December 2009
60 posts
Record #189: Neva Dinova's 'You May Already Be...
I’ve been known to use the term “loping” in reference to Americana-tinged records from time to time, but Neva Dinova’s 2008 release almost makes me wish I’d kept that one in my back pocket until right now. I’m not exactly certain how I missed out on this band throughout my whole late-high school to early-college Omaha-folk phase, but I can’t say I’m devastated at being ignorant to their catalog. I...
“Radio Days” from The Octagon’s...
Record #188: The Octagon's 'Warm Love and Cool...
New York’s grunge-punk three-piece The Octagon will be playing a show in my fair city on January 12, so I took it upon myself to wrangle a copy of their LP Warm Love and Cool Dreams Forever from my roomie—a friend of author/Octagon frontman Zachary Mexico—in order to write a little preview for the paper. I’ll save the majority of my musings for print, but I can tell you that my piece...
Record #187: Fuck Buttons' 'Tarot Sport'
Tarot Sport is the latest release from English experimental electronic duo Fuck Buttons. The tracks on Tarot Sport are moody, slowly building instrumental numbers, each of which unfolds gradually and deliberately with simple, throbbing and occasionally vaguely industrial progressions. The record is relatively longwinded—only two tracks are under five minutes—but it remains entrancing in its spacy,...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-27) →
“Blessa” from Toro y Moi’s...
Record #186: Toro y Moi's 'Causers of This'
Another candidate for the recently conceived genre coming to be known as “glo-fi” (or “chillwave”), Toro y Moi is the solo project of South Carolina’s Chaz Bundick. The forthcoming Causers of This is smooth, ’80s-cribbing, hypnagogic synth pop, and it’s laden with enough compression and looped vocal samples to make you think your listening device and/or ears are malfunctioning. This is a quick and...
“Used to Be” from Beach House’s...
Record #185: Beach House's 'Teen Dream'
Teen Dream is the forthcoming record from Baltimore’s experimental indie-rock duo Beach House. People often debate the merits of the semantics of musical genres—how labeling artists or grouping them together under a blanket term diminishes their individual intrinsic worth. But every once in a while, a phrase or a term adequately and undeniably sums up a band’s sound. With Beach House, I’d say that...
“Just in Case” from Micachu’s...
Record #184: Micachu's 'Jewellery'
Jewellery is this year’s rhythmically manic, noise-imbued, experimental-pop debut from young English songwriter Micachu. Her band, The Shapes, contributed on roughly half of the tracks, most of which contain unlikely chord progressions, jangly acoustic guitar, bursts of electronic instrumentation and ramshackle percussion, all backed by layers of general noise. Most of these songs are totally...
“Give Blood” from Rain Machine’s...
Record #183: Rain Machine's s/t
Rain Machine is the solo project of TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone, and his eponymous debut was released in September of this year. Mildly similar to TV on the Radio’s material, this record features electronic-tinged post-rock/experimental rock with all kinds of miscellaneous instrumentation. It does not, however, feature the same sort of sharp focus or tight rhythmic grooves as TVOTR. Malone has a...
Record #182: The Three Suns' 'A Ding Dong Dandy...
This one is both seasonally appropriate and well outside my typical scope. A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas! is the dorkily named, 14-song collection of instrumental renditions of holiday tunes by traditional pop group The Three Suns, and it was released in 1959. Sure, this record is just as white as can be, but there is also some wonderfully campy—and adroitly delivered, I might add—instrumentation...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-20) →
Record #181: Midlake's 'The Courage of Others'
The Courage of Others is the third record from Texas’s wintry folk-rock quintet Midlake, and it’s slated to be released in February. Between Midlake’s debut and second records, they revamped their sound pretty substantially, turning to a meticulously arranged style of melodically ambitious ballad that worked quite well for them. They really stuck with that formula, and thus The Courage of Others...
“Help I’m Alive” from...
Record #180: Metric's 'Fantasies'
Back in college, when I was checking out everything tangentially related to Broken Social Scene, I became quite the fan of Metric’s debut, Live It Out, and the subsequent Grow Up and Blow Away. This, their third, continues Metric’s trend of perfecting their glossy, New Wave-meets-power pop approach to album construction. Past their up-tempo urgency and (to a certain extent) lyrical content, there...
Record #179: The Troggs' 'Greatest Hits'
Yesterday’s listen was a best-of from British Invaders and sloppy garage-rock innovators The Troggs. Everyone has heard “Wild Thing” and “With a Girl Like You,” and even the less popular tracks are vaguely familiar to even the most casual of rock ’n’ roll fans. There are some gems in here I’d never heard before, and I always enjoy listening to some threadbare, riff-centric rock tunes when they...
Record #178: Paul Burch's 'Still Your Man'
While I don’t personally consider myself a fan of latter-day country swing and rockabilly, I was raised on Hank, Orbison, Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash, so I recognize and appreciate when an artist counts those same folks amongst his or her influences. Still Your Man is the latest solo release from Lambchop member Paul Burch, and it contains some tight, tasteful, traditional playing. No real...
“Actor Out of Work” from St....
Record #177: St. Vincent's 'Actor'
I’m late to the party on this one. Actor is this year’s release from Annie Clark, known to most as St. Vincent. I’m most impressed by the diverse and remarkably moody tones all over this record. From delicate woodwinds to crunchy guitars to Clark’s beautifully pristine vocals, this record sounds amazing. The songs themselves are also varied and incredibly distinctive. Clark seems to have quite a...
Record #176: Richard Swift's 'Atlantic Ocean'
Richard Swift’s latest, Atlantic Ocean, was released back in April. While I personally don’t find it quite as compelling as 2007’s brilliant Dressed Up for the Letdown, this one is loaded with mid-tempo, charismatic indie-pop gems with a somewhat different approach. There is unmistakable Motown and psychedelic influence on tracks like “Lady Luck” and “GOT…NO…TIME,” on which Swift expresses his...
Record #175: De Novo Dahl's 'Tigerlion'
De Novo Dahl are a local indie-pop band that have existed in countless formations and lineups for the better part of a decade. A couple of years ago, they were signed to a major (mostly metal-based) label, and the record that followed, Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound, was a sugar-coated slice of synth-pop. Since then, the lineup has changed greatly, and principal songwriter Joel J. Dahl has...
Record #174: Deerhunter's 'Carve Your Initials...
Carve Your Initials Into the Walls of the Night is a heavily experimental CD-R recorded by two of the guys from Deerhunter in 2005 and released for free on their blog just a few days ago. It’s a collection of 10 tracks featuring mostly looped and manipulated vocals and tape machine-warped sounds of all sorts. Though there are few tracks on here that could be considered “songs” in any conventional...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-13) →
“Ambling Alp,” the single from...
Record #173: Yeasayer's 'Odd Blood'
Odd Blood is the forthcoming release from Brooklyn-based experimental, world-influenced indie act Yeasayer. It won’t be out until February, but it has already been heavily leaked. As Yeasayer themselves put it, “Presents are always spoiled for those who open them before they are supposed to.” Fair enough.
I was a pretty big fan of 2007’s All Hour Cymbals, and I’m excited to finally have another...
“Black and Blue” from Miike...
Record #172: Miike Snow's s/t
Miike Snow is a collaboration between American songwriter Andrew Wyatt and the Swedish production duo responsible for Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and their debut record consists of nothing but incredibly atypical, impossibly contagious, candy-coated electropop. Released earlier this year, Mike Snow combines live drumming, pianos and occasional guitars (hear “Song for No One”) with layered vocal takes...
“L’Hotel Particulier” from Serge...
Record #171: Serge Gainsbourg's 'Histoire de...
Released in 1971, Histoire de Melody Nelson is perhaps the most celebrated record from the master of sensual French pop, Serge Gainsbourg. While I don’t speak French, several reviews, the album’s cover and, hell, the lecherous sonic tone of the whole record tell me this is a concept album about the middle-aged Gainsbourg’s fictionalized seduction of a hapless, nubile teenager. This record oozes...
Record #170: The Dodos' 'Visiter'
Visiter is the 2008 release from indie-folk duo The Dodos. While Visiter’s innovative song construction and vocal approach are similar to experimental indie-rock acts like Animal Collective, Yeasayer or Caribou, the instrumentation on this record is much more organic and minimalist. There are a lot of acoustic and toy instruments as well as jangly but stripped-down percussion parts. The Dodos,...
“Belong” from Washed Out’s High...
Record #169: Washed Out's 'High Times'
It looks as though I’m on a “glo-fi” kick as of late—it’s a subgenre I only recently discovered. Washed Out, much like Neon Indian, build songs on dancy, lo-fi synth tracks, looped samples and atmospheric nonsense that bring to mind modern indie-electronic acts like Black Moth Super Rainbow just as much as innovators like Depeche Mode and ironic throwbacks like Ray Parker Jr. High Times was...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-6) →
Record #168: Atlas Sound's 'Logos'
Logos is the latest from Atlas Sound, the side project of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox. With bright pop grooves cutting through the effects-drenched, ethereal noise of tracks like “Walkabout,” Cox crafts sophisticated, layered songs that are both catchy and brimming with synth-happy alien sonics. This record features impressive collabs with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear and Stereolab’s...
“Deadbeat Summer” from Neon...
Record #167: Neon Indian's 'Psychic Chasms'
Psychic Chasms is the brand-new debut LP from Austin’s lo-fi electronic pop outfit Neon Indian. This record consists of far-out, synth-based dance numbers that sound like they were composed by the forward-thinking bastard children of New Order or Daft Punk with dashes of 8-bit video game music thrown in, and, though it gets a bit samey for my taste at times, the amalgamation of analog and digital...
“Stay Positive,” the titular track...
Record #166: The Hold Steady's 'Stay Positive'
I’m sorry to say that I just cannot get behind this band. Their latest, 2008’s Stay Positive, features the sort of lush, heartland-y arrangements (Springsteen) and borrowed college-rock riffage (Husker Du) that I understand there being a market for, but for me it just comes off a bit plodding and predictable. Craig Finn’s gravelly delivery and lyrics about barflies and townies, vague...
“I Saw a Ghost (Lean)” from The Black...
Record #165: The Black Lips' 'Good Bad Not Evil'
Good Bad Not Evil, The Black Lips’ fourth studio full-length, was released in 2007, and while it certainly isn’t a departure from the rest of the Atlanta-based garage-punkers’ material, it does retain the consistent and appealing dedication to garage-rock revival that these guys are known for. The Black Lips’ influences are worn right on their sleeves: The Seeds, The Sonics, 13th Floor Elevators....
“No Complaints” from Beck’s 2006...