Pitchfork Reviews 6/18/08

Silver Jews
Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
[Drag City; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

Sometimes you have to cut somebody off in order to still respect them in the morning. For Dave Berman, that means he didn't do anything but "Punks In The Beerlight" after Bright Flight. Sorry Dave. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here without ruining everything.


James Blackshaw
Litany of Echoes
[Tompkins Square; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.

You know that one friend you had who was super into rock music, but all of this cornball hair metal stuff, but that was fine because you thought he was cool and anyway he was kind of a badass because he smoked cigarettes. And then he started dicking around with a used electric guitar, and then all of a sudden instead of just hanging out and being a badass, you'd wind up just sitting there bored out of your mind in his basement while he tried to pick through the riff from "Smoke on the Water," and after you got tired of playing ball in cup and started trying to find something to read through while he did it, he stopped to show you an interview with Jimmy Page that he had in an issue of Guitarist Magazine, and you were like "oh no, I lost him" and you stopped being friends with the kid because he went from semi-badass with kind of trashy taste to being a full on axe-wielding hero-worshipping bummer?

That was a sad day.

Imagine if he wasn't even a badass in the first place, though. Like instead of listening to cheesy hair metal bands, you spent your time listening to classical music, and then when the guitar-centric conversion happened it was to John Fahey and Leo Kottke stuff. I think that's what happened to James Blackshaw, and somewhere there's a kid from his neighborhood who drifted away from him around 6th grade, and that kid, now grown, is reluctantly agreeing to James Blackshaw's Facebook friend request before unfriending him over the constant tour updates.


Orchestra Baobab
Made in Dakar
[Unknown; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

I was raised Unitarian Universalist. It was nice enough. If you're not familiar, it's a church where you don't have to believe any one thing, except you have to respect everybody else's beliefs. It's basically a support group for ex-hippies where mediocrity is rewarded and all points of view are listened to. Oh, and they super love it if you're gay or non-white, which happened occasionally in my congregation, usually whenever some gay people decided they wanted to live in the suburbs instead of the city, and sometimes even some black people got tired of being soulfully yelled at about Jesus by an alcoholic philanderer who called himself a man of God.

Anyway, I can remember one of the exact moments I knew I wasn't going to be a lifelong practitioner of Unitarian Universalism (I guess since there's no real dogma, I still am a practitioner, I just don't go to church). It was when I was 17 and The Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack just came out. My church has a fundraising auction every year. Basically, people host dinners and events, and you auction on the right to go to them, and then the money goes to the church. And in the meantime you have a bunch of theme parties and dinner events attended by a bunch of these doughy middle aged ex-hippies. Anyhow, one of the events was "Salsa Dancing all night long at Tom and Anne's house," and the auction catalog description said something like "if you haven't heard Buena Vista Social Club yet, this is your chance!"

And my 17 year old brain instantly pictured a culture-theft sexorgy full of pasty white cellulite thumping against itself at Tom and Anne's house, all set to the exotic congo-driven Caribbeat of some Afro-Cuban jazz. You know how American intellectual white women like to think of themselves as being exotic. Put on some Latin-infused thing they can awkwardly bellydance to while wearing some "outrageous" red flowy garment, and it really puts a bean in their canoe. If you can withstand the assualt on your eyeballs and sensibilities, that sweet, sweet post-historectomy 50-something honeypot is all yours. All you have to do is stay nearby and try not to eat too heavily beforehand. Ugh. It was probably the single most non-boner inducing thought I ever had at age 17.

I realize that is not directly the fault of the Buena Vista Social Club. Or maybe it is. Maybe I should be mad at those dudes for being such horny motherfuckers that they can't help but set all of our aging Unitarian Universalist women ablaze as unintended collateral damage of their international war against not getting laid. I guess I can't pin Tom and Anne's complete lack of shame on them, though.

These guys are about the same deal. They're Senegalese Afro-Cuban-Caribbean guys from the 70's who reformed once, I imagine, Europe's horny white women demanded it. I am picturing Dutch women especially for some reason. The kind that are always talking about feeling "shexy" in one of those old fuckyoga seminar episodes of "Real Sex."

Call me an old fashioned hillbilly, but the only horniness-inducing dance I'll be willing to participate in once I go north of age 50 is square dancing. And whoever I've got on my arm better damn well accept it. You want exotic, go fuck around with one of those Cuban guys. Just don't come crying to me when they ditch you for some young senorita, which they will soon's they get the chance, the horny devils. Faithfulness is not exotic, but that's what I have to offer. I'm an old fashioned American white faithful guy, and I think you're a beautiful woman. But I also think you're making a damn fool out of yourself with all this Afro-Cuban stuff. Course that's just my opinion, last I checked it didn't count for a whole hell of a lot around here, least of all when it's of the "I love you" variety. And if you really love me, you won't ask me to change by forcing me to do something that's not me, like salsa dancing all night long at Tom and Anne's house. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm out of PBR and I still got a lot on my mind. Buuuuuuurp.

Maybe that's not as sexy as this stuff, but it'll do in a pinch, ladies. Amiright?

Ladies? Shit. Looks like I'm signing up for salsa classes.


The Presets
Apocalypso
[Modular; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.8.

I can't tell if this is "techno so big it has no choice but to be a joke" or "a joke so big it has no choice but to be techno."


The M's
Real Close Ones
[Polyvinyl; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.4.

It's weird that I kind of want to rip on these guys. They already broke up. What am I gonna do, discourage them?