You have to hand it to those Scandinavians, they are still trying. While American slacker-jangle-pop Kinks throwback bands have stopped trying to actually sound like they care about playing their instruments, burying subtle moves under wavves of static and for-the-jugular choruses, Swede Lars Ludvig Lofgren's lo-fi British-Invasion inspired pop-ramblers still sound like he still gives a cuss about actually making music. Running against the grain of his Scandinavian Classic rock revivalist peers, who carry the torch music would be if rock music actually sustained the exploration-based Blues of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Dungen a logical step anyone? Instead of following that vein of classic rock Lofgren has decided to wander down the alley of Beatle-esque melodies and Kinks style drum-tight songwriting and arrangements filtered through the Lo-fi slacker pop of the late 00's.
This chosen aesthetic works decidedly well for his nasally, Francois Virot-like (minus that crazy-awesome whine that he does) vocals that recall fondly the brashness and those lovable British Invasion bands whose vocals were barely contained in the raucous sound of tinny guitars and shorting out amps. Heterochormia is relatively polite, however, sounding downright sunny at times, a perfect antidote for waiting for the bus in a glary, sub-zero winter day. "Opportunity Knocks" has the catchiest melody on the album, plus some killer descending chord guitar work on the chorus and a heart-warming guitar solo. "Across Your House" while thankfully never turning into those faux-folk front porch stompers that bands methodically contrive in order to sound "loose", has one of those shout-at-the-top-with-lump-in-your-throat of your lungs choruses that dive and then swell into complete revelry. There aren't too many records like this out there these days, straight across the board astute, proficient, and occasionally downright brilliant. If this came out a few years ago perhaps we could have side-stepped the attack of the clone lo-fi pop-punk bands that spawned seemingly overnight. Plus, this may be the best album cover of 2010 so far.
Byline: Since when could psych-rock make yer toes a-tap? Since now.
For: Six Organs of Admittance, Sigur Rós, Tortoise
Denver’s Moonspeed are no strangers to the wonders of psychedelia. The album titleFlowers of the Moon should be a first indication that the band wants to lift its listeners up into the mysteriously unknown beauty of outer-space. But outer-space can also, of course, be considered a cold and desolate place. Moonspeed remedies this truth, however metaphorically, by planting flowers on the moon. Oof. What a clunky analysis of a record title. But in all seriousness, there’s a certain warmth here that comes hand-in-hand with Moonspeed’s expansive 11-members-and-counting instrumental set up. The kind of warmth you can only find in sun-soaked fields, blooming with spring-time optimism and romanticized visions of untarnished and beautiful nature. Warmth in the full, open chord strums of electric guitar. Warmth in the spacious, reverby, echoey vocals. Warmth in swathes of ambient, harmonic drones. Warmth in the cymbal swells and gently percussive rhythms. Warmth in the buzzy synths that drive pretty melodies like a safari tour guide through forests of instrumental meanderings. It’s warm. Get it?
Given the above description of the band’s spacious, meticulously captured sound, I can’t find much else to call it other than “psychedelic rock,” especially when you look at both the Jefferson-Starship-light-show-esque cover art and the subject matter being explored here. Tracks have titles like “Wandering Sun,” and “Magna-Save,” and a lyric in “Harvest,” almost writes itself - “There is nothing lonelier than looking at the stars, we are so small.” But here’s something - psychedelic rock, in all its previous forms, incarnations, and experiments has, generally, one thing commonly: slooooow tempos. Flowers of the Moon definitely has moments of these meditative grooves, but the best songs light a flame ‘neath the ol’ metronome and ramp up the beat into something you might even call toe-tapping. Opener “Silent Sky,” employs this technique right away, giving the listener that feeling of celestial traveling, like being in slow motion while stars fly by at ungodly speeds. “Golden Clock” is another nice example with a tasty hi-hat groove reminiscent of Tortoise’s “Swung From the Gutters” off TNT.
A blanket of solemnity soothes these songs in that tragically beautiful way. It’s clear that leader and songwriter Jeff Suthers finds a comfortable spot in the world of the melancholic, but what’s especially nice is how the music never comes out emotionally overbearing or depressing. This is music to listen to not when you’re feeling bad about yourself or the world, but rather when you’re in that hopeful state, perhaps looking beyond the desolate, polluted, sky-scraping monuments of civilization. Take it with you on a sunny day for a walk through the park, bask in its cozy aura and remember that here is only here. What’s out there must certainly be a place toward which we can always look forward.
Byline: Oakland noise-rockers' latest album is a perfectly fuzzed-out triumph of a record. A sprawling metropolis of 70s-inspired drug-fueled jams, rhythm-centric post-punk, and wide-eyed experimentation in both form and function. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from In Your Speakers, LLC.
Clipd Beaks claim that To Realize is “a tribute to love, to moving forward, to rejecting doom.” This is a head-scratching claim given the claustrophobic, frequently caustic moments of violence that erupt across the album's 11 tracks. Hailing from Oakland, Clipd Beaks layer disorienting, swirling drones over tight, sinister grooves and frantic tribal drumming. Their lyrics, delivered in a scratchy caterwaul, paint broad strokes of surrealistic imagery like “screaming reptiles” and “clouds that become mushrooms”. It would seem this laundry list of nihilistic elements would render the Beak’s earlier claim null. I mean, where does “murdering the apocalypse” fit into love, moving forward, and rejecting doom? How does that line amount to more than vapid, posturing, word-vomit of two very dire things? To answer these questions we can fall back onto the old form vs. functionality argument. The form (i.e. heavily rhythmic post-punk married with churning, dark, psychedelic drones) seemingly defies the function (i.e. the cathartic release that comes from pushing your deepest fears, regrets, disgusts through your speakers into the air through performance). But it is through these seemingly incongruous elements that any catharsis is achieved. How can we move past a world full of depleting resources and a sense of doom gnawing on our once glowing optimism without confronting them head on? Even though To Realize dwells on the negative aspects of life it is only to take ownership of them, embody them for a time, and then move past them. This is achieved surprisingly well on their third release, and first for the(awesome) Lovepump United label, as form and functionality, while seemingly at odds, come together for a triumphant release. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this on my best of list in December 2010.
Like most post-punk bands the rhythm section dictates the mood and direction of the song. To Realize is no exception. “Visions” push the drum-circle like percussion to the forefront, creating buckling, hypnotic beats that fall all over themselves as the song jerks along. “Blood” takes on a minimalist interplay between a brooding bassline, skittering tom hits, and a primitive 2-beat progression. “Desert Highway Music” uses a similar concept of a driving bassline and minimalist drumming, but underneath is a buzzing, oscillating drone that runs circles around your headphones. Every song benefits greatly from the rhythm section being both the backbone and the driving agent. This rhythm-centric approach is not unlike post-punk legends This Heat or L.A drum-n-shout trio Foot Village.
Instrumentation comes in scathing waves on To Realize. These attacks on the senses borrow such atonal sensibilities from No Wave luminaries DNA and Mars to recent unclassifiable juggernauts, Sightings. The addition of squealing, bleating saxophones and trumpets on “Atoms” and “Jamn” seem apropos for this kind of instrumental expressionism. Finding a center to Clipd Beaks is a slippery thing to do. Dig deeper and you find another layer of reverb on top of the guitar, more slightly off beat drum hits, and the aural glue that keeps it all together, those hazy, buzzing drones. These tonal freak-outs, however, never lose track of themselves, the rhythm section is tight as a drum and keeps even the most viscous of free form exploration and druggy drones on a straightforward trajectory.
Probably the most pleasant surprise is that on an album so dedicated to tonal and textural exploration, Clipd Beaks songwriting is pretty top notch. The vocals take on a grating 90s grunge quality Layne Staley would approve of. The most readily accessible example of this is the first single off of To Realize, “Visions” which starts out, “Try to Believe/In Desperate Moments/When clouds become mushrooms/and statues that bleed.” If you think this surreal imagery would inspire a really cool, creepy literal music video, you are right. It is a good songwriter that makes the intangibles seem quite literal. It is refreshing to hear something as formulaic as grunge re-contextualized into something weird and par-for-the-course of late 2000’s experimental music.
To Realize is a perfectly fuzzed out triumph of a record. A sprawling metropolis of 70s-inspired drug-fueled jams, rhythm-centric post-punk, and wide-eyed experimentation in both form and function. Clipd Beaks are hard to resist and if there is any justice in 2010 they will be even harder to miss.
I was asked awhile ago by Devil Whale frontman Brinton Jones to contribute a music video to an artist blog they were contributing to in support of Propellerhead Recording software. Here is the result. This song is taken from their 2008 release "Like Paraders". Enjoy!
In my interview with Gavin's Underground Blog I gave a list of SLC artists whose upcoming 2010 releases I was excited for. In that list I mentioned the obvious big names of artists who would be releasing albums this year: Silver Antlers, High Country, Chaz Prymek, Stag Hare...I can't believe I forgot Sleepover! If there has been a band that has garnered justifiable buzz here in SLC it has been the precious sounds of these twee renaissance harbingers. Playing a handful of shows between here and Provo, being featured in SLUG localized, and been given shout-outs up and down, the moment has finally arrived. The Sleepover album. Comin' straight out of C-86, Sleepover combine shambling, upbeat major chords, backed by a tight rhythm (probably better than any drummer you will hear in any recording labeled Twee), and Lydia Worden's incredible ear for melody and ability to deliver a killer chorus. The line-up is pretty prestigious: bassist Braden McKenna, mastermind behind Navigator, WYLD WYZYRDS, and his eponymous projects, along with drummer Stephen Walter who moonlights in just about every worthwhile band in SLC, and Lydia Worden who has debuted as Cousin Songs and her upcoming hip-hop solo project (!!!1!!!). Enough exposition, Sleepover's self-titled debut prove they are heirs to Tiger Trap's throne and, along with The Pains of Being Pure in Heart and It Hugs Back as riding the crest of second-wave twee revival. The misconception has always been that just because Twee music is cute and simple: Major chord dominant progressions with zero distortion, cardboard drums, and lyrics about crushes, crushes, and more crushes, that the whole package is cute and simple. This is simply not true with Sleepover. Bands at the mercy of a principal singer/songwriter can often feel like an insular projection of that sole agent. As such, Sleepover can be seen as time-capsule of the past year for Lydia Worden. Worden's Lyrics, while typically cast as upbeat and cutesy in twee, are in fact, often at odds with the upbeat chord progression she is hammering out. Themes of unrequited love and societal backlash towards her sexual orientation replace taking naps with kittens under trees and schoolgirl crushes (those sentiments are there, just not in spades). Her melodic cadence is laced with ennui and justifiable frustration. This however, does not take the music down a notch, in fact, it bolsters its jangly pop with something real and cathartic. With this said, Sleepover doesn't sink or swim on one factor, Braden's competent bass work breaks into moments of brilliance often rising to prominence in "And You" and their eponymous jam "Sleepover". And back to drumming, twee drummers mostly just show up to keep time, but Stephen Walter, while somewhat muzzled by the aesthetic, keeps the entire sound together with his steady sense of time. In short, Sleepover transcends the temptation to write them off as a nostalgic nod to an oft-maligned sub-genre and a time when talent was not a prerequisite to start a band, the combination of heartfelt and honest songwriting coupled with confident and pitch-perfect instrumentation show the depth of talent that goes into recording Sleepover. In an era where adherence to a genre is an anomoly, Sleepover stick to their twee guns and delve deep into themselves to fill out 2010's already impeccable track record of rewarding albums.
In 2009 I consumed more music than I have in my entire life. Holding down three music writing gigs will do that. There have been quite a few albums that have fallen through the cracks as a result. I have compiled 4 hype-mongering (and 1 local hype-mongering) albums that I accidently passed up in 2009. Please forgive my lapse in coolness.
I have to give it up to bands that can craft a sound so meticulous and textured that it creates its own internal spatiality. I am talking about “Ecstacy” the ambient club-drug banger that samples Lil’ Waynes infectious “Lolipop” just as effortlessly as it covers a line from Will Smith’s “Miami.” The vocals literally float over the slo-mo, pulsing synth line creating a scene with a broad sense of depth of field, the foreground and the background set in relief from each other. Listening to it on expensive headphones is totally addicting; in fact that goes for the whole album. If you were hoping for an ambient version of a Girl Talk album you will be sorely disappointed, if you were looking for the multi-cultural folk of Taken By Trees married with a sugary back beat of borrowed percussion from tropical nations (see: exploited) you came to the right place. Imperialist ambitions are sometimes cloaked in New-Age fetishization o f exotic tones and textures; an appropriation of Caribbean, raggeton and hip-hop on a liquid Balaeric house beat by some hip Swedes can be fodder for this idea. But who cares? This album is way too laid back to try to sell you something, way too cool to be self-aware. “Nothing matters when we’re dancing” right?
I wouldn’t say I missed the boat on this one. It is still technically 2009 as I write this. I would say that the time was not right for this ultra-cool, ultra-young, ultra-sexy, ultra-British band to come into my life. Late August I was begrudgingly embracing the good-time summer 09 fuzz-punk bands and there was no room for a band with two lower case letters. The evocative, breathy vocals of Romy Madley Croft and the subdued croon of Oliver Sim trade lines like a young, self-aware Neville and Rodstat. Sometimes harmonizing, sometimes content to trade come-ons stalk each other like the sparse, rhythm-centric bass lines and the airy, meandering guitar lines. Croft’s lovers pant more than not steals the show, showcasing her penchant for siren like sensuality on the sexual healing ode “Shelter”. The xx are a tricky band to nail down, obviously rooted in post-punk, minimalist electronica, they often stray into modern R&B especially in their keyboard/beat heavy “Basic Space”. I pray that 2010 sees the xx writing songs for Leona Lewis. Can you imagine?
The first band in this section whose name doesn’t consist of two under case letters. And how! These Are Powers are Comprised of ex-Liars bassist Pat Noeker playing a prepared guitar with a toy action-figure (no joke), Anna Barie whose largely improvised vocal contributions evoke a more soulful Christabelle Solale minus the French accent, and Bill Salas on drums. To define These Are Powers in terms of genre would be impossible (thanks 2009), seeing as TAP are liberal mash-up of hip-hop, noise, 8-bit electronica and snarling No Wave bombed out dissections of composition. These Are Powers are loud, like shake your rearview mirror loud, every tonal space is so packed with noise on the heavy bass hits that there is barely enough room to breathe, much less think. Noecker’s screeching, guitar noise attacks at times skirt the edges of the various members electronic contributions, and others punctuate any hope of empty spaces or holes in the deeply rhythmic hip-hop freakouts. All Aboard Future push the beat heavy songs with the most recognizable verse/chorus arrangements to the front of the album leaving side B to wander in Gang Gang Dance territory creating brutal/exotic soundscapes of distorted guitars and non-western musical influences. I wish I was all aboard All Aboard Future earlier in the year, their opening slot for Mt. Eeire and Foundry Field Recordings, from what I hear, pretty much brought the house down. My friend with significant hearing loss told me at APlace To Bury Strangers Show that These Are Powers were the loudest band he had seen live. Now, that is saying something.
Continent, in it’s entirety, is both a nostalgic look back at the evolution of dance music as well as a snapshot of some of the current trends that wove themselves into the genre in 2009. And, of course, this is indicative of the decade to simultaneously move back in time as we look towards the future. Montreal-ian Mike Silver, most famous for his Crystal Castles and HEALTH remixes takes on the album proper for his debut release. Running about an hour-half his lengthy compositions run the gamut from Lindstrom-esque Space discos, chilled out Balaeric tracks, lukewarm dubstep, 80’s tv show themes replete with synth washes and cheesy soft-rock guitar solos (see: Keytar). The Balaeric islands are a watery graveyard where classically trained pianists shuffle off to die. Silver punctuates and builds his compositions around virtuosic descending and ascending piano scales. At the very brass tacks these piano lines provide a trustworthy base and an impressive exercise in tried and true musicianship. Sometimes the fluttering piano keys inspire involuntary eye-rolling, but I assume that is part of the package of an album so rooted in an era of such laughable excesses.
If there is one album that has consistently been the most enjoyable experience in backtracking (still much more to come) it has been Rejoice The Noise by SLC locals the Brothers Whittaker. Every virtuosic move is expertly calculated to simultaneously put a smile on your face and flip your lid (if flip your lid translates to the physical act of being totally impressed). To bring you up to speed Birthquake is comprised of three brothers who play blistering math-tinged post-rock in the vein of The F’ing Champs, Hella and A Minor Forest but with occasional woodwind accompaniment by Mark Herrera. Living in a day where huge emotional payoffs are manufactured by the most inorganic methods thinkable it is truly refreshing to be blown away by something as primitive as drums, bass, and a killer guitar solo. The excesses of a finger-tapped guitar solo, precision timed hand-claps, whistles, hell-on-wheels time changes all point to one end, celebration. Or revelry. Or rejoicing. This trifecta of fraternal familiarity is underwritten in the very fabric of the sound, as if each members internal clock is inherently understood by the other; this awareness provides for an album with nary a wasted moment. I can’t believe I have gotten this far without mentioning Mark Herrera’s incredible woodwind contributions. His tenor sax on “Farewell, Fare Thee Well, Well “ shreds like the Eighties never happened. Absolutely top-notch stuff.
'Sup! Gavin - from Gavin's Underground on the City Weekly website - recently interviewed me regarding my blogz among other penetrating questions. You can read it here. As if you don't get enough of my complaining here... Plus I got to rep some of my favorite bands. Holla!
Heterochromia (Häleri, Re-issue 01.10)
