High Hawk Season," which enlists a trio of male choristers who come across perhaps more like affably drowsy barbershop ghosts than the "spirit throngs" of the lyrics, and a couple of bona fide rockers: "Prowl Great Cain" (an account of unconscionable remorse which may or may not be about its biblical namesake), and especially the ripping "Estate Sale Sign," which surveys the detritus of a disastrously failed relationship (with distinct shades of Darnielle's old "Alpha Couple") in the nearest we get to an anthem on the level of "This Year" or "No Children." Nothing here's likely to attract new converts quite the way those tunes did, but this is still a very easy Mountain Goats album to like and to recommend, whether it's your first or fourteenth.

The Strokes: Angles review

Five years after an archetypically difficult third album that yielded middling reviews and a surprising degree of indifference (even though, from this distance, its purported "experiments" sound like nothing more or less than energetic, inventively crafted rock songs), the five men once hailed as rock'n'roll's sainted saviors have both a lot to live up to and, somehow, strangely little to lose. Angles, outwardly, reverts to the tightly streamlined form of the first two Strokes LPs – 10 tracks, 34 minutes; minimal margin for excess. But the way they pack that dense half-hour betrays hardly any hint of backpedaling. Full of stylistic curveballs, compositional left turns, screwy sonics, skewed '80s pop pastiche and fantastically scrawly soloing, this is easily the wildest and weirdest they've ever sounded; if not exactly sloppy then certainly gleefully uncalculated. True, slap-happy loss leader "Under Cover of Darkness" overtly evokes their era-defining early singles (albeit with the menace replaced by vaguely Footloose-ish forced mirth), but nothing else sounds remotely like the output of a formula. Hence, while the sneaky syncopations and power-pop goodies of "Machu Picchu" and "Taken for a Fool" feel very nearly irresistible, it's likely most listeners' mileage will vary track by track, particularly in the slippery second half. The trademark tenseness (and tinniness) of the band's younger days are still around, especially on the jagged, tightly-wound "You're So Right" and "Metabolism," but Angles also manifests a newfound looseness, most palpably on "Gratisfaction," a breezy, Stones-y good-times shuffle. That freewheeling spirit, alongside all the kitchen-sink tinkering and a brightly trashy, plastic-pop aural aesthetic, occasionally comes at the expense of the band's habitual melodic elegance (both vocal and instrumental), but more than not it translates into a whole lot of inspired, bristly rock'n'roll fun.

Lenka: Two review

Anybody who was hoping the second Lenka album would be a dark, moody, sober, edgy, or in any way downcast affair is, first of all, probably not a very realistic person and, secondly, gearing up for a serious disappointment. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine anybody being disappointed by the Australian sparkle-pop princess' sophomore outing, which is every bit as lovably bright and sunny as her debut. (Unless, of course, the listener in question doesn't have the stomach for this sort of frothy, sugary-sweet musical confection to begin with -- which is certainly understandable, though still a darn shame.) That said, Two definitely does have a bit more bite than its predecessor, and a slightly more modern sound, tending away from Lenka's lavish, Hollywood-style orchestrations toward lightly embellished small-group arrangements and, occasionally, sleek electro-pop. The major exception is first single "Roll with the Punches," a big, buoyant creampuff of a tune that revisits the singsong cadence of Lenka's breakout hit "The Show," with all the requisite layers of strings, trumpets, organs, and backing vocals. But the other similarly "vintage"-styled swing numbers here -- the bouncy "Everything's Okay" and cutie-pie nursery rhyme "Everything at Once" -- keep things relatively simple and piano-based. Meanwhile, the title cut shows Lenka at her leanest and meanest, with a stripped-down kicks'n'claps beat and a funky acoustic guitar/fuzz-toned synth bass riff. "Blinded by Love" and "Here to Stay" are classically styled pop/rock ballads that go easy on the instrumental theatrics, instead gleaning their emotional power from Lenka's increasingly impressive singing and songcraft. And the slinky "You Will Be Mine" shows that she could hack it as a competent (if somewhat faceless) seductive indie electro diva, although the sparkly, effervescent "Shocked Me into Love" is a far more gratifying synth pop foray, sounding not unlike a young Kylie Minogue at her bubbliest, and just a remix away from serious dance chart potential. It's a considerable stylistic range for one album, but Lenka pulls it off and keeps it cohesive, thanks to an unerring gift for melody and a subtly sophisticated understanding of pop poetics. She knows how these things can work in reverse -- "Sing me a sad song and make me feel better/Sing me a happy song and I might start to cry," she croons on the deceptively titled "Sad Song" -- which might explain why perhaps the sweetest number here is about the apocalypse: "The End of the World," which plays as sort of an inverse of a Skeeter Davis classic. All told, Two is just as wonderfully winning as its predecessor, fully deserving a spot alongside it (and alongside Regina Spektor, Marit Larsen, and the Bird and the Bee) on the top shelf of shiny-smart, retro-contemporary happy pop.

Thao and Mirah: Thao and Mirah review

For a collaboration between a couple of noted songwriters, it's striking that the songs are often the least interesting thing about Thao & Mirah. There are a handful which stand out on their own merits -- Thao Nguyen's singsongy "How Dare You," an R&B-tinged call-and-response that's the only proper duet here; Mirah Zeitlyn's characteristically hushed, thoughtful "Hallelujah," which dares to brush against the deathless Leonard Cohen classic and fares impressively well, considering. But by and large, the album is more notable and enjoyable as an exploration of sounds and textures (both instrumental and vocal) than as a collection of melodies and lyrics. The tip-off comes early, with the joyfully dense, clattering opener "Eleven," an energetic if loosely structured three-way collision with Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, who provides not only the simple, lusty vocal hook (tellingly, and perhaps a little troublingly, the most memorable one here) but also a hefty dose of her band's percussion-heavy, chant-friendly, loopy D.I.Y. spirit. Garbus also co-produced the album and contributes instrumentally or vocally to all but one song (that's two more than Nguyen, who sits out on three of Zeitlyn's five solo compositions), and it's tempting to imagine what they might work up together as a fully collaborative trio -- Mirah, Thao & Merrill, which might have been a more accurate title here anyway. Nothing else bears Garbus' influence quite so overtly, though it's not hard to hear her fingerprints on, for instance, Zeitlyn's breathily sultry "Rubies and Rocks," whose simmering, Afro-tinged groove and swirling horn riffs eventually develop into a full-on jazz-funk blowout. Of course, there's also plenty of room for the distinct and notably divergent voices of the much-loved marquee duo. And they manage a more successful and satisfying merger than on their previous collaborative venture, a joint 2010 tour wherein Thao's livelier, rockier numbers alternated incongruously and sometimes disruptively with Mirah's softer acoustic folk. Here the pair find a wide-ranging middle ground, with some fruitful artistic stretching on both sides -- Thao trading rangy rock for tender prettiness on "Teeth" and "Folks" (but letting it out on the scrappy, screwball slide-fest "Squareneck"); Mirah taking a playfully bluesy turn on "Sugar and Plastic" (and saving her habitual solemnity for the oddly humorless sci-fi oddity "Spaced Out Orbit" ). It's not an especially coherent album, nor a very revealing one, offering surprisingly little insight into Thao & Mirah's relationship either as musical or romantic partners. But it does sound like they're having fun, and that counts for a good deal.

Sorry Bamba: Volume One: 1970-1979 review

The fascinating decentralization of African music dissemination proceeds with Thrill Jockey's second Malian release of the year, one that's worlds from the rustic desert folk-blues of Sidi Touré. Hitherto little-known in the West, the orphaned Sorry Bamba defied his noble birth caste to become one of the recently independent Mali's most prominent bandleaders, competing successfully in multiple National Biennial celebrations during the period showcased here. As befits a state-endorsed post-colonial cultural effort, these selections (compiled by Extra Golden's Alex Minoff and Ian Eagleson with input from an enthusiastic 73-year-old Bamba) find a deft balance between heritage and modernization, with a mixture of populist originals and folk songs (representing three distinct ethnic groups); traditional percussion combined with spry electric guitars, horns and the occasional psych-dappled synthesizer (plus Bamba's piercing flute and vigorous vocals), and swirling, lavishly hypnotic grooves that, while not as dense or forceful as Fela's afrobeat, display some palpably Western soul and funk influences – and, on "Astan Kelly," the unmistakable rhythms of Cuban salsa. Speaking of unexpected borrowings, the sweetly harmonized "Aïssé" is distinctly reminiscent of another "Bamba": the familiar Son Jarocho made famous by Ritchie Valens.

Radio Dept: Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010 review

The dreamy, fuzz-loving Swedes of the Radio Dept. built up an impressive amount of critical respect and a small but devoted following over the course of a career that often seemed as hazy, understated, discreet, and ephemeral as their music typically feels. Issued in the wake of 2010's well-received Clinging to a Scheme, which earned the band their highest profile to date, this fittingly titled collection takes a somewhat selective approach to the A-sides-plus-B-sides singles-comp strategy. The Radio Dept. are great candidates for this treatment: like any indie pop outfit worth their salt, they've amassed a considerable catalog of 7" singles, EPs, and stray digital tracks, alongside their leisurely paced (three in eight years) album output. Especially since much of that material is at least as strong as the stuff that made it to the albums, this collection will be just as worthwhile for newcomers to the band as for all but the most obsessively completist fans: true completists might, conceivably, already have most or all of these tracks, but more casual fans will be happy to note that, of the 14 A-sides on the first disc, only a mere six overlap with the albums. Those six -- sterling dream pop nuggets all -- are clear highlights here, naturally enough, but there's also plenty else of interest: the lusciously depressive "This Past Week," the late-2010 internet single "The New Improved Hypocrisy," whose melody is as sharp as its politics, and, curiously, an early cover of the Scottish folk song "Annie Laurie." The second disc of B-sides (which, incidentally, includes nothing from the group's two standalone EPs) may not host as many immediately obvious standouts, though there are a few definite keepers toward the end, including the tremendously sweet and tender "On Your Side," but it's arguably an equally strong listening experience, one which emphasizes the band's overwhelming preoccupation with texture (particularly on the several instrumentals, and songs with vocals so muffled they might as well be instrumentals). Since the As and Bs are segregated, but both sequenced chronologically, the two discs present more or less parallel arcs tracing how that approach to texture developed over the years: an essentially linear progression from rougher, guitar-based noise-pop to a more refined, more electronically oriented, cleaner -- though no less hazy -- sound (along with the occasional reggae flirtation.) It wasn't necessarily all that great of a stylistic distance to traverse, but it's certainly been a pleasurable journey. And while there are quite a few extant non-album cuts that might have found space on a more slavishly inclusive comp, what is included here is pretty close to perfect.

Cass McCombs: WIT'S END review

In several sometimes perplexing ways, Cass McCombs' fifth full-length outing, Wit's End, veers moderately but decisively away from the appealingly direct, rootsy indie folk of its predecessor, Catacombs. In its place is a stark, occasionally stifling collection of dark, literary, chamber folk, melodramatic piano balladry, and one sterling piece of country-pop classicism. Album-opener "County Line" is a quiet stunner: a mellow-grooving country-soul burner so achingly smooth you'd swear it was a turn-of-the-'70s chestnut from the L.A. soft rock scene -- a stray cut from the vaults of Asylum Records, perhaps, or maybe a particularly glossy tune by the Band -- complete with that iconic Fender Rhodes twinkle. (Its restrained melancholy and vintage-styled craftsmanship also call to mind Beck's Sea Change.) But it's hardly an accurate indication of what's to come, at least musically: although several songs feature a similar instrumental palette, and the moody, subdued tone persists throughout, nothing else here is nearly as warm or winningly melodic. Lyrically, "County Line"'s tale of loss and rueful homecoming (seemingly about a hometown transformed by new development, rather than a doomed romantic relationship, though it could be both) is just a taste of the darkness and desperation that, as the album's title hints at, pervade these eight songs. Elsewhere, we get the desolate, jilted lover of the maudlin "Saturday Song," the chilling "Buried Alive" (whose title is evidently not metaphorical), and the wracked "Hermit's Cave," which plays like a gloomier variation on the Beach Boys' "That's Not Me" with an added dose of mysticism. When McCombs' often heavily stylized, antiquarian verse is paired with a suitably intriguing arrangement (as on "Memory Stain," a forlorn piano waltz that gets some much-needed color and lift via accordion, bass clarinet, and a few well-placed castanets) or a decently forward-moving melody ("Buried Alive," which is both tender and almost delightfully macabre), the results can be effective, if not exactly inviting. On the other hand, no amount of celeste can save "The Lonely Doll," an overly precious fable set to a maddeningly harmonically static waltz -- with the title phrase repeated after every awkward couplet -- from being utterly insufferable. The album's most ambitious -- and, possibly excepting the incongruous "County Line," most successful -- moment comes with nine-minute closer "A Knock Upon the Door," a rambling narrative ballad and yet another waltz, this time with a rustic, old world lilt spiced up with a coolly sinister backing combo of banjo, bass clarinet, organ, chalumeau (a Baroque relative of the recorder), and found-sound percussion. It's the most potent and captivating expression of the gothic sensibility that runs through Wit's End, and one of a few potentially promising directions suggested by this odd, somewhat bewildering, and perhaps hopefully transitional effort.

An Horse: Walls review

Rearrange Beds wasn't exactly the most spectacular or innovative debut in indie rock history, but it introduced An Horse as an immensely likable band, getting plenty of mileage out of sheer, nervy energy, an old-fashioned allegiance to a certain loud-and-proud indie/punk ethos, and the scrappy interplay between Damon Cox's fiery drumming, Kate Cooper's churning guitar work, and her breathlessly ardent (and endearingly accented) vocals. (The duo's fresh-faced, spunky blond looks didn't hurt either.) Well, the first words out of Cooper's mouth on Walls are as follows: "I have nothing new to tell you since the last time I wrote." Sure enough, the Aussie twosome mostly stick to a tried-and-true approach for album number two, which should come as good news to those already in sway to their considerable charms. The album's front end, in particular, serves notice that not too much has changed: there may not be a standout here that comes close to the poppily anthemic "Camp Out," but "Dressed Sharply" and the driving "Trains and Tracks" are reasonably serviceable substitutes, and there's plenty more tunefully gritty rock where those came from. But there's also a slightly frustrating sense of stagnancy which isn't necessarily helped by the occasional signs of musical growth. The duo's playing has gotten tighter and more refined, with Cox in particular unleashing some impeccably precise bursts of ferocity behind the kit: check the fireballing "Trains" and his merciless snare work on the tightly wound "Leave Me." But Cooper's songs don't always match that energy; the title track's acoustic guitars and group harmonies make for a nice change of pace, but much of the album's latter half feels overly restrained, and even uncharacteristically subdued. So while Walls generally finds An Horse treading water, enjoyably enough for the most part, it also suggests that they've arrived at a slight impasse as to how to proceed from here; how to balance artistic development and expansion with the youthful urgency and directness that has marked their best moments, at least so far. It's a classic, all-too-familiar sophomore-album quandary, and it's somehow reassuring, even endearing, to know that An Horse are sticking to the script.

Eddie Vedder: Ukulele Songs review
There's an unshakable, perhaps not unsuitable taint of novelty about any one-off ukulele record, and the discrepancy between Eddie Vedder's notorious earnestness and the instrument's frivolous associations make this one seem especially punchline-worthy. But it doesn't sound that way, even if that tension is subtly evident throughout. Vedder has his sweetness; the uke has its quiet integrity, and the two find a way to make it work; the singer tempering his tremulous baritone to meet the instrument's cheery brightness halfway. He's not half playful enough for this to truly feel like a lark, but he's smart enough to keep the stakes small, devoting over a third of the disc to perennial standards – "Dream a Little Dream," "More Than You Know," the Everly Brothers' classic "Sleepless Nights" and perhaps the ultimate uke tune, "Tonight You Belong To Me" – inviting his buddies Glenn and Chan to duet on the latter two. And while Vedder's originals falter when they venture into rockier terrain, and (of course) can't compete with the genuine golden oldies, he does just fine when he sticks to the ukelele's proper métier: sweet, simple love songs.

Fredrik: Flora review

By the time of Flora, Fredrik's third full-length, the Malmö, Sweden-based outfit expanded into a trio with the inclusion of an additional multi-instrumentalist/vocalist, Anna Moberg. But relatively little changed in terms of their music, which remains highly tactile, atmospheric, gently surreal folk-pop, although that genre tag hardly does justice to the idiosyncratic particulars of their sound, as they continue to wander gradually further from anything readily recognizable as either folk or pop. Meanwhile, their careful attention to intimate, intricate sonic detail has only deepened, with a new profusion of curious, clattering, enchanted, and occasionally haunted soundscapes; instruments listed in the credits this time include balalaika, zither, alto horn, music box, glass objects, owl whistles, and "tree trunk kalimba," but it can sometimes be hard to envision how music this murky and mystical could even be of human origin. Tonally and energetically, Flora falls somewhere in between its two predecessors: there's a greater sense of activity and a more pronounced rhythmic drive than on the largely subdued, often somber Trilogi (particularly on the pounding "Chrome Cavities" and the polyrhythmic, cowbell-led instrumental "The North Greatern," though it's true throughout), but Flora never quite recaptures the clarity and brightness that made certain moments of their debut, Na Na Ni, so utterly captivating. Song for song, none of Flora's seven vocal numbers (there are four brief instrumentals) announces itself with the melodic charm and arresting simplicity of "Black Fur" or "1986," or even Trilogi standout "Flax," although the sweetly tuneful "Inventress of Ill" is in the same general ballpark. But by this point in their career it's clear that Fredrik are less interested in creating immediate, hummable stand-alone numbers than they are in crafting an expansive, evocative listening experience. They haven't lost the ability to pen strong, simple melody lines -- there is still a handful of them here -- but the often dense, mesmeric layers of sound surrounding them, combined with Fredrik Hultin's typically hushed, understated vocal delivery, render them far less prominent. Still, it's hard to deny that their music has grown richer as it's gotten subtler, and in keeping with that tendency Flora is their lushest, dreamiest, most sonically and texturally abundant exploration to date.

Here We Go Magic: The January EP review

Just less than a year on from Pigeons, a sophomore album that found Here We Go Magic simultaneously expanding their personnel, stylistic scope, and mainline indie rock critical profile, the Brooklyn quintet returned with the inexplicably titled January EP. (Perhaps they decided to split the difference between the May release date and the Halloween-ish cover art.) Pigeons already felt like a somewhat less than coherent grab bag of odds and ends, so the prospect of six holdovers from the time of its recording isn't overwhelmingly enticing. But January acquits itself surprisingly well, often offering a sharper sense of focus than its parent album. Not that anything here is a major departure from Pigeons' hazy, lazy psychedelia, but tunes like the gently pretty, Shins-ish "Hands in the Sky" and the jaunty, slightly goofy "Backwards Time" arguably boast sharper, clearer melodies than anything included there. The brightly woozy five-beat psych-popper "Tulip" and the gorgeously lilting "Song in Three" (which is actually in six) also manage to make more out of less, highlighting the band's gift for unobtrusively subtle rhythmic complexity, while the brief "Hollywood" is an enjoyably eerie bit of sparse, spectral choral folk. That leaves only one truly negligible cut, making this EP a definite keeper for fans and worth a listen for the curious. Even if the primary common characteristic of this stuff is how exceedingly pleasant it all is, there's always a place for that, regardless of what month it is.