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.