Review Round-Up: September 2015

Lou Barlow
Brace The Wave

Lou Barlow is a legit legend – if, as he’d probably prefer it, of the little-“l” variety – and every bit as much of an old-guard indie-rock lifer as Malkmus or Pollard or, say, his old nemesis J Mascis.  If he lacks much of those dudes’ cachet and practically any of their mystique, put it down to his unassuming, emphatically casual persona, as reflected by his preferred aesthetic modes, both aural and visual: low-key, low-strung, lower-case (and hand-written) – and, naturally, lo-fi.  Historically speaking, at least.  Brace the Wave, like the two previous Lou Barlow LPs, is a notably more polished and considered affair than his erstwhile Sentridoh offerings, though it captures a comparable sense of intimacy and immediacy.  (Elliott Smith’s Either/Or is a decent reference point, sonically and otherwise.)

Given the prolificacy (and, y’know, lenient self-editing) of Barlow’s home-taping decades, it’s telling that, even trailing his last album by six years (which saw the continuation of successful reunions for both Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr.) this outing contains a mere nine songs.  Frill-free cover on down, this is a deliberately small record: trim, but hardly slight.  Each song boasts a strong, memorable melody, buoyed as always by Barlow’s familiarly resonant, expressive, pliable voice, and there’s an appreciable dynamic range within its generally understated, drum-free palette – from the poppy, burnished near-rocker “Boundaries” to the sweet, gentle acoustic picking of “Repeat.”  Early standout “Nerve” – one of many self-critical ruminations here, with Barlow staring down fifty, haunted by memory and sleeplessness – builds from a gruff, jagged off-kilter march into an unexpectedly lush, harmonized chorus: “What’s wrong with wanting more than I deserve?”  As usual, he’s selling himself short.  Go get it, Lou!

HeCTA
The Diet

Kurt Wagner – Lambchop mainbrain and inveterate Nashville weirdo – is not entirely a newbie to beat-based music (peep the early experiments and remixes cached on 2001’s Tools in the Dryer comp) but he’s probably one of the last people you’d expect to find making an, er, electronica album in 2015.  As opposed to, say, 1997, when basically everyone was messing around with dubious bleeps and drum loops.

HeCTA, Wagner’s amiably befuddled new project, evokes some of the what-the-hey knob-twiddling spirit of that happily bygone era, layering his familiarly laconic musings (and, in one instance, a sliced-up old Buddy Hackett routine) atop an assortment of dense, not especially subtle (nor, incidentally, very danceable) beatscapes.  It’s pretty weird.  Not necessarily any weirder than your average Lambchop record, although it is, for the most part, considerably less gorgeous.  (Perhaps tellingly, The Diet is best at its mellowest – the warm, poignant synth-pop of “Sympathy for the Auto Industry”; the almost Books-ish chamber-glitch “We Are Glistening.”)  Decidedly – and by design – a curiosity, but worth seeking out for those who enjoy such things.

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Yo La Tengo
[Indie Rock/Folk]
concert preview

Stuff Like That There (Matador) is our darling Yo La Tengo’s gentlest, sleepiest album; a significant distinction, considering stiff competition from 2013’s understated stunner Fade, 2003’s underrated Summer Sun, and 1990s Fakebook, the curveball fan-fave whose template – an acoustic, country-tinged smattering of covers, self-covers, and a couple new originals – they’re blatantly revisiting here.  Ira Kaplan has called this move the crassest thing they’ve ever done, but retracing familiar footsteps – complete with Fakebook-era guitarist Dave Schramm – makes it, if anything, all the more endearingly personal.  So lay back, relax, enjoy this “an evening with” business, just don’t get too cozy – they’ll totally bring the blazing feedback-solo epics next time around.  Right??

Bad Bad Hats/Mynabirds
[Indie Pop]
concert preview

Lovers Know (Saddle Creek), Laura Burhenn’s atypically glossy third Mynabirds album, marks a further stride away from her debut’s rootsy, gospel-tinged stylings in favor of familiarly synth-kissed mid-tempo/mid-budget mid-‘10s “indie”, while retaining her sturdy, world-weary anthemism.  Nobody’ll mistake her for Dusty Springfield this time out – Florence Welch is more likely.  I get a little Sundays/Blake Babies vibe, meanwhile, from Psychic Reader (Afternoon), the debut by Minneapolis’ Bad Bad Hats; its jangly sweetness tempered by pleasantly spiky power-pop moves and Kerry Alexander’s lightly raspy, Lana Del Rey-ish alto.

Thee Oh Sees
[Rock/Psych]
concert preview

Mutilator Defeated at Last (Castle Face), this year’s Oh Sees episode – they've reliably issued one album (or more) annually since 2006, last year’s putative “hiatus” notwithstanding – sure sounds victorious.  And it is indeed a triumph: one of the band’s strongest outings yet, despite (or perhaps due to) representing a significant retreat from their typically coarse, blistering garage-psych assault.  Fear not: John Dwyer and co. still bring the flamethrowing guitar-scrawl and regular bouts of gnarly, contortionist punk-scuzz – they’re just tempered here by atypical levels of moody, kraut-blues nuance and (relative) polish; even, on murky seven-minute centerpiece “Sticky Hulks,” some downright pretty organ playing.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
[Post-Rock]
concert preview

These ineffable Quebecois cranks – the po-faced agitprop mystics with the goofball moniker – came juddering out of semi-retirement in 2010, still nine strong, the fury, passion and esoteric allure of their towering instrumental manifestations undimmed by the typical reunion rock hokum.  This year’s Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (Constellation) is a continuous full-album suite that traverses familiar tropes (dramatically building, buzzing drones) and some curveballs (unexpectedly sanguine opener “Peasantry” lurches toward a drunken, folksy jam-along) in satisfying, if admittedly succinct fashion.  This is their first Philly show in over a decade not to sell out months in advance, if only because it now seems clear they’ll be around for awhile.

Sturgill Simpson
[Country/Psych]
concert preview

Sturgill Simpson’s gently genre-muddling 2014 breakthrough, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (Thirty Tigers), introduced just a dropperful of psych into its earnestly reverential honky-tonk.  Lead single “Turtles,” despite flanger-dosed references to psilocybin and reptile aliens, sets a tone with its Elvis in Memphis guitars and Waylon Jennings twang that mostly hold sway throughout the spirited boot-scootin’ shuffles (plus one tear-stained synth-pop cover) that follow.  It’s not until the backmasking, cavernous reverb and resplendent fuzz-tones of the LP’s mini-epic closer kick in that things really start getting wooly and “meta-modern,” though one senses that might happen more quickly in a live context.

Jenny Hval
[Experimental/Art-Pop]
concert preview

This year’s Fringe Festival is bringing us several opportunities to experience challenging, high-concept Norwegians, and Jenny Hval should fit right in.  Even more than her previous work (notably 2012’s mini-breakthrough Innocence is Kinky), the recent Apocalpyse, Girl (Sacred Bones) offers an exquisite juxtaposition of pleasure and discomfort, with Hval’s airy voice as likely to whisper discomfortable, deadpan semi-absurdities – poetic pokes at political, gender-troubled and/or bodily squirminess – as it is to soar sirenically atop serene, transporting art-pop shimmer. 

Madonna
[Pop]
concert preview

What is to be said?  In her words: bitch, she’s Madonna.  What exactly that means in 2015 is a subject explored exhaustively, if hardly conclusively, across the twenty-five or so tracks comprising Rebel Heart (Live Nation/Interscope)’s bewildering assortment of editions.  It’s an archetypically sprawling, messy affair, encompassing ballads and bangers, glorious throwback house-pop and edgy, almost-au-courant dubstep twerks, heartfelt triumph and utterly embarrassing silliness, familiar themes (sex, religion, rinse, repeat) and uncommon stabs at introspection – all adding up to easily her most vital work in a decade.

The Internet
[R&B/Hip-Hop/Soul]
concert preview

The Internet started out as an Odd Future satellite side-project – initially, the low-key duo of singer-songwriter Syd the Kid and producer Matt Martians; now, as of their excellent third album Ego Death (Odd Future/Columbia), a fully operational, delectably funky live band – but their output pointedly lacks the confrontationalism – or, indeed, ego – of that collective.  Rather, they emanate a graciously grooving, loosely jazzy, distinctly Soulquarian vibe – Syd’s airy, mellifluous voice, in particular, is deeply reminiscent of Jill Scott.  So Philly should know just how to get down.

Earl Sweatshirt
[Hip-Hop]
concert preview

He couldn’t really spell it any more clearly: the title I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside (Columbia), slapped against a flat, tattered black field, makes for a pointedly un-enticing cover image, and the contents of the latest full-length from Odd Future’s most gnomic member – a one-time prodigy turned bitter, disillusioned veteran at age 21 – follow suit.  It’s a deeply dour, insular affair, an old-school-style half hour/ten tracks of little but bleakly minimalist post-El-P beats (mostly self-produced) and Sweatshirt’s dogged, deliberate, ticked-off rhyming.

Recondite
[House]
concert preview

The word that Germany’s Lorenz Brenner chose for his production alias – one I personally will never encounter without hearing Gang Starr’s Guru discuss Thelonious Monk, though that’s another matter – means “abstruse” or “little-known.”  It’s a nifty name, sure, but not especially applicable to his music, which is decidedly straight-ahead, if particularly elegant minimal tech-house, garnished with warmly seductive bass tones (as on his recent Iffy LP (Innervisions) –another top-notch adjective) or subtle tweaks of 303 (per 2012’s breakthrough On Acid.)  Nor, at least in certain circles, does it apply to the man himself, considering that scene-defining electronica website Resident Advisor named him as the most popular live act of 2014.

Lindstrøm
[Space Disco]
concert preview

His buddy Todd Terje may get all the shine these days, but Hans-Peter Lindstrøm remains the original impishly irreverent Norwegian cosmic synthesizer-disco maestro.  Ever since his excellent, wildly divergent 2012 LPs – the concise, scintillating dancefloor bomb Smalhans and the sprawling, demented screwball-prog fantasia Six Cups of Rebel – his work has been increasingly bifurcated, and his 2015 output follows suit: a couple majestically buoyant dance-pop singles with female vocalists – Maya Vik’s “YMD (Young Michael Douglas)” and piano-house stomper “Home Tonight” – plus the utterly loopy, tripped-out Todd Rundgren collaboration Runddans.  Who knows which version of Lindstrøm we’ll get tonight; either way, cosmic euphoria is a pretty safe bet.

The Orb
[Electronic]
concert preview

For anyone who may have lost the signal sometime in the quarter-century since Dr. Alex Paterson first kinda-sorta launched the concept of ambient house: yes, the Orb are still orbiting; still blithely bouncing around the cosmos; still grooving along in their lush, trippy, gently whimsical fashion.  And they may quite well still be doing so 688 years hence.  Or such seems to be the promise of Moonbuilding 2703 AD (Kompakt) – somehow, improbably, the outfit’s first overtly moon-oriented LP – whose four typically languorous, extended bliss-outs, apart from the titular trip-hoppy funk-a-thon, mine an enjoyably fluid, slowly-morphing minimal techno vein.

Optimo
[Dance/DJ]
concert preview

It’s been ten years since JD Twitch and JG Wilkes devised the mashup-era apotheosis that was their brazenly eclectic, almost obnoxiously tasteful How To Kill The DJ – a psychedelic/techno/post-punk/worldbeat whirlwind that remains, for what it’s worth, easily the highest-rated DJ mix in Pitchfork’s cache – and five since the shuttering of their storied, eponymous Glasgow club night.  But while times have changed and tastes have streamlined, the duo’s reputation as adventurous, dependably unpredictable party-starters hasn’t waned.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

Blanck Mass
[Electronic/Noise/Dance]
concert preview

Blanck Mass, a.k.a. Benjamin John Power (an exceptionally apt surname), is only one half of Fuck Buttons, but by pretty much any other measure – drama, magnificence, sheer intensity – his music readily equals that of his better-known electro-noise project.  Plus it’s a good bit easier to dance to.  Terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure, Power’s body-troubled concept-opus Dumb Flesh (Sacred Bones) is a miasma of throbbing, towering industrial grooves; writhing sheets of cyborg sound wrapped around thunderously funky drums, with squealing, distended melodies that splice the difference between disco-diva wails and haunted-house screams.

originally intended for publication in Philadelphia City Paper, until the show was cancelled.

Review Round-Up: January 2013

i've got a different crush every other week...

And we're off...  to a pretty good start there, lil' 2013!  even better, maybe, this has been a month of some pretty exciting developments vis-a-vis what's to come later in the year...among other things, i've got my eyes on Vampire Weekend, Neon Neon, Billy Bragg, Low, Phoenix and DJ Koze, but most of all, of course, The Knife – I've just experienced their new single/video, "Full of Fire," which...hm hm hm, first of all: huge, massive, uncompromising, wow, every bit as much as you'd expect from the dreijers...  expectations properly stoked.  can't say love is the first thing it inspires (fear might be closer), though i'm definitely excited to spend more time with it.

(the song at least... the video will probably require some more views as well, there's definitely a lot in there.  in some ways it feels almost too on-the-nose in terms of their distinctive if continually envelope-pushing aesthetic; unflinchingly arty and odd, punk and severe; intensely gender-political without a whole of actual specificity to anything that's happening.  the heavy (and possibly a little dated??) arty/feminist tone, emphasis on mundane domestic scenes intercut with unexpected violence, and the northern Euro setting all put me in mind of Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which i still sometimes cite as one of my favorite movies even though i slept through some parts of the one time i saw it...should really watch that again sometime...)

as for January's musical harvest, we got plenty of slow, spacious, meditative tones and drones – highly suitable for this seasons' extremes of chilliness and coziness (and just the thing to accompany reading, massages, and long snowy walks) – from the likes of mountains, pantha du prince, nosaj thing, toro y moi (even if this is allegedly his "pop" record), four tet, faltydl (in spots at least), not to mention the umpteenth installment of kompakt's pop ambient series – and also, waiting in the wings, grouper, darkstar, tosca, ulrich schnauss, and the extremely nice-sounding úlfur.  (plus bee mask, a late '12 hold-out.)  and similarly gentle, sweetly retro-tinged indie stuff from amor de dias, yo la tengo, christopher owens and foxygen.  on the other hand, some enjoyably scrappy punkish guitar (etc) noise from buke and gase, FIDLAR and the neato parquet courts.

and then, having very little to do with any of that, there was the second album by long-haired philly underdogs free energy...which turned out to be surprisingly controversial (actually, i'm a little surprised nobody gave it better than 8/10.)  on january 2nd i announced that it was my favorite album of 2013, so far... and while i don't expect that to last i think it just might still be holding onto that title, a month later.  so, a good way to kick off my first round-up 2013.

(oh: here's a Spotify mixtape (mixlist?) that's a bit multipurpose, with some faves from January, some previews of what's up next, a couple straggling 2012 tracks that I've been getting into more heavily, and some sample tracks from upcoming concerts I'm planning to attend.  but it includes cuts from most of the albums reviewed below, so listen along!  starts out big and silly, gets a little sleepy by the end.

)


Free Energy
Love Sign

At first blush, Love Sign feels like a solid, dependable retread of Free Energy's fabulous 2010 effort, Stuck On Nothing – certainly, nothing to sniff at.  It's not until you spin them back to back that it's clear how much this album preserves, even perfects, the spirit of their delirious debut, while fashioning it into something even bigger: brighter, tighter, better, more.  The Philly fivesome's cowbell-smacking, riffs-blazing reclamation of bygone rock'n'roll glory days rages on, but it's like the scruffy, all-American small-town dreamers of the first record got their big major-label break (in fact, times being what they are, they've taken the self-release route this time) and teamed with some hotshot producer (ditching that has-been fogy James Murphy) to add some polish – a couple horns, even some of them new-fangled synthesizers – to their raggedly earnest anthems.  Every damn song sounds like a single.  But their hearts are truer than ever: the seventies-jocking swagger is matched pound for pound by a disarmingly cheery, transcendental softness that deflects any dint of untoward classic-rock machismo.  Per the blazing "Electric Fever," the album's self-evident statement of purpose, still ringing golden nearly a year after its initial release:  "Turn it on.  Turn it up.  Let the moment breathe."  Amen. [8.5]

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Yo La Tengo
Fade
[Indie Rock]

Scaling back the stylistic hopscotch of their recent outings, Yo La Tengo's thirteenth album is their softest and most unified work since 2003's Summer Sun (also, notably, their shortest in over two decades) and it shares that underdog's ineffably low-key charms.  Nothing on Fade (Matador) sounds like hall-of-fame material, but that's not the point – these ten tunes, as much mood pieces as songs, are as glowingly, cozily familiar as the sun on a bright winter day.  And if the title can't help recalling that chestnut about the fate of aging rockers, rest assured that Hoboken's finest won't be burning out any time soon.

Retribution Gospel Choir
3
[Rock]

Low have an album due in March, but that won't keep axe-slinging main man Alan Sparhawk from a quickie on the side.  Retribution Gospel Choir, his other, decidedly louder band, follow last year's hooky lil Revolution EP with 3 (Chaperone), which comprises merely two monolithic, twenty-minute sides.  It's a definite yin-yang affair.  "Can't Walk Out" is the expected onslaught, all portentous sludge-riffage and scrawled, desperate skronk.  It's epic, and fairly interminable (also, it's in 9/4.)  "Seven" is the payoff:  bleary-eyed but surprisingly sweet, full of shimmering, Pinback-y layering and a veritable lullaby chorale, with sideman-to-the-stars Nels Cline joining in the inexorable six-string-wringing glory.

Petra Haden
Petra Goes To The Movies
[Vocal/Movie Music]

Following her tour de force all-acapella rendering of The Who Sell Out in 2005, LA music biz fixture/multi-instrumentalist Petra Haden gets back to the vocal multitracking reinterpretation game with Petra Goes To The Movies (Anti), featuring her one-woman choral renderings of film music both iconic (Psycho; Goldfinger; Superman – alone worth the price of admission) and otherwise.  The novelty factor is obviously high, but this is also carefully crafted, surprisingly affecting music; gorgeously lush, with a wide-ranging emotional potency, although a few rather sudsy "vocal" (i.e. lyrical) numbers diminish the effect slightly.

Pantha Du Prince & the Bell Laboratory
Elements of Light
[Electronic/Instrumental]

Bells, chimes, carillon, crotales...if it rings, pings, dings or dongs, Pantha du Prince wants it in his music.  In a logical apotheosis of that obsession, and a revelatory expansion of his working approach beyond his typical track-oriented, techno-based approach, the Hamburg-based producer teamed up with Norwegian ringing squad The Bell Laboratory to devise the highly immersive Elements of Light (Rough Trade), an album-length "symphony" of tintinnabulation which runs the gamut from glockenspiels to gamelan, sounding by turns gossamer and ominous, meditative and scintillating.  Edgar Allen Poe would be proud.

FaltyDL
Hardcourage
[Electronic]

An unpredictable, hard-to-quantify New Yorker with strong sonic ties to the UK bass scene, Drew Lustman's third LP as FaltyDL finds the producer downplaying his dubstep-derived tics in favor of more overtly jazzy, house-based smoothness.  Belying its title but befitting its cheerily colorful cover art, Hardcourage (Ninja Tune) is heavily melodic but light on its feet, sustaining a rosy, twinkling softness even while stepping up the syncopation for subtle twists on glitchy electro and vocal-flecked tech-soul, plus some deep, plush funk that could pass for prime late-'90s chillout.

Mountains
Centralia
[Ambient/Electroacoustic]

Vastly expansive yet far from remote or inaccessible, the long-form abstract ruminations of Brooklyn duo Mountains behave and function similarly to much ambient/drone, but with an unusual amount of personality and visceral presence for music so simultaneously placid and formalist.  That's never been more true than on Centralia (Thrill Jockey), their self-evident magnum opus, which follows the burbling, buzzily analog Air Museum with an even richer integration of synthetic and organic layers, interweaving electroacoustic swells with sweetly pastoral fingerpicking as if to conjure at once the geological and human-sized scale of their ever-evocative namesake landforms.

Nosaj Thing
Home
[Electronic]

The austere, chilly architectonics of LA beatscaper Nosaj Thing's debut LP, Drift, evoked pristine spaces starkly devoid of human presence – though still capable of poignant, near-spiritual resonance – but his return to the format on Home (Innovative Leisure), while feeling as tidily meticulous as ever, traverses terrain that's decidedly less rarefied and more, well, habitable.  The rather ghostly vocal presence of Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead) and Chaz Bundick (Toro y Moi) plays a role there, but it's mostly an overall sense of warming and softening, plus the suggestion of more bodily forms of movement in gestures toward 2-step and fractured, skeletal funk.

James Ferraro
Sushi
[Electronic]

James Ferraro, absurdly productive producer/absurdist, doesn't exactly do serious, but it's neat to hear how he sounds minus the conceptual scaffolding of elaborately appointed conversation pieces like last year's consumer electronics-inspired Far Side Virtual.  Sushi (Hippos in Tanks) offers, as advertised, eleven individually-wrapped morsels of raw, squishy IDM: cartoon glitch; chipmunk-bounce; smirking revamps of 2012-style machine-soul R&B, all doused in Ferraro's typical hyper-sheeny digital glop.  These could (and should) be scene-stealing springboards for any of your more outré cloud-rappers, but they're also plenty tasty a la carte.

Memory Tapes
[Electronic/Indie Pop]
concert preview

Maybe it's because he's a local boy – a rural New Jerseyan who spent the mid-'00s fronting Philly dance-punk faves Hail Social – or the endearingly modest, almost painfully insular homebody persona he presents in his disarmingly candid interviews – but it's been particularly gratifying to follow Davye Hawk's musical development and progression in his work as Memory Tapes.  Following a shimmering, revelatory 2009 debut (Seek Magic) and 2011's more overtly song-oriented but less surefooted and somewhat anemic Player Piano, Hawk returned in December with Grace/Confusion (Carpark), an aptly titled set of six serenely sprawling, shapeshifting tracks that stretch and reconfigure his familiar array of soft-focus sonics (drawn from indie rock, dream-pop, gently fluid electronic dance music and all manner of warmly gleaming synths) into richly detailed miniature suites.

Purity Ring/Young Magic
[Electronic/Indie Pop]
concert preview

It's been an unthinkable seven years since The Knife – whose impending return to the active column is one of 2013's most exciting musical developments to date – last graced us with an album.  But there've been no shortage of artists since then exploring the haunted, vocal-warping electro-pop otherworlds they thrust open, and perhaps none more intriguingly and satisfyingly than Canadian twosome Purity Ring, whose slinky, surreally intoxicating confections draw equally on glitch, R&B and hip-hop (q.v. their recent collaborations with Danny Brown.)  One wrinkle among many on their wondrous 4AD bow, Shrines, was a nodding, quasi-rapped interjection (on "Grandloves") from Australia-via-NYC-via-everywhere vagabonds Young Magic, whose own 2012 debut, Melt (Carpark), proffered warmly woozy world-indie vibes, like a soft-focus Yeasayer; their pleasantly sloppy, vaguely stoned tribalism nicely complementing Purity Ring's more meticulous, witchy mystique.

Parquet Courts
[Rock]
concert preview

Light Up Gold, the debut LP proper from these Texas-via-NYC punk goofs, is a jittery burst of non-stop slacker-pop thrills, sharp enough to stand among the finest albums of both 2012 (when it was first issued, on bandcamp and vinyl, via Dull Tools) and 2013 (a repress and broader release on What's Your Rupture is due next week.)  It's garnered deserved comparisons to myriad post-punk/DIY icons, from The Modern Lovers to The Fall to The Dead Milkmen – perhaps most pointedly, it recalls the gonzo glee of Camper Van Beethoven and pithy efficiency of classic Guided by Voices – but while the band's wiry riffs and the wrily detached vocals of Andrew Savage (also of the similarly perverse-minded Fergus & Geronimo) certainly have their forbears, there's enough invention here to cast Parquet Courts as true American originals, whether they're recounting a nostalgic North Dakota travelogue (via a gorgeous, Silver Jews-like country ballad), making sardonic commentary on the fast-shrinking American dream ("Careers in Combat"), or getting the munchies in Queens ("Stoned and Starving.")

Buke & Gase
[Indie Rock]
concert preview

Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez play the sui generis home-built instruments which give their two-person band its name: respectively, a modified six-string baritone ukelele and a hybrid guitar/bass made of scrap metal – along with a battery of comparably crafty foot-triggered percussion.  That may sound like so much gimmicky novelty, and it does engender some rather specific aesthetic parameters, but it's really just a starting point for the inventiveness and nonconformist self-sufficiency that permeates the duo's work – particularly their sparse, sparky songwriting, which was impressive on their earlier outings and comes into fuller flower on the riveting new General Dome (Brassland.)  Making potent use of repetition and polyrhythmic overlay, pitting Dyer's forceful but heartily melodic vocals against a barrage of ritualistic stomping and gritty, gut-plucky riffage, maintaining a punkish intensity that manages to feel celebratory rather than off-putting, they project a fierce, arty exuberance that evokes Deerhoof and St. Vincent and, especially, like-minded DIY-ers tUnE-yArDs in attitude, although they almost can't help sounding like nobody but themselves.

Christopher Owens
[Folk/Rock]
concert preview

On the slight, winsome Lysandre (Fat Possum), San Fran flower child Christopher Owens emerges from the dissolution of his beloved Girls last year – an otherwise unfortunate break-up that was, however, well-timed to avoid any Lena Dunham-related confusion – with a fresh start echoing the slightly daffy, adventurous spirit of many a classic-rock-era solo debut.  Recasting the sixties-indebted stylistic diversity of Girls' great Father, Son, Holy Ghost on a more intimate scale, and slathering on the paisley-dappled flutes and saxophones, Owens doesn't stray far from his typical palette of heart-tugging acoustic ballads and bouncy rockers, and while the songs do form a loosely narrative cycle (just your typical wide-eyed rock'n'roll coming-of-age love story) complete with recurring musical motifs, the bigger aesthetic risks are less conceptual than tonal – particularly on overtly precious fare like the self-directed pep-talk "Love is in the Ear of the Listener," the irrepressibly smiley "New York City" and cornball lite-reggae interlude "Riviera Rock."

The Walkmen
[Rock]
concert preview

Ten years into a surprisingly sturdy career, The Walkmen have gotten awfully soft in the middle.  Last year's Heaven (Fat Possum/Bella Union), the ever-more-anachronistically named New York City outfit's sixth full-length, feels breezily, blissfully inconsequential compared to the blistering broadsides of their earlier days – but it's hard to complain when they make it all sound so gosh-darn pleasant; tinting their clean-lined jangle with faint, nostalgic shadings of surf and doo-wop, and finding plenty of content in their collective contentment.  Incidentally, by way of atonement for their cancelled Electric Factory date in October, the band will reportedly be serving homemade spaghetti and meatballs before tomorrow's show (fittingly enough, given the venue's previous incarnation) while sound-checking "half-assed" Coldplay covers.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow
[Dream-Pop/Experimental]
concert preview

Deconstructive haze-pop darlings A Sunny Day in Glasgow may dream of their misdirective moniker's twee-mecca Scotland, but they actually live right here in always-sunny Philly.  That doesn't mean we get to see too much of them, sadly – tonight's highly intriguing lineup at I-house, curiously billed as a "Spring Arts Preview!", will be their first performance since 2010.  At least they'll be returning in style; playing against the backdrop of microcinematographic science films by Roman Vishniac (1897-1990), and providing accompaniment to one of the three Kenneth Anger films on the program.  Entrancingly lovely as they are, ASDiG's recordings tend to drift by in a memory-muddling, consciousness-clouding mist of sleepy siren-song, amorphous jangle, melodic vapor trails and detuned drum machines, but maybe they'll clue us in to which fragments are among those destined for their in-the-works fourth full-length.

Jessie Ware
[Soul/Pop]
concert preview

Jessie Ware – elegantly understated smooth-soul songstress, good Jewish girl, and one seriously classy lady – is a charmer.  First she won over the UK electronic/bass music community – like Lisa Stansfield, Tracey Thorn and Beth Orton before her; lending her dulcet pipes to collaborations with Joker, SBTRKT and, most recently, fellow dubstep diva Katy B, and inspiring the most inordinate glut of remixes since Lana Del Rey.  Next, the international indie blogosphere – no mean feat for music so unerringly polite and polished – and the British record-buying public – her sterling debut LP, Devotion, went top five in August.  Now comes her assault on the US.  Her label here, Cherrytree, are evidently plotting a (fittingly) restrained, time-biding campaign, leading with an album-sampling EP with "If You're Never Gonna Move" – a song re-titled (from "110%") and re-recorded due to, of all things, a sample-clearing scuffle with Big Pun – as the featured/title cut, which means they're holding the real firepower (pure-pop miracle "Wildest Moments," among other choice cuts) in abeyance for the chart domination hopefully soon to follow.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

re:stocking

the annually rejiggered pitchfork readers poll (now closed) – which somewhat arbitrarily requested five songs and albums of the year, yet a full top ten of favorite songs out of from their best of the 1990s list [a fun and interesting task..i ended up with the magnetic fields' "the book of love" on top, but it might have been different another year] – also asked us to pick the year's top three live acts.

that's always a hard one, and maybe even more so since i saw more live music this year than possibly ever, thanks to a steady stream of CP assignments. robyn came pretty quickly to mind – her august show with kelis at the trocadero was the apotheosis of an emphatically summer-pop-summer, and a great reminder that she's as much of an effortless bad-ass as a performer as she is as a record-maker. (one particularly brilliant bit of stagecraft: eating a banana during the lengthy build-up of "don't fucking tell me what to do" – finishing in time to deliver just the title hook vocal live – in, if this is possible, a relatively non-sexualized, or other-than-sexualized fashion.) it also showed a fairly dramatic progression from the intimacy and simplicity of the first time i saw her into a dazzling, larger-than-life-feeling pop-star spectacle, though the difference was as much about a clear shift in her way of relating to the stage and the audience as added production fireworks (not to mention the perhaps-unfortunately ballad-free setlist.) will be interesting to see how that evolves when she comes back to play an even larger venue, the electric factory, in february. anywhow, a world-class performer, no question.

i'd thought about lcd soundsytem (whom, like fellow top-tenners joanna newsom and vampire weekend, i saw for both the first and second time this year) until i remembered about mayer hawthorne [& the county], from this vantage point easily my favorite new artist of 2009 [and that's not even accounting for the weirdly lackluster live performances of jj and the very best], whom i saw for the first-through-fourth times this year, at four substantially different venues [the most recent time, regrettably and frustratingly preventably, occasioned my missing a chance to see easily my favorite new artist of 2010, allo darlin', for the second time – but first real-full time – all in one day...], and he consistently killed it every time. the mayer hawthorne show is a well-oiled, spit-polished thing of beauty, and those four performances were far more similar than they were distinct [though the latest included some very exciting sneak previews of his new material], but i hardly minded the chance to re-experience it.

for the third slot, i picked a band i'd just seen, and really only recently listened to: stornoway, about whom i wrote this preview for city paper. the first two (and best) songs on their debut album, beachcomber's windowsill – which probably oversell the extent to which they can be categorized as "indie-pop" – bookended a set that demonstrated both rock-solid chops (instrumental and vocal) and considerable musical range, from moody, arty chamber-ish pieces (some of it verging on slightly tedious) to straight-up (and very british) folk (including a really lovely new one, "november song," performed solo and acoustic by frontman brian briggs) to a surprising amount of rocking out, particularly on the big swelling codas to a few songs. there was also briggs' endearingly nervous/nerdy banter, including recitations of inventions made in philadelphia (the slinky, lemon meringue pie...) but the best part was almost certainly the two-song encore, performed entirely unplugged and un-mic'd, which elicited some of the most genuinely enthusiastic crowd-love i've witnessed in a while. [videos of the encore songs are here and here, thanks to my cp compadres.] it was truly a heartwarming feeling to be in that crowd.

let alone recapping the year in live music, this past week alone has been stellar. last friday i watched two fake-local groups – my buddy tom's band via audio and their piano-popping pals jukebox the ghost [aka cutebox the most] – sock-rock a fun-happy beatles-loving crowd that seemed to consist primarily of teens and their parents, some of them in white astro-jumpsuits, with (respectively) songs about slacking, godzilla, pitch-corrected divas, and babymaking, as well as some lovably dopey banter and a frenzied rendition of "what's this" from the nightmare before christmas (also glad i stuck around for the night-closing panda-monium-inducing team-up cure cover.)

on sunday i saw the utterly ineffable nellie mckay kick some life into the bewilderingly all-over-the-place tunes from her new album – from the latin-kitsch/broadway melodrama "¡bodega!" to the meat-is-murder "unknown reggae" – as well as a bunch of the doris day numbers (and some other assorted jazz standards), a few old faves ("dog song"! "sari"!), a possibly new (?), typically beautiful/insane seasonal political number – an anti-christmas tree eco-rant inexplicably wrapped around a broken-hearted love song – and a wtf tom waits cover (awesomely, if unsurprisingly, she can do a pitch-perfect waitsian growl.) i think this was the first time i'd seen her play with a band, a trio of game if non-smiling jazzbos who set a highly amusing contrast to her preposterous, precociously giddy/girlish and befuddlingly anachronistic stage presence. her albums may be (increasingly) hit-or-miss, but her performances never fail to remind me of her truly limitless talent, eccentricity and charm. it's hard to put it words.

finally, last tuesday i trekked up to hoboken with rae to catch night seven of yo la tengo's annual 8 nights of hanukkah at maxwells [ira's account is there], something i hadn't done since 2002, when the band were very memorably joined by ray davies (whom, incidentally, i would have seen in boston over thanksgiving if hadn't, very sadly had to cancel for health reasons...) this show was similarly a pretty transcendent experience, if only because it reminded me how much i dearly love this band (you wouldn't think i'd forget something like that, having written something like this, and i didn't, really, but i maybe hadn't thought about it in a while...)

this is what they played:

HOME = "feels like going home," from ...beat your ass, a really sweet gentle one which i really should have included on home, why did i not do that? [wasn't] BORN 2 FOLLOW is a carole king cover that i didn't know, but almost of the others were familiar YLT favorites, really a solid setlist of classics, if maybe a tad obvious, but just perfect for not having seen them in a while... definitely heavy on the soft pretty ones (season of the shark, last days of disco, shadows, little eyes, black flowers) but that's kinda how i like it, and helped set off the totally awesome noise/drone freakouts that bookended the set (the last and first tunes, respectively from the last two albums.)

they were joined for their entire set (except for "tom courtenay," since he broke a string wailing out during the late-set punk-out patch) by the amazing mr. nels cline (of wilco, nels cline singers, and assorted out-jazz excursions), in a rad eyeball t-shirt, which made the whole thing all that much more awesome, even if he sometimes made it hard to see georgia. then they came back and played two ramones covers – "pet sematary" (james on vox!) and "sheena is a punk rocker") – and were joined by openers bonnie prince billy + the cairo gang (who were also awesome! even though i barely recognized any of the songs they played...need to brush up on billy's last half-decade) to close the night with lou reed's "heavenly arms" (which tbh i only know from el perro del mar's closer.) heavenly indeed...

low; yo

low have quietly, slowly, gradually (well, you know how they do...) become one of my very favorite bands.

saw them last night, and that really clinched it - made me start to love them and relate to them as people, beyond the already strongly personal affinity i feel for their music.

(even though i'm not a very melancholy person like that might suggest; even though - and despite what i've said in the last post about my generationally-based difficulties accessing mid-90s indie - i didn't even really listen to them until four or five years ago, already almost a decade into their career.)

i saw them before, last year, in the sanctuary of the church in the dead of winter (an apt time for low - now it's not, but the lingering cold was fitting.) but this was better - maybe because i wasn't in the middle of a fight with angela; or because the church basement, though less evocative, is more intimate; or just because of how much i've been loving drums and guns.

they played a lot from it, including key highlights "belarus" (very minimal, with ambient loops and that keening high octave harmony), "dragonfly" (the prettiest one - addiction metaphor), "in silence" (which i hadn't noticed as much until hearing it live, but has been in my head since) and "murderer" (which seems to take the perspective of a religious terrorist, by my reading anyway - closed the set - slightly less intense than the album, actually.) and of course "breaker" - the single, if that means anything - which they did twice, first in the organ-and-handclaps ("you don't all have to do it, but some of you should - it's fun!") version from the album, and then in a more rocked-out and menacing encore.

[also of note - show opened with "cue the strings," lovely lilt from destroyer; first encore. by request, was "violence" - which i recognized but couldn't quite place as the opener from long division - amazing how they can say so much with so little, and then, nicely, by my suggestion and gentle prodding, but then taken up by the crowd in general, the first song of theirs i ever loved, "in the drugs."

there was some amusing - just slightly tense - banter between alan and mimi, about the lighting on his face (she said "it fits you" and he demanded to know what she meant), and later an attempt at a sort of open discussion on any topic of interest to the crowd - alan seemed to be suggesting legalizing marijuana as roundabout semi-solution to the crime problem; compared notes on disillusioned mayors - ended when mimi asked "what about disillusionment and marriage?" but they were in good humor. alan's funnier than you'd think.]

the new album is more anxious and bitter - more political, though obliquely enough that you can't exactly call it that - than anything they've done before. it's most similar to trust in that respect, but even starker and sparer, with a reenvisioned sound palette centered around glacial, quietly menacing drum loops and little snatches of ambient guitar noise. but there are still those ineffable, ethereal harmonies, low's sonic quintessence, all the more haunting and disarming when set in contrast to the foreboding music beneath them. (it's telling that the opener, the devestatingly bleak "pretty people" - devoid of harmonies - is the hardest song to listen to.)

they didn't do "hatchet," the lightest (and most atypical) song on the album, and probably my favorite (this revelatory article/interview calls it a "dance song," which may be going a little far) - i didn't really mind (not sure it would have gained much from the live setting) - but somehow just seeing them gave me a new perspective on its lyrics, which i've been puzzling over. (i guess i'll just post my thoughts there on songmeanings, so read it there if you like.) the beatles and stones references there made me think about yo la tengo (mostly "tom courtenay") (hey, have you seen that video? it's really good.) (actually, this review calls the song "yo la tengo-esque," which i guess it sort of is.) (and come to think of it, "hatchet" is in the title of my fave song from the new ylt album too.)

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it's not like i hadn't thought of them in conjunction before (their albums are next to each other on my cd shelf, for one thing), but i'm not sure i'd realized how almost uncannily parallel those two bands are. the obvious: both are trios consisting of married couples - drummer-wife and guitarist/writer-hubby - one jewish, one mormon - with third-wheel bassists (though they originally started as quartets), from and strongly associated with small unlikely cities (hoboken nj and duluth mn.) both have been around for a really long time, have earned a tremendous critical reputation for consistency and quality, with similar but distinctive musical approaches (one more eclectic, the other more minimalist) that have developed and mutated only very gradually throughout their careers, and both have remarkably devoted fans who presumably collect their countless endless eps and ephemera (oddly enough, both have released christmas eps.) they're both noted for being fairly low-key and unassuming, personally as well as musically, and tend to underplay their considerable instrumental chops (the guitarist/de facto frontmen, specifically.)

they both released defining, consensus-pick albums late in their careers - and i can hear the heart beating as one and things we lost in the fire are very likely the first albums i heard by each, though their respective follow-ups (and then nothing turned itself inside-out and trust) were the first that i fully explored, digested, owned, and loved. (i've come to appreciate and eventually care for ichthbao and twlitf too, though for a long time i could only really connect with them as far as their first halves - it's taken patience to make it all the way through to their ultimately crucial, sweet closing tracks.)

picking up used copies as i come across them, i've gradually worked my way through much of their back-catalogs - indeed, i have exactly three earlier lps by each (which still leaves a lot more ylt albums, but only one - the beautifully titled curtain hits the cast - by low.) i actually purchased the three most recent low albums new and full-priced, around the time of their release (there are very few bands for whom that's true) - in ylt's case i got summer sun as a promo, although like the great destroyer, it was something of a critical disappointment which i wholeheartedly embraced (actually to a much greater extent, on both counts.)

there's something of a divergence after that in terms of my personal relationship to the bands. i publicly declared my love for yo la two years ago - as i'm doing now for low - but although i still stand by the things i said there, i've gotten a little distanced from them since. you know how you fall out of love with bands? not just letting your affections gradually wane, but having something diminish them more actively, acutely. it's happened for me most markedly with beck, and also elvis, sad to say - for both personal and musical reasons. not quite saying that's what's up w/ ylt - but there was something symbolic in my walking away, 20 (very enjoyable! so bad decision?) minutes into their p4kfest set, to go watch spoon (who also let me down a little bit - they've got a good shot to make it up though, with their forthcoming.) i was also underwhelmed by their live show in '04 (though i loved it in '02), but the scarier bit is that i've really been kind of turned off by their "return to form" [i am afraid of this album title], which sacrifices the satisfying cohesion of their previous two (unexciting, maybe, but still the only ylt lps i truly love.)

low, meanwhile, like i said, have subtly, gradually revealed themselves to me in the last few years - i've had much less difficulty connecting with their earlier work (i can live in hope, their 1993 debut, is in the running for my favorite), and now that i've caught up with them, i've enjoyed watching their style finally blossom and mutate in more dramatic, overt ways. and, clearly, their newest is far from a disappointment.

not that it's a competition. but i have been thinking in terms of the entertaining stylus "versus" features - which would be appropriate for these two. if i wrote one at this point, i'd obviously give low the edge, which might not be quite fair. (ylt's best shots: more lovable bassist - and better side projects, i'm assuming; possibly better album covers although their last may have screwed them there; better song covers by default, since although low have many lovely ones to their credit ylt are basically the kings and queen of cover songs.)

the thing is, their differences are almost as striking as their similarities, which makes them seem more like negative images of one another than mirrors. it's in their affect. low are somber; restrained; lugubrious; spiritual. yo are playful; direct; ebullient; worldly. both have undeniable beauty - but it's like light and dark; heaven and earth. there's some exaggeration here, of course - there are spaces in both for joy and sorrow, and each may at some point take on the qualities i've ascribed to the either - but in terms of the overwhelming, general quality conveyed by their music, the contrast is unmistakable.

yo la tengo's recent retrospective was titled prisoners of love - arguably a more appropriate title for low (theirs - three discs of rarities rather than a more scattered putative 2cd "best of" plus bonus disc was called a lifetime of temporary relief), but suitable for both. because earth and heaven can be prisons or sanctuaries, it's all in how you view them. it all boils down to love - sacred and profane; as you will - and maybe the distance is not so great.

i ain't got nothing to be scared of

i remember when the last yo la tengo album came out. rabi and i had just broken up for the first time, and i bought it for her. i had a promo copy which i'd been listening to a lot, and it was doing me some good. i wanted to burn her a copy but she said she'd end up buying it anyway so i just bought it for her instead, at spaceboy records (which has since moved down the street, and which is closing shop for good tomorrow), the night it came out, when i was on south street, with liza, to see the reunited joe jackson band at the TLA. i never purchased a full-art copy for myself, because i preferred the artwork that i made out of a magazine ad for the album plus the throwaway outer cover of rabi's copy (with a construction paper beach ball under the cd on the tray card.) anyway, summer sun's comforting glowy warmth notwithstanding, rabi and i were both so miserable that we were back together within a week.

critical consensus to the contrary, i think it's just as lovely as anything (or possibly everything) else they've done. which is a lot of albums, many of which i've picked up used here or there over the years (my first encounter with them was and then nothing... which i ordered from BMG my freshman year.) i'm pretty sure that makes this the first YLT album i've ever bought new, full-price: i am not afraid of you and i will beat your ass.

i didn't buy it right away. well-documented fandom notwithstanding, the first time i saw it on the counter at a.k.a. i balked at the cover image. (audibly.) yeah, it's really ugly. and the title is, well, very silly, at best. at worst, they're at least sending a clear message.

which is not about the music. obviously they care about the music. now i'm listening to it.....well, it's good. it's not like i had any worries that it wouldn't be good. not really any illusions that it would be incredible. (though i'd be happy to be proven wrong.) yo la don't really do incredible, they just do always, consistently, very, very, unimpeachably good. i can't say much more about this album: it will take time to sink in, and i plan to listen to it a lot in the background as i make my way through war and peace. if that doesn't work maybe i'll try the tortoise box set. (i need a good excuse to pick that up - maybe it can be the reward if i finish w+p in a month.)



YO. what is going to be my favorite album this year? i don't know. there's nothing obvious, nothing that's grabbed me like think tank or the sunset tree, or funeral. or satanic panic even. (or oh inverted world or figure 8, but obv.) it's not that i haven't really gotten into any albums. as previously mentioned, many of those have been discoveries of records from a year or two ago. (ashlee, rachel, robyn.) but no one album has stuck with me all that strongly - i have no idea what my most listened-to albums from this year would be, for instance.

condensed listening report - recent favorites and strong contenders: Girl Talk, Paris Hilton, Matmos. the Junior Boys album i picked up today as well (was going to buy it new but spotted a used copy - a promo, but with most of the art), and it is excellent, much better than their concert last week...but i'll need to spend some time with it of course. I've been listening to the Pet Shop Boys album a good deal, actually. and the Daedelus, which didn't do much initially, is growing on me. from earlier in the year, the Veronicas and the Strokes still command soft places in my heart, and i'm going to need to revisit the Neko Case and Howe Gelb and Cat Power records. James Hunter is still a cool dood. i watched the two Camera Obscura videos on YouTube today, and the songs sounded better than ever. i still want to hear the Rihanna, Justin, Beyonce, Christina, and Lily albums, though i don't expect to especially love any of them as albums. the Lupe Fiasco toons i've dled sound quite nice. to beef up the selection pool, i've ordered, largely unheard, albums by the Ark and Scanners, both of which come highly recommended from friends. so we'll keep seeing. as for Get Lonely... it's nice too.

and Yo La Tengo? whoa, they're kicking it in now! time for bed, eh?