Pitchfork Reviews 4/30/08

Jamie Lidell
Jim
[Warp; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.9.

I have never heard of this guy until right now. Is that weird? Sounds like if Jackie Wilson was from now. Isn't Jackie Wilson. Is from now. Weird.


Joy Division
The Best of Joy Division
[Rhino; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.0.

Joy Division has to be the world's most reissued band at this point, right? Just look at the compilations-to-albums ratio. And each of their two albums has been released AT LEAST nine times. NINE TIMES.

Throw in the fact that this fucking guy killed himself and these songs are depressing and overdramatic to the point where it's ok to not even really like Joy Division, combine it with the fact that it's currently impossible to get a vinyl copy of Gang of Four Entertainment for less than $30, and this has got to be the most reissued-per-necessary-listens band of all time.

Guess what: this is another Joy Division compilation/reissue. If you're into that kind of a thing, which you conceivably might be. As far as I'm concerned, though, A. those New Order guys have enough money, and B. Ian Curtis's kid (who undeniably got a very rough break) is 30 now and can get a job.


Jucifer
L'autrichienne
[Relapse; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

This sounds like Alice in Chains fronted by That Dog. Which is not totally awful, it's just that the old "rough grunge/sludge rock to pretty vocals" trick just sounds kind of dated. Like from the Marilyn Manson era. And the album cover is this:



So why do I kind of like it? Oh yeah, because the second track, "Thermidor," is the single most intense thing I've ever heard a female vocalist do. The rest of this is more Totally 90's than Ross's Caesar haircut on Friends, but I listened to the whole thing just in case another "Thermidor" kicked in. Oop, here we go: "Fall of the Bastille." Man, it's a shame she's so hung up on having a pretty voice and not just going apeshit all the time. There's a killer punk 7" buried under all of this other tiresome crap.


Singer
Unhistories
[Drag City; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.2.

The internet isn't gonna totally kill indie record stores, because somebody somewhere is always going to love vinyl. But the internet will absolutely kill indie video stores. Like one hundred percent extinct forever dead. As it is, the only indie video stores who are going to hold on for a while are the ones who are staying one step ahead of the digitalization curve by having a ton of cult and/or banned and/or super rare weird imported Iranian animation stuff that's perfect for when like fifteen people on the planet who'd be into that kind of a thing are also somehow on the exact right weed plateau. It's hard to pay the rent when that's your specialty.

Combine Netflix with YouTube, and it is going to just be impossible to sustain indie video stores without an analogue medium that people want to collect. It's not like there's a groundswell of film buffs who want to get "The Godfather" on mint or near mint original 35mm spools for their honest-to-God home theaters. They probably exist, but there's not a groundswell. And VHS and DVD and Blu-Ray aren't gonna cut it. It's all just gonna be internet downloads soon enough.

So indie video stores are not long for this world. It's sad. Indie video store have a community vibe that's hard to beat. Everybody there is at least thinking about relaxing later. But on the other hand, it's maybe also not too much of a loss. As much as I can tolerate music nerds in any weather, film nerds have always been tough to manage. Maybe it's because I essentially went to film school. I don't know. I do know that it's tough to stomach when a film nerd is a film nerd who will tell you everything you never wanted to know about Andrei Tarkovsky without your ever having asked (his films are long, pretty, glacially paced, generally more boring than interesting: I just saved you 12 minutes) AND that same film nerd also knows your porn preferences. I mean there's community, and then there's a little too close to home.

Anyway: one of the dudes from this band used to work at my local indie video store until it closed. Now I won't see him as much anymore, nor will I be tempted to see his band play live, even though I've heard plenty of worse things. It's kind of win-win in a cynical way, because instead of going out I can use that time to stay at home and download something I want to watch. I wonder how the original "Solaris" is baked. Oh yeah: awful.


Cub
Box of Hair
[Lookout! / Mint; 1996/2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

In reference to Cub's pre-Box of Hair past as a "cute" "indie-pop" "girl band," Marc Hogan's Pitchfork review contains the curious line "Cub toughen up their guitar tones and their vocal chords for Box of Hair, but, thankfully, they don't lose too much of themselves trying to appeal to the punker-than-thou types who used to heap scorn on anything cute or girly (plenty of people still do)." Emphasis is mine.

As much as I feel an urge to attack this line as being condescending and misogynist, A. I'm probably wrong, and B. there is nothing in the world funnier/worse/more ironic than two dudes arguing about who's being sexist, like "step aside ladies, we've got to settle this argument about gender bias like two men." It does seem to me like the band has a right to decide who "themselves" is, though. Whatever, it's nitpicking and a cheap shot.

The aspect of the above quote that I'm more interested in is the opportunity it presents me for self-indulgent navel gazing.

Am I somehow a "punker-than-thou type?" I don't think so. I unabashedly enjoy Billy Joel's holy triumvirate of The Stranger-52nd Street-Glass Houses. Even (especially) album cuts like "Zanzibar" and "Rosalinda's Eyes." I'd even go so far as to call those three albums a "holy triumvirate" because I very much enjoy pop music (even when it's as corny as Billy Emeffing Joel) when it's done well. So I don't qualify for punker-than-anybody.

Do I heap scorn on anything cute or girly? Maybe. Maybe I do. I know I'm not likely to play myself much of anything by a female artist. It's a dirty little secret between me and myself. Ask me for my all-time favorite rock album by a female or females, and I will throw Horses at you without really meaning it and try to run away, feebly tossing Maureen Tucker in my path to try to trip you up in case you chase me. It's lame. I feel lame about it. I love Patsy Cline. I love a lot of women. I like women. I'm not big on girly. Bratty boy stuff is probably more ok with me than girly stuff, but the important thing in either case is being in-your-face about it, which I will like. I'm a simple man. I like what I like. I'm no villain. Phew.

But it raises an interesting question: do I (or does anybody) have to like anything that's cute or girly? Why? Guilt? Tossing aside my suspicion of Marc Hogan's motives for telling me I should care and take seriously anything that's cute or girly, does he have a point? Sure. Sure he does. I shouldn't dismiss anything simply because it's cute or girly. But I also don't have to actively like it or pretend I like it when I really don't simply because it's cute or girly.

Notice how all of this crawling up my own ass I'm doing about this has nothing to do with this 2-year-old reissue of a cute, girly indie pop band's third album from 1996? Looks like I've been hoisted by my own "step aside, ladies" petard. Oh well. Anyway: this album is cute and fun and girly if you're into that kind of thing, which I am generally not, and specifically in the case of this album: also not. Glad it exists. Can understand its merits. Doesn't do it for me. It's not a repudiation of an entire gender nor of any other past, present, or future product of that gender, it's just my opinion about a thing that some people did one time in 1996. Whew. That was easier than I thought.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go bleed my ears out with some loud, abrasive, punker-than-thou COCKROCK.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/29/08

The Roots
Rising Down
[Def Jam; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.8.

Here's a strange thing to do: put out a "straight-to-the-jugular beats and rhymes about everything that's wrong with the world" album and then less than a year later become Jimmy Fallon's house band, and then later accompany him while he raps/sings a Christmas Carol medley from the top of a giant Gibson guitar at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It's jarring, even if the "everything that's wrong with the world" album features a lot of bitching and moaning about how even great rappers (and presumably their bands) don't make as much money as they think they should. (Uhhh... yeah guys, sorry it's tough to have a job that EVERYBODY WANTS). Has anybody ever watched the Jimmy Fallon show? Coming in and out of commercials, do they rap about abortions and/or the greenhouse effect? If so, I might have to watch it.

Confession time: I was never a big fan of The Roots. The live band always seemed gimmicky to me, kind of a holdover from the Digable Planets/Cantaloop/Arrested Development era. Is that unfair? Maybe. But: they did first come out in that era. And: they were pretty much like "the thing with us is we have a live band" back then. They signed to Geffen. They played Lollapalooza. I vaguely associate them with G. Love and Special Sauce (live band, rapping, Philadelphia, college kids, the 90's). Unfair? MAYBE. IT CAN REALLY GO EITHER WAY.

But: to have these guys come out with a(nother) fuck-the-world album in 2008 is kind of confusing. If it really is straight-ahead anger at all of the ills of the world, great, unleash it. If, as I suspect, it's just honest (?) bitterness about how you never got the respect you feel you deserve as one of the greatest living MCs, well, that's not my problem, bud. Show don't tell. As for the band, I don't know enough about their collaborative process to tell if they're actually also mad or if they're just sharp as a diamond on their cues and could do anything they feel like by this point in their careers, and they might as well do rough stuff to help Black Thought out with his angry man thing. They know what side their bread is buttered on.

This would all just be conjecture but, you know, then the Jimmy Fallon thing happened and it was like "oh yeah, money talks with these guys." Maybe that's also unfair, but they did play fucking Lollapalooza in the 90's. They weren't always so serious. So maybe this whole album is less righteous anger about the ills of the world and more just a bunch of frustrated careerists advertising their availability to late night talk shows, and all the ills of the world have been lanced now that they're getting a regular paycheck. Who knows?

We'll know for sure if they put out another record and it's about somebody's baby having sauce.


Constantines
Kensington Heights
[Arts & Crafts; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.6.

You know how you'll listen to something sight unseen and you have a very short fuse? Like as soon as one thing kicks in that you don't like, it's over. You don't like this, why waste time? This one lasts about 12 seconds of "ok, maybe I can tolerate this top-40 rock with synths, but it's on thin ice" and then... shut it down. The culprit is the vocals. Like Peter Gabriel yelling.

Yes, I am telling you that I didn't even listen to this. I'd be shocked if you could look me square in the eye and tell me that you did or that I should.


Karl Blau
AM
[Whistler; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.8.

Is it just being through a previous overindulged era of similar stuff? Is it because I accidentally saw The Rachel's live once and vowed that I'd never again be this bored by music almost too gentle to count as a thing that somebody did? Do I already have a favorite perfect record for relaxing and I just don't feel like I will ever need another one?

Yes to all. And the result is I just don't hear this stuff. Even if it's great. It might be great. For somebody. I kind of doubt it, but for now I'm set in this department. And I have a feeling that if and when something like this grabs me again, it will not be Karl Blau. Just a guess.


Neptune
Gong Lake
[Table of the Elements; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.0.

Jason Crock of Pitchfork says that Neptune is more vital and important live than on records because their whole thing is they make their own instruments out of junk and wail away on all these crazy metal inventions and it's really something to see. Ok. Thanks to the magic of You Tube, we can test that theory.

Nope. Better on record. But not by much.


Antietam
Opus Mixtum
[Carrot Top; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.4.

You know those free label samplers you get at college orientation? This band is from that.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/28/08

South
You Are Here
[Bluhammock Music; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.8.

The above-linked Pitchfork review by Ian Cohen drops a mention that this band had a song on an episode of "The O.C." I love it when something from two years ago is so simultaneously dated and succinct. This is one of those "up and coming" bands that got a track on "The O.C." back when people thought that might have been some kind of a big deal.


Portishead
Third
[Island / Mercury; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.8 and listed it as the 2nd best album of 2008.

When their first album Dummy first came out in 1994, nobody knew it was going to be played over and over and over again in every shitty "lounge" bar/restaurant and "boutique" shoe store that wanted to uncreatively signify aloof/mysterious/sexy/underworld/bored/luxuriant hipness for at least a decade. If you have ever worked at a place that serves expensive food past midnight or charged more than $150 for a single article of clothing, you have absolutely heard Dummy over 50 times. It was and still is the just-as-ubiquitous nighttime companion piece to Air's more daytime-oriented Moon Safari.

Those are both decent enough albums, but we don't really need more, do we? The easy answer is "no, we don't." Sorry, that's what happens when you sit back and watch for 11 years in between releases as your debut album becomes close to an architectural fixture for upscale retail locations. And now the only people who need more Portishead are people who have aspirations to live and/or be seen in a fancy lounge and/or shoe boutique place. In other words: rich twats and the few remaining ostriches who would emulate them (I could say more here about how the 2000's was all about being credit card rich and living in a $600,000 house even though you're a sous chef, but we all read the papers).

But that's a description of the backlash which kept me from getting into this album when it came out. What about the music? Well, it starts out as a decent enough retread of the early stuff. And even if we're talking retreads of earlier stuff: the shorthand association with bored luxury is mostly not Portishead's fault. They do quietly menacing to a headnodding rhythm better than anybody. Ok. Then a handful of tracks deep, this album twists earlier Portishead into moments darker and more hostile in a near-Suicide/Silver Apples direction than anything I've previously heard Portishead do.

I like it. It serves notice: if people want to look cool and unconcerned while listening to Portishead, they're going to have their patience tested. And the music is going to drip with enough tension that anything luxurious you attach it to is going come off more like the third act of "Caligula" than the first act. Rich twats take notice. You're going to have to actually be a pretty fucking cool customer to remain unaffected while Third is playing. No more pretendsies.

I for one am not cool enough to listen to this all the way through without getting annoyed and turning it off. It's not the languid downtempo spy-house base or the repetitive synth-punk Suicide/Silver Apples stuff that's the problem. It's the mid-career Siouxsie-syle wailing. Annoying.

But as I've said before, annoying is a better risk to run than pandering, for the simple adolescent reason that you should grab on with both hands whenever you have an opportunity to empty out an overpriced shoe store without getting the cops called on you. Good for Portishead.


Madonna
Hard Candy
[Warner Bros.; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.3.



Ugh God, Madonna. Put it away. I'm glad you're in a position to put out the "I want my vulva licked" message at age 50 and set it to a Timbaland beat and have it danced to by a ton of club-going homosexuals, like that's great and that's empowering and all, but some of us just had lunch.


Evangelista
Hello, Voyager
[Constellation; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.0.

But as I've said before, annoying is a better risk to run than pandering, for the simple adolescent reason that you should grab on with both hands whenever you have an opportunity to empty out an overpriced shoe store without getting the cops called on you. Good for Portishead.

Bad for Evangelista.

For the record, I don't actually like being annoyed. I would just choose, if I had to, that music go in the direction of annoying rather than going for the lowest common denominator and treating its listeners (thinking of its listeners at all, really) with kid gloves. At a certain point, though, if you're a one-trick pony and annoying is what you do best, being annoying is pandering. AND annoying. Double whammy.


Russian Circles
Station
[Suicide Squeeze; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.9.

There's a certain dull, wet snare sound that means your band sucks. Like instead of making a sharp "crack" sound, it makes a crystal clear but dampened "whap" noise. I tried to go on YouTube to find something that could help me explain it better, but all I got was instructional drumming videos by guys who look like they have halitosis (you can just tell) and talk way to reverently about their "craft" (it's whacking things with sticks, guys). These videos are more entertaining than this band.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/25/08

Titus Andronicus
The Airing of Grievances
[Troubleman Unlimited; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.5 and named it the 25th best album of 2008.

One of the thorniest issues in rock is what you're supposed to do when something sounds like something else. The general consensus is that when something sounds like something else that you like more than the thing you're listening to, it's not great, but it's at least a step in the right direction. If something sounds like something else you don't like, it double sucks. If something sounds like nothing else you've ever heard before, you should be careful: it might sound like genius, and enough people will tell you that it is for you to almost agree, but unless it absolutely blows you away at some point, it's probably just annoying. If something sounds like something else but is better than the original thing, that's the best.

That all seems fairly straightforward, but what do you do if something is an amalgam of other stuff? A liberal buffet-style full plate heaping of cops. Frank Black's screamiest vocals, Guided by Voices production, some Arcade Fire/Neutral Milk Hotel/Tossers multi-instrumentalist arrangement theatrics, a little Replacements beer-soaked loser for attitude, Strokes-ish guitar fills. That's Titus Andronicus. They do better than some of the things they reference, worse than other things they reference, some of the audible influences are troubling, others are sorely missing from the rock landscape.

What do you do with such a heaping helping? What you do with it is you eat until you're full and then you stop, and you try not to think about it too much. It might taste bad or good, but either way it's not like you're at some gourmet restaurant (or like you'd know what fork to use if you were, you fucking slob). It's rock. Relax. And to Titus Andronicus's credit, they're not trying to transcend the very basic setup.

The saving grace here is the not giving a fuck attitude copped from The Replacements. Saves the meal, renders moot anything you could say. I bet these guys kick ass live. Check that: I hope these guys are wildly inconsistent live, but the good shows are the fucking best. On record, though, take it or leave it.


Love
Forever Changes (Collector's Edition)
[Elektra / Rhino; 1967/2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.6.

I wish I had it in my heart to say "fuck this record" and mean it. Arthur Lee's voice is just so thin and reedy (as in "reeds used to create the bleating treble that comes out of woodwind instruments") and the lyrics alternate between "on the nose without being directly confrontational" and "high school creative-writing imagery." Musically, it veers dangerously close to shitty coffeehouse folk (sometimes--"Old Man"--going all the way) almost too many times to count. You can't really listen to the whole thing all the way through unless it's pretty much the only thing you could possibly listen to at the moment.

But then: it's a knockout at those times. It's a perennial All Star for hungover day-after cleanups. It's nearly fatally mellow, but with just enough grit and groove to energize, dripping with enough angsty doubt and regret to avoid being either a blatant cool-down or psyche-up. It's both soothing and invigorating because correct: everything is all messed up, and also correct: there's not much to be done about it except for "sitting on the hill side watching all the people die." A bum-out album full of "I'm just sayin'"-level critique pieces that sound, with some delicious exceptions, afraid to rock all the way. The feeling that there's a lot going on under the surface permeates the whole album.

Which is great, because the surface is pretty much just a fairly pleasant rock/pop album from 1967. The kind of thing I'd usually want to say "fuck this record" to. Or "their earlier stuff had more teeth" (totally true). But like I said, I don't have it in my heart. It's saved my ass too many times. I have to clean up pretty often.

But look at me, re-describing. If you already have this in your life, you know everything I'm saying, and if you don't, you should. Don't get the fucking "Collector's Edition," though.


Experimental Dental School
Jane Doe Loves Me
[Cochon; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.8.

Have I already talked about how I think Beck's whole career is based on a joke? Like he was just the first wiseass to rap ironically as a goof, and by dint of having some small amount of talent underneath the joke entree, now he's a bajillionaire. That's why there's no staying power to anything he's ever done. It's a collection of novelty songs. I dare you to listen to all of Odelay and then tell me I'm wrong.

But: right place right time. Beck sprung up in a post-Nirvana 1993-94 where Kurt Cobain had blown his head off and everybody on radio was still imitating his music, trying to sound as earnest as possible in order to cash in, which by that point had a "it's a tribute to his memory that his influence is so far-ranging" momentum of its own even though it was visibly crass. We desperately needed a joker to be the anti-Bush (the band). And when somebody fulfills a need like that, you just have to thank them. So I'll always have a soft spot for Beck even though he's a total put-on and a goof and a Scientologist (hi guys, welcome to 2 Year Lag) to boot.

A thought I just had: what if Sea Change was a joke? That would fucking rule. That'd be like GOOD ONE DUDE. But of course it's not. It's just a joke guy being like "but for real, I can play music too." Which is/was a bummer. Better if he just stayed a joker for life. Still, if deathbed Beck (deathBeck) says "Sea Change was a joke" I will be very happy. As it is: soft spot in my heart, plus I'm always impressed by the way he's always the funniest person on Saturday Night Live whenever he stops by. I don't have to make apologies for Beck. He's genuinely good at goofing.

Oh, these "Experimental Dental School" guys are clearly goofing, and clearly they're terrible at it, and anyway we don't need any more fucking goofs than we've already got at this point, thanks.


Wye Oak
If Children
[Merge / Morphius; 2007/2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.1.

How much money do you think The Shins have made? I have literally no idea. Almost no answer below $20 million or above $50,000 would surprise me. $20.000001 million would surprise me. $49,999.99 would surprise me. But only a little. You'd have to say "after expenses, the total is actually something like $15,000" or "more than enough for it to make good financial sense for Wye Oak to sound this much like them" in order to REALLY surprise me.


Ladyhawk
Shots
[Jagjaguwar; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.2.

Ladyhawk has been sounding like they're from the 90's since before it was cool, which it never was. Not even in an anti-cool way. Still, they're good for a decent overdramatic rocker once or twice an album without being cool even a little bit. That's what the 90's, except for Beck, were all about.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/24/08

Air
Moon Safari - 10th Anniversary Edition
[Astralwerks / Virgin; 1998/2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.6.

It's strange for Pitchfork to nail this reissue for being an irrelevant cash-grab less than two weeks after crawling all the way up M83's ass. Don't they see the irony? Do they think nobody's paying attention to them? Is this slam motivated by tastemaker's remorse? Or is it just fashionable to take the piss out of Air (alternate gagline: "Air out of their tires") in 2008?

I can see the logic. It's certainly an irrelevant cash-grab if you operate under the assumption that everybody alive either already has Moon Safari or would download it illegally for free if they ever got a hankerin' for it. Which is valid enough if maybe a little shortsighted. We don't all work at tech-savvy dot coms in big cities that purport to know everything about everything. Some people, not many, still actually buy CDs. Most of those people probably don't read Pitchfork, but still. I could see this 10th Anniversary Edition falling into the hands of some 14 year old kid in Assfuck, Ohio who's spending his allowance in the music section of Borders during a family-shopping-errand layover, and I could see it rocking his world and fueling all of his future makeouts. And if not, if this truly is useless: so what if it doesn't sell? That's a good old fashioned ah-ha-ha. No need to warn anybody off unless you hate the music.

And it's not like other music-for-sale products somehow have more "integrity" simply because they're being released right now instead of ten years later, or because they're on an "indie" label (or because every square inch of them has been picked over and turned into a commercial over the last ten years). Let's forget about "indie" labels being the good guys; they're in business too, and they're just as susceptible to the temptation of foisting a bunch of crap on you. Even if they do an admirable job of not succumbing, they're still essentially just moving product. If they weren't, why wouldn't they just put out stuff by every band they ever thought was good? It's not like it'd be all that expensive. For that matter, why not just be a crappy download-only label and sign up any old piece of shit band that comes along? Why bother being discerning? I think I know why ($$$).

Record labels all want your money equally. Some might need it more than others, but they all want it at about the same level. Maybe some people want to put out records that only some people like, but nobody wants to put out a record that nobody likes. Operating under this assumption, it's hard to tell what makes this particular cash-grab so worthy of scorn. Especially since Moon Safari is the direct predecessor of the kind of stuff that's officially the 8th best album of the year, 2008.

But of course none of this, not my thoughts on the subject nor Pitchfork's, is actually about the music. Whether it's their point or mine, that seems about right. There's no sense in getting caught up in a discussion of the 1998 album Moon Safari by French electroambientdreampop duo Air. Adjunct discussions are necessary because the music is too languid and perfect to require an opinion. If you listen to it and like it, you probably either already own it, could borrow-and-rip from somebody who does, or could download it illegally for free if you ever get a hankerin'. Or else you could just watch ten years of youth-marketed commercials and get the idea by accident.

Maybe that's the real bone to pick here. This album is already a legendary whore. It's like re-releasing something Moby did. Ok, Pitchfork, you get a pass. Even though that kid I imagined is totally going to make out with Carlie on Friday now, thanks to this.


The Prodigy
H.N.I.C. Pt. 2
[Voxonic; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.8.

Do you have Return of the Mac? Get it. Play it until you're tired of it. Then get this too, if you still want more and this guy hasn't gotten out of jail yet and made something better by then.

Oh, and apparently there's a track on here where he raps about supporting Ron Paul for president, which is awesome.


Billy Bragg
Mr. Love & Justice
[Anti-; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.5.

It's funny how aging works.

I'm 30. Ten years ago, if you had asked me why I'm not a Billy Bragg fan, I would have told you, "Billy Bragg? Yuck, what am I, 30?" Now I'm like, "Billy Bragg? Yuck, what am I, 40?"

But: at the same time I will proudly stand up to any "old man" questioning I get from the younger sect in a self-effacing, non-proselytizing manner. Yes, I did and do actually like Tortoise (I'm imagining Tortoise might be a "30+ only" point of ridicule, I don't know). Or: The Sea and Cake. The Sea and Cake is a very yesteryear 30+ only fans kind of band. Right? I don't know. I know my prepared response: if you remembered anything from the 90's except for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, you'd understand. We just needed a break from "song" music.

Wait a minute. Am I actually trying to be hip by guessing the ways in which I'm no longer hip? Man, being 30 is a fucking trip.

At least I'm not all into Billy Bragg, though. Suck it, Billy Bragg, with your "important" lyrics and even, assured voice. I might be old, but I'll never be THAT old. Fuck you, old guys! Right, young dudes? Right? Hello? Shit.


Ellen Allien
Boogybytes Vol. 04
[BPitch Control; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.1.

Wait a minute. DO I REALLY STILL LIKE TORTOISE? Like is it just a nostalgia thing, or do I really still like Tortoise? I don't have their most recent album, I feel like that's probably a step in the right direction toward not really liking Tortoise, although I usually get their albums on a lark two or three years after the fact and then like them ok, so I don't know there. I definitely don't still really like Tortoise, but maybe I do really still like Tortoise.

Is that ok? Can I cut it off there, or do also I have to like this Ellen Allien stuff? I feel like this is creeping onto the Pandora station of my life and trying to insinuate something about the choices I've made thus far. Sure, I might still like Tortoise. I don't "give me things like this because this is what I'm into" like it, though. And now here's Ellen Allien: not awful, but not doing much for me. Can I skip it, or is that going to break the engine that brought it to me? Am I out of ZZZZs and Thumbs Downs? Does real life work like that?

Oh, it doesn't? ZZZZ this then. Phew.


Toumast
Ishumar
[Real World / Rykodisc / Village Vert; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

I don't know anything about the musical or cultural tradition of the Saharan desert. There, I've said it, and I feel better. This is good, though. I'd put this on. It's got a soulful rawness to it that puts it far ahead of overproduced Starbucks-style culture-gawking World Music and onto its own plain as an accomplishment.

(Possible sidebar: do I like world music the most when it's the result of active assimilation of jazz/blues/rock/soul/rap into another culture's folk tradition? I think so. I'm just an American boy that way. You can call me a musical colonialist if you want. My response to that is it's not my fault we invented all the good stuff, and also: everybody's welcome. America, U.S.A., and whoever else wants to hop on board 4-EVA. Whatever. This "Tuareg Rock" stuff is great.)

I'm not going to go overboard and fetishize it or anything, though, because these guys are from now and there's no rule that says their next project won't be some We Are The World monstrosity that they're working with Paul McCartney on. I'll just cross my fingers against it, if you don't mind.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/23/08

Gossip
Live in Liverpool
[Music With a Twist; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.9.

Sometimes when you grow up in a very permissive, understanding liberal family that regularly attends a Unitarian Universalist church, and particularly when that part of your upbringing dredged you through the murky depths of 1990s America's post-Rodney King obsession with political correctness and forced diversity, you end up with a very adolescent urge to dismiss stuff like this as being "Shitty Lesbo Rock" and move on.

You will hope in vain that you will be let off the hook by explaining this urge, including the amount of repetition you experienced as a nascent man of stuff like Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls and Tori Amos, the forcefulness of the "we're going to listen to this now" decisions, the amount and extent of your honestly trying to enjoy it, the tongue biting involved in each quiet listen, how it felt like near torture at times, how your respite at the time were male-led bands like Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana who seemed to also incorporate more than their share of non-hetero-masculine elements, such as writing "Pro Choice" on their arms and putting gay porn in their videos and marrying Courtney Love. The 90's were like that.

But you don't want to overdo such victim-speak, because you're not a woman and you have no idea what it is to be a real victim of the penisocracy. This is more truth than joke. In a way this early experience of listening to a bunch of shitty music against your will (and of abdicating to the decision because it apparently represented a necessary feminine viewpoint, and knowing that it was probably important to understand what that gender-based abdication was like) will set you up for a lifetime of being something like a good man, provided you can reasonably contain your occasional adolescent outbursts.

But: you don't have to listen to this fucking shit anymore if you don't want to. Lesbos or not. Which is fine. It's not for you, anyway.

According to Rebecca Raber's Pitchfork review, Music With a Twist is a "Columbia-owned LGBT-themed label." It sure sounds like it too, meaning: this sounds to my admittedly heterosexual male rock-fan ears like ghettoized "here's some powerful-yet-tasteless female vocals that are vaguely about empowerment for the young lesbian demographic" shorthand pandering. If we're gonna validate the "Lesbo Rock" moniker with cynical divide-and-conquer major label subsidiaries, let's at least go full bore with some Le Tigre and put the ROCK part before the LESBO part.

But: if not, I've got no cause to complain about it. I get it. It's not for me. I wouldn't understand. Sure. I'm also free to think Gossip fucking sucks. And that's valid too. For me. And probably also for some poor 15 year old Unitarian boy in Liverpool at the time of this live recording. I need to let him know it's gonna be ok, because unity, ok you guys?


Spoon
Don't You Evah EP
[Merge; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

Spoon are the band you love to think you hate. But it's just not as fun to heap scorn on them as it is on, say, The Flaming Lips (most talented band member is the drummer) or Wilco (ain't-we-clever songwriting genius for corduroyed grad students) or Radiohead (about as much fun as a holocaust documentary).

There's a certain "why get mad" quality to Spoon. They're not trying too hard to be perfect, there are a few good grabber lines ("he smells like insides of closets upstairs") in there, delivered with the right mixture of nonchalance and urgency, there's a few fun/distracting effects in the mix, some driving and/or predictable rhythms but nothing too cloyingly hookish, the song ends, another one starts, and then when it's over everybody goes home, safe and sound. It's business casual. Which is just not a recipe for hate, no matter how much glowing press they get for their weakest (but still not quite weak) album. It's not their fault. They've been around long enough for us to know that they're pretty much just doing their thing regardless. They get a pass.

Why? They just do. They've managed to wedge themselves too far into the middle for anybody to want them to move in any one direction. And every once in a while they hit the pop song nail right on the head. What are you supposed to do about it?

You can ignore them, sure, but you'll still be perfectly content to sit through it when "I Turn My Camera On" pops into your life for a brief visit during a car commercial. For some reason you won't get angry when that happens. You'll just think, "Ok, that car commercial was a B+ for a car commercial, even though I kind of resent having Spoon played to me in order to insinuate that I'd love to own a Toyota Matrix. I'm not in the market for a car, but I will admit to liking that song because I'm not a liar. So that was just less of a total waste of my time than other car commercials. B+. I remain ready to watch the rest of this sporting event or other television program."

Anyway, this is a "lessor effort" EP for rabid Spoon fans only.

Can you imagine being a rabid Spoon fan? That would be like being a huge fan of air conditioning even though you live in some place that's extremely temperate, like Seattle. You only really need it for two weeks a year, tops. The rest of the time it's just kind of nice.


Tokyo Police Club
Elephant Shell
[Saddle Creek; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.3.

The phrase "too clever by half" has always interested me. If something is too clever by half, does that mean that it's overconfident, insecure, both? Could "bad sense of timing" cover it? What about "can't reign it in?" If you're too clever by half, does that revert back down to 50% dumb again, or is there some extra ground there where you can be more than 100% clever? Is it even possible to be 200% clever, "too clever by all?" What about too clever by a tenth? What's the math on this? Is that percentage of "how clever I can be until I become kind of a pain in the ass" or "how clever any person can be before they become kind of a pain in the ass?" Is there even a difference? Is the implication of "too clever by half" that "too" clever is in fact "not" clever? Maybe, as far as cleverness is concerned, "discretion is the better part of valor." So that 100% cleverness = 55% discretion, 45% valor.

I don't know the answers.

But we've all seen people cross the 100% threshold, where somebody says something funny, you laugh, and then they keep going on a riff until it's not quite funny anymore. And then they keep going until they've clearly gone too far, and then they never reign it in with a real conversation about a real thing, they just keep going off into 100%+ clever territory as if it's some kind of a compulsion and they can't stop themselves. We've all seen that, right? It's horrifying and even kind of sad. Like watching somebody light themselves on fire, but party conversation equivalent.

Anyway, Tokyo Police Club is like watching music do that.


diskJokke
Staying In
[Smalltown Supersound; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

Things I am a sucker for:

1. Spacey echo "Dub" effects
2. Extra synth elements coming in out of nowhere

Things I am not a sucker for:

1. Techno "buildup and release"-dynamic cliches
2. Techno diva vocals
3. Techno

In other words, this has me a little confused, but "not a sucker" wins 3 to 2.


Pete Rock
NY's Finest
[Nature Sounds; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

I've heard it said often recently that hip hop is in an "era of the producer." Which is like "ummm... wasn't it always?" I mean, when was it the era of "we love shitty beats?"

In other other words: if you didn't get it the first time around, go back and cherry pick the best stuff for downloads.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/22/08

The Last Shadow Puppets
The Age of the Understatement
[Domino; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.

This is a pop record. I mean "pop" in the pre-Beatles sense. In the "Pop Hits of the 60's That Is Somehow Just A Bunch of Sonny and Cher Songs and Nothing Anybody Actually Remembers From Then" sense. In the "hmmm, maybe I like Herb Alpert, not really, but I'm bored out of my mind at a yard sale so I'm reading the back cover of this" sense. Early solo Scott Walker. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood. Except it's from now. And it has a few arrangement tricks up its sleeve that are post-analog psychedelic.

Those are fine reference points. I'm fine with Sonny and Cher. Hell, I'll even listen to the Osmonds for yuks. But if you're into this kind of a thing, why not go back to the abundantly available source material? Do you really love the guy from Arctic Monkeys that much? Were you distracted by the old "sexy girl on the cover" trick? Do you like to rock, but also like to pretend you're 60-something years old and just want to tap something out on the steering wheel while waiting too long to turn left? What's the deal with you, man?


Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords
[Sub Pop; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.2.

This is bar none the most unfair thing I've looked at so far. It's only been two years, and it's already like "oh yeah, remember those guys? Ummmmm... pass."


Mantronix
Mantronix: The Album (Deluxe Edition)
[Sleeping Bag / Warlock; 1985/2008]

Pitchfork cutely gave it a 8.08.

Can you believe this is 25 year old? If it was a car, it'd qualify for "classic" plates in some states. Of course there is not a single car from 1985 that should actually be considered a classic.

But then again, allow me to blow your mind by showing you a picture of a 1985 Mustang:



Am I the only one thinking "Kanye's Dream Car"?

For the record, I am more than fine with hip hop summer 2010 being extremely synthy and trashy and booming loudly from the above-pictured Mustang.


Pants Yell!
Alison Statton
[Soft Abuse; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.

What a strange record and/or "sound" to come out with in 2008. It feels like it's rebelling against Rock 'n Roll excesses that haven't existed in years. Like railing against Iron and Wine by sounding more like Belle and Sebastian. Or something.

Still, this is a fantastic example of the "easy breezy" end of "indie" "twee" (best descriptor ever, sounds like a gay porn fetish archetype) pop. Which can be easily overdone and easily replicated, but hard to pull off in that you can't fake nonchalance. Fact is, the world is crawling with bands that sound like they wish they sounded as unaffected as this. So: it's refreshing to hear anything approximating the real deal, even though nobody's exactly feeling a dearth of catchy, light-as-air pop at the moment.

I guess I'm saying that I would actually listen to this. In a "I am not deleting this from the iPod until I get the winter blahs and want to hear some angry noise" way. I'd put it almost on a par with The Minders or The Vaselines for "ok, it's nice enough outside for me to want the feeling of sunshine shooting directly out of my waz" times. Almost, but not quite on that par.


Various Artists
In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2
[Shout! Factory; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.0.

Just give your money directly to somebody who's doing something helpful somewhere in Africa instead of spending it on a variety of current African musicians who have been asked/forced to do U2 covers for this charity/vanity compilation. It's always a good idea to cut out the middle man, especially if the middle man is Bono's ego.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/21/08

The Teenagers
Reality Check
[Merok; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

"We're vapid, disaffected youth" only works as a joke for so long until it's not a joke, and then it becomes boring and sad. These guys hit it pretty hard. It's not just the words, it's the music too. It's a grab bag of French new wave and radio-ready cliches.

If not for the one dude's French accent and inspired faux-misogynist spoken lines about not believing you're gonna eat that pizza (had me LOLing), the joke would only last about 30 seconds. As it is, it still lasts less long than this album.

That said, I am glad that there's still some synthesis between "French" and "casual pervy" in music. I feel like casual pervy is to the French what the blues is to America. It's their roots.


The Replacements
Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash
Stink
Hootenanny
Let It Be
[Rhino; 2008]

Pitchfork gave these a 9.4/7.0/7.4/10.0.

Do other people have music prejudices that keep them from listening to things they know they would like? Because I never went through a Replacements phase. It's just sitting there, waiting for me. I know it's there. I'll get to it. Maybe. You wanna know why I haven't? Because my first exposure to The Replacements was through Paul Westerberg's solo stuff, that's why.

If you're so smart, you try being curious after 12 year old you subjects yourself to repeated listens of "Dyslexic Heart" and "Waiting for Somebody" on the Singles Soundtrack. I don't know about 12 year old you, but 12 year old me just wanted to rock, and those coupla turkeys didn't cut the mustard. Even though to real me in 1990-now (better said out loud) they are probably the best tracks on that piece of shit. I'll never know. You try being curious about the Singles Soundtrack.

So anyway, MTV-programmed 12 year old me just heard those two tunes as being a combination of Tom Cochrane and... well, just Tom Cochrane is enough. I didn't know about tongue-in-cheek or "decades of context" back then. I just knew that raspy voice = probably bad news. To my credit. Look at what I had to deal with as example of raspy voices in popular music at the time. No wonder I was gun shy. Plus: I was 12. I hadn't even heard there was such a thing as a record shop that wasn't Nobody Beats the Wiz, Waxie Maxie, or Sam Goody.

Later when I "discovered" hardcore, there was more than enough punk history right there in the DC area for my sneering pompous ignorant teenage ass to want to claim regional ownership of. "The guys from Jawbox live in a house right across the street from F-porch, man. I saw them at 5B lunch. So, you know: I am AWESOME. Hardcore from Minnesota? Yeah, right. I bet it sucks." It's just the way teenagers are in DC. It's not our fault. Our parents are professional know-it-alls who work at some think tank somewhere, and we inherit the family biz.

So: I never got into the Replacements.

And then not being into The Replacements was fun. I live in the Midwest now, and people are protective of The Replacements and Naked Raygun. "Saying I'm not really into that stuff" and then getting an eyeroll (or better: full blown indignation) feels like a link to my DC teenager past, even though it's willfully ignorant and immature.

Still: I know I'm going to come around to The Replacements sooner or later. I was in Washington recently and was struck by how incredibly fucking rude everybody is. So maybe the Midwest is rubbing off on me. Sure feels like it (masturbation joke).

Anyway: The Replacements. Great band. Glad their earlier independent stuff got the deluxe reissue treatment. I'll be along soon enough. Probably.


Various Artists
Don't Stop: Recording Tap
[Numero Group; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.4.

I got this when it came out and it felt like a total fuck you. Numero Group reissues, or in many cases simply issues, hyper-obscure regional recordings that have to be unearthed, cataloged, and extensively researched before even approximating a legit release. Their results are sometimes long on backstory and packaging and short on content, to the point where you can get upset if you allow yourself to be suckered in by the fool's gold of total obscurity = total ownership = good. You're not even the one doing the discovering. These guys are doing the work for you. They're very good at it and it's a worthy mission, but they're not doing it for free. They've got a product to sell you. And by the time they're done with all that work, that product is as much about the unearthing process as it is about the music.

Cut away the packaging and the backstory here and what you have is largely incompetent but very well-produced early 80's disco/soul with a couple of early rap tracks. "Largely incompetent" is a key, because that quality can make music either better or worse. If it's off-key, limited-range but raw singing or inconsistent but hugely intense drumming, then incompetence is charming. Some degree of incompetence, hence immediacy and urgency (we don't know exactly what we're doing, but we're doing this now with all of our hearts), is necessary for anything to be truly great. But, as it is here: if it's off-key, limited-range but crystal clear and mild-mannered singing over meticulously recorded string arrangements and top-flight session musicians, so it comes off embarrassed and ashamed (we know we're not quite ready but we hope you don't mind). It's kind of a bummer. To me. To me.

Maybe I'm just not a huge fan of überrare disco deeeeep cuts, and that's the only fault to find here. Disco is glossy by nature, and that's kind of the point of it. I get it. And I'm not a crate-digging rare soul 45 night DJ.

Let me see if this scenario makes any sense: you're a reissue label that goes around looking for so-rare-they-were-D.O.A. now-defunct regional record labels that you are tipped off about by some incredibly thorough and/or adventurous record collecting pal. You end up finding out about a local proto-metal label called "Dong Records" some dude ran out of his kitchen in Topeka, Kansas in 1973 through some dude who found a 45 at an estate sale. You investigate. You track the dude down. You drive to Topeka, Kansas and talk to him.

It turns out he's a very intense guy who seems to actually believe he's from Mars. You offer him money for the rights to his tapes. He agrees. You pour over the tapes, which are not labeled and make almost no sense. Some of them have a pretty decent song buried in them. You track down the artists. You ask them about the dude. They tell you funny stories. You drive back and forth to Topeka about a dozen times. At one point, the Martian dude pulls a spear gun on you. The next time you see him, he has no memory of the incident, chuckles about it, and gives you a handful of expired Hardee's gift certificates as a peace offering.

You find more tapes, you identify enough songs to put together a compilation. You take them to be remastered. You're on the phone constantly about which bass-track version to use, etc. The whole thing takes you two years, and it's totally exhausting. At the end, you just want to share everything you went through with the rest of the world. The music is kind of an afterthought at this point, but not in a bad way: it's good enough, and the important thing is unearthing it and sharing it.

You listen to it. It's good enough. Right? You already spent all this time and money. You can't be thinking about whether or not it's good enough. You have no choice. You're going to put out "Dong's Song: Messages From Mars." Right? Of course you are. And to your credit, you're going to use deluxe packaging full of photos and crazy "guy from Mars pulled a spear gun on us" stories, and it's going to be a great product. If the music's good. Which it probably is, right? You can't even tell at this point.

That seems like it's what's going on here, and it's fine. It's not a total fuck you. It's more like a fuck me.


Idol Fodder
Bäbytalk
[Slender Means Society / States Rights; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.

There was a band I saw once in DC in the late 90's called Tarot Bolero. They were one of these goofy theatrical "ensemble" bands that's kidding unless/until they cash in. Kind of a gypsyfied Marilyn Manson thing. I remember they sang a song called "Words." "WORDS. What do they mean? WORDS, with a space in between." Actual lyrics. I'll give credit where credit is due and say that they gave me such a giggle fit that I still remember them, even if derisively. And that's probably all they wanted.

These guys are better and therefore less memorable than Tarot Bolero.

OMG, flashback city: remember Rasuptina?


Fancey
Schmancey
[What Are; 2007]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.9.

I think it's great. See for yourself. There's 14 tracks on this.

1. Witches Night
2. Lost in Twilight
3. Call
4. Gulf Breeze
5. Bitter Life
6. Blue Star
7. Fader
8. Karma's Out To Get Me
9. Whoa
10. Feels Like Dawn
11. Heaven's Way
12. Downtown II
13. Let The Breeze In
14. Cross O' Gold

Pitchfork Reviews 4/18/08

Nadja
Skin Turns to Glass
Bliss Torn from Emptiness
[NOTHingness; 2003/2008 / Fargone; 2005/2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.0/8.0.

Drugs make a big difference with music. Sometimes. Sometimes they tell you "guess what: while you were high as a kite, theoretically at your very most receptive to the repetitive, directionless, forceful drone of something like Earth, you still just fell asleep waiting for the drums to kick in, and woke up later dehydrated and headachey, a.k.a. same as no drugs."

I guess it depends on your intake and personality. I have a blind spot for drone metal, though. Whatever it's supposed to do to people has never quite been done to me. I saw Sunn O))) live once. It was a mix between boring and funny so I went to the back of the bar and talked to people. I was not stoned. I got drunk. Maybe that was "wrong" of me, but it didn't feel that way. Also: maybe I was stoned. I can't remember. If I was stoned, it's pretty incredible that I'd choose to talk to people instead of listening to music. Maybe that's what it's supposed to do: bludgeon you with high-volume once-a-minute power chords until you actually appreciate life's more human qualities. Even after goofadoodles in the back room of an hourlong Sunn O))) set (they play on the border of the pain threshold so the badvibes permeate a block radius, it doesn't really matter what you're doing as long as you're nearby), I was ready to listen to "No Rain" on repeat for a day. Actually, it's possible that the girl I did those shots with was the grown-up bee girl. I wouldn't bee surprised.

I figure all of this just means I'm not into this kind of stuff, which is no crime. I'm not the only one. It seems like a lot of work for nothing to try and get into something that is actively trying to put you into some kind of a loud, Satanic bum-out trance. You (I) could just as easily use those drugs at home and watch "Conan the Barbarian" and get roughly the same effect without putting your(my)self out too much. That movie rules.

Oh and by the way, Nadja is both less good and better than Earth and/or Sunn O))). "Less good" because it doesn't go as far in the direction it wants to go--Sunn O))) in particular get huge points for dressing like druids and generally functioning just as well as a put-on as an actual "no seriously, for serious" group. But Nadja is also "better" because the drums actually do sometimes kick in.

Either way, I'll be in the back room downing Natty Bo with the other bored girlfriends until it's time to leave.


Magnetic Morning
Magnetic Morning EP
[iTunes / DH; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 3.8.

Evidently, the resultant mediocrity of this collaboration between the drummer from Interpol and the guitarist/vocalist from Swervedriver was more of a disappointment than a foregone conclusion for some people in 2008.

Shoegaze is a strange genre to have mount a comeback. It was a punchline for so long. The categorization (as they all are) is derisive. "These fucking kids just stare at their shoes. Snoooze. Next." It's like the emo (90's "core" version) comeback. How can this be? "Emo" as a descriptor was basically the same thing as "fag" for a lion's share of the 2000's. Now we're supposed to be psyched about Japandroids? Really? Nobody's gonna beat us up? Not that there's anything wrong with fagginess, I just didn't expect this. That's all.

But I get the feeling I won't have to worry about this for long. The drummer from Interpol and the guitarist/vocalist from Swervedriver are already in on the act, which means this "revival" movement is probably D.O.A. It strikes me the same as the early 80's, when there were all kinds of faux "directions in rock" that never went anywhere. Like the "New Romantics" or the "Mod Revival" or non-Springsteen non-Mellencamp "Blue Collar Rock." This "Neugaze" feels like one of those. Of course now we have the internet and digital production, so the hype cycles on these abortive revival movements are like a minute long. It's at the point where I'm not sure why I'm bothering other than loving the sound of my own voice.

Anyway, yeah, this sucks, but it's just an EP and I find it actually sucks less than both Interpol and Swervedriver, so it should be changed to a retroactive 7.2.


The Plastic Constellations
We Appreciate You
[Frenchkiss; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.1.

This would be awesome if it was dumber and less tight. There's a lot of fun group yelling, but unfortunately they sound dead cold sober, so it comes off more like Polyphonic Spree than Tenpole Tudor. Actually: it's The Fratellis. But less catchy.

I'm sorry, but I'm a snob for group yelling. I have a very specific agenda.


eMC
The Show
[M3; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.9.

This memory is hazy. One of the radio stations near where I grew up, 98 Rock out of Baltimore, had its own parody songs, "Twisted Tunes," that I used to like when I was 11 or 12. Stuff like Elmer Fudd singing "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails (maybe it was another song, I can't remember, but something mildly funny like that). I think one of them, and I'm trying to look it up on the internet without much success, was a full-length exact copy of Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" with lyrics about living in the suburbs, like "I go outside and clean up the yard... pick up the dog doo... hope that it's hard."

At the time I didn't know anything about Joe Walsh, and I think maybe a part of my brain thought the suburb version was the real version, and the 1978 "Maserati does 185" version was the fake one. Of course it doesn't really matter, they're both goofs.

This makes me think about that because it's a hip hop album where the whole schtick is being middle class rappers. They do a show and then there's no party afterwards. The promoter is two hours late to pick them up form the airport (which he does himself), that kind of a thing. It's like reality rap, but for reality. And I kind of hope that there's a kid out there who heard this before hearing any other hip hop album and then thinks that everything else is a joke and this is the real shit. Which would be accurate.


Capillary Action
So Embarrassing
[Pangaea; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.3.

I don't remember the exact moment I first thought this, but the last couple of trips to Six Flags have made me think that I'm now too old for roller coasters. You have to stand in line and wait forever with a bunch of other idiots, and then finally you get to go on this thing that shakes up your insides like one of those paint can things and causes your adrenal glands to empty everything they've got into your body all in one shot, and you end up clammy, upset, and nauseous after like 90 seconds. Hey, I love fun as much as the next guy, but at a certain point it's both more convenient and cheaper to cut out the middle man and just go ahead and smoke crack.

Well: this is one of those "compositional whiplash" bands like Mr. Bungle or System of a Down or Orthrelm or Faraquet or...

Should I keep going, or do you wanna get off the ride yet?

Pitchfork Reviews 4/17/08

The Kooks
Konk
[Astralwerks / Virgin; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.9.

Story: when I was like 14 I was riding in the car with my Mom and trying to find something to listen to on the radio. She was like "turn it off!" And I was like "come on, we can just find something we both like." Then she slapped my hand away from the radio, turned to me, and sneered "I would rather hear total silence than my FAVORITE SONG OF ALL TIME."

Blew my 14 year old mind.

It sounds more severe than it really was, too. My Mom just gets stressed out when she's driving.

But: sometimes, for instance when listening to The Kooks, I understand her point. Music is essentially all just noise. None of it is really necessary, and, worse, it's both incessant and generally homogeneous. In a way, this IS silence. Only less interesting. I get it now, Mom. Good one.


Black Francis
SVN FNGRS
[Cooking Vinyl; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

I wrote earlier in a re-review of a Breeders album that the Pixies are getting close to useless. I mean, how many times have you heard Doolittle? It is going to reveal something new on the 148th listen? Is it just comfortable, the auditory equivalent of cleaning the toilet and taking out the trash in a pair of old sweatpants? I think more or less. It's certainly no longer immediate. But that's fine. Immediate is overrated.

The problem with rock music (or any creative endeavor) from a practitioner's standpoint is your vitality wanes as your ability waxes. There's a perfect nexus in the middle where they intersect, and then it's goodnight forever and you'll never be as good again. There are two treatments but no cure.

One is you can try to get some vitality back with a "fuck it" release like this one and do the best stuff you've done in years. But your ability is such that even when you shit out stuff like the purposefully bad, vaguely "OMG is Black Francis rapping?" track like "The Seus" (worth a listen) it's still got too much polish, completely by accident. It's just the years of experience and there's nothing you can do. Despite every effort to fight against it, it still kind of sounds like you know what you're doing.

The second way you can do things is to go with "pared-down minimalist arrangements" so that the effects of your musical ability take a downward swerve into "I'm only this vital now" territory, and you get the serious musician treatment. Exhibit A: that Johnny Cash covers album. But still you get betrayed here by your musical abilities and it ends up sounding "fucking great" by some arbitrary non-rock chamber music standard, and you're tunefully humming in an experienced musicianly way that none of the young kids can or want to, idling like some Eric Clapton Ferrari museum piece stuck in neutral, and even though you didn't do anything difficult, you did it so "soulfully" and with such "knowledge" and "weathered voice" that everybody is forced to admit it's because you're a genius. Even though the music itself is boring.

Frank Black has gone both ways, and I like this "fuck it" one more. But that doesn't make it necessary. Sadly, I'd rather just wait until it's time to clean the toilet and take out the trash, even though his "fuck it" stuff is still pretty great. Thanks a lot for still making records, Frank Black. Even if they're pretty good, all they're doing at this point is reminding us about how we're all gonna die.


Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Dazzle Ships
[Virgin; 1983/2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.4.

Since reissue discoveries say as much about what's going on as actual music, I can only conclude that in April 2008 we were looking for a British answer to Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam techno leanings. And we wanted it to be Patrick Wolf.

Unfortunately, both Animal Collective and Patrick Wolf are almost intolerable, and going back 25 years in time for such a comparison is a kind of unfair thing to do to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Or it would be if they were anything but a pretentious arty new wave band with a long lost "interesting album." Which means that the comparison is not unfair. My attitude about all of these guys: I like this more than I don't, but it's not going to get a ton of play around my house. Maybe it's just for the kids.


Autistic Daughters
Uneasy Flowers
[Kranky; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.4.

My good old Dad was a hippie, but an M.I.T. hippie, so he was also a nerd while at the same time as being a hippie. I'm a nerd too, but I feel like my partying experiences are valid enough. So when my Dad gets a couple in him and decides it's ok to let slip a drug story or two because we're both adults, it's believable. He's not embellishing to sound cool. The man gave up on cool a long long time ago.

One thing I remember him saying once was "I never understood people who did downers for fun." It's an A-plus observation/turn of phrase, and pretty great Dad wisdom.

These guys do downers for fun.

Also: I didn't even notice this upon first listen, because I usually listen first and investigate second, but these people call themselves "Autistic Daughters." Like that's really what they are called.


Naked on the Vague
The Blood Pressure Sessions
[Dual Plover; 2007/2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.3.

This is slowed-down Australian doom noise punk issued in the U.S. by Siltbreeze, and the part of me that likes it at all finds it to be excellent. There's a big part of me that hates it, too, but that's the same part of me that loves "Rich Girl" by Hall and Oates, and I can't give that part full control, otherwise I'd base my entire taste in music on how much everything sounds like Thriller. And I don't need to do that, it more or less already happened for 25 years.

I once asked my Dad what kind of mood he'd have to be in to enjoy speed metal, and his response was "comatose." And he was talking about Master of Puppets, which in terms of mass appeal is like The Archies compared to Naked on the Vague. But in the case of Master of Puppets, he's got a point. You try listening to that whole thing.

Even though I can no longer tolerate Metallica, I still like to annoy my imaginary inner parents at least as much as I like to listen to my real parents. "You want silence, Mom? How about I play some Naked on the Vague at full volume until you beg for the opportunity to listen to a little Simon and Garfunkel, because I'm not in the mood for silence!" I wish I could say that part of me was dead, but nope. And I'm not sure I want it to be. If I was in a super bad mood and angry teen rock fan me flared up, I might actually find it fun to do downers to the point of being just this side of comatose and then put some Naked on the Vague on. Suck it, Mom and Dad! Huuwah! Nyeh! I'm 30!

Pitchfork Reviews 4/16/08

Muse
H.A.A.R.P.
[Warner Bros.; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.5.

I have a friend who, for some reason, is a big soccer fan. It's really hard to understand, and I can't tell if I like it, tolerate it, or secretly hate it. Sometimes it seems like a big ridiculous Anglophile affectation. Sometimes it seems like just sharing an interest in the world's most passionately followed sport, which IS a big ridiculous Anglophile affectation, but at least it's for sports-and-beers and not something more effete like expensive handmade umbrellas or imported tea biscuits. He's good with cab drivers. For me, soccer is ok to watch if it's high-stakes enough and the players are good. I'd put it somewhere between tennis and hockey on the watchability scale.

Did you know that there's a Rodgers and Hammerstein song, "You'll Never Walk Alone" (as covered by Slade, but still, it's Rodgers and Hammerstein), that's the official song of the Liverpool soccer club? And the fans in the stadium all sing it in unison the way soccer fans do, so it's like 50,000 people singing this kind of corny heartfelt ballad about never being alone because they have the soccer team in their hearts, or something? Isn't that confusing? Like, on one level it's awesome, on another it's completely weird and not awesome at all.

You ever play a soccer video game? I have. At my friend's house. Guess what's the worst part of the game, other than trying to figure out how to play both soccer and video game soccer at the same time. The music. The music is AWFUL in a soccer video game.

You know how in an American video game like Grand Theft Auto they'll sometimes have a track that Snoop shitted out in like 5 seconds, and they'll play it over and over because they paid a bajillion dollars for it, and it's terrible but you understand and you're not mad at Snoop for it because it's just a video game and they gave him free money so they could say "soundtrack featuring Snoop" on the box?

Well, soccer video games are like that but for eurotrash/Britpop. It's the bottom rung of rock before you're doing commercial jingles, a mix of blatant cash grabs by "known" artists, and blatant exposure-grabs by shitty bands that don't know better and who have now reached the peak of their earning potential by selling one track to a video game for a lot less than Snoop got paid.

From what I can piece together out of my very mild curiosity about Muse, the studio stuff sounds like shitty eurotrash Britpop, and the live stuff (did I mention this was a live album? Whatever, if you don't have it, you probably won't ever) sounds like eurotrash Britpop with teasingly encouraging but overly-technical guitar sound in rough approximation of classic hard rock. In short, Muse belongs in a soccer video game. To their "credit," they'd probably be the least annoying song on it, though.


Guillemots
Red
[Polydor; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.8.

Ok guys. I get it. It's shitty Britpop day. Good one.

This one is a collection from the "I am running to the options menu as fast as my thumbs will go in order to turn off the music on this soccer video game" Greatest Hits album.


Elbow
The Seldom Seen Kid
[Geffen / Fiction; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.8.

This guy sounds exactly like Sting. It's like if Sting impulsively did a "rock" album from now instead of whatever chamber music chanteusing he's doing at the moment. Imagine the production on that Sting "rock" album. Clean as a whistle with, like, barely discernible drum kit wind chimes low in the mix but crisp enough to hear the full range of. Shit like that. Imagine the interactions with the session guys he hired for it, like how early on he yelled at them about how this is a "collaborative process" and that they have to share their opinions with him because "THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE HERE FOR," so now instead of just yes-manning him, they have to put up a token fight first before immediately caving and yes-manning him, because that way he feels true ownership of the resultant guitar effect that kicks in for 4 bars in the bridge of "Goodbye Lenore" before disappearing forever, and that way he'll also have somebody to "tease" in a "funny story" about that guitar effect, which he'll later relay to a reverential "reporter" who is there to film the alternatingly hilarious and infuriating making-of minidoc for VH1. I'm picturing the victim of this teasing to be a six-string bass player with a proclivity for slapping who has long, clean, thin, even salt-and-pepper hair salon dreadlocks: just an affable bass-playing guy who wears slim black t-shirts and chuckles obsequiously for his paycheck like Kevin Eubanks. I'm thinking the resultant album would inexplicably/predictably win 8 Grammys even though it's probably the 113th best recording that year.

But this isn't Sting. I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And I can't even tell if this is good or bad either. It's pretty enough, I guess. All I know is it got me caught up in a Sting reverie, and that sucks.


Colour Revolt
Plunder, Beg, and Curse
[Fat Possum; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.8.

Straight-ahead rock with shades of Cracker. At least they're not British. Oh wait. Tie-in from this band to the rest of the reviews so far from two years ago today.

This is a bad day. I'm actually enjoying listening to Cracker. Time to move on.


De Novo Dahl
Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound
[Roadrunner; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it 7.0.

When people write about rock, they use chickenshit shorthand. Often. It's just a way of saying that something is wholly unexceptional, but in a specific archetypal way. And that's fine because we're dealing with rock here, and its basic core has not changed (not even a little bit) since Chuck Berry et al climbed out of the primordial ooze of the jook joints, and there are only so many tricks you can pull until you cross an arbitrary line and become officially something other than rock. So there's a lot of stylistic overlap in the intervening territory, because The U.S. of Rock has a history which spans 65-odd years of (mostly) shitty bands. It seems only fair to catalog those tricks so you know where everybody's from.

So you get useless words like "dynamic" or "jagged" that aren't useless because they're part of a shorthand that means "pretentiously trying to reinvent the wheel of verse-chorus-verse a la Emerson, Lake & Palmer 'composition' goofs" or "trying to approximate the guitar solo from 'I Heard Her Call My Name' for the n-thousandth time." It's only natural. Sometimes a word is worth a thousand bands.

Anyway, this is dehydrated power pop. I can't describe it better than that. Dehydrated power pop in the tradition of forgettable Supergrass album cuts. That's what this is.

Pitchfork Reviews 4/15/08

M83
Saturdays=Youth
[Mute; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.5 and listed it as the 8th best album of 2008.

One of my many, many faults is an inability to avoid feeling disappointed when things aren't as good as I'd like them to be. It's a pretty common problem, I'd guess, but it's still a problem. I get upset. Easily. That's on me. It's got nothing to do with the thing that "caused" it, it's on me. It's my fault. I understand that about myself, but forgetting is easy in the heat of the moment.

M83 does a pretty good job of reminding me here. My initial reaction to this, which Pitchfork effusively calls "the best M83 album everrrrrr" (I'm paraphrasing), is disappointment. I got the first well-hyped M83 album that I can remember hearing about, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (their second LP, maybe first domestic release, I dunno). I remember kind of liking it. This feels like a more toned-down (if that's possible) version of that, often replacing whatever traces of menace could be found back there in 2003 with gutless early 90's-era British shoegaze pop songwriting. Which I like less. So at first I took it kind of personally and got disappointed. Not at M83, but that this direction is being so critically lauded. It's like the critical powers-that-be want everything to water itself down, which is not what I want! GAH!

But then the reminding happened.

For one, these guys are French. Expecting them to really really rock is kind of a useless exercise. They are French synth-dream-electro-pop. They fill in every square inch of tape with warm sounds and then lay a bunch of reverb over it. That's what they do. When I say that I "kind of liked" Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, I wasn't lying. I liked it. But only kind of. I'm not French. Or electro. Or particularly dreamy. Some of the harsher, more menacing and/or groove-based moments off of that album were my particular favorites, but it's not like "harsher, more menacing" for these guys is the same thing as, say Brainbombs. It's more like "kind of foreboding and minor key while still being warm and electro-synthy and French." Their vocals, especially, even on that album I kind of liked, were very French. Light-as-air borderline moaning, perhaps grammatically incorrect. I remember getting the album and thinking "this is ok, I get it though. Thanks, M83, this will be enough of you for me."

For another, once I adjust my expectations, this is really not that bad. Sure, they go a little dancey for my tastes a few times. And some of the female vocalist stuff is really, really far in the direction of letting their French flag fly. But there are highlights too. It's still dreamy and French and ambientelectropopsynthwavey. I don't know what else I would have been expecting. This is fine. It has its time and place. The bathtub, maybe. Or maybe like a bathtub party. I should have a bathtub party (no I shouldn't).

So... it's not like the critical powers-that-be have felled a giant redwood under the weight of massive peer pressure toward pop mediocrity or anything. This is just a French band making another French band album, and for some reason people grabbed onto it at the time because they were in the middle of the great April 2008 bathtub party. Or something. Either way, it doesn't involve me, and I should probably just relax and continue on my usual non-M83 course as planned.

In the meantime, here's a blurb for them:

"If you don't have another one of theirs, this one's fine."
-2 Year Lag


Sally Shapiro
Remix Romance Vol. 1
[Paper Bag; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

Ok, so: this is a remix album of the 2006 album Disco Romance, which was not released in the U.S. until 2007, so that leaves us with a lot to consider in terms both cultural and... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sally Shapiro is a Swede who makes techno disco pop. It's fun and cute if you're into that sort of thing. The end, forever, amen.


Toumani Diabaté
The Mande Variations
[World Circuit; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.

How am I supposed to judge this "artful musicianship" (like: here I am playing this music alone in the Sydney Opera House in front of throngs of politely golf-clapping imperialists) recording of a Malinese kora player? I've never even heard of a kora before, I don't think. Let me check. Nope. Heard it, but haven't heard of it. Which is more rare than vice versa.

Anyway, this guy's kora playing seems to be on par with what I expect, musically speaking, from a kora virtuoso who brings such weighty accolades along with his... I'm sorry. Is this for real? We've got to RATE this on a scale of one to ten? Why this amount? Are there exactly 1.7 albums which are more appropriate for the yoga studio gift shop?

I don't want to shit on anybody's rich cultural tradition, or put a glass ceiling on anybody's progress as a "serious musician" simply because their instrument of choice happens to be traditionally African, or play "pretend I know better when I don't" here. BUT: "Joshua Klein" doesn't sound like a Malinese name to me. It sounds more like somebody who's been suckered by white liberal guilt into helping this opportunistic (and probably very good from what the fuck I can tell) kora player get the fuck out of Mali, where everything is currently FUCKED. Which is all well and good, but has nothing to do with the actual music and everything to do with a knowledge-about-the-music-of-Mali jerkoff sesh.

What the fuck.

What the fuck.

Ok. Relax, me. This is fine. It's fine. It's fine. This guy is undeniably great at playing unaccompanied kora in a very sharp-sounding hermetically sealed recording studio that in no way reminds me of any of the admittedly second-hand and few things I've ever heard about Mali. Not liking it based on those grounds is prejudicial, probably racist, kowtowing to the authenticity falsehood, etc. So: this recording's only real crime is that it's not really my thing, with a boring misdemeanor. Breathe. There are other things besides my thing. In this case they reek of patchouli oil and Tom's of Maine toothpaste. Ok. That was a decent enough joke. I'm calm now. This is not the music's fault. Nor is it the fault of Joshua Klein's Pitchfork review. It's the fault of your Unitarian Universalist upbringing. This is just giving you flashbacks.


Team Robespierre
Everything's Perfect
[Impose; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

This is the cover. Imagine going on a blind date with a person who got a tattoo of this image. Now musically transcribe that exact feeling. It's pretty much the same: to the debatable extent to which this is fun, it's not my kind of fun.


Division Day
Beartrap Island
[Eenie Meenie; 2007]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.1 because it sucks.

I'm sorry, I'm still all worked up about that kora player thing.

Let's see... this sucks with occasional interesting moments where you think "maybe this won't suck," but in a ...Trail of Dead way that still kind of sucks, but just as you get your hopes up that it'll even get that good it reverts back to regular-sucking. Try your best not to take it personally when this happens. Remember: if you can't listen without getting upset, don't listen.