Pitchfork Reviews 5/29/08

Nôze
Songs on the Rocks
[Get Physical; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

I'm going to listen to this whole thing because I have a feeling it's going to be the best thing I'll get to listen to all day.

Things it has going for it:

1. Silly.
2. French.

Strikes against it:

1. Techno.
2. French.

Just kidding, I'm not going to listen to this whole thing. I don't hate myself that much.


The Futureheads
This Is Not the World
[Nul; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.2.

There's some exact point in music, hovering around 1979, when the basis for "new wave" music switched irrevocably from punk to power pop. The power pop was there lurking since the beginning, but at some unrecognizable point majority sneers turned to majority smirks and it all just became a big funny joke.

And then stuff like this happened.

The rest is history: 80's popular music became a fun dayglo wash of bad ideas, and all the most intense stuff went underground, never to return until Nirvana came to the surface and blew everybody's mind like a thirty foot long giant squid cut from the gut of a beached sperm whale.

Now reminds me a little of then. How could it not? Pitchfork said that Cut Copy's In Ghost Colors is the 4th best album of 2008, and those guys have worn a tongue-shaped depression into their cheeks. It feels a lot like new wave all over again. Nu rave instead, maybe, but still. It's hot garbage.

But what can you do? Irony is a cat that won't be bagged again, and saying that music should be serious all the time is a ridiculous and indefensible position. Cut Copy (and The Mi-Sex, et al) have their own kind of fun. Fun is a good idea.

Not sure why the Futureheads are making me think of all this. They seem (from this) to just be a pretty straightforward mainstream cross between something British (middle/late period Gang of Four?) and the Foo Fighters. It's really just power pop. It's got nothing to do with punk or new wave or anything else really. Except it's not the lightest, funnest power pop I've ever heard. There's no apparent devotion to crafting hooks. It's kind of grave, with a hint of anger and defiance ("we are DOING THIS" variety). Maybe there's a sneer in there. Sometimes. Mostly it's just very middle of the road power pop. Which is an area so well-trod it no longer has any definable features or landmarks. It's just a wasteland.

I don't know what that means, even. This is not great, instead it is merely good (sometimes). And of course none of this matters enough for anybody to care. Maybe my point is if I had to choose between Futureheads and Cut Copy, I'd go with Futureheads all the live long day. Because they are just regular power pop. Wave, if you will. Rock even. Not great, maybe not even good, but it is simply one thing. If it's not a step in the right direction, it's at least not a big goofy pratfall in the worst direction (look at us, we're not even trying, ha ha ha, check out these hilarious synth noises and wacky sunglasses, wouldn't it be a hoot if you blew us? Please? We're nerds, this is all we could think of).

Thanks for maintaining your equilibrium, guys.


Al Green
Lay It Down
[EMI; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

"What if Al Green never had scalding hot grits hurled at him?" is one of the great non what-if's in rock history. Basically nothing would be different, except for the slim chance that he would have given us one entertainingly awful cocaine disco album. I doubt it. He probably wasn't going to go in that direction, grits or no. Too much soul, not enough hubris. His is the kind of a career you can expect from a gigantic talent who somehow never stopped believing in a power greater than himself, even though he probably could have.

I'm not disappointed by it, by the way. Everything worked out just fine. I'd put him in the soul version of that Nighthawks drawing you see in diners with Bogart, James Dean, Elvis, and Marilyn in it. He's right there at the counter with Marvin, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding. I'll give it to him. It's not his fault those grits didn't kill him. Actually, that's the real what-if at play here. He would have been totally untouchable had those grits come with a .22 caliber chaser. Imagine.

Not that I'm rooting for anybody to be dead. It's just, you know, that's how legends are made. Nobody would ever talk about Jim Morrison if he had straightened up and started teaching English Lit classes at Vassar (you can laugh, but a liberal arts degree is just about that big of a joke), which is essentially what Al Green did (Al Green version) after those grits.

This is a secular music album Al Green did in 2008. It's great, just great. Here's what Douglas Wolk says about it:

But there's something unsettlingly nostalgic and hollow about Lay It Down that comes to the surface when you listen closely to it.

I'd add that there's also something "unsettlingly nostalgic and hollow" about classic-era Al Green "that comes to the surface when you listen closely to it." Namely: sure, it's perfection, but how many times am I gonna sit down on purpose and focus my full attention on "Let's Stay Together?" Can't I just wait until I hear it come on over the speakers in some toll road restroom somewhere, and get my little dose of perfection that way? Or else hear it on the radio when I'm desperate for a change of pace from my oh so clever noise rock mixtapes.

Classic Al Green has its time and place forever, but that time and place is in forever. As in he's a pull-it-out-of-the-ether level saturation point. Just like his buddies Marvin, Sam, and Otis. It's just about the highest plateau you can get to. Except those guys are dead and not making records anymore. And now we have this, which is reminding us of the classic Al Green, which we don't really need to be reminded of anyway because we already have it all the time inside of us at this point. It's a weird phenomenon and I don't like it.

God bless you, Al Green. You're in our hearts. Now leave us alone, please.


Etran Finatawa
Desert Crossroads
[Riverboat; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

Confession time: I didn't listen to this exact album per se.

Confession time: I don't think it makes a huge difference.

Confession time: I like this anyway.

Confession time: I will probably never buy anything that sounds like this, not because of anything wrong with the music, more because I am afraid that if I bought a bunch of Tuareg Rock, I'd get sucked into some kind of authenticity spiral and follow the slippery slope until eventually wearing sandals and doing a ton of yoga and using that crystal stuff that doesn't work instead of deodorant.

Confession time: I can be shallow and stupid sometimes.

Confession time: I don't think it makes a huge difference.


The Cinematic Orchestra
Live at the Royal Albert Hall
[Ninja Tune; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.6.

You can tell somebody takes themselves too seriously when their band is called "The Cinematic Orchestra" and the album is "Live at the Royal Albert Hall" and the first song is not "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Pitchfork Reviews 5/28/08

Mount Eerie
Black Wooden Ceiling Opening EP
[P.W. Elverum & Sun; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

This is the guy who used to call himself The Microphones.

So he went from this to this.

Isn't it all pretty emo? Can't I just call this emo and move on?


Dominique Leone
Dominique Leone
[Stromland; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.

Credit where credit is due: this is probably the best thing I've ever read on Pitchfork.


Indian Jewelry
"Free Gold!"
[We Are Free; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.2.

Here's something that interests me and probably nobody else: to what extent can you/should you actively participate in the unfurling of culture if your primary role is as an observer?

I'm not talking about the passive dollar votes variety of participation, where you like the things you like and Google has your fucking number and tells you about more things that you're supposed to computer-engine-like, and you either get all-the-way involved in your own tastes in consumables or else you keep a level head and don't. All options are available to you. But I'm not talking about that, except maybe I am talking about that. Most of that stuff is solved with "everybody has their own equilibrium to find."

I'm talking about whether you can or should influence other people, and how much, and why. Good news is that thanks to the internet, the genie's pretty far out of the bottle as far as people's ability to satisfy their own curiosity about any one thing. And that's very good news, because if you people are anything like me, then you're all rubes who will do anything you're told. The trick is finding people who are telling you what you want to hear. That's the bad news about the internet. Depending on whatever half-cooked ideology you have floating around in your noodle, you can find somebody out there, likely monetized by Google ads, to tell you more or less what you think.

And this is why everything's fucking insane (except it's not really) and a buncha people are running around in tea party costumes waving pitchforks and torches around for the first reasonable smartguy president we've had in 8 years. We don't want reasonable smartguy presidents. Some guy on a TV told us to get mad, and we enjoy being mad, so we listened to him, and now he's getting soap company admoney bigbucks. But we actually took the stuff he's saying to heart because we're rubes. Or else we're not rubes, we don't believe that we should get angry because we believe that this president is smart. And we believe that we're smart too, and we read all about how smart we are on Huffington Post (monetized by Google ads) and it also told us about recipes for organic rhubarb pies that we want to try the next time we go to the farmer's market because that's what's fun. Good thing we're not rubes, us smart people who don't listen to things that are tailor-made for our viewpoints.

Why am I even going there? Because this album reminds me of diametrically opposed sources of information that I get about music. On the one hand we have Pitchfork, who are typically very academic and dry but who also aggregate everything that's going on in the world of "indie" music into a handy jumping-off point for the world's curious to investigate things further (and for everybody else to just agree to buy as many Wilco albums as possible). On the other hand I have these updates from Permanent Records, which are usually loaded to the gills with great links to blogs, bands, tiny fun labels, and other random awesome shit. But they also have a specific agenda, namely: buy all of these fucking records that we're telling you are good, buy them from us, and do it right now, you fucking rube, there's no time to waste because there are only going to be so many of these records and these ones are going to be purple and we're awesome and we love it and don't you love it too.

As strange as it is to say about a site that assigns scale of one to ten number values to every thing they listen to, Pitchfork does a pretty good job of not making value judgments. They just describe the music and then tell you a bunch of shit from gossip and press releases as to why it might be the way it is in the case of the particular artist, and then they tell you whether or not they think the person or people could have done better. All of which is fine but boring if you don't give a shit.

Maybe they give you a little bit of larger context for why this might be a right place right time album. But as far as proselytizing musical directions, they barely say anything about why it may or may not be good to have people make the music they're making at that moment. You won't hardly ever see them say "thank God for Fleet Foxes, we really needed this one, what with the way things have been going lately." They'll just say "Fleet Foxes: 9.1" and to their credit you're by and large supposed to draw your own conclusion about why they might feel that way. (hint: they're cunts)

So they'll tell you if they think something is good, and they'll tell you why,

I appreciate the restraint even though I often find myself eager to disagree with their conclusions. And it's fun to call them cunts.

The above review essentially calls Indian Jewelry's "Free Gold!" boring, derivative, and unnecessary. Ok. I don't necessarily disagree with that assessment. I disagree heartily with the between-the-lines implication that stuff like this, and it's your basic fuzz-drone heavy/slow psychedelia, should not be encouraged. For my part, I would like to encourage Indian Jewelry to continue making music in whatever manner they see fit. You guys are better than U2 as far as I'm concerned, in that I'd rather listen to "Free Gold!" than Achtung Baby. By a long shot.

What about those Permanent Records updates, though? Well, they're very much active in making value judgments. We like this, more of this please. That kind of a thing. And it's all pet project stuff. The guys and gal go out, listen to things from the far reaches of the world, culled from the internet and good old analogue communication venues such as ears and talking, buy a buncha stuff they like for their store, and then foist it on us poor suckers. They've actively formed an aesthetic and they're going to proselytize and convert using nothing more complicated than their own enthusiasm. I appreciate their complete lack of restraint.

The mitigating factor is they're running a business. Of course everything they're selling is the best thing ever, and of course they're the best place to get it. It's not a total shuck job, because their enthusiasm is genuine, and they are at the very least a good place to get all of the stuff the sell. The shuck is more of a sidewinder, where they're gonna keep the shop afloat so they can keep up their awesome life of just sitting around and surrounding themselves with a bunch of esoteric shit that they love. Still, though they'll stock some Vampire Weekend albums as a gateway drug for the weirdo shit that they're really into, they're not going to spend any time talking about Vampire Weekend's use of harmony in a mass email. But you do have to listen. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and it'll make you (read: me) think you want something sight unseen. If you're a rube like the rest of us, these guys are dangerous.

And they are all kinds of thankful when somebody comes along and makes music of a sort that they like, and in the case of Indian Jewelry, regardless of how the guys might like or dislike "Free Gold!", they will be the first to tell you that anything accurately described as fuzz-drone heavy/slow psychedelia is probably a step in the right direction. And I tend to agree with them on that front. But I'd probably choose to get off that bus right before it stops at its terminus in "so buy this album from us." Probably. I've listened to this four times in a row now, heading for five.

Luckily this is two years old and probably out of print on vinyl. Nope, just checked. It's $14 from the label, probably sold out of the limited-to-200 yellow vinyl run. Decent chance I would have been suckered into that one had I caught it the first time around. I'm such a fucking rube.

So here's the thing. For a normal-minded person, an abiding affinity for all things fuzzdroney would tend to make one more likely to start up a fuzzdrone band and become what you love. I mean there's bitching and moaning and/or getting psyched about what directions things are going in, and then there's going or not going in that direction. That's the cure. If you're really upset or else really inspired, you should spend your money on amps and not records. Me. Lest you become rube or, worse, rube bait rather than balanced, life-living human. Except if you don't have a shred of musical talent, write a blog, and if you're neurotic and egotistical enough to be worried about causing any kind of harm or amplifying the overwhelming rube-baiting hype machine, make it about things that are 2 years old. And don't worry. It's not like anybody's gonna read it or anything.

Anyway, I give Indian Jewelry's "Free Gold!" an OK point thanks.


Fat Ray & Black Milk
The Set Up
[Music House; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.3.

This is a pretty decent producer/emcee collaboration. The beats are good. I just spent like 70 minutes looking at this website while it was on. Ernie B gets an A+. These guys? Meh.


Delays
Everything's the Rush
[Polydor / Fiction; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.7.

I never got into Lost, but now I'm watching it with my girlfriend. It's one of those shared activities that we like because we share it more than we like the actual activity. It's a dumb show masquerading as a smart show, full of empty platitudes and expository dialogue. Nobody needs to watch it.

SPOILER ALERT: Delays are Driveshaft.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/27/08

Estelle
Shine
[Atlantic; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

Well, I'll be damned. I just had "American Boy" stuck in my head for a little while after hearing it in some place where I was expected to spend money. I forget where it was. I tend to go on full body shutdown if I spend more than 7 minutes in any place of business with a floor plan larger than 10,000 square feet. Put me in a shopping mall and I will soon go psychosomatically blind. I am not bragging. I'm not glad that this happens to me. I don't like being a neurotic agoraphobe.

But it's maybe an interesting phenomenon. And it kind of relates to how I feel about big business hit-machine R&B. I had no idea that "American Boy" was this person who calls herself Estelle. If you were to put her in a lineup with Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, and one of the Destiny's Children that's not Beyonce, and I'd have a one-in-four chance of picking her out. My method would involve a guy named Moe catching a tiger by the toe and seeing if he hollers.

Is this awful? Maybe, I don't think so. I'd probably guess Mary J. Blige, because she was the crackhead from the projects that sang her way out, right? She did that amazing version of "I'm Goin' Down" in like 1993 or something. I'd feel bad about getting that one wrong. And Rihanna too because the "This is Why I'm Hot" guy beat the shit out of her and I think there's some magazine cover where she's super hot. That's about all I know. Oh wait. Different guy. The guy who beat the shit out of Rihanna was not the "This is Why I'm Hot" guy, it was some other guy.

Oh wait, what about Ke$ha? White. According to the internet, she's white. Ok. I didn't know that. I still don't know what she sings. I just know she's got a dollar sign in her name and she sings one of the songs that's everywhere all the time. And she's not Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is the one with the cigarette sunglasses and the electrical tape on her boobs.

Lilly Allen is the British one that got drunk at an awards ceremony and Amy Winehouse is the British one whose face melted. Lady Sovereign is the British one who raps and is tiny and also her career is over by now I think because her whole thing that made people like her is she's just kidding, so she's basically just a tiny British girl Eminem.

This is kind of a fun game.

Spencer Gifts is the one with the Homer Simpson slippers where you put your feet in his mouth and the t-shirts with the Budweiser frogs on them. Forever 21 is where teenage girls go to buy clothes that make them look like sluts. Coffee Beanery is all kinds of flavored coffee. Limited is clothes, I think. I don't know if it's women's or men's, but it's only one. The Gap, duh. I'm not that stupid, I know what the Gap is. American Apparel is the one with all the porn where they think "large" means "still only 3% body fat, but 6'5" tall." Cinnabon sells cinnamon buns, so that's pretty straightforward. Sunglass Hut would be self-explanatory except it's not a hut, but close enough.

Yup, it's roughly the same. And listening to this now is kind of like shopping at a thrift store and seeing a label that says "JoS. A. Bank" and being pretty sure that it's a semi well-made shirt that you should buy if it fits you and the pit stains aren't too bad. Score. And then you get it home and it never feels right and you don't ever wear it. But at least you didn't waste a ton of money. That's exactly what this is, but for music.

Oh hell. Maybe I am bragging about being a ridiculous agoraphobe. Is that so wrong? Can you please squish those Ho-Ho's and slide them under my bedroom door? I'm starving in here.


Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Lie Down in the Light
[Drag City; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.7 and listed it as the 42nd best album of 2008.

There is only one hit on Google if you search for "I don't like Bonnie 'Prince' Billy" and it's a reviewer guy who says how much he likes this one Bonnie "Prince" Billy song even though he usually doesn't like Bonnie "Prince" Billy. And also you can pay the reviewer guy money for buying a Bonnie "Price" Billie song, I think. I don't like Bonnie "Prince" Billy. There. Now there are two Google hits. Welcome, online community of me and one other dude.

I find that very hard to believe, by the way. In the whole expanse of the backbiting internet there are only two people who would say that? I would also like to join the other guy who said Bonnie "Prince" Billy is boring, and the other guy who says "Will Oldham is a douche." Other online search communities: I would also like to start up a safe internet have for anybody who might think that "great or not, there are at least a thousand musical acts that are exactly like anything Will Oldham does, so it must not be all that special."

Also, welcome other people who might be curious about "was John the Baptist gay?" or "who the fuck ate all the chocolate pudding?"


The Wedding Present
El Rey
[Vibrant; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.

Uhhhh. I was thinking about all kinds of crappy bands that I could compare this to and I stumbled upon an Earth-shaking revelation. Chavez were joking. I was 16. I had no idea. I just thought they were a regular crappy band with no sense of humor. Instead they were a crappy band with the best sense of humor of all time. This is crazy. I wish somebody had told me.

It doesn't change anything, it's just... this is worse than the time at age 15 when I finally figured out that "what's black and white and red... a newspaper" was a shitty pun about "red/read" and not a straightforward explanation of the Sunday coupons for the meat place back before every newspaper was in color. They were just literally black and white and red. I am mortified by myself right now.

This is why I default to "jerk" all the time. Because I'm gullible and stupid as hell, and I'd prefer for people to think I'm a jerk rather than knowing for a fact that I'm a total fucking idiot. I'm sure my Dad was like "this fucking kid is a jerk" when he told that black/white/red/read gag line to a 6 year old me and I gave him a noncommittal fake chuckle and then walked away. He didn't know I was regrouping, trying desperately to figure out why the fuck that was a joke and not just an observation about coupons shoehorned into a joke format. But at least my Dad didn't think I was an idiot. And fair's fair, that gag has dust on it. Fake chuckle walkaway is a justifiable response.

Still, I probably should have figured it out in less than 9 years.

And here I am. The Chavez "Unreal Is Here" video took me 14 years to decode. I probably would have cracked the code sooner if I had watched it again even one time in my life after seeing it on 120 Minutes in 1995, and it's not like I was wrong to not be too into Chavez, joking or not. But still. This stings. I'm a dumbass.

Anyway, I think The Wedding Present is a crappy band and this is a crappy album, but I might be wrong about that in 14 years. They might be joking.


The Sword
Gods of the Earth
[Kemado; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.3.

I wish the wait wasn't so fucking long here. 2 hours? This place sucks. It's just a fucking cheeseburger, anyway. You guys just want to go?


Various Artists
Imaginational Anthem Vol. 3
[Tompkins Square; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.1.

I don't get it. It's always been weird to me there's a whole genre's worth of "dudes who do things on acoustic guitar." Are there that many Audubon Society gift shops? How many laggy "just look at the majesty" montage sections of poorly-produced 70's nature documentaries about the moose need scoring? If all of this stuff disappeared off the face of the Earth tomorrow, who would be upset about it? I wouldn't be one of those people. Maybe I need to go back to Camp Stonerraggaheehaw and this time take all the Indian culture-appropriation stuff more seriously.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/23/08

Free Kitten
Inherit
[Ecstatic Peace!; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.7.

Kim Gordon is the least talented member of Sonic Youth. I don't think that's a particularly awful thing to say. It's pretty far beside the point. Her lack of talent is as much a part of that band as weirdly tuned guitars and feedback. That's just her deal: she's not super talented, she moans things in a distinctive way, she plays bass, and she at least has pretty impeccable taste, which is a lot better than a tasteless but super talented musician like the drummer from the Dave Matthews Band, unless of course she's writing atrocious high school poetry (still at age 50 or however old). But whatever. Think of it as a goof and it works. "Talent" has always been a bullshit mirage anyway.

I'm less familiar with Julie Cafritz, but Pussy Galore is also a "talent: moot" band. And a great one at that.

So these two do Free Kitten together. And I guess it's always had a tossed-off side project quality to it. Good thing too, because if it were a result of years of serious dedication, you'd be like, "what?" Instead of just being like, "oh yeah, a toss-off in the tradition of The Fugs but with a fuzzguitar girl-power vibe, ok!" This one goes in a slow, meandering, turgid repetitive psyche direction that's generally the kind of thing you hear in a record store on a rainy day and you're glad somebody put it on but you're not going to buy it because you don't really need to. Talent level moot.


HEALTH
DISCO
[Lovepump United; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

If somebody wanted to, and I don't want to, they could argue that modern techno and dance music is the last original form of psychedelic music. It certainly replicates a certain drug experience. It also straddles the intersection between lame and fun and so-lame-it's-fun in a way that jam bands are never going to pull off. Sure. You could say a lot of musicologist shit about this stuff. If you wanted to.

You could also theorize about how the 2000's were all about the merging of previously disparate music genres, among them techno and punk. The Rapture and DFA and !!! and Out Hud started us out, and then otherwise-would-be-into-punk kids fell into some kind of a weird rabbit hole where for some reason (fear, George W. Bush, another reason I can't think of now) they liked the techno stuff more than the fact that it was super in-your-face, and now we're stuck with stuff like Cut Copy and this HEALTH. Which might be goofs on techno where everybody has a blast joke dancing but then to their own complete lack of horror finds that the joke dancing has turned into real dancing and then joke making out with a girl who might be a dude turns into a big mistake later but who cares ah ha ha aren't we fun? I guess that's still a kind of punk rock attitude to have, but the fact remains: it's fucking techno. To a certain point, that's our soundtrack of the decade. Sucks. Sucks, guys.

Oh right: the drug experience that techno replicates is cocaine. You know, the drug that makes you talk like a fucking idiot all night long? It's the drug that makes everything interesting except you. Techno is the proof. And ironic technopunk like this is just the last remnants of the cocaine comeback. We need to ditch it for weed. Those California weed law changes came not a moment too soon. Maybe even heroin would be better. Musically speaking. And wouldn't it be great if it weren't so hard to score some acid?


Crystal Stilts
Crystal Stilts
[eMusic Select / Woodsist; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

Despite overwhelming odds related to the fact that this band is called "Crystal Stilts" and is a lo-fi pop band with a record out on low-fi pop powerhouse label Woodsist, I like this. I don't know that I like it a lot or would listen to it a whole bunch of times, but some is enough these days. Crystal Stilts gets a mental bullet point if I see their stuff in the bargain bin some day.


The Drift
Memory Drawings
[Temporary Residence; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.0.

I heard about this online. It's good. It's really pretty good. I mean, it's got like long, slow instrumental rock but also there's horns in there. I'm having a hard time cracking it, but that's just because it's "challenging."


Neva Dinova
You May Already Be Dreaming
[Saddle Creek; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 3.9.

I got nothing today. Sorry guys. Trying to think about anything that this makes me think of is giving me a headache. It makes me think of listening to something else. That's the God's honest truth. It's simple-lyric singer songwriter stuff with a low, spare croon. Throw a rock at your own music collection, you'll hit it. Don't worry if it breaks. It's no big loss.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/22/08

Ellen Allien
Sool
[BPitch Control; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

I put this on and then did something else and kind of forgot it was on.

So mission accomplished, I guess.


Various Artists
Street Sounds Electro: The Ultimate Boxed Set
[Street Sounds; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.2.

Are you a DJ? If no, skip to next review. If yes, continue to the next paragraph.

There's a 22-volume collection of old school rap and early electro music that, as far as I can tell, is no longer available anywhere except on a blog called "Def Momentum." Congratulations on your awesome life, by the way.


Apes
Ghost Games
[Gypsy Eyes; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.2.

This reminds me of some minor-league hard rock band from the 70's. The kind of thing you think you might want to like but then you listen to it and you don't like it enough. Slade, maybe. This is Slade.


Buckshot
The Formula
[Duck Down; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.7.

When I was in Spanish 1 in my freshman year of high school circa spring of 1994 there were two dudes who sat next to me who used to argue all class long about whether Buckshot was better than Nas. Actually, one dude said Buckshot was better than Nas, and the other dude was like "Buckshot ain't better than Nas." And then the Buckshot guy would be like "argument argument argument" and the other dude was like "Buckshot AIN'T better than NAS." And it went on, the same thing over and over and over again with only slight variances in emphasis in the phrase "Buckshot ain't better than Nas" for a whole semester. To the point where if I ever hear about either Buckshot or Nas doing anything, I think to myself "Buckshot ain't better than Nas" by rote, as if programmed by the Manchurian Candidate people.

At one point when the "Buckshot ain't better than Nas" guy was particularly exasperated, he turned to me and asked "is Buckshot better than Nas?" And even though I hadn't and still haven't heard anything by Buckshot or Black Moon, I said "Buckshot ain't better than Nas." And he said "THANK YOU" and turned to his friend with a shrug as if to say "see, even this nerdy white boy agrees."

So now I get a chance to investigate. Black Moon's Enta Da Stage is a classic. Nas's Illmatic is a classic. Ok. How about this tidbit from Vincent Thomas's review of Enta Da Stage on allmusic:

"Buckshot said he, Evil Dee, and the 5Ft Accelerator recorded half of the album -- the "Who Got da Props" half -- in 1992 before he went on tour with Kool G Rap and a young Nasty Nas. During a freestyle cipher, listening to Nas and Kool G Rap led Buckshot to an epiphany that motivated him to switch up his rhyme-style, and da Beatminerz tweaked their production to complement."

Ok, so Buckshot heard Nas do a freestyle and then changed everything he did.

Score one big victory for the Buckshot ain't better than Nas guy.

Anyway, this is alright, I guess. It's not better than Nas. Even 2008 Nas.


Witch
Paralyzed
[Tee Pee; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.9.

So this is a perhaps semi-goof stoner sludge rock band from now with J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. on the drums. What's the deal with all of these? Is it the California weed laws?

Anyhow, I like this more than I like Apes. Tongue in cheek or not, the goal here is to rock first and say things second. Sure it's not the best, but that's the proper ordering of priorities for a rock band.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/21/08

The National
The Virginia EP
[Beggars Banquet; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.3.

My brain has always dismissed The National as "not Silver Jews." It's both unfair (deep-voiced songwriter guy does not have to equal Silver Jews) and fair (factually, this is not Silver Jews). I would rather listen to Silver Jews, though. All The National does is remind me that I'm either in the mood for Silver Jews or not. But that doesn't mean it's bad. You can be really really good and not be as good as Silver Jews. I like Silver Jews. Silver Jews.


The Cool Kids
The Bake Sale EP
[Chocolate Industries; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.8.

At the height of bling rap I was joking around with my brothers about a fake song I made up called "Diggity Gold." It was a fun enough goof that my brain latched onto it. "Gold gold gold diamonds, diggity gold. Gold gold gold strippers, diggity strippers." I think if I had actually done something about it, it could have been a novelty hit on par with "Fuck Shit Stack." The problem (among many) was I didn't have any good rhymes in there and I'm a terrible, terrible rapper. The one good joke rhyme I came up with was "I order three cheeseburgers, I only eat one/get the gold beef patty on the gold beef bun."

You don't have to think it's funny. I did. I do.

Anyway, these guys could slide a gold beef bun rhyme into their stuff no problem and it would sound totally natural. They're the funnest fun joke that's still good to dance to and listen to rappers since Spank Rock. Oh, wait: "Supermodels queef on my gold teeth for fun." Yes. Quality follow up.


Various Artists
Soul Messages from Dimona
[Numero Group; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.4.

I've written about Numero Group's penchant for story over content before, but this is probably the best story they've ever had. To the point where I really really really wish I liked this more than I do. It's a buncha Black Hebrew nationalists from Chicago that moved to Dimona, Israel and self-recorded soul tracks in Hebrew. It's an awesome story and the pictures are amazing.

The music? Medium good soul funk.


Devastations
Yes, U
[Beggars Banquet; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.

I thought this was gonna be electronic if a little dark, but it turned to straight-up goth rock in a hurry. What's up with Australians? Why do they need to sound so spooked out all the time? Is it the whole toilets-going-backwards thing? Couldn't be. Brazilians have backwards toilets too and their music is delightful. It must be the didgeridoo. I'd be spooked out too if that's all I ever heard when I was walking around town. It's got to be the most annoying instrument of all time.


Flying
Faces of the Night
[Menlo Park; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.8.

Andrew Gaering has his undies in a major league wad over the fact that this Flying album sounds different from their first album. I haven't heard that first album. This one sounds pretty good to me. It reminded me of Danielson Famile in that it's quirky and there are all kinds of instruments and quickchange arrangement tricks.

So I listened to a little of Fetch the Compass Kids. And man: Danielson Famile is annoying. No wonder everybody got so excited when Sufjan Stevens stole all the same arrangement stuff but didn't sound like somebody was stepping on his voice box. So I listened to some Sufjan Stevens. Nope. Still annoying. Actually worse than Danielson Famile.

Then I went back to listening to Flying and it sounded a lot better than Danielson Famile. Then I got curious about that first Flying album that Andrew Gaering says is like the total best. So I listened to some of that, and it's annoying me like it's Danielson Famile. So I went back to this second album one, and now that's annoying me too, even if still less than everything else I've been through on this horrible annoying journey.

Now I know what everybody's talking about when they say "quirky" is a descriptor of the worst things ever. It's like a neurotic subset of "cute." Which itself is a subset of "annoying." This music needs to grow up and stop showing me how fast it can run "to here to here" in its new sneakers. The grown-ups are talking, Flying. Hush.

And for good measure, just in case, I'm also kicking Zooey Deschanel out of my brain. There. I don't even know who that is anymore.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/20/08

Mudhoney
Superfuzz Bigmuff Deluxe Edition
The Lucky Ones
[Sub Pop; 2008]

Pitchfork gave them a 9.1 and a 7.2.

You know what's weird? Guilty displeasures. Mudhoney has always been a guilty displeasure of mine. I can say honestly that I prefer Mudhoney to Mother Love Bone though, and as I understand things, that's the only test I'm supposed to pass. Yeah. You know what? I don't feel guilty about it. I don't like Mudhoney. Never have. I like the idea of Mudhoney, and if an 8 year old me had somehow heard "Touch Me I'm Sick" before hearing "Welcome to the Jungle," my nascent ideas about what it means to rock the fuck out might have grown to take a very different shape.

But 8 year old me was not wrong to be blown away by "Welcome to the Jungle." So maybe all is well.

Listening to Mudhoney now, I get the sense that I'm supposed to have a Rat Fink poster in my crappy Spielburg-esque teenager bedroom that's covered in dirty gym socks, and I'm supposed to be asleep floating in the pool wearing just jeans and sunglasses when the annoying comic relief neighborhood kid wakes me up and I have to race to school as the title sequence plays and the movie starts. In other words, they're the most offensive-to-parents "I hate high school and maybe I'm also a werewolf" rawknoise anybody could come up with in the late 80's. Which is great. And it's great that they just kept doing the same thing forever. They're like a late-80's version of The Ramones that way. But as far as I'm concerned, the fun is more from opening an evocative time capsule than actually listening to something. I'm sorry, wish it wasn't true, but that's pretty much where I stand.


Islands
Arm's Way
[Anti-; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.2.

Remember when Montreal was the home of every big "it" band? Like Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade and The Stills and these guys and a bunch more? Ever watch Much Music? We had it in an apartment I lived in in college. Tons of Sloan and Kardinal Offishall videos. It was crappy but kind of cute, and it taught me a valuable lesson that I will take with my to my dying day: when a bunch of Canadians are telling you how to rock, it's a dead giveaway that something very bad is happening.


Thank You
Terrible Two
[Thrill Jockey; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.

I once lived on a cruise ship for 4 months.

The short version of the story is: I got a job on a cruise ship and I took it, and then I lived on a cruise ship for 4 months.

By the time I got off, I was starving for anything that ran counter to the accepted, materialistic, take-it-easy you're on vacation "Hot Hot Hot" monoculture they subject you to from built-in speakers hidden in every crevice of the whole demonic resource-suck of a vessel. I would have wept for joy if somebody had taken me to a Thank You show. They're "experimental" tribalskronk rockers from Baltimore in the repetitive hypno-groove vein. FYI.

Now, though, I don't know. I've been doing a pretty good job of not forcing myself to do the limbo for the last 4 months. Not sure I need to be blasted out of my own psyche by something like this. Not at the moment, no.


Silje Nes
Ames Room
[FatCat; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.2.

This is cute, soft, and pretty female vocalist stuff in the Bjork vein, and I'm in the middle of a big fight with my girlfriend so I fucking hate it. I also probably hate it when I'm not in the middle of a big fight with my girlfriend, but then I'd usually just turn it off instead of actually getting mad at it for existing.


Jaymay
Autumn Fallin'
[Blue Note; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.5.

I don't like this music. I would prefer not to ever have to listen to it again. If you're giving me a ride and you're in the mood to listen to this, I would rather walk. I'm serious. I won't even be mad. Just let me know "hey, I'm in a shitty mood and I don't want to give you a ride" and I'll just walk home. You don't even have to give me any notice. Just text me from home, "I went home," and that will be totally fine by me. As long as I'm not waiting for a ride that's not coming or worrying about where you are. If you're in a really shitty mood, you could even just tell your mom that you're home and that you're mad at me, and when you're running late enough and not answering your phone I'll be totally fine with talking to her and finding out that way that I need to start walking home. It doesn't matter how far away I am, either. I can get home. As long as I don't have to listen to this stuff. That's how much I hate this music. I can understand that you'd like it. It is cute and girly and maybe somehow vaguely empowering. Maybe you like it simply because you know I would hate it. Fine by me. And it's fine with me if you like it, but I don't. I hate it. Hearing it is the sonic equivalent of slapping me in the face and dumping my records all over the living room. I'm entitled to my opinion, and that is my opinion. You do not have to agree with it. I'm just being honest, here. And I don't think it's a lot to ask not to subject me to something I hate. If you hated something that much and you told me about how much you hated it, I would not subject you to it. I have done this numerous times. For example: I quit smoking, and that's fucking HARD.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/19/08

Scarlett Johansson
Anywhere I Lay My Head
[Rhino / Atco; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.5.

Damn, I was really hoping to never listen to this. Scarlett Johansson is a brat. Her one trick is having a husky voice and looking vaguely like the bad girl from next door who smokes cigarettes, and she's ridden it admirably far while at the same time having impeccable enough taste and remaining aloof enough to mask most of her deficiencies as an actress.

This sounds a lot like a limited talent with good taste in songwriting who's gotten together with a devoted and knowledgeable producer and hired a great band. Like most everything else she does, it seems like a lot of creative, experienced, hard-working professionals poured all of their considerable energies together in order to make her look as good as they possibly could.

Listening to this is like overhearing some kind of a quid pro quo daterape-tinged richguy boozy come-on in a dark corner of some swanky Hollywood party I have no business attending. Like everybody's being an asshole, and nobody is concerned for anybody else's feelings and I don't know anybody and this leery guy is telling obvious lies to bed this girl who doesn't seem either into it or particularly not, she's just kind of haggling more than objecting. And it might work or not but nobody seems to really care, and either way they're both not acting like I'm even in the room, so I'm not gonna take sides or even try to make the best of things by stealing something that looks expensive or pissing on the bathroom floor. It wouldn't matter to these people anyway. I'm sad that people get like this, and I feel like a worm. I'm just gonna go home.

I knew it. Shouldn't have come.


Various Artists
The Green Owl Comp: A Benefit for Energy Action
[Green Owl; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.6.

Alright, assholes. I've got three choices here:

1. Buy this and listen to it.

2. Try to track it down for free, hence "screwing" the Energy Action Coalition out of some money they would supposedly use (after administrative costs, natch) for pressuring universities into going green. That's what the internet told me they do.

3. Just not listen to it.

Guess which one I went with. Hint: this has a Pete Yorn track on it.


Various Artists
Carolina Funk: First in Funk 1968-1977
[Now-Again / Jazzman; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.2.

Holy shit, I already have this. It feels like it's been WAY more than 2 years, that's how forgettable it is.

Forgive me:

This is maybe as good a time as any to talk about downloading and its moral implications. I am of the opinion that it's generally fine. I talked to a guy who's fairly well respected in some of the circles I run in, and he said "I don't like to steal from artists. Because I'm an artist and I don't like for people to steal from me." I was like "way to call yourself an artist, dude." In my head I said that.

If you like something you got for free, you become a fan of it and become more likely to spend money on future efforts of the people who made it. If you don't like something you got for free, you will at least not be mad at it for stealing your money, and it will have a chance to survive on its own with people who do like it, rather than being (sometimes justifiably) decried by a legion of angry dupes as "the worst moneygrab bullshit that's ever come along."

Things for free is a good idea for artists. Promotes meritocracy. If you give everything away for free and nobody likes it, that tells you something. If you give everything away for free and people like it so much they are willing to pay for it, that tells you something too. When you get something for free that's otherwise available for money, the only artists you're really stealing from are the people whose "art" falls somewhere between "I'd pay money for this" and "I don't even want this for free." In other words: the music industry rewards mediocrity and then treats that like it's some kind of a moral obligation, because these are "artists" and they're being "stolen from" rather than "shitty bands" that are being "checked out to see if they're shitty."

I tend to take a very tough-luck stance on "art" as a "career." Everybody wants to do it because it's fun, so being a professional and maintaining a professional "arts" "career" should be VERY difficult. You should have to be really fucking good, and you should love doing whatever it is you're doing and care enough about it not to rest on any laurels, and if you work really hard on something and don't make any money from it, then that's called learning, and you should be glad your station in life allows you to participate in the educational process instead of having to shovel shit for two cents a day because you live in some Malaysian shanty town. You should not be entitled to function as a professional in the arts just because you're technically proficient and able to afford a good lawyer.

But: money talks. I understand that. As I also understand that above are a fairly brash and demanding list of rules to come from some fucking guy with a blog who oh by the way has a pretty cushy life and also doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and wants to flatter himself by sounding like he's discriminating and worthy when really he's just a blowhard.

Ok ok. Download versus not is well-worn territory and I don't need to tell you all this. You can hear all about it elsewhere and from better sources than me.

But: what do you do with something like this collection of unearthed obscure funk from North and South Carolina, circa 1968-1977? Stuff like this is all over the fucking place. It's both good enough to pay for and forgettable enough to ignore if you get it for free. And worse than that, it's by people who aren't around anymore as active artists. You can't go to their shows. Half of them are probably dead by now. So getting it free is probably the worst thing you could do with one of these.

On the other hand, and I don't know anybody at Now-Again/Jazzman records so I don't want to cast aspersion in this specific case, but there's no guarantee that the "official release" version of this (as an example of many many alike products of unearthed obscure music) isn't an exploitative royal buttraping of the original artists. In which case maybe that's ok. They recorded a bunch of stuff 30 years ago, none of it went anywhere, and whatever happens 30 years later as some kind of a revivalist movement, fair or not, has got to feel a bit like free money. If you're some 50 year old former tromboner who works in a tire shop in Fayetteville, South Carolina my guess is that's how you take it when somebody wants to give you some money for publishing some tapes you have in your basement. Windfall.

But who knows if that's good or not? It feels like there are a bajillion things going on with one of these deals. I'd be mildly interested if somebody broke down the business-end of these things in some kind of a snappy essay written by Steve Albini, but I'd also be mildly interested if I saw something shiny in my peripheral vision. Without the will to investigate this (it's just a bunch of not-very-good old music, no big deal) I'm left with my imagination. And I have no fucking clue what the story is with any of these people. I have a feeling that working in a tire shop in Fayetteville, South Carolina might not be too far off from a certain archetype.

Anyhow: what about this? Can I download this without feeling bad? Would I be screwing somebody, or is there some voice from a Just Tires off of Bragg Street that can swoop in and say "fuck it, we don't care" as a sort of disassociated but correct moral authority? How do I avoid the question of exploitation for stuff like this, not just with a sneak attack download but with an official release? To the extent to which there is now or was then any exploitation, is it excused by elapsed time, or does there need to be some deeper reckoning?

Do we owe these rediscovered artists some greater loyalty than we owe current artists? Is their passive yet influential rediscovery as vital a part of the unfolding course of cultural events as any contemporary contributor? And since it's usually neither their fault nor necessarily their will to be so rediscovered, do they get a free pass from being thought mediocre? Does their complete obscurity until being "found" exempt us listeners from asking ethical questions about any of this? Should they get more than just street-cred royalties from the funk/soul revival acts of the day? Just who exactly is getting fucked over by who, and how am I, the listener, either contributing to or preventing this fucked-over-tude?

That's a long and overwrought list of questions to have flow from what amounts to a bunch of pleasurable funk ditties, most of which are too long and repetitive to be worth much to anybody but some kind of rare funk-groove night DJ. The one question that strikes a chord with me is this: Is it better to just stay away from this and everything like it than it is to reap the benefits while feeling compelled to think about any of this stuff?

And the answer is that it might be. It just miiiightfuckingbe.


Cheveu
Cheveu
[Born Bad; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

This is the kind of "raw, lurching guitars and synths" thing I always want to like, to the point of paying money and owning it, but then when I listen to it I don't actually like it, to the point of selling it in order to get money to buy things I do like. It's like a big fish hook full of mebait dangling in the sea. Man, it's right there. Taunting me. Oh man, it sounds great. Totally fucking great. Don't I always say that I would rather music be annoying and challenging and interesting than slick and overdone? Don't I always say that? Oh man, that looks fucking tasty.

Glurch! Oh NO!


Imaad Wasif
Strange Hexes
[Self-Released; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.6.

You know what sucks more than it doesn't? The movie "Parenthood." But nonetheless I looked at YouTube for like 15 minutes to see if I could find a link to Jason Robards saying, "My GOD, you were a moody sonofabitch!" Because A. that's what this makes me think of, and B. sifting through YouTube clips of "Parenthood" is more fun than listening to this.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/16/08

Mates of State
Re-Arrange Us
[Barsuk; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.1.

Sometimes I feel like these Pitchfork reviews should just trail off in the middle. Right now I'm thinking about bills I have to pay, sort of wondering what the schedule of my cash flow is going to be so I can know when to do what. Oh yeah, reminder: deposit that check. That'll help.

Mates of State sucks, and always has. It's like being stuck watching "Garden State" on a continuous loop.


Nat Baldwin
Most Valuable Player
[Broken Sparrow; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.9.

What would you say to a guy whose gimmick is this? He's like the exact bassist equivalent of Dave Longstreth. If these two ever got together they could form the most annoying band of all time.

Oh wait.


Les Rallizes Denudes
Eve Night
[Ignuitas; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.0.

So this is a 1983 live recording of an obscure Japanese psyche-noise band that was active from 1967 through whenever. It's the kind of a thing that chronic rock geeks can't wait to stutter a bunch of hyperbolic platitudes about. I wonder why. What cortex of the human brain contains that rarefied impulse of "I am bragging about knowing about this band, proselytizing as if it's a religion?" You hang out long enough in record shops, you'll hear it. It's at the same time so specific and so widespread, it can only come from a brain disorder. That's the only explanation. As far as I can tell, it's activated by some combination of autism, psychedelic drug abuse, and dandruff.

And if you have the means to hear what's being spoken about in such reverent tones, you'll usually find that it sounds something like what this sounds like: murkily-recorded bootlegs of a band which includes passionate-sounding but unintelligible grunting and searing, come-from-nowhere guitars. It's exactly the kind of thing that always sounds great in the shop but then it sounds shitty when you get it home.

Why? Because those guys in the shop have at least one thing going for them that you don't and probably never will: access. They can play any of thousands of things according to their whim, and through a combination of knowledge and options they're more likely than you are to hit the context bullseye dead-on. Go home, and neither you nor your record collection measures up. Any given mood you're in only has two or three cures, and none of those moods includes "stuck here in this place full of records" because regardless of the size of your record collection or the depths of your neurosis, you are probably the type of person for whom being at home is pretty voluntary and you can leave whenever you want. And also you have a girlfriend and responsibilities and stuff.

And this is perhaps the big clue about the types of dudes who are always into this kind of a thing. They don't leave their houses unless they feel like they absolutely have to, like if it's on fire that's a maybe. This is "stuck here" music, made especially for teapots, cat hoarding, and self-published crackpot academia texts. It excels in such a context. I'm currently listening to it while I'm stuck at work, and it's a tremendous comfort. Given options, I'd probably forget about it in a heartbeat and move on to the next thing, which is probably what anybody who purports to love this would do too.

To be fair, this specific incidence is fantastic in its own way. All practitioners of the "rock basketcase hero" genre are fantastic in their own way, otherwise there wouldn't be an eczema-riddled secret society of underground (literally, they all live in garden apartments) wingnuts to claim such things as their mother's milk. Personally, I can't imagine myself hankering for it later without first spiking my serotonin levels in the "aren't I great for knowing about this" lobe (admit it: we all have one). But it has its standalone merits. The come-from-nowhere guitar totally shreds. The unintelligible grunts are reverb-drenched and punctual. The rhythm section is... rhythmic. It's a total seafloor freakout, a perfect soundtrack for solitary basement hobbyist activities.

There is a lot of other stuff like this, but the appeal here is, I guess, that none of those other things is this. At any given point when you put it on, you probably have a decent chance to be the only person in the whole world currently listening to Les Rallizes Denudes' Eve Night. The concept of which is a real treat for the currently under discussion variety of twisted misanthrope who only ever emerges from his--always a dude--hovel to converse, cavort, and convert with other guys with flaky hand skin and a penchant for obscure electric skronking.

I love this kind of a guy, by the way. They're always so interesting. Not the things they say, that's actually deadly boring most of the time. Just the fact that such people exist is interesting. And they're impressive in their own way too, the way it always is when people's impulses overcome their ability to worry about how they'll be perceived. Maybe this one is more specifically impressive to me. The desire to be cut off from everyone and be left alone to wallow in psychedelic Japanese noise music may not be exactly universal, but it sure chimes a gong or two in my psyche. There but for either the Grace of God or else just being chickenshit (or not having the money, that's another thing--where do they get the money? Or the motivation?) go I.


These Are Powers
Taro Tarot EP
[Hoss; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.

The guys (total Les Rallizes Denudes-worshipping type dudes) at my local record shop are into These Are Powers. It's easy to just not pay any attention to them because they want my money. They want all of it. And they make a convincing case for it nine times out of ten. Unfortunately, all they give me in return for the considerable (to me) amount of money I spend there is a handful of records that not many people (often including me) want. And yet I fork it over. Time and time again. I don't know why that is. Probably I'm just a sucker and they have my number.

Do I like These Are Powers? Sure. Sure I do. But I don't ever need to spend money on a These Are Powers release. Do you hear me, me? I DON'T EVER NEED TO SPEND MONEY ON A THESE ARE POWERS RELEASE. I CAN INSTEAD JUST WATCH THIS VIDEO IF I EVER FEEL THE NEED. IT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

REMINDER TO SELF. REMINDER TO SELF. BROOKLYN ALERT BROOKLYN ALERT. THIS IS CURRENTLY (AS OF 2 YEARS AGO) IN FASHION. DON'T LET IT FOOL ME. I CAN BE GLAD SOMEBODY IS DOING IT WITHOUT BUYING IN. IT'S NOT THAT GOOD. AVOID! AVOID!


Hymns
Travel in Herds
[High Wire; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.0.

Remember Louis XIV?

These guys do.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/15/08

Subtle
ExitingARM
[Lex; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a totally inexplicable 8.3.

I cannot come up with one thing about this that I think is good.

Like if these guys were my friends and they asked me what I thought, my head would explode trying to come up with a white lie.

Edited to add: man, I just remembered that this guy is paralyzed for life. And he was on the album anyway. I rescind my previous statement. This is a triumph of the human spirit that I don't like much, but still. Triumph of the human spirit. (The guy got 18 million, so you don't have to guilt buy it.)


The Charlatans UK
You Cross My Path
[Self-Released; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.0.

This is pleasant enough for a bunch of out-of-touch old guys out to show the world that they're still every bit as mediocre as they were almost 20 years ago.


Pattern Is Movement
All Together
[Hometapes; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.9.

You know what band I haven't thought of in a very long time? Shudder To Think. This band makes me think of Shudder to Think, and that moniker is now totally appropriate.


Cloudland Canyon
Lie in Light
[Kranky; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.4.

There's a lot of bands out there in the nows that sound like they're trying to sound like Can. I can't tell what I think of this, mostly because I've never gone through a serious Can phase. I like Can, I just don't know how serious of a phase I need to go through. I kind of feel like I get it already.

Sometimes I feel like I should print up t-shirts that say "Never Got Into Krautrock" and pass them out so I'll know who my friends are. It's a strange corner of stonerdom, Krautrock. It exists in the overlap between "psychedelic" and "progressive," where at any arbitrary moment according to your current medication cycle the music can either totally entrance you or annoy the holy living fuck out of you. To be fair, being annoyed out of your living fucking skull is technically an out-of-body experience. Very psychedelic. Maybe this is what people are shooting for when they get into Krautrock, which would make sense because they all seem to be older dudes with gray-streaked beards and a bad case of irrepressible pot-chuckles. And I'm not that far gone. Yet.

I like Can well enough because they at least go groove-based more often than not, and I need that as a life raft if things are gonna get weird. Maybe I'm too high strung. It bears investigation. I know that I'm definitely more into Tago than Mago, and high strung or not I don't feel a need to apologize for it.

Cloudland Canyon do a pretty decent job of copping Krautrock ideas here. They're over 30 years late to the party, but that's ok. This stuff is resurgent at the moment, and Cloudland Canyon are doing the Krautrevival about as good as anybody, including, as far as I can tell, the originals of the genre. Maybe a step down from the originals. Some of that stuff was pretty effing good. But some of this is too, if by "good" you mean "either great or awful, depending on what mood I'm in."


Dragged By Horses
Deep in the Woods
[Highwheel; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.3.

The fact that lala.com is shutting down is really going to fuck up my will to do this blog that nobody reads. As it is, I often have to track things down all over the godforsaken internet. Sometimes I only get to hear snippets. Most of the time for any given band that's really insistent about scrubbing the internet of all traces of their music even two years after the fact, snippets are enough.

I don't get it, because who is even talking about Dragged by Horses at this point? Wouldn't it behoove them to let it ride? I can understand being too lazy to put a lot of stuff out there yourself, but the complete lack of stuff out there looks like the result of active suppression. Are they hoping to earn mystery points? Foolhardily protect their music-businessguy profits? Or do they just know how much they suck and are ashamed? Maybe these guys just suck so much that nobody in the entire world cares enough to link a file of theirs to a blog.

From what I can tell, they certainly do suck. I think they're British too. And they sound like they're trying to sound like Shellac, which is a ridiculous goal. Shellac is a joke band. I think. I might not have all my facts straight about that one either, but from what I've been able to pull off of the internet about Shellac (everything they've ever done), I'm pretty sure they're a joke band.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/14/08

Quiet Village
Silent Movie
[Studio !K7; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.1.

So this is sample-heavy electro stuff that sounds a lot like a nearly beat-free DJ Shadow but 12 years later, just as dated, and not as good.


Ecstatic Sunshine
Way
[Cardboard; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.5.

Alexander Turnquist
Faint at the Loudest Hour
[VHF; 2007]


Pitchfork gave it an 8.2.

I can remember a few times as a younger guy having my eyes totally rolled into the back of my head by stuff like this. Aerial/Papa M comes immediately to mind. Those sit-on-the-floor concerts were a good time in their own way. There's a point past the initial involuntary yawns where it really puts you on another plain. But once you're older than 25, your back will probably be too sore from sitting Indian style on the floor of an art gallery for you to even get there. And it's kind of great to have an "I guarantee you'll be asleep by the time this is done playing" album in your back pocket for just in case, but I don't know why else you'd play yourself a recording of it. Maybe if you wanted to make an interesting choice to listen to in the privacy of your own home while getting stoned out of your mind, whacking it, and then passing out on the couch. Which as a listening program has plenty of merit, actually, but isn't the kind of thing you'd do often enough to need more than one album that sounds like this. Unless you were clinically depressed.


The Old Haunts
Poisonous Times
[Kill Rock Stars; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

If you put this band on a live bill after Alexander Turnquist and Ecstatic Sunshine, people in that audience would initially think they were the best rock band in the history of the world. It's the fact that they combine some amount of multinote guitar lines and buzzing sludge/grunge bass with... a drummer. Plus Tom Verlaine-style yelping vocals. But then after a few songs stay on the same path, the yawns would kick in and not stop, and I'm guessing everybody but the very most polite would go home midway through this set.

The weird thing going on here is how much this sounds exactly like some less-good thing you'd hear on Kill Rock Stars 15 years ago.


Various Artists
Truth & Soul: Fallin' Off the Reel II
[Truth & Soul; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

So this is a label comp of a soul revival label out of the Bronx that issues limited-run 45rpm singles. Which means that everything I'm hearing is from now and not from 1971. Which makes a lot more sense when Raekwon is rapping, and dramatically less sense when it's a Motown cover. A few of the tracks have a Latin vibe. Most are pretty good.

I don't know to what extent this is a trend, soul revivalism, but it sure seems like one. My intellectual brain is excited for it, but most stuff from now (and, to be fair, most stuff from then) leaves my gut fairly cold. As far as I personally am concerned, though, if there's to be a renewed call to arms in the direction of populist-driven musicianship for all things soul, I'd theoretically be into that. At the same time I'd also be theoretically frightened that this call to musicianship will end up putting money in the wrong (smooth jazz) hands. It's hard to "pull off" raw. You're either raw or you're not. This stuff gets pretty close at times, but it's neither horseshoes nor hand grenades. Smooth: yes. Groove: yes. Funky: yes. Raw: close. CLOOOSE.

Still: baby steps.

You know what else is weird about this? Going back to smooth soul in a post-hip-hop world, it's hard not to be hyper aware of any and all breaks. You know, since we've had over 30 years of sampling to wrap our heads around. And the soul-to-hip-hop overlap is fairly well-worn territory, too. So we know about many of the possibilities in that direction too. And this revival movement, as far as I can tell, is going way back to pre-digital. Pre-synthesizer even. It sounds like we're trying to rely on organs and electric pianos and clavinets here. Moog isn't even invited (yet?).

I like the idea, but I'm wondering if it's just tail-chasing. Are we gonna go back to basics for a while, let things mutate, find a singular artist who does things that others can't, and end up finding some new and interesting directions, or are we just minor-league characters fooling around trying to approximate a music that has already come and gone? Little of both? I mean, it's not like every soul act from 1966-1974 was breaking new ground or anything, so there's no cause to be upset that I've yet to hear anything on par with "In The Rain" yet.

Fair's fair: the Dramatics themselves never did anything else on par with "In The Rain." But also, fair being fair: I get a sense from the soul revival stuff I've heard that I'm not expected to know about "In The Rain." The revivalists have a "we listened to that stuff and then reheated it to feed the kids" vibe to them that puts me off. But: fair's still fair, and I was born with my hackles up over stupid shit like that. As far as great music is concerned, the more the merrier, and just because not all of it's gonna be great doesn't mean that trying is a bad idea.

The very good news is that soul music has traditionally been marked by rare flashes of complete brilliance in the form of gigantic, neverending-rotation singles. It only takes 3 minutes to lay down the the exact perfect 3 minutes. So I feel good. We'll get at least a summer hit out of this yet, I'm guessing.

Theory alert: maybe the golden age of smooth soul existed because there were too many soul groups, and the songwriting and arrangement patterns had become rote enough through repetition that people had to try new things in order to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. If this is in any way true, I can only hope that the "soul revivalist" trend (which I am hopefully not imagining just based on my narrow experiences) continues to the point where every high school in America has a group of kids dressed in matching technicolor leisure suits. Otherwise, without some perfect singles and/or some weirdo visionary to take up the mantle and do things we've never even guessed about, it'll just be swallowed whole by the next thing. Which I guess is ok too.

And I'll get off there before rolling out a wish lists of directions such a groundswell movement could go in once it reaches maturity. I've already crossed too many "if" rivers, I'm not even so sure this is real and not some Brian Setzer-type retro thing that fizzles on impact. I'm not gonna get my hopes up unreasonably high. Plus the doing of it is not gonna be my job. I just like or don't.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/13/08

Thee Oh Sees
The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In
[Tomlab; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.2.

I don't like to admit it, but I'm a nerd. I sometimes get excited or upset about things and lose a sense of perspective about them. The signifying messages they contain become more important to me than the arbitrary, impermanent things themselves, and the things combine with the meaning they contain to take on an extra significance that's all out of proportion with, say, people running around on a field or flickers on a screen or air atoms smashing into each other at a particular frequency.

My nerd poison du jour? I've been hitting music on vinyl pretty hard since giving up on "maybe" for repairing a broken-down turntable and receiver, both pieces of shit not worth the effort, and being gifted a handy all-in-one record player. As a result I've given in to a desire to bulk up my music-on-vinyl library, and now I'm willfully submitting myself to record collecting and all of its "gimme gimme gimme limited sky blue vinyl pressing of 200, won't last past the weekend!" charm.

I don't know if you've been down this road, but how it works is you start with the seemingly innocuous goal of "I want to have a collection that reflects me, where a favorite song or idea of something I'm in the mood for can pop into my head and I can just go grab it, put it in my hands, and put it on." And then all of a sudden you find yourself with only so much money, looking at two different things and making speculative value decisions like "I can spend this money on this record I know I like, or I can spend it on this record that I might only kind of like but will most likely sell out and therefore could balloon to two or three times its current value at some point, not to mention that if it turns out upon repeated listens that I do really like it, I won't ever see it at this price again."

And then you're screwed. Oh how they sucker us poor bastards. I believe that the process of record-hunting triggers addiction centers of the brain. Based on the anecdotal evidence that a couple of times I've calculated whether have enough rent money to get by after buying a record, decided no, and gone ahead and bought the damn thing anyway. Either rock on vinyl destroys willpower or else I never had any and this is just a better idea than heroin.

I mention all this because over the last two or so years, Thee Oh Sees have been public enemy number one pushermans to vinyl addicts.

Check out this (partial) list of recent offenses:

1. One half-decent 7" issued in limited quantities of 5 different wax color/label color combinations and 11 different silkscreened cover colors.

2. One album (this one) issued as a microscopic first pressing on a German label with a demon face on the cover, then later reissued as second and third (?) pressings with a different demon on the cover and "but it's only a reissue" written in the demon's hair, which is alternatingly infuriating and hilarious.

3. Reissue of an earlier album on beautiful red/white splatter vinyl, but with song titles not listed anywhere on the cover, nor on an insert, nor on the label, so you have to go online anyway if you want to know what you're currently listening to.

4. An album only issued on pink (limited first pressing), bright green, or clear orange vinyl.

5. Another album issued in limited quantities on yellow, green, or white vinyl, with a bonus DVD of videos in a sealed envelope and a large ugly pink sticker on the sleeve that is a part of the cover design. So to keep everything in re-salable condition you have to not peel a sticker off of an outer sleeve, keep that with the album and also probably never watch that DVD (contents are all on YouTube anyway, but come on).

6. A "limited edition" one-sided EP with an 11-minute live version of a previously available song and a (to be fair) beautiful etching on the other side. For $12.

So these Oh Sees guys are clearly some combination of collector-baiting tricksters and total pains in the ass, depending on where you fall on the nerd spectrum. And they might be careerist scum, too. We don't know the answer to that one yet.

I do know that they write great little songs and they seem to not take things too seriously. Exhibit A: their heavy use of reverb in the vocals; deftly avoids the potential problem that John Dwyer's real-life voice might sound squeaky, but also precludes grandstanding on a lyrical front even though the songwriting is excellent. Exhibit B: the easy humor contained in the video goofs on that DVD (I watched mine because fuck it).

So it doesn't initially seem like a big calculated act to have all their stuff on color vinyl and goofy collectible releases. It seems more like a lovable bunch who like fun colors and silk screens and have a lot of fun friends all over the place who run tiny record labels. But that doesn't mean that these releases are not a de facto shuck-job.

One of the biggest reasons why Oh Sees stuff is so collectible, other than the cutesy limited-plus-fun-packaging nature of pretty much all of their releases, is they're also pretty effing good. And more specifically they're good in a way which would make you think that their limited-run stuff could be a good investment. Meaning: one out of two or three of the Oh Sees song output are fantastic pop tracks buried under fuzz-laden garage with a slight hint of brutal/groove-based arthouse noiserock thrown in. It's the kind of thing that could bust wide open once the right person notices that the jauntily-sung "I don't want to be destroyed, I just want to be left on this block of ice" ranks among the greatest rock lyrics of all time (yes, I'm being serious) and pumps up the Oh Sees as an entity-to-watch enough for a "breakthrough album" (could it be Warm Slime, out May 11th, 2010 on In The Red Records? No. Pitchfork gave it a 6.9) to happen.

Add in all the reverb and the low-budget production techniques, and you can even predict the exact sound of such a "breakthrough album." It would be pretty much exactly the same but with higher production value and hence more audible and enunciated lyrics. In other words, if they so choose, Bleach to Nevermind. Maaaaaayyyyyyyyyyybe. Tiny chance. Maybe more like The Getty Address to Rise Above to Bitte Orca.

This would be a shame in a way, but the pop songwriting is undeniably there underneath all the fun psychedelic fuzz stuff and it's like catnip to the more heartless and financially motivated among us "underground rock" vinyl hounds. Or if you want to be nice about it, also to those of us who just like a good song. It could really go either way depending on your mood, especially once you've shelled out the dough for some fucking asinine limited silkscreen-on-vintage-paisley-wallpaper thing rather than just trolling the internet for a download link.

So in the interest of disclosure: as a guy who's fallen a couple of times for some Oh Sees suckerbait vinyl releases, I have somewhat of a vested financial interest in telling people how great they are. But I don't really know. My judgment is clouded. I think I like them a lot. In fact, I think they're maybe the best thing going. But that might mean less than it sounds like, and it might just be vinyl-fueled dollar signs in my eyeballs causing me to spew forth a bunch of hot hypey garbage juice. But luckily you can download just about all of their stuff from somewhere and see for yourself. Doing so before diving headlong into the vinyl futures market would be a good idea, lest you want to get your nerd panties into a knot like I have.

Reminder to self: It's just music, and music is just sounds, and maybe I just happen to like when those sounds are on a vinyl record, but who cares if it's a red with purple splotches first edition or not? If it's good I'll like it and if it's not I won't, and no biggie either way. Phew.

But what the fuck am I talking about?

Let's see... being a huge fucking nerd... albums? Albums. This album. I don't quite know what to say about it, other than I love it busted up into MP3s, but might not even like it on vinyl. No great sin. But why? I dunno. There's a ploddiness to it that I can't quite get past even though I like and am grateful for almost every moment of it. When playing the vinyl I usually get the urge to turn it off before it's over. Maybe the only crime is it's too much of one thing. It's not like they couldn't spin off some extra material into a limited-run 7" EP on Halloween-themed picture disc. And in the process make The Master's Bedroom into one of those certifiable-but-short classics you hear about sometimes. I, nerd that I am, would probably even consider buying the Halloween-themed thing.

Maybe the real problem is that this fucking album sets off my nerd vs. Buddha trigger like few ever. Is that to its credit? Do I like it because I like it or because I want to like it? How much of either? What's the point of even trying to figure it out, when this is pretty much just simple fuzzed-over garage rock and the whole apparent point of it is to both have fun and BE fun? Am I failing, just don't get it, or dead on? I know I have a right to my preferences, but those preferences are confused. It's probably just not as good as Help or Thee Hounds of Foggy Notion, and I need to let it lie.

And if all that angst weren't bad enough: I am here to tell you that despite my inner Buddha telling my inner nerd to take a chill pill about that dismissive "but it's only a reissue" in the demon hair, the cover is absolutely one of the reasons I hardly ever listen to The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In unless it's on my good old fashioned music-only no color iPod. I have a girlfriend's idea display shelf for my my LP's and have developed an OCD slavishness to the display-per-usage pattern. I pull this album out for a listen, and that demon hair goes up and stays up until I've listened to three other albums. And I hate looking at that fucking demon's hair. It's mocking "you weren't there" tone makes me want to track down an overpriced original of a record I'm not even sure I like all that much even though I love the MP3s. Sucker that I am.

Thankfully, I want to rock out more than I mind being goofed on. Even though it's a closer race than I care to admit. I might be a nerd and have flare-ups like this, but on an intellectual level I see that goofs-on-nerds is most definitely a step in the right direction for rock. It just hurts when something like this comes along and, through the angst it causes, I'm forced to admit that I am a nerd. I'd rather be totally calm about this. After all, it's just a stupid black circle.

Whatever. Don't let these fuckers get you too. They're sly as a shiteating kindergartner, yes, but they can't touch you if you can just keep your head. Be smart. I guess that's all I'm saying.


Herman Dune
I Wish That I Could See You Soon EP
[Everloving; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.3.

This is also very fun in a similarly casual but more folk-fun way. Sorry I went too far with the OhSees. Also check out this.


Nine Inch Nails
The Slip
[Self-Released; 2008]

Four Tet
Ringer
[Domino; 2008]

Emmanuel Jal
Warchild
[Universal / Fontana / Sonic 360; 2008]

Pitchfork gave them a 7.5, a 7.4, and a 5.5.

They actually belong together more than you'd think. One is an overwrought dinosaur who relies on tricks that are no longer shocking (techno AND hard rock! aggressively depressing lyrics!). One is pretentious electronic/techno music by a preeminent guy who does that, this time LCD Soundsystem-style earnest to create instrumentals in the expensive clothing boutique mold but generally stonier. One is a Sudanese refugee and former child soldier who's techno-based afrobeat-by-way-of-London hip hop career is (understandably) apparently based on having been through what he's been through, though he's not a gifted enough MC for his product to score anything but guilt points with the dinner party crowd. All combine some amount of techno with some amount of something else to create something you don't care about too much.

Pitchfork Reviews 5/12/08

Death Cab for Cutie
Narrow Stairs
[Atlantic; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.0.

Oh man. For real? I'm gonna listen to Death Cab for Cutie? I'm gonna do this?

Do I have to?

Fine! Umm mmm mmm. Oh, that's yummy.

Ok, can I go now?


Elvis Costello
Momofuku
[Lost Highway; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.

It's tough when you like somebody's music but you think they're a twat. Elvis Costello is an arrogant twat. His first three albums are great, and then if you're into the arrogant twat singer-songwriter genre, everything else is pretty decent too.

This is a "return to form" album. He sounds like an old man who's trying to give people what they want for the first time. Whatever still-vital lip sneer he manages sounds glued on. The production sounds like a "we're gonna do it right this time" ruination of My Aim Is True (recorded in a closet with the drums bleeding over into everything so it sounds like you're in the closet there too). But this time, man, we're gonna get 48 track digital production. Hey Charlie, can you compress the guitar feedback on track 17? It's a little too grating. That kind of a thing.

In a way, it's kind of sad. You like him more as a person when he's off doing some horrible fucking zydeco thing that only he thinks is a good idea. Let's not forget that this guy was not some original London punk who happened to be a great songwriter by accident. He was a songwriting careerist with a wife and kid who settled on the new wave sound in much the same way Bob Dylan settled on folk. That he did it really fucking well due to the fact that he was a natural smartalec doesn't mean that it's still necessary for him to approximate that sound lo these years later.

Then again, I wasn't going to buy any more of his stuff anyway. There's enough of it and we get it: you write good songs. I just like these first three. I'll take them and no more lectures about your greatness, please.

But I don't know his business. Maybe he needs to do a little pandering to the new wave crowd to make ends meet. Or else, more likely, he took a look around at the landscape and saw that popular music is basically 1983 again, and thought "well hell, I can do THAT. Better than anybody, as I seem to recall." If so, good for him. It's good to know the old arrogant twat is still stuffed to the gills with scorn.

We don't have to tell him that he's a cloistered, myopic old man musician dinosaur mimicking trends that the rest of us young folks went through years (more than two) ago, and he's just now getting the mall version in his richguy exile and thinking "oh that's what they're up to these days, huh?" No, we won't tell him that, because there's no point and he wouldn't listen anyway and we don't even really want him to.


Kid Creole
Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1976-1983
[Strut; 2008]

Sébastien Tellier
Sexuality
[Record Makers / Lucky Number; 2008]

Pitchfork gave one an 8.6. and the other a 7.3.

Ok, one is latin/funk-infused disco from '76-'83, and one is French electrosynth from right now, so why am I lumping them together? Because they're both reminding me that I'm too old (30) and pudgy (really not very pudgy) to shop in this American Apparel. Also, why is this place covered in porn? Why do I get the feeling that everybody here is waiting until I leave so they can have a vapid teenager sex party? Fuck this. I don't need a fucking 50 dollar sweatshirt that bad anyway. Sorry Malaysia, I'm gonna have to support your sweatshops because the one alternative is to bankroll a creepy pedophile. You win, merchants of cool. I'll return to K-Mart where I belong.


The Explorers Club
Freedom Wind
[Dead Oceans; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

These guys want to sound exactly like the Beach Boys, and they sound exactly like somebody who wants to sound exactly like the Beach Boys. I'm not making a joke, either. It says it right here in their press release from two years ago. They're a tribute band. I don't understand it. Why would you want to actively remind people of something that everybody agrees is better? It's one thing to have influences, it's another thing to go through the looking glass and try to become your influences.

They should have at least had the guts to call themselves The Beachie Boys and hope this album gets misfiled in the Beach Boys section of nine out of ten record stores nationwide. It's not like anybody's gonna run go buy this anyway. Might as well have it sit there snugly next to three worn down copies of Endless Summer and eight pristine copies of That Lucky Old Sun. It would actually be the better of the three possible purchases. It's not like the Beach Boys didn't dish out their share of depraved cash-grab chaff.