Innerspeaker is one of those records that quietly nags for you to return, it burrows in, re-arranges a few synapses, tells the right and left side of your brain to get along, and then waits for you to revisit. Tame Impala are a bunch of Australians who make far-out psychedelia, as much indebted to the Beatles and other late '60s guitar bands as they are shoegaze's swirling guitars. Here's hoping the album lives beyond the initial narco-blanket warmth and has some actual staying power.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
On the stereo today: Jaill "That's How We Burn" (UPDATE 7/9)
Sub Pop debut out on July 27. The whole album is good. Here's a sample, right click to download:
http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/Jaill%20-%20Everyone%27s%20Hip.mp3
You can listen to the full album stream here:
http://soundcloud.com/subpop/sets/jaill-thats-how-we-burn
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Altered Zones
http://alteredzones.com/
For anyone that thought Pitchfork wasn't adequately pretentious, everyone's favorite fickle review site has created Alteredzones.com, a blog collective aimed at readers who want to pretend they're the only people who have discovered blog bands. As with any other Pitchfork project, I'm guessing there will be lots of good music as long as you're patient enough to sort through navel-gazing posts and piles of over-hyped bedroom recording artists, which is the exact type of outsider musicians Pitchfork says it will cover at Altered States.
I will say that the site's design is very cool, utilizing images from the kind of retro-futurism seen on the covers of pulpy, mid-century sci-fi novels. Though the general aesthetic is very similar to GorillaVsBear.net's Polaroid kitsch (the GvB blog is one of the contributors to alteredzones, so I guess it's allowed some borrowing.)
For anyone that thought Pitchfork wasn't adequately pretentious, everyone's favorite fickle review site has created Alteredzones.com, a blog collective aimed at readers who want to pretend they're the only people who have discovered blog bands. As with any other Pitchfork project, I'm guessing there will be lots of good music as long as you're patient enough to sort through navel-gazing posts and piles of over-hyped bedroom recording artists, which is the exact type of outsider musicians Pitchfork says it will cover at Altered States.I will say that the site's design is very cool, utilizing images from the kind of retro-futurism seen on the covers of pulpy, mid-century sci-fi novels. Though the general aesthetic is very similar to GorillaVsBear.net's Polaroid kitsch (the GvB blog is one of the contributors to alteredzones, so I guess it's allowed some borrowing.)
The half-year in music (with videos!)
(Ahem. As you can see there are few actual videos, it's mostly only youtube songs with static images)
Best Albums
Beach House "Teen Dream" A-
LCD Soundsystem "This is Happening" B
Black Keys "Brothers" B+
Spoon "Transference" B
Foals - Total Life Forever C
Overrated
Best Albums
Surfer Blood "Astro Coast" A-
Titus Andronicus "The Monitor" A-
Titus Andronicus "The Monitor" A-
Beach House "Teen Dream" A-
LCD Soundsystem "This is Happening" B
Black Keys "Brothers" B+
Spoon "Transference" B
Good
The Hold Steady "Heaven is Whenever" B-
The Hold Steady "Heaven is Whenever" B-
Tame Impala "Innerspeaker" B+
Yeasayer "Ambling Alp" (the first half, at least) B-
Yeasayer "Ambling Alp" (the first half, at least) B-
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings "I Learned the Hard Way" B-
Sleigh Bells "Treats" B
Jaill -"This is How We Burn" B
Male Bonding "Nothing Hurts" B
Dr. Dog "Shame Shame" B-
Sleigh Bells "Treats" B
Jaill -"This is How We Burn" B
Male Bonding "Nothing Hurts" B
Dr. Dog "Shame Shame" B-
Meh
She & Him "Vol. 2" C-
Everything M. Ward does deserves a listen. At a certain point, though, even if I recognize something as quality work (mostly the production and instrumentation) doesn't mean I have to like it, or force myself to listen to it on the reg. I just don't see the point of She & Him. Zooey doesn't write quite good enough songs, they are pleasant enough, but I'd rather just go dig up some old records.
The Morning Benders "Big Echo" B-
The Brooklyn via San Fran group led off its second album with perhaps the song of the year, "Excuses," a glorious amalgamation of glee-club harmonies, bluesy strings and soaring melodies, but then let Chris Taylor's (Grizzly Bear) production drag the following nine tracks through the tasteful, reverbed sludge that makes Taylor's outfit so damn boring. Only the occasionally fuzzed-out guitar struts through the languid, hung-over drapery, heard on the second track on the top-loaded record.Everything M. Ward does deserves a listen. At a certain point, though, even if I recognize something as quality work (mostly the production and instrumentation) doesn't mean I have to like it, or force myself to listen to it on the reg. I just don't see the point of She & Him. Zooey doesn't write quite good enough songs, they are pleasant enough, but I'd rather just go dig up some old records.
The Morning Benders "Big Echo" B-
Foals - Total Life Forever C
Overrated
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Before Today"
Robyn "Body Talk Pt. 1"
Robyn is terrible and I'm tired of all these hipsters saying otherwise.
Janelle Monae "The ArchAndroid"
Disappointments
Vampire Weekend "Contra" C
I think yr a contra. NO! yr a contra ...
I think yr a contra. NO! yr a contra ...
Wolf Parade "Expo 86" C
Broken Bells "Broken Bells" C-
Broken Bells "Broken Bells" C-
Haven't had time for more than one listen
Gorillaz "Plastic Beach"
Dum Dum Girls "I Will Be"
Broken Social Scene "Forgiveness Rock Record"
Harlem "Hippies"
The National "High Violet"
Band of Horses "Infinite Arms"
MGMT "Congratulations"
Joanna Newsom "Have One on Me"
... and thousands more
Dum Dum Girls "I Will Be"
Broken Social Scene "Forgiveness Rock Record"
Harlem "Hippies"
The National "High Violet"
Did not hear
New Pornographers "Together"Band of Horses "Infinite Arms"
MGMT "Congratulations"
Joanna Newsom "Have One on Me"
... and thousands more
Shitlist:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/music/ref=pd_ts_navThursday, July 1, 2010
Good on paper (new edit/addition 7-02)
There are those certain artists, who in album reviews, feature articles and interviews sound as if they could be your new favorite band. So with unbridled optimism and excitement, you spin the CD (also known as Compact Disk, an antiquated form of music storage that provided hi-fi audio quality when played with an optical drive) ... and ... plop. Nothing. For reasons abstract and absolute, it just doesn't do it for you. Tastes are tricky. Who are some of your "good on paper" acts? The most recent examples for me are as follows:
Janelle Monae
She is a talented performer, no doubt, just check out her fancy footwork at the recent BET awards. Not to mention anyone combining two of my favorite things — her new record is a quasi-concept album mashing Metropolis-era Fritz Lang with classic soul — should be my favorite new singer. It's garnering best of the year reviews from critics I respect. But then I hear the songs ... and ... nothing. I think it might be her voice, when she hits the high notes, something feels strained, thin, flat even. I don't feel like she can capture the saxophone-complex timbre of a real soul shouter, or that her songs really have that much soul in the first place. Perhaps it's the production, as metallic as the art-deco silver city in Metropolis. Speaking of science fiction, how can soul music be about the future? What about the here and now, what about her apartment, her boyfriend and her city?
Perhaps the real problem is the dissonance between the image and the sound — she wears a giant pompadour haircut, and retro threads, writers constantly refer to her in a throw-back fashion — but when it comes down to it, her sound is far more contemporary R 'n' B than classic, a sound that allows for a much smaller voice and colder production.
The Gaslight Anthem
To borrow Holden Caulfield's favorite word, they sound phony. Springsteen comparisons be damned, the guitars sound more like sanitized Warped Tour mallpunk, and the maudlin choruses are more suited to a Brian Adams hit than for anyone convincingly wearing a leather jacket.
The Gaslight Anthem suck in the same way as any band whose distortion isn't nearly as loud as their tattoos suck. Also, it's not 1959, you are not your grandpa and you did not live through the great depression. They suffer from the age old problem of not sounding nearly as hard, alternative or interesting as they look, a disease I would prescribe to just about everyone on the pop charts.
She is a talented performer, no doubt, just check out her fancy footwork at the recent BET awards. Not to mention anyone combining two of my favorite things — her new record is a quasi-concept album mashing Metropolis-era Fritz Lang with classic soul — should be my favorite new singer. It's garnering best of the year reviews from critics I respect. But then I hear the songs ... and ... nothing. I think it might be her voice, when she hits the high notes, something feels strained, thin, flat even. I don't feel like she can capture the saxophone-complex timbre of a real soul shouter, or that her songs really have that much soul in the first place. Perhaps it's the production, as metallic as the art-deco silver city in Metropolis. Speaking of science fiction, how can soul music be about the future? What about the here and now, what about her apartment, her boyfriend and her city?
Perhaps the real problem is the dissonance between the image and the sound — she wears a giant pompadour haircut, and retro threads, writers constantly refer to her in a throw-back fashion — but when it comes down to it, her sound is far more contemporary R 'n' B than classic, a sound that allows for a much smaller voice and colder production.
To borrow Holden Caulfield's favorite word, they sound phony. Springsteen comparisons be damned, the guitars sound more like sanitized Warped Tour mallpunk, and the maudlin choruses are more suited to a Brian Adams hit than for anyone convincingly wearing a leather jacket.
The Gaslight Anthem suck in the same way as any band whose distortion isn't nearly as loud as their tattoos suck. Also, it's not 1959, you are not your grandpa and you did not live through the great depression. They suffer from the age old problem of not sounding nearly as hard, alternative or interesting as they look, a disease I would prescribe to just about everyone on the pop charts.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wavves "King of the Beach" first listen: Nevermind the Backlash edition
The noise-as-purpose statement is largely gone, revealing even more of his his bratty pop sensibility. The album is still lo-fi, and crunchy, mind you, but his Jay Reatard-refuge rhythm section and time in an actual recording studio have paid off.
Dudes apparently been listening to Animal Collective quite a bit, too -- "Mickey Mouse" would fit in on "Merriweather Post Pavilion" nicely.
Go here to hear the damn thing:
http://www.fatpossum.com/promo_pages/wavves
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