Monthly Archives: May 2011

2011, miscellaneous, music, songs

Songs: Ohia – "Almost was Good Enough"

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Songs: Ohia - "Magnolia Electric Company"
Songs: Ohia - "Magnolia Electric Company"

It’s been hard doin’ anything, the winter’s stuck around so long
I kept tryin’ anyhow, and I’m still tryin’ now, just to keep workin’.
I remember when it didn’t used to be so hard, it used to be impossible
A new season has to begin, I can feel it leanin’ in, whisperin’, “Nothing’s lonely now”
Nothing anymore in pain
A tall shadow dressed how the secrets always dress when they want everyone to know that they’re around, leanin’ in whisperin’ “my friend over there don’t know what he’s talking about”.
Did you really believe that everyone makes it out?
Almost no one makes it out.
I’m going to use that street to hide from that human doubt, to hide from what was shining and has finally burned us out.
But if no one makes it out how come you’re talking to one right now?
for once almost was good enough.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/04-Almost-Was-Good-Enough.mp3|titles=Songs: Ohia – “Almost Was Good Enough”]

2011, albums, groovemine, music, reviews, Uncategorized

Album review: Psychedelic Horseshit – "Laced"

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For those of you out there that feel like White Fence’s release “Is Growing Faith” was a little too “mainstream” and accessible, you’ll be happy to know that Psychedelic Horseshit’s latest release, “Laced” is neither of those things.

Psychedelic Horseshit is a DIY recording project that has created an album so loose and gritty sounding that it is barely held together to the end. The vocal delivery is drawled in a lazy monotone with barely an attempt at creating a melody. In place of the vocal melody there are off kilter rhythmic accents that carry the listener from line to line. After repeated listens, which is highly suggested, one will begin to pick out the more lucid, memorable bits and songs that really seem to “click” in a way.

The album opens up with sounds emerging from a trippy haze, like the sound effects that an educational video might use to characterize an acid trip while warning against it.  It seems to be welcoming us to the trip as it were. The album captures the raw idea of the songs presented, and seems to celebrate the idea of spontaneity and instant composition.

“French Coutryside” is full of ideas that are layered one on top of the other while “I Hate the Beach” and “Revolution Wavers” features extended synth breaks that close out the tracks. Now that the listener has been invited to go on this trip with the band they need to allow themselves to be taken away in the trance that is created by layer upon layer of scratchy synth lines and loose drumming.

The title track seems to be the best attempt at a “catchy pop tune”, though I use that term in the loosest possible sense. The electronic sounds hold the song together despite the ancillary drum machine beat. Everything else sways in and out of the beat. “Automatic Writing” is the thinnest and simplest track on “Laced”. It borders upon straight up ambient music with lush synth tones casting down simple, long waves of sound that are occasionally permeated with an ultra-high pitched sound that could have been right out of a 1980’s sci-fi flick.

Psychedelic Horseshit - "Laced:
Psychedelic Horseshit - "Laced:

Bongo rhythms permeate nearly every track, adding an extra layer of stoned college bro drum-circle atmosphere to the tracks. Out of tune guitar accompanies several tracks, furthering the feeling of an impromptu jam session that becomes the common thread tying all of the songs together.

Tracks like “Laced” and “Another Side” are among the more accessible on the album, the latter of which does its best Bob Dylan with a wild harmonica interlude and simple 2 chord structure. “Making Out” is the most emotionally moving of the tracks thanks to an ascending vocal line that challenges the singer’s range. Spastic bongo work accompanies the track for the duration.

The vocal delivery, and really the entire ethos that seems to be behind this album can be explained by comparing it to early Beck. Remember when Beck was a “Loser”, back in his freak folk, California stoner/surfer/beach bum slacker days? The delivery here is very similar to that. It’s sort of off the cuff, without a care, but the singer’s actual voice is more comparable to Conor Oberst or Patrick Stickles.

Psychedelic Horseshit’s “Laced” captures that moment of spontaneity  in an improv session where a band is just getting together to bounce ideas off of each other. Those improvisatory, experimental tunes are balanced against worked out songs like the title track. One gets the idea after listening that Psychedelic Horseshit isn’t too concerned with being commercially successful. They seem to be more focused on producing lo-fi, home recorded jams that capture the realm that lies somewhere between improv, forethought and total collapse.

The album is out now worldwide. You can purchase your copy HERE.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/07-Another-Side.mp3|titles=Psychedeclic Horseshit – Another Side]
2011, albums, groovemine, music, reviews, Uncategorized

Album review: Joan of Arc – "Life Like"

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The Chicago based math-rock outfit with steady lineup changes, Joan of Arc, adds to their already frighteningly prolific repertoire with their latest effort, “Life Like”.

You know that you are in for a serious journey when an album begins with a track that clocks in at over 10 minutes, with the vocals not beginning until 7 minutes in. It’s the combination of math-rock and prog that no doubt inspired decisions such as this one, and helps to shape the sound of the band in general. There is also a touch of old-school emo the likes of Braid and The Dismemberment Plan evident in the treatment of the vocals where the singer’s voice is just as clean and unaffected as the guitars. It crackles with intensity throughout many of the tracks.

That opening track, “I Saw the Messed Binds of my Generation”, lays the groundwork for the entire album with its crystal clear sound, intricate contrapuntal guitar lines and a lock-step rhythm section. It seems to me that it could easily be broken into two tracks where the first 7 minutes or so are an introduction, or prelude. The final 3 minutes are what actually constitute the opening of “Life Like”.

The guitar lines across the album weave through one another much in the same way one would hear on a Dirty Projectors album. It’s that clear and clean disjointed melodic guitar work that seems to jut out in a million directions while still obviously focused on a single goal.

My prog-trained brain tells me that this is a concept album. “Life Like” projects that album-oriented sound where everything seems to be heading in a clear direction; uniform sound throughout, with intense lyrics and similarity of compositional style throughout. It just sounds like it was written to be an album and they just had to divide it up into songs. There are some obvious commonality between the songs. They very much belong together. The only problem with this is that even after several listens I can’t fully make out the concept. Joan of Arc seem to be hiding their lyrical content in a web of complex metaphors and symbolism in the same way that their guitar figuration are branching out in a million exploratory patterns. This really is a complex and deeply emotional, challenging album.

Joan of Arc - "Life Like"
Joan of Arc - "Life Like"

Contrasting the smooth, scrolling guitar work throughout most of the album is the spastic start/stop rhythmic interjections present in “Deep State”. To that end there is also the nearly a cappella “Still Life” with only muted guitar strings doubled with drum stick clicked against the rim of the snare drum. Though this track does slowly gain momentum and density as melody begins to creep in from the shadows and we are presented with a pulsating beat with bass guitar false starts with the 2nd guitar trying a number of different approaches to break the silence. “Life Force” stands out for its use of a shoddily tuned acoustic guitar that hammers out a straight ahead quarter note rhythm. Though these tracks are the most unique on the album they still encapsulate that sound that is put forth at the very opening of the album. They still sound perfectly in place on the album and correctly sequenced.

Every song on “Life Like” seems to chart the same course, but not all are dark and hopeless. “Love Life” and “Like Minded” are bright and joyful sounding tunes, though the latter quickly seems to take a dark turn moving from cheerful to foreboding in short order. The polyrhythmic overlapping of delicately plucked guitar lines creates an interesting texture that is less abrasive than much of the guitar work featured on any other track. The song continually grows darker as the distortion kicks in and the vocals move from shouting to screaming, voice cracks and all.

Concluding the album is “After Life”, with it’s martial drum roll and drill sergeant/platoon call and response. A great lyric from this album closer states that “my discovery: I am all alone” seems to accept the irony of stating such a fact while surrounded or followed by people that shout back at you everything that you say while they march in step behind you. That track bursts unexpectedly into a distorted and frenzied guitar solo. That is not the only instance of spontaneous guitar soloing either, they seem to crop up a lot, it sounds like they are being exorcised out of frustration, or that they otherwise come from some deep, dark place and just need to be there warts and all.

The concept comes across in bits and pieces and, judging by previous work by the band, that is exactly how they like it. They like coming off as mysterious and complicated, confusing and comical. This album is certainly many of those things, all balled up in a tightly wound web of intricate guitar work, complex rhythmic shifts and symbolic lyrics that would confuse and frustrate Cedric Bixler, famous for creating equally convoluted and impossibly shrouded lyrics with At the Drive-In, who would be the hard hitting counterpart to Joan of Arc. By the looks of it though this band has no intentions on stopping.

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You can purchase this album directly from Polyvinyl at: http://www.polyvinylrecords.com/store/index.php?id=1671

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/02-Joan-of-Arc-Love-Life.mp3]
2011, miscellaneous, personal, philosophy, thoughts, writing

An Open Letter to Newsweek and TheDailyBeast.com

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I really never thought that it would come to this. I have been a subscriber to your magazine for several years now. Each time that I was offered the opportunity to re-subscribe I did so. I’m currently paid up to receive your magazine until May, 2013. So confident was I when I first subscribed to your magazine that I couldn’t think of not being informed and enlightened by your staff’s thoughtful writing.

This isn’t to say that I always understood everything that was presented, for example many of the discussions on the “housing bubble” and other economic and financial issues are hard for me to grasp. The fact that I didn’t understand them certainly wasn’t because those particular articles were poorly written, rather they just lie outside my interests.

I should have seen it coming! This was all foreshadowing so clearly your true objective at Newsweek. To you money is the most important thing in life. It’s worth being worried about, it’s worth living and dying for. Money is a tangible result of hard work and apparently the only thing of any utility in our country.

That conclusion comes from recently reading your chart that so helpfully ranks what you feel to be the “Most Useless College Degrees”, posted to The Daily Beast on April 27, 2011 at http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-27/useless-college-majors-from-journalism-to-psychology-to-theater/.

Useless.

It’s clear that you feel that there is such a thing as a wasted education. That alone is an extremely dangerous concept. I implore you to consider the implications of stating that any university degree can be deemed useless. Did any of you actually attend university? I can’t understand how a person that has successfully completed a degree program could possibly allow themselves to think this way, let alone publish something as offensive and damaging as this “study”.

My degrees in particular were ranked at number 7. I currently hold several degrees that you consider useless; a Bachelors of Music in Compositon (BMus. Composition), a Masters of Music Theory and Composition (M.M. Theory/Composition) and a Masters of Music Performance in Classical Guitar (M.M. Performance). I am furious to think that anyone would think of these as useless degrees of any rank; enough so to tell you why you are quite wrong. Thoughts such as yours are ultimately contributing to the ruin of this country.

Your “uselessness” is based on only the typical earning potential of the degree and how many jobs are typically available in the given field. This is ridiculous, biased thinking at such a basic level. Music and art are at the forefront (or should be) of any truly free society. By stating that studying music is useless to any measure is allowing the United States to become the lazy, slovenly, money hungry, cultureless society that many in the world already see us as.

According to your findings you would rather have me be unhappy and rich; not serving to attempt to build up our country’s battered and disappearing culture every single day. As musicians that is what we are all currently doing.

Saying that studying music is useless is kowtowing to the idea that our worth as people, and as a country, is almost completely dependent upon our worth in dollars and cents. How much a person earns in a year makes that person of more utility according to you. Though there are, admittedly, philanthropic individuals that spend their money doing things for our country that our government can’t seem to do, there are relatively few of them and literally tens of millions of the rest of us trying to make a difference every day in whatever way that we can.

I don’t even want to get into the studies that prove the usefulness of a well rounded education that includes studies of music and the arts. We have all read them, and we all know that it is one of the things that stands in the way of making the United States one of the truly great nations of the world.

I appreciate the timing of your little publication too. Just as undergraduates around this country are getting ready to step out into the job force; teaching, working and fighting to keep our culture from dying at the hands of close-minded cretins such as yourselves.

Every student that I knew when I was at the university knew that their earning potential would not allow them an extravagant lifestyle. The truly amazing thing about us though is that it doesn’t stop many of us. We know that there are much more important things to live our lives for. Musicians are quite often the butt of jokes regarding pay, where success is ultimately determined by how large a paycheck we can bring in. Vox populi can’t see, and doesn’t want to learn of how useful having hard working, brilliant, non-traditional thinkers such as musicians and artists around truly is. Thanks to you these troglodytes are substantiated in their ignorance.

I suppose that ultimately I am speaking to something you can’t really understand. I’m sorry. I know that all of you have obviously spent your lives doing very important, useful things. Important and expensive things. I only wish that I could have enough confidence and bravado that I could reach out to a nationwide audience and castigate entire groups of hard working people, that do important work, as useless. It’s funny, really, that the classless are attacking those of us that are doing something for reasons other than money. You have managed to make shunning culture seem like the correct, intelligent thing to do. Congratulations. That is really something.

Sarah Palin, undoubtedly one of the most fantastically and unabashedly proud ignoramuses to come into the public sphere in recent times, declared that the Federal Government needed to cut funding to NPR and the NEA because such funding is “frivolous”. It seems that you are at least somewhat in agreement with Her Royal Vapidness. I won’t even get into how cutting funding for those programs would do little to nothing to solve our budget problems. The government sees very little need to support the arts as it is. This, personally, makes me feel unwanted by even my own government. My work isn’t supported by the general population, or by the government, but that does not and should not stop us. Musicians and artists are culture warriors.

I subscribed to your magazine to support an ideal, to support a society where newspapers are going bankrupt and the ability for us as citizens to obtain free, fair and balance news is being challenged every single day. I believed in you. But, seeing as you feel that I am useless, and all of the people that I work with, study with and helped to teach- with all of their research that is being done in the name of music to help enrich our culture- are apparently useless because they are not making enough money, I can believe in you no longer. You, in fact, are beyond useless. What you have done with this pithy “study” (it was hardly a study, just salacious pandering disguised as research and journalism) is hurting the country. Just to be clear, you are hurting the country. I don’t want to have anything to do with any person or entity that so readily disposes of culture.

With this I am asking for a published apology to these concerns as well as my outstanding subscription canceled and the balance returned to me immediately. Considering I don’t have much earning potential, I’m going to need all the help I can get, right?

You can not put a price on culture. I don’t expect you to understand.

 

Note: A signed and dated copy of this letter was mailed to Newsweek via USPS, as well as e-mailed to them.