EP
Live/Acoustic
[Self-Released / iTunes; 2008]
Pitchfork gave them a 7.0 and a 7.6.
I have no clue what I am doing or why.
These are two self-released download/tour only EPs by a band that I have never heard of but seems to be fairly widespread by indie standards. Here's what Wikipedia says:
Blitzen Trapper is a Portland, Oregon-based experimental folk rock band signed to Sub Pop Records. Formed in 2000, the band currently operates as a sextet, with Eric Earley (guitar/vocals), Erik Menteer (guitar/keyboard), Brian Adrian Koch (drums/vocals), Michael VanPelt, (bass), Drew Laughery (keyboards), and Marty Marquis (guitar, keyboards, vocals). Blitzen Trapper self-released its first three albums. "Wild Mountain Nation" was #98 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.
Ok.
It's official: I'm glad I don't know anything about these guys. Their tunes seem pleasant enough, if only that. But now listening to them for the first time because of this stupid review of a bunch of "download/tour only" crap they shat out in 2008, I feel like not knowing about this band is like not knowing about Fleetwood Mac. If I can just manage to not accidentally memorize a single one of their hooks, it'll be like they never happened, and while I mess out on some quality goofs, easy conversation, and maybe even a few decent album cuts, I feel like the benefits of living in a Mac-free world outweigh the negatives. Imagine: I barely know who Stevie Nicks is. It's great.
Anyway: these guys = American Supergrass. There. That only took two words. Next.
No Age
Nouns
[Sub Pop; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 9.2 and listed it as the 3rd best album of 2008.
I don't honest-to-god like Animal Collective.
I don't know why exactly. I stopped listening to my iPod while riding my bike without a helmet, stoned and drunk out of my mind at 4am (I got in a wreck and also I have a girlfriend now), and that's maybe the most appropriate setting for their brand of polite, over-layered yelping psychedelia. Now I'm more of a homebody. I'd rather not have to listen to everything while wearing ear buds. Sometimes I like to do the dishes. I don't need or want everything I own to fit in one hatchback load anymore. And as far as 4am fucked up bike rides go, I'll either keep my vices in check, take a cab, or else just stay home. My life is slowing down. I moved to a quieter neighborhood on purpose, and I'm actually enjoying feeling less urban and harried. As opposed to worrying that I'm losing my edge. Turns out I didn't really need that edge to start with.
So I don't need ten songs stacked on top of each other like competing tenement house radios. I have the time and space to listen to ten separate songs because I'm not willfully white-knuckle rocketing my way through every day, weaving scornfully through cattle-like masses with a head full of important plans. I like it that way. And if I do sometimes feel the urge as a listener to do a little claustrophobic tooth-grinding just to get back to regular after a tough day, I'd rather be bludgeoned twice as hard in half the time and then move on with a weight off my shoulders. Just one Oneida track ought to do the trick, thanks.
I don't know, these are all guesses about why I might not currently like something.
I do know this: No Age are basically Animal Collective with electric guitars and without all the electronica/sampling tricks. The same roller coaster nausea is there when you listen. That's not to say that I don't appreciate what either group is doing. Both groups score huge, huge gratitude points for making "weird" music for people on drugs (I'm not sure which drugs--endocrine milk, mainlined gnawing worry?). I'm too old for No Age probably; it takes more effort than I've got in me most times to crank myself up into a genuine fervor of "I am primal-level glad the guitars kicked in." These days I tend to stop at "I am intellectually glad the guitars kicked in" unless the distant yelping clears away and the guitars come to the front, punch me in the face, and call me a name.
Or else: maybe I'm intuitively right and both No Age and Animal Collective don't really have the goods, and the nausea is my body telling my brain that I don't like this music and I don't have to either. And my brain is like, "But this is a good idea. It's weird." And then my body is like, "You're weird. Why don't you calm yourself the fuck down and put on some Beach Boys instead of Animal Collective, or if you're in a heavier mood, Lightning Bolt instead of No Age?" My body is a total bro sometimes.
13ghosts
The Strangest Colored Lights
[Skybucket; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Context means a lot. I like this only because I just got done listening to No Age. It's not placing any demands on me or tightening my esophagus. That doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it's boring. But we all need a break sometimes.
Ok. It just got annoying. Phew.
13ghosts: borenoying.
Head of Femur
Great Plains
[Greyday; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.3.
Also borenoying.
Dead Child
Attack
[Quarterstick; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.4.
Ok, this is not good. It's also, I think, not trying to be good. Pitchfork says why. I'll summarize. Dave Pajo of Slint and (I'm going to stop linking now, you get the idea, he's a darling of mostly toothless indie guitar) Tortoise and Aerial M and Papa M and Zwan and a bajillion other things, here does a "metal" project, probably just because he lives in Louisville and he's bored. So he put together a metal band and tried to honestly be a shitty metal band from the 80's. He succeeded. The end, who cares, I don't blame him. If I lived in Louisville I'd watch this band play five times a year.
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