Review Round-Up: June 2015

Kacey Musgraves
Pageant Material

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

Lee Bannon
Pattern of Excel

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

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Shamir
[Dance/Pop]
concert preview

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

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

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

The Dø
[Indie Pop]
concert preview

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

Best Coast
[Pop/Rock]
concert preview

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

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

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

Richard Thompson
[Rock/Folk]
concert preview

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

Jessica Pratt/Ryley Walker
[Folk]
concert preview

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

Torres
[Rock/Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

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

Active Child
[Electronic/R&B]
concert preview

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

Colleen
[Experimental/Pop]
concert preview

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

Ximena Sariñana
[Pop/Singer-Songwriter]
concert preview

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

Ibeyi
[International/Pop]
concert preview

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

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

2012 Review Round-Up: July

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

oh hi, july.  by which point i was definitely feeling the lack of any reasonably massive and/or awesome summer jams (and also i got shut out of writing about frank ocean and hot chip.)  barbara morgenstern is quite nice however...
Barbara Morgenstern
Sweet Silence

Berliner Barbara Morgenstern has been responsible for some of the loveliest music of the last decade or more, throughout a productive career that's seen her maintain a consistently recognizable aesthetic – balancing sweetness and warmth with a slight, distinctly Teutonic frostiness – while her sound has evolved from bleepy, toylike indie electronica to sprightly techno-pop to more fully organic, expressively artful songwriting. Sweet Silence, her sixth proper (solo) full-length, tweaks that trajectory somewhat, returning to an almost entirely electronic palette (mostly understated drum programming and a battery of cuddly-soft synths) after the piano- and full-band-dominated BM. But it also finds Morgenstern honing her popcraft and scaling back her artier impulses to yield her most concise, song-oriented and – relatively speaking – immediate work to date. Except for three typically lovely, nostalgia-tinted instrumentals (which are themselves highly melodic), Morgenstern's distinctive, lulling coo appears on every track here and, notably, she sings exclusively in English for the first time. If that change is a bid for greater accessibility (Morgenstern has basically said as much in interviews), it's an appropriate choice in conjunction with the album's general musical tack, but, although Sweet Silence certainly could and should help introduce a few new ears to her secluded sound-world (and despite her boast, on the pleasantly frisky "Need To Hang Around," that "in the past two weeks I could have written tons of number one hits"), this isn't exactly Britney Spears (or Robyn, or even Goldfrapp) territory – Junior Boys, perhaps. Non-German-speaking fans may (or may not) appreciate the greater insight the English lyrics offer into Morgenstern's mentality. (Themes tend toward the philosophical, socio-political, gently inspirational and somewhat abstract – "Spring Time" is "when ideologies blossom"; the indicatively-titled "Jump Into the Life-Pool" contains such nuggets as "if life is a treasure itself then I'd still like to know am I myself" – while the plushly grooving "Night-Time Falls" offers a more personal, somewhat surreal narrative.) But in any case they don't significantly affect the experience of the album: Morgenstern's music is much more about sound than sense, and – particularly given her rather adorably prominent accent – her voice functions mainly as just another piece in her delightful sonic jigsaw puzzles, sometimes in beautiful harmony with itself. All of the aforementioned numbers are highlights – and no song here is without its own quietly quirky charms, though some take longer to distinguish themselves – but perhaps the album's apex is the penultimate "Status Symbol" (the only track to exceed four minutes), a sneaky charmer with vague shades of Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls" that gradually works its way into a lather of darkly clubby beats; the album's most (though not only) overtly techno moment.

Idjut Boys
Cellar Door

Idjut Boys, the London duo of Dan Tyler and Conrad McDonnell, have been movers and shakers among the more fashionably nonconformist wings of the dance music world for well on two decades – as producers and label heads, but perhaps most notably as disk jockeys – but they'd never, exactly, made a full length album prior to 2012. At least, that's what they contend, although it seems like splitting some of the finer hairs of release taxonomy (apparently, 1998's Noid Full Length – and their multiple LPs under the Phantom Slasher moniker – don't qualify for the designation because they included previously released material, and 1999's Life: the Shoeing You Deserve, perhaps, because it was a collaborative effort with Quakerman.) In any case, Cellar Door, named for/with what some allege to be the most beautiful phrase in the English language, definitely makes good on the euphonious promise of its title, if not entirely on the duo's waggish disco-not-disco reputation. It's actually much closer in spirit to Desire Lines, Tyler and McDonnell's 2009 album as Meanderthals (a trio with Rune Lindbaek), although it's not quite as languidly sleepy as that set. What is here is a lovely and amiable thirty-eight minutes of lounge-ready chill-out music that pretty much epitomizes the "Balearic" aesthetic: lots of lusciously chunky acoustic guitars (and fluttery, soft-focus electrics), simmeringly slow tempos, burbling barely-there beats, and warm, reverb-soaked everything. It's a dubby one, for sure, and it's also surprisingly non-electronic for a couple of guys who don't play instruments. Turns out they just enlisted a bunch of friends to play them instead, including Norwegian pianist Bugge Wesseltoft and UK acid jazzers A Man Called Adam (whose Sally Rodgers also contributes her sultry, clear-eyed vocals to three of the album's standouts, especially the gorgeous "Going Down.") Things get a touch more active on "One for Kenny," a crinkly, funky amble with some meaty, gospel-touched piano work, while the organ-thick skank of "Le Wasuk" gets mildly, playfully "out" toward the end, but there's basically nothing here to make you work up a sweat, although it would all serve well to soundtrack other sweat-inducing activities (such as, for instance, lying by the pool.) While Cellar Door will definitely come across as too smooth for certain palates – probably even for some fans of Idjut Boys' more dance-oriented material – it is an undeniably classy affair that's all the more impressive for maintaining a commitment to unabashedly lush prettiness while somewhat miraculously avoiding any hint of schmaltz. Now bring on the disco edits!

The Very Best
MTMTMK

Three years on from the exuberantly joyful Warm Heart of Africa (and one after the stop-gap, grab-bag Super Mom mixtape) The Very Best return with a sophomore album that, without radically altering their distinctive blend of African singing, synthesizer-based pop and various strains of global dance music, is nevertheless a notably different affair. Recorded in the Malawian capital of Lilongwe, MTMTMK finds the group – now down to a duo after the departure of Etienne Tron – delving deeper into African music while simultaneously flirting more boldly with clubby, high-gloss electro-pop. It's a shift that's reflected in the album's sizable pool of contributors: instead of indie-friendly luminaries like Ezra Koenig and M.I.A., remaining Besties Johann and Esau have teamed up with bona-fide African superstars Amadou and Mariam and Baaba Maal (all one on track, no less, though regrettably it's the atypically beatless, frankly somewhat interlude-like "Bantu") and world-conquering Somalian rapper K'naan (on vaguely insipid "inspirational" "We OK"), as well as up-and-comers from across the African pop and dance music diaspora – Seye, MNEK, Xuman, Jose Hendrix Nkedo, DJ Mo Laudi – but they also engaged in songwriting collaborations with the likes of Bruno Mars and Taio Cruz (the latter resulting in the weird, garish auto-tune crash-course "Rumbae.") The variety and superabundance of collaborators, intriguing though it is, may partially explain why MTMTMK has a tendency to feel slightly faceless: almost unthinkably, the mighty Esau Mwamwaya, whose brightly harmonized vocals are the defining, integral element of TVB's sound, sometimes seems to get lost on his own album. Sure, he's always here, singing sometimes in English but mostly his native Chewa, but his formerly inescapable magnetism doesn't quite shine through like before. If it's telling that most of the best moments here are those without guest vocal features – chaotically eruptive opener "Adani," politically-charged first single "Yoshua Alikuti," the jumping "Rudeboy" – it's at least as significant that these cuts feature probably the hardest-hitting beats on the album, and come the closest to recapturing the first album's endearingly scrappy streak. Elsewhere, excepting the Eastern-tinged hip-hop reggae experimentation of "Mghetto," MTMTMK veers surprisingly close to the kind of streamlined, airbrushed electro-dance confections that dominate top-40 pop and R&B circa 2012, albeit generally with enough polyrhythmic (and cross-linguistic) complexity to make genuine crossover success highly implausible at best. It's not that overt poppiness is necessarily a bad look for these guys: "Kondaine," for instance, is the most blatant attempt to recreate the irresistibly frothy cheerfulness of the debut's standout title track, and it pretty much succeeds. But there's a fine line between blissfully sunshiny and merely cloying, and its one that The Very Best aren't quite as adept at navigating this time out. They haven't lost their uplifting positivity or their restlessly inventive production spirit – they just seem to be missing a bit of that Warm Heart.
originally published at AllMusic.com

Joe Jackson
The Duke

Joe Jackson's no stranger to the foolhardy overreach, career-wise, but this Duke Ellington covers record is actually much closer to the erstwhile punker's wheelhouse than you might think. For one thing, Jackson – who's long evinced an Ellingtonian spirit of populist sophistication – takes the opportunity to consolidate many of his last three decades' stylistic detours – into various shades of jazz, but also Latin, world music and serious, "classical" composition. Plus, he tipped his swing-era-loving hand way back in 1981 with a prescient, no-foolin' Louis Jordan tribute, Jumpin' Jive. Like that album, The Duke spotlights Jackson the entertainer; here, he plays ringmaster of an impressively motley circus boasting Regina Carter, Christian McBride, ?uestlove, Steve Vai and Sharon Jones. It's easy to lose sight of Jackson through the crowd – he only takes four vocal turns, regrettably – but his sprightly pianism is on display throughout. Capping the affair – whose rather unimaginative song selection is enlivened by inventive medleys (who knew "A Train" could nestle so neatly inside "Beginning To See The Light"?), stylistic reinterpretations (a sambafied, Portuguese "Perdido" morphs into "Satin Doll" à la "Steppin' Out," glockenspiel and all), and playfully-arranged instrumentals ("The Mooche" goes musette) – is a lovably knuckleheaded "It Don't Mean A Thing (If You Ain't Got That Swing)" – duetted with Iggy Pop, no less – which splits the difference between Raymond Scott, Cut Chemist and Cozy Cole. In a discography littered with overly ambitious glorified novelty albums, here's one earnestly frivolous enough to be worth celebrating. [7]
originally published in Magnet Magazine

Purity Ring
Shrines
[Electronic/Pop]

Montreal's Purity Ring may not have the biggest bag of tricks, but what they fashion from their sparse means – Corin Roddick's oozing glitch-hop syncopations and crystalline, caroming pinprick synths; Megan James' etheric vocal melodies and lyrics that scan like alien treatises on fleshly concerns – is nothing short of dazzling, rich enough to fill their debut album with R&B-flecked three-minute curiosities every bit as euphoric and disorienting as the early-bird earworms ("Ungirthed," "Lofticries," "Belispeak") they unveiled last year. Theirs is the most unique, exciting and fully-formed electro-pop aesthetic to emerge since The Knife (their fellow Northerly, otherworldly duo) and Shrines (4AD) is worthy of veneration.

King Tuff
s/t
[Rock/Pop]

Exemplary cranked-up, windows-down, Summertime road music, Vermonter Kyle Thomas' (Happy Birthday, Witch, Feathers) eponymous second LP as King Tuff (Sub Pop) is a blissful wedding of muscly stoner-dude riffage to wimpishly pinched indie-nerd vocals and a fun-loving honeymoon through rock'n'roll's back pages, with a bit of a Ted Leo/Thin Lizzy Celtic lilt to some of the licks, generous side-helpings of boogie, glam and jangle, and a couple tender-hearted slow jams that are just as instantly crush-worthy as the stadium-daydream stompers.

Rebecca Gates
The Float
[Rock/Pop]

A leisurely eleven years on from the exquisite Ruby Series, sometime artist/curator/activist (and ex-Spinane) Rebecca Gates drifts back into musical view with The Float (Parcematone), an aptly relaxed collection of elegantly mild and mannered songcraft. Picking right up from the diverse, post-rock-inflected textures of its predecessor, with Gates' placid alto as lulling as ever, and boasting notably deft musicianship from of a cadre of Northwestern/Chicagoan indie types ("The Consortium," a subset of whom join her tomorrow night at Milkboy Philly), it's enchanting enough to make a decade gone by feel like a day.

Arnaldo Antunes, Edgard Scandurra, Toumani Diabaté
A Curva Da Cintura
[Brazilian/African]

The trans-Atlantic team-up of two semi-reformed São Paolo alt-rockers – singer/poet Arnaldo Antunes and guitar-slinger Edgard Scandurra – and eminent Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté, recorded in Mali with several other local players, A Curva Da Cintura (Mais Um Discos) is a vividly colorful intermingling of East and West, pop and folk. It's largely laidback and organically lush, with Antunes' lulling monotone bringing that archetypically Brazilian poignance and placidity, but things get surprisingly peppery too, with doses of electrified blues-rock and the pungent folk-psych inflections of Tropicalia, while Diabaté's scintillating, flourish-filled kora work provides a sublime textural and cross-cultural counterpoint.

Scissor Sisters
[Pop/Dance]
concert preview

A decade on from their debut single, Jake Shears and company are a veritable pop institution, dependably delivering an inimitable, well-oiled blend of retro-kitsch fabulosity and good-natured raunch with a winking cleverness that verges on purely nerdy. (Last time they played Philly, Ana Matronic started spouting her favorite Ben Franklin Fun Facts.) Even the bevy of fashionable collaborators they've enlisted for their fourth LP (Diplo, Azealia Banks, Calvin Harris, Boys Noize, Pharrell Williams) does little to modernize or deflect their perennially out-of-step reliance on the most dubious of '70s and '80s sources – garish glam balladry, sudsy yacht-pop, and gobs of cheeseball electro-disco. And if Magic Hour (Polydor) isn't quite a tour de force like 2010's smutty, club-focused Night Work – for one thing, it lacks that album's united conceptual (ahem) thrust – it's still a dazzling affair, balancing the usual spandex-clad floor-fillers with surprising amount of sentimentality, plus (in Matronic's delirious "Let's Have A Kiki") at least one highly obligatory drag anthem in the making.


THEESatisfaction
[Hip-Hop/Soul]
concert preview

Seattle soul sisters Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White are pretty much as fresh as it gets: whip-smart, effortlessly funky and hip, and also really really funny – never too cool (which is to say precisely, devastatingly cool enough) to get downright goofy when the moment calls for it. awE naturalE (Sub Pop) plays like a friendlier, less amorphously floaty take on the artily abstract collage-hop of their top left associates Shabazz Palaces (with whom they've memorably guested), and it shows the duo to be just as adept at making quirky, juicy mincemeat of jazz breaks and scat samples (the album's entirely self-produced) as they are at politically-minded but playful rhymesaying and knowing, mellifluous neo-soul crooning. And you can't even see their sweet synchronized stage moves (or their killer afros) on the record.

Wayne Hancock
[Country]
concert preview

Wayne "The Train" Hancock has been living and breathing vintage honky-tonk and Western swing music for long past long enough to quash any possible question of his throwback approach being a "gimmick"; it just doesn't get any more genuine and bona-fide than this cat, even if (or precisely because) it doesn't take much more than a squint to believe it's Hank Williams himself crooning these blues. Nor is there anything the least bit stale or sawdusty in the way he freshens up sounds that by rights oughtta be woefully anachronistic; his most recent LP, Viper of Melody (Bloodshot), which is slathered up and down with sweet'n'slinky steel guitar solos, finds the Texan troubadour tackling such timelessly topical pursuits as "Working at Working," "Driving [His] Young Life Away" and "Throwin' Away [His] Money," which ring just as relevant in 2012 as they would've in 1932.

Liars
[Indie/Rock]
concert preview

Auteurs of edgy inscrutability, Liars have made a career of unwieldy conceptual gestures, art-punk abstraction, and near constant self-reinvention. Not one of their six albums to date has really resembled any other, but with WIXIW (Mute) – the bewildering-seeming title turns out to be an idiosyncratic rendering of "wish you" – they've undertaken maybe their most dramatic transformation yet: a surprise shift toward palatability. A predominantly electronic affair (leading many to dub it the band's Kid A, though it may be more like their King of Limbs), WIXIW finds the LA-via-Berlin-via-NYC trio as adventurous as ever, but focused mainly on exploration of textures – most of them warmly immersive, vaguely aqueous, and uncharacteristically gentle – while the bleakness and aggression of previous efforts are subsumed into occasional, muffled undercurrents of alienation and foreboding. Don't expect it to last – but it is nice to know that they can do pretty.

Fang Island
[Rock]
concert preview

The big question with Major (Sargent House), Fang Island's follow-up to their self-titled 2010 breakthrough, is whether or not the RISD-via-Brooklyn euphoria-rockers can sustain that album's full-force-gale exuberance – especially given that they've since slimmed down from five to three members (and three to two guitars.) And the answer is, pretty much, yes they can. They've made a few concessions to conventionality – discernible lyrics, for one, and a few tunes that are basically just no-frills power-pop – and they've occasionally opted to render their frantically overlapping multi-level riffs on pianos rather than guitars, and they've grown a tad more reflective (well, if you count such profundities as "all I know I learned in kindergarten.") But the manic math-metal merrie melodies are still here in force, and the band's insatiable, epidemic positivity is, if anything, even more bullish this time out.

Crocodiles
[Rock/Pop]
concert preview

"Bubblegum Trash," as giddy, coarse and insipid as its name suggests, is standout on Crocodiles' third album, Endless Flowers (Frenchkiss) – their first since expanding from a duo to a fivesome – and also a fitting shorthand for the long, proud tradition of scuzzy, decadent, noise-damaged indie pop which the San Diegan outfit so indelicately borrows from. And/or contributes to. (See also: "Electric Death Song" and, especially, "My Surfing Lucifer.") Per the album's title, things are rather less nihilistic this time around (and there's nothing quite as arresting as the narcotized techno-drone of "All My Hate and My Hexes Are For You"), but the band has been diversifying their palette a bit, mostly in the direction of organ-crunching paisley-fied pop and even, with "You Are Forgiven" (sadly not a Who cover), a bit of folksy jangle.
originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

AMG review round-up, volume XVI: the very best of 2009

skipping the genre-specific entries for a more all-encompassing approach to finally posting the massive backlog of reviews i've been building up. this might require a few installments: all remaining 2009 album reviews (and a handful of other writings), starting with my favorites, in the order they appeared on my best of '09 albums list:

{#1} The Very Best: Warm Heart of Africa

At the very least, this is some of the most joyous, life-affirming music out there. The Very Best's debut album finds Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and London-based production duo Radioclit (Etienne Tron and Johan Karlberg) more than making good on the promise of the internet mixtape that introduced their partnership to the world. That tape, one of 2008's most celebrated (and celebratory) releases, displayed a truly boundary-defying yet immediately cohesive and recognizable sound: a euphoric global mélange of pop, dance, hip-hop, world-folk, sunny indie rock, electronica, cinematic new age lushness, and the African sounds of marabi, highlife, and kwaito, all highlighted by Mwamwaya's deliriously infectious Chichewa crooning. This time out, without the launch pad of familiar source material that sometimes made the mixtape's slew of remixes, interpolations, and covers feel slightly like a cheeky arithmetic mashing-up of reference points, the threesome have crafted something even more distinctive and organic, dissolving together their panoply of influences into a set of songs (not merely "tracks") that feel blissfully free of formulas and forerunners.

To be sure, the Very Best's sound is essentially an extension of the globalism already increasingly prevalent in 21st century indie and dance music; a connection reaffirmed by a pair of delightful guest appearances from two of that trend's most visible exponents. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, whose "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was marvelously reworked on the mixtape, returns the favor here by duetting with Mwamwaya on the album's irresistibly effervescent title track. The other big guest shot, naturally enough, is from M.I.A., reigning monarch and mascot of globetrotting beat excursions, who can't help but inspire some smiles on the silly, spunky "Rain Dance." But Mwamwaya hardly requires a famous foil to be utterly captivating. His voice, which is often multi-tracked into toothsome harmonies, is equally capable of conveying majesty, urgency, and exuberance; sometimes -- as on the giddily anthemic "Julia" (which borrows a bit of "Paper Planes"' lazily loping swagger) -- all three at once. But if that voice is undeniably essential to the group's sound, Radioclit's contributions shouldn't be understated either: Karlberg and Tron have outdone themselves with a kaleidoscopic array of Afro-leaning grooves to complement Mwamwaya's contagious melodicism, relying remarkably little on their typically gritty, muscular "ghetto-pop" style. While there are some traces of more straightforward club-derived rhythms - the percussive "Nsokoto" and glittery "Mfumu" both gesture toward disco's 4/4 thump, while the string-laced "Kada Manja," in an amped-up variation on the mixtape's "classical" version, flirts with the hard-hitting sound of kuduro - most of the album is eminently danceable without slotting neatly into any specific idea of "dance music."

But as vivacious and energetic as it is, there's something even more fundamentally potent and potentially profound going on here (not to suggest that dancing isn't profound -- indeed, that might be precisely the point). Take "Chalo," an unabashedly uplifting barrage of Enya-esque synth stabs which was reportedly (amazingly) recorded on the same night that the group's three members first met, and whose lyrics they've described as about "using love to stop the world's problems." This is the sort of thing that helps explain why the Very Best can sport such a ticklish moniker with such evident aplomb: somehow, with these guys, it comes off not so much as a boast (albeit an improbably credible one) but as an encapsulation of the boundless optimism and idealism reflected in their songs and in their sound -- a fervent, infectious belief in music's power to bring out the very best in the world and in the human spirit.

{#2} Jonathan Johansson: En Hand I Himelen [+ bio]

It seems strange to recommend a songwriter of Jonathan Johansson's caliber on the strength of a cover version, but non-Swedish-speaking audiences may find the most immediate point of entry into his second album (which, given its stylistic differences from his first, his change of moniker, and increased exposure, feels effectively like a debut) to be "Alla Vill Ha Hela Världen." It's an essentially faithful rendition of a familiar song -- Tears for Fears' 1985 hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," rendered in Swedish as "everybody wants the whole world" -- but it provides a good indication of the album's approach: rich, gleaming layers of keyboards and guitars; distinctive but not overpowering midtempo rhythms that land somewhere between danceable and drivingly triumphant, and effortlessly buoyant melodies, delivered in Johansson's gorgeously understated octave-doubled vocals. That he can pull off a welcome reworking of a brilliant pop classic without changing it all that much (save for the translation and a slightly synthier sheen), and then make it fit by filling the rest of the album with originals that feel just as enduring and elemental, is quite a feat. But En Hand I Himlen is not a showy album; if anything, it's relentlessly smooth, gliding from the insistent, Arcade Fire-ish pulse of the title track to the breezy, almost Caribbean lilt of "Innan vi Faller," which flows seamlessly into the loping sweetness of "Högsta Take, Högsta Våningen," and so on from there. One highlight after another, without a single subpar track -- Johansson's solemn, hymn-like choral pieces ("Du Sa" and "Psalm Noll Noll") are just as alluring as his scintillating, pointillist wide-screen electro-pop ("Aldrig Ensam," "Sent för Oss.") Indeed, any of these songs could be a forgotten 20-year-old smash single -- or a worthy candidate for an English-language revisiting two decades hence. Even the album's timely 1980s-era referentiality, as prominent as it is, slathered in gauzily synthetic textures, is ultimately secondary to the timeless majesty of its melodies. Highly recommended.

{#3} Mayer Hawthorne: A Strange Arrangement

i still haven't written anything about mayer for publication, but i've probably been more excited about him than any other artist in the last twelve months... if i made this list now, this would be {#1} easy. and he's just as great in concert...

{#4} JJ: JJ Nº 2 [+ bio]
Call them the Tender Alliance. The stark, iconically "edgy" cover of JJ's tersely titled N° 2, with its splatter of blood and grayscale cannabis leaf, seems almost comically incongruous when contrasted with the wispy, blissful sweetness of the music contained inside, which offers nary a tough edge. True, the album does feature one blatant drug track, with a hip-hop sample to boot -- the slow-rolling, reverb-drenched "Ecstasy," which lifts the drippy keyboard line and swaggering stutter-step cadence of Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" -- but the effect is more sluggish (or, to go by the lyrics, huggish) than thuggish. Elsewhere, the pervading haze is not so much psychotropic as simply tropic, with steel pans, timbales, and talking drums flitting up through the burbling electronic undercurrents which, along with singer Elin's bewitchingly languorous alto, transform songs like "Things Will Never Be the Same Again" and "My Love" from perfectly lovely gentle indie pop tunes into something quite a bit more special and intriguing. Even at their most stripped-down, as on closer "Me and Dean," which consists of little more than some lazy acoustic strumming, a bit of background chatter, and a repeated refrain half-borrowed from Taylor Dayne's 1987 hit "Tell It to My Heart," JJ can be entirely endearing; their finest moments -- the intricate instrumental "Intermezzo," whose chintzily Baroque, chiming synth motif floats atop a bed of tabla, beatbox bossa nova, and woozy sound fragments, and especially the gloriously lush, groove-infused "From Africa to Malaga," which features some arrestingly lovely self-harmonizing -- are nothing short of intoxicating. The whole affair lasts less than 27 minutes, but it feels satisfyingly complete as an album, with a balmy, carefree ambience and a level of sonic detail that both invite and richly reward repeated listens.

{#5} Adiam Dymott: Adiam Dymott [+ bio]

A far cry from your typical twenty-something Scandinavian songstress -- among her Razzia labelmates, she has as much in common with guitar-heavy (male) rock acts like I Are Droid and Dundertåget/Thunder Express as with the gentler, more girlish likes of Firefox AK, Maia Hirasawa, and Hello Saferide -- Stockholm's Adiam Dymott distinguishes herself on this succinct and immensely likable debut with a fresh and impressively assured take on classic rock/pop songcraft. The opening cut may be named for John Denver (it's about freewheeling down country roads with a certain unspecified song of his playing on the radio), but a better clue to her affinities is her choice to cover Neil Young's "Too Far Gone" (which provides this album's sweetest, sparest moment). Like Young, Tom Petty, and even Bruce Springsteen, her songs convey a certain literate but unpretentious populism, filtered through a raggedly rootsy, vaguely punkish musical sensibility: good old American rock & roll, albeit from the perspective of an African-descended Swede. Add to that a rich and throaty singing voice reminiscent of P!nk and Liz Phair, inflected with pop and soul in equal measure, and you've got the makings of a refreshing and distinctive new talent. The uptempo rockers here are a total blast -- especially the handclappy singalong single "Miss You" and the driving anti-mainstream youth anthem "Pizza" (which features the delicious call-and-response chorus "My generation's fucked/You left a pile of garbage/Way too big to clean up") -- but there are some real gems among the slower, quirkier numbers as well, like the mellow-grooving "Mrs. Dymott," which muses on the difficulties of having a strange name. The song's chorus spells her name out for listeners (and even offers an etymology) -- pay attention; it's one worth remembering.

{#6} Buraka Som Sistema: Black Diamond [AMG review]
{#7} Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career [CP live review]
{#8} La Roux [CP track review]

One Track Mind: "Bulletproof"

La Roux sure do lead a thrilling, treacherous life. Well, so the titles of their singles would have you believe: the well-coiffed dance-pop duo debuted with "Quicksand" and assailed the UK charts with the ferocious "In For The Kill." Even if it's all metaphorical (yeah, they're pretty much just love songs), there's enough real menace and fierceness in their tracks for the violent conceits to hit home. Nowhere is that more true than on "Bulletproof," their finest achievement and the most urgent, insistent, and utterly invincible sliver of synth-pop from a decade of unabashed retro-wonkery. Call it an '80s-retread if you must; you can’t shoot it down. Ben Langmaid's gritty keyboards pierce like tiny neon shards, and Elly Jackson's spitfire vocal delivery (she of the Tilda Swinton-esque androgyny and opinionated, dubiously-reasoned public statements) offer nothing but glisteningly sharp edges. That is, until the song's gleaming chorus – the sort that's simply one line repeated four times, because that's all it needs to be. "This time I'll be bulletproof," Jackson wails, betraying the slightest hint of vulnerability. More likely, we're the ones who need protection.

{#9} Darren Hayman: Pram Town [AMG review]
{#10} The Boy Least Likely To: The Law of the Playground [CP track review]

One Track Mind: "When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade"

Even by the sugary standards of twee-sters The Boy Least Likely To's addictive, adorable sophomore record, The Law of The Playground (+1 records), this cut's Pollyanna-meets-MacGyver premise is saccharine to say the least. But the fizzy clatter of handclaps and vibraslaps, banjos and fiddles, electronic twitters and piano glisses surrounding our pragmatically positivist protagonist (who also uses raindrops to make rainbows), and a chunky, cheery groove that falls somewhere between the vaudeville-hoedown stomp of Fozzie and Kermit's "Movin' Right Along" and a kiddie-disco version of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out," help give it just the right touch of tart-n-tangy freshness.

{#11} Birdie Busch: Pattern of Saturn

Birdie Busch's third album -- her first to be self-released following two records for Bar/None -- is another fine helping of cozy, abundantly warm-spirited folk-pop. Not too much has changed for the West Philadelphia songstress this time around: she's still working with more or less the same affably rootsy band that backed up her up on Penny Arcade (a title that she coincidentally recycles for this album's opening cut), still seeking simplicity (and searching for love) while pondering the complexities of a life lived somewhere in between the tangible and the ineffable. Pattern of Saturn is a modest offering -- a mere nine songs (and two brief instrumentals) lasting a short, sweet 33 minutes -- but it's easily her best collection yet. Every one of these tunes is an absolute charmer, brimming with soul, tunefulness, and a compellingly youthful wisdom. Ranging from the spirited romantic antics of "Roll It" (a sidelong glance at a saucy suitor), the gee-whiz clip-clop of "Tenderoni," and the rollicking album standout "Bordertown" (a love song for immigrant kitchen workers, with a chorus for the ages) to more contemplative cuts like "Passwords" (a rumination on the oddly intimate aspects of Internet security) and the subdued "Lampshade" (a bluesy ballad of resignation that contains the quietly devastating line "I tried not to write this song"), the whole affair is relaxed, heartfelt, and tremendously inviting. This is truly one to cherish.

{#13} Sissy Wish: Beauties Never Die

Among the legions of Norwegian and Scandinavian pop artists, Sissy Wish (real-life alias Siri Wålberg) is not one of those whose Platonic ideal of pop is derived from Orange Juice and the Field Mice, on the one hand, nor from Madonna and Kylie Minogue on the other. If anything, she seems to take her cues more from the Beatles and Phil Spector, which, in a sense, places her in the same lineage as ABBA. It certainly aligns her with the likes of her countrymen Sondre Lerche, Marit Larsen, and Bertine Zetlitz -- all versatile artists and top-notch writers with a sharp pop sense and a distinctly modern sensibility, rooted in a clear affinity for the classic pop of the past -- though she's hardly a classicist, per se, and she may just be the most musically omnivorous of the bunch. Beauties Never Die, Wålberg's third full-length and her first to see U.S. release (a full two years after it was issued in Norway), is both more adventurous and more distinctive than its predecessor, 2005's Tuning In, trading that album's rootsy, overtly '60s-influenced rock stylings for a vibrantly eclectic musical smörgåsbord. Rather than abandoning the guitars, Wålberg and producer Jorgen Traen (who's worked with Lerche, but has also generated his share of mirthful electronic mayhem as Sir Dupermann and as one-half of the whimsical Toy) simply layer them in along with everything else: plenty of synths and electronics, but also strings, trumpets, organs, pianos, steel drums, stacked backing vocals, and an expansive array of percussion including castanets, a tap-dance solo, and a squeaky sound that might be somebody rubbing a balloon. It's an impressive and often exhilarating Wall of Sound approach, mashing together rock crunch, electro sparkle, kitchen-sink pop playfulness, and moments of unexpected beauty (with just a smidgen of punkish grit), but somehow managing never to feel overstuffed. All that instrumental pizzazz wouldn't necessarily amount to much, though, if not for the songs, which are consistently strong and intriguingly crafted: harmonically intricate, lyrically rich, melodically inventive but always memorable, particularly as delivered in Wålberg's powerful, distinctive voice (it's a hard one to place, but comparisons to Chrissie Hynde, Karen O, or Regina Spektor wouldn't be entirely invalid.) The standout is probably the lilting title track, a dreamy, girl group-flavored charmer which offers the indelible insight that "it takes a lifetime to find out someone's happy to see you every day," but other highlights abound, including the fiery electro-rock of "DWTS" (whose hook is the persistent yell "do what they say!"), the tender, curious "Music on the Radio," and the bouncy, goofily Beatles-ish closer "Book." Consistently enjoyable and wonderfully captivating, if not quite outright dazzling, Beauties Never Die is nevertheless one of those albums which leaves the impression that its creator is capable of just about anything.

{#14} Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard: 'Em Are I [AMG review]
{#15} The Bird and the Bee: Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future [live review]

{#16} Tiga: Ciao!
In the wryly cheeky interview video "Ciao! Means Forever," created to correspond with the release of his second artist album, the preposterously pseudo-pompous Tiga Sontag affects a perfectly deadpan disdain to describe his aversion to touching musical instruments, explaining how he's "forced to use his voice" as his only means of musical expression. The impish Montrealer is in fact credited with co-production on each of Ciao!'s tracks (and, in one case, 808 "live programming," whatever that means) which probably gives the lie to that particular bit of eccentric-artiste whimsy, but in any case he's enlisted some highly qualified operators to handle much of the menial knob-twiddling here, mostly longtime collaborators and friends who just happen to include several leading lights of 2000s electro-house: the Belgian Dewaele brothers (better known as Soulwax and/or 2 Many DJs), Finnish producer Jori Hulkkonen (aka Zyntherius), Sweden's Jesper Dahlbäck, fellow Canadian Jason "Gonzales" Beck, and James Murphy of DFA and LCD Soundsystem renown. Tiga acknowledges their contributions in the liners with his allegedly well-known "false humility," admitting that without them he'd be "just another extremely funny guy who is amazing at football" — but in all seriousness their generous and readily discernible input helps to make Ciao! one of the most assured and enjoyable electronic pop/dance albums, front to back, in recent memory. Of course, "seriousness" is hardly the point here: Tiga's lyrical and vocal approach (which is indeed quite expressive, a definite step up from his sometimes undercooked past efforts) makes sure of that, with a slew of tongue-in-cheek tracks playing on his self-obsessed, hyper-glamorous persona — "What You Need," "Sex O'Clock," "Overtime," "Luxury" ("this is my reality but for you it's just a dream") and the quasi-novelty self-duet "Shoes," which plays like the missing link between the Kelly (Liam Kyle Sullivan) YouTube sensation of the same title and the Black Leotard Front's eccentric-erotic "Casual Friday" — all with club-ready, bassline-driven funky electro grooves and squelchy acid-laced synths to match. The covers that dominated his earlier output are absent here, happily enough, though there are a few notable musical "borrowings," particularly on the album's more subdued and genuinely sensitive latter half: slow jam "Gentle Giant" (co-written with Murphy, and sung with Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears) cribs its hook (wittingly or not) from the Beta Band's "Dry the Rain," while the touching, lilting "Turn the Night On" compounds its '80s homage with a groove lifted directly from Joe Jackson's "Stepping Out," and a melody (and lyrical sentiment) that recalls Bowie's "Modern Love." But calling out Tiga's influences and sources (something that his covers have obviously done throughout his career) should in no way be seen to diminish what he, and his estimable crew of machine manipulators, have accomplished here: Ciao! is at once a tremendously enjoyable piece of dancefloor fluff and an impressively unified statement from a master synthesist of electronic pop pleasures.

{#18} Memory Tapes: Seek Magic
Former Hail Social frontman Davye Hawk traffics in a voguish synthesis of dappled electronic beats, gauzy tropical textures, and amiable indie pop melodicism (with a hint of burnished post-punk), a variegated style that he unveiled across a series of EPs and Internet tracks released under several guises in 2008 and 2009. Seek Magic, his first full-length effort as a solo concern, works as an excellent summation of that particularly elusive, endlessly summery late-decade Zeitgeist, splitting the difference between the gossamer dream pop he makes as Memory Cassette and the more up-front, dancy electro of his Weird Tapes guise (hence, presumably, the conflated moniker). By any name, Hawk emerges here as a chameleonic sound sculptor of considerable range and finesse, able to render guitar-laced pop nuggets, ambient instrumental excursions, and straight-up dance jams all with a consistent, shimmering hazy warmth, and with an engaging looseness that belies his equally conspicuous, nuanced craftsmanship. It's as though he holds at his disposal all the tools of electronica and indie rock, deploying them liberally, but judiciously, with his focus attuned not so much to style or form as to the particular qualities of the sounds themselves. Broadly speaking, the more indie rock-derived elements (which is to say, the guitars) can be found toward the front and back ends of the album -- the languorous, heavily reverbed figure that opens "Swimming Field"; the needly lines that underpin "Green Knight"; the woozy strumming that forms the core of the synth-kissed "Plain Material"; and the gnarled fuzz that eventually subsumes the blissy finale, "Run Out" -- while the midsection contains more purely electronic material: the gorgeous, rippling, faux-Asian mod-exotica of "Pink Stones" and the dancefloor-ready electro-pop of "Stop Talking" and "Graphics" (although the former does admittedly climax with an immense, intoxicating, and very guitar-heavy coda). As it plays, though, the album forms a remarkably fluid whole, stylistically as well as sonically, and what jumps out is not the songs themselves so much as the diverse array of sounds and countless individual moments that stand testament to Hawk's pervasive attention to detail. In many ways, Seek Magic calls to mind Cut Copy's spectacular In Ghost Colours, another gloriously sound-stuffed album that offered a similarly organic-feeling blend of dance, pop, rock, and haze, but while that Australian outfit's work boasts somewhat stronger songwriting and more immediately overt dance appeal, this album may well trump it in terms of atmosphere. One potential sticking point for some listeners is Hawk's voice -- not that it's bad or even particularly unpleasant (and in any case it's rarely the most prominent feature in any given track), but it is somewhat rough and reedy, and not all that well suited to this type of lushly melodious material.

{#19} Kitty Diasy and Lewis: Kitty Daisy and Lewis [CP live review]

{#20} Mungolian Jet Set: We Gave It All Away...Now We Are Taking It Back [+ bio]

What makes the Mungolian Jet Set's decadently overstuffed productions so sublimely engrossing -- whether encountered individually, as they initially appeared, in piecemeal fashion, on 12"s and compilations over the past several years, or taken as a fluid whole on this gloriously epic trawl through their remix work to date -- is not simply their bent for inspired, unmitigated lunacy, but the surprisingly artful way they manage to fold their far-reaching, campy, perversely unexpected, and downright goofy musical ideas into cogent and highly nuanced (albeit undeniably maximalist) compositional structures. Restraint might seem like a foreign concept to these guys -- you can get a decent inkling of their comedic sensibilities by scanning the track list for grandiose remix titles and nutty monikers ("Pizzy Yelliott," the "16th Rebels of Mung") -- but at least they know how to take their time. With a luxurious two hours to fill and track lengths hovering around and sometimes well beyond eight minutes, they've got plenty of it. So it's a good thing they pace themselves, always making sure to establish a sturdy groove (generally midtempo, disco-derived 4/4, with generous percussion layering) before heading off on their interstellar flights of fancy, and sometimes venturing through silky, synth-flecked space for minutes before introducing any overt oddness, frequently in the form of (nearly inevitable, but never predictable) vocals, which range from cartoonish to ethereal. There's even a stretch on the first disc which could plausibly be described as subdued, at least in relative terms, what with the dubby downtempo of "Big Smack and Flies," the darkly stirring ethno-lounge of "It Ain't Necessarily Evil," and a (somewhat failed, but still glorious) stab at minimal techno (infused with snatches of contemporary classical) on "Madre (Epics Part 2)." Of course, that's only after the tone-setting ritual incantation of mumbo-jumbo, the slow-building bewilderment of "Creepy" (the lone new, non-remix inclusion here, featuring both soothingly lush female harmonies and spooky, quivering, PiL-ish shrieking), and the utterly demented Bob Marley cover "Could You Be Loved" (notably this collection's briefest and looniest proper track, shoe-horning electro-funk, patois-pastiche hip-hop, acid house, and more into less than five minutes) -- and before the dizzying cosmic heights of their back-to-back Lindstrøm tag teams.

Disc two may open with the blissfully beachy "Ocean 0304," but it wanders soon enough into stranger, dancier territory, highlighted by the delightfully absurd "Milano Model," which melds orchestral bombast, accordion gypsy stomp, "Drop It Like It's Hot"-style vocal percussion, and a deliciously wigged-out disco-funk climax. So yes, there's zaniness aplenty to be found here, but there's uncommon beauty as well, perhaps no more so than on the two closing cuts: the relatively straightforward Shortwave Set rework "Glitches 'n Bugs," which in this context feels refreshingly unambitious, marinated in sub-tropical exotica but with the original's pleasantly pedestrian pop choruses left largely untouched, and "Moon Song," a glittery take on the like-minded space-prog outfit They Came from the Stars I Saw Them which serves as one final epic, starry-eyed but resolutely earthbound. These more song-centered offerings, while still a decent distance from conventional, come across as loose, relaxed, and (impossibly) almost normal after the unbridled sonic extravagance that's come before, making for a fitting homecoming and come-down after an exhilarating, exhaustive, and expertly paced extraterrestrial journey. "Mungolia", wherever it may be (good money says it's somewhere in the vicinity of the KLF's Muu-Muu), is a fantastically fascinating spot, a can't-miss destination for all electro/eclecto-phile thrill seekers out there -- and this sumptuous set has got everything you'll need to make the trip.

{#23} A Camp: Colonia [CP concert preview]

Nina Persson was at the forefront of the Swedish Invasion back in 1996 with the Cardigans' world-conquering (and still irresistible) "Lovefool," a crystalline pure-pop smash powered by her personable voice and slyly cynical outlook. These days she's got a different sort of conquest on her mind: Colonia, the intriguing new album from her intermittent side project A Camp, is inspired by themes of colonialism and empire, blending savage and majestic imagery and kicking off with a surreally terrifying joint coronation/decapitation. Initially a nominal solo effort, A Camp has solidified into a supergroup of sorts, with Nathan Larson of art-punkers Shudder to Think (also Persson's husband) and Niclas Frisk of Swede-rock stalwarts Atomic Swing. The sound is rootsy, warm and mellow, verging on lush, nodding to classic pop and Americana of decades gone by — but don't get too comfortable. Persson may have shed much of her blond ambition, but she hasn't lost any of that candy-coated cynicism, as Colonia's biggest hook will attest: "Don't you know love can kill anyone?"

{#24} Amadou & Mariam: Welcome to Mali [CP concert preview]

{#25} Little Boots: Hands
A good year on from catching ears and sparking potentially damaging levels of next-big-thing hype with her first single, "Stuck on Repeat" -- a sleek, buzzy, self-fulfilling prophecy of "metaphor pop" with obvious debts to Kylie Minogue and Giorgio Moroder, and a writing/production assist from Hot Chip's Joe Goddard -- Little Boots (aka U.K. popstress Victoria Hesketh) finally showed her Hands. When it arrived, her full-length debut amply justified the hype even while slightly disappointing some of her faithful. It's true that only a handful of Hands' cuts can stack up against the stunning "Stuck" in terms of sonic distinctiveness and sheer hooky inevitability, and realistically, despite some clear mainstream potential, it's unlikely to achieve the sort of massive crossover success that some may have envisioned -- certainly not in America, where the album's street date was pushed back considerably beyond its June 2009 U.K. release. Frankly, Little Boots isn't doing anything especially musically innovative -- as she well knows -- and Hands fails to add any buzz-stoking specifics or publicity hooks to her persona beyond the already established basics: her savvy pop-positive hipster cred and playfully retro videogenic appeal, neither of which give her a leg up on the more quirkily personable likes of Robyn, Lily Allen, or Lady Gaga. But that's perfectly fine, because what Hesketh and her highly pedigreed collaborators have accomplished here is nevertheless a surprisingly rare, deceptively difficult achievement: a practically flawless and entirely enjoyable album of pure electronic pop: "pure" in the sense that, apart from the tacked-on (and unlisted) solo piano title track, there are no sounds on this record other than synthesizers (including synthesized drums) and vocals. Also in that, while the synths are often distorted, filtered, and otherwise electronically muddled, Hesketh's voice is to a large extent tonally pure, and generally devoid of specific inflections, coming across not as blank or chilly so much as just slightly anonymous (in contrast to the undeniably distinctive pipes of her oft-compared compatriot, La Roux's Elly Jackson.)

Although the album, in typical 21st century pop fashion, features a plethora of producers -- including Goddard, chart champion (and Gaga accomplice) RedOne, the increasingly omnipresent Greg Kurstin (Allen, Minogue), and Bertine Zetlitz collaborator Fred Ball -- and a corresponding variety of musical moods -- the brash and buzzy strut of "New in Town," the decidedly Hot Chip-y clank'n'chug of "Meddle," the darkly glossy trip-pop of "Hearts Collide" -- they seem to have condensed on a consistent, elegantly simple synth pop vibe that sets up a sonically unified, satisfyingly streamlined listen. The directness and consistency of the album's production, vocals, and stylistic approach leave a great deal of the focus on the songs themselves, which is good, because songs are arguably Hands greatest asset: a solid batch with several standouts (mostly the singles, including the stomping, club-ready "Remedy" and the absolutely massive-sounding "New in Town," along with the indomitable "Stuck on Repeat") but no space-filling duds or truly weak links. The songs, too, have a distinct conceptual purity, marrying effortless melodic mastery to a kind of lyrical facelessness, often eschewing any kind of personal specificity for general-purpose love/relationship commentary delivered in extended metaphorical conceits about driving ("No Brakes"), broadcasting ("Tune into My Heart"), medicine ("Remedy" -- which is technically, and fittingly, about dancing, not love), and math (not only the bouncy "Mathematics," a treasure trove of senseless arithmetic and algebra jokes ("your x is equal to my y"), but also "Symmetry," a duet with Human League's Phil Oakley that takes on geometry and the general concept of opposition). As restrained and mild-mannered as she may be, Hesketh at her best manages to make even these obvious generic abstractions feel truly affecting: a neat feat she pulled off on "Stuck on Repeat," finding the spark of aching humanity inside the manifestly mechanical (both lyrically and musically), and one she repeats here on the sweetly soaring "No Brakes," a gorgeous, paradoxically calm testament to the delirious uncontrollability of love. Such is the power of great pop, a power that rests firmly within Little Boots' very capable Hands.

sensitive thugs y'all need earplugs

he blogs! music lives! lots o' great live music lately, as i may have mentioned.

last night's show by the very best may not have been the very best...couldn't really measure up to the excitement of seeing them the first time, but even so the set was quite short (a half hour if that) and the energy seemed to be slightly less. which means there was still a ton of energy and it was an awesome party and i was mostly just glad to be there with a bunch of my friends, and other friendlies (though we were too scattered about the room.) two dancers this time instead of one dancer and one crippled singer. i think they might have both been different, but they were definitely wearing different leggings – ginkgo described the effect as "fluorescent yellow cameltoe"; cara's response was "my, those trousers are mesmerizing!"

also last night: fuck buttons – i only caught about 15 minutes of their set (i.e. a song and the beginning of another song), because i was running back around the block to see the verys, but those 15 minutes made me exceedingly happy. even though it's just two hip-looking doods with tables full of gadgets, holding a note on a casio with one finger for 4 bars. i don't entirely understand it, but i really really enjoy fbs. i need to play them for some other people to see if they feel similarly.

also last night: javelin, opening for t.v.b. funtimes, especially towards the end of the set (as the songs got more songy and poppy.) will be looking out for these guys. most memorable part though is that i walked into the empty venue to find them chatting with none other than yale evelev, my ol' luaka boss, who says "oh, we're putting out the record!" he says, this is the best time in music in his life. this era. soul music, african music, indie rock. want to hear more about what he's listening to (apparently it's not the very best)...

i pretty much agree with him (well, best music time of my life, for sure.) was thinking about this tonight, and i figure there's no possible way that people are listening to less music these days, so they must be listening to more, more than ever. [obv ipods and all that] ...and more than that, they're listening to more different music (from each other) than probably ever since mass culture started existing. [esp w/ the death of the big music industry and all that] personally this year i have felt less specifically excited about very new music (especially albums – which is probably my foggy lens – though a couple are starting to grow on me), but no less about music in general. i've had this narrative about being more excited about live music (than ever? maybe not, but than recorded...relatively speaking?), partly because i have just been seeing a lot of it, mostly free...

also last night: i dreamed about bruce springsteen covering "tobacco road" in a kind of medieval lighthouse castle in a tiny harbor town on the north (baltic?) coast of greece, and he let me play a piano solo, but only for a little while.

tonight, though: i saw julie doiron (cat power-level neurotic awkwardness in the banter, hair in her eyes making it hard to hear the songs, but still, a strong resounding voice, sorry i missed her first few) and herman dune at the world cafe. it really is such a nice place to see-hear music, we're lucky it's in the neighborhood. having things be pleasant is, on balance, quite a bit better. and what a treat to be waited on by the fabulous ('n dreamy) birdie busch, even if i had to chase her down for the privelege of paying her $5 for a pair of teas.

oh, but herman dune, what goofy fun. the jojo comparison is inescapable because it's so right-on. even if hd are a bit more self-aware and, um, sane, and their songs have more words. they're both jewish too, yknow (really liked the verse about being bar-mitzvahed in one of the songs he played.) david[-ivar] is super-tall and gangly, and super-beardy, with a preposterous turquoise florida sweater and a gold heart-shaped locket (!) and long spindly legs that he gets up on his tip-toe and does dramatic matador dances, and big long fingers that he plays fast and loose with his songs on the guitar, lunges to crank up the volume for a solo. total goofball, but really clever-funny too. i liked him a lot. that's entertainment!

i also, in the last couple months, saw
• throw me the statue (hi aaron!),
• sid'n'susie (aka matthew sweet + susannah hoffs, and wrote about it for cp, took some pictures too but i guess they didn't post? thereby fulfilling a 12-ish year mission of seeing m.s., didn't disappoint),
• regina spektor/jupiter one (meh...the electric factory suxx. regina is so much better when you can actually see her face. j1 are kinda spry tho),
• mirah (fun! not boring! cute! ripped! anorexic wtf?? fleetwood mac cover! bought 2 vinyls including the reissue of ytiltbrilt – with better art – and one of 12 recently discovered-in-her-storage copies of a rare believed-to-be-sold-out '03 live lp),
• erin mckeown and m. doughty (separately, but both at free-at-noon shows. first time seeing either, in both cases a long time coming... both folks i hadn't thought about too much, but have been paying more attention lately. erin is totally personable and sweet, mike is totally weird-talky and snarky, but in a fun way – wondering if he's like that all the time.)
• y∆cht [sorry, not capsing] (weirdos! wtf! engaging enough, but pretty odd. eh, performance art. also, i reviewed their record. also: james murphy and pat mahoney spinning dee-lite's "what is love?" and t-heads' "naive melody." kool.)

and

• bruce springsteen! twice!! whoa!!! two of the shows of his final spectrum run of four. also for free, for no good reason, thanks to adam (well, for the first show i paid money – a mere $60 less than face value...) i have not been much of a bruce fan, particularly, since the mid-80s or so, when born in the u.s.a. was pretty much my favorite album. enthusiasm surrounding the sudden decisions to go see these shows led me to go back and listen to that album a bunch of times, but more importantly to really listen to darkness on the edge of town for the first time, and also check out the river and the wild, the innocent, among others, and to feel like i sort of had a handle on his discog for the first time, and to say, hey, why did i spend so much time listening to dire straits when i could have been getting into this stuff??

anyway the shows were mostly a blast – especially the second one when i was down on the floor (boss came within, oh, fifteen feet of me? at a few points.) the parts where he played full albums straight-thru (darkness; bitusa) were oddly less exciting – the lack of suspense when you know what's coming next is surprisingly detrimental. also, the bitusa performance were made to sound a lot like the record (massive gating/effects on the drums, in particular, and all the synths), which is kind of too bad, would have been interesting to hear those songs with the more live band feel of the rest of the show. definite highlight of the whole experience was by-request cover of "(your love keeps lifting me) higher and higher." (they had to figure it out first.) bruce just seemed like he was having so much fun.

i also saw sissy wish, whose record i reviewed and is pretty great. that didn't prepare me for the awesomeness of her performance (at an afternoon cmj showcase, following the also rather enjoyable choir of young believers), which was considerably electro-punkier, down-and-dirtier, musically, than the somewhat polished (but still sparky) sound of her record, but mostly notable for her [=siri walberg] manic pixie-nature, bouncing around with an elfin grin, standing on a chair in the audience and commanding us to sing "ya ya ya," generally being silly and cute.

and also she wore a shirt made out of cassette tapes:

which as you can see was the inspiration [or, what i ripped off] for my halloween costume, a week later:

hm, need to study the pictures here for some refinement of the design. i think i know how to make it better now.

weird thing: i went to see sissy again the following night, in philly (hadn't been planning to, but i really wanted to see her again after that), but she was nowhere to be found – not at either of the venues she had supposedly been scheduled to play. even though her publicist put me on the list that afternoon. even though i talked to siri herself the day before about coming to her show in philly... weird.

i didn't see or, the whale, because i was late after the boss played for three hours (after starting an hour late), but i wish i had, as i've been enjoying their record, but i had a very nice time talking to julie after i missed their set. and almost happened to see them the following night in d.c.

i also didn't see: jeff lewis, the books, sian alice, busdriver, flying lotus, lou barlow, r. kelly, anna ternheim, or paramore, even though i wrote about all of them in citypaper.

Livestock Roundup pt. 1: VeryVeroNekoNellieNOMO

time to take some Summer Stock – I've been going to a LOT of great shows lately. seeing some of my favorite artists, old and new, most of whom i'd never seen before. two of the most exciting, from last week, keith urban and taylor swift @ the wachovia center and kitty daisy and lewis @ kung fu necktie, i covered rather lengthily for the city paper blog (and will repost here soon enough.) the following i will try to run thru more quickly, but all were highly enjoyable shows...

The Veronicas @ the TLA, 7/17



Ah, the V's. The band that started it all for me, teen-pop wise. Preview'd 'em in CP, as i also did for Micachu – sweet virginny's Devon Sproule was also playing Philly (well, Ardmore) the same night, so it was pick yr precociously-talented young-twenty-something chicksinger nite (with three excellent options about as disparate as you could get), but I obviously had to go for these saucy Aussies, whom I'd been wanting to catch ever since they cancelled their slot on the Ashlee Simpson show I saw three whole years ago. This was, I believe, their first time back here since then, the "Revenge is Sweeter" tour, and I daresay they seem to be doing poor ol' Ash a few better these days; playing to a packed TLA vs. a tepid half-full E-Factory crowd (granted a much larger venue.)

it felt like the skinny gawky sexy kids party – like a bunch of high school seniors or something who are still kinda awky'n'scrawny, but at least they're the cool kids, revelling in the glory of youth and sex and angst and punk rock and gettin' naked. the video below captures the opening act, Carney, "pranking" the girls by running on stage, prancing around half-dressed (note the artfully nipple-hiding electrical-tape "V" for Veronicas) and grabbing instruments to play along with "Beautifully Broken" – that sort of sums up the spirit of the show: groping clumsily somewhere inbetween juvenile and erotic, but kind of cheekily infectious nevertheless.

the Origliassos made a visually pleasing sort of checker-pattern, with raven-tressed Lisa in a white slip/dress and peroxided Jess in a black one. they were very convincingly live and unaffected, and certainly earnest, giggling and chatting in an uninhibited, girly way – their story of how they decided "twitterhike" from new york with some fans (because there wasn't room on their tour bus?) was endearing if seemingly far-fetched. the band seemed pretty rad and young too, nice to see – at first i thought the drummer was an older, long-haired metal dude (who was inordinately into throwing his stick in the air), but later realized it was actually a girl, who seemed pretty bad-ass.

unfortunately, if predictably, the vocals weren't mixed nearly loud enough, which is particularly a problem for these guys – their vocals being basically the whole point – and I felt like it sapped a lot of the energy out of the show. anyway, they hit most of the hits, kicking right off with "untouched" – was disappointed that they did "this love" as an acoustic duet, even tho it was cool, since it meant no A-ha synth riff – but they skipped "when it all falls apart," which i was totally counting on as the closer. wasn't that their biggest mtv/radio hit in the states? (seemingly not, but why did i think that?) instead, they ended their main set with "4ever" (incl. the first of the mindblowing finale descant lines, but not the ultimate, closing one) and then encored with a breathless "this is how it feels," with more pandemonium and semi-nudity, and fans onstage, like the one who shot this video. would i have dug it more three years ago (when i would at least have wanted to push up to the front row)? yeah, probably so. come on baby, we can't make it last 4eva. still, better l8, 4shur.

Nellie McKay @ 92YTribeca
with Life in a Blender and Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse



Up to nyc for Ester's birthday, we just so happily happened across this fine $15 bill at the snazzy new 92YTribeca, which turned out to be quite a pleasant spot, with a particularly tasty and reasonably-priced (kosher) café. the first and last acts were both rather curious amalgamations who specialized "clever" (not-necessarily-funny) comedic material with a quasi-theatrical bent, both bolstered by strong horn sections. Life in a Blender (bad name; extra points off for making me think of Eve6) were notably the weaker of the two, at once quirkier and blander; the flat-out kooky JHCat4HotA were at least energetically entertaining: a motley crew including two burly bald brothers, a seriously sick black trumpeter/pianist, a girl who we variously described as "new jersey" or "sorority" type (also on trumpet), and a spazzy-neurotic frizzy-haired frontwoman (sorta reminiscent of Seinfeld's Elaine, but even nuttier, and with a preposterously unflattering dress) who spoke-sang nerdily obsessive and sorta dark joke-songs about sex and relationships and modernity. i liked "vampire girls" (with punkish "hot topic"-style pop-culture shout-outs) and "obviously" (...you slept with that girl from your reunion) and the goofily brazen "do me," and actually a lot of the songs were funny for at least the first verse-chorus or so, but not really enough to want to hear them more than once.

so, Nellie was the odd oddball out in the line-up, who stole the show, and all our hearts. actually, she seemed a bit more down to earth and with-it than previous times i've seen her, but she's still a lovable flouncy goof. she only did a couple of recognizable numbers from her albums – nothing from the debut, just "long & lazy river," "there you are in me," "food" and by-request encore "cupcake" from the second, and the razor-sharp "mother of pearl" (aka "feminists don't have a sense of humor") which i didn't know at the time is on her underlooked (er, by me) third – but there were one or two i recognized from past shows, and some cutesy newbies (thrift-shopper anthem "second-hand nell.")

about half the set, though, was vintage '30s/'40s-or-so covers, mostly done on ukulele, many taken from her forthcoming doris day tribute album (!!) which is gonna be awesome (she did a couple along with the finished backing tracks, thereby demonstrating her adorable incompetence at using a cd player), including "if i knew you were coming i'd have baked a cake," and "a-tisket a-tasket" and "broadway melody," which she did in an unreal quavery warble (you can listen to a similar performance of it here.) oh my oh my. here's hoping for a whiz-bang comeback soon soon soon!

The Very Best @ Le Poisson Rouge 7/18
with Dragons of Zynth



tromped across town for a very different sort of affair (fewer swatties, more sweatys), hotly anticipated by me and many. openers dragons of zynth were a lot more fun than i for some reason anticipated, a weird but workable combo of punk, funk, prog, synth-pop, and african polyrhythms, with anarcho/ethno-hipster style. they did some cover of a ghanaian song from the '60s that ben claimed he knew. towards the end they also did some aggressive/confrontational audience-diving, which was impressively intense, performance-wise, but didn't really fit the vibe. anyhoo.

the very best didn't come on until pretty ridiculously late, though i didn't much mind because the amp-up djs were playing some really killer stuff. the evening was already feeling kind of gleefully surreal (at atmosphere of freaky holiday?), partly because of these australians kept coming over to me and trying to talk to me (one of them in...norwegian?) because i was, apparently, the spitting image of their friend (i even danced like him.) once the band finally got on, the whole place just turned into even more of a berserk party, with everybody exuberantly dancing and waving their arms around.

there's not necessarily so much to their live performance – the radioclit dj guy, whichever one he was (there was only one of them there, so half of the duo), didn't seem to be doing a whole lot besides triggering the tracks – though towards the end of the set he made himself useful by pouring out little cups of bacardi and manischevitz (?!) to pass out into the crowd. esau mwamwaya seems like a total sweetie, with an infectiously giddy grin, but even if he didn't have much to offer in the way of showmanship (his english might not have been that good?) he was certainly singing his heart out, and his voice is a majestic thing indeed – in a way, their music is very simply all about the unbridled joyfulness of the singing. (as ben pointed out, the songs themselves are quite simple and similarly-structured.) the back-up singer had a broken leg, or something, but she sang along just as jubilantly. ezra koenig of vampire weekend turned up to sing his part on "warm heart of africa" (though not, unfortunately, to play the sample from their rework of "cape cod kwassa kwassa"), and he is such a chubby-faced cheery cherub, sooo cute!

meanwhile, they had a dancer going crazy all over the stage, shimmying and booty-shaking, rubbing her privates in audience members' faces, sometimes bringing folks up on stage to dance with her, and so on. all in all, it was a pretty crazy scene (even the cast-bound singer got up to hop around at one point), with lots of happiness all around – maybe not the very best musical performance i've seen in a minute, but without a doubt one of the very best parties.

more photos here and here.

[more coming soon, on Neko Case, Escort, and NOMO...also Taylor and Keith and Kitty, Daisy and Lewis... I just had to get this post finally up, several weeks late.]