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.