Artist: Adem Album: Takes Label: Domino Release date: 12 May 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Folk Rock RIYL: James Yorkston & The Athletes, Sun Kil Moon, Andrew BirdTracklisting: 01. Bedside Table [Bedhead cover] 02. Oh My Lover [PJ Harvey cover] 03. Slide [Lisa Germano cover] 04. Loro [Pinback cover] 05. Hotellounge (Be The Death Of Me) [dEUS cover] 06. To Cure A Weakling Child + Boy/Girl Song [Aphex Twin cover] 07. Tears Are In Your Eyes [Yo La Tengo cover] 08. Starla [Smashing Pumpkins cover] 09. Gamera [Tortoise cover] 10. Unravel [Björk cover] 11. Invisible Man [The Breeders cover] 12. Laser Beam [Low cover] Total running time: 50' 48" [Adem - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [Adem - Hotellounge (Be The Death Of Me) - Live]
"Describing ‘Takes’, Adem has the following to say: "Making a covers record is like making a mixtape – how much time, love, effort and heartache is invested into side A alone? How to go about selecting the right message, the right combination, the new, the old, and the breadth of music? It’s a chance to show your influences and give people an idea of where your taste comes from. I’ve had to ignore entire genres and decades of music that should be on here; it’s just a glimpse – I hope you enjoy the view."
I’d been playing other peoples songs in my live shows for some time; they were stripped-down to basics, always me and a single instrument. On tour I’d been constantly asked for recordings of the tracks, of which I had none. At the start of 2007 I decided to go into the studio to try to document them. I wanted to capture the simplicity and atmosphere of the versions that I had been performing.
After having recorded these first few tracks, I decided to continue and make a full album, expanded, with more production. I enjoyed working quickly and instinctively - decisions that I would normally think important enough to consider over a couple of days were being made instantly, and constantly. Listening for gaps, I would arrange each track as it went along, its shape being gradually moulded and revealed. Whilst recording the double bass, I’d imagine a glockenspiel line, then a part for wood block or harmonium and I’d be hearing more as I recorded those. Layer followed layer. Takes, indeed.
At this point I decided to focus the remit of the record and only include music that was released from 1991 to 2001 – pretty informative years for me. It was difficult to pass over some of the tracks I’d been working on, but I felt that the record would be more focused and relevant. There’s no drum kit on this record, a floor tom and a legion of shaky and bangy things make up for it. I play a lot of instruments I’ve not featured before – Grand piano, vibraphone, an ebow (on loads of instruments it’s not designed for), a wurlitzer electric piano, appalachian dulcimer, violins among others. They all fit nicely with the usual acoustic guitars, double bass, hamoniums, glockenspiels, backpacker guitar, ukulele, banjolele, autoharp, bells and miscellaneous found stuff like cups and bike locks. I’m not brilliant at them all, but just good enough to not have to wait for someone else to come and then wait some more while I explain how I imagine it to be and then wait for them to do it…
In making this record I wanted to reference a specific portion of some of the music that has influenced me and that I’d loved and to present it in such a way that joined the dots between the original and my music. It was incredibly difficult to select tracks and in some cases I decided to combine a couple of my favourites by the same artist – Bedside Table ends with the end section of another Bedhead song from a later record, The Aphex Twin track combines the music of one track with the singing from a second. For these and other alterations I had to get permission from the various artists, all of who were very considerate and helpful. Thanks to all the bands and songwriters featured on this record from whose songs and music I’ve Taken.”" [Domino]
Artist: Vetiver Album: Thing Of The Past Label: FatCat Release date: 13 May 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Folk Rock RIYL: Devendra Banhart, Michael Hurley, Vashti BunyanTracklisting: 01. Houses 02. Roll On Babe 03. Sleep A Million Years 04. Hook & Ladder 05. To Baby 06. Road To Ronderlin 07. Lon Chaney 08. Hurry On Sundown 09. The Swimming Song 10. Blue Driver 11. Standin' 12. I Must Be In A Good Place Now Total running time: 46' 36" [Vetiver - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [Vetiver: live at the Troubadour, West Hollywood, CA.
"Having just released a new album of covers, A Thing of the Past, Andy Cabic of Vetiver sat down with us to chat about how the album came to be, as well as what it was like working with Michael Hurley and Vashti Bunyan.
They're performing an unreleased, brand new song, "Another Reason to Go," from their untitled upcoming album of originals."]Review:
"Generally for a rock band of at least semiserious intentions, the time for a covers album is when it has grown established and a little confused: its 4th or 5th or 10th record, say. Third is a little soon.
But Vetiver, from San Francisco, is basically a folk group with amps and drums, and covering other people’s songs isn’t a grand statement; it’s a folk ritual, a means of dissemination and cross-pollination. “Thing of the Past,” its third album, renders faithful versions of very obscure songs in their own style, which is Vetiver’s style anyway: late 1960s and early 1970s settled, meditative, West Coast electric folk-rock. The record is super studied, but never bloodless. And it’s much better than that sounds.
Andy Cabic, the band’s leader, doesn’t just choose, for example, a lesser-known Neil Young song. Instead he’s chosen a song whose original iteration contained possibly Mr. Young’s most obscure guest appearance: “Houses,” from Elyse Weinberg’s album “Elyse” (1968). Vetiver’s version is sweet and centered, careful and musical, a balance between larking and scholarship. I can’t quite understand how the band pulled it off.
Such is the case all the way through the album. “To Baby” by Biff Rose; “Lon Chaney,” by Garland Jeffreys; “Hurry on Sundown,” by Hawkwind; “Sleep a Million Years,” by Dia Joyce. (Who is Dia Joyce? I looked her up online and found almost nothing.) Somehow this is not a precious or pretentious record; these versions are delicate and sturdy at the same time. And the band recruits a few of its singer-songwriter heroes, Vashti Bunyan and Michael Hurley, from its favorite era. Mr. Cabic’s voice sounds contemporary with theirs, a little like Doug Yule’s, from the Velvet Underground.
Vetiver centers itself on slow, reliable grooves and drones; it finds the meat of a song and doesn’t grandstand. And yet the record so clearly follows Mr. Cabic’s pleasure principle that it short-circuits the good reasons not to make something like this." [New York Times]
Artist: The Dodos Album: Visiter Label: French Kiss Release date: 18 March 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Indie Rock/Folk Rock RIYL: Animal Collective, Akron/FamilyTracklisting: 01. Walking 02. Red And Purple 03. Eyelids 04. Fools 05. Joe's Waltz 06. Winter 07. It's That Time Again 08. Paint The Rust 09. Park Song 10. Jodi 11. Ashley 12. The Season 13. Undeclared 14. God? Total running time: 59' 16" [The Dodos - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [The Dodos - Fools - Video Clip]
"Duos tend to take a minimalist approach with their sound and this is almost certainly the case for bands laying a folk foundation. The most interesting bands, of course, enjoy flaunting the rules. Like the White Stripes before them, The Dodos blend a garbage pail of Americana influences to form their sound. Where the Stripes have striven for homemade arena-rock, The Dodos’ backwoods aim is far more modest yet every bit as affecting. They ditch Meg’s economy of bass and snare for throbbing backbeat thunder-claps, nix Jack’s penchant for hard rock in favour of straight-laced blues. Recorded to capture the magnetism of their live performances, the effusive Visiter has the aural effect of going to a rodeo fuelled on meths and alcohol. Whether or not this sounds like a good time is probably indicative of how you’ll come down on this band.
The Dodos tauntingly serve up feints in a country punk direction before settling back into a bluesy comfort zone. ‘Walking’ is a two-minute overture of fanciful banjo finger-picking punctuated with a male/female gospel chorus which sets a false tone to rambunctious slide guitars and tribal drumming which lies ahead. For the most part, the album was written on the road as a collaborative effort of head Dodo Bird Meric Long and percussionist Logan Kroeber. Predictably, the influence of their senior tour mates, Akron/Family, seeped through the songwriting process and The Dodos’ second album presents a far more full-bodied sound than its predecessor, Beware of the Maniacs. Somewhat surprising then The Dodos chose to sign with Frenchkiss (home of subsequent tour mates, Les Savy Fav) rather than Young God, which hopefully doesn’t infer a future collaboration with Michael Gira is forever shelved.
For their deceivingly energetic live performances, The Dodos now employ a part-time air-drummer/part-time glockenspiel in the same manner most bands use a cymbal crash on the downbeat. On the album itself, however, the glockenspiel is more effectively used as melodic ting-ting support to the bassline drumming. The band turns a half-hearted ballad on ‘Jodi’ into a personal affirmation with “We can do this on our own” repeated as the music builds to crescendo. Although there is no question Long is a guitar virtuoso, I would love to see the look on his high school band teacher’s face as he mistreats the trombone through an echo box on the album’s centrepiece, ‘Winter’. A simple four-chord turnaround on a baritone ukulele alternates with muted horns and hand claps which have to make Zach Condon a little bit jealous.
The music has an unconstrained urgency about it, almost wishing itself someplace else. Fans and critics alike will point to this as what they like/dislike about the album depending on which side of the fence they’re sitting. ‘It’s That Time Again’ is a New Orleans funeral march which segues into a finger-picking volcano on ‘Paint The Rust’. On the latter, it’d be almost impossible not to dredge up a platter-two Physical Graffiti comparison where rock ‘n’ roll and the blues meet in an awkward head-on collision. A toy piano and echo microphone vocals carry ‘The Seasons’’ melancholy until rapid-fire drums, guitar distortions, and random screaming deliver a final salvation. The album could very well end here, on a sombre note, but the band instead decides to leave things with an air of uncertainty. ‘God?’ chants “I know, I know”, but it’s clear by this time Long really hasn’t a clue, the chorus morphs to “Oh no, oh no” and, as the album builds to its final climax, mournful horns couple with backing moans and groans suggesting that “We die, we die” isn’t really all that frightening a concept after all. Our nervous laughter meets Long’s joyous chuckle halfway and everybody is feeling pretty good about things as the album cuts out.
Visiter has a hidden treasure aspect implying future generations may be more willing to appreciate this album. The syncopated rhythms of The Dodos don’t always choose the textbook play, utterly paranoid about letting staleness creep into their work. If the frenetic pace is often overtly taxing, you’ll come out of the exercise feeling stronger whether you like it or not. Luckily, if you do, there’s always the repeat button to run through Visiter again. You can rest wearily assured this won’t be the last you’ll hear of this band." [Drowned In Sound]
Artist: Frightened Rabbit Album: The Midnight Organ Fight Label: FatCat Release date: 14 April 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Indie Rock/Folk Rock RIYL: The Twilight Sad, Okkervil RiverTracklisting: 01. The Modern Leper 02. I Feel Better Better 03. Good Arms vs. Bad Arms 04. Fast Blood 05. Old Old Fashioned 06. The Twist 07. Bright Pink Bookmark 08. Heads Roll Off 09. My Backwards Walk 10. Keep Yourself Warm 11. Extrasupervery 12. Poke 13. Floating In The Forth 14. Who'd You Kill Now? Total running time: 47' 54" [Frightened Rabbit - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [Frightened Rabbit - Heads Roll Off - Video Clip] [Frightened Rabbit - Old Old Fashioned - Live Acoustic]
"Sometimes it truly is the quiet ones. Frightened Rabbit are testament to this. Two years after the (first) release of their debut album Sing The Greys, a good album but by no means a classic, and infrequent trips around the UK toilet circuit the Selkirk, Scotland-based four-piece have, from nowhere, released one of 2008’s truly great indie-pop albums. Michael Stipe, take note. On their sophomore offering the band have shaven off the instrumental passages that snaked through their first release and created 14 blissfully simple pop songs. Opener ’The Modern Leper’ and recent single ’Heads Roll Off’ yearn for Radio 1 A-List inclusion, all witty turns of phrase and soaring, catchy choruses, and yet they still have an undeniably rustic, scruffy quality, aided by Scott Hutchinson's wailing vocals and the substitution of a bass guitar for a second acoustic guitar playing lower notes.
It is on 'I Feel Better' that this mix of cohesive songwriting and clumsy delivery is at its most potent; a decidedly up-tempo number that has the same high-octane caterwaul-led feel to it as that on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's more jaunty moments, but transposed into the near-orchestral resplendence of The Hidden Cameras.
But the beauty of The Midnight Organ Fight is that it works in any location and/or situation. It is of such a substantial quality throughout that it can last through repeated full spins on lonely train journeys through idyllic landscapes, yet still has a high enough ratio of glorious pop hooks and distinctive ideas per song to not be ruined by a click of a ‘random’ or ‘shuffle’ button. Although this album could very well catapult Frightened Rabbit into the mainstream, and deservedly so, it is evident this is by no means intentional. The Midnight Organ Fight is neither a genuine 'safe' option for the band nor a blatant fan-base builder which obscures the band’s own charms as has been the case for fellow countrymen Biffy Clyro and (sort of – they’re based in Glasgow) Snow Patrol.
Here there can be no snobbish derision and calls of 'selling out' or playing to the average man; in creating an album showcasing the very best of the band’s talents they have created one so perfectly fit for, as Scott so vividly puts, “the soft, soft static” of popular radio. A happy coincidence, then." [Drowned in Sound]
Artist: Sun Kil Moon Album: April Label: Caldo Verde Release date: 1 April 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Folk Rock/Indie Rock RIYL: Red House Painters, M. Ward, SmogTracklisting: 01. Lost Verses 02. The Light 03. Lucky Man 04. Unlit Hallway 05. Heron Blue 06. Moorestown 07. Harper Road 08. Tonight The Sky 09. Like The River 10. Tonight In Bilbao 11. Blue Orchids Total running time: 73' 45"
Bonus Disc: 01. Tonight In Bilbao (Alt. Version) 02. The Light (Alt. Version) 03. Like the River (Alt. Version) 04. Tonight The Sky (Alt. Version) [Sun Kil Moon - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]
"Is there such a thing as closure? Crime writer James Ellroy’s mother was murdered when he was 10 years old, and Ellroy has spent his entire career writing his way out of it with no expectation of emotional settlement. It’s made him who he is. Chances are Mark Kozelek—formerly of Red House Painters, currently of Sun Kil Moon—will also write his way through memory and fate until the end of his days. His Ohio childhood, his classic-rock album collection, his love for the guitar, his friends and especially the death of loved ones—including the tragic passing of an important early muse—have made Kozelek the songwriter he is. He takes solace in the beautiful landscapes that surround him. He travels to faraway cities and dreams of home, and then he comes home and dreams of elsewhere.
He’s always been obsessed by longing and desire. 1992’s accomplished Red House Painters demo-tape-turned-debut-album Down Colorful Hill was a Technicolor tragedy filled with tortured romances and aching childhood memories, a perfect fit for the boutique 4AD label that released it. The young man who composed that record has changed over the years. Nothing dramatic, no abrupt refutations of his past; just a deepening, a settling into the man he has become. Kozelek’s music is now warmer, more able to reconcile its classic-rock roots within its ethereal structures. The reverb canyons and domineering vocals have given way to richer guitar textures and sweet, anguished mumbles. His songs remain personal, as likely to express shockingly candid details as to wrap them in personal symbolism only he can unravel. When Kozelek sings “I promised always through me she would shine” on April’s 10-minute centerpiece “Tonight the Sky,” you picture the man alone, howling at the moon, shaking his fists in frustration at the universe.
This sense of loneliness haunts Kozelek’s best work, and it’s in full force throughout April, arguably the finest album of his career. The word “arguably” makes me wince (just say it, dammit), but Kozelek’s work has proven over the years that it reveals itself slowly. What grabs you at first is the simple, gorgeous hook, which turns out to be a gateway drug to the deeper mysteries that power his music. When I reviewed the second and third Red House Painters albums—self-titled but known as Rollercoaster and Bridge, respectively, for their covers—in Rolling Stone in 1993, I recorded certain obvious truths (his unorthodox approach to covers, his overwhelmingly somber lyrics and melodies) but I missed the mark when it came to what I now realize is his driving force: I criticized his obsessive nature. I thought he overreached.
More than a decade later, I understand that this obsession is the core. Kozelek requires a certain amount of time and space to make magic happen. The songs require their massive lengths, hypnotic repetitions and layers of meticulous guitar licks in order for their claustrophobic minimalism to perfect its tension, as on “Heron Blue,” which takes place in a hospital where a loved one dies and the funeral hymns echo in his head. In “Lost Verses,” the album’s near 10-minute opener, Kozelek walks the streets of San Francisco, a ghost observing old friends through their windows, seeing their vulnerabilities. “I want them to know how I love them so,” he sings. He’s not yet raging at the dying of the light, but he knows he’s on the clock.
“The Light,” at nearly eight minutes, follows. The similar feel—the bucking, unhurried rhythm, the dusty electric-guitar tone and the slowly descending melody that underline the mournful, rootless sentiment of the lyrics—signifies a mature writer chasing themes within a self-defined vernacular. Kozelek never aspires to write anything as thematically grand as a “concept album,” but he consciously allows the songs to stand as epics. (Six of the album’s 11 tunes rack up at least six minutes, and nothing is short of four.) The album’s smaller pieces are no less essential. “Moorestown” remembers the idyllic days of a new relationship. “Unlit Hallway,” with the addition of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy to its angelic choir, captures a hazy twilight.
In another era (the one Kozelek remembers as a teenager listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Lucky Man”), this would be a double album with a cardboard gatefold layout—to best present the artful photography—and four vinyl sides to sift through. In this age of ProTools and tightly compressed sonic ambushes where so many bands concern themselves only with loudness, Kozelek sounds nearly old-fashioned. Guitars warm up in the stereo mix and choirs hide in the record’s depths. These technical advantages make the emotional translations more effective.
The aforementioned “Tonight the Sky” chugs with a sublime Neil Young “Ohio” meets “Like a Hurricane” guitar riff that explodes during the climax, where Kozelek lays it on the line: “I woke up every morning not believing she was gone.” The guitars are thrown to the max, but then shift to near silence and settle on a one-note cry of despair. At that moment, words can’t express what the spirit has been sentenced to feel. Kozelek, however, will never stop attempting to translate it. Whether it’s the physical displacement in “Tonight in Bilbao,” where the road-weary musician travels throughout Europe only to find peace back home in San Francisco, or the shock at the realization of an emotional numbness that hides in “The Light,” Kozelek is forever doomed to seek a closure that will remain one song away from realization and forever out of reach." [Paste Magazine]
Artist: The Helio Sequence Album: Keep Your Eyes Ahead Label: Sub Pop Release date: 28 January 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Indie Rock/Folk Rock RIYL: Love As Laughter, The NotwistTracklisting: 01. Lately 02. Can't Say No 03. The Captive Mind 04. You Can Come to Me 05. Shed Your Love 06. Keep Your Eyes Ahead 07. Back to This 08. Hallelujah 09. Broken Afternoon 10. No Regrets Total running time: 37' 02" [The Helio Sequence - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [The Helio Sequence - Everyone Knows Everyone - Video Clip]
"Brandon Summers was disenchanted at a time when he thought he’d be anything but. Following two epic, self-produced albums on Portland’s Cavity Search, The Helio Sequence had just released Love and Distance, the duo’s shimmering 2004 debut on Sub Pop. Brandon and best friend Benjamin Weikel were traversing the country with their impressive collection of synthesizers, pedals, guitars and massive amps all jam-packed into a brand new tour van (a two-seater obtained during Benjamin’s stint as the drummer for Modest Mouse). And heck, the pair had even left their day jobs at their hometown music shop in Beaverton, OR. After eight years of playing together (they met when Brandon was in middle school), The Helio Sequence had finally arrived. But after six months of tours in the U.S. and Europe with Blonde Redhead, Modest Mouse, Kings of Leon, and Secret Machines, Brandon’s vocal chords were severely shredded. When he lost his voice in the midst of the first batch of these dates, he was bummed but made the best of it [enter the whiskey]. Halfway through, though, he could hardly speak—let alone sing—and literally had to stop talking during daylight hours. To kill the boredom of forced silence during the day and the frustration of dissatisfying performances at night, he polished off 60 books in about as many days, beginning with Bob Dylan’s Chronicles. Upon returning to Portland, Brandon’s doctor forbade him from singing for almost two months. “I really hit the wall,” he recalls, “Going into 2005 I actually had to think, ‘If I lose my voice, what will I do?’”
Trading whiskey for Throat Coat®, Brandon taught himself vocal exercises and mic technique. He took up jogging and vowed not to be another lazy musician; from that point on, recording and practice sessions were to begin at 9am sharp. In light of such devotion, it’s not surprising The Helio Sequence regrouped and went on to record their most dynamic, extraordinary work to date. Keep Your Eyes Ahead marries the duo’s signature layered keyboards and impossibly big guitars with crisp songwriting and a newfound appreciation for minimalism. The finger picking on “Shed Your Love” is backed by exquisite strings and ambient noise, but Brandon’s serene, self-assured delivery remains front and center. While songs from the band’s early releases spanned up to 7 minutes, even the longest, lushest, catchiest track on Keep Your Eyes Ahead (fiery anthem “Hallelujah”) clocks in at 4 and a half minutes, evidence of just how refined their craft has become. Beyond the health regimen, Brandon’s brush with silence helped him deconstruct and refocus his approach to expression. Lyrics increasingly became stream of consciousness. Vocals were recorded spontaneously in bedroom closets and living rooms, which may explain the haunting urgency you hear in Brandon’s voice, especially on driving tracks like “Keep Your Eyes Ahead.” The band also took its time on the album. After the bulk of official recording was completed, a listen through all the demos and snippets on Brandon’s hard drive convinced Benjamin there were more gems in the rough (which is how both “Hallelujah” and “Keep Your Eyes Ahead,” as well as the mid-tempo “Back to This” were rediscovered and retooled).
The collective wisdom of Wikipedia currently describes The Helio Sequence as “indie electronica” (bonus points to whoever fixes that one). One listen to Keep Your Eyes Ahead, which was self-produced by the duo and then mastered by Greg Calbi (Iron and Wine, Interpol, and Paul Simon’s Graceland), confirms The Helio Sequence teem with an energy and a range that continues to defy such narrow categorization. Unapologetic pop and folk meld seamlessly to create songs that are bigger, more epic and polished than anything they’ve ever done. Keep Your Eyes Ahead is the sound of a band and a decade-old partnership that’s been invigorated. And that’s exactly how the songs will make you feel: invigorated." [Sub Pop]
Artist: The Mountain Goats Album: Heretic Pride Label: 4AD Release date: 18 February 2008 Genre: Rock Style: Folk Rock/Indie Rock RIYL: Okkervil River, Neutral Milk Hotel, The DecemberistsTracklisting: 01. Sax Rohmer #1 02. San Bernardino 03. Heretic Pride 04. Autoclave 05. New Zion 06. So Desperate 07. In The Craters On The Moon 08. Lovecraft In Brooklyn 09. Tianchi Lake 10. How To Embrace A Swamp Creature 11. Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident 12. Sept 15th 1983 13. Michael Myers Resplendent Total running time: 44' 57" [The Mountain Goats - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [The Mountain Goats - Woke Up New - Live on AOL] [The Mountain Goats - Maybe Sprout Wings - Live on AOL]
"The Mountain Goats are a prolific outfit whose beginnings in the early '90s were documented on numerous lo-fi cassettes, 7'' singles and compilations, making an accurate count subject to some debate. Whatever the number, at the centre of The Mountain Goats stands John Darnielle, singer and composer of myriad impassioned, poetically allusive songs.
''Sax Rohmer #1'' is a ragged anthem, the music slipping and sliding like trying to walk along an icy pavement. ''San Bernardino'''s pathos-ridden recollection is borne on mournful strings and gentle voice. ''Lovecraft in Brooklyn'' is urgent and spare, Darnielle's narrative from the edge battling it out with gritty rhythm guitar to impressive effect. ''Tianchi Lake'' switches pace, changing down a gear as though teleporting from urban squalor to something that might just be wistful contemplation.
Darnielle's reedy, nasal voice conveys feeling with a surprising subtlety. At times it's impassioned and edgy, cut with just the hint of a snarl, at others it's jaunty or wry. The music's often spindly core of voice and jangly guitar is given colour by organ, strings, drums and the like. There's a sense throughout Heretic Pride of an unvarnished, lived realness that's raised up and given wings by Darnielle's poetic sincerity. If you're a fan of the quiet backwoods desperation of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy or the literate strangeness of Sufjan Stevens then this album might be for you." [source]
Artist: Love Album: Forever Changes Label: Elektra Release date: 1967 Genre: Rock Style: Psychedelic Rock/Folk Rock RIYL: Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, The KinksTracklisting: 01. Alone Again Or 02. A House Is Not A Motel 03. Andmoreagain 04. The Daily Planet 05. Old Man 06. The Red Telephone 07. Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale 08. Live And Let Live 09. The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This 10. Bummer In The Summer 11. You Set The Scene Total running time: 39' 22" [Love - Alone Again Or + A House Is Not A Motel - Live @ Royal Festival Hall, London]
Bio
"Of the many lost classics produced during the creative explosion of the late '60s psychedelic heyday, the greatest may be the third album by the Los Angeles-based group Love.
In its startling originality, its elaborate use of symphonic orchestrations and its nods to the vast canon of music that preceded it, "Forever Changes" is everything that's been claimed of 1967's most heralded rock release, the Beatles' overrated "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." But while it has its optimistic moments, its overall vibe is far bleaker and much less hopeful than the hippie ideal of "All You Need Is Love."
Arthur Lee, Love's key songwriter, primary singer and driving force, was an African-American who never subscribed to the flower children's sunny visions. Ravaged by the tensions of the Cold War, the slaughter in Vietnam and the riots in the streets of America's biggest cities, the world that he chronicled was no utopia, but a dark and sinister place where the occasional ray of light nonetheless managed to penetrate the gloom.
From the beginning, Love thrived on the combination of two mismatched songwriters. Born in Memphis, Lee was raised in L.A.'s tough Crenshaw ghetto. Strongly influenced by Mick Jagger, he presented what pioneering rock critic Lillian Roxon called "an amusing paradox," an African-American singing like a white Englishman singing like an old African-American.
In contrast, Lee's partner Bryan MacLean was the son of a Hollywood architect who grew up swimming in his neighbor Elizabeth Taylor's pool. His first girlfriend was Liza Minnelli, and he was raised on classical music and Broadway standards. "You hear more of my influence on Arthur than his influence on me," he told the journalist Alan Vorda in the book Psychedelic Psounds. "What you have [in Love] is a black guy from L.A. writing show tunes."
Love also displayed a heaping dose of the Beatles circa "Rubber Soul," folk-rock via L.A. compatriots the Byrds (Lee originally linked up with MacLean because MacLean was a Byrds roadie and Lee thought he was likely to draw their crowd), and the lush, orchestrated soundscapes of Hollywood film scores. (The band's use of symphonic flourishes is the most influential element of its sound, with "Forever Changes" standing second only to the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" as the biggest inspiration for the so-called ork-pop or orchestral-pop movement.)
In 1966, Love bowed with a memorable self-titled album that opens with a snarling, speed-freak version of "My Little Red Book," a Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune from the soundtrack to "What's New, Pussycat?"
It became a minor hit and established the band as too-cool hipsters; the album cover featured the quintet scowling like angry young poets and fashion models posing before a broken-down chimney in a fire-gutted mansion that was said to have belonged to Hollywood's Dracula, Bela Lugosi.
The cover of "Da Capo," the group's second album, found an expanded sextet back at the same site. The sounds were becoming much more expansive as well, introducing an element of the baroque that would flourish fully on the band's third and best effort--a departure indicated by a radically different cover: A colorful drawing of the musicians' huddled heads, it recalls the similar images on the Beatles' "Revolver."
By 1968, Love was starting to fall apart as some of the band members turned from the casual use of psychedelics to harder substances such as heroin. Lee was also becoming increasingly bitter that the group had failed to hit the heights achieved by labelmate Jim Morrison, and he blamed prejudice. "I wasn't gonna go eat garbage like the Doors did," he told the Bob fanzine in 1994. "And then, too, I wasn't white. The cold fact of the matter is birds of a feather flock together."
Though he was only 22 at the time, the band's leader had become increasingly fatalistic, convinced that he was going to die and that Love's next album would be his final testament. (The back cover shows the singer standing with a cracked vase full of dead flowers.) Knowing that he couldn't compete with the searing electronic sounds of his friend, Jimi Hendrix, who had begun his ascent to superstardom, Lee decided to pare down for a quieter, more introspective sound.
The group recorded acoustically, sitting in a circle as if jamming in the living room. The tracks were augmented later with tasteful orchestrations evoking the varied sounds of life in L.A., from spicy mariachi horns to lulling strings to dissonant guitars that bring to mind the strangling and ever-present traffic.
"The funny thing about [recording] that album--there's a full orchestra [when] I walk in," Lee says in the liner notes to Rhino's 1997 reissue. "With the way I looked [and] the way I dressed, I was sitting there for about an hour before they figured out who I was! It was quite amusing, 'cause I wasn't going to tell them anything."
As singers and songwriters, Lee and MacLean could more than hold their own in the company of musicians from the L.A. Philharmonic, and session greats such as Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye, who started out playing on some of the tracks before Love bassist Ken Forssi and drummer Michael Stuart pulled themselves together to finish the disc.
MacLean contributes only two songs, "Old Man" and "Alone Again Or," but they are integral to the album. The latter, which opens the record, is a tribute to his mother's flamenco dancing, punctuated by a trumpet solo that brings to mind the Tijuana Brass (producer Bruce Botnick was also working with Herb Alpert at the time). At first blush, the driving and catchy number seems to be a love song, but the narrator scoffs at the hippie notion that he "could be in love with almost everyone." In the end he remains "alone again tonight, my dear."
Lee is even more cynical. He lampoons the psychedelic culture by chronicling its ugly realities ("Live and Let Live" opens with the line, "Oh, the snot has caked against my pants," which Lee wrote about waking up after a night zonked out on drugs). "The Red Telephone" takes its title from the nuclear hotline allegedly set up between Moscow and Washington, D.C.; the propulsive "A House Is Not a Motel" contemplates an unspecified holocaust ("And the water's turned to blood/And if you don't think so, go turn on your tub"), while another track is unambiguously titled "Bummer in the Summer."
"While the music of 'Forever Changes' flows with an almost narcotic consistency and deceptive prettiness, the words can be like an itch that you can never quite put your finger on," critic Ben Edmonds wrote. "The combination is thoroughly captivating and slightly unsettling--psychedelic in the truest sense."
Witness "The Red Telephone," the album's centerpiece and most striking studio creation. The tune builds from a quiet ballad to an otherworldly and somewhat paranoid nursery rhyme about an Orwellian world where unnamed forces stamp out any trace of individualism. "They're locking him up today/They're throwing away the key/I wonder who it will be tomorrow/You or me?" Lee chants as the song builds to its climax.
"We're all normal and we want our freedom," another voice responds, but it's never quite clear who prevails.
MacLean quit Love after "Forever Changes," which was a commercial disappointment upon its release (though in the decades that followed, it would eventually reach gold-record status). Lee made several more albums with a new version of the band, including "False Start" (1970), noteworthy primarily for a guest appearance by Hendrix. He dropped out of the music scene for much of the '70s and '80s, while MacLean went on to write songs for the likes of Debby Boone, Patty Loveless and his sister, Maria McKee, until he died of an apparent heart attack in 1998.
Lee's failure to produce much worthwhile music after 1968 has prompted some critics to put him in a class with cracked psychedelic geniuses Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and Roky Erickson. In the mid-'90s, he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison, thanks to California's "three strikes you're out" legislation, which qualified a string of relatively minor incidents as felonies.
Freed in 2002 after six years behind bars, he returned to the music world with the backing of a younger group of psychedelic-popsters called Baby Lemonade. (With the help of a 15-piece orchestra, Lee and the band will perform "Forever Changes" in its entirety Tuesday at the Park West.)
While Lee is talking about recording new material, it's likely that Love's third album will remain his crowning achievement--the enduring testament that he envisioned 35 years ago.
"'Forever Changes' were my last words of Love," he told Creem magazine in 1981. "My last words to the world, only I've been here ever since. Just like a guy saying goodbye, and you look out your front door, and he's still there 15 years later."" [source]
Artist: The Mountain Goats Album: The Sunset Tree Label: 4AD Release date: 24 April 2005 Genre: Rock Style: Folk Rock RIYL: Neutral Milk Hotel, Okkervil River, The DecemberistsTracklisting: 01. You Or Your Memory 02. Broom People 03. This Year 04. Dilaudid 05. Dance Music 06. Dinu Lipatti's Bones 07. Up The Wolves 08. Lion's Teeth 09. Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod 10. Magpie 11. Song For Dennis Brown 12. Love Love Love 13. Pale Green Things Total running time: 39' 35" [The Mountain Goats - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player] [The Mountain Goats - Dance Music - Unofficial Video Clip]
"Let’s imagine that since 1991, John Darnielle has been traveling in reverse. At the onset of the 90’s, he faded into a dignified obscurity, weaving cryptic miniatures of Just About Anyone, stories that were both thematically universal and inaccessibly anonymous. His tender visions were filtered through a reverence for Petronius, whose Satyricon saw Rome, top-down, circa AD 61 in much the same way he pictured a lover’s transcendent reunion (gun-strapped) in Georgia, a cruelly hyperbolic passion for the Chicago Cubs, or a house full of meth-heads—enthrallingly human. He had achieved a quiet self-effacement, pouring his unmistakable voice out to the smallest of die-hard audiences, reigning in no-fi poetry with the help of a few stray guests and the blessings of modern boombox technology. (These documents were originally released on cassette and 7”, and only properly re-released at the turn of the decade on the Protein Source of the Future…Now!, Bitter Melon Farm, and Ghana compilations.)
In April 2005, the Mountain Goats appeared with The Sunset Tree, an album sprawling vivaciously across the spectrum of emotion and intellect, chronicling the painful youth of its singer, from self-medicating a nasty case of Abusive Stepfather with quality prescription narcotics, large headphones, and the volume knob, to learning to understand, survive, and grow through the cracks. It’s the album so many prolific singer-songwriters would try to make first; if Darnielle’s 90’s material presented the listener with little recourse from his idiosyncrasies, The Sunset Tree offers clearer avenues of attention and appreciation. His terse, sympathetic lyrical view occasionally rests on the superb contributions of his band, and he tackles the subjects closest to himself (though not always the most accessible) with the support of producer John Vanderslice’s rich, sparkling ambiences. (Incidentally, it’s easily the most sonically engaging of his “studio” records.) It’s no victory lap, nor does it feel like Darnielle is wading into memory for lack of a subject; The Sunset Tree is one of the most volatile, affecting and coherent records he’s made yet.
Darnielle’s lyrics are often funny, in a heartbreaking “isn’t life so just like that, how we have these beating hearts and they get out of control and we act a fool” kind of way. Characteristically, his best moments are an unusual blend of superhuman bitterness and performative melodrama, like the teeth-on-brick damnation of “In my life, I hope I lie, and tell everyone you were a good wife, and I hope you die, I hope we both die” from Tallahassee’s “No Children.” The best Mountain Goats material can make you laugh as often as it might make you crumble. The humor of The Sunset Tree, however, holds some punches. In Darnielle’s tragicomedies the main characters are voluntary victims—of drugs, alcohol, or what have you. Like the “The Fall of the High School Running Back” into an acid deal gone bad from 2002’s All Hail West Texas “your grandfather rode the boat over from Ireland, but you made a bad decision or two, yeah.”
Here, the suffering is at the hands of a tyrant, the stepfather, and the humor never comes with the dynamic of oppression. Instead, it’s the portraits of youth’s deep confusions: getting drunk and punching a video game console because it’s the only way you know how to say “I’m a virile adolescent and I’m pissed and that’s cool,” filling up your notebook with reasons not to freeze to death (the angst!), or feeling too untouchably awesome to care about your imminent arrest because you’ve got sweet dance music blaring from your stereo. It hovers so close because like life, it’s often unfair, unpoetic, plain contradictory, and retrospectively embarrassing—few of Darnielle’s stories have chronicled passions so unadorned and believable.
On the whole chronology thing: forget it, because it couldn’t have happened. The Sunset Tree charts the evolution of a maturity, and arrives at a place Darnielle has never been before. Our narrator starts the record slightly haywire, a confused youth maxing out on the raw nerves of bitterness and hope. “Dilaudid” is one of the most startling songs in their catalog, a swarming set of interlocking cello lines masterfully articulated by Erik Friedlander with Darnielle’s quaking tearfully at the center, delivering easily the most harrowing vocal of his career—no small feat for a guy who has spent a good portion of the last ten years searching for the perfect blend of violence and fragility. By “The Day That Dennis Brown Died,” he’s wondering about his own mortality, and like all of Darnielle’s work, it turns outward before reflecting inward, musing on the uninterrupted state of the world as a single life expires.
“Love Love Love” is going to put some people off; it rocks gentler than a nursery rhyme and references more, cough, controversial parts of the career of Kurt Cobain, but it also achieves meditative distance unlike anything he’s ever written. Said the wounded son to his stepfather, in a moment of empathy, “Now we see things, as in a mirror dimly, then we shall see each other face to face.” No raging passions here, but elliptical references to the staggering difficulty of parsing out each input of our most complex emotions, folding in Crime and Punishment’s conflicted murderer/imminent Christian Raskalnikov, a glimpse at Sonny Liston moments before his fight with Cassius Clay in 1964 (which many suspect was thrown for money), and the suicide of King Saul, who ended his life as the first king of the Hebrews to escape capture by the Philistines. These songs are memories unearthed after years of treading different paths. It’s psychic distance that turns these painful situations from red-eyed nightmares into emotional koans; was King Saul’s suicide out of love? For his people? For himself?
On “Pale Green Things,” the stepfather dies, years later, “at last,” a vocal lilt that picks the listener up only to let them slide down the tensions of the last forty minutes. Like “seaweed and Indiana saltgrass,” the narrator only then feels his own pale greenness, the humble statement of an organism poised for growth. During the climactic “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod” some songs earlier, the narrator vows that despite his abuse and hardships, “one of these days, I’m gonna wriggle up on dry land.” The analog is apt; The Sunset Tree is what came first, but the experiences only set the course for evolution. " [source]
Artist: Yo La Tengo Album: Fakebook Label: Bar/None/City Slang Release date: 1990 Genre: Rock Style: Indie Rock/Folk Rock/Country RockTracklisting: 01. Can't Forget 02. Griselda 03. Here Comes My Baby 04. Barnaby, Hardly Working 05. Yellow Sarong 06. You Tore Me Down 07. Emulsified 08. Speeding Motorcycle 09. Tried So Hard 10. The Summer 11. Oklahoma, U.S.A. 12. What Comes Next 13. The One To Cry 14. Andalucia 15. Did I Tell You 16. What Can I Say Total running time: 44' 13" [Yo La Tengo - The Summer - Video Clip]
"Recommending Fakebook as the best place to begin a relationship with Yo La Tengo is slightly disingenuous, mainly because Yo La Tengo has never made another record like it, and perhaps never will. So, as completely wonderful as this record is, it's an accurate representation of one side of Yo La Tengo, and assuming that everything sounds like Fakebook might be disappointing. A collection of cover songs that lean toward the idiosyncratic (e.g., Peter Stampfel, Daniel Johnston, Jad Fair), Fakebook is warm, low-key, and lovely, with heartfelt singing and playing that never flags after hundreds of replays. It's impossible to imagine playing this record and not smiling and singing along. A big bonus is a great version of the Flamin' Groovies' "You Tore Me Down."" [source]
Artist: Six Organs Of Admittance Album: Shelter From The Ash Label: Drag City Release date: 12 November 2007 Genre: Rock Style: Psychedelic Rock/Folk RockTracklisting: 01. Alone With The Alone 02. Strangled Road 03. Jade Like Wine 04. Coming To Get You 05. Goddess Atonement 06. Final Wing 07. Shelter From The Ash 08. Goodnight Total running time: 43' 03" [Six Organs Of Admittance - Eighth Cognition/All You've Left - Video Clip]
"It’s been an exhilarating year of life for Ben Chasny, the heraldic presence behind Six Organs of Admittance, alternately thrilling and trying as he negotiated the ever-swirling path of Six Organs as well as the spin he put on Comets On Fire, Current 93, Badgerlore and even the band of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy for one golden European run. But nothing brought more pleasure than retiring to his aerie, far from the flies of the marketplace. There, he could see the future again — and stare in awe as his fingers traced an accompaniment even his very mind could not have imagined!
Shelter From The Ash features a most fluid combination of electric and acoustic Six Organs of Admittance styles. Chasny went into the studio with the songs both in his mind and also demoed out, a different way of working than in previous sessions. Sure, improvisations were still a big part of the sound; within the song structures, they create dynamic sparks from the other side of the inspiration. Additionally (if you must know), standard tuning played a part for the first time in history — but don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that Six Organs of Admittance has come in from the drone-storm — far from it! The man who was once “Torn by Wolves” in an unknown key is now “Coming To Get You,” no matter what it takes — with a tuning any man could play, but few would use as he does.
The session was conducted in the glamorous confines of San Francisco’s Louder Studios, where so many bands have had their hard and heavy essence redefined. Six Organs of Admittance was no exception. Additionally, the session featured such luminaries as The Magik Markers’ Elisa Ambrogio, The Fucking Champs’ Tim Green and Chasny’s Comets On Fire bandmate Noel Harmonson and gadabout-to-the-stars Matt Sweeney pitching in. Six Organs of Admittance has been a collaborative ground in the past, and what happened here is what always happens: an organic oneness, a record very comfortable in it’s many skins.
Seeking change and a fresh killing field at all costs, Shelter From The Ash fords fronts both dark and blustery, lucent and lithe, mining electricity, hydrogen and other elemental forces within." [source]
Artist: Vashti Bunyan Album: Lookaftering Label: FatCat Release date: 17 October 2005 Genre: Rock Style: Folk RockTracklisting: 01. Lately 02. Here Before 03. Wayward 04. Hidden 05. Against The Sky 06. Turning Backs 07. If I Were 08. Same But Different 09. Brother 10. Feet Of Clay 11. Wayward Hum Total running time: 35' 31" [Vashti Bunyan - Wayward + Just Another Diamond Day - Live In Japan]
"It's been 35 years since the release of UK folk singer Vashti Bunyan's solo debut Just Another Diamond Day, which translates to roughly 240 years in music industry terms. And now, with the release of her second album Lookaftering, Bunyan has completed a comeback more reminiscent of pre-war country blues artists like Dock Boggs or Bukka White, whose performing and recording careers were resurrected during the 1960s folk revival, rather than anyone from the pop/rock era. Like those old folk and bluesmen, Bunyan returns to a musical landscape that's been unrecognizably altered. But unlike the later recordings of those performers-- which consisted primarily of reworking their older material-- Lookaftering represents the full-fledged reawakening of a still-vital talent, ready to cast aside her decades-long artistic hibernation and re-ignite her creative fires.
At that time, after the small initial pressing of Diamond Day failed to find an audience, a disheartened Bunyan left the city and music behind, packing her wagon to quietly raise children and animals in the Scottish Borders and rural Ireland. In the meantime, however, her album slowly built a reputation as a lost classic. So when Diamond Day was reissued in Britain to great acclaim in 2000, Bunyan commenced her gradual return to the spotlight. Since then she's made cameo appearances on albums by such fans as Devendra Banhart and Piano Magic, and earlier this year partnered with Animal Collective on the charming Prospect Hummer EP.
On Lookaftering, it comes as a relief to hear not only how pristine Bunyan's delicate vocals remain but that she has retained her understated abilities as a songwriter, despite going decades without picking up a guitar. Taking its title from a self-invented word that refers to taking care of something or someone-- as well as to the process of looking back on the past-- Lookaftering deftly covers both these themes in ample measure. In many regards, this collection seems a wistful, measured reflection upon the long-ago daydreams of Diamond Day and the sweet sadness of all that goes by, while managing to retain the same tranquil, out-of-time intimacy that has allowed her debut to age so gracefully.
Lookaftering also features tasteful instrumental contributions from such guests as Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Mice Parade's Adam Pierce, but Bunyan's most crucial collaborator proves to be producer Max Richter. Throughout the album, Richter's impeccable orchestrations of piano, strings, and woodwinds (co-arranged by Bunyan) masterfully echo Joe Boyd's classic work with Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and on Diamond Day; as well as Larry Fallon's chamber-folk arrangements on Nico's Chelsea Girl. As with Diamond Day, this careful balance is critical to the album's success, since Vashti's feathery, near-whispered vocals could be easily capsized by a heavy-handed production.
"Indifference is the coldest hand/ It is the wave that clears the sand," sings Bunyan on "Turning Backs", an exquisitely orchestrated track she has said was written with Nick Drake in mind, but that might also provide insight into the reasons behind her long absence. Her frustration with the domestic life also crops up on "Wayward", on which she describes "days going by lost in clouds of flour and whitewashing," before later sighing, "I wanted to be the one with road-dust on my boots."
Elsewhere, though, these songs look on the past with a shivery, almost tangible longing. "Here Before", is an elegant ode to the happy mysteries of parenthood ("Once I had a child/ He was wild in the moonlight/ He could do it all/ Like he'd been here before") while on "Against the Sky" she depicts a city-dweller nostalgic for her old farmstead ("The hill behind the old house/ I can trace it with my finger.") For some listeners, such nostalgia might teeter uncomfortably close to sentimentality, but even on personal tracks such as the brief elegy "Brother", Bunyan keeps her touch impossibly light, reflecting only for a moment before quickly turning another page. Lookaftering closes with a wordless reprise of "Wayward", as she quietly hums the song's melody as though unaware that anybody might be listening. But, hopefully, with the arrival at last of her stunning second album, Vashti Bunyan need no longer worry about her music going unheard." [source]
Artist: Bon Iver Album: For Emma, Forever Ago Label: Self-Released Release date: 8 July 2007 Genre: Rock Style: Folk RockTracklisting: 01. Flume 02. Lump Sum 03. Skinny Love 04. The Wolves (Act I And II) 05. Blindsided 06. Creature Fear 07. Team 08. For Emma 09. re: Stacks Total running time: 37' 12" [Bon Iver - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]
"The biographical details behind the creation of an album shouldn't matter when it comes to a listener's enjoyment, but For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon's debut as Bon Iver, exudes such a strong sense of loneliness and remoteness that you might infer some tragedy behind it. So, to skirt the rumor mill, here are the particulars, as much or as little as they might apply: In 2005, Vernon's former band DeYarmond Edison moved from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to North Carolina. As the band developed and matured in its new home, the members' artistic interests diverged and eventually the group disbanded. While his bandmates formed Megafaun, Vernon-- who had worked with the Rosebuds and Ticonderoga-- returned to Wisconsin, where he sequestered himself in a remote cabin for four snowy months. During that time, he wrote and recorded most of the songs that would eventually become For Emma, Forever Ago.
As the second half of its title implies, the album is a ruminative collection of songs full of natural imagery and acoustic strums-- the sound of a man left alone with his memories and a guitar. Bon Iver will likely bear comparisons to Iron & Wine for its quiet folk and hushed intimacy, but in fact, Vernon, adopting a falsetto that is worlds away from his work with DeYarmond Edison, sounds more like TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, not just in his vocal timbre, but in the way his voice grows grainier as it gets louder.
Vernon gives a soulful performance full of intuitive swells and fades, his phrasing and pronunciation making his voice as much a purely sonic instrument as his guitar. In the discursive coda of "Creature Fear" he whittles the song down to a single repeated syllable-- "fa." Rarely does folk-- indie or otherwise-- give so much over to ambience: Quivering guitar strings, mic'ed closely, lend opener "Flume" its eerily interiorized sound, which matches his unsettling similes. "Lump Sum" begins with a choir of Vernons echoing cavernously, which, along with that rhythmically rushing guitar, initiates the listener into the song's strange space.
For Emma isn't a wholly ascetic project, though. A few songs benefit from additional recording and input after Vernon's initial sessions: Christy Smith of Raleigh's Nola adds flute and drums to "Flume", and Boston-based musicians John DeHaven and Randy Pingrey add horns to "For Emma"; surprisingly, their company doesn't break the album's spell of isolation, but rather strengthens it, as if they're only his imaginary friends. Vernon turns the cabin's limitations into assets on "The Wolves", layering his falsetto, tweaking his vocal tones to simple yet devastating effect, and piling on clattering percussion to create a calamitous finale.
That passage contrasts nicely with the simple intro to the next track, "Blindsided", which builds from a single repeating note into a halting chorus melody that sells his skewed Walden imagery: "I crouch like a crow/ Contrasting the snow/ For the agony, I'd rather know." Vernon's lyrics are puzzle pieces that combine uneasily; his nouns tend to be concrete, yet the meanings slippery. On "Flume", the lines "I am my mother's only one/ It's enough" form a strong opener, but the song grows less and less lucid: "Only love is all maroon/ Lapping lakes like leery loons/ Leaving rope burns-- reddish ruse." It's as if he's trying to inhabit the in-between spaces separating musical expression and private rumination, exposing his regrets without relinquishing them. His emotional exorcism proves even more intense for being so tentative." [source]
Artist: The Magnetic Fields Album: 69 Love Songs [3 CDs] Label: Merge Release date: 7 September 1999 Genre: Rock Style: Indie Rock/Folk Rock/Synth PopTracklisting:
69 Love Songs Vol. 1 01. Absolutely Cuckoo 02. I Don't Believe In The Sun 03. All My Little Words 04. A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off 05. Reno Dakota 06. I Don't Want To Get Over You 07. Come Back From San Francisco 08. The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side 09. Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits 10. The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be 11. I Think I Need A New Heart 12. The Book Of Love 13. Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long 14. How Fucking Romantic 15. The One You Really Love 16. Punk Love 17. Parades Go By 18. Boa Constrictor 19. A Pretty Girl Is Like... 20. My Sentimental Melody 21. Nothing Matters When We're Dancing 22. Sweet-Lovin' Man 23. The Things We Did And Didn't Do
69 Love Songs Vol. 2 01. Roses 02. Love Is Like Jazz 03. When My Boy Walks Down The Street 04. Time Enough For Rocking When We're Old 05. Very Funny 06. Grand Canyon 07. No One Will Ever Love You 08. If You Don't Cry 09. You're My Only Home 10. (Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy 11. My Only Friend 12. Promises Of Eternity 13. World Love 14. Washington, D.C. 15. Long-Forgotten Fairytale 16. Kiss Me Like You Mean It 17. Papa Was A Rodeo 18. Epitaph For My Heart 19. Asleep And Dreaming 20. The Sun Goes Down And The World Goes Dancing 21. The Way You Say Good-Night 22. Abigail, Belle Of Kilronan 23. I Shatter
69 Love Songs Vol. 3 01. Underwear 02. It's A Crime 03. Busby Berkeley Dreams 04. I'm Sorry I Love You 05. Acoustic Guitar 06. The Death Of Ferdinand De Saussure 07. Love In The Shadows 08. Bitter Tears 09. Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget 10. Yeah! Oh, Yeah! 11. Experimental Music Love 12. Meaningless 13. Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin 14. Queen Of The Savages 15. Blue You 16. I Can't Touch You Anymore 17. Two Kinds Of People 18. How To Say Goodbye 19. The Night You Can't Remember 20. For We Are The King Of The Boudoir 21. Strange Eyes 22. Xylophone Track 23. Zebra
Total running time: 172' 04" [The Magnetic Fields - With Whom To Dance - Video Clip]
"There's only one question that really needs to be asked of 69 Love Songs: is it a brilliant masterpiece or merely very, very good? The title alone is enough to send music geeks the world over into a foamy-mouthed, epileptic frenzy. 69 songs equals 3 CDs equals nearly three solid hours of new Magnetic Fields material-- think of it! That's more than some notable bands released in their entire existence. Add that to the fact that the Magnetic Fields actually followed through with their concept without turning it into the indie-pop equivalent of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. You see, I have this theory that music critics are suckers for novelty, and there isn't much in this world that's more novel than 69 Love Songs. It borders on being a prop in a Mark Leyner story-- it's hyperreal and excessive, yet perfectly plausible when you consider how weird reality is. Because of this, the album never feels like a ponderous, pretentious artistic statement (unlike most multi-CD releases). Stephin Merritt and company sound like they approached this ridiculously ambitious project with the most casual of airs, idly plucking melody after divine melody out of the air like low-hanging fruit from a tree. It's how pop music should sound, really: so natural and feather-light that you never notice the amount of effort that went into it.
Therein lies the paradox of 69 Love Songs-- it's such a basic style of music that it's easy to dismiss it as "just pop music." Of course, that's what it is, so should it really deserve such high praise? Should it rank among the best albums of the 1990s? Or is it too bizarre to be considered culturally important? I mean, Abbey Road is a pretty weird album, too. Then again, Abbey Road isn't three hours long.
Regardless, Stephin Merritt has proven himself as an exceptional songwriter, making quantum leaps in quality as well as quantity on 69 Love Songs. This incarnation of the band doesn't feature much of the densely layered, burbling electro-pop that they're best known for; in its stead are sparser, more acoustic songs that sound as if they're being played on actual instruments by a group of actual musicians (as opposed to Merritt himself playing mad scientist with effects racks and overdubs). It may initially seem like this stylistic decision came due to budget restrictions-- if you're recording that many songs, you can't blow too much money on any one track. But it's probably more likely that Merritt finally realized the limits of tinny synths and drum machines.
On the Fields' previous outing, Get Lost, you can hear Merritt beginning to lean toward simpler, more elegant arrangements; 69 Love Songs could easily be seen as a continuation of that trend. Merritt also ensures that the listener will never get bored with any one sound, trading off vocal duties with four other singers and deploying a mind-boggling array of instruments: ukulele, banjo, accordion, cello, mandolin, piano, flute, guitars of all shapes and sizes, a dumpster full of percussion toys, and the usual setup of synths and effects. Among other things.
And the songs themselves? Well, I could write a thesis dissecting each and every song on this album, but that would take months. As a prism refracts light into a spectrum of colors, 69 Love Songs not only refracts love into a spectrum of emotions, but also refracts the love song itself into a spectrum of musical forms. There's a duet between a dysfunctional Sonny and Cher ("Yeah! Oh Yeah!"), a country-gospel tune confusing religious and secular love ("Kiss Me Like You Mean It"), and an amusingly light-hearted tale of a soldier's drunken tryst ("The Night You Can't Remember").
There's giddy lust ("Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits"), romantic longing ("Come Back from San Francisco"), sleazy leering ("Underwear"), and resignation and despair ("No One Will Ever Love You"). There are genre exercises such as faux-beatnik jazz ("Love is Like Jazz"), Paul Simon-ish world music ("World Love"), Gilbert and Sullivan-style mincing harpsichord ("For We are the King of the Boudoir"), Merritt's cartoony, day-glo interpretation of punk rock ("Punk Love"), Scottish folk ("Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget"), and a brief Philip Glass tribute ("Experimental Music Love"). There are also plenty of archetypal Magnetic Fields songs, with those trademark deadpan drama-queen vocals, casually depressive lyrics, and clever rhymes. But Merritt also shows he can pen some surprisingly sincere, moving ballads ("Busby Berkeley Dreams," "The Book of Love"), too.
So, back to the original debate. You know that old saying about the whole being more than the sum of its parts? The sum of the parts of 69 Love Songs adds up exactly to its whole. No more, no less. Each song contains its own small epiphany, but they never quite add up to the one big sweeping epiphany that you'd hope for. That's because it's impossible to reconcile the concept of 69 Love Songs with its execution; it's simply too big. That might sound like a cop-out, but this is truly an album you can get lost in. The individual songs will inevitably distract you from a big-picture interpretation of the album. Of course, the Magnetic Fields don't concern themselves with such matters; they promised us 69 love songs, and that's what they delivered. That it's actually worth the exorbitant $35 price tag is a bonus." [source]
Artist: Beirut Album: The Flying Club Cup Label: 4AD Release date: 8 October 2007 Genre: Rock Style: Balkans/Folk RockTracklisting: 01. A Call To Arms 02. Nantes 03. A Sunday Smile 04. Guyamas Sonora 05. La Banlieue 06. Cliquot 07. The Penalty 08. Forks And Knives (La Fête) 09. In The Mausoleum 10. Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route) 11. Cherbourg 12. St. Apollonia 13. The Flying Club Cup Total running time: 38' 34" [Beirut - The Penalty - Live in Brooklyn, NY] See higher resolution version here. [Beirut - La Banlieue - Live in Brooklyn, NY] See higher resolution version here.
"Some people may mourn the passing of Zach Condon’s cottage-industry approach and makeshift binary orkestra, the occasionally cacophonous delivery, and earnestly clamoring and lo-fi arrangements that typified Gulag Orkestra—a result of the young musician’s inventiveness in the face of necessity. They added up to at least half the charm of Beirut’s terrific and much-acclaimed debut album from last year.
Of course those people are also missing something if they think that Condon’s second album, or, more appositely, Beirut’s first as a fully-fledged band, is somehow less charming, less idiosyncratic, less unique, and less wonderful simply because our magical conductor now has a full and very real band at his disposal rather than a cast of imagined musicians in his head.
Following on the heels of the Lon Gisland EP and the extensive, worldwide-touring that followed Gulag, The Flying Club Cup makes use of the friends, networks, and synergies put together to make his previously isolated adventures tangible, and in doing so improves it. It’s a simple formula—the songs are better, the melodies more memorable, the vocals stronger, the sound richer, the arrangements more rewarding.
To give some context, which I view pretty important to this whole “reviewing records” thing, I reviewed this album in the midst of a house-move, my music collection packed all away bar a handful of Beta Band, King Biscuit and Beirut CDs, my desktop computer boxed and debunked, myself perched on a beanbag with a laptop and a glass or eight of red wine. Listening to and writing about The Flying Club Cup in this context made an awful lot of sense; the waiting, the tidied disarray, the low light, the frantic sense that something, somewhere, must have been forgotten, the empty shelves, the rioja that slips across one’s tongue and down one’s throat just slightly too easily. The Flying Club Cup is a luxuriant, beautiful album, but also slightly distracted, otherwise occupied, busy.
Something else that makes a lot of sense is hearing Owen Pallet’s high, tremulous voice ring out with a sense of frosted drama above the accordions and beyond-the-Iron-Curtain martial drums of “Cliquot”; doubly so when you realise that it’s his wonderful, swirling and emotive string arrangements that run through half the record, helping to take the virtual kingdom of Gulag and turn it into a real place populated by accordions horns, pianos and voices—many, many voices.
The foremost of those voices being Zach Condon’s own, finally revealed in its full splendor as both delicate and powerful, capable of traversing melodic lines and riding tides of instruments and musical traditions that should be well beyond the common or garden college dropout from Albuquerque.
Inspired by a picture of hot air balloons by the Eiffel Tower that Condon kept pinned up in the studio (and everywhere else he recorded), The Flying Club Cup sees Condon’s picaresque folk wandering westwards from the Balkan sources of his debut album to take in sights, sounds, and scents more Gallic; Jacques Brel, conversational French, deep, taciturn burgundy clarets and light, dancing Beaujolais. The briefly ringing ukulele (or is it a mandolin?) charms and chides of “The Penalty,” the camp and elegiac drama of “Forks & Knives (La Fête),” the gently-breaking percussive waves and weirs of “Nantes,” the jazzy piano fills and audacious strings of “The Mausoleum,” the rolling farewells of “St. Apollonia”; Beirut here is taken of too much wine, swoonsome, romantic, decadent, observed, and wonderfuly so. The debut album was good, but this is better. Much, much better; the kind of record I will happily and willingly return to long after this review is dead and buried. Please, investigate, sup deeply, imbibe. The Flying Club Cup is a marvel." [source]
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