Pitchfork Reviews 5/1/08

Les Savy Fav
After the Balls Drop
[Frenchkiss; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.4.

I have to be honest: I have no idea why I'm doing this blog. It doesn't make any sense. As far as I can tell, there are only two reasons for 2 Year Lag's existence: 1. it's fun to write about music and 2. it's fun to bust Pitchfork's (tiny) balls. That's about it.

There are certainly no stakes. This shit is all two years old. If it's great, you'd probably know about it by now. Not necessarily from Pitchfork, but yeah, you'd probably know about it. If it's not, you've probably rightfully never heard of it, despite the best efforts of Pitchfork. Two years is long enough for everything here, great, good, or not, to not be on anybody's mind anymore. I can remember the best-of album lists from last year. 2008, I have no idea. Maybe I'm trying to make a point about how disposable everything is these days. Mostly I think I just want to point out how cosmically wrong Pitchfork is about Thee Oh Sees (I think they're quite possibly the best band going, though they seem to have been completely ignored by those P-Fork a-holes). But: there's no point in that, either. Pitchfork is what it is. (tiny balls)

But there are no stakes also because those of us tech-savvy enough to look at a blog like this one are debating our content-consumption decisions along consequences no more or less dire than "do I want to click on that?" The upshot is: anything we want is only as valuable as the time we spend pursuing it. Money is a secondary or nothingary consideration. The downshot is: nobody gives a shit about anything anymore and there's no reason to do anything and especially no reason to do anything that involves talking about another thing, especially something that's 2 years old. Except for those two reasons listed above. Fun and fun. And that's actually really good news. Fun should be a top-three reason to do a thing, along with "it's the right thing to do" and "because."

Anyway, Les Savy Fav recorded a live set that they did at 3am on New Year's Day, 2008 and then "released" it as an mp3-only (as far as I can tell, and I've gone about as far in the direction of research as I feel I need to) album. Guess what: you don't need to click on it. Unless you're a Les Savy Fav completist somehow in 2010 who's still unaware of this. Why did they play a show at 3am on New Year's Day 2008, record it, and then release it as an mp3-only album? Fun, it's the right thing to do, and because.


Tindersticks
The Hungry Saw
[Beggars Banquet / Constellation; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.1.

If you ever start dating somebody who you think is great and they're really into something that sounds like this, GET THE FUCK AWAY. They are A. probably nuts, B. definitely not over whoever they last dated, C. absolutely going to break your heart into a thousand tiny pieces in the most cruelly forgivable (makes it worse) way possible, and D. are, if you keep dating them, eventually going to make this (or whatever thing like it they're into) your cry album for the rest of your sad, lonely existence. Do you really need another cry album at this point in your life? No, you don't. Fuck this hauntingly beautiful shit and all of the collective hauntingly beautiful one-that-got-away horses it rode in on. You hear me, girls from college? DO YOU HEAR ME? UH-HUUUUHHHH-HUH-HUH (sniff).


New Bloods
The Secret Life
[Kill Rock Stars; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

D. Shawn Bosler opens his Pitchfork review with the observation that "Dance-y dub bass lines conjoined to spazzy tribal-punk drums isn't necessarily the rarest find."

I don't seem to remember spending April of 2008 up to my eyeballs in "dance-y dub bass lines conjoined to spazzy tribal-punk drums," wishing for any respite I could find from this autotune-level suddenly ubiquitous trend. That was a while ago, though. Maybe it happened and I forgot. Or else it totally happened, but only for cool people and I wasn't very cool back then. I'm certainly not now. It follows. For the record, though, I'd be perfectly happy if that statement were true in April, 2008. Or: ever. If that were ever true, it'd be just great as far as I'm concerned.

Bosler contends that the violin and loose, punky shouting nature of New Bloods is what sets them apart from the rest of the earth-shakingly immense "dance-y dub bass lines conjoined to spazzy tribal-punk drums" movement of April, 2008. I'd probably agree if I wasn't so far in the dark about that ENTIRE scene. Man. I am blowing it.

As it is, I get the feeling this is just three fun girls having fun in the great northwestern tradition, where three people like each other and want to be in a band, and then they do it even though one of them only knows how to play a violin (women like to play the violin for some reason, probably because it sounds like it's nagging you). And the result is a fun but disposable (it's an awful lot of violin) recording of the kind of fun these three people had hanging out together playing ESG-style no wave with a violin. "ESG-style no wave" because the ladies of ESG started up a funk/dance band because A. they loved fun and B. their mom got them instruments to keep them off of the streets, and the most technical they could get with their playing was a mid-tempo groove-based style that eventually got called "no wave" because it was neither forceful nor awe-inspiringly technical enough to be called anything else. But: it was still fun. The end.


Southeast Engine
A Wheel Within a Wheel
[Misra; 2007]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.1.

I've never been too big into "songwriting."

There's not another reason to be into this, and the songwriting isn't good enough to overcome the fact that it's the only good thing going on here.

I'm never going to be into this.


Chicha Libre
¡Sonido Amazonico!
[Barbès; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.9.

An American band from now pretending to be a Peruvian band from 1971. I wish I didn't know this, because then it would be more like "there's something I don't like about this but I can't put my finger on it. Even though there is nothing technically wrong with anything here, it seems like whatever it has going for it is missing something extremely important in the vitality department, like it's some smooth jazz band in a 48-track digital studio did an exact replica of Kind of Blue. It's just... not right somehow."

But thanks to knowing what it is, my finger is all the way on it. My middle finger.