Overlooked Classics 2000-2009

Best of the decade lists. I tried, I honestly tried. But for some reason I was overcome with severe anxiety and could not continue. I was torn between albums that really meant something to me in my formulative musical evolution and albums that deserve massive amounts of critical praise but don’t really have much sentimental value beyond my favorable assessment. I mean did I really think Bright Eyes, Appleseed Cast, Cursive and Owen (the four biggest moments of my high school career) should beat out William Basinski on my best of list? Man, what a tough life I lead. So, with Crawf’s incredible forthcoming best of list I decided to focus on albums that probably won’t be featured in anyone’s best of list but, if you found them, they would make your life that much better. These aren’t undiscovered more than they are overlooked. Here we go.

Ryan H.

Aloha Light Works (Polyvinyl, 2007)
This (mini-album, ep?) is completely perfect in every way. Reigning in their mathy time changes and muzzling the bleatings of their signature Wurlitzer and vibraphone a little bit, Aloha produced the most subdued, warm Album of their career. Seven songs weave a narrative centered on themes of redemption, season changes and an ethereal sense of hope around simple acoustic guitar lines, vibraphones and drumming from famed percussionist Cale Parks. “Gold World” is spectacularly pretty, totally perfect for the clichéd fantasy of being at home during a snow storm curled up in a blanket with a good book. Plus, the TOME took its name from the song “Trick Spring”. Mysteries revealed!

Now It’s Overhead Now It’s Overhead (Saddle Creek, 2001)

If there was ever an album that captured the lushly orchestrated folk-pop pre-Indie-blow-up Omaha, Nebraska it was the self-titled debut of these Athens transplants, Now It’s Overhead. Composed of one half Azure Ray (Maria Taylor and Oneida Fink) and the other half multi-instrumentalist Andy Lemaster and ex-Sugar bassist David Barbe, Now It’s Overhead just seemed to encapsulate everything cool about Ted Stevens and Mike Mogis’ textured production style. But, the intangibles are what make this album so amazing, the breathy backing vocals of Maria Taylor and Oneida Fink, the way Andy Lemaster’s thick Georgia drawl elongates vowels in “Blackout Curtain”, Barbe’s pulsing basslines on “6th Grade Roller” and “With a Subtle Look”. Azure Ray would later go on to great fame as a duo and solo, Andy Lemaster would reform NIO for three more excellent albums. But for one fortuitous moment the stars aligned for a perfect slice of beautifully textured melancholy.

Swords Project Entertainment is Over If You Want It (Arena Rock, 2003)

Indie Rock has turned into a pretty slippery term within the past 10 years. But whatever it means or it doesn’t, whenever I think of the term “Indie Rock” I think of bands like the Swords Project. Or more specifically, I think of 2:20 seconds into the second song off of “Entertainment is over” when, after a 2 ½ minute intro of disembodied vocals floating over a sea of electronic manipulation, some heavily distorted drums and hiccupping keys kick in to announce “Exploding Bottles/and red figurines/gang planks for catwalks into a sea of pills”. Sprawling tracks replete with bowed violins, a dump truck full of electronic meanderings, a tight rhythm section for some reason embody early 2000’s indie rock. This is an obvious bridge between the formulaic nineties and the literally-anything-goes late 2000’s. For fans of Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, Pinback…nostalgia.


Telegraph Melts Illium (Absolutely Kosher, 2000)

Sometimes experiments should remain as experiments. But sometimes a haphazard, seemingly anachronistic genre blending coalesces in such a way that it begs to be heard. Telegraph Melts was a one-off project between Amy Domingues (cello) and Bob Massey (electric guitar) that meld ponderous guitar lines with a thunderous electric cello and sparse drumming from Devin Ocampo of Faraquet. The electric cello can be heavy, like really heavy. Throw some distortion on that thing and it has some serious bite. In each tension filled composition, Amy’s beautiful lilting notes give way to manically bowed bursts of jaw dropping metal like riffs. The electric guitar has finally been upstaged! Sometimes the tracks wander a little too much for their own good, only to be pulled in by Ocampo’s steady time-keeping and Domingues/Massey’s lines circling each other like hungry wolves. For fans of Helen Money, CJ Boyd.

Rhys Chatham A Crimson Veil (For 400 Guitars) (Table of the Elements, 2007)

In 1992 minimalist composer with huge ideas compiled 400 guitarists to play a 12 hour living, breathing testament to sound by playing on the bascilla of the Sacre-Couer in Paris, France. We have the pleasure of having on record an hour of this beautiful landmark of sound. For how incredible this sounds in headphones it must have been a life changing experience to see and hear it live. As amazing as it is, however, I feel like the recording suffers from the Watchman complex. Something as intense and complex as the Watchmen fails in all of its recreated forms, a.k.a you Zak Snyder. I don't want to say "you weren't there, you don't know", but you know...whatever. What we do have recorded is pure magic, buzzing droning guitars cram sound into every known centimeter of space available in your ears. Like a glacier, the most powerful earth shaking moves come from the most minute movements. Although the sound can be overwhelming the smallest movements of tone come slowly and envelop you in a buzzing avalanche of beauty.

This is It: The Best Albums and songs of 2009 + Special Offer!

What a year. 2009 in music is what 2007 was in film. Revered names within the cultured film elite made huge populist overtures in what resulted in decade defining masterpieces. But running beneath the huge buzz surrounding Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and the Dirty Projectors (all represented here) were some astounding pieces of work coming in from well established artists and new comers as well. So, this introduction kinda sucks... on to the albums!

Read on for a special offer!

Crawf: Best of 2009

25. Alela Diane - To Be Still
24. DOOM - Born Like This

23. No Age - Losing Feeling EP
22. Micachu - Jewellery
21. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
20. Antony & The Johnsons - The Crying Light
19. The xx - xx
18. Ben Frost - By The Throat
17. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle
16. Girls - Album

15. Flaming Lips - Embryonic

14. Gold Panda - Back Home EP / Make Mine 7”

13. jj - jj N° 2
12. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic

11. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

10. Polvo - In Prism

A band I once thought gone for good returned this year with their best album yet. I’m not sure this has ever happened before, but I’m not complaining. Math-rock as we know it might as well be dead, but don’t tell that to Polvo, who somehow dug up the style’s grave and disguised it’s zombified remains as something totally accessible and easy to listen to. Let’s just say that it’s nice to be blown away by rockin’ riffs again, but it’s even nicer that these rockin’ riffs (executed with clock-work precision, as expected) are also within the grasps of the common Zeppelin fan - memorably hummable, rooted in enticing melodies.

9. Real Estate - Real Estate

No matter where I went in 2009, I couldn’t seem to get away from the sounds of summer gently wafting through my headphones. No one wanted it to be winter, especially when it got cold, and it was during the season’s coldest time yet (at least here in Denver) that Real Estate warmed me up the most, to the point where I wanted to take up their generous offering of refreshing beverages. It’s also the year’s most relaxing album in one of the more stressful times in recent memory - a gentle reminder to roll out the hammock, take a vacation, and just chill the hell out. Ahhhh.

8. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
Glo-fi’s finest achievement in 2009 won me over not because of the it’s decidedly lo-fi aesthetic, or because of the sequencing of the beats - two of the genre’s mainstays. No, Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo rose above the rest with something simple: great melodies, and great songs. If anything, the artist’s love for Ariel Pink gave him the distinct advantage of taking his music back to a time and place where the song really always was the most important thing. Why it takes this much tape-hiss to get us to remember these crucial elements is beyond me, but everything gels so wonderfully with the squishy synths and ear-piercing octaves that maybe Neon Indian has found a way to circumvent the question altogether: the songs simply are. And they are wonderful.

7. Various Artists - Dark Was The Night

A compilation album reaching the top 10 of any list is immediately suspect, and could easily be considered a cop-out. But slipping in at the tail-end of a decade really defined by its love of the indie-musician, Dark Was The Night highlights the very best artists of a style, doing their very best work. Even bands like Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors managed to turn in arguably better work here (see the drop-dead gorgeous ballad, “Deep Blue Sea” and, of course, “Knotty Pine,” a track that ranks among the decade’s best songs, period) than they were able to on their own full-lengths. But most astounding of all is the mighty return of Sufjan Stevens, revealing himself as an entirely different beast, one who’s almost giving the finger to his “50 States Project” by contributing a brilliant cover of Castanets’ “You Are The Blood.”

6. Jim O’Rourke - The Visitor
Long pieces of music are generally one of two things - classical, or space-disco/kraut/dance. This has been true for a very long time, from innovators like Manuel Göttshing or Steve Reich in the 70s (of course centuries older for classical works). Rarely, though, do they take the shape O’Rourke so meticulously crafted with his first album in several years, which is that of lushly composed and orchestrated pop and folk. O’Rourke’s absence has been sorely missed, and he more than made up for lost time with The Visitor, one of the year’s finest pieces of music that explores such a vast emotional range (no easy task for an instrumental work), while showcasing O’Rourke’s cornerstone- his beautifully full, clean, and open production style.

5. Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship
Am I this transparent? If a year passes with an album featuring the name “John McEntire” listed anywhere on the sleeve, it’ll likely make my top ten. Biased? Yes. But only because of what a great drummer and engineer the man is. And what’s best about his work with Tortoise is that it’s very clear his drumming plays a crucial role in the composition of the band’s material. Never was this more true than with Beacons of Ancestorship, an album that thrives on beats that trudge like dinosaurs through tarpits. Slowly lurching, intensely driving, exotically tropical, and undeniably hip-hop.

4. Here We Go Magic - Here We Go Magic

Since the Sea and Cake didn’t release an album this year, I’ll settle for Here We Go Magic’s self-titled debut. And maybe “settled” is a poorly chosen word... what I mean to say is that HWGM is without a doubt the most exciting new band to hit the scene in 2009, layering deftly arranged blankets of static and noise between slices of world-pop. The songs themselves will pull you in, but it’s subtleties (like that teeny, tiny clave pattern I recently discovered in “I Just Want to See You Underwater” that gently pushes the groove even further) that’ll keep you coming back for more - Luke Temple’s project is the kind that demands and requires repeat listenings to discover all the magic contained within.

3. Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue

I’m done with Prefuse 73. Fortunately, Prefuse 73’s influence isn’t done with us - last year’s glitch-hop tops was Flying Lotus, but this year fans of the genre are treated to a new and unique animal in Bibio’s surprising and delightful Ambivalence Avenue. Treading such diverse ground as ballads, waltzes, and of course, straight up banging hip-hop, Bibio’s gentle guitar work and vocals combine for a beautifully sensual music that lays the path for a journey from the highs of the dance-floor, to the lows of losing your girlfriend.

2. Cass McCombs - Catacombs
Maybe singers these days aren’t as good as they used to be. It seems like bands and their albums rely so heavily on effects - reverb, delay, static, crunch - whatever it takes to hide the fact that their voices just might not be that great, that any kind of sincerity or conviction is immediately lost, and the singer is ultimately distanced from his or her audience. Cass McCombs is thus 2009’s ultimate breath of fresh air, as his voice is so sweetly honest, clean and true throughout Catacombs. But his sentiments, as filtered through chamber folk and even doo-wop, only strengthens the sincerity of his testimonials on this, the year’s most beautiful collection of love songs.

1. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
From the wavery-guitar’s opening moments of “Cannibal Resource” to the bombastic ballad (...somehow?!?) of “Florescent Half Dome,” Dirty Projectors’ latest - and best album yet - consistently messes with you. The overwhelming amount of things happening on the album, from ridiculous, skittering guitar solos courtesy of the amazingly talented Dave Longstreth, to blasting, pounding drums and even Nico-inspired balladry ("Two Doves") - it all may be a bit much for the casual music fan. But the DPs manage to succeed here by refusing to push its audience away with eliticism, tapping into more familiar ground than at first meets the ear, skipping gracefully on international waters with West-African rhythms and harmonies, taking a pit-stop in the club with the raucous “Stillness is the Move,” but also landing squarely in that quintessential “indie” forum that has so massively dominated the sound of the decade. What’s best, though, is the lyrics, as no other album outlined the frustrations of a young generation caught in a recession that doesn’t belong to them - a simultaneously inspired and inspiring call to action for an endlessly creative group of youngsters that proves no matter what happens, we all still do have some sort of control over the whirlwind of problems plaguing our surroundings, even if that control takes the form of a complexly beautiful work of art, our greatest weapon since, well... since the work of art itself.

Ryan H.: Best albums of 2009

1. Ben Frost “By The Throat” By far the most immediate and emotionally riveting album this year. Somewhere in the margins of post-classical, drone, and noise, Frost’s post-apocolyptic dread is underpinned by some gorgeous works of classical music.

2. Why? “Eskimo Snow “I conquered my own childhood silence/ and now the world is mine, lit with confessional marquees”. On his most un-hip-hop and sobering record of his career Yoni Wolf & Co. can still stop me in my tracks with a single turn of the phrase.

3. Leyland Kirby “Sadly, The Future is No Longer What it Was” Four + hours of beautifully composed, nostalgic waves of synth based drones and elegiac neo-classical compositions.

4. The Antlers “Hospice” This album cornered me on a road trip and I still haven’t gotten over it. The narrative is so haunting, the delivery totally heartfelt (I mean it), and the emotion so raw... even if it does follow

a prototypical indie rock song trajectory.

5. Cass McCombs “Catacombs” Man, I love this album. It will always remind me of this summer after I got married. Cass McCombs is probably the best songwriter we have today. There said it.

6. Dirty Projectors “Bitte Orca” Believe the hype. Hyper-complex song arrangements, diva-like backing vocals, and a

decided populist appeal. Dirty Projectors are on the short list of amazing bands making moves towards greater accessibility without sacrificing artistic integrity.

7. German Shepherd “Alpine Melodies” By far the best guitar-based drone album of the year. German Shepherd buries his warped guitar sounds deep underwater and still manages to release his most lucid album yet.

8. Animal Collective “Merriweather Post Pavilion” Once again, believe the hype. Quite simply the most joyful and accessible album of the Collectives career. You love it and you can’t deny that.

9. Do Make Say Think “The Other Truths” Celebrating 10 years of crafting the incredibly uplifting Canadian post-

rock, Do Make pick up right where they left off and pen some of their most effortless, cathartic songs to date.

10. Swan Lake “Enemy Mine” Finally a supergroup that doesn’t disappoint, composed of Canadian indie-rock powerhouses Casey Mercer, Spencer Krug and Daniel Bejar. Darker, woozier than Beast Moans Casey, Spencer and Daniel all end up sounding like themselves with spectacular results

11. Animal Hospital “Memory”
12. Evangelista “The Prince of Truth”
13. Antony & The Johnsons “The Crying Light”
14. Sunset Rubdown “Dragonslayer”
15. Grizzly Bear “Veckatimist”
16. Silver Antlers “Black Blood of the Earth”
17. Lightning Bolt “Earthly Delights”
18. Sister Suvi “Now, I am Champion”
19. Lake Mary “S/T”
20. Aarktica “In Sea”
21. Jasper, TX “Singing Stones”
22. Years “Years”
23. Russian Circles “Geneva”
24. MONO “Hymn to the Immortal Wind”
25. Navigator “Bad Children”

Adelyn Hall: Top 10 Albums of 2009

1. Why? - Eskimo Snow

2. Sunset Rubdown – Dragon Slayer

3. Owen – New Leaves

4. Jay - Z - The Blueprint 3

5. Themselves – CrownsDown

6. Cass McCombs - Catacombs

7. Mew - No More Stories....

8. Maria Taylor – Ladyluck

9. Lake Mary - Lake Mary EP

10. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist

22 of the best songs in 2009 + Special Offer!

The best songs of 2009 (as chosen by Ryan H.). The first ten people to e mail me get a TOME mixtape plus some sort of 2009 ephemera....SQUUUEEEEEE!!!

1. “Quitters Raga” Gold Panda

2. “Die Slow” HEALTH

3. “Knotty Pine” Dirty Projectors + David Byrne

4. “You Saved My Life” Cass McCombs

5. “Lust For Life” Girls

6. “Bear” The Antlers

7. “Wanna Kill” Crocodiles

8. “Goth Star” Pictureplane

9. “DaxStrong” Themselves

10. “Alice” SunnO)))

11. “You Are the Reflection of the Moon on the Water” Grant Hart

12. “Stillness is the Move” Dirty Projectors

13. “Dreams Come True Girl” Cass McCombs

14. “Two” The Antlers

15. “Idiot Heart” Sunset Rubdown

16. “Overnight Religion” Kurt Vile

17. “Two Weeks” Grizzly Bear

18. “Anna” Taken By Trees

19. “No Time, No Hope” Times New Viking

20. “Aeon” Antony & The Johnsons

21. “Keep on Knoicking” Death

22. “The Cut” Black Feather

Ola Podrida

Belly of the Lion (Western Vinyl, 11.09)

For: Damien Jurado, Bowerbirds, Woods

Byline: Cinematic tales filled cautious optomisim and nostalgia from renowned film composer David Wingo.

It is no wonder David Wingo writes his songs like a director staging a carefully composed shot. After composing scores for David Gordon Green and recently Jared Hess, Wingo under his Ola Podrida moniker has released a quiet stunner of an album, his sophomore Belly of the Lion. For all intents and purposes, Wingo is not an expressionist, his stories and characters are shot on location, in abandoned bathroom stalls, your dads basement, and backyard pools. Picking up on themes of childhood memories and cautious optimism, Wingo weaves his memories and real world spatiality to compose delicately crafted tales rife with cinematic lushness and detail.

Not straying far from accomplished songwriters Damien Jurado and Jim White, Wingo wraps his mes-en-scenes around conservative amounts of acoustic guitars and banjoes that occasionally reach a crescendo and sometimes canter confidently through a track worth of memory tapes. When the expected emotional payoff-cum-ramshackle chorus hits, it isn't dripping with the contrived emotion of a barely taped-together run away train of wide-eyed catharsis. Wingo allows his tight instrumentation and woozy shoegaze major chord riffage (displayed in "Monday Morning") to speak for his warbled, already strained voice. Such a move makes an already dangerously emotionally charged album palatable and even makes the emotion palpable.

This isn't to say Wingo can't speak with tongues-o'-fire. His missionary like zeal in "Donkey" comes very close to "King of Carrot Flowers Pt. II" territory. Most of the album, however, takes a more subdued tone. The nostalgia of "Your Father's Basement" recalls with equal fondess making prank calls, looking for your dads stash of nudie (huh, there is no way to spell that) magazines and booze, to listening to rap to impress your friends hot older sisters. "Lakes of Wine" and "This Old World" are a montage of possible memories or imagined possibilities of skinny dipping, kidnapping, and mysterious notes found by a roadside.

Recorded (mostly) by himself in his apartment, Belly of the Whale, is an inviting, intimate step into the world of Ola Podrida which is a lot like a David Gordon Green film. A recognizable place and time with just enough poetic incongruities to make the recognizable seem a little bit mysterious and eerie, but nevertheless real.

Ryan H.

This Old World - OLA PODRIDA from Zellner Bros. on Vimeo.

Githead

Landing (11.09, Swim)

For: Wire, Neu!, Ride

Byline: Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from In Your Speakers, LLC.

John Lennon once said, “Blues is a chair”. For all intents and purposes he was right. A compositionally sound, tried and true, functional framework that provides both a cradle for musical ideas as well as a jumping off point for embellishment and improvisation. For 90 % of the rock and roll world this analogy works. For Githead’s fifth studio album I would suggest a more apropos analogy, no offense to John Lennon. For Landing, “Krautrock is a chair” explains a lot. Probably not as insightful, but the heavily syncopated, droning drum work draw irresistible comparisons to influential krautrock group, NEU! and their signature “Motorik” drumming pattern. Githead builds from the ground up, composing layers of swirling shoegaze guitars and electronic programming , atop the driving repetition of Malka Spigel’s bass and Max Franken’s drumming.

Githead consists of Wire’s Colin Newman, electronic producer Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), and Malka Spigel and Max Franken of Israeli post-punks, Minimal Compact. What started as a studio experiment eventually spawned five full-length albums, a tour, and appearances at several festivals. Not bad for a band with no long term career plans. However, a supergroup with such lauded membership need not make plans too far in advance. Considering the pedigree of Githead one would assume that an avante-garde experimental album would be the only foreseeable output for this quartet (especially in light of Wire’s more recent works) but fortunately 2007’s Art-Pop and Landing favor straight-ahead pop structures with experimental tendencies over potentially more dodgy noodling.

Landing starts with a test-shot, a sort of introduction for the uninitiated. If you can hang with four-plus minutes of Spigel and Franken’s repetitive bass-lines falling in lock-step behind Franken’s 4-4 drumming while Rimbauld and Newman pile on their effects-laden guitar meanderings with nary a tempo change, all sans vocals, you are invited to partake. If not, no hard feelings, this stuff is not for everyone. But, make it past “Faster” and an entire world unfolds before you. Githead’s repetition allows for endless, structured experimentation on a gravitationally held theme that keep Landing earth bound. In keeping with the chair analogy, Githead’s rhythm section both rests on and elaborates the Motorik percussion model. Newman and Rimbauld’s guitar work recalls a slightly more stacatto My Bloody Valentine and recalls fondly the seeming endless wave of 80’s shoegaze bands washing up on the American shore, with a stylistic tip of the hat to Curve, Ride and most importantly Swervedriver. It is as impossible to discuss Githead without mentioning their shoegaze tendencies as it would be without mentioning their krautrock leanings.

Spigel’s stark, monotone delivery on tracks like “Ride” and “Take Off” display a cool sense of detachment–a robotic extension of her frigid bass lines. In fact no one really sings on Landing, Newman and Spigel’s marriage vows extend beyond fidelity to the realm of rhythmic vocal cadence. Imagine Ladytron’s Helen Marnie filling in for Newman on Wire’s seminal “Pink Flag” and you will get the idea of what Malka Spigel is working with. Newman’s snarky British bite shows up on “Over the Limit” and “Transmission Tower”, otherwise it is Spigel who has the show.

Githead has been a blessing in a month of otherwise bleak musical prospects. With so much amazing music released and digested in 2009 it is nice to have a band finish the year with a bang.

Ryan H.

Githead Myspace

Aarktica

In Sea (11.09, Silber Records)

For: Remora, German Shepherd, Yume Bitsu

Byline: Now, where am I going to put this in my best of 2009 list?

Listening to music that sounds like it was recorded underwater is an auditory indulgence. I am a sucker for music that sounds like it is coming in from next door or seeping up from the basement. There is a strange sense of everything being far away and non-centered, like when you are coming out from anesthesia. While I can enjoy this strange experience from time to time through headphones, I couldn't imagine this being my only auditory connection with the world. For Jon DeRosa, the man behind Aarktica, this is a 24-7 experience. Nerve damage left him completely deaf in his right ear. Seems like a career ending injury, right? Like an ACL tear in basketball. In DeRosa's case, he translated the warped, distant sounds of hearing everything like he was underwater into a quietly epic, droning masterpiece of layered guitar sounds. DeRosa's drones, like a less abstract Eluvium, are centered around looped chords and textured guitar effects that build into a quiet crescendo. In the drone landscape, DeRosa's output is unique. DeRosa builds his icy soundscapes around an almost pop-like song structure, eschewing the temptation to wander aimlessly across a frozen tundra of half-baked musical ideas. This blending of the familiar and unchartable gives way to a bottemless cavern of eerie guitar effects and buzzing drones that float freely beneath the surface. What is amazing about In Sea, (I don't think I have mentioned what an awesome title that is) is that one expects a aural representation of DeRosa's braille like interpretation of sound. Instead the fidelity is the exact opposite of underwater music, it is clean, precise, and of course more than just a little fractured and woozy. I was already considering this one of the best post-rock/guitar drone albums of the year before a quick look at the back story cemented it. Well worth dropping everything and listening to it.

Ryan H.

Aarktica Silber Records Homepage

Omo

The White Album (LOAF, 2009)

For: Broadcast, Stereolab, Buffalo Daughter

Byline: Debut album from this Berlin by-way-of London duo is a maniacal study in the mundane, transforming the day-to-day into something twisted and creepy, while simultaneously accessible and recognizable. Prepare to get awkward. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from In Your Speakers, LLC.

“Domestic pop for domestic occasions.” That’s Omo’s tagline on their MySpace page. Basically, they did my job for me. I just can’t think of a better, more clever way to sum up this band’s style, so I won’t. Tennis, tea time, clothing, infomercials, appointments, deserts - all of the exciting adventures and pleasures of a modern lifestyle’s day are summed up nicely in these twelve tracks. But we all know that in reality, materialism is fundamentally two things: boring and bullshit. Fortunately, Omo knows this too, and that’s really the key to their debut record, The White Album. Like Monty Python before them, Omo both celebrates and exposes the mundane by repositioning day-to-day nouns, activities or concepts into twisted, bizarre environments with a dry, darkly humorous sensibility. The results are just as likely to draw smiles as they might confuse, disorient, or incite a suspicious nervousness.

Most of the awkwardness comes from the band’s sheer presentation as on the whole, the songwriting is really quite pleasant. Many tracks borrow sonic stylings from bands like Stereolab and Broadcast, creating micro-pop tunes from Casio keyboards and vibraphone or simplistic guitar lines and minimalist electro-beats. A lot of the album ends up sounding similar to early-aught’s J-rock bands like Buffalo Daughter - modestly fun and geeky art-pop that can double (at times) as party music.

But then there are the voices. Those creepy, creepy voices. Beret Immeg speak-sings the majority of the album, transforming her lyrics into lectures. “Her Body,” is an odd one (one of many), Immeg slowly drawling out an encyclopedic description of a bird egg’s incubation process. It comes out sounding like a kid’s educational animal program from hell. When she does sing, it’s perhaps the weirdest voice I’ve ever come across. I don’t know how she does it - that shrill operatic vibrato, ending up as a near-exact replica of the noise a theremin produces. This style helps to make “König” one of the most maniacally insane songs released this year. It’s about a king looking to set himself apart from the common royalty by studding his crown with stars (“REAL stars” - an insistent assertion of conceit and hubris) set to no discernible chord or melodic form before enters that jarring, but nonetheless stunning vocal ability. It’s one of those shake-your-head-in-disbelief moments on an album - what just happened, and why?

Meanwhile, David Muth’s voice is never a clear tone, instead always a deep baritone filtered through an über-vibrato, double-texturized effect. His delivery is a strange combination of British and German accents (this makes sense, given that the band is from Berlin/London), and reminds me a lot of that guy with the super long arms looking for the fish in the Python’sThe Meaning of Life. “Turtle Neck” takes the cake in terms of his weirdest performance, combining froggy voices with the album’s most aggressive guitar line and some beat-boxed vocal grooves.

Overall, it’s hard not to describe the album on a track-by-track basis without using the word “creepy” at least once per song (I’m not sure how this review made it this far only using it three times...), and that said, Omo definitely runs the risk of just being too much for a lot of people. But back to the band’s original description of itself: ultimately these songs are indeed “domestic.” They’re recognizable, approachable, and in that deeply diggable way, totally listenable. Let’s not forget what is truly the creepiest of all: the normal. Omo turns the mirror in on itself. It’s pop looking at pop, realizing what a hideous monster it can be, then taming the beast into something manageable. The quirky weirdness of it all ultimately ads up to a truly imaginative effort that simply demands attention be paid, and is therefore impossible to ignore - clicking play will seal your fate, but never fear. Though there’s plenty of dark moments, nothing here is really meant to scare the audience off. The band’s penchant for creeping out their listeners is as harmless as that weird kid from class who always made those strange, out-of-place comments. Don’t forget, that kid was also usually a genius.

--Craw'z 12/7/2009

Omo Official Website

Omo - Oversized from LOAF:TV on Vimeo.

The Don'ts and Be Carefuls

Risk Assessment (Self Released, 12.09)

For: DD/MM/YYYY, Black, Black Ocean, Les Savy Fav

Byline: Solid Dance-punk destined to be blasting out of all the discos in Denver. Denver has discos right?

The term "don'ts and be carefuls" refer to a time when the motion picture industry was ruled by an arcane fist of proposed morality stemmed from it's creator Willy Hays. The Hays code as it was known prescribed rules of what could not, under any circumstances, be shown on screen as well as an inumerable list of things that might be objectionable and would probably fall swiftly under the editors razor blade. The Don'ts were:

1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.

3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

The "be carefuls" were pretty much everything else you see in films today.

After this tyrannical set of rules were lifted Hollywood was free to display the debauchery of: A man and wife in the same bed together, women driving, "excessive and lustful kissing". Next stop: hardcore pornography on television. Phew, luckily we have the rating system.

Well, none of this has anything to do with the Denver dance-punk band The Don'ts and Be Carefuls, but they have a clever name, clever lyrics, probably clever haircuts. D & BC are cut from a broad swath of post-punk swagger that blew up in the 2005's married with the reckless abandon of the dance-punk of the classics Q and Not U and Dismemberment Plan. The only difference between them and the post-punk revivalists from across the pond is A: They are from Denver. B: I can listen to them without wanting to throw up. Their relatively short six song first offering boasts some chops that would be envied by a band in the scene for awhile. Each song is bastioned by a punchy dance tempo, plenty of high-hat tips and huge drum rolls, angular guitar work, clever songwriting delivered by Casey Banker's nasally faux-British that at times recalls a higher pitched Isaac Brock but shares a close distinction to Denver dance punk vets Black, Black Ocean. D & BCs know how to pack some incredibly catchy numbers into a relatively conservative space. "Simple Miracles" and "The New World" hit every switch to ensure a rave up of a dance party. These songs are effortless in their delivery and inspire a knee jerk reaction of toe tapping. The EP flounders a bit in the middle section, coming a little to close to Arctic Monkeys territory for a handful of No-Coast dance punk kids (I mean does Denver even have discos?). Risk Assessment ends on a high note with "Insomnia", and with that leaves a good impression and ensures repeated listening. I heard these guys are going on some sort of hiatus, bummer, I guess that cuts the chances of them ever making it down to Salt Lake City significantly.

Ryan H.

Don'ts and Be Carefuls Myspace

Maps

Turning the Mind (11.09, Mute)

For: Spiritualized, I Like Where I Live, The Big Pink

Byline:A redemptive saga of addiction and self-loathing set to club-ready beats, swirling electronic upswells, and down-comforter warm synth washes. Originally published on www.inyourspeakers.com. Used by permission from In Your Speakers, LLC.

It has been eight years since J. Spaceman’s Fitzcarraldo-esque epic Let it Come Down chronicled his bouts with addiction, debauchery, recovery and redemption. Now, Northampton electronic musician James Chapman under the moniker Maps has produced something that attempts to capture Let it Come Down in scope, epic range, and thematic weight, only with 114 less studio musicians than Mr. Spaceman. Instead of recruiting Mimi Parker, an orchestra, and a full vocal choir, Chapman hurls his longings, insecurities, and self-loathing against a wall of synthesizers, sequencers, percussion-heavy piano lines and house-beats in a grandiose display of dirty laundry airing and cathartic bleeding on the dance floor.

Why? Frontman Yoni Wolf hit on a universal truth earlier this year after spurting out some hyper-confessional lines that would make any mother blush. Wolf stated, “You think saying all this in public would make me feel funny / but sometimes you gotta yell something out you wouldn’t tell nobody.” True. By making up in volume what you would have rather kept hidden, you eliminate both the shame and the shamefulness of the action. Maps takes this moral relativism baton and runs with it. If Chapman wants to do drugs, get in fights in clubs, self-destruct and piece himself together before our eyes, he begs us to watch with sympathy or at least be cool with it.

As a songwriter, Chapman doesn’t quite have the pluck or the lovable ne’r-do-well charm to distinguish himself from among the huddled masses of British mopecore electronica. Where J. Spaceman could turn a phrase like “the only time I’m drink or drug free / is when I get my drink and drugs for free,” Chapman is forced to give us literal journal entries about life buckling under the weight of an existence free from any sort of real responsibility, and then being crushed when reality sets in. His lament in “I Dream of Crystal” turns accusatory to those who might question his self-destruction, saying, “Please, don’t get me wrong / but you can’t knock what you’ve never done / it ain’t always fun / but at least you’ll be living some.” He comes very near to rapping about “cocaine-frenzies” in “Let Go of the Fear.”

Musically, Maps charts its course along the tail end of the electronica-shoegaze movement of the last couple years that has only recently been imported stateside. Finding a comfortable place in the company of late M83 and Scottish wunderkind I Like Where I Live, Maps sonic palate is stuffed with down-comforter warm synth washes and heavy house beats. The deep percussion of a piano key stroke and the upswell swirling electronics provide all the emotional punch this record needs. His breathy, heavily-accented British falsetto evokes a cool detachment from his subject matter. This objective narrator is allowed to pour all of his self-loathing tendencies into a character who may or may not be Chapman’s doppelganger. The final track “Without You” bids adieu to this character with whom the audience has seen fall apart with the send off, “It’s taken all my life to learn so much about you / if all I know is right / then I’ll go on without you.” The journey ends on a hopeful note; Chapman learns to put away a selfish and self destructive lifestyle.

The title and phrase Turning the Mind serve as a heady, introspective foil for Chapman’s extroverted, club-ready jams. “Turning of the Mind” both refers to an internal change that frees up inhibitions while in a chemically altered state as well as a mental state in which a mysterious catalyst propels us to willfully avoid the harsh reality of a situation. Some people just can’t say no. He makes the case that both are spiritually empty ways of living. Chapman finds solace through exposition: by turning his deepest secrets out to the crowd and drowning them in a massive club beat and synth wash.

Ryan H.

Maps "I Dream of Crystal" video.