Scott Kelly
The Wake
Steve Von Till
A Grave Is a Grim Horse
[Neurot; 2008]
Pitchfork gave them a 6.5 and a 7.5.
So these two guys are grouped together because they're both from the metal band Neurosis. This is solo stuff in the late-career I'm an old man now and I'm tired of the world and I sound like Nick Cave vein. It's like this except good. I don't know what to say about it. If you're into medium good lyrics and dark-sounding gravelly voices, and/or you're into metal but you're too old to headbang without fucking up your back for like a week, this stuff is for you.
Tilly and the Wall
O
[Team Love; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Put it this way: there's a reason why these songs are all available on YouTube, and it's probably not because people love them.
I know it's wrong of me, but I immediately started having very dismissive and sexist thoughts about the three women in this band. They're lookers. They look too good to rock, in fact. They sound like they look too good to rock, too. And they're from Omaha. I have a theory about girls from Omaha. It is not a polite theory, except insofar as it involves a prediction of greatness and also the single nicest thing you can do to a man. I feel gross about the fact that strangers on YouTube in a cutesy indie band are making me think about this theory with sufficient enthusiasm as to experience a heart palpitation upon reading that these people are from Omaha. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of all manner of horribly pornographic ideas right now.
It sucks because now I have to face the fact that I'm capable of being turned on by a "girl band," and not a particularly great one, either. I hate it. The tapdancing gimmick, too. It's like they're just being so cute and fun and friendly and silly and great, and that's tapping into my inner monster and making me all pervy, like a gross old man who's on the outside rather than on the inside where it's just good fun in the name of fun for young people. It's making me feel like a monster. And worse: old. Out of touch. Like I get that I don't get it. Like if these people were my friends and me was around, I'd feel uncomfortable and hope that me would just go away. God, I have never been more angry at my boner. It's like as much as I'm mad at my boner, I'm equally as mad at these people for causing such an unhealthy "urge to destroy" style boner. This must be what child molesters feel like.
Luckily, my brain is screaming out in agony: "The only female musicians it's ok to have a crush on are really good drummers in bands that actually rock! This is not ok! This is like reading Manga porn! If you feel your boat being floated by this, skip it, go watch some regular porn, calm yourself down if you have to, but don't let your boner tell you about your taste in music! Listen to the song without looking at the video. You don't like this. Remember: you don't like this. Sure it's fun and bouncy and girly, but you don't like that as much as you like oogling these young ladies, you sicko. Get a grip. You're still too young to fall for that whole Suicide Girls thing. Those girls are all crazy and gross. Remember that time you hung out with that waitress who wanted to be a Suicide Girl? She was sad and weird. They're all probably like that, and the reason why is their constant exposure to people who think they look like that on purpose as some kind of a come-on for rapers rather than just being slightly confused but good-looking regular people who just happen to have been born with those cheekbones. Don't be like one of those people who makes these women crazy without them knowing why. Relax! In fact, reminder alert: you have a wonderful, beautiful girlfriend already. Call her."
Ok. Thanks, brain.
Now here's the other thing. Is it ok to assume that a band sucks simply because the people in it are too good looking? Yes, I think so. If it was a bunch of pretty boys, I'd think the same thing. I'm not saying that a bunch of lookers can't possibly rock, but I am saying that true rock is ugly. You have to be willing to make yourself ugly for it, or at least not care how you look. Tilly and the Wall do not appear to be willing to do so.
You know what these people are? They're rockteases. No wonder I was letting myself get all worked up. These people are professionals. Or at least they're trying their damndest to get out of Omaha. Which is part of my theory, actually.
Sorry. I am genuinely ashamed of myself. Thanks a lot, Tilly and the Wall. I hope you guys have to stay in Omaha and be a stalwarts of the Omaha rock scene for the rest of your lives. That would serve them right.
The Notwist
The Devil, You + Me
[Domino; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.
I always kind of thought that The Notwist were like an electroclash band. Maybe that's because the only time I ever heard them was in this one girl's car. She wore striped socks on her wrists, that kind of a thing. I just assumed she was super into electroclash. She probably didn't even know what it was, though, and she just saw striped socks on the wrist in a magazine somewhere and decided to go for it. Maybe that's why electroclash never went anywhere. For a while there it was like "Yeah, maybe THIS is what we're doing" and then it just went away. I don't really know why, it was fun at the time. Maybe it was because September 11th happened and we were all sitting around looking like slackjawed idiots with striped socks on our wrists.
Anyway, The Notwist, to their credit, are not an electroclash band. I think I was thinking of Numbers. Less to The Notwist's credit, though, they're actually worse than an electroclash band. They're moody electronic sad bastard music. I'm glad I sorted that out in my brain, and I can just go back to not giving a shit about these guys.
The Ting Tings
We Started Nothing
[Sony; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 3.8.
I have a feeling I'm going to agree with Pitchfork on this one. I hate it when they trash something and I agree with it, and I hate it even more that I'm more likely to disagree with them when they say something is good than I am when they say that something sucks. But maybe that's fine. I do have two years of hindsight working for me, and very few things are as good as they might seem on first listen.
Oh yeah. For sure. I hate it. It took like 3 seconds to know.
What else? Well, I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that I have a total non-boner for this. That's good. If I'm gonna be a perv throughout my 30's, and the jury's still out on that, at least I'm gonna be a perv for more homemade cutesy stuff instead of biting on whatever approximation-of-sexy fishing lure Sony records is throwing at me. I mean I get that that's still a demeaning way of thinking about a person who's just doing a thing, but this time there's no argument that the thing being done is shitty, and also that lady knew what she was getting into when that dress got picked out from the wardrobe department.
It's the difference between amateur porn and professional porn, I guess. As gross and manipulative and still terrible as amateur porn is, at least you're not falling for some completely false faketitted moanmonster. If I can't suppress my prurient interest, at least do me the favor of approximating some kind of intimacy-based authenticity so that my fantasy world does not place me the role of simpering idiot John with money to burn on a hooker. I'm not into that. I like regular-style fun for free. Nice try, Sony.
Auburn Lull
Begin Civil Twilight
[Darla; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.4.
These guys save themselves from instant pretentious ambient music oblivion by bothering to have vocals. I feel like that's a rare enough feat to be mildly impressed by it. I was all set to go "oh no" and just be done with today, and then the vocals kicked in. They're nothing special, they're just there enough to remind you that you're listening to a band and not a museum exhibit. Which in turn is enough to remind you that it's ok to be on drugs, which is pleasant, especially if you're on drugs. Drugs make you paranoid sometimes. And so do museum exhibits.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
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?
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?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Pitchfork Reviews 6/17/08
Wolf Parade
At Mount Zoomer
[Sub Pop; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.
Last night I was walking home from the grocery store, and there was a young woman sitting on the balcony of an apartment building in my neighborhood screamtalking to a friend. I hate screamtalking. It gives me the willies. It's a combination of being embarrassed for the (often) young person who's partaking, and anger at having my ears commandeered by a 20 year old's loud ruminations on the nature of guy and girl relationships, spoken with the urgency and authority of a national address.
But I get it. It's practice. That's how these people think you're supposed to sound when you're saying something important. Of course they're not saying anything important, and any given 20 year old is going to be hard pressed to come up with something to say that will be important to anybody but themselves. But: that doesn't mean they shouldn't try to. They don't know yet that the most important things you will ever say in your life will probably not sound like an English translation of one of Hitler's more obscure 9-hour speeches, one that occurred late in the regime and was for some reason on the subject of the quality of service at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
It's aggravating to hear it, but the subtext comes ringing out: "I am an adult, I have serious opinions, what I say is important, I want to be taken seriously." Let's not get too upset over the conversational equivalent of a teenaged lion's squawky half-roar. We all have to go through this. If I don't like it, clearly I should go make enough money to afford a neighborhood that's not annually overrun by summer-sublet college kids.
Anyhow, I walked past this balcony, thinking to myself "surely this is the worst conversation anybody's ever had. I feel sorry for whoever is not the one talking right now, hopefully they're not just waiting for their turn to scream." And just then the conversation died down enough to where I could hear the music they were also listening to. Maybe that's the reason why the talking was so loud. They were listening to loud music, but they were also talking about their philosophies, and clearly such a conversation should not warrant the turning down of music while you're on the balcony of an apartment building in a working class neighborhood at 10:30pm on a Sunday. Clearly this is something that the whole rest of the world could learn a lot from.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was Wolf Parade.
I think that's fitting. This is the musical equivalent of screamtalking.
King Khan and the Shrines
The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines
[Vice; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
If you like fun, you should be as excited about King Khan and the Shrines as you are embarrassed about Wolf Parade. This is music for screamscreaming, which I think is a more natural state for kids than screamtalking. Like I'd kind of prefer it if that girl on that balcony had thrown shaving cream balloons at me instead of just talking loudly. Sure it's more messy, but it's also more ridiculous and fun and stupid, and as pissed as I'd be, it wouldn't matter. The joke would be on me. I would only be able to respond with war. And not the kind where you call the cops. The kind where you wait for an egg to rot and then you throw it up there.
Various Artists
African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Sounds From Benin & Togo 70s
[Analog Africa; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.9.
So it's an Afrobeat compilation. But is it a good one? "Scream contest" sounds promising. And... yes. It's a good one.
Use this to soundtrack "making the potato salad before having a cookout, and FYI I am stoned out of my mind, so I am probably going to spill a shitload of milk into this potato salad, which I won't mind because I'm stoned out of my mind, and neither will all of my young, fashionable stoned of their minds friends, except we of course won't eat the whole amount of the potato salad, and it will sit in the fridge for WAY too long before we eventually throw away the whole thing, container and all, which is a good idea because I definitely don't want to open that because A. it's rotten, and B. I was still stoned out of my mind when it started to rain at the cookout that we had anyway because it was nice when we woke up that day and that's all we had to go on and that should be enough, and I was stoned out of my mind so I wasn't really thinking about proper food storage, so the potato salad also got about as much rain water in it as it does spilled milk." It's the perfect soundtrack for that.
Or if you have a different Afrobeat compilation, you can use that too.
Port O'Brien
All We Could Do Was Sing
[Self-Released; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
Here's what Ian Cohen has to say in the first paragraph:
Thanks for the heads up, dude. I had not read that article. It's great. I won't say I agree with all of it, but I agree enough that rock needs to pull its head out of its ass and try to be fun instead of serious. I wouldn't go so far as to delineate that dichotomy along racial lines, but if that helps somebody else, I'm all for it.
Since Port O'Brien is our jumping off point, here's a different question: when does fun end and annoying begin? And can we, should we delineate THAT along racial lines? If we did, is the general consensus that "annoying" is either too specific to one side or another, and "fun" is great for everybody? Is the hairy-for-liberals difference essentially that if something is "too black" for most white people we think it's cool because we have to otherwise we're being racist, but if something is "too white" for most black people we think it's not cool because that's what defines "cool?" Maybe. I don't know. Sounds like a stretch to me.
Still, I have a hard time believing that a majority of black people would be into this kind of a thing. To be fair a majority of white people are not into it either, just the indie kids who are into it, probably like 50,000 tops. And among those of us who have heard this and want to know about it just in case, I can't be the only white person who thinks this is more annoying that fun. And I also don't think it's reclaiming any kind of "too white" shared white person heritage just because it's totally soul-free. It's soulless, but also cloying and cute. I might not have the best perspective on this, but I don't think "cloying and cute" are overarching qualities attached to the entire cultural tradition of American white people.
"Square" maybe. Maybe you could nail Port O'Brien on its squareness as a vector for being "too white" and hence "more annoying than fun." But then you'd be saying that white people are square, which is maybe truthful, but it stings, guys. Because for all the advancements made by white people over the centuries, including destroying all cultures which ever strove to strike an equilibrium between themselves and the planet they inhabit, that's the one thing we wish we weren't: square. But not all of us are square. Elvis wasn't square. The Fonz wasn't. Chet Baker: not square. Jerry Lee Lewis. Lou Reed. As round as it gets. In fact, the best white person musicians are the few who transcend squaredom. Which means that the stuff that falls short is not good. Which is I think what Sasha Frere-Jones was talking about in so many thousands of words. We're not talking about race here, we're talking about not being a bunch of designer baby stroller-buying SQUARES.
And regardless of what race you are, if you're into Port O'Brien, then you might as well also be into dressing your baby up like a peapod, or buying a little red riding hood cape for your dog, or anything else a person can spend money on for no other reason than because it's cute. Which is as square as it gets. Sorry bro.
Wait a minute. Maybe what we're really dealing with is a gender thing. Yes yes, I can see it now. An inherently sexist ten thousand word essay about the ascendancy of the woman in American culture, with halfassed Gladwellian sourcing on how it's due to the fact that the population has been more female than male for a long while now. Man, that sounds incredibly reductionist and totally wrong, but, possibly if I throw in enough razzle dazzle and critic-proofing "I'm just sayin'" language, it could be considered officially "interesting." I could be a glimmering beacon in the firmament of literary-sounding shittalking. I will file this away in my brain's back pocket in case I get a call up to the major leagues.
Anyhow, yeah, thanks Ian Cohen, for letting me off the hook for your honest analysis of Port O'Brien. This band sucks.
Nalle
The Siren's Wave
[Locust; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.6.
This is Scottish people who are trying to blend Scottish folk nosewarbling with pretentious flatliner Avant Garde drone. Does that sound like something you'd be into? Why not? Is it the complete lack of percussion or the fact that those are two things that tighten your spine? Both? Ok. Me too.
At Mount Zoomer
[Sub Pop; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.
Last night I was walking home from the grocery store, and there was a young woman sitting on the balcony of an apartment building in my neighborhood screamtalking to a friend. I hate screamtalking. It gives me the willies. It's a combination of being embarrassed for the (often) young person who's partaking, and anger at having my ears commandeered by a 20 year old's loud ruminations on the nature of guy and girl relationships, spoken with the urgency and authority of a national address.
But I get it. It's practice. That's how these people think you're supposed to sound when you're saying something important. Of course they're not saying anything important, and any given 20 year old is going to be hard pressed to come up with something to say that will be important to anybody but themselves. But: that doesn't mean they shouldn't try to. They don't know yet that the most important things you will ever say in your life will probably not sound like an English translation of one of Hitler's more obscure 9-hour speeches, one that occurred late in the regime and was for some reason on the subject of the quality of service at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
It's aggravating to hear it, but the subtext comes ringing out: "I am an adult, I have serious opinions, what I say is important, I want to be taken seriously." Let's not get too upset over the conversational equivalent of a teenaged lion's squawky half-roar. We all have to go through this. If I don't like it, clearly I should go make enough money to afford a neighborhood that's not annually overrun by summer-sublet college kids.
Anyhow, I walked past this balcony, thinking to myself "surely this is the worst conversation anybody's ever had. I feel sorry for whoever is not the one talking right now, hopefully they're not just waiting for their turn to scream." And just then the conversation died down enough to where I could hear the music they were also listening to. Maybe that's the reason why the talking was so loud. They were listening to loud music, but they were also talking about their philosophies, and clearly such a conversation should not warrant the turning down of music while you're on the balcony of an apartment building in a working class neighborhood at 10:30pm on a Sunday. Clearly this is something that the whole rest of the world could learn a lot from.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was Wolf Parade.
I think that's fitting. This is the musical equivalent of screamtalking.
King Khan and the Shrines
The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines
[Vice; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
If you like fun, you should be as excited about King Khan and the Shrines as you are embarrassed about Wolf Parade. This is music for screamscreaming, which I think is a more natural state for kids than screamtalking. Like I'd kind of prefer it if that girl on that balcony had thrown shaving cream balloons at me instead of just talking loudly. Sure it's more messy, but it's also more ridiculous and fun and stupid, and as pissed as I'd be, it wouldn't matter. The joke would be on me. I would only be able to respond with war. And not the kind where you call the cops. The kind where you wait for an egg to rot and then you throw it up there.
Various Artists
African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Sounds From Benin & Togo 70s
[Analog Africa; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.9.
So it's an Afrobeat compilation. But is it a good one? "Scream contest" sounds promising. And... yes. It's a good one.
Use this to soundtrack "making the potato salad before having a cookout, and FYI I am stoned out of my mind, so I am probably going to spill a shitload of milk into this potato salad, which I won't mind because I'm stoned out of my mind, and neither will all of my young, fashionable stoned of their minds friends, except we of course won't eat the whole amount of the potato salad, and it will sit in the fridge for WAY too long before we eventually throw away the whole thing, container and all, which is a good idea because I definitely don't want to open that because A. it's rotten, and B. I was still stoned out of my mind when it started to rain at the cookout that we had anyway because it was nice when we woke up that day and that's all we had to go on and that should be enough, and I was stoned out of my mind so I wasn't really thinking about proper food storage, so the potato salad also got about as much rain water in it as it does spilled milk." It's the perfect soundtrack for that.
Or if you have a different Afrobeat compilation, you can use that too.
Port O'Brien
All We Could Do Was Sing
[Self-Released; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
Here's what Ian Cohen has to say in the first paragraph:
Are the manifold manifestations of twee the most fearsome boogieman facing rock music? Did you frame that Sasha Frere-Jones article where he complained about indie not being black enough? Ever consider buying a Decemberists concert ticket just for chance to get a clean shot at Colin Meloy? You should probably just stop reading right now. Odds are, this very site is reviewing four other records that you'll almost certainly like more than this one.
Thanks for the heads up, dude. I had not read that article. It's great. I won't say I agree with all of it, but I agree enough that rock needs to pull its head out of its ass and try to be fun instead of serious. I wouldn't go so far as to delineate that dichotomy along racial lines, but if that helps somebody else, I'm all for it.
Since Port O'Brien is our jumping off point, here's a different question: when does fun end and annoying begin? And can we, should we delineate THAT along racial lines? If we did, is the general consensus that "annoying" is either too specific to one side or another, and "fun" is great for everybody? Is the hairy-for-liberals difference essentially that if something is "too black" for most white people we think it's cool because we have to otherwise we're being racist, but if something is "too white" for most black people we think it's not cool because that's what defines "cool?" Maybe. I don't know. Sounds like a stretch to me.
Still, I have a hard time believing that a majority of black people would be into this kind of a thing. To be fair a majority of white people are not into it either, just the indie kids who are into it, probably like 50,000 tops. And among those of us who have heard this and want to know about it just in case, I can't be the only white person who thinks this is more annoying that fun. And I also don't think it's reclaiming any kind of "too white" shared white person heritage just because it's totally soul-free. It's soulless, but also cloying and cute. I might not have the best perspective on this, but I don't think "cloying and cute" are overarching qualities attached to the entire cultural tradition of American white people.
"Square" maybe. Maybe you could nail Port O'Brien on its squareness as a vector for being "too white" and hence "more annoying than fun." But then you'd be saying that white people are square, which is maybe truthful, but it stings, guys. Because for all the advancements made by white people over the centuries, including destroying all cultures which ever strove to strike an equilibrium between themselves and the planet they inhabit, that's the one thing we wish we weren't: square. But not all of us are square. Elvis wasn't square. The Fonz wasn't. Chet Baker: not square. Jerry Lee Lewis. Lou Reed. As round as it gets. In fact, the best white person musicians are the few who transcend squaredom. Which means that the stuff that falls short is not good. Which is I think what Sasha Frere-Jones was talking about in so many thousands of words. We're not talking about race here, we're talking about not being a bunch of designer baby stroller-buying SQUARES.
And regardless of what race you are, if you're into Port O'Brien, then you might as well also be into dressing your baby up like a peapod, or buying a little red riding hood cape for your dog, or anything else a person can spend money on for no other reason than because it's cute. Which is as square as it gets. Sorry bro.
Wait a minute. Maybe what we're really dealing with is a gender thing. Yes yes, I can see it now. An inherently sexist ten thousand word essay about the ascendancy of the woman in American culture, with halfassed Gladwellian sourcing on how it's due to the fact that the population has been more female than male for a long while now. Man, that sounds incredibly reductionist and totally wrong, but, possibly if I throw in enough razzle dazzle and critic-proofing "I'm just sayin'" language, it could be considered officially "interesting." I could be a glimmering beacon in the firmament of literary-sounding shittalking. I will file this away in my brain's back pocket in case I get a call up to the major leagues.
Anyhow, yeah, thanks Ian Cohen, for letting me off the hook for your honest analysis of Port O'Brien. This band sucks.
Nalle
The Siren's Wave
[Locust; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.6.
This is Scottish people who are trying to blend Scottish folk nosewarbling with pretentious flatliner Avant Garde drone. Does that sound like something you'd be into? Why not? Is it the complete lack of percussion or the fact that those are two things that tighten your spine? Both? Ok. Me too.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Pitchfork Reviews 6/16/08
Jeremy Jay
A Place Where We Could Go
Airwalker EP
[K; 2008 / K; 2007]
Pitchfork gave them a 7.6 and a 7.5.
This is terrible, and exactly the kind of thing I always don't like. But I might actually love it. Jeremy Jay has a hairbreadth chance to one day uproot the Violent Femmes for the title of "most 8th grade album of all time," at least among the nascent gay kids sect. He appears by all accounts to be serious about somebody being both "beautiful" and a "rebel." Which is a huge bonus for the nascent gay kids sect of 8th graders, because they always think everything is the end of the world, and somebody being both beautiful and a rebel would be a real mindblower. Nobody is beautiful at that age, and junior high kid society mores are as intolerant of rebellion as mores will ever get.
God, this is the most overwrought thing in the world. It's so dramatic and over the top. I do not understand why I love it so much. But I do. It's great. I feel like I'm gonna put this on a mix tape for Nadia Levinson even though I shouldn't waste my time because everybody knows she's in love with Mark Bradley, the asshole who put a tack on my chair. He just thinks he's awesome because he's already 5 foot 9, he's not a good person like I am. Why can't Nadia see it? Oh boo hoo hoo.
Coldplay
Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
[Capitol; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.9.
Sure, I'm going to listen to Coldplay and then write down my thoughts.
Nice try, glittertits.
Mogwai
Young Team (2008 edition)
[Chemikal Underground; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 9.2.
I never understood why people got into Mogwai, and I was one of the people who got into Mogwai. It's basically grunge-prog. Looking back, I was into a lot of post-rock instrumental music back then, I think because my drug of choice was sleeping. But the Mogwai quiet-LOUD thing would always fuck up my sleep buzz, so I never really liked them. But I had all their albums anyway. I don't know why. I was just an idiot, I guess.
Windsor for the Derby
How We Lost
[Secretly Canadian; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.
What is this, Adopt A Late-90's Instrumental Post-Rock Band With Vague Unrealized Metal Leanings Day?
Monotonix
Body Language
[Drag City; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.
There's a lot to be said for the live-only band. As much as I don't like to leave the house, this is probably like 1,100 times more fun than this. Neither is exactly groundbreaking, but with a live show like this it's like "who cares?" A Monotonix record is like "who cares?" too, but in a bad way.
But so what? These guys at least are doing their best to rock. And they're funny as hell too, if their pube-centric album art is any indication. That puts them ahead of what, 90% of all other bands? God bless these guys, and here's hoping they don't die of inner ear necrosis or whatever.
A Place Where We Could Go
Airwalker EP
[K; 2008 / K; 2007]
Pitchfork gave them a 7.6 and a 7.5.
This is terrible, and exactly the kind of thing I always don't like. But I might actually love it. Jeremy Jay has a hairbreadth chance to one day uproot the Violent Femmes for the title of "most 8th grade album of all time," at least among the nascent gay kids sect. He appears by all accounts to be serious about somebody being both "beautiful" and a "rebel." Which is a huge bonus for the nascent gay kids sect of 8th graders, because they always think everything is the end of the world, and somebody being both beautiful and a rebel would be a real mindblower. Nobody is beautiful at that age, and junior high kid society mores are as intolerant of rebellion as mores will ever get.
God, this is the most overwrought thing in the world. It's so dramatic and over the top. I do not understand why I love it so much. But I do. It's great. I feel like I'm gonna put this on a mix tape for Nadia Levinson even though I shouldn't waste my time because everybody knows she's in love with Mark Bradley, the asshole who put a tack on my chair. He just thinks he's awesome because he's already 5 foot 9, he's not a good person like I am. Why can't Nadia see it? Oh boo hoo hoo.
Coldplay
Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
[Capitol; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.9.
Sure, I'm going to listen to Coldplay and then write down my thoughts.
Nice try, glittertits.
Mogwai
Young Team (2008 edition)
[Chemikal Underground; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 9.2.
I never understood why people got into Mogwai, and I was one of the people who got into Mogwai. It's basically grunge-prog. Looking back, I was into a lot of post-rock instrumental music back then, I think because my drug of choice was sleeping. But the Mogwai quiet-LOUD thing would always fuck up my sleep buzz, so I never really liked them. But I had all their albums anyway. I don't know why. I was just an idiot, I guess.
Windsor for the Derby
How We Lost
[Secretly Canadian; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.
What is this, Adopt A Late-90's Instrumental Post-Rock Band With Vague Unrealized Metal Leanings Day?
Monotonix
Body Language
[Drag City; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.
There's a lot to be said for the live-only band. As much as I don't like to leave the house, this is probably like 1,100 times more fun than this. Neither is exactly groundbreaking, but with a live show like this it's like "who cares?" A Monotonix record is like "who cares?" too, but in a bad way.
But so what? These guys at least are doing their best to rock. And they're funny as hell too, if their pube-centric album art is any indication. That puts them ahead of what, 90% of all other bands? God bless these guys, and here's hoping they don't die of inner ear necrosis or whatever.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Pitchfork Reviews 6/13/08
The Beach Boys
U.S. Singles Collection: The Capitol Years (1962-1965)
[Capitol; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.
So this is a limited edition CD box set of the Beach Boys' 45rpm singles from 1962-1965, released 2 years ago. If you want to buy it, it'll cost you like $200. For a CD box set. Or you could get all the songs you like the most on it from downloads. Or else you can just turn on oldies radio for half an hour. Other than that, I'm basically here to talk about the merits of "Surfin' Safari" and "Little Deuce Coupe" and "I Get Around." They have merits. The end.
Oh, and is there a more natural fit for a product advertisement than "409?" I think about it every time I clean my kitchen, even if I'm using Fantastik.
N.E.R.D.
Seeing Sounds
[Interscope; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.6.
I was thinking recently about the Beastie Boys, and it kind of blew my mind. Not that the music is mindblowing or anything, I mean it's fun and it has its moments. I was thinking about their career trajectory. It's astonishing. Basically all they've ever done for a living is had fun fucking around, and for some reason everybody respects them for it. They're not at the top of the cred ladder or anything, but if Ad-Rock showed up at some obscuro-noise loft party, it would not feel especially calculated. You'd just be like "oh, that's cool, I guess" and go about your business. If anything it'd make you like him more. In other words, almost nobody on Earth hates the Beastie Boys. Why bother? That would be like hating fun.
The Neptune guys are a different matter, though. I feel like they're aiming for the rarefied Beastie Boys trajectory, but got too hung up on looks and sex and fashion and the math of sparse beats with snapping and syths in them, and in the process lost their ability to find or express joy. They have to leave that to the people who collaborate with them. They're never gonna be the Beasties, though they will try and try.
And the reason why, theory alert, is the Beasties had that early indoctrination into punk rock and hardcore. It's the most vital set of aesthetic values in the history of American Music.
I don't mean to imply that the punks invented it or anything. Maybe the colonized it and codified it and made it into a manifesto that could then be followed to the letter by endless waves of quickbuck artists, and so in that way they overdid it. It might have been better as a secret. The good news is it doesn't really work unless you live it. You can't do punk from the penthouse. You have to say "fuck it" and forget about yourself and the world and everything in it and just do this thing all the way with everything and not care especially about anything else, or at least you have to have a sense of humor about how ridiculous everything is. It can even be a grim sense of gallows humor if you want. And that guiding punk principle of "fuck it" is both too big and too specific to go away forever, and I believe it's the common string of anything that's good, and has been since Louis Armstrong and Robert Johnson came walking out of the primordial ooze of the early recording industry and first said so with their respective "fuck it" statements of this is how good I am.
The Neptunes don't have "fuck it." They have "eclectic" and "hey, I'm into 'punk rock,' let's do a collaboration with Good Charlotte." They have "I'm telling you--fuck it," and they have "I'm gonna do a track with Snoop, whose delivery is so lazy-sounding it could qualify as hip hop's most singularly 'fuck it' voice, and in the process I might get a little 'fuck it' spillover onto me," but they don't have "fuck it." And if they ever do, it'll be because they're reading it off the instruction manual. They don't really need "fuck it," though. They're rich. "It" has been good to them. And they can fuck pretty much anything they want.
Richard Pinhas
Single Collection 1972-1980
[Captain Trip; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.4.
I don't read Pitchfork every day. I mean, I read two-years-old Pitchfork every day, but as far as keeping current and on top of everything they do, I haven't done that in years and years. I'd feel maybe a little guilty about this if it weren't so trivial, based on the fact that I trash them fairly often here, and do so mostly out of laziness and/or ignorance. The fact is: I do not envy their task, and also I don't begrudge the fact that their task is not making sure I always love what they're doing. Making fun of Pitchfork is easy. It's like a bottom-rung comedian saying "I don't even watch Saturday Night Live anymore, it hasn't been good in years." Oh really? You mean to say you're not 13 years old anymore? Who cares, it's just a TV show. They're just people doing a thing for money. If it's not your thing, great, do your thing.
Well here I am, doing my thing. Which is, loosely, making fun of their thing. Whatever. I'm not particularly creative, and I'm lazy as shit. I like music. Those are my qualifications.
I did not know about this Japanese-only CD compilation of Richard Pinhas's early 70's output. I also did not know who Richard Pinhas is. Pitchfork told me. I am grateful to Pitchfork for exposing me to his work, especially this very early stuff. Not that it's the best thing I've ever heard or anything. In fact, from what I've heard it's out-of-the-lineup psyche/prog/Enoworship whose main draw among those capable of passing a field sobriety test lies in its obscurity. But I admit it's built from some of the same materials as went into the construction of my wheelhouse, and it's not like I'd necessarily always pass a field sobriety test with flying colors.
Regardless of whatever potentially false musical merit might come from simple obscurity, this is the kind of stuff that you'd expect to find out about every once in a while from a site that seems like a repository for knowing and caring about all music. Removed from the question of musical merit (a difficult surgery, but one often enough managed by Pitchfork for analysis of dozens of musical artists who defiantly refuse to be interesting on anything but nonmusical grounds) this release is in fact fairly obscure. It's at least difficult to find, to the point of being a Japanese import CD that some bozo is selling for $52 bucks on Amazon and some Dutch guy is selling for 15 Euros on Discogs, and that's just about it. That's a rare occurrence indeed these days, when something is only available on the CD format. I won't lie, I kind of like it. Or at least I like that I know about it now. Learning is FUNdamental.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is the Pitchfork equivalent of one of those "we're out of ideas this week" oddball sketches on SNL that happens at 12:50 and is somehow actually very strange and funny in a way that shows how capable these writers and performers are of running rings around your average bottom-rung comedian.
Bryan Scary
Flight of the Knife
[Black and Greene; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.6.
Stuart Berman posits, based on this album that "prog-rock is really just psychedelic pop with the between-song gaps removed." I disagree with it.
I think as far as this goes, "prog-rock is really just pop with too many ideas and showoffy musicianship crammed into it."
In fact, that's a fitting enough epitaph for the entire genre. I've always thought that the only drug it accurately replicates is Ritalin. And in the case of this specifically, it's rocketing between otherwise very palatable straightforward pop precepts. Maybe even too palatable. It's like being tossed around by a kids coaster after too much cotton candy. No thanks.
Paul Haig
Go Out Tonight
[Rhythm of Life; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 5.2.
So this guy was the front man for an obscure Scottish new wave band. Joshua Klein uses this solo album's existence as an excuse to talk about the obscure Scottish new wave band, which is actually pretty decent in a direct-predecessor-of-the-Strokes way.
It's good move, because there's no point in focusing on this new stuff, unless you want to set the mood to be creepily leered at by a lecherous old homosexual.
U.S. Singles Collection: The Capitol Years (1962-1965)
[Capitol; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.
So this is a limited edition CD box set of the Beach Boys' 45rpm singles from 1962-1965, released 2 years ago. If you want to buy it, it'll cost you like $200. For a CD box set. Or you could get all the songs you like the most on it from downloads. Or else you can just turn on oldies radio for half an hour. Other than that, I'm basically here to talk about the merits of "Surfin' Safari" and "Little Deuce Coupe" and "I Get Around." They have merits. The end.
Oh, and is there a more natural fit for a product advertisement than "409?" I think about it every time I clean my kitchen, even if I'm using Fantastik.
N.E.R.D.
Seeing Sounds
[Interscope; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.6.
I was thinking recently about the Beastie Boys, and it kind of blew my mind. Not that the music is mindblowing or anything, I mean it's fun and it has its moments. I was thinking about their career trajectory. It's astonishing. Basically all they've ever done for a living is had fun fucking around, and for some reason everybody respects them for it. They're not at the top of the cred ladder or anything, but if Ad-Rock showed up at some obscuro-noise loft party, it would not feel especially calculated. You'd just be like "oh, that's cool, I guess" and go about your business. If anything it'd make you like him more. In other words, almost nobody on Earth hates the Beastie Boys. Why bother? That would be like hating fun.
The Neptune guys are a different matter, though. I feel like they're aiming for the rarefied Beastie Boys trajectory, but got too hung up on looks and sex and fashion and the math of sparse beats with snapping and syths in them, and in the process lost their ability to find or express joy. They have to leave that to the people who collaborate with them. They're never gonna be the Beasties, though they will try and try.
And the reason why, theory alert, is the Beasties had that early indoctrination into punk rock and hardcore. It's the most vital set of aesthetic values in the history of American Music.
I don't mean to imply that the punks invented it or anything. Maybe the colonized it and codified it and made it into a manifesto that could then be followed to the letter by endless waves of quickbuck artists, and so in that way they overdid it. It might have been better as a secret. The good news is it doesn't really work unless you live it. You can't do punk from the penthouse. You have to say "fuck it" and forget about yourself and the world and everything in it and just do this thing all the way with everything and not care especially about anything else, or at least you have to have a sense of humor about how ridiculous everything is. It can even be a grim sense of gallows humor if you want. And that guiding punk principle of "fuck it" is both too big and too specific to go away forever, and I believe it's the common string of anything that's good, and has been since Louis Armstrong and Robert Johnson came walking out of the primordial ooze of the early recording industry and first said so with their respective "fuck it" statements of this is how good I am.
The Neptunes don't have "fuck it." They have "eclectic" and "hey, I'm into 'punk rock,' let's do a collaboration with Good Charlotte." They have "I'm telling you--fuck it," and they have "I'm gonna do a track with Snoop, whose delivery is so lazy-sounding it could qualify as hip hop's most singularly 'fuck it' voice, and in the process I might get a little 'fuck it' spillover onto me," but they don't have "fuck it." And if they ever do, it'll be because they're reading it off the instruction manual. They don't really need "fuck it," though. They're rich. "It" has been good to them. And they can fuck pretty much anything they want.
Richard Pinhas
Single Collection 1972-1980
[Captain Trip; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.4.
I don't read Pitchfork every day. I mean, I read two-years-old Pitchfork every day, but as far as keeping current and on top of everything they do, I haven't done that in years and years. I'd feel maybe a little guilty about this if it weren't so trivial, based on the fact that I trash them fairly often here, and do so mostly out of laziness and/or ignorance. The fact is: I do not envy their task, and also I don't begrudge the fact that their task is not making sure I always love what they're doing. Making fun of Pitchfork is easy. It's like a bottom-rung comedian saying "I don't even watch Saturday Night Live anymore, it hasn't been good in years." Oh really? You mean to say you're not 13 years old anymore? Who cares, it's just a TV show. They're just people doing a thing for money. If it's not your thing, great, do your thing.
Well here I am, doing my thing. Which is, loosely, making fun of their thing. Whatever. I'm not particularly creative, and I'm lazy as shit. I like music. Those are my qualifications.
I did not know about this Japanese-only CD compilation of Richard Pinhas's early 70's output. I also did not know who Richard Pinhas is. Pitchfork told me. I am grateful to Pitchfork for exposing me to his work, especially this very early stuff. Not that it's the best thing I've ever heard or anything. In fact, from what I've heard it's out-of-the-lineup psyche/prog/Enoworship whose main draw among those capable of passing a field sobriety test lies in its obscurity. But I admit it's built from some of the same materials as went into the construction of my wheelhouse, and it's not like I'd necessarily always pass a field sobriety test with flying colors.
Regardless of whatever potentially false musical merit might come from simple obscurity, this is the kind of stuff that you'd expect to find out about every once in a while from a site that seems like a repository for knowing and caring about all music. Removed from the question of musical merit (a difficult surgery, but one often enough managed by Pitchfork for analysis of dozens of musical artists who defiantly refuse to be interesting on anything but nonmusical grounds) this release is in fact fairly obscure. It's at least difficult to find, to the point of being a Japanese import CD that some bozo is selling for $52 bucks on Amazon and some Dutch guy is selling for 15 Euros on Discogs, and that's just about it. That's a rare occurrence indeed these days, when something is only available on the CD format. I won't lie, I kind of like it. Or at least I like that I know about it now. Learning is FUNdamental.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is the Pitchfork equivalent of one of those "we're out of ideas this week" oddball sketches on SNL that happens at 12:50 and is somehow actually very strange and funny in a way that shows how capable these writers and performers are of running rings around your average bottom-rung comedian.
Bryan Scary
Flight of the Knife
[Black and Greene; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.6.
Stuart Berman posits, based on this album that "prog-rock is really just psychedelic pop with the between-song gaps removed." I disagree with it.
I think as far as this goes, "prog-rock is really just pop with too many ideas and showoffy musicianship crammed into it."
In fact, that's a fitting enough epitaph for the entire genre. I've always thought that the only drug it accurately replicates is Ritalin. And in the case of this specifically, it's rocketing between otherwise very palatable straightforward pop precepts. Maybe even too palatable. It's like being tossed around by a kids coaster after too much cotton candy. No thanks.
Paul Haig
Go Out Tonight
[Rhythm of Life; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 5.2.
So this guy was the front man for an obscure Scottish new wave band. Joshua Klein uses this solo album's existence as an excuse to talk about the obscure Scottish new wave band, which is actually pretty decent in a direct-predecessor-of-the-Strokes way.
It's good move, because there's no point in focusing on this new stuff, unless you want to set the mood to be creepily leered at by a lecherous old homosexual.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Pitchfork Reviews 6/12/08
Lukestar
Lake Toba
Ailanthus
[Phone Me / Metronomicon Audio; 2008]
Pitchfork gave them a 7.0 and 7.4.
How is this any different from this? I get that one has keyboards and is cutefromnow and one is more guitar-y and emofromthen, but the emotional content is the same: zero. It's hooks for hits.
Lil Wayne
Tha Carter III
[Cash Money; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.7 and named it the 11th best album of 2008.
Lil Wayne is the Brett Favre of hip hop. He's great, probably not the greatest despite what the press constantly says, although there is an undeniable joy in his playing that justifiably gets "he's just having fun out there" accolades, but on the downside he's probably not winning any more championships, and either way you're tired of hearing about him. Also: huge pill popper.
Sloan
Parallel Play
[Yep Roc; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Sloan are like Canadian Weezer without as good of a sense of humor. Seeing as how Weezer is basically a joke band right now, that's not so good for Sloan. They're basically ONLY Canadian. I've met people from Canada. They honestly like Sloan. Like a new Sloan album will come out, and these people I know from Canada will get all excited about it, like "have you heard the new Sloan album yet?" It's crazy.
Sloan should be nationalized and become the official rock band of the whole country. They can play at state dinners and stuff. They should have played at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but K.D. Lang in high definition television was not a good idea. I understand that's beside the point, and that Canadian production values should by all rights be charmingly amateurish, and that she has a beautiful voice and etc. But: come on. Shoulda been Sloan. They're the national rock band. Like they should required to play the halftime show every year at the Canadian Super Bowl or whatever thing there is that they have up there that is kind of like that.
D. Charles Speer and the Helix
After Hours
[Black Dirt; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Alt-country is what happens when somebody who's not particularly great decides, "you know what, I love Willie Nelson." I love Willie Nelson too. What the fuck do I need you for?
Mixel Pixel
Let's Be Friends
[Mental Monkey; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.9.
I was just in Columbus, Ohio last weekend. Every time I go there, I like it more. People there are so friendly, they'll talk your ear off if you make eye contact. I seriously had a ten minute conversation with the guy who sweeps the floor at Wendy's. I know this is not unusual or anything, and it's maybe even kind of sad that I count this behavior as being notable, but there you go. The guy who sweeps the floor at the Wendy's on High Street is about as friendly as it gets without exchanging bodily fluids or personal information, and he's by no means remarkably friendly for Columbus. People were talking my ear off all weekend. About weird stuff, too. I don't know why, either.
And everybody there is doing something, and they're doing it just to do it because they're bored. Nobody was like "I'm gonna move to Columbus and put out a zine about boogers." They just do it. And then if you hang out alone in a place for longer than 20 seconds, they tell you about it. And you tell them about the stuff that you know about, and they're like "right on, sounds fun." This was my experience of Columbus, at least. It was my fifth time being there.
Mixel Pixel seem like they should be from Columbus instead of Brooklyn. Moving to Brooklyn was a bad move. I mean, it was probably good career-wise, but who out there really gives a shit about Mixel Pixel's career anyway? Might as well live in a fun, friendly city that smells like hot garbage in the summer time and looks run down but is full of friendly people who make zines about boogers. (Nobody actually did that, by the way, it's just a guess.)
And then instead of being some Brooklyn band that makes goofy little songs on a casio and presents them as some kind of anti-art anti-rock artrock, they'd just be friendly people who are doing this thing for fun, and they wouldn't each have to find a way to afford $800 a month (bare minimum) in rent. Come on, guys. You can rent a house for less than that in Columbus. Think about it. I am.
Lake Toba
Ailanthus
[Phone Me / Metronomicon Audio; 2008]
Pitchfork gave them a 7.0 and 7.4.
How is this any different from this? I get that one has keyboards and is cutefromnow and one is more guitar-y and emofromthen, but the emotional content is the same: zero. It's hooks for hits.
Lil Wayne
Tha Carter III
[Cash Money; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.7 and named it the 11th best album of 2008.
Lil Wayne is the Brett Favre of hip hop. He's great, probably not the greatest despite what the press constantly says, although there is an undeniable joy in his playing that justifiably gets "he's just having fun out there" accolades, but on the downside he's probably not winning any more championships, and either way you're tired of hearing about him. Also: huge pill popper.
Sloan
Parallel Play
[Yep Roc; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Sloan are like Canadian Weezer without as good of a sense of humor. Seeing as how Weezer is basically a joke band right now, that's not so good for Sloan. They're basically ONLY Canadian. I've met people from Canada. They honestly like Sloan. Like a new Sloan album will come out, and these people I know from Canada will get all excited about it, like "have you heard the new Sloan album yet?" It's crazy.
Sloan should be nationalized and become the official rock band of the whole country. They can play at state dinners and stuff. They should have played at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but K.D. Lang in high definition television was not a good idea. I understand that's beside the point, and that Canadian production values should by all rights be charmingly amateurish, and that she has a beautiful voice and etc. But: come on. Shoulda been Sloan. They're the national rock band. Like they should required to play the halftime show every year at the Canadian Super Bowl or whatever thing there is that they have up there that is kind of like that.
D. Charles Speer and the Helix
After Hours
[Black Dirt; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Alt-country is what happens when somebody who's not particularly great decides, "you know what, I love Willie Nelson." I love Willie Nelson too. What the fuck do I need you for?
Mixel Pixel
Let's Be Friends
[Mental Monkey; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.9.
I was just in Columbus, Ohio last weekend. Every time I go there, I like it more. People there are so friendly, they'll talk your ear off if you make eye contact. I seriously had a ten minute conversation with the guy who sweeps the floor at Wendy's. I know this is not unusual or anything, and it's maybe even kind of sad that I count this behavior as being notable, but there you go. The guy who sweeps the floor at the Wendy's on High Street is about as friendly as it gets without exchanging bodily fluids or personal information, and he's by no means remarkably friendly for Columbus. People were talking my ear off all weekend. About weird stuff, too. I don't know why, either.
And everybody there is doing something, and they're doing it just to do it because they're bored. Nobody was like "I'm gonna move to Columbus and put out a zine about boogers." They just do it. And then if you hang out alone in a place for longer than 20 seconds, they tell you about it. And you tell them about the stuff that you know about, and they're like "right on, sounds fun." This was my experience of Columbus, at least. It was my fifth time being there.
Mixel Pixel seem like they should be from Columbus instead of Brooklyn. Moving to Brooklyn was a bad move. I mean, it was probably good career-wise, but who out there really gives a shit about Mixel Pixel's career anyway? Might as well live in a fun, friendly city that smells like hot garbage in the summer time and looks run down but is full of friendly people who make zines about boogers. (Nobody actually did that, by the way, it's just a guess.)
And then instead of being some Brooklyn band that makes goofy little songs on a casio and presents them as some kind of anti-art anti-rock artrock, they'd just be friendly people who are doing this thing for fun, and they wouldn't each have to find a way to afford $800 a month (bare minimum) in rent. Come on, guys. You can rent a house for less than that in Columbus. Think about it. I am.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Pitchfork Reviews 6/11/10
Crystal Antlers
EP
[Self-Released; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.5.
There is no way to touch this without getting cliché all over myself.
It's like cliché glitter.
Seriously, I dare you to have an interesting opinion about this. The music itself is fine, if a little try-too-hardy from a medium good band. But then they go and call themselves Crystal Antlers and the music has no particular angle. It's just "General Rock." Go ahead. Listen to some Crystal Antlers and then tell me what you think. Just try it.
Adem
Takes
[Domino; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
You know what's just about as bad as "quirky?"
"Charming."
Don't charm me, I'm not some teenaged babysitter who will totally fall for the old smirk-for-a-cookie razzle dazzle precocious child routine. These are MY cookies. You need to go cookieless, kid. It'll be good for you. Oh, and by the way these cookies are emeffing DELICIOUS. Ha ha, fuck you. Your mom bought you that shirt from Threadless kids because she feels guilty that she doesn't love you.
Maybe now you can write a charming little song about loss and pain, and you can drum it out on your little Fisher Price tambourine or whatever little goofy thing you're working on. Aaaats a good little boy.
Paavoharju
Laulu Laakson Kukista
[Fonal; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.
I was all set to be excited that music from a developing country could get this pretentious, but then it turns out these people are from Finland. These fuckers aren't risking anything. They're on the dole. They're "experimenting" with "genre jumping" just in case one of the things they do hits, including "experimenting" and "genre jumping," because that way they can go back to heroin instead of slumming it with government methadone.
Cassettes Won't Listen
Small-Time Machine
[Self-Released; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.0.
Even if I am in an itchy mood, it's a bad sign when I'm listening to a 30-second clip and can't make it all the way through. These guys are like... yeah, no thanks.
Yoav
Charmed & Strange
[Verve Forecast; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 2.0.
This guy makes delay-pedal dance music using only an accoustic guitar. Once people fail to be impressed by it, you'll eventually be able to check this dude out in the kidz entertainment tent at some local street fest.
Dammit. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I listened to everything P-Fork looked at 2 years ago, and it made me think of nothing. The Ghostbusters should have listened to Crystal Antlers, Adem, Paavoharju, Cassettes Won't Listen, and Yoav when they were on top of that building. New York would have been killed by an maybe-I-can-make-fun-of-the-band's-name storm.
EP
[Self-Released; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.5.
There is no way to touch this without getting cliché all over myself.
It's like cliché glitter.
Seriously, I dare you to have an interesting opinion about this. The music itself is fine, if a little try-too-hardy from a medium good band. But then they go and call themselves Crystal Antlers and the music has no particular angle. It's just "General Rock." Go ahead. Listen to some Crystal Antlers and then tell me what you think. Just try it.
Adem
Takes
[Domino; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
You know what's just about as bad as "quirky?"
"Charming."
Don't charm me, I'm not some teenaged babysitter who will totally fall for the old smirk-for-a-cookie razzle dazzle precocious child routine. These are MY cookies. You need to go cookieless, kid. It'll be good for you. Oh, and by the way these cookies are emeffing DELICIOUS. Ha ha, fuck you. Your mom bought you that shirt from Threadless kids because she feels guilty that she doesn't love you.
Maybe now you can write a charming little song about loss and pain, and you can drum it out on your little Fisher Price tambourine or whatever little goofy thing you're working on. Aaaats a good little boy.
Paavoharju
Laulu Laakson Kukista
[Fonal; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.
I was all set to be excited that music from a developing country could get this pretentious, but then it turns out these people are from Finland. These fuckers aren't risking anything. They're on the dole. They're "experimenting" with "genre jumping" just in case one of the things they do hits, including "experimenting" and "genre jumping," because that way they can go back to heroin instead of slumming it with government methadone.
Cassettes Won't Listen
Small-Time Machine
[Self-Released; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 4.0.
Even if I am in an itchy mood, it's a bad sign when I'm listening to a 30-second clip and can't make it all the way through. These guys are like... yeah, no thanks.
Yoav
Charmed & Strange
[Verve Forecast; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 2.0.
This guy makes delay-pedal dance music using only an accoustic guitar. Once people fail to be impressed by it, you'll eventually be able to check this dude out in the kidz entertainment tent at some local street fest.
Dammit. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I listened to everything P-Fork looked at 2 years ago, and it made me think of nothing. The Ghostbusters should have listened to Crystal Antlers, Adem, Paavoharju, Cassettes Won't Listen, and Yoav when they were on top of that building. New York would have been killed by an maybe-I-can-make-fun-of-the-band's-name storm.
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