Andrew Lindsay and the Coat Hooks - "The Whittling" EP
I normally tend towards more spastic, bombastic, or otherwise -astic music, while I let the quieter stuff just pass me by. It’s not that I fail to hear the beauty of slower, more languid material, it’s just that I don’t allow myself the time to. I go for the mechanical, the loud, the mathematical – your Kraftwerk, your Interpol, your miscellaneous loud and fast bands and what have you.
This EP does it right though. It caught me off guard. The first track, “The Boat Outside,” begins delicately enough. It seems to blast off, though, not too long after. It chugs along, and I want to say that it does so happily, but there is something foreboding about the vocal melody and the way that the distorted guitar continually tries to break through to the foreground but seems to be consistently shut down and held back. This opening track has a great….hook: super catchy with a sing along chorus. It’s dynamic.
The rest of the EP is a bit more subdued, or at least it seems that way to me because I am certainly drawn in by that first track. I found myself listening carefully for that special something in the remaining tracks, more so than usual. Sometimes you can just tell that the one quality of a song that a band puts across isn’t a fluke, it’s just that in some songs it is easier to parse out precisely what it is that is grabbing your attention.
“A Grim Crossing” is another upbeat, brightly colored tune with the same excited, almost shouted, backing vocals as the opening track. The dark, Pink Floydian acoustic guitar line of “Bearded Author” is certainly the most brooding on this EP. The track also finds the vocals testing the waters of the singer’s low range.
The Whittling EP is done right by being a mini-album. Andrew Lindsay & The Coat Hooks don’t try to show us all of the things they can do in a short amount of time. Instead, they offer a compact journey of varied moods in a distinctive style. Also: Scottish accents.
[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Andrew-Lindsay-the-Coat-Hooks-The-Whittling-01-The-Boat-Outside.mp3|titles=Andrew Lindsay & the Coat Hooks – “The Boat Outside”]
The A-side of the new 7? from Races, “Big Broom” is quite the introduction. I was instantly gripped by the stunningly expansive sound. They manage to capture something that would normally take a band several years and several releases. The way the bass pulses steadily while the guitar plucks out an abrasive melodic line, and the way that it all seems to disappear when the vocals enter with the ascending strings that compliment it so nicely. It’s the kind of song that makes a statement and sticks in your memory. I just want to sit and listen to this song all day. There is no denying that it sounds perhaps like it was heavily influenced by Arcade Fire, but that’s a good band to take direction from, is it not?
The single’s B-side – “Living Cruel and Rude” – seems to be nearly the opposite of “Big Broom,” with more of a focus on vocal harmonies and sparse instrumental accompaniment. It’s slower and more thoughtful, showing the dynamic range of the group.
This 7″ is a good 1-2 punch from Races. It will be interesting to hear what they have to offer on their upcoming full-length release that is due out later this year on Jaxart Records. You can download this single for free from the band’s Bandcamp site, as well as order it on vinyl directly from Jaxart.
Have you ever had one of those “Ah HA!” moments when listening to a band? No, I’m not talking about Norweigan one hit wonders and official musical group of the 1996 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Ah-ha. I’m talking about Austin, Texas’ TV Torso and their EP Status Quo Vadis. As I listened to it on repeat I kept wondering, with an increasing amount of persistence, “What does this remind me of?” I knew it was something I used to spin a lot not too long ago. Something about the ambiance of the sound made me remember the band Sound Team and their album Movie Monster from 2006. There is a song on there, “Your Eyes are Liars,” that I absolutely love. That album just sparks something in me, reminding me of a particularly exciting time in my life where I was just starting to listen to a lot of new music.
It was disappointing to come to the realization that Movie Monster would probably be the last thing that I would ever hear from Sound Team. The years went by and no news from the band ever surfaced. But lo and behold! Tracing my curiosity to last.fm and reading the bios of both bands I realize that my ear was right and there is a connection. Two of the members of TV Torso, drummer Jordan Johns and singer/guitarist Matt Oliver both come from Sound Team. Maybe my first hint would have been to look at the track-listing of Movie Monster again, because track 5 is a song called “TV Torso.”
This EP could serve as a new beginning, and the way that it opens it sounds like the band is trying to do exactly that. They have an already fully formed sound that includes the hypnotic swirl of echo that made Sound Team’s music so recognizable. Songs like “Slanderer’s Stew” and EP closer “Far Enough Away” are both extended minimalist jams that include extended instrumental work while “Two Glass Eyes” is more typical of standard song length and verse chorus verse structure.
It’s a solid effort from established musicians. Personally I’m just happy that I can pick up again with TV Torso where Sound Team left off.
Priestbird is the new moniker of former instrumental indie-prog outfit Tarantula A.D. It seems that tensions within the band came to a breaking point such that they didn’t feel they would be able to continue making music together. They split and went their separate ways, only to ultimately end up creating music together again.
It seems as though they can’t avoid their creative tendencies and perhaps the time away allowed each of them to re-evaluate the music that they wanted to make. This change of gears seems to be exactly what each of the trio wanted; reconvening to see if anything would click. The result, “Beachcombers”, shows that things did, in fact, click. The album is thoughtful and, on the surface, laid back. Looking deeper one will discover that Priestbird have not completely let go of their prog leanings. Much less pronounced, for sure, but they most certainly have far from completely disappeared.
Priestbirds musicianship stands at the forefront throughout the album, such as with the complex and tight vocal harmonies that appear on the Souther front porch vibe of “Gone”, with its touch of bouncy acoustic fingerstyle technique. Interesting harmonic shifts exist throughout the album for those that are paying close enough attention. There are some subtle metric shifts as well. But Priestbird is more heart than head, eschewing the truly prog tendency to prove to the audience how much tricky stuff they can squeeze into a song. (see: Tool).
The tracks on “Beachcombers” still only run in the 3 to 4 minute range and focus more on gentle melodies and lilting vocals with a very laid back groove. There aren’t any songs that seem to be trying too hard to do something that the music doesn’t want to do. Songs, in my opinion, when done right have a way of naturally evolving into what they need to become. Prog sometimes pushes back against this idea a little bit too much and that tension can take a lot away form a song.
Priestbird - "Beachcombers"
“Who Will Lead Us” is definitely a stand out track, with a defining sound. Its lush chorus of “Who will lead us from here?” brings to mind the sound and production values of maybe Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” or some of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s earlier, slightly less pretentious (and portentous) material. The little guitar break that appears just before each chorus is perfectly placed. I can imagine it as easily having a million places to go. Instead Priestbird practices restraint and only later develops this seemingly little aberration into a bridge section, bringing it back to the chorus. They never go too far astray.
The string arrangements I’m sure will have some reviewers using the word “orchestrated” to describe the tunes, but I think that the words “lush” and “expansive” are much more apt. These descriptors also do not come with any additional classical music concert hall connotations. Priestbird uses the strings so well as part of the ensemble. It never seems like they are just “something extra” that needs to be used. They really become a part of the songs and help to lift everything to a higher level during the blissful choruses.
“All That’s Lost” delves into Bossa Nova territory adding another layer to their sound that is already difficult to pin down. I really can’t think of another band that is able to use world music influences as seamlessly intertwined with their own psychedelic sound as Priestbird has in this track.
Album closer “Yellow Noon” sums up the ideas of “Beachcombers” pretty well; a delicate and subtly complex verse is plucked out on the guitar with gentle vocals followed by an expansive chorus that revels in more dense atmospherics. Some lead guitar work comes to the fore, but just as they have showcased their tasteful restraint elsewhere on the album, it never gets too invasive.
This seems to be a great new beginning for a band that already has the experience of being a touring band. They are using their more cerebral creative side not as the basis for their songs but instead holding it at arms length and casting sidelong glances at their former musical direction while letting their hearts lead them, not their head.
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The album is available for download from Priestbird’s site, here. Name your own price.
[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/06-Who-Will-Lead-Us.mp3|titles=Priestbird – “Who Will Lead Us”]
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:
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]
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"
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.
Go ahead: admit the first thing that popped into your head when you read the title. Yeah, that’s what I thought, sicko. Well that’s not how this reviewer read it at all. I read it as “My blank is Pink” because I am classy and sophisticated and a terrific liar.
Perhaps the provocative title, or non-provocative title as the case may be, serves as the point of entry for the album. Upon reading the title the listener is probably lead to expect something confrontational, something that challenges and pushes the envelope a bit. This album certainly does all of those things to a certain degree. An apt comparison in sound and approach can be drawn from Sleigh Bells to Colourmusic, though stating it that simply is selling Colourmusic quite short.
Sleigh Bells stormed onto the scene with a recognizable “meters in the red” and completely overblown, overdriven sound that, to me, tries a little too hard to get noticed and can be filed away as “gimmicky”. Colourmusic tones it down a bit while still maintaining a powerful and edgy sound that is more organic, yet still charged up. It comes off sounding a lot more realistic and believable. The band doesn’t have an overbearing synthetic sound. Live drums pound behind shredding, layered buzzsaw guitars.
Those guitars are more likely to churn out riffs that sound like they were ripped straight out of the Black Sabbath playbook, while the vocals tend to sound a bit more ethereal and akin to Animal Collective. Take for example the vocals in the chorus of “We Shall Wish (Use Your Adult Voice)”. There are moments there that conjure the same sound-world from which Animal Collective operates with lush multi-layering and plenty of breathy reverb. Colourmusic’s songs go beyond exploring one particular sound. The songs have instrumental appeal in addition to those explorations, meaning that they sound like a band playing instruments, rather than creating music that relies heavily upon the manipulation of other sounds. Instead, Colourmusic seems to be interested in having the listener focus on the layers of sound that one instrument or even one note can produce.
Colourmusic - "My___ is Pink"
The opening of “You For Leaving” states simply the staccato attack of one chord on a piano that is sustained, allowing the listener to hear all of the overtones intermingling and growing into a mass of sound right before the song opens up to a full chorus and pipe organ. It’s an approach that is akin to the work of spectral analysts that compose music where every idea for a composition is literally derived from information that is found in one small fragment of a sound. Colourmusic is adept at extrapolating ideas from sounds but their scientific attention to detail doesn’t diminish their ability to write a dancey, fun song like “Dolphins & Unicorns”.
That song, like “The Little Death (In Five Parts)”, moves between opposing textures starting with a danceable rhythm and moving to more ambient territory. The beginning of “The Little Death (In Five Parts)” though is more like a false start that anticipates a pummeling, raunchy guitar line that is thick and densely distorted, covering plenty of rhythmic ground before the vocals actually begin in a cloud of arrhythmic echoes. The track continues to spend 6 minutes tearing through material that moves from driving guitar work, into a slow dirge of fuzzed out metal before decaying into spacious minimalist territory.
Serving as a counter to all the abrasive guitars are the passionate vocals that appear on tracks like “Feels Good to Wear” and “We Shall Wish” where a sense of longing and pain can be gleaned. The usual ambient effects of the voice in the latter track are placed on the instruments temporarily which is a welcome flipping of the texture. The instrumental breaks cast that song into an arena rock light where the track just opens up , pushing and pulling against the wall of sound that is barely contained by the band.
The band is agile enough to handle jumping between styles and textures even within the same song. They can move from loud and powerful to quiet, spacious and delicate and make it make sense. The construction of their songs is tight enough and logicalto the point where these changes don’t seem jarring.
Rounding out the end of the album is the track “Whitby Harbour”, which is simply the sound of waves lapping up on the shore. Perhaps this serves as a point of respite from a fairly intense album, or perhaps this is moving more in the direction of finding the music within sounds. A bit of spectral analysis of nature.
This album, “My ____ is Pink”, is nearly unclassifiable. It sounds loud and psychedelic in spots, but direct and danceable in most others. Somewhere between electronic and rock with songs that have intricately crafted dynamic shapes and tight, well thought out structures.
I used to own a cassette when I was a kid. Well, I owned several. Having grown up in the 80’s means I went through a lot of cassettes. Blank tapes became canvases that I recorded memories onto. They contained the songs I listened to as I passed the days riding my bike around in the rain. Store bought tapes that were found to be sub-par, having only that one song that was worth listening to, were easily converted to mixtapes with a simple strip of strategically placed scotch tape. I always liked tapes more than CDs for this reason, the ability to make them my own. There was more of a connection with them than there was with CDs. The few cassettes that were store bought held a special place for me, they seemed so much more personal and memorable than the CDs that I own now that are cast into the corner without so much as a glance every few days as I bump into them as I walk past. They are furniture.
There was one tape in particular; I don’t remember where I got it, and I can’t for the life of me remember what band it was that made it. The only thing that I do remember about that cassette is that I played it in my walkman incessantly. The sleeve was purple, and it created this mood somewhere between mischievous, mysterious and dangerous. I imagined that the tape was recorded while the lead singer (whom I also imagined was the guitarist playing a Fender Jaguar guitar) recorded it while he was on the run from the cops. He was hiding out in darkened basements writing and recording songs to help pass the time while making him still feel connected to society in some way. He wanted to remain connected to the society he knew he was inevitably going to be taken from.
This album, “Boo”, by Dag För Dag, reminds me so much of that long lost but not forgotten cassette and comes the closest to replicating the mood, feeling and the sound of something not really sinister, but dangerous and at the same time apprehensive of that danger.
Dag För Dag is a duo of siblings Sarah and Jacob Snavely. Though the duo is originally from the United States they have since settled in Sweden. Their music experiments with darkness and light and seems to occupy echo laden caverns. There is plenty of space in the ensemble. By that I mean that there are no non-stop walls of shoe-gazey noise. Most of the sound occurs as a result of the guitar’s short ideas sustained via reverb in the spaces between the instruments actually playing.
Dag För Dag - "Boo"
Most of the album unfolds in a sort of medium tempo slow burn, but the band is able to kick the energy level up quite a bit as evidenced in “Animal”, a track that is both anthemic and powerful. It seems to conjure the energy and spirit of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s in the chorus that is kicked off with an emphatic shout of “Let’s go!”
The tracks that populate the majority of “Boo” are minimal in their action with the focus placed squarely upon the shared vocals. The contrast between the high, breathy and sweet lugubrious tones of sister Sarah and brother Jacob’s curt, rough and slightly off-pitch and half spoken vocal style is a noticeable point of divergence from track to track. Sarah’s voice is more noticeably drenched in reverb and often harmonized with itself in multiple tracks. Her voice is smoky and mysterious, making her songs sound akin to those created by bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or The Raveonettes. A sound that is tribal and haunting.
“I am the Assassin” has a pounding backbeat with drums churning out in perpetual motion while the vocals soar through the atmosphere. At about the halfway point of song there is an abrupt break- just enough for us to wish its return, which it does. In the just over 2 minutes of the song the band creates an enticing atmosphere and place a memorable melody into the listeners ear, but before long it’s over. The band is most effective in their shorter songs such as “I am the Assassin” and “Hands and Knees”, which manages to add some extended guitar work to the mix that is reminiscent of The Joshua Tree era U2 in its echoey “less is more” aesthetic.
However, the band loses a little bit of its allure in extended tracks like “Wouldn’t You” where there isn’t quite enough going on, save for a droning synth in the background and persistent drums. The saving grace of the track are Sarah’s vocals that have a way of shining through all of the darkness of the ensemble. The album at this point runs into a bit of a rough patch, with “Wouldn’t You” in the middle of 3 songs that really don’t have much holding the songs together. “Silence is the Verb” re-works Warpaint’s “Undertow”, but it includes a guitar break that doesn’t really go anywhere and the song seems to lie flat.
Thankfully the back half of the album does pick things up significantly with “Seven Stories” which does well in creating an atmosphere while at the same time shaping the composition into something that builds and grows. There is excitement and maybe a bit of cacophony as everything seems to be charging full steam ahead.
Dag För Dag does well creating moody, atmospheric gems with an air of mystery. The seeming unevenness of the album seems to rely a little too heavily on the slow and dark, but I feel that they are at their best using their ability to generate a mood in shorter, catchier songs. The voice of Sarah Snavely is unique and powerful, balancing out some of the darker material and adds to the mystique of the album.
[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/02-I-Am-the-Assassin.mp3|titles=I Am the Assassin]
[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/11-Animal.mp3|titles=Animal]
We can always count on Radiohead to change the game from album to album. Because of this I feel that their latest album, “The King of Limbs”, deserves something beyond the usual track by track review. Everything that Radiohead does, musical or otherwise, is subject to an extraordinary level of scrutiny such that few, if any, other musical acts in existence today have to contend with. Not many would know how to cope, let alone be able to utilize all of that scrutiny and turn be able to turn it into something productive. This is one of the reasons why Radiohead is the most important bands active today. The public expects an almost inhumanly high standard from the band, who in turn are able to consistently live up to that standard by consistently producing groundbreaking albums that regularly change our ideas of what is new in current music. They are the singular arbiters of pushing the boundaries and raising the bar to a point where no other act can reach. Any attempts at following in their footsteps are hopelessly cast in their shadow.
Despite this the band, in interviews and concerts, don’t seem to think of themselves as so important. They manage to be immensely popular while at the same time retaining artistic credibility. It is a rare thing to have mainstream success while maintaining a high degree of indie acceptance. They constantly sell out the largest venues, yet remain out of the headlines and still manage to appear guarded about their personal lives. To me this points to them as not involved in music for the fame. They are creating intelligent music with artistic integrity. This flies in the face of anyone that thinks you can’t push boundaries, and still have something to say while retaining a sense of relevancy and importance with a large and emphatic audience.
As an audience we are responsible for elevating them to such a place of popularity and even importance. We are the ones that overly scrutinize every musical decision that they make. We are the ones cataloging every song they’ve ever performed live, comparing it to the previous instances of its live appearances and how those versions, in turn, compare to the recorded version. A song may not have been committed to tape until 10 years after it first debuted on stage in Stockholm but we are the ones that can chart its development and have therefore cast it into the realm of importance.
We are also the ones that argue over the validity of each version and whether the version that ended up being recorded, having therefore gained a level of permanence that the bootlegs and live versions lack, is the “definitive” version or not. The audience is responsible for deciding if what an artist is doing is good or bad, or more appropriately, they decide whether or not they are happy with the direction the band is taking and what it means for their cultural musical superiority, dominance and importance. All separate things.
Of course all of these things are done without the consent or approval of the band, who in turn seem perfectly content with going their own way and charting a unique path. Personally, I wonder how much the members of Radiohead use this information to guide their decisions. Do they think about manipulating the way that we are going to think about this album? Do we try to compensate for this by heading them off at the pass, intellectually, by taking into account that they think they know what we think and are therefore going to change our thoughts about their actions based on what we think they think we are thinking?
Radiohead - "The King of Limbs"
It’s all ridiculously convoluted, and you can see where the role of artist and audience member is challenged in this instance. It’s complex and perhaps you would think that it isn’t happening, but it is. Right now. The scrutiny, the over-thinking, the critical analysis, all of it is a testament to the importance of this band that we are even bothering to wrap ourselves up in this kind of process.
That process is my whole premise. Listening to a new Radiohead album has transcended the traditional listening experience to a point of a self-critical paranoia inducing obsession that eventually leads to submission.
With anything so new and different from anything that we have recently been listening to, the initial exposure to “The King of Limbs”, much like that first listen to “Kid A” is a point of aggravation to a certain degree. The mind is overcome with such a new and surprising experience that it doesn’t quite know how to process all of the information. We become overwhelmed.
Do our expectations exceed what we have been given? The answer to this question always seems to be an unconditional “Yes” at this point. We sit and try to pick out the memorable material, which is quite literally impossible at such an early stage as the music is passing through our ears for the first time. We wait for upbeat tunes, interesting contrapuntal textures, complexities in the lyrics that speak to us in coded, metaphoric language about politics (possibly). It’s difficult to find all of these things and explore them all at once, in one go. Frustration and awe are residing in equal parts within us as the end of the album draws near and we are left with choosing between “forget it, it’s a mess” and “I gotta listen to this again, there must be something in there.”
This is where Radiohead truly takes charge as a musical group of cultural importance. We trust that they are doing something that we need some time to understand, we trust in them. We have faith in their integrity that they have done something deserving of multiple listens.
After the release of “In Rainbows” there were discussions in several online forums that tried to unravel a code in binary that people thought existed that the band was hinting at all over the place, and had been for years. I don’t recall anything productive coming from those discussions, which ran parallel to surface arguments that stemmed from their “pay what you want” model that they had developed for the album. This is where most of the focus of the mainstream media was. People reached their own conclusions. Some felt that the physical release of the album was an admission from the band that their experiment had failed. Everyone ignored the main point the whole time was that if you release something officially, ahead of people that are going to just give it away for free anyway, there is some control there.
The real key is that people were talking. People were trying to unravel a supposed mystery, and nobody can conclude that it has been completely uncovered. Because of this we continue searching.
After a few listens one begins to sort things out. A few short motifs are memorized and the picture begins to come into focus. The acoustic guitar in “Give Up the Ghost” that sounds so intimate and subdued. The way in which that song opens up when an electric guitar makes a brief appearance and the vocals are looped and repeated, harmonizing into a swirl of dissipating sound before the bassline becomes the only thing we can hear.
Electronic glitches and other clipped up sounds permeate most of the album. Percussion and vocals are clearly the most prominent aspects of “The King of Limbs”. At first this makes the work difficult to grasp. There doesn’t seem to be enough melody and harmony to grab onto and hum along with. Perhaps this is the point. What ends up happening instead is really great. This alteration of the foundational elements allows the band to explore shifting metric pulses as the generators of the song structure. The songs exist without our participation. We can’t immediately internalize them, or sing along.
Radiohead
Think of the opening section of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”. There is the only melody at the very beginning of the work. The metric pulses seem to be lost in an ethereal state of suspended animation while the melodies are constantly spun out. Despite the unorthodoxy and apparent complexity the melodies have a fairly high level of memorability. That section gives way to a pounding, primal turn that features heavy use of downbowed strings with shifting accents that continually catch the audience off guard. That is where this album exists. In that juxtaposition. Where the rhythmic complexities take prominence and melody and harmony, though still very much there, are subjected to a more secondary role.
Music seems to change as we listen to it. Rather, our perception of the music adjusts as we listen and become more acquainted. We need to compartmentalize as humans. We have a space in our head for only a certain kind of music, so we force this album into that box. We change what we hear to what we want to hear, what we can hear and what we can understand. Soon, after a few dozen listens we are singing along to “Little by Little” while simultaneously wondering if that title is the band’s sly way of letting us know that that is exactly how we are coming into understanding this album.
They are still three steps ahead of us.
As the physical release date for the album approaches the band has announced that they will be publishing a newspaper. It will be free and available in major metropolitan areas. Nobody knew what exactly what was going to be published in the newspaper until yesterday, which is undoubtedly adding to the mystique surrounding the album release. Unfortunately people are also using this to dismiss the release as another piece of evidence that the band has lost its way. Do they really need to innovate everything, from the inside out with every release? What is a “newspaper album” anyway and does Radiohead really need to rush out and be the first band to release one?
There is also curiosity about the albums length, the shortest release by the band to date, as to whether or not there is going to be more to it. Will there be another release hot on its heels like the twins separated at birth that were “Kid A” and “Amnesiac”? The former seen by most as the first major point of departure for the band. The curiosity is no doubt stemming from the same people that were trying to break the binary code of “In Rainbows”.
The album opens with melodic and memorable looped opening that is soon overtaken by overlapping rhythms and disjointed bass. That very opening seems to spring to mind a state of déjà vu. It seems as though this has come from somewhere before. Perhaps it is just a result of listening to the album obsessively trying to get a firm understanding of it. The pulsating loops from the opening are then relegated to background bed track on top of which the remainder of the song is built. It serves as a constant pedal point that the rest of the material is weighed against. Peals of trumpets add a new layer, mimicking and varying the themes of Thom Yorke’s vocals.
“Morning Mr. Magpie” with its palm-muted guitar in driving rhythm with the off kilter hi-hat beating out borrowed metric pulses creates an incredible sense of restraint. Yorke’s voice is clear with a subtly distant shout of the lyrics. The interaction of guitars and bass here is similar to “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” from their “In Rainbows” album.
This seems to be their newly reinvented guitar arrangement style. Less like early Radiohead’s clear division of the standard rhythm guitar vs. lead guitar where Jonny Greenwood would hold back before bursting forth with angular lines with feedback drenched crunches and squeals out of the blue. The lines have once again become blurred.
The video for “Lotus Flower” has already been fed to the wolves at the meme machine of youtube, appealing to yet another level of audience. That audience seems to consist at least partly, if not mostly, of those that don’t even bother trying to listen to, let alone understand the music, instead creating a viral market from the ground up. Some of the results, though few original and none surprising, can be entertaining. It is appropriate that this song is the lead single, being that it is the most “song like” off the album and catchy with Yorke’s bluesy vocals spinning out a few hooks, though those hooks are unlike anything one would normally or previously think of as “catchy”.
After “Lotus Flower” the album seems to reach a breaking point. The feel doesn’t so much change as much as the style. Piano on “Codex” is shrouded in reverb, similar to that of “Pyramid Song” from the “Amnesiac” album. The peals of brass are also present on this track. “Give Up the Ghost” inserts a brightly strummed acoustic guitar into their sonic landscape.
“Seperator” sharply returns us to the style of the beginning of the album with very clean, clear mix and the drums re-entering and up front. The line that truly haunts from this song is “If you think this is over then you’re wrong” which seems to remind us that we think that there may be more to this. There may be a piece of the puzzle that we are missing. It seems that they really are playing with us. This song, like so many others on the album, has a way of really blossoming as it moves forward.
Not only does that song leave us wanting more, in a desperate search for something, but even after several listens we still don’t know what it is exactly that we are looking for. By this point it doesn’t really matter, we have succumbed to the album. We have allowed it to change the way that we think about listening to music, and what we typically expect from an album. This last track ends with a harmony that seems to go somewhere separate from the vocals. Yorke’s voice extends the harmony that is already rich with intervals that one would typically not find outside of jazz.
“The King of Limbs” charts a path of exploration which is usual for Radiohead, but it seems to want to, at the same time, break off into a new direction within the album itself. Harmony is secondary to rhythm for parts, and then the opposite on the latter half of the album. The songs don’t necessarily feel segmented or choppy, they feel natural and are well written and intricately put together with utmost attention to detail. It’s this fission that develops across the album that helps get us to listen again and again in rapt attention as our minds adjust to Radiohead changing the game again. It meets our expectations by exceeding them, and that is why Radiohead will always have the upper hand.
[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/03-Little-By-Little.mp3|titles=Little By Little]
[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/07-Give-Up-The-Ghost.mp3|titles=Give Up The Ghost]
Finally, after all the hype of indie culture coming to the mainstream, with Arcade Fire winning the Album of the Year Grammy and every band everywhere looking for a unique sound, we get an album that gives us exactly what we need. Yuck has delivered an album that has garnered a lot of attention for its fresh sound that, ironically, is captured by going back to sounding like the music of the 1990’s.
It is funny to think that we can actually refer to this music accurately by saying that it sounds reminiscent to the songs of late last century. A time when MTV actually played music. When shows like “120 Minutes” would showcase music that was up and coming, college radio fare that was not getting much, if any, mainstream attention. I’m sure I am not the only one that remembers staying up late as a kid to catch a glimpse of all the cool, obscure music that was coming out so that I could slyly reference it later in school when talking to my friends. Man, they would think I was so cool. Not that Yuck’s music embraces obscure acts of a bygone era. On the contrary, it captures the essence of the indie rock scene of the 90s that we all know and love but may have passed by those who were not paying attention. This music is a celebration of a time gone by, though its return is more than welcome.
I read a description online of Yuck as a “rock revival” act. Though I know the point that this particular review was getting at I still find it frustrating that the very people that listen to and love rock music are constantly claiming that it is a dead artform. Take for example every time that The Strokes, or any member of The Strokes, releases an album. The magazine covers seem to always ask, “Can The Strokes save rock?” as if it is a genre that is gone, or at least deteriorated and in need of rescuing. I don’t know if Yuck has the power, or even the willingness to “rescue” rock music but they have crafted a beautiful album that is large in scope and certainly charming in its reminiscence of music that music fans of my generation grew up listening to.
Yuck - "Yuck"
Strands of early Sloan, early Smashing Pumpkins, Thrush Hermit, Hum, Sebadoh, The Burdocks and Dinosaur Jr. (in the album’s noisier moments) shine through track after track. The album doesn’t come off sounding like some unearthed relic, nor does it feel or sound old or stale in the slightest. Ideas and sound taken from the 90s are developed a bit with tighter rhythm section behind the initial wall of shoegazey noise.
I’m sure that there will be plenty of people tossing around the term “post-modern” in reference to Yuck. Sure, if the shoe fits, but those that dismiss this album as a simple throwback are missing the point. This album and this band seem to be reminding a tired, fractured and disenfranchised indie-rock fan base, that is constantly pulled from one direction to the next, of where we have come from. Perhaps this album can serve as a reset point where we can ponder the roots of all that is coming out today. Or, perhaps this album can serve as a direct line connecteing the music of today to the music of twenty years ago as an alternate reality where an overabundance of easily reproducable, easily attainable music never came to be and therefore never forced fans to choose one of a mulitude of made up genres to which they pledge their unflagging allegiance. Imagine good music stripped of hipster culture. This, I believe, is the world in which Yuck longs to exist.
The album is an “album”. By that I mean that it is a complete journey from beginning to end. Noisy rockers such as album opener “Get Away”, “The Wall” and “Holing Out” are broken up by quieter, more contemplative material such as “Stutter”, “Suicide Policeman” and “Rose Gives a Lilly”. All the songs feature prominently catchy hooks and layered guitar work. “Shook Down”, with its duetting boy/girl vocal, is especially effective as is the up-tempo distored folkiness of “Georgia”.
It seemed to come at us out of nowhere but now we are 20 years past the Seattle “grunge” explosion and just as far are we from the surge of great music that came out of the Halifax scene around the same time. It seems that this is just about the perfect time for a band like Yuck to bring us right back to the comfort of our indie-rock roots.
Soundgarden has reformed, Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. have been playing shows, and Beavis and Butthead is returning to television. It seems that a full on 90s reboot is taking shape. It’s a good thing that a band like Yuck can make something new amidst all this looking back.
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